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mediocre--writing · 4 years ago

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Imagine: Billy's twin sister who is the only one he doesn't act like a asshole with. Hers behavior is pretty much like her brother's one, she is bossy and often an asshole but it's a cover because she goes through the same shit of Billy

Bonus: she help Billy and Steve to become a thing, with Robin's help

Bonus 2: she fell in love with Robin

oh god thank you for bringing up billy with a bio sister. it’s one of my favorite things and i could ramble on for like years about it

anyway...

my hc is that if billy had a twin her name would be beatrice and they’d either call her bee or trix

even if she is very very similar to billy, i see her as a wall between max and billy. she understands that billy takes things to far but she also sees why he takes them as far as he does

she has an air of cool around her but she doesn’t try quite as hard as billy

she looks exactly like their mother: same curly hair that falls beautifully down her back, same glimmering blue eyes, same build and posture, same kind soul and same spitfire attitude.

bee and billy are both athletic. i see her as maybe doing track or soccer, so she as a kind of lean build but is still equally as muscular.

they both HATEEEE neil.

i see her as being a daddy’s girl when she was young. like he loved giving her cute toys and buying her sweet outfits and he’s a great dad to her.

but once they get older, bee notices that neil is so much harsher on billy and her mom so she starts rejecting his affection, which then makes him reject her.

bee adapts to a personality more like billy’s because she’s sick of neil.

the first time neil hit bee was a week after their mom left and she asked where she was.

she was no longer a daddy’s girl after that day

when they move to hawkins, bee and billy are equally pissed at max

(also i think the reason they left cali was because max saw billy with a boy and accidentally/maybe on purpose told neil about it, hence the resentment between max and billy)

but while billy was openly mean to max, bee was more subtle about it

(ex: knowing that max only drinks orange juice in the morning and taking the last of it and drinking it as she walks into the kitchen)

bee doesn’t like to drive. she has a drivers license but she just doesn’t care to drive much, so they just drive with billy.

it’s also a tactic so that billy doesn’t drive AS recklessly as usual because he wouldn’t want to crash with her in the car.

billy is the only person allowed to call her trix. her mom used to call her that and she can’t handle anyone else but billy doing it.

max doesn’t like either twin, but she prefers bee over billy.

bee is also one of the only people who isn’t scared of billy, even on his worst days, because she gets it.

she’s gotten into a multitude of fights and arguments before and can hold her own but she understands billy’s actions

both of them cannot stand when people are behind them. they always sit in the back of the classroom and have their backs to the wall so there’s no surprises. the only time they relax that rule is at parties, and even then, they’re still cautious

they always look out for each other in an aggressive way.

(ex: billy saying “wow you look sad and desperate” before cuddling next to her on the couch when nobody’s around)

after the halloween situation, with billy teasing steve, bee makes sure to tease him about his very not-subtle crush on the brunette

and on the day that max disappears and billy has to go look for her, bee hears his body hit the wall before he leaves, since their walls meet each other.

when billy comes back, without max, sluggish and bruised, neil lays into him for about half an hour before there’s a knock at the door.

bees been hiding in her room, peaking out every once and a while. (her and billy have made the agreement that if one of them is in trouble, the other should stay out of it, because they’ve learned from experience that if one of them jumps in to help the other, it only gets worse)

but max is at the door with the police chief, for some reason.

the chief explains that his daughter and max had been hanging out together and lost track of time.

neil smiled nicely and let max in before shutting the door on the chief.

but hopper saw the teenager slumped against the wall, much bloodier than the kids had said he was after the fight was steve, and the teenage girl sheepishly peaking through her door.

billy and bee argue after she finds out what happened. even if he was mad, he shouldn’t have attacked a middle schooler. that was just fucked up.

they got over it quick because billy apologized to steve and lucas, neither really accepted the apology but it was there.

over the rest of the year, billy and steve grow into friends (ish) and bee makes the girls varsity soccer team and makes some of the best friends she’s had in a while.

including one of her favorite teammates, robin buckley

bee and robin start secretly dating after a night of smoking weed at robins house. (her dad is super chill and pretended that it was nothing out of the ordinary. or maybe robin did this pretty often)

but they’re happy and the only person who knows is billy. robin was reluctant to let him know, but they gave a secret for a secret and they were just a little group ‘o gays.

robin ended up really liking billy after a day spent getting to know each other at a diner.

as robin sat across from the twins, she learned that they were basically the same person and were both excruciatingly annoying. but they were fun

when the twins got jobs at the pool and robin started working with steve at scoops ahoy, there was a lot of trading and flirting.

a free day at the pool in exchange for free ice cream (and an excuse for either twin to make eyes at either sailor)

after the starcourt thing, bee takes it really hard when she thinks billy’s dead, but he’s alive (because i said so) and her and max (and sometimes robin and steve) spend a whole lot of time in the hospital with him.

he gets discharged after like two or three months and his body is stable enough to walk on his own.

bee and billy, now 18 as of july 25, have moved out of the hargrove/mayfield house and are staying in steve’s too big house that his parents visit less and less each year.

robin is the person to give steve a push into admitting he’s bisexual and has feelings for billy hargrove

robin tells him about her and bee.

(steve makes a stupid joke about birds and bees which makes robin hit him)

but steve makes a move on billy one day when steve’s driving him home from physical therapy and they stopped for lunch (because billy lost a ton of weight from months in the hospital and his appetite is larger than before)

but they share a milkshake in a corner booth and are all blushing and sweet smiles and once they tell the girls, robin starts grumbling and hands a haughty looking bee $20.

i could write more so if you want it just ask, i have so many more ideas for this

#stranger things #billy hargrove #harringrove #steve harrington #robin buckley #robin buckley x of #pre relationship harringrove #steve x billy #billy x steve #mediocre—writing #mw harringrove #billy and bee

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dominusfero · 4 years ago

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I see you want to do a self-ship challenge and can't choose between David, Daniel, and Jasper. I dare you to do all three.

Okay.

David: His personality, his long arms perfect for hugging and his gorgeous smile

Daniel: His beautiful eyes, his talent at violin/fiddle, his charisma

Jasper: His humor (no doubt he’s a memer), he’s got the cuddliest bod, his sense of fashion (as horrible as it may be, it’s amazing to me)

David: My baking skills. I love baking and I’m betting David has a serious sweet-tooth. We always have too many cookies, cakes, brownies in the house.

Daniel: I have magic hands (not NSFW, I took massage classes). I always manage to melt the tension out of his back and neck muscles, and he becomes a puddle when I do his thighs and feet. He’s very tense.

Jasper: (Not revealing my gender but--) Jasper likes my body, but not in a creepy way. He likes every little minor thing about my body, from my own scars to the heart shaped birthmark on my inner thigh. Plus, he says I’m soft.

Since we all live together, it’d be a bunch of different pets. Daniel gets his own pet rat called Snowflake, Jasper and I share a little Dasypeltis named Scramble, and David has a German Shepard that we call Kino.

4. Raised ranch with a pool, big veggie garden and a nice patio. Stuck between bordering on a forest for the animals or set in a giant field so Jasper and I can go ATVing.

5. Do I need to? David and Daniel are both adults, their voices won’t change. Jasper’s, however, is definitely deeper than it was as a child. My best guess is: he sounds exactly like Griffin McElroy.

6. Everyone assumes it’s David, but really, it’s Daniel. He’s only ever known the forced version of love due to the brainwashing, never genuine. The first time I hugged him and he hugged back, I ended up falling asleep because he wouldn’t let me go.

7. Also Daniel. Romantically, I think it’s rooted in potential abandonment issues / possessiveness but it’s never egregious. Any other kind, it’s the same reason why David gets jealous: absurd competitiveness. Can’t ever be the worst at something, otherwise it’s Tantrum Time. Fortunately, kisses make this go away.

David: Counting Stars by One Republic (country-ish vibe fits with his aesthetic)

Daniel: The whole of “Love Like You” by Rebecca Sugar

Jasper: Blackout by Breathe Carolina (Party vibes man)

9. Yes! Okay, so the guys change all the time but I’m usually in the middle (or close to it). Daniel is a clingy s.o.b. If he isn’t latched onto me, it’s either David or Jasper. I always end up in somebody’s arms, though. It’s really nice. Jasper’s chest hair tickles.

10.

David: One jab in the ribs and he squirms and squeals like a child

Daniel: Dude has 0 resistance to the tickles. I do not understand.

Jasper: A fucking rock (pun intended). He feels nothing.

Me: Ehh...kinda? I don’t think so.

11.

David

12.

We’re thinking of somewhere either in southern Italy or, if we had to stay domestic, probably New Orleans, Louisiana for the cuisine and culture.

13.

David: Forest cottagecore wedding

Daniel: Believe it or not, he wants a fairytale theme complete with toadstool cupcakes, pastel colored lights and simple grassy vibes. He likes the fantasy aspect of it because it feels so freeing.

Jasper: He’s stuck between Star Wars and an 80s bowling alley theme.

Me: Beach wedding so I don’t have to wear fancy clothes. Just a white swimsuit so I can go swimming right after.

14. Yeah, but the amount changes depending on who you ask. David wants two: one boy, one girl. Daniel, coming from a rather large family, wants no less than four and prefers boys. Jasper says he’s cool with one, has his fingers crossed for a girl but says if we end up with a boy, that’s just as dope.

15.

Daniel is the poet, Jasper is the cheesy love song writer.

16.

I guess my affection comes out in my cooking, but I also just snuggle/cuddle the fuck outta my boys.

David, for sure, is grand gestures. Flowers sent to work, buying candy/snacks when you’ve had a bad day, etc.

Daniel is more subtle, like meticulously folding the laundry or organizing your messy ass desk so you can actually find shit or tuning the guitar.

Jasper shows his love through bad puns and lots of hugs.

17.

To David: On cheek, forehead, lips

From David: My nose because he thinks it’s funny

To Daniel: On the back of his neck because it makes him weak in the knees

From Daniel: Knuckles because he’s a gentleman

To Jasper: His tum is fun because it makes him laugh but his lips are so much better

From Jasper: Wherever he can get to, he does not discriminate

18.

Since there’s four of us, we cuddle in a big pile on our lovely, humongous bed. Or in a pile split between the couch and floor while watching TV or movies.

19.

David: If he’s near somewhere to sit, I grab him from behind and pull him down and force him either into my lap or on top of me. Then I hold him until he feels less crappy. Kisses are involved.

Daniel: I brew him a cup of his favorite tea, give him a kiss and shoulder rub.

Jasper: He’s easy. Sneak up on him and squish a whoopie cushion with a straight face. Or kick open the door to wherever he is after blasting the Monsters Inc. Opening Meme track.

Me: I don’t have too many bad days but I do, being around my boys is enough to fix my mood on its own. But for those days when it isn’t, my boys usually make me some kind of fix-it meal (that usually isn’t very good but I ain’t gonna say anything).

20.

David: Gardening, well, veggie gardening. We love hoe-ing around together.

Daniel: Drawing and writing together. Daniel writes poetry and I design covers and illustrations to go along with it.

Jasper: Video games and meme sharing / making

21.

David: He took me out to this nice little hidden oasis deep in the mountains of the forest and we gazed at the stars. He started talking about something relating to the area we were in, but I fell asleep on him. Literally, we were laying down and I was on his right side and fell asleep with my face in his chest.

Daniel: We binged a bunch of horror movies and spent the night laughing at the stupid ways people died (or let themselves be killed). It was fun!

Jasper: I whooped his ass in Mario Kart and then we played Minecraft. I accidentally (not really) blew up his house.

22.

Camp (I was working for Camp Corp. and was sent to relay marketing information and a potential budget for the coming year, as well as mockup any infrastructure changes that may need doing)

23.

Daniel, though I will cut a bitch if anyone hurts my boys in any way. Daniel will actively murder, though, so we try not to let that happen.

24.

YES

I miss my boys so much! David cries a lot and it hurts me in every conceivable way.

Ask me a freebie, I’ll answer it!

#camp camp #cc daniel #cc jasper #cc david #f/o ships #dansper #danvid #jaspdanvid #jaspvid #me and my ot3 #that should be a fic name lol

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snowdice · 4 years ago

Text

A Twist of Fate {Part 1} (Everything’s Fine Universe) [Dice Roll 13]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Remus & Janus & Patton

Characters: Janus, Patton, Remus

Summary: It wasn’t unheard of for people to gain soulmarks later in life, but it was quite rare. Usually fate was set in stone. Yet, when one’s fated death was prevented, fate had to make some adjustments.

As he fell, Patton may have felt a strange prickling feeling across his skin. He however, was not paying attention to that, far too distracted and confused. All he knew was that by the time he hit the ground, both of his hands were covered with marks. Later when he went home he’d notice even more in other places, but the ones he noticed when he hit the ground were the obvious ones on his hands.

Then, there was Janus. Janus had only one soulmark on his body. At least. He had only one soulmark that hadn’t been burnt off years ago. When he landed on top of Patton, he did not notice the marks that suddenly appeared on his arms and face. Patton did, however, notice two little designs appear on him: one along the side of his nose and the other right below the scaring on the left side of his face. The second was already colored in by the time they hit the ground.

Universe: Soulmate AU and Superhero AU

Genre: The Dice Roll said fluff and it is... but... it’s more fluff and angst, hurt/comfort-ish

Notes: Child abuse, homelessness, malnutrition, acid burns, platonic soulmates

“Found a 20-dollar bill!” Remus called. He was already on his belly halfway under a bush before Janus could move to stop him. Janus sighed. He guessed he was washing the boy’s clothes today. Again. Of course, $20 was probably worth the inconvenience. The nine-year-old wiggled and shimmied under the bush. “Got it!” he said.

“Good job,” Janus complimented. “Now come back out.”

“Now I’m stuck!” Remus informed him happily, giving a little wiggle.

“Why?” Janus groaned. He knelt down next to the still quite squirmy boy. “Stop kicking Remus,” he ordered. His feet stilled and Janus grabbed him by the ankles before yanking on him.

“Ouch!” Remus said, but Janus knew the difference between actually in pain Remus and being a whiny baby Remus and so he kept pulling.

“You.” He punctuated each word with a yank on his legs. “Knew. What. Would. Happen. When. You. Went. Under. There.”

Finally, on the last pull, Remus popped out of the bush. Janus fell backwards onto his butt. “Yeah, but I also knew you’d get me out and fall on your butt!” Remus said while sticking his tongue out.

Janus glared at the sky. “Why are you always such a gremlin?”

Remus giggled and climbed on top of Janus. He slapped the $20 bill down on his chest.

“The person who lost it was supposed to get bread and milk from the store for their dad,” Remus informed him. “When he lost it and couldn’t get the food, his dad said that he was a liar and probably spent it on something stupid. Then his dad hit him in the face and kicked him in the ribs.”

“I see,” Janus said evenly while internally wincing. It wasn’t the worst information to come pouring out of Remus’s mouth, but still. Ouch. He stroked the hair out of Remus’s face and got a gap-toothed smile in return. “Well, we’ll get some good use out of that money, huh?”

“Yeah!” Remus said. “We could get a cake! A whole cake!”

“I don’t know if a whole cake is the best financial decision,” Janus pointed out and got a wobbly lip in return. “But,” he smiled a bit, “we can buy a frosted cookie from the bakery when we get bread.”

“Yayyayyayyayyay!”

Janus gently pushed Remus off of him and he went rolling in a pile of giggles. “Come on Re,” he said, holding out a hand for him. Remus took it and swung their hands together between them. They walked towards the park entrance hand in hand.

Remus paused a couple of feet before the street. “Change now,” he instructed.

Janus did immediately. He stretched his body up about a foot and pulled it out a bit. He erased the burn marks littering the left side of his face and replaced them with a line of unmarred soulmarks framing the apple of his cheek. He carved a couple of age lines into his hands and around his eyes as well as a few more soulmarks on his wrist and hand. Remus adjusted his grip on the now slightly bigger hand without missing a step. Just as Janus finished the shift, a woman with a baby stroller turned the corner. Janus flashed her a smile and she continued past without a second glance.

He and Remus continued to walk until they were on the sidewalk outside of the park. Janus looked to Remus who was squinting into the air. A few seconds later, he pointed to the right. “Bad,” he said. Janus nodded and led him to the left.

The shift was already starting to put a strain on Janus, but he couldn’t let it go while on the street. Usually he could last longer, but he hadn’t gotten much to eat in the last week and had felt a bit dizzy even before forcing his body not only to shift, but to support a larger than natural form. He’d just have to deal. Remus would tell him if he was in danger of passing out anyway, and soon they’d be able to get some real food with the money they’d found today. There was $6.78 in addition to the $20 they’d just found, so they’d be set for a little while if they played their cards right.

Luckily, the bakery was only a couple of blocks from the park and they’d be able to buy some day-old bread for cheap to eat from there as well as the promised cookie to split.

Remus ripped himself away from Janus when they were a couple of feet from the bakery and slammed his little body through the door. He was up at the counter before Janus could get through the door.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” he was saying, jumping up and down at the cash register.

Luckily the man just seemed amused rather than annoyed by Remus’s antics. “Hello Jimmy,” he said kindly.

“Hi!” Remus said one more time. “I get a cookie today!”

“Do you?” the man asked, amused.

“He does,” Janus confirmed. “He’s been impressively well behaved for once in his life.” Remus titled his head all the way back to stick his tongue out at him.

The man smiled at them softly. He’d never introduced himself in the time that Remus and Janus had been coming here, but he did have a nametag that read ‘Patton.’ Patton was here most days of the week. It was always him, a teenage girl, or the older woman who owned the place working. Janus and Remus agreed that he was the best option. He was always nice and never seemed to be annoyed with Remus (a feat even Janus sometimes struggled with). He’d even snuck them extra food sometimes which was always a nice surprise. “What’ll it be today?” he asked with a smile.

“Two loafs of day-old bread and whatever cookie Jimmy wants,” Janus said.

Patton nodded with a warm smile and moved to get their order. He was always so unflinchingly nice. They’d seen him interact with all sorts of people in the 6 months they’d lived in this neighborhood, and he was always kind to everyone almost… fatherly. Which was why his hands were always a surprise whenever Janus caught sight of them.

It was odd to see someone like him with unmarked hands. Janus’s own hands were unmarked (at least when he wasn’t shifted), but that made sense. Janus didn’t think he’d make a very good parent if he ever even had the opportunity. The one on his wrist for Remus was probably the closest he’d ever get and that was edging more into sibling territory. Yet, by the way Patton looked at Remus and all other children that came into the bakery (at least the children who looked like children), one would expect his hands to be riddled with marks. Chest unmarked? Sure, he just didn’t want to be all gross and kissy with someone. Face unmarked? His parents sucked or weren’t around like Remus’s. Arms? No siblings or sibling like relationships. But, hands? That was a surprise, at least for Patton. He just seemed like… someone who would want to be someone’s dad. He didn’t even have any anywhere near his hands from what Janus had observed. He had two already black ones on his cheeks, probably from his parents, and he almost had to have some friendship ones on his back, but Janus had yet to catch sight of any others.

“Which cookie do you want?” Patton asked.

“Ooo ooo, um,” Remus said. “Should I get the one with a smiley face or the one with the flowers?” he asked.

“Hmm,” Patton contemplated. “How about this. If you could pick any design to be on a cookie, what would it be?”

“Moggie!” Remus said without question. “Moggie’s my favorite!”

“Well, I was decorating a cake a bit ago and I have a bunch of different colored frosting already out and in piping bags so why don’t I go make you one with Moggie-Man on it?”

Remus gasped. “Really?!”

“Of course!” Patton said, eyes fond on an enthusiastic Remus. “Anything for one of my best customers.”

They were hardly his best customers. They consistently only bought the marked down items like the day-old bread that was only a dollar a loaf. Yet, Janus wasn’t going to argue when Remus was so incredibly excited, even if hand frosting a cookie would take longer and Janus was already a bit unsteady on his feet. Instead of ruining the fun, he sat down at one of the closer tables and took out the heal of the bread loaf. He technically hadn’t paid for it yet, but it’d be fine. He shoved it in his mouth, willing his body to accept the offering of carbs and remain upright.

Remus was bouncing up and down while squeaking as Patton went into the back and returned a moment later with bags of purple, black, and grey icing. Janus rolled his eyes even as he smiled through his mouthful of bread.

“Did you know Moggie once broke his collar bone fighting Speed Bullet when he was only 19?!” Remus gushed. “It was so cool! Speed Bullet was moving too fast and Moggie couldn’t teleport in time and he got thrown off a barn. He would have broken his neck and died if he hadn’t ended up in a big pile of hay.”

“O-oh,” Patton replied.

“The hay had cow poop in it!”

“How do you know he was 19?” Patton asked.

“Uh…” Remus said. The ‘oops’ was clear in his eyes, but he recovered easily. “I invented that part. I make things up sometimes.”

“Ah, well, that’s very creative,” Patton said as he finished up the cookie. He handed it over the counter to Remus who took it with a wide grin and proudly showed Janus the cartoon version of the superhero on it. It was really good, especially considering it was done in icing.

“Thank you,” Janus said, standing up and walking to the counter.

“Yes! Thank you, Mister Bakery Guy!”

“It was no trouble,” Patton replied. He was watching Remus with a grin.

Janus coughed, and he looked back up.

“Oh right!” he said. “$4.52.”

Janus handed over 3 of the dollar-bills they’d gotten earlier and counted out the rest in change.

“Thanks!” Patton said, taking the money. “Have a good day you two.”

“Bye,” said Janus. He shooed Remus out of the door and across the street into an alley. “Anything bad?” he asked when they got there. Remus looked up from his cookie for a moment and thought. He shook his head. Janus sighed and let himself shrink back to normal with a groan.

“You feel bad,” Remus informed him.

“Thanks for the info,” Janus replied. “Very helpful.”

Remus frowned at him and offered the cookie. “You can bite off Moggie’s head,” he offered.

Janus chuckled. “You go ahead and do that. I’ll eat his clavicle.”

“Good choice!” Remus said before taking a bite of the icing superhero’s head. When he offered the cookie to Janus again, Janus took a bite. Then, Remus took another bite. They finished the cookie off in that way.

“Okay,” Janus said. “We have about an hour to get groceries before the shop down the block closes, and then we’ll go home.” Home at the moment was a forgotten about shed in an old community garden a few streets away. Remus said they’d freeze to death in the winter if they tried to stay there, so they’d have to find somewhere else soon. The leaves were just starting to turn though, so they probably had enough time to figure something else out, but they did need to be working on it.

Janus pushed himself to his feet. The bread and half a cookie had helped, and the shifting this time only burnt a little bit. It would be even better once they had something with protein and fat after going to the grocery store. Janus took Remus’s hand again and they made their way to the shop.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 2

#sanders sides #janus sanders #remus sanders #patton sanders #platonic demus #adriana writes #everything's fine universe #child abuse #homelessness #malnutrition #acid burns #soulmate au #superhero au #roll the dice #roll the dice 13 #platonic intruality #platonic moceit #platonic soulmates

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catrasredemption-moved · 4 years ago

Text

Someone on CuriousCat asked me about my experiences realizing I’m ace and the reply got too long, so uh.... it’s going here I guess lol

Hoo boy, okay. I don't mind talking about, it's just a mess lol.

Several touchy/uncomfortable sex mentions ahead:

So for reference, I'm 29 now. My high school experience was abnormal for several reasons, but I didn't really date much. My first Serious Boyfriend happened when I was 19-20 (this was also in the middle of my sexuality crisis when I was adjusting to the idea of being bi), and he was a sexually active person. He was never mean and he never pressured me, and he always said he was willing to wait until I was ready, and I kept waiting for that switch to flip to 'ready', but it didn't. I ended up breaking up with him because I felt like I wasn't... idk, able to "give" him a full relationship because the idea of sex, frankly, terrified me.

I eventually got the bi thing straightened out (well, straight being relative lol), had a brief online relationship with a girl who also didn't like sex, but we also never met in person, then got into a Serious Relationship with another girl that was messy AF for several reasons (tl;dr her untreated mental illnesses and my untreated mental illnesses Clashed), and one of the key things, again, was that I didn't want sex. She was poly and had another GF, and that GF *was* sexual, so you know, it was fine, except it felt like that relationship meant more to her. We also broke up several times because again, bad mental health, and I wouldn't bring it up here except it's important. We tried to maintain friendships between break-ups, and in between one of them we were talking and I mentioned that I never liked the idea of sex. The conversation went as follows:

Her: Oh, so you're ace Me: What? No, I like romantic relationships and stuff Her: You can be ace and still like those things Me: ..............

I was..... 22, by this point, I think? Anyway that was our first break up. She visited me when I was living in Texas during our last try at a relationship, and it was the first time we really got to be *alone* together (she couldn't visit me when I lived with my mom and stepfather because god just no and she was living with her dad when I went to see her), and it'd been about a year, I was 23-ish, had been turning the ace thing around in my head, and decided no, fuck it, I mean, that's a legit thing but it's not me, I am going to have sex with her and it'll be great.

She called me on my bullshit and we did not, in fact, do anything together. We actually spent a lot of time talking through the ace thing and establishing my boundaries (I owe her a lot for that, she's actually a very good friend now that we've both gotten our heads out of our asses and started getting treatment), and after our last breakup I spent some time exploring the whole ace thing more and learning to accept it without the lens of "omg what if A breaks up with me for it though?" (and for the record, she never once held that against me. Our relationship was just Bad.) And the more I researched, the more I realized it really was exactly how I felt about sex pretty much all the time - I wrote sex scenes sometimes with CLOSE friends, including a whole BDSM verse in a private server with one person, but I started moving away from it as I got more and more comfortable with the idea of being ace and it being okay to not enjoy reading/writing smut.

And that was.... five years ago now, I believe? 2015. Almost 6. I started dating my now-wife later that year and had the whole crisis again about "what if she doesn't love me because I won't have sex with her", but she's always been fine with it (and we do talk about it from time to time just to confirm we're both still okay with how things are). And that brings us to today, ten fucking years later XD

It probably won't take you ten years to figure things out, but I know how emotional and scary it can be even without the outside factors of people and societal expectations. You just do you, and follow how you feel, and don't ever feel like you have to make yourself do anything, okay? My ex saved my dumb ass from doing something that likely would've lowkey traumatized me, which is part of why I'm so Loud about it all now. And I'm always happy to talk to people about things if they need help <3

#Sam Chatters #Personal

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vacation-grif · 4 years ago

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What kinda feelings?

A LOT, ACTUALLY. Like I said before, the RTNY group was telling me to skip it because it wasn’t a good season, and I want to express how much I wanted to just form my own opinion, only to end up agreeing with them in the end. Let me break this down as best as I can now that I am on my PC. I mean no disrespect to the director and writer, as well as the cast and crew. Honestly, I’m worried that my opinion makes me feel like a boomer at this point.

First off, if anyone was going to tell me that I’m going to have headaches over bright flashing lights and colors over a Red vs Blue series, I wouldn’t have believed you. As I said before, they should’ve just called this “Red vs Blue: Epilepsy Warning THE M0VIE”. I understand that they are using the Unreal Engine, because my god the graphics on this is INSANE. But everything is...too bright. TOO. BRIGHT. Everything has a lens flare no matter where the camera turns, and with the high paced action, all the lights and colors, it HURTS.

Next, this is a fully CG-animated season. We haven’t had one like that in SUCH a long time, and this is the first in the 20-ish years of Red vs BLue. When I was a kid who didn’t have a cellphone, I could only imagine what Red vs Blue was like when my best friend would play it over our landline on a weeknight before we would go to school the next day. And I would come over and be like, HOLY SHIT. IS THIS FUCKING HALO?! So imagine my excitement when after 8 years of Red vs Blue using Halo 1 to Halo 3 assets, you see a Warthog just crash through the walls of Valhalla, something you’d never see in a Halo game. A fully animated scene of Grif running over Washington (hell yeah), and an angry Washington outside of his game model just climbing onto the hood of the car and shooting at Grif through the windshield at pointblank range. Then cut to episode 10 of the same season, Tex makes her triumphant return, fully animated instead of her Halo 3 game model. And in the last two episodes of the season, you get OUR VERY FIRST FREELANCER VS FREELANCER FIGHT. You find out this was the work of the late Monty Oum (rest in peace), and until Season 10, Red vs Blue was THE HIGHEST POINT OF YOUR FUCKING LIFE.

Then we go to Season 12 where the animation post Oum (he was working on RWBY at this point but iirc this was just before he died) was choppy at best and didn’t feel right until Season 13, where within the one year the animation team REALLY stepped up. And this actually carries over into Season 17, Singularity, where it became more animation and less game effects, or rather it was balanced. It wasn’t extravegant like Oum’s works, but given that these are the Simtroopers, some Freelancers, some Mercs, and time gods, it felt par for the course. It felt right.

We cut now to these upgraded graphics, which felt like when you were playing on your Xbox 360 and you jsut FUCKING SHOT into the Xbox One. It was, as you would say, unreal (lol). But it felt...off. The first two episodes, the entire action didn’t feel like what you spent 16 seasons watching. It felt like a whole another beast entirely. With the use of super powers, you would think oh the Freelancers had that! Yes, but those were all suit enhancements. These...didn’t feel like it. Zero’s and Phase’s teleportation didn’t feel like something that Fragmented AI can control. Shatter Squad’s at least felt more at home.

The models themselves were a bit off too. Choppy at best, but understandable given that they were using the Unreal Engine. But you notice that they do a lot of hand on hip pushed out to the side type of thing a lot? Everyone does it. Except Raymond, West, and the big dude. Like the SASSY STANCE. Also, there was way too much power stance. Where if your feet were shoulder width apart, it was a bit wider, and also the pelvis was out a little more. A bit weird. Finally, everyone has an ass. Everyone. Even West. West has an ass, it was like, everyone was dummy thicc and the clap of their ass cheeks was alerting Viper.

Next, voice acting. I...absoultely could not stand the voice acting. It was completely over the top, overdramatic, over exaggerated. Granted, I’m a singer, a perform, but I’m not exactly a good actor myself in the few shows I’ve actually done. It felt like watching an anime. When you wtach something with dialogue of your own language, you can tell when you feel something is to over the top. If you watch something of a language you don’t speak, it’ll go over your head, unless you start to speak that language, and you speak to people who speak that language, then you start to pick up what is regular speaking and what is acting. When an anime gets dubbed, most times, the voice actors tend to over dramatacize in the same way the Japanese due, and some times it works, most times it doesn’t. This is because the Japanese way of acting comes from kabuki theater. When English dubbers do that with this weird over emphasized emotions, it is extremely offputting.

In some places, the voice acting is poorly done. Jen Brown’s performance from just getting out of a hospital to giving an expositional lecture about the new cast in literally 5 seconds of time was...off. Carolina should’ve had more time to recover, especailly after losing Washington, one of her closest surrogate family, she felt...a little too calm and normal. Not like the Carolina who was hesitant but trying her best to be a whole better person (see the Paradox Arc, S15-17). It was jsut quick shift, and now she’s making snarky remarks in that Jen Brown voice she does (my god step on me please) and also being a mother hen. Also, she really calls Washington David way more this season than she ever did before that.

Fiona’s performance was shaky at best in my opinion, I don’t know her very well outside of what everyone says. All I know is that sometimes, the way she emphasizes some of her lines don’t fit the situation very well. I think East/Phase was a lot better done than One imo. But she was mostly angry and competitive.

Raymond is the textbook definition of what I hate about taking a character’s role and making it their entire personality. Think of it like watching Power Rangers, and all of their roles is just defined by the shit they say. Jason is the jock, Kimberly is the pretty girl, Trini is......I’m not gonna lie, I don’t...know what to classify Trini, Zack was the cool guy, and Billy was the nerd (Tommy was Jock II also the rebel/loner). Raymond reminded me a lot like Billy, where Billy was defined by being so smart, half of his dialogue was just look at me, i’m fucking smart, let me use all of these big words. Half of Raymond’s dialogue was, look at me, i’m the tech guy, I’m nerdy and loveable, it felt like it was too over the top of trying to stand out. By the end of the season, after East’s big reveal, I started to like him a lot more because he knew what was more at stake. I want to say that my initial impression of him was immature at best.

West was too stiff. Just.. Too stiff. I get he’s old. But show some emotion, please.

Why am I emphasizing on this more? When you listen to the dialogue of RvB, and then you listen at this, even with the return cast of Carolina, Washington, and Tucker, the direction was different. I think it’s because of the new medium with Zero being all super animated like an action, where RvB was just a bunch of net videos that you’re gonna laugh at with well timed jokes. It was super casual, but also super real. Geoff and Gus and everyone else aren’t big actors or anything, but that’s what made it feel real. That’s what made RvB feel like its own thing.

In terms of writing, I get that this is RvB meets FnF (Fast and Furious). But I honestly feel that it doens’t belong. The story of Shatter Squad vs Viper would have been a lot better if it didn’t have the RvB name tacked on. It’s such a cool concept, but given what RvB was before, the tonal shift is jsut too great, especially when you only have 3 of the previous cast returning.

Speaking of, what happened to Tucker?! What happened to the guy who became a leader? Responsible? Not as arrogant? Maybe playfully arrogant at best, but not stroking his ego? What happened to HIS SWORD? Did they forget how Tucker’s sword works? That it only works IF HE DIES? Tucker didn’t die, and yet Phase was able to use his sword (which by the way is now hers). One of the earliest stories/gags of RvB and they just...retconned it and threw it away! Also, Tucker’s voice acting did NOT match the scene at all. It’s like watching a video game that was localized from Japanese, and the dubbers spoke too fast before the character could finish. Tucker moves outside of his dialogue and there is this weird seconds of silence. That...that was just a BAD return for him.

My final thought is that, if RvB Zero is not...the RvB I grew up with. Maybe the jokes are dated, but the memories of what RvB was is still real. This just...doesn’t feel like RvB anymore. This should have just been it’s own show, it’s own story, replace Wash and Carolina and Tucker with new characters, it just wasn’t their place to be in this.

The only thing I liked about this? I’m glad Danielle (I’m assuming this is how you would spell her name) didn’t go AWOL and returned to the team. I actually really liked her the most next to Axel. She was done dirty, but she still held on to that one bond she had as East that Zero didn’t give her as Phase.

I know this is probably not a great opinion, and I really hope that Rooster Teeth finds the ground they want this series to go in. Sometimes, you have to try new things, or else staying stagnant will make it go stale. It’s all about trial and error. I don’t know how everyone else feels about Zero, how the new audience and the old audience feels. RvB as a whole wasn’t perfect. They had their down moments. But when you feel that way for an entire season...it’s a problem.

#grif liveblogs #grif liveblogs rvb #rvb #red vs blue #red vs blue zero #Anonymous #spoilers #rvb negativity

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dlamp-dictator · 4 years ago

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Allen X’s Gacha Rules for a ‘Good’ Gacha Game (Featuring Arknights)

Hey look, that Arknights essay came quicker than I thought.

Continuing on my goal of finishing up all my years-old drafts by the end of February, I think it’s pretty damn convenient that I glanced over this half-finished opinion piece just in time for the next limited banner for Arknight’s CN server to be announced. This is a topic I’ve been wanting to cover for awhile now. If there was anything that was a decent marker for Allen X’s gaming experience these past 4-ish years it was the fact that he got real into Gacha Games. I’ve dipped my toe into quite a few different Gacha phone games over the years. AFK Arena, Granblue Fantasy, Girls Frontline, and even an Ikkitousen gacha game at one point. And of course Arknights, which is my current main gacha game at the moment.

Honestly, the only thing I didn’t play was Fate/Grand Order, and for damn good reason, but one thing at a time.

Anyway, with all that time I spent playing these games I’ve slowly given myself a ruleset and mindset for how I handle these gacha games. And I figured I’d talk about how I go about playing some of them, some of the experiences I’ve gained, and what I look into when it comes to the money portion of playing a ‘free-to-play’ game. I’ll mostly be talking about Arknights since it’s the main gacha game I’ve been playing for the past year and I don’t play two of these at once for damn good reason.

So, with that all said, let’s start off with...

Point 1: Methods of Ten-Pulls

For those new, the typical loop for most gacha games is to roll for rare characters and use them to complete segments of the game, whether for their looks, stats, or playstyle (but mostly looks). The characters themselves are usually drawn in an attractive and appealing way, along with having abilities and statistics that are desirable from a gameplay perspective, at least those of a higher rarity. The more you pull and buy into the gacha, the higher the chance you get for a rare character. Some games have deals where you pull can pull for free with some in-game resource like Girls Frontline, and more commonly the game encourages you to pull 10 at a time to increase your chances.

For any good gacha game, I feel you should be able to pull for free at a fair rate. That varies a lot depending the game mechanics at play, how the game handles duplicate pulls, the rarity rate of gacha pulls, and so on, but in general if you can pull 10 times every two weeks I’ll consider the game fair, at least on that front.

Arknights is actually a pretty good example of this. Headhunting aside, you can pull 4 times a day using in-game resources in the recruitment section of the menu, but those pulls tend to be a lot more common and not viable in the endgame like some of the ones you get in headhunting. And even without the recruitment section you can usually ten-pull about twice a month if you do the daily and weekly missions plus the weekly Annihilation missions. When I first discussed Arknights in this regard I had some confusion about how Annihilation worked and assumed it reset monthly. I apologize if I misled people with that statement.

Anyway, by doing all the activities and missions that give you Orundum, the gacha currency, you should be able to collection about 10,000 Orundum every month, which is one guaranteed ten-pull a month. This is a little under what I would had preferred for Arknights and there’s a good chance I’m missing a free source of Orundum somewhere (and I’m rounding down to play it safe), but... it’s fair enough.

But onto my second point.

Point 2: Premium Currency in Relation to Real-World Currency.

In short, I should have a clear idea how much it cost to pull a character if I was going to whale. Typically, in most gacha games you can purchase a premium currency in order to pull characters with real world money. The amount can vary from game to game, but there should be a clear idea of how much it cost to pull for a character.

As a free-to-play game, most gacha games do need some kind of reliable income. Let’s be real here, this game doesn’t run on happiness and sunshine and I don’t mind giving money to products I want to see succeed and continue, but if it takes 20 bucks to ten-pull I’m going to find that ridiculous unless the gacha rate is in highly my favor.

Arknights uses Originium Prime as it’s premium currency, an item that can be transferred into 180 Orundum per unit. One Originium Prime costs one dollar. You need about 33 Originium Prime to get the 6,000 Orundum needed to pull ten times, or a little over 3 Originium Prime to pull once using 600 Orundum. This means on average it costs around $33 to pull on command.

This is absurd for a tower defense game.

Now, Originium Prime does a lot more than let you engage with the gacha, but the brass tacks of this is that for every ten-pull you do you could just as easily get 3 games off a Steam sale, maybe more. I also think I should note that Arknight’s store lets you buy 40 Originium Prime for $30 as a bundle, cutting that cost to about 75 cents per Originium Prime. There’s also an option for 66 Originium Prime for $50, but that for just a little over 75 cents per Originium Prime if my math is correct. Either way, Arknights is asking for quite the price to engage in one of its main mechanics.

And yes, you can gain Originium Prime in game by perfect-clearing stages and clearing the challenge modes, but there’s a finite a moment of those stages and events maps are pretty scarce in Arknights, coming around once every two-ish months with about 15-20 chances for Originium Prime. As a casual player this is... fine, but for folks that rush the endgame this is... a tad much.

Now, I’m a casual player. I don’t rush to the latest content and I don’t try and min-max a gacha game of all things. As much I mostly just buy a monthly pack that grants me about 300 Orundum for free daily for 30 days and 6 Originium Prime upon purchase. This makes the grind a little easier and it’s a cheap way to show monetary support to the development team. However, I do recognize there are people that do these min-max and rush content and my opinion of these folks aside I think those folks probably spend the most money as well, undeservedly so. But this is more a discussion of the individual person and not the gacha community as a whole.

So... moving on...

Point 3: Late Game Viability as a Free-to-Play

To me, it should never feel like you need the gacha to finish the game or get to the endgame content. For a free to play game, you should be able to at least finish the initial pre-update content without needing to try and a pull a rare character to get you through a hard segment of the game. Events and Post-Launch stuff have a bit of wiggle room, but overall I don’t think you should need a team of the rarest characters to just beat the game, at least not a meta-team. That doesn’t mean the desire to pull can’t be there, but at least for the launch-content, you should be able to finish it out as a free-to-play player. Thankfully, most games (most good games) will give you a pretty decent team to work with if you truly have bad luck with rolls. Girls Frontline is a good example of this.

Arknights... isn’t as generous as I’d like it to be.

In Arknights, by the end of Chapter 4, with limited engagement of the Gacha, you’ll have handful of 4-Stars that can be leveled to the late game with decent stats, Amiya, and an assortment of 3 stars that can technically get you through those first four chapters if used and placed wisely. But some four stars like Gavial, Courier, and Dur-nar are time-limited if I remember correctly, so as of me typing this there’s no reliable way to get some of those characters.

Meanwhile, in Girls Frontline you got most of team Anti-Rain by the mid-game pre-updates, a group of 4-star guns that had already great utility and with half of their members being in the meta of the pre-update endgame content, and are still viable to this day if I remember correctly.

This is a major point of contention I have with Arknights. I think they’re fairer than most gacha games, but I’ll admit they don’t like giving handouts, not as many as I’d prefer anyway. Even the stingy AFK Arena gave you more stuff after maintenance updates and the like, and I hate the fact that I complimented AFK Arena on anything.

But onto my last point.

Point 4: 5-Star/SSR Rates Must be Around 4% or Higher.

This is the main reason I’ll never touch F/GO (along with other reasons). Every gacha game should, statistically, guarantee a five-star/SSR/highest-tier rarity after 30 pulls. Any more than that and you’re playing with a rigged slot machine by my standards. Like I said, the main goal of most gacha games is to get you pulling for these are fancily drawn jpegs and pngs, and while those characters technically have gameplay function and even limited animation in certain non-gameplay settings, they’re still pictures nonetheless. And if I have to dip more than 30 times to get something good then what’s the point.

Again, using Arknights, their 5-Stars are at a rather generous 8%, but their 6-Stars being at a tad crueler 2%. By all accounts, I shouldn’t be touching Arknights because of this, but due to the nature of how busted Six-Stars are and a few other details like base functions, potential levels, and some other factors in Arknights gameplay, I let this slide for the moment.

Regardless, I shouldn’t take more than 20 pulls to get a highly rated unit of some sort. The details of the specific unit can be discussed at a later date, but my point remains.

Also, any gacha game that mixes accessories and characters in the same pull pool is equally unplayable. Characters have utility and gameplay functions that can be used for multiple strategies and methods, along with out-of-game benefits ala the base mechanics of Arknights depending on the game. Accessories and items are stat buffs in game where grinding levels is already purposely tedious. Anything making that act more of a hinderance is honestly trying to rob you blind and should be avoided like the plague.

Now... one more thing to talk about.

About Arknights Specifically

You know... between me bitching about Chapter 7, bitching about Chapter 6, bitching about 7-18, and bitching about Code of Brawl I get the feeling you all think I hate Arknights.

Trust me, I only whine and moan because I love this game and the people who made it, I wouldn’t waste my breath or keystrokes otherwise.

That said, I would like to see some things change about Arknights on a foundational level. I’ll try and keep this short, but no promises.

Endgame Team for Free

This is the team you have to work with for 6-7 because of story reasons and I think this team should gained for free to by the end of chapter 6, everyone in this squad should be in your rooster by the end. Even Blaze, her kit is good, but not as busted as Silverash so she wouldn’t shatter the game’s difficulty. This team overall is very well balanced for end game content and has all the essentials to get through it. E2 medics and guards, cheap vanguards and defenders for last minute placements to stall, a good sniper that can do solid burst damage, some specialists just in case you need to manipulate enemy movement and path detection. I believe you can get Rope, FEater, and Myrrh free, but Blaze and Greythroat for reliable lategame damage feels like a must. And I see nothing wrong with giving out those two for free anyway, especially for what was near endgame content at the time and how pivotal Blaze and Greythroat were to the storyline of Chapter 6. And yes I feel the same way about Rosmontis in Chapter 7 too. She’s actually a pretty niche unit and a 6-Star that’s expensive to upgrade, just having her in your pocket wouldn’t shatter the game like it would be if you gave us, again, Silverash.

Gacha Rates

I think arguing for cheaper prices with the Originium Prime is a fools errand because corporations will never listen, but I’ll at least say this. The rules of the gacha that followed the WWE Banner should be for all future banner. You should get a banner-specific currency that lets you outright buy the rare units on said banner if you have bad enough luck. You needed to pull 300 times to get W or Weedy and about 50 times to get Elysium. I feel like both of these should be cut in half. Going by the math I previously did counting that requirement in half would mean only doing 15 ten-pulls, about 495 Originium Prime (89,100 Orundum) or a little over $370 for a limited operator.

This is still absurd for a tower defense game, but it is a far more fair than the original system.

Other Small Quality of Life Changes

A quick pull for recruitment operators so we don’t have to see the bag animation 4 times over. Girls Frontline had something similar by the time I left and it was all the better for it.

A similar form of auto-play to Girls Frontline where you can send in one of your 4 squads to auto play a map off screen a number of times and come back later when they’re down for materials at the cost of extra sanity.

Have a Orundum be a log-in reward. Again, something Girls Frontline did and I think coughing out 1,000 Orundum once a week wouldn’t kill anyone.

Buff Amiya goddammit. Either remove/shorten the stun on her S2 to make her have reliable (if random) magical burst damage or remove the instant retreat on her S3 so she can become a hard-hitting damage unit at the cost of a high SP cost and cooldown timer. Don’t give major drawbacks to your only non-event free 5-Star when Silverash exists. When Click and Haze has more viability than your main character you have a problem.

Anyway, that’ll be it for me. Next time... I talk about something that isn’t me bitching.

#your dictator is speaking #arknights

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tinlizziedlinwa · 3 years ago

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Developing Sexuality, Discovering Kinks, a Spinal Injury, and Barely Beginning to Explore the Edges of the LGBTQ+ Community

Howdy, y’all. I’m just gonna put this out there - If it’s not for you, just keep on a’scrollin’!

Now, I’ve not really explicitly spoken about my sexuality and how it’s evolved over my almost five decades of life. So, I’m about to start, and believe me, your patience and kindness will be appreciated. If you choose to be a close-minded, conservative, cis-asshole then I strongly suggest you leave right the fuck now. Thank you :-)

If you want to get to know me a little bit more and talk of incontinence and sexuality doesn’t scare you, please continue!

Decade 01: Around four years old, I have my first memories of things related to my as yet totally undeveloped sexuality. No history of physical abuse - Don’t worry about that. It was finding my mother’s menstrual pads. I saw pictures of them in underwear, so I took one and put it into mine. It felt so right and so amazing! I don’t really know how to describe it, but it felt like I needed the whole package of them in my underwear all at once! I got in trouble for using up a package that my mom needed and I didn’t understand why she needed them yet. But I made my first “diaper” out of pads and tighty-whities when I was only four years old. Since I’m gonna be using a lot of numbers, I’m gonna cheat and sacrifice the “proper way” of spelling them out if they’re ten or less.

At 5, I knew I wasn’t built right. I had this thing I peed through that girls didn’t have. Boys had them. But I wasn’t supposed to be a boy! I didn’t like it and hated the feeling of it touching my legs (still do...). I started asking questions about things. Now, my parents are the stereotypical Boomers, “trapped” in a loveless marriage by dependent children and their own sense of “honor.” Dad was a Medical Corpsman who became a Physician’s Assistant (PA) after retiring, while Mom used to be a Wave (nurse) in the Navy, but became a stay-at-home Mom when she started having children. I’ve 2 brothers and 1 sister, the last of them born 10 years before me. So, when I questioned things, Dad’s response was usually to hand me a medical book and tell me to look it up. Mom’s response was usually, “go ask your father.” So, there I was, a 5-year old with a head full of partially-understood terminology (at best!) and a bunch of clinical photography in anatomy and physiology books. At least I learned the purely physical differences between boys and girls and why I was one and not the other. This made me mad. So. Very. Mad. I cried a lot for a while, finding out that I would never become what I feel I was supposed to be. But I kept reading....

When I was 6 years old, I wrote a letter to my parents explaining how I felt about my body and how it made me feel inside and how I wished I could change and be the girl I’m supposed to be and would they be ok with helping me do this some day?

It was not received well. Not well at all. I’ve spent the last 40 years trying to get over their reaction to it and I still hate them for their reactions with a passion. I feel like I was truly shattered, and the glue I’ve had to use over the years to put myself back together has never been the right type and pieces of me keep falling apart.

Entering Decade 02 (10 to 20 years old): Puberty, damn it! None of my “researches” had even hinted at ways to stop it, and my body started changing in ways that made me very uncomfortable, but there was also this attraction I kept feeling towards some people, and I started getting erections. Now, I knew what was happening and yes, it did feel good to play with myself, but it also felt wrong in that I should have someone entering me, not me entering them, so when I masturbated that’s what I dreamed of - being entered and feeling them expand inside me, them giving themselves up in me, losing control and exploding into me and feeling their satisfaction as my own at having been so desirable. Cockwarming them gently back to hardness and having my own way with their body as their hands stroked my breasts and hips.... Eventually I would orgasm in real life, while dreaming my dream.

I have never had a blow-job. Several girlfriends have attempted, but honestly that’s like the fastest way to shut me down. It instantly kills my dream between one heart-beat and the next, causing me to feel absolutely horrible about myself and this carcass I’m trapped in. I should be going down on you, tasting, caressing, nuzzling and lapping up your wetness as I get more and more achy and wet for you.... Sticking my dick in your mouth is absolutely the worst thing that can happen during any attempt at sexy-times for me. I’d rather have diarrhea on a crowded school-bus.

The problem was, I had been emotionally terrorized by my parents (and now I know how they controlled my access to information...) and the area I grew up in was populated by fairly conservative folks, so I had no exposure to other ways of living and had no idea I could express my sexuality in any way other than by being masculine with it. Ergo, I was very much in the closet, hiding my thoughts and feelings as best I knew how, and retreated from situations that might expose my inner workings. Hence, I’m an introvert who overshares o.0 Start unstacking the bricks from my walls and Watch Out! You might get more than you bargained for :-\

Decade 03 (20 to 30 years old): I was just positive I didn’t want kids. Also had no clue what to do with myself, so I landed in Alaska for about a decade. Isolated, small town, conservative folks (a church on every corner, attended at least twice a week). Repressive. No sex for 8 of those 10 years. Met my (now ex-) wife up there. Internet actually got off the ground and we bought a computer, modem, and had an AOL account! This was around 2002′ish or so. Yeah, I watched the twin towers fall on a tv in a bar in Alaska. But while in Fairbanks, I discovered the old Usenet Newsgroups... and that led me straight back into my diaper-fetish which I’d almost forgotten about... omg, seeing those first photos... I can’t describe the feelings that burned in me.

Decade 04 (30 to 40 years old): Left Alaska and moved to western Washington State. Worked as a Medical Assistant for about 5 years, then re-invented myself as a welder when I got a Federal job. Learning a whole new trade wasn’t easy. Shittons of practice later I was good at it and loving my career, until a toolbag fell on my head in 2008. It could have killed me had I been in any other position. As it was, it hit the top of my head while my spine was almost perfectly straight up’n’down, causing a couple of discs in my neck to blow out. One completely ruptured and the other bulged so badly it could never heal and restricted my movement (couldn’t look up or pull my chin in). To this day I still have a smallish “shadow” on my cervical spinal nerve where the disc exploded and a “dent” where the next one down bulged out. The doctors think that’s why I’m incontinent and really struggle to get hard-ons anymore.

Here’s the rub: I’ve hated this body of mine forever. I’m not supposed to get hard-ons in the first place! I’m supposed to have breasts, hips, hair, a flat front and a curvy bottom, and you should be making passes at me, not vice versa!

So, rather than pursue medical (surgical) options to deal with the urinary and occasional fecal incontinence, I choose to wear diapers and give myself regular enemas. This way I can kinda (mostly) control the #2 and keep it from happening in public, while I can let my bladder just run on it’s built-in autopilot (which is really random, btw). Wearing diapers also helps me with tucking! I can pull the dick out, pop the balls up inside where they belong, tuck the dick as far back as I can and put my diaper on tight. Bingo! A flat front! And a bit of a poofy bottom! YES!!

Decade 05 (40 to 47′ish years old): I’m beginning to feel slightly more confident in my sexuality, though I’m still not comfortable actually trying to seek out anyone special... but yeah - I’m an introvert by nature. Probably need to get adopted by someone because I’m not sure I’ll ever really be brave enough to really reach out first.... But now I’m able to afford nice diapers, I’m buying women’s jeans/pants/sweaters/onesies, and I’m feeling so much better about myself when I’m able to dress up. Keeping my chest and legs shaved helps, too. When I look down and see long, course, curly body-hair... ugh. Hair in the armpits and groin is what’s normal. Chest hair? Get it off! Looking at myself in the mirror, I still hate many aspects of my physical self, but when I’m freshly shaved, diapered and wearing women’s jeans and a lovely pink sweatshirt or just lounging around in a cute diaper and huge sweater, I’m much more able to ignore the things I don’t like.

Lately, as I’ve begun exploring my sexuality a little more, I’ve discovered the joys of dildos. Lemmie tell you what, guys. A traditional male orgasm doesn’t hold a candle to what I’ve felt while playing with a good dildo. After a good, thorough clean-out in the shower (I have a shower-attachment with multiple nozzles and use the long black rubber one), I’ve used a dildo that’s got a bit of a bend near the tip - it’s shaped like a real penis, normal size (not humongous), with a bit of a crook near the glans. By holding the balls & suction cup in hand, it can be inserted and moved in-n-out at that perfect angle to stimulate *all* the right spots inside... I can honestly say I’ve peed, cum, and blew that dildo across the room as my knees hit the floor and I forgot my name during the best, most intense, can’t-walk-for-a-minute whole-body orgasms I’ve ever experienced in my life. The area between the anus and scrotum feels so very hot and heavy, like it’s going to burst, it’s not truly painful but almost close? - It’s an amazingly satisfying feeling. I’d love to hear from you girls out there... Are my orgasms anything similar to yours?

Some day, my dream is to meet someone who can understand me, who can feel where I’m coming from, who can love me even when I’m having difficulty loving myself. Someone who is kind to my broken soul, and who’s idea of a hot date may involve a stop at the adult toy store!

Edited on 01OCT2021: I’m not looking for a Mommy or a Domme. I’m an adult with adult responsibilities and concerns. I’m looking for a partner who’s also fairly self-sufficient. I own my own home, work full time, and being an introvert I need lots of alone time. Someone who’s open and accepting of the fact that I’m diapered 24/7/365 and am perfectly capable of changing myself. And she’ll understand that I don’t just wanna get her out of her jeans for sexy-times, but I also wanna try them on.

Edited again on 02OCT2021: As I’ve just begun actually exploring my sexuality, I’m starting to think I seem to fit into the “enby” grouping (even as I don’t like being stuffed into a box, I find myself doing just that, to myself! Damn categories...). I don’t know all the lingo yet and it feels like the terminology is a living thing that is always changing. Even though I’ve always found women to be super attractive, and I also really enjoy wearing women’s clothes and have dreamed of being a woman for decades, every once in a blue moon a guy really turns me on. I’ve got fantasies about going down on her while he enters me, his hands on my hips pulling me in as he gently thrusts, speeding up slowly as I’m getting wetter, he’s sliding in and out of me faster and faster and I’m lapping up her juices, buried in her scent, the orgasm in all of us building until we simultaneously explode. Then, once we all have our breath back, each of us gently diapers one another. The idea of feeling my diaper sticking to my bum as his seed dribbles out of me is really turning me on again right now! Hearing our crinkles as we move, cuddling in a contented pile, patting bottoms all around.

Am I a “bottom?” Is there such a thing as an independent “bottom”? More research is needed!

#tinlizziedl #Info about me #30Sep2021 #personal #Sexuality

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nerianasims · 4 years ago

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Billboard #1s 1979

Under the cut.

I discuss Michael Jackson’s life and actions a little bit underneath here. So be warned if that’s something that will upset you.

The Bee Gees -- "Too Much Heaven" -- January 6, 1979

Uugh. When The Bee Gees weren't releasing bad, bloodless, falsetto disco, they were releasing bad, bloodless, falsetto lite "rock." Also the lyrics are about how love is soooo hard to get, so they're special since they have love, and yuck. Nonsense and glop.

Rod Stewart -- "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" -- February 10, 1979

I laughed out loud when I saw this next on the list. People can't have taken it seriously in 1979, right? It was seen like "I'm Too Sexy", yes? Even though Rod Stewart was a "serious" singer -- come on, this is a ridiculous song. It isn't about the narrator; it's about two people meeting on a dance floor and then going to have what's probably a one-night stand. But when Rod Stewart sings the chorus, it sounds like it's about him. It's a highly unsexy and very silly song.

Gloria Gaynor -- "I Will Survive" -- March 10, 1979

The joy I feel listening to this song. It's the best disco song. The bright piano flourish opens to Gaynor's amazing voice and phenomenal singing ability. She sells her anger at the guy who's "back to bother" her, along with the assertion that she's now totally confident and is gonna do great without him, will all her life to live and all her love to give. The lyrics are great, which is incredibly rare for any dance song. The music is great. And Gaynor is perfect. You can belt it in the car and it drives people to the dance floor. Just an amazing, incredible song.

The Bee Gees -- "Tragedy" -- March 24, 1979

The real tragedy is that The Bee Gees shat up disco. What could it have been if not for their influence? There were disco singers and groups who escaped it, but Barry Gibb and Friends' clogging of the charts kept out so many worthy acts. Lots of synth on this song, and synth can be really cool (I'm a diehard fan of The Alan Parsons Project), but the Bee Gees made it boring and turgid. Then that damned falsetto. I don't care about the lyrics, I just want to not hear the Bee Gees again ever.

The Doobie Brothers -- "What A Fool Believes" -- April 14, 1979

The guy the song is about thinks he's going to get an ex back because she was nice when he met her again. He's a fool, and "no wise man has the power to reason away." The music's good, too, a sort of mild rock. "Yacht rock" I suppose. The sentiment is kinda country music though. Good song, anyway.

Amii Stewart -- "Knock on Wood" -- April 21, 1979

What is that in the background? A synth sound, obviously, but it sounds like -- a washboard? I have no idea, but it's annoying. This is a cover of an older soul song by Eddie Floyd that's pretty good, but they wreck it here. The amount of gunk clogging it up is painful. Also Amii Stewart doesn't modulate at all, her voice is a constant blare. Headache-inducing.

Blondie -- "Heart of Glass" -- April 28, 1979

The 80s are coming. Blondie does interesting things with synth here, the beat's irresistible, Debbie Harry's voice is unique, and the lyrics are about an ended relationship that was "a pain in the ass." Not some huge broken-hearted thing, despite the "heart of glass" lyric. Just... done, that didn't work, moving on. Not that the lyrics particularly matter here. It's all about the interesting, different-sounding music.

Peaches & Herb -- "Reunited" -- May 5, 1979

If synth can sound more synthetic than usual, that's how this song begins. It's about a couple getting back together, but it doesn't sound like they were ever in a lot of pain or that they're really excited now. There's some neat guitar stuff. It could be worse. But mostly it's bland.

Donna Summer -- "Hot Stuff" -- June 2, 1979

It's a disco song, but with a lot more rock in it than disco usually has. Maybe that's why it's survived so much better than most disco. The narrator wants one of her lovers (of whom she obviously has many) to answer the phone so that she can get laid. It's the ballad of Romance Sims. It's fun.

Bee Gees -- "Love You Inside Out" -- June 9, 1979

Well, ew. This guy's whining that the woman he loves has too many lovers but he's the one who will "love you inside out," whatever the hell that means. It sounds like a serial killer. She needs to dump him, and also probably move and change her name. And, of course, there's Barry Gibb's horrible orchestration and falsetto.

Anita Ward -- "Ring My Bell" -- June 30, 1979

Disco, of course. He's been gone for a while and she's singing to him "you can ring my bell." So, they're gonna celebrate his homecoming with lots of sex. The lines "You can ring my bell, ring my bell/ (Ring my bell/ ding-dong-ding)" repeat a couple hundred times. The background synth sounds are painfully repetitive. Like something on The Prisoner used to brainwash people. And Anita Ward sings in a Betty Boop-ish sort of childish voice that I also find annoying. It's not Bee Gees bad, but it's bad.

Donna Summer -- "Bad Girls" -- July 14, 1979

"Bad girls" are not the same as "sad girls." Sorry, this song might be fine or even good, but that one line has always bugged me way too much. So does the police whistle.

Chic -- "Good Times" -- August 18, 1979

Disco about how "happy days are here again" for now. The lyrics are obviously pretty shallow, but at least there is a line about how it won't last forever. That's not my problem anyway. My problem is that the chorus bores me, musically. Like, it hurts. There are two notes I think? And the beat is the same throughout. I always sort of ignored this song before, but on actively trying to listen to it, I have started to hate it. It doesn't interact well with my brain chemistry.

The Knack -- "My Sharona" -- August 25, 1979

This became a hit again when Reality Bites came out. So I danced in a convenience store to it my freshman year of college. We were "of the younger kind" then, considering I was 17. That made me like the song better -- it was about me! Rock isn't supposed to be clean, and you're really not supposed to take it as advice. The riff is amazing, and I love this song.

Robert John -- "Sad Eyes" -- October 6, 1979

I've never heard this song before. The music box sounding intro lasts a while and lulls you into complacency before the horrible falsetto kicks in. Not only extremely 70s white man falsetto, but an entitled brat of a man breaking up with a woman and being put out that she's looking at him with "sad eyes." Incredibly bad in an incredibly 70s way. I can see why I've never heard this song before. It's absolutely terrible.

Michael Jackson -- "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" -- October 13, 1979

Sigh. All right, now that he's an adult, gotta tackle Michael Jackson. He was a rampant and, as far as we know, unrepentant child molester. He destroyed people in the most personal way possible short of actual murder. (Phil Spector is still worse.) He was murdered through at least extreme malpractice by his doctor. He was forced into stardom as a child himself. And he was a huge, massive, incredibly gigantic star, even after he became a punchline. I was never a big fan, but like most children of the 80s, I loved some of his songs and spent a lot of time doing the moonwalk, or as close as I could get. I feel an immense amount of pity for him, along with utterly despising him, along with admiring his talent, along with being sickened by the fact that Hollywood and the music industry knew and no one did anything about what he was doing. All in all, I end up at this place: Child stardom must end.

Okay, now for the music. This song takes forever to actually start. Also I have actually never heard it before today. Probably because it's falsetto. Jackson's falsetto is obviously far superior to Barry Gibb's, but it's still falsetto the whole song. The riff is great once it starts, and everything about the music should be good -- but, falsetto. The whole time, as far as I can tell. I can't listen to all of it. Whose idea was it that falsetto should ever be anything other than an occasional few bars? Was it Frankie Valli? I'm gonna blame Frankie Valli.

Herb Alpert -- "Rise" -- October 20, 1979

It's a jazz-funk instrumental and it's pretty good. Piano, guitar, trumpet, some kind of glittering thing -- xylophone? Bells? The people laughing like it's a laid-back party are annoying, but not enough to wreck the song. If this doesn't play on every cruise ship ever, they're missing a trick.

M -- "Pop Music" -- November 3, 1979

I saw the title, and thought I didn't know the song. Then I heard the first bars of the song and went, "OH this one." It's New Wave. I love a lot of New Wave, but this one's on the purposefully shallow end, rather than the Eurythmics end. The lyrics are nonsense, but the beat is pretty irresistable. Which makes it a dance song, whatever its intent. One of the lines is, "Dance in the supermarket," so it probably was intended to be danced to. In any case, I find it pretty forgettable, but fine.

The Eagles -- "Heartache Tonight" -- November 10, 1979

I've heard this song before, but not often. I'm not sure if it's about sex before a breakup or about cheating. Don Henley does not have Elvis' voice, though he seems to be trying to reach that level. Real power is required for the chorus, and Henley lacks it. If this were sung by Freddie Mercury, we'd have something. Queen also would have brought more musical interest generally. But as-is, it doesn't work for me.

The Commodores' -- "Still" -- November 17, 1979

Lionel Richie was still the frontman/ writer for The Commodores here. Should I explore why I can't stand Lionel Richie's music? I'd have to listen to it more to fully understand. It always sounds totally insincere to me. The songs themselves are too slow. This one doesn't have a bassline. It's so polished and gloopy. And in this song, that pause between "I love you" and "still" is both highly predictable and entirely phony. I managed to listen to the entire song, and I rolled my eyes throughout, but especially at that last whispered "still." Oh he's just so sad puh-leaze. Crying his way to the bank.

Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer -- "No More Tears" -- November 24, 1979

I hate Barbra Streisand's singing and like Donna Summer's. I wish this were just Donna Summer. If it were, I'd probably like the song. It's slow for almost 2 minutes, then becomes disco. Streisand isn't able to do as much self-loving in a fast dance song, but it's still there. I tried to find a version with just Donna Summer and failed. So, I dunno, the fact that I can actually listen to the whole thing makes me think it's the most tolerable song with Barbra Streisand in existence. But it would have been so much better without her.

Styx -- "Babe" -- December 8, 1979

Styx was prog rock, but watered-down, simplified prog-rock. Lite prog rock, as weird as that is. But they still had that massive theatricality of prog rock, which I like, and they were great for places like Pine Knob. Outside of those massive arenas, they don't work for me. Dennis DeYoung, the writer and singer of this song, belts the whole way through. Yeah, he hits the notes, but he doesn't seem to realize you're supposed to sometimes modulate, even on a power ballad. Meh.

Rupert Holmes -- "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" -- December 22, 1979

If you take this song seriously, you're likely to hate it. It ain't that deep. It's a goofy song about a goofy thing -- both he and his wife are bored and want to cheat, so they write personal ads, and lo, they answer each other's personals! Though how that happens when they're the blandest Reaganite yuppies ever, I'm not sure. Maybe it's because they're both full of themselves ("if you have half a brain.") I enjoy this song because it is catchy, silly, and totally non-serious. I do not like pina coladas, btw.

BEST OF 1979: "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. WORST OF 1979: "Love You Inside Out" by the Bee Gees

#billboard number ones

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youtuberswithalex · 5 years ago

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Aight Imma do a rundown, the others will add on when they’re out

Alter: Alex Mettleson

-Age: 22 (Aging linearly) -Formed: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Been around for a while. Been the host since 2016 after he and Emmy split in half, so technically since 2013-ish? -Theme color: Blue (although Red’s been coming WAY high up on his favorite list since starting his Youtube stuff) -Career choice: Youtube! -Side most like: Logan -Queer stuff: Trans, aroace! -Fun facts about him: Only one who’s out during Phi Mu Alpha stuff, and the only one who “knows” anything of it in the system!

Alter: Emmy Seymour

-Age: 20 (Aging linearly; originally the same age as Alex, but when they split, she went dormant until 2019, so she’s two years younger now, but they still call themselves twins) -Formed: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Again, been co-host since last summer, but technically since 2013-ish -Theme color: Pink!!! But she also really loves yellow -Career choice: Artist~ -Side most like: Roman -Queer stuff: HUGE LESBIAN -Fun facts about her: Chose her birthday to be the same day as the NASA moon mission because she loves space, and, coincidentally, we got to celebrate her first birthday on the day of the 50th anniversary!

Alter: Turner Imin (that’s me!)

-Age: 23 (Aging linearly) -Formed: 2003/2004-ish? -Theme color: Greeeeeeen -Career choice: I’d love to be a park ranger, but god knows the body could not handle that, nor could all the alters after we had a traumatizing hiking situation (not like, getting attacked by a bear, but we were hiking for like two days on a church mission trip, and we got severely dehydrated and nearly had to go to the hospital, and we had severe panic attacks on the nights we had to camp out, so. Yeah. Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal. I just like being able to hang out with Alex again) -Side most like: R E M U S -Queer stuff: Bi, or something. Also this doesn’t technically go in this category, but I know it causes a lot of confusion-- I’m a girl. (I think.) Always have been a cis girl. My name’s Turner because I named myself after our 1st Grade teacher, and we didn’t know it was a boy’s name until, like, 6th grade, at which point I was too attached to it to change it. I might be an enby, I dunno. Maybe it’s just because of Emmy being so femme, but. I’m a girl, I go by she/her pronouns forever -Fun facts about her: I was the first alter to form! I’ve been around for, like, ever. Alex and I grew up together, and when he was “””too old””” for “””imaginary friends””” he made me a character in a lot of his stories, so if you see me in some of his old fics, that’s why!

Edit: OH ALSO I ALMOST FORGOT WE’RE SPECULATING THAT I HAVE BIPLOAR DISORDER AND AM A TRAUMA HOLDER WHUPAH *finger guns*

Alter: Eddie

-Age: 16 (permanent age... for now) -Formed: 2011-ish? -Theme color: Red or black and white -Career choice: “I don’t fucking know, I’m a goddamn teenager, what do you want from me? I want to fucking exist” -Side most like: Virgil -Queer stuff: N/A -Fun facts about him: He’s got a tongue piercing, and when he aged up from 14 to 16 last November, he went from being a cute kid version of Alex to this sick punk kid (and grew into himself a lot)

Alter: Evan Polters

-Age: 38 (permanent age) -Formed: Late 2019 -Theme color: Black/white (mostly white) -Career choice: Doctor (Medical practitioner, specifically) -Side most like: Logan. Hands down -Queer stuff: I think he’s gay? I dunno. He’s a single dad and doesn’t talk about having any partners or anything -Fun facts about him: He’s British and is in charge of our hygiene. The first thing he did after forming was take over and make the body brush its teeth for the first time in months. That was fun to explain to our therapist

Alter: Boulos

-Age: ????? Maybe ageless??? -Formed: Late 2019 -Theme color: Purple? -Career choice: Philosopher -Side most like: Deceit -Queer stuff: N/A -Fun facts about him: He’s the first Alter that gave us a SUCKY split. Spent the whole night trembling and having horrible anxiety, until we got a bad headache and then there he was! Took him a long time to settle on a name, too. Liked Boulos bc he wanted a “Paul” name and it’s the Arabic version of that (iirc). Also based his appearance off of the name, so, dude’s Middle Eastern

There’s two more that don’t want to be introduced, but, those are the main ones for now, I guess. We had some others in the past, and we’re still learning more about the system (There are definitely others that Alex hasn’t met yet), but, like I said, we’ll update this as people want to. Hope you like the intro!

-Turner :P

#alter talk #alter introduction #osdd #system talk #turner talks

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redfoxwritesstuff · 5 years ago

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Coffee and a Wedding (Chapter 8)

I am so sorry this is late. I’m a idiot and the long weekend threw off my mental calendar for some reason. On that note- if you see it’s a update day and my update is really late for a ongoing series. Like really late. Like over 12 hours late- feel free to drop me a line and make sure I know what day it is. You may just save @winterisakiller from having to see my brain finger filter fall apart and my message change mid sentence from something reasonable and on topic to “OH MY GOD IT’S TUESDAY”

@tnystrk-exe look how far I am in the tropetastic story! The end is near! (I totally keep forgetting to tag you for some weird ass reason)

On that note, I’m still raising funds for my trip to NYC next month- it’s my birthday trip so please excuse my shameless drop of the Ko-fi link.

Clint x ofc- the rest of the chapters are on my Masterlist

Chapter 8

I wasn’t entirety sure why Clint and I were required to attend the rehearsal but we were. It was probably mother’s doing. I’d managed to dodge her so far, the need to study made a good cover and I was thankful for it. With exams done and papers turned in, there was no way to get out of it.

So I dawned a sundress and pulled my hair back in a braid. Clint slipped into a nice pair of jeans and a button down shirt that somehow fit him perfectly, as if it was made for him.

“Dashing.” I laugh as I finally slip out of the bathroom and catch Clint twisting and turning in front of the large mirror on the dresser, fussing with his hair.

“You think?” The way he smiled at me- god he needs to stop doing that. It was like his whole face lit up and I gave him a shining gift or a cup of espresso or something. It was too easy to let myself believe he smiled that way because he valued my opinion.

“Yes-” There was knocking on the door before I could figure out a way to tell him he didn’t have to keep the act up all the time. Not when we were alone. “I’ll get it. Can’t have your hair less than perfect. Go back to fussing with your hair.”

“You sure?” Clint asked, leaning forward and poking at his hair.

Rolling my eyes, I made my way to the door. As soon as I opened the door, the act would be back on. Though if I’m honest, it felt like with Clint, he never stopped acting. It would be easier if he didn’t act the same regardless of if there were witnesses. If he would please stop acting like the perfect boyfriend all the time, that'd be great.

“Alexis!” Mom rushed through the door and wrapped me up in her arms before I even had the door opened all the way. “It’s been forever- you need to come home more often.”

“I can’t mom, classes and all that.” She pulled back from me and looked around with a ‘humph’. It was never a good sign when she made that sound.

“And is this the infamous Mr. Barton?” She let go of me and invited herself into the room. Clint looked over at where mom was storming her way through the space toward him, his eyes wide. Reaching out, he offered a hand as she came up to him with me trailing behind.

“Clint, please. And who might you be? Another sister?” I rolled my eyes so hard that I almost tripped.

“Sister?” Mom laughed. “Oh, I know I look young- too young but I’m the mother of the bride.” Too young my ass.

“Oh well,” He took her hand in his and brought her knuckles to his lips in a perfect Disney prince kiss and mom about melted. “It’s a pleasure to meet she who raised such lovely girls.”

“You can just call me Mary. Or Mom- it’s never too soon to start calling me mom.”

“Mom.” I scolded and though I couldn’t see it, I’m damned sure she smiled even wider.

“Well, maybe we’ll leave the ‘Mom’ title for Mathews to take up this week and we’ll see about that later, yeah?” He gave her a hundred watt smile and for a second I though about grabbing a vase and throwing it at him. How dare he have the never to be so charming.

“That’s a nice watch, you’ve got.” Mom ran her fingers over the watch as I made my way to Clint’s side to better supervise.

“Yeah- It’s served me well.” He chuckled, running his fingertips over the face of the watch.

“I think Matt has a newer model- he was talking about it at breakfast this morning.”

“I’m sure he was.” There was a hint of something in his voice that made me wonder exactly how much he didn’t like Matt. I felt bad, he kept having to spend time with such an offensive man. “I’ve got others- this one was a gift though so…”

Mom followed him, helping herself to a seat at the small table. “You’re a sentimental man?”

“I am.” He laughed as he pulled a chair out for me before sitting down himself. “I can’t help it.”

“Were they all gifts?”

“Mom!” I couldn’t believe her.

I mean, she always had a desire to see her daughters marry up in the world. She herself had worked two jobs to raise us for over half of our childhood before she fell in love with and married a wealthy businessman. They were in love, sickeningly so, but still sometimes she had a bit of a materialistic view. She couldn’t help it and I never held it against her.

“No.” He laughed but his shoulders looked a little stiff. “Some I purchased myself over the years.”

“You manage well, being a small business owner?”

“Well enough.” He laced his fingers through mine. “I manage the security servers for Stark industries on the side.”

“Oh, I see- so you work two jobs.” It wasn’t judgment in her voice but something else. Maybe a shadow of disappointment?

“Hardly. It’s mostly automated but I’m on hand if something flags when Tony’s out of the building. It pays well enough. It gave me the free time and finances to open the cafe and pay my staff a living wage from the beginning.”

“Still, I’m sure it’s exhausting, being on call. I know, Lexie says you pay everyone really well for the job- maybe if you paid them more what the market-”

“I only work for Tony now because he’s a friend. He trusts me. I work for him because it’s a habit. It's easier for everyone if I keep doing it. I don’t need the money- the cafe makes enough to sustain itself, the employees wages and myself as is.” It looked like he was bragging but it also felt a bit like he was a bit defensive. From the moment he had met Matt, it seemed like every time I turned around someone was questioning Clint’s finances. People kept insinuating that he didn’t have money or that if he did, I was with him for it.

It was frustrating me. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair and honestly, he didn’t sign up for this in agreeing to be my fake boyfriend.

~~~~~<3

“So,” Clint drew the word out as soon as the door shut behind mom.

“I am so sorry. I- You didn’t-” Why was this so fucking complicated?

He waved his hand at me. “No, don’t- that’s whatever. Just- I never thought to ask how serious we are.”

“What?”

“I mean- how serious do they think we are?”

“Casual-ish.” I answered, we were expected to meet everyone on the beach shortly and I still tried to avoid talking about the things I told my family about Clint before. It was weird and he thought it had nothing to do with him. All that he shared with my imaginary boyfriend before the invitation hit his hand was a name,

Except that wasn’t true at all and I knew it. That made it all the worse.

“Mother dearest seems to hope for more.”

“Mother dearest needs to mind her own business,”

~~~~~<3

The rehearsal was boring. Mind numbingly boring. Mom told me again and again that it was a great honor to get to spend the day with the wedding party as they practiced walking down the aisle. It's walking. Don't trip. Wouldn't it be better to practice in the dress? Walking in a sundress and walking in a 20 pound gown are two different things. Even now, I'm not sure I buy it. But it was better to shut up, show up and smile.

I watched Matt spend far longer than needed debating how he should stand at the alter. He kept asking if the light was hitting his ‘good side’ while he twisted and turned. The more time we spent with him, the more I was starting to think he didn’t have a ‘good side’.

What Sarah saw in him was beyond me.

Still, we sat and watched as bridesmaids made their way up and down the aisle. The little flower girl pretended to toss flowers here and there again and again. The groom’s mother kept having people redo things, changing how they walked, moved and stood to fit some perfect vision in her head.

Yeah, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the whole family.

This went on for hours. When I dozed off, the look Matt’s father gave me could have killed weaker person. Clint took to squeezing my hand whenever I dozed, thankfully keeping me from being murdered by the Matthews family.

Finally it was over. It felt like we had been sitting here forever. It really didn’t make me look forward to the actual wedding tomorrow, that’s for sure. Standing made my knees and back pop in a way that would have been more fitting for Clint. It wasn’t fair that his joints weren’t putting on a show. I was the young one, damnit.

Mom made some speech but I honestly hadn’t been listening. Matt’s mother said some words that I also didn’t listen to and finally, we were free. At least I assume so, Clint pulled me toward the doors. Others worked their way outside and into their cars. The rehearsal dinner was to be held at the only Italian restaurant on the island. The whole party room was rented out and perfectly set up for us when we arrived. Sarah wrapped me in a warm hug before taking her seat at the what was set up as the head of a large round table.

Dinner went well enough and one glass of wine turned into two. Before I knew it, I needed a third to get through the boring dinner conversation and the food had only just arrived. Clint wasn’t far behind me in that regard.

It was hard not to get caught up in my mind. Every time Matt moved, the light would reflect off some glitter still clinging to his scalp. Did Sarah know what had actually gone down a few nights ago? How much glitter did he have on him for there to still be some now? How could she stay with him if she did? How could he do that to her?

“So, Clint-” Mom started, leaning far too close. She’d had a few glasses of wine herself as she nibbled at her salad. “Aren’t you worried about eventually supporting a family on a small business income?”

“A family?” I choked at the words, my lasagna lodging itself in my throat as Clint leaned back, glass if whiskey in his hand.

“I’ve made a point to live humbly but I’m not worried.” He answered shortly. I knew he was getting tired of this constant questioning of his means.

“Oh- It’s very good to live within your means.” My step-father, Kurt agreed from where he sat next to Mom. He was always standoffish with us and honestly, I was surprised to see him join the conversation.

“I can assure you, I live well below my means.” There was a sharpness in his voice that I couldn’t place. Yet his face looked relaxed when I looked toward him.

Kurt laughed, waving his fork. There was a lack of animosity in Kurt’s side of the conversation, something completely different than when everyone else interacted with Clint and I.

“That’s good to hear.” Kurt took a sip of his wine before continuing. “I’ve seen more than a few well established men end up bankrupt due to poor money handling and the fickle nature of markets.”

“So then, how much do you make?” Clint’s quickly relaxing posture tensed once again when Matt’s mother jumped into the conversation.

“I really would rather not-”

“I can’t imagine a cafe makes much take home profits.” Matt’s father joined in. Mom was paying far too much attention to the current line of conversation.

“If you must know- and I suspect you think you must- I take home six figures. I am more than comfortable.” Kurt’s eyebrow raised and there was a hint of a smile there as Clint seemed to struggle to resist the urge to jump down someone’s throat.

“My Matt,” Mrs. Matthews patted her son’s shoulder. “He’s going to be putting Sarah through school. She’s going back for her Master’s and my Mattie is going to put her through. She’s such an amazing addition to the family. She’ll be great in business.”

“Karen!” Sarah scolded, leaning forward to playfully glare at her soon to be Mother-in-law. “I hadn’t told anyone yet!”

“And Matt is going to support you through this?” Mom asked, leaning again into the conversation.

“Yeah, Mom,” Sarah laced her fingers with Matt’s and looked at him with pure adoration that made me want to vomit. She had to not know about last night. There was no way in hell she knew. “We were originally planning on waiting to tell anyone until after the wedding but… I’ll be quitting Barsols and going back in the fall full time.”

Part of me wanted to roll my eyes. Of course, her announcement was met with approval. Sure, the soon to be married sister can quit her job and go back to school and it’s great. If I put myself through school in the city it’s ‘not a good choice’ and a ‘waste of resources’.

Yeah, okay. You could say I’m a little bitter. Or even more than a little bitter. For a while, I ate and finished my glass of wine while ignoring the rest of the group as best I could. It was better I kept my mouth shut so I didn’t say something I would regret.

“So,” Mom started, eyeing me as a slice of cake was set in front of each of us. “If Alexis were to wish to quit her job, what would you think?”

“Me?” Clint asked, forkful of cake halfway to his mouth. “It would suck- she’s my best barista.”

It was an honest answer and I couldn’t fault him for it, he had a few glasses to drink and was starting to feel it. At least, I thought he was starting to feel it. His cheeks were pink tinged and he smiled easy and moaned deeply when he captured the bite of cake. It was a sinful sound and I hated him for it.

“But she’d still be in school. She’d have expenses.” Mom was fishing and I was going to kill her for it.

“That would be her problem. And if she decided to quit the cafe, I’d like to assume she had a plan in place to cover those expenses.” He seemed more interested in the cake than the conversation. I had to agree, the cake was far better.

“But if she didn’t?”

“Mom.” Sarah scolded.

“You want to hear that I’d cover everything for her? All her expenses? Pay any tuition she needed paid? Be her knight in shining armor?” Clint was clearly getting short with her. “I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Matt asked. “Isn’t she worth it? Sarah is wroth it to me.” Yeah, well you’re getting married buddy. Clint’s just my fake boyfriend.

“She is. I care for her deeply. I also respect her and she respects me. I’d expect that she wouldn’t put me in that position without discussing it with me before making the choice. And I don’t see any reason why she would quit that would leave her well being as my responsibility.”

“So you’d just let her starve?” Matt’s mother was outraged.

“I didn’t say that. I will not allow any of those who have worked for me starve while they are doing everything they can to help themselves. Regardless of our relationship, I wouldn’t let her starve as long as she was working to help herself as well.”

The conversation died as it became clear Clint’s mood was turning foul. There wasn’t anything I could think to do or say that would make this better. All I could do was pray that we’d make it through the Wedding and get back to New York without Clint hating me.

“Barton.” Kurtis stood and looked expectantly at Clint. “Walk with me, won’t you?”

“Sure thing.” I wished there was a way to tell him how sorry I was as he got up. I was honestly surprised when he leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a bit, Babe. Don’t miss me too much.”

“Maybe we should go for a walk too?” Sarah asked as Clint disappeared through the doors.

“What?” Why now?

“I just- I feel like we haven’t really gotten to catch up since you got here.

I followed Sarah out the other set of doors. Our heels sank into the sand but she didn’t seem to mind. It was quite outside. Waves rolled across the sand in the distance. Tomorrow, she would be getting married on a stretch of beach like this.

“About Matt.” I couldn’t take the silence any longer.

“I know you don’t like him. And I get why- he and Clint seem to get along like oil and water.”

“I- did you see the glitter? Stripper dust? Do you really believe they just had a peaceful night in and played games last night?” I couldn’t take it anymore.

“The glitter?”

“In his hair.” I picked at my nails. “There were strippers there. He hooked up with one.”

“And you know this from glitter?” Sarah’s voice was cold but it wasn’t ice directed at the man who she was to marry. It was directed at me. I opened my mouth, intending to tell her that Clint had pictures but she cut me off. “Look, if you don’t trust Clint, that’s your deal. He’s older so I get it. But he seems head over heels for you, so figure it out. Maybe if you were more affectionate with him you wouldn’t feel like he’s cheating on you.”

“I never said he was-”

“No, you said there were probably strippers at the tame party because of glitter. And if you must know- Matt had glitter with him because I asked him to pick some up. He has glitter in his hair because we are children and ended up in a glitter war last night when he came home.”

“No Sarah-”

“Listen.” She turned to face me, grabbing my arms and giving me a firm shake to keep my attention. “If you love Clint, give him some affection. Mom’s not going to freak and Kurt will live. Kiss the man. Touch him. Stop pretending you’re at work or something and that the world will implode if someone sees you.”

“What?”

“You hardly seem like you’re together. Just- if you want to keep a man like that you’ve got to stop playing these games.”

“I’m not-”

“Just stop hiding, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good girl. I love you Lexie. Clint and Kurt are coming. I’ll take Kurt and free Clint from mom’s grilling.”

“Thank you.” Sarah was a few feet away before I called for her. When she turned and looked at me, I forced a smile. If I can’t make her see, I could pray it was a one time event. “You’re getting married tomorrow!”

“I’m getting married tomorrow!” She squealed before running off, snagging Kurt and wishing Clint a good night in the process.

~~~~~<3

Tag list: @theheartofpenelope, @bradfordbantams, @ruebx, @hufflepuff25, @0-0-0-0-0-0-0-7, @theoneanna, @alexakeyloveloki, @toozmanykids, @j-u-s-t-4, @missaphrodite23, @winterisakiller, @bambamwolf87, @nonsensicalobsessions, @tinchentitri, @xoxabs88xox, @queenoftheunderdark, @wegingerangelica, @myoxisbroken, @coyotesongwriting

#clint x original female character #clint x original character #clint x reader #clint barton x reader #clint x ofc #clint barton x oc #Clint Barton x Female Reader #clint x oc #clint barton fanfiction

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kayteewritessteve · 5 years ago

Text

If Only You Knew - 11/19

Description: You arrive home one day to find a wedding invite for two of your best friends from high school. You knew this day was going to come eventually, but even with that said, you weren’t prepared to return home. At least not after 7 years of avoiding Buckhannon, West Virginia. Or rather, avoiding him; your ex-best friend and the secret love of your life. But maybe it was finally time to face your past, to face him, and everything else that happened on that horrible night. Who would have knew that your prom would end up being a total disaster, and the very last night you’d spend in Buckhannon for the next 7 years? you certainly didn’t. That’s for sure.

Catch up HERE.

Word Count: 6,060 ish. She’s a big one.

Pairing: Modern!Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Violence. Drinking. Bad and offensive jokes. Possible triggering thoughts, feelings and emotions. Moments of bullying and harsh name calling. Lots of curse words. And a very sloooow burn.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

July 2018 - Present.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nat seethed as she paced an actual line into the soft, tan coloured sand. Her mood matching the bright red two piece she currently had on, “how dare she!”

“I’m going to knock her out,” Hilde said, much too calmly for your liking. She was currently laying on her back, on a giant blanket on the ground, wearing massive dark shades, and a white bikini that accented her skin tone almost too well. Girl was a babe for sure, but right now she looked far too peaceful to be threatening anyone. And yet she was, and that made you inwardly cringe, just a little.

“I think she needs actually mental help,” Wanda said without looking up from the novel open in her hands, as she sat in a fold up chair. “And I’d know. I am a therapist, after all.”

“Ladies,” you sighed, “she isn’t worth it. And she never actually said Steve’s name. I was the idiot who jumped to conclusions,” you said as you shook your head. You had clearly blown that whole interaction way out of proportion. Like always. Fuck.

“That’s no excuse,” Nat abruptly stopped her pacing, to point at you. “She did it on purpose to hurt you. Just like in fucking high school,” her fists balled up at her sides then she huffed and started to pace again.

“Seriously. The next time I see her, it’s game on,” Hilde said, again, far too calmly for your liking.

“I say we just have her committed for a check,” Wanda shrugged nonchalantly.

“Okay, no one is beating anyone up. We aren’t in high school anymore. And no psych evals,” you stated then stomped over to Nat and placed yourself in front of her, on part of the line she was quickly forming. And once she came to a grinding halt you grabbed both her shoulders to force her to look you in the eyes. “Nat, you are literally marrying a cop in 3 days. And gaining another cop as basically a damn brother in law. You can’t go around attacking people, you’ll end up in jail, and Bucky will be pissed at me for that!”

Then you released her shoulders and turned to point at Hilde, “and the same goes for you, your best friends are the same two cops, and you’re a trained MMA fighter for crying out loud. If you attack her you’ll be charged with ‘assault with a deadly weapon’. Because Hilde, you are the deadly weapon,” you stressed the last part.

Then you looked over at Wanda, who had finally looked up from her book, “I don’t actually know anything around the rules for being a therapist, but I am willing to bet that committing someone because they enjoy bullying your friend is against at least one of them. If not all of them,” you sighed and shook your head. “So the three of you just need to drop this. I fell for her bullshit, again, but that’s on me. I’ll own that. But I can’t have any of you taking the fall for it. You got that?” You shook your head again, this time crossing your arms as well, “I won’t allow that,” you said firmly.

“Fine,” Nat and Wanda mumbled, as the latter focused back on her book.

“Yeah. Got it,” Hilde nodded and waved you off.

“Good,” you smiled and dropped your arms, “now let’s enjoy this beautiful day at the lake, and just forget about Madeleine and her bullshit, okay?” You looked between the three. “We all need a nice relaxing day before the craziness of this wedding picks up again.”

“Valid point,” Nat said as she wandered over to the blanket and laid down beside Hilde. “Get your butt over here punk,” she commanded.

“Punk, really?” You laughed. “You spend way to much time with Bucky,” you shook your head then went and joined them on the blanket.

“No such thing as too much time together when you’re marrying the guy,” Nat laughed.

“Oh, no, there is totally a thing as too much time together,” Wanda laughed, “but oddly enough, I think you two are the exception to the norm.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Hilde said with a chuckle and you laughed as well. Then the four of you lounged in the sun, working on your tans and waiting on the boys to show up.

It was about 20 minutes later when a flirty voice came from somewhere near you all. “Ladies,” they cooed and you recognized the voice instantly. Sam. You peeked through your eyelids and turned your head towards the voice, seeing the four guys making their way towards you. “You’re all looking stunning, as always,” he said as they reached the three of you.

“Calm down, Casanova,” Nat said with a smirk as she sat up, and Wanda giggled at the name.

While Hilde just chuckled from her spot, “you’re such a suck up.”

“Hey!” he laughed, “I am not a suck up! I just say it like it is,” he winked, causing you to snort and shake your head, deciding to stay out of this one. Bucky plopped down on the blanket near his fiancee, while the other three popped open their folded up chairs and got all set up.

“You better not be hitting on my soon to be wife, Sammy,” Bucky said flatly then kissed Nat on the cheek.

“Why? Worried she’ll dump your ass and get with a real man?” He shot back.

Without missing a beat, Bucky relied, “Hey Sam, can I talk to you in the water for a second?” He paused as a half smirk appeared on his lips, “I just wanna show you something real quick.”

Clint leaned towards Sam to whisper—though it wasn’t really that quiet, as the whole group clearly heard him, “he means that he’s going to try to drowned you. Just so you know.”

“I know that,” Sam said quickly while he playfully swatted Clint away, “but I’d like to see him try.”

“Oh, I’d do more then try,” Bucky mumbled loudly.

Steve just laughed and shook his head at his friends, then everyone exchanged there hello’s and hi’s before they all started to settle in and chat amongst themselves.

You turned to look just as Steve reached behind himself so he could yank his extremely tight t-shirt off—Yes, in that super sexy way, where the guy grabs the back neck collar of their shirt and pulls it over their head. He was like a damn GQ model, and that frustrated the hell out of you.

You tried with everything in your power to not gawk at him, but the sight of him shirtless still made you extremely dazed and confused, even after all this time. You snuck a quick glance as the shirt covered his face, realizing that he was even more jacked than he was in high school. Which was fucking ridiculous. How he could possibly get any more toned was beyond you. It just wasn’t fair for one man to be this fucking attractive.

Just as he finished pulling his shirt off—the too small article of clothing surprisingly not getting stuck on him—you quickly shook your head then turned to stare off at the water. Hoping your heated cheeks wouldn’t give you away, or rather, that no one would notice them. But just to be safe you stood up, mumbling a ‘be right back’ than walked over to the edge of the water, sitting down to dip your feet in.

As you sat there, looking out at the lake, the calm water and beautiful bright green trees lining the waters edge made your mind start to wander. Remembering the first time you had ever been brought to this very spot. It was the second summer you’d spent in Buckhannon—if we’re counting the summer you’d moved to town as the first—it was also the first day of summer break, and the last day before Steve left for his annual, summer long, family vacation…

July 2010 - 8 years ago.

You stopped dead in your tracks once your eyes caught the view laid out in front of you. Your friends all continuing to walk to their spot, unfazed by the beauty that surrounded you all. Clearly they had been here so many times that they barely noticed anymore. But for you, this was a first.

Now you’d been to a few lakes before, back in Cleveland, or rather, one lake, one very giant lake; Lake Erie. Which was not only huge, but was also encircled by a few major cities and settled smack dab on the border between America and Canada.

So needless to say, the lake in front of you right now was entirely different from what you were used to. And there was just something about a small town watering hole that was both awe inspiring and breathtaking.

“You okay?” You heard Steve’s voice coming from beside you and it snapped you back to reality.

“Huh?” You looked over at him, “Yeah. Yes. Just admiring the view,” you smiled up at him then you looked back towards to lake, both of you standing in silence for a moment.

“You know,” he started, breaking the comfortable silence. “I’d completely forgotten just how beautiful this place is. Guess I just needed a new set of eyes to remind me,” he nodded, thoughtfully.

“I’m nothing if not super helpful,” you said with a quick nod. “You should know that by now, Stevie,” you smirked.

Which caused him to laugh and roll his eyes playfully as he said, “oh, don’t worry, I do.”

“Good,” you laughed then you both headed towards where your friends were setting up their stuff.

Once you had your little spot set up, you pulled off the dress you’d been wearing over your bathing suit, which was just simple, black, and fit you perfectly. You discarded the dress on top of your bag then laid down and chatted with your friends for a little while. It was a gorgeous day out, hot and humid, so you’d go dunk yourself in the beautiful water from time to time. Mostly alone but sometimes a friend or two would tag along for a dip in the water as well.

Now as you laid on your beach towel, working on your tan, your stomach decided it was a good time to speak up. Reminding you that it did, in fact, exist. The loud grumble made you and the others laugh, and you figured now was a good time for some french fries.

As you all had made your way in from the parking lot, you’d noticed a concession stand near the main beach. You’d also taken note of the giant menu on the side of the building—or rather, you’d noticed fries were very much on that menu. You stood up and slipped on your flip flops as you looked around at your lounging friends. “I’m gonna go get some fries from the concession, anyone want anything?”

Everyone responded with the one or two things they wanted or a head shake saying they were good. You made mental notes for the few items that had been requested.

But then your eyes landed on Bucky, noticing his were widened with excitement. “Food sounds like a fantastic plan,” he said as he stood up and walked over to his pile of things. “I can always eat,” he added as he pulled his wallet out and went to grab money to give you but you waved him off.

“It’s okay, Buck, I got it. Just tell me what you want.”

“You may want to give him a limit,” Steve laughed from his fold up chair.

“Yeah, don’t give him free reign or he’ll drain your bank account with that bottomless pit of his,” Sam shook his head and chuckled as he patted Bucky on the stomach. They’d always had a weird love/hate dynamic. They were downright rude to each other sometimes, but yet they both never got truly offended by any of it. And if anyone else messed with either of them, the other was always the first in line to defend them. You were all used to the banter now.

Bucky swatted Sam’s hand away, and playfully said, “get your grubby hands off me, bird boy.”

The nickname causing a few of you to laugh quietly or snort. Sam was in love with planes—or anything aerospace related, for that matter—and would always say, that if he could have any super power, it would be flight. No questions about it.

Most kids at this age have no clue what they want to be when they ‘grow up’. But Sam, oh he knew. He had wanted to be a pilot since he was a kid, and already had his private pilots license. And had flown a handfull of times on his own already. So as soon as high school was done, his plan was to go for his commercial license, then start applying at all the major airlines. He had it all worked out, and you were so happy for him, but also slightly jealous, as you had no clue what you wanted to be when you ‘grew up’. But knew you’d figure it out one day. Hopefully soon. But as for the nickname, Bucky had jokingly called Sam ‘bird boy’ once in passing, and it had just stuck.

A smile broke out on your face just as Bucky began to list off all the things he wanted. Which then caused your smile to drop, as you damn near fell over at just how long that list actually was. Luckily for you, Steve offered to help you carry everything back. And you ended up accepting Bucky’s offer to cover the cost, as Sam was right, he would have drained your whole back account. And then some. Guy was clearly a black hole, where food was concerned. You’d even go so far as to label him ‘The Human Garburator’.

But that’s neither here nor there, as now you and Steve were standing alone by the concession stand, waiting for the massive order, as you looked around at all the happy lake goers. Kids splashing in the water, teens sunbathing and laughing amongst themselves, adults trying to wrangle their little ones and bath them in sunscreen. The whole thing made you extremely aware that it was, in fact, summer. And that you’d have to say goodbye to your best friend for 2 whole months.

You’d been dreading this day for weeks, in these last few months he’d become such a huge part of your life. The biggest part if you were being honest, and the thought of not seeing him, talking to him or just having him hang out and watch a movie with you, was devastating, to say the least.

He was your rock, your therapist, your bodyguard, your best friend and the one person you truly felt you could just be you around. No walls. No effort. No faking—Well minus hiding your insanely huge crush, but that was a different matter entirely—You’d never had anyone like him in your life before, and you vowed months ago that you’d never let him go and you’d always have him. No matter what. He was that one constant that would always be there. And that thought is what would give you the strength to make it through these next two months without him.

You turned to look up at him, you’d both been standing there in silence, clearly he’d been lost in thought as well. The look on his face instantly confirmed your suspicions that he was, in fact, lost in his mind as he stared off blankly at the water, just like you’d been doing.

“I’m going to miss you,” you said softly.

That caught his attention and he turned his head to look down at you, “I’m going to miss you, too,” he nodded.

You could feel the tears stinging the back of your eyes from both your omissions. You hadn’t really allowed yourself to think too much about him leaving, as you knew you’d break down instantly. He must have noticed your internal struggle to hold back your tears as he turned his body towards you and his large arms encircled you, pulling you in close to his chest.

As your cheek met the bare skin of his pectoral muscle, your mind was instantly reminded that he was still very much shirtless, and you were now very much pressed into his skin. You felt the heat begin to raise, starting in your chest and working it’s way up. You chided yourself for having this reaction, but this was also the first time you’d ever hugged him shirtless and the softness of his skin, mixed with the firmness and heat caused the butterflies to take off in your stomach. No matter how hard you tried to not focus on all of that, your mind had other ideas.

Then he sweetly kissed the top of your head and it just made your mind run even more. He left his face pressed into your hair as he spoke quietly, “I’ve been dreading this day for weeks.”

You nodded as you weren’t sure if your voice would work or not. The lump in your throat and the stinging in your eyes both told you it probably wouldn’t. But when a soft sniffle sounded from your nose, Steve stiffened and pulled away from you just enough to look down at your face. You didn’t want him to see you like this, but he gently grabbed your cheek to force you to look up at him, locking your eyes with his beautiful blues.

“Hey, it’s okay, Y/N,” he said and then the eye contact was broken as his drifted over your features slowly while his thumb wiped away the stray tear you hadn’t been able to stop. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he added quietly, guilt clear in his voice.

You shook your head, and went to speak, you weren’t sure how your voice was going to sound, but you couldn’t allow him to feel bad for something he didn’t do. “You didn’t upset me at all. I’ve been dreading this day as well. I just don’t know what I’m going to do without you around all the time,” you replied just as an idea came to mind, and you decided things were just getting far too heavy for your liking and at this rate you’d be a sobbing mess in no time. You placed a pondering finger to your chin, tapping it lightly, “now that I think about it, this may actually be a wonderful break.”

He playfully glared at you then scoffed, “oh, I see how it is.” He crossed his arms and pouted, “and here I thought we were actually friends,” he turned his head to look away from you.

You forced your features to stay neutral and serious, “well, clearly you thought wrong. I only keep you around for your directional skills.”

His head snapped back to stare at you. And you did everything in your power to hold it together. The look on his face was making that exceptionally difficult though, and you burst out laughing.

The mock hurt look on his face made you put your hands up in surrender, “okay, okay. That’s a total lie. That’s not the only reason.” You stifled your laugh, attempting to be serious again, “you’re also a fucking giant, so you’re super helpful when it comes to reaching things that are too high up for me. But I think those may be the only two reasons,” you pondered that for a moment then shrugged, “yup. Can’t think of any others.”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Oh, you’ll pay for that one, Y/L/N,” he said as he reached out and you attempted to get away but he was far too fast, he grabbed you then started to tickle you mercilessly. “Take it back,” he scolded as he continued. You squirmed and laughed as you tried desperately to get away but just as he was faster than you, he was also a lot stronger than you. “Had enough yet?”

You managed to get out a stern, “nope,” as you continued to try to get away. Everyone around you both was probably staring at you now, but you didn’t care one bit. You and Steve were always in your own little world and probably always had people giving you odd looks or watching as you both made fools of yourselves. But this was just how it was for the two of you.

“I’m not gonna stop until you take it back!” He threatened.

You couldn’t take it anymore, you squealed and wiggled around as the tickle attack continued. “Okay! Okay. I give. I give! I take it back!” You screamed between laughs, but before he could stop you went to pull away, one last time, with all your might.

However he clued in and pulled you right back towards him with force, causing your world to shift instantly. You screamed as you landed with a thud and it took you a second to realize you’d both fallen over, and you were now laying on top of him, on the ground.

Your eyes locked with his and you both just stayed frozen in place, no longer laughing but your heaving chests remained, as a reminder that you had been meer seconds ago. His arms were enclosed around you tightly as your hands laid firmly pressed to his chest. Neither speaking, both your hearts pounding and breathing heavily from the tickle war.

You felt his arms tighten even more around you, and something in his eyes started to pull you towards him, aggressively. You leaned down slowly, not breaking the eye contact once. Therefore not missing as his eyes widened more and more, with each inch closer that you got to him.

But just as you could feel his breath on your face, finding yourself maybe an inch away from him now, at most, you heard the concession stand worker call out your order number. You froze as the daze of the moment promptly lifted and you pulled away from Steve like he’d been a roaring fire.

“Oh god,” you whispered as you scrambled to climb off him and stand up. “I’m so sorry! I ah, I didn’t mean to,” you trailed off and shook your head as you took a shaky step back, trying to give him room so he could stand up. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

He just looked up at you for a moment then sighed deeply and stood up as well, dusting off his swim trunks once he was up. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “and no, you didn’t hurt me. I don’t think you could, even if you tried.” He attempted to laugh jokingly at that, but it fell short and ended up sounding way more awkward than anything. He shook his head and than his face went instantly serious as he moved towards you, “are you okay though?”

You took another step back, needing to distance yourself from him just a little. You’d almost kissed him in that moment and that would not have been good. At all. You had to get this stupid crush under control, and fucking stat! “Yep,” you said quickly, “I’m good. Let’s go get our food.” You abruptly turned around and headed for the concession to pick up your order. You heard him deeply sigh again from behind you, then he joined you at the counter. You both picked up all the food and started to head back towards your friends.

Neither one of you spoke the whole walk back, and for the first time ever, the silence between you was not comfortable, it was the opposite of that actually. You kicked yourself internally for allowing your stupid crush to cloud your judgement. It had clearly made him uncomfortable, his current silence making that pretty fucking obvious.

You couldn’t let your silly feelings in that moment ruin the last day you had with him. You had to say something. Anything. You had to make this better, “I’m sorry again, I ah, I don’t know what came over me just now.” You stopped walking and looked up at him, causing him to stop as well. “Can we just pretend that never happened?” You asked, hopeful that he’d accept your request and forget that it ever happened. Hopeful that it wouldn’t ruin your friendship. Or his final day.

His brows furrowed together for a moment then he sighed and corrected his face into its normal relaxed look, “yup. Whatever you want, Y/N,” he nodded and smiled, but you could tell it was forced. Though you didn’t push him about it, you just wanted to change the subject and leave this whole awkward moment in the past.

“So,” you started, trying to think of a topic to change the conversation to, as you both began to walk again. “You excited for your trip?”

“Yup,” he replied. And even though he’d agreed to just forget this whole thing, you could tell it was clearly still bothering him. Good job smart one, way to make your best friend fucking uncomfortable. Damnit!

“Ah, that’s good,” you nodded, “I bet Sokovia is lovely this time of year.”

“Yeah, it is,” he nodded as you both reached your friends. Both of you handed out the food and went back to your respective spots. Which luckily weren’t right next to each other, like usual. You sat on your towel, kicking your flip flops off then quietly munched on your fries, and stared off at the water. You had to fix this whole mess. You had to.

But the rest of the day dragged on, and it felt like Steve was actively avoiding you, which was exactly what you didn’t want happening. All because you almost kissed him, clearly he was not okay with that. Not even in the slightest.

It was now night time and you all had gone to the annual year end bonfire. Wanda had told you a few weeks back that it was a tradition at Shield High, all the students would get together for a giant bonfire on the beach. Everyone’s way of ending the school year and starting the summer break off right, as she put it. It was your first time ever going to one, and you knew this was going to be your last chance to fix things with Steve, before he left in the morning.

But then every time you’d try to talk to him, you’d get interrupted by some drunk student calling for him, or walking up and inserting themselves into your conversation. And it was getting fucking frustrating, to say the least. So near the end of the night, when you noticed him wandering off alone into a forested area, you followed him. Yes, this was a creepy thing to do, but you were desperate at this point. And this may be your last chance to talk to him, and there was no way in hell you’d let it slip away.

You figured he was going to find a place to pee so you waited at the tree line for him to be done. The sound of small branches cracking and crunching told you he was coming back towards you now. As he came into view you made yourself known, not wanting to startle him.

“Hey,” you waved awkwardly.

But even though you tried not to startle him, you clearly had. He tensed and jumped slightly then relaxed once he realized it was you, “ah, hey.”

“Can we talk?” You asked quietly.

“Yeah, sure,” he nodded then you took his hand and pulled him away from the fire to find a quiet place to chat. The feeling of his large warm hand in yours brought back the same butterflies it had at his birthday, when you’d taken his hand to lead him outside.

You shook your head slightly, trying to not allow yourself to think about just how amazing his hand always felt in yours. That was the last thing you needed to be thinking about right now. Your stupid crush being the exact reason you were now in this whole fucking situation. You reached a small deserted picnic area and released his hand as you sat at one of the picnic tables, Steve sitting down on the opposite side of it.

You were now just staring down at your hands on the table, not entirely sure what to say or how to even start this conversation. But luckily for you, Steve spoke up first, “so, what did you want to talk about?”

You looked up at him, “you leave tomorrow.”

He smirked and nodded his head, clearly finding the humour in you stating the obvious, “that I do.”

“For 2 months,” you stated the obvious, yet again. But you kind of just needed to build up to this conversation. Needed to state the facts. Maybe so you could come to terms with them a little more.

He sighed deeply, “yup.”

“Are you mad at me?” You blurted out—and so much for building up to it. Shit.

His eyes widened momentarily then his brows furrowed, “what? Why would I be mad at you?”

You sighed, “you’ve been avoiding me all night, Steve.”

“No I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have. So spill it, how do I fix this? You leave tomorrow and I refuse to let you leave with any hostility between us,” you gestured between you both.

“I haven’t,” he shook his head, “and there isn’t any hostility between us.” He paused before firmly adding, “at all.”

“Then why does it feel like there is?”

He shrugged, “I duno, I don’t feel it. But I do know that I’m going to miss you like crazy, and the closer we get to having to say our final goodbyes for the summer is really getting to me. So maybe you’re taking that as hostility?”

“Maybe,” you said more to yourself as you nodded. He did have a valid point, one that would make sense. “So, were good then?” You asked hopefully.

He just chuckled and said, “we were never not good.”

“Oh thank god,” you breathed out then laughed. “I think you’re right though. The closer we get to the end of the night, the more upset I get as well.” You paused to just stare at him for a moment, as a bunch of emotions started to run wild again, but you forced them down. “What am I going to do without you all summer?” You widened your eyes, feigning a realization than you leaned forward to whisper as your eyes darted around anxiously, “and who’s going to break into my room at night, like some creepy stalker?”

He threw his head back and burst out laughing for a few minutes. “You’re so weird,” he joked as he composed himself and focused back on you, wiping the joyful tears from his eyes as he did. You always took it as an accomplishment if you could cause him to laugh so hard that he’d tear up. It being one of your favourite of his tics. “And it’s not breaking in if you leave the window open for me,” he pointed out as he shook his head then turned a little more serious. “But I promise we will talk every day. The time differences may make it difficult, but I’ll always respond whenever I can.”

You nodded and looked back down at your hands, feeling the weight of this moment all over again. “Okay,” you sighed, “that makes me feel a little better.” And that was true, it did. But texting him wouldn’t be the same as having him around. And once again you felt the sting of tears in your eyes, blinking quickly to try to eradicate them.

So when you felt the picnic table wiggle and shift, you quickly looked up to see Steve stand and walk around to you, offering you his hand which you willingly took. He then pulled you up to your feet and into one of those amazing hugs of his. Which was exactly what you’d needed in this moment. And clearly he’d known that.

You both just stood there silently for a while, enjoying each other's embrace. Then you felt him sigh deeply before he finally spoke up, “we should probably get back,” he squeezed you a little tighter. “But please try to not let this upset you to much, okay?” He asked and you just nodded into his chest. “I’m sure these next two months will fly by for both of us. And before we know it, we’ll be back in class,” he joking groaned and it caused you both to laugh. And with that you both reluctantly released from the hug and made your way back to the fire.

The talk had helped you relax, and the rest of the night ended up being a fucking blast. You didn’t feel anymore hostility at all, and at the end of the night he dropped you off at home and you said your final goodbyes. You’d managed to get through them without shedding a single tear, at least not until you watched his jeep drive away down the road. That sight though killed you, and you burst into tears instantly.

You spent the next few days cooped up in your bed, moping and being miserable. Your friends contacted you multiple times but you’d just tell them you were sick, not wanting to leave your cocoon of comfort. However, after a few more days they weren’t buying your shit anymore. They all showed up and dragged your ass outta bed, forcing you to make the most of your summer. Which you did so reluctantly at first, but then you just sort of fell into a rhythm.

Each passing day bringing you one step closer to having him back. But he had lied to you that night, your summer didn’t fly by, like at all. It was actually the longest two months of your whole fucking life. Or at least you swore it was. And that was even with talking to him daily, via both text messages and phone calls. But it still didn’t feel like enough.

It was that 2 months without him that you finally realized it wasn’t just a silly stupid crush anymore. No, you were in love with him, 100 percent. And that was not a good realization to have about your best friend. At least not one who saw you as basically a little sister. Fuck, you were doomed.

July 2018 - Present.

“You’ve been awfully quiet.”

You turned your head to see a still, very much, shirtless Steve plop down at the water's edge beside you. Finding yourself, once again, trying to avoid looking at his ridiculously muscular physique and far too exposed torso. So you forced yourself to hold eye contact with him. Which was a lot more difficult than you’d have liked.

“Yeah, I was just enjoying the view,” you nodded then turned to look back at the water. Using that as your new distraction from the fucking GQ model to your right. “For a while there, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see this place again.”

A silence fell over you both and it was in this exact moment that you realized it was far too quiet, you turned your head around and noticed everyone was missing now. It was just Steve and you. But before you could even ask he piped up, “they all went to get food, Clint is bringing back fries for you.”

You laughed, “that’s really sweet of him.”

Another silence fell over you, this one lasting a few minutes, at most. “Are you happy to be back?”

You kept your eyes on the water but smiled and nodded, “honestly, I am.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” He asked and that got your attention, you turned and made eye contact again and he looked almost vulnerable in this moment, which made your heart start to race.

You nodded, “yeah, of course.”

He sighed then looked out at the water himself, “this place just hasn’t been the same since you left.” Then his hand went up to rub the back of his neck, “I’m ah, I’m really glad you’re back,” he said so quietly that you almost didn’t hear him.

“I am too,” you whispered, a giant smile gracing your lips as you took his hand and intertwined your fingers with his, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long to come home.”

He nodded but didn’t speak, and at that you leaned your head on his shoulder as you both just enjoyed the quiet, peaceful moment together, staring out at the water.

You’d missed him more than you’d ever thought, and in this exact moment it hit you like a dang freight train. How you’d made it through 7 years without this man by your side was beyond you. And you vowed, for real this time, to always fight like hell to make sure he stayed right there. By your side. You’d never again allow your life to go on without him.

You finally had your best friend back, and that was not going to change ever again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

@hopefulmoonobject @harlequinash @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @tessvillegas @boxofteenageideas @wangdeasang @giggleberts @casuallydarktiger @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @starrystellars @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @alwaysright4 @lilsthethrills @imdiegohargreeves @zombiepotterfour @mu-mu-rs @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @badassbeckettswan @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99

#au fanfiction #fanfiction #long post #long read #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #modern!steve rogers x reader #modern!steve #modern!steve rogers #modern au #alternate universe #if only you knew #chapter 11 #no super powers here #steve rogers au

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sazorak · 5 years ago

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Every Game I Played in 2019, Ranked

2019 sure was a year that happened where I happened to play some video games. Here’s the ones I played enough to form opinions, in a rough ranked order of preference.

It’s kind of weird that I’ve done this for five years now, but hey. I like to talk about things that I like / dislike. Hopefully you’ll empathize with my complaints, and give ones I enjoyed a try.

As a bonus, I also tweeted about the anime I watched and enjoyed this year.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Orm & Cheep: Narrow Squeaks – 1985 – ZX Spectrum – ★

How far would you go for a joke? For the sake of a joke, I spent an hour beating an incomprehensible, shitty ZX Spectrum Game about Orm & Cheep, an 80s British children show I only know about from a Trash Night video making fun of it.

Orm & Cheep: Birthday Party – 1985 – ZX Spectrum – ★

… and also this one, though Birthday Party is marginally better than Narrow Squeaks. Marginally. Extremely marginally. Congratulations to Orm & Cheap: Birthday Party.

16. River City Girls – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

The style of River City Girls is great. I like a lot of what it’s doing in terms of look and sound. It’s just that… well, River City Ransom’s gameplay was interesting something-like 30 years ago. Gameplay wise, this game hasn’t evolved that much from OG RC Ransom. The combat certainly feels better, but as far as it controls… I can’t tell if it’s not taking advantage of modern controllers and just sticking too close to the original’s control scheme, or if side-scrolling beat-em-ups are themselves just so staid and dated these days that there’s not much to be done. I just wasn’t having much fun, and the RC Ransom progression of new techniques and stat boosting didn’t exactly make me want to keep going.

It’s a real shame because in terms of pure aesthetics and concept, the game is amazing. I just don’t actually enjoy playing it. Oh well!

15. Baba is You – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

The core gameplay concept of Baba is You is fantastic. The way you manipulate nouns and verbs to construct phrases that operate as equations in a physical environment is super interesting. The early goings of the game were quite fun.

The problem I have with this game is that when you hit a wall in it, that wall can sometimes be impenetrable. I found that Baba is You is at times too subtle with its attempt to “teach” you tricks or onboard you into approaches to puzzles; it’s possible to come to solutions without taking away the lesson the designer intended, which can make later puzzles basically impossible.

The difficulty curve feels all over the place; I was extremely high on this game early on, but after getting completely blocked moving forward for hours on end, with the only real recourse being to either look stuff up or stare at past puzzles to try to figure out what apparently crucial lesson I missed despite coming to my own solutions, I ultimately decided to just do something else.

14. Cadence of Hyrule – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Zelda has great music. Crypt of the Necrodancer has pretty good rhythm-game action. Combine them, and you get… well, it turns out you get a pretty OK procedurally generated Zelda-game with Necrodancer mechanics, I suppose. The appeal is easy to understand, though I’m personally not sure I care much for the final product.

I enjoyed the original Necrodancer well enough as a simple run-based, short-ish rhythm dungeon crawler. The brevity of each given “run” (stemming in part from my own inadequate skill, I suppose) worked well with the style of gameplay, in that it never really became much of a chore.

Meanwhile, I enjoy Zelda as an extended puzzle adventure game where there’s an innate unthinking flow to the actions. I’m not typically thinking much about the moment-to-moment about the actual mechanics of the action; the brain’s desires flow directly to the motion on the screen, as it were.

Combining the two results in a Necrodancer experience that’s way too long, and a Zelda experience that is way harder to control. Add the fact that the procedurally generated world isn’t that interesting and I’m just rather lukewarm on this. Meh!

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13. Super Robot Wars T – 2019 – PS4 – ★★★

It’s fantastic that Super Robot Wars is finally getting proper, high-quality localizations again. It felt like a dream to finally be able to play this franchise again after being forced to stop after the DS era. Playing through the rather roughly translated, and somewhat monotonous SRW OG: Moon Dwellers was good because the OG games tended to have the highest production values and narrative quality (missing out on 2nd OG may have also helped). SRW V was my first foray into the more recent non-OG games, and so shined as something rather fresh to me.

Two years on, and two Super Robot Wars releases later, it’s plain to see that Super Robot Wars’ current annual release cadence is not great. It results in incredibly repetitive, monotonous games that rely heavily on asset reuse— both between games, and even within the same game. Part of the problem is that the derivativeness doesn’t feel additive. It’s not like SRW T is SRW V + SRW X + New Stuff; it’s more that SRW T is a reskinned SRW V, with some heavy series-asset reuse to boot. I think it’d be a bit more tolerable if it felt like these games were building on each other, but every single one feels exactly as slight and mechanically weak.

Super Robot Wars’ combat have not been particularly good from a tactical sense for a long time now. The original OG games were probably the last time the combat was particularly interesting for me, as it presented an actual challenge and difficulty curve. Nowadays, they are entirely fanservice cakewalks, even on the hardest modes. Hell, they’ve apparently decided that increasing the difficulty of the game means you don’t get to chase the special challenge goals, which actually can paradoxically make portions of the hard-mode actually easier than the normal. Bizarre!

I guess the idea is “well, folks are playing this to see the bits, so if it’s hard they won’t!” Which… I disagree? If the gameplay is deeply unsatisfying, why wouldn’t I just watch the damn series? Crossover shenanigans don’t mean much whey you don’t do much with it. Fanservice talking heads ain’t enough!

The addition of Cowboy Bebop and the return of GaoGaiGar and Gunbuster should have had me onboard. The series list for this game is fantastic. But what they do with it is so flat that about 30 chapters in, I just… stopped. It wasn’t worth it. I’d plainly seen all that it had to offer. Easy, slow, and repetitive gameplay isn’t appealing to me, even if I do get to see Spike Spiegel doing sky donuts to take out a Zaku.

Additionally: stop putting Nadesico in these games. The units are boring, the plot is boring. Stop devoting so much time to it! It sucks!!

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12. Ape Out – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Ape Out is a game where you’re a big ol’ gorilla murdering guys with guns while dope ass percussive jazz drums play to the action. It’s cool, it’s short, it could honestly probably do with being somewhat shorter, but whatever. I enjoyed it.

BattleTech – 2018 – Steam – ★★★★

Despite being famously a “mecha guy”, BattleTech has never really been my thing. While I’m not opposed to mecha-as-tank-analog, it’s not my primary focus in the genre; I like my robots to be fast, really. I like mecha getting into melee and fucking shit up. Mecha for me is a power fantasy. That’s not really BattleTech / MechWarrior’s thing. That all being said, I quite enjoyed my time with BattleTech, the PC-game rendition of the tabletop thing. It’s a neat turn-based tactical robot combat RPG with an interesting overarching campaign structure… to a point.

The first issue I had is pacing. While the game is turn-based, the combat and movement plays out in real-time. And given how lumbering these robots are, this means that a single mission can take aaaages. Think 45 minutes to an hour for a single mission. It took me about 20-30 hours to get to the campaign’s halfway point, which is when the game really started to sour on me.

The second issue is one of variance. Let me run you through the fundamental loop of the game. You are a mercenary captain that has a ship of mechs and mech pilots, and you fly around from planet to planet taking on jobs. You need money to pay for your ship to keep going, as well as to pay your pilots. It’s expensive to outfit your mechs, and severe damage to them can both REALLY eat into your budget and also take weeks in-game to repair. Missions are rated based on difficulty, and you are expected generally to field a greater “tonnage” of mechs in excess to that difficulty. This all plays out pretty well.

The game starts with you possessing mostly lighter mechs, and as you progress, you’re presented more and more missions in the campaign that require increasingly beefier mechs with more armor and more guns. Whereas in the tabletop game there’s presumably a kind of “point” system by which players are given a limited amount of tonnage that they can field on any given mission (for purposes of balance), there’s no such limit in the game; as such, you’re encouraged to field the four-ish beefiest robots you have, as they’re the most likely to kill everything fast while coming out with the least damage.

How do you get these beefy mechs? Well, you don’t buy them; instead, you’re aiming to kill opposing pilots and leave their robots as much intact as possible so that you can salvage or steal them. It’s kind of amusing; your entire gameplan after a point becomes “how the fuck do I shake this robot around a bunch such that its pilot dies???” It makes sense in practice, but if you think about it for even a second it comes across rather silly. Given you need good mechs to progress, you don’t have much other choice other than just running tonnnsss of missions and hoping you eventually get enough mech fragments to reconstruct some of your own. But beefy-ness isn’t the whole story, as some of the robots you can get just plain suck, regardless of their tonnage. You’re basically rolling dice again and again hoping a robot worthy of stealing shows up so you can kill its friends, and try to kill its pilot as gently as possible. You go through this cycle four times, across the four different weight-classes, until you’ve got what you need in terms of a team of class-appropriate mechs.

The fundamental lack of variety in what you field combines with every single mission really being “how do I kneecap everyone” instead of the given mission objective to make the game quite samey. Mission types don’t vary much, and the environments don’t constrain you all that much, either; the only ones that are particularly interesting are moons and Mars-like planets where your mechs’ ability to regulate their heat become much more constrained, which can necessitate loadout changes.

I enjoyed the story enough for what it was, but honestly? After 30 hours, I was pretty much good. I had a good time with BattleTech, but I’d had my fill.

Mortal Kombat X – 2015 – Steam – ★★★★

In my ongoing adventure of playing the Mortal Kombat games for their goofy plot / story modes and nothing else, I played Mortal Kombat X. I’m not sure there’s much to talk about these other than “Hey I enjoy their dumb ongoing narrative; I wonder where they’ll go from here!”

11. Mortal Kombat XI – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

Ditto. The plot for these games are getting sillier and sillier, and the ending of XI may be the most ridiculous yet. In a good way.

10. Devil May Cry V – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

Character action games are heavily predicated on the question of “How do we spice the game up over time so that it stays interesting… without overwhelming the player?” Devil May Cry V’s answer is “well, we’ll slowly give them more characters with their own expanding skill sets, that’ll be neat!”

It is neat, but I’m not sure it was actually a good idea. The three protagonists all have extremely different move sets, meaning that the forced switches between them on a chapter-to-chapter basis results in you never really mastering any one of them. Each character has a ton of depth, but… take, for example, Nero, the “main” protagonist. He has a sub-mechanic involved with revving his motorcycle sword to boost damage. I never actually figured out how to get to work. Never really had to, because he had so many other mechanics that were also effective, and I never had much time with him alone to dial in the weird motorcycle thing.

DMCV also does probably my least favorite gameplay gimmick of “introduce new mechanics in a boss battle!” Like great, you gave me a whole new move set here, and are now going to rate me on my performance when you’ve never given me a chance to learn these skills? Oh wait, you’re giving me new mechanics in the final boss battle!?! Fuck off. That sucks!

Also, I think I’m an outlier, but I actually preferred playing as V, the control-three-characters-at-once-while-reading-a-book guy. Just felt like I dialed his move set in easier. Weird.

9. Untitled Goose Game – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’m not going to pretend that this is a deep game, or an enduring game, or even necessarily a great game. But I had a lot of fun with it, I have a lot of good memories thinking about it, and I am glad that so many people out there are now wrestling with the fact that birds can be both terrible and also good. Untitled Goose Game carries a powerful message about avian kind. You would do well to learn from it.

8. Super Mario Maker 2 – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Mario Maker 2 is such an incremental upgrade to Mario Maker that it hardly feels like it earns that “2”. That being said: Mario Maker 1 is pretty darn good so it’s not like that’s all that bad. The additional mechanics and story mode are good, granted, but like… I had been wanting more than just Mario Maker 1.5.

As is, it was pretty easy to get bored with Mario Maker pretty quickly, given it was mostly a game I’d already played quite a bit before. The addition of the campaign held my interest for a fair amount of time, but I’m not exactly coming back to this all that often. Hopefully the content updates they seem to be rolling into it keep up.

7. Kind Worlds: Lo-Fi Beats to Write To – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

This is less a video game and more a sort of vague pen-pal application masquerading as a game, but man… the existence of this thing is neat. It’s just a program where folks write letters about their problems, and people send them stuff back. That’s it. It’s kind of a sweet thing to just exist.

I’m not a person with what would one term especially Heavy Problems, but just going through other folks letters and giving them an encouraging word is itself nice.

6. The Outer Worlds – 2019 – Epic Game Store – ★★★★

Having been deeply disappointed with the quality of Fallout 4, I was very happy to see Obsidian come back to do their own Fallout-a-like. The Outer Worlds isn’t perfect; I wish it had a bit more of a bite, the gunplay was… fine, the environment design was kind of dull, and the gameplay loop did not outlast the length of the game itself. But I had a fun enough time with it.

That said, I think the dearth of me having much to say here sort of speaks to how… rather unambitious the writing and design ended up being. There’s not a ton to say about it. It’s more responsive than a Fallout 4, to be sure, but even that caps out at a point. It doesn’t necessarily offer much in the way of RPG-style different “paths” to develop your character in terms of who they are or how they behave, beyond the sort-of four-way axis of “grouch to nice” and “corporatist to socialist.” The skill tree ends up being pretty flat, and you can basically become a master of everything by the end.

Shruggo.

5. Pokémon Sword – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

Pokémon Sword/Shield is a bizarre thing— its design is constantly fighting against itself. There are tons of ease-of-use improvements– but it somehow has some of the worst online in the series. It gives you dozens of complex, half-explained systems— but also feels the need to hold your hand lest you get lost in its incredibly linear, dull story. It adds challenging Pokémon raid battles that you largely need to team up with other players to beat— but also has one of the most trivial progressions in the series. It has a huge and varied open “Wild Area” where you can catch hundreds of Pokémon before ever facing the first gym— but that wild area largely exists as a world unto its own separate from the traditional Pokémon “routes”. It doesn’t want to have a plot up until the very end when it decides that gee, I guess we have to, even if it makes no sense.

Let’s go into these in more detail.

Sword/Shield introduces a ton of gameplay improvements. Auto-saving, while problematic in places, is super useful. The ability to move Pokémon directly from the box to your party is great, and removes a lot of process headaches. Single hand controls are a godsend for both improved accessibility and general ease of use. Items are way easier to get, Pokemon are easier to raise, and this is probably the easiest game in the entire series to breed and raise “high tier” Pokemon for online battling.

On the other hand: despite your friend list being loaded into the game, you are forced to use a bizarre password system and request system that is super confusing and prone to issues. You cannot directly trade or battle or play with friends except through this, which occasionally results in headaches anytime someone uses the same four-digit password as you and your bud. The Max Raid battle system is super poorly explained in-game in terms of how you find and join others raids— I only divined it by a tweet someone made. They did away with the ��GTS” trading system they had used for the past decade that allowed global Pokemon bartering, presumably in favor of encouraging more natural trades— but didn’t give any way to actually communicate with people in game what you want to trade for. It encourages more in-person interaction, but that’s once again playing into Game Freak’s obsession with the Japanese mode of gaming.

Sword/Shield perhaps has the most sheer amount of systems in any one of these games. It’s not necessarily all good, but in terms of “wow, you’re not babying us huh” it is at least interesting. There’s Pokemon that evolve based on absurd, never-explained conditions like “number of crits in a single battle”, “pass underneath this specific rock when they’re at low health”, “spin baby spin.” The wild area has tons of mechanical stuff that they let you explore without forcing your hand much, and they let you explore it freely without really railroading you. There’s a separate wild-area specific currency system based on raids / dens that you just stumble upon unprompted, really.

On the other hand, the core story progression of the game though… is perhaps the most infuriatingly patronizing thing I’ve experienced. Cutscenes happen every 15 seconds, often-times forcing your movement, and are almost of zero consequence beyond someone going HEY YOU SHOULD GO THAT WAY. The game is completely unwilling to let you get lost when going through the story. It’s constant, it’s unrelenting, it’s maddening. It literally made me mad.

Pokémon Raid battles are super interesting. The battles themselves aren’t necessarily hard, but the kinds of things they present— in terms of providing access to unique Pokémon, rare items, and the fact that they’re not as “rinse-and-repeat” as normal battles— gives the system and game increased longevity. It’s a pretty deep system, with meaningful rewards. A five-star battle is time consuming and you run the risk of failing, but if you pull it off you can get items like TRs, EXP candies, even bottle caps (super useful items that let you increase the baseline stat “DNA” of your Pokémon), and the captured Pokémon can have unique moves you’d normally have to breed and possess extremely high baseline stats. You can even get hidden secret abilities! Nice!

On the other hand: the core game progression is so piss easy and straight forward. The game’s leveling curve is all out of whack, in part because their introduction of a forced “always on” EXP share. In older games, you’d only get EXP from actively battling and beating a Pokemon in a fight, or having participated in a fight. Now, your whole team gets EXP just from being around, and you also get EXP from catching Pokemon, making curry, and all sorts of other small activities. All of this is fine or even good in the abstract as it makes raising stuff easier, but the game isn’t well balanced around it. Encounters don’t scale, which can result in you steamrolling the game if you engage with any of the game’s other systems prior to beating the game. I had to compensate by stretching my normal party of six into a party of 10, constantly swapping members out to keep the average level across the party down. Additionally, the only non-PVP reason to train and breed pokes, the Battle Tower, is so trivially easy this time that… why bother??

The wild area system is brilliant. A big criticism I’ve had with this series in the past is that the kinds of Pokemon any given player is bound to encounter and capture tend to be pretty similar. The limited amount of Pokemon that tend to be put on a traditional Pokemon route, and the limited means you have to encounter them (“hey I walk through the grass, we’ll see what pops up”) doesn’t trend towards players ending up with very different party compositions, just because there’s not a ton of options at any given point. The wild area completely tosses that out the window. As an open space, the types of things someone encounters will vary wildly— and it’s further varied by player-specific weather conditions that dynamically change the encounter tables. It completely opens up the kinds of Pokemon one can encounter early on, presenting hundreds of appropriately leveled options for players. It’s brilliant. The intermixing of both grass-only, overworld-visible, and raid-specific Pokemon also increases the range of encounters. It’s the accomplishment of the core Pokemon concept of “explore and find everything.” Finally.

On the other hand: the wild area is actually kind of boring to explore, visually speaking. It’s basically the Ocarina of Time field with sporadic patches of grass. There’s little actually diversity or mechanics to its exploration, especially when compared to the fact that… the game still has normal routes. They still behave as they always have, except that by the total remove of “Hidden Machine” mobility moves, the ability to explore geographically has been severely hampered. There’s no “gee, I can’t get there yet, guess I’ll have to come back later” except for a single mobility mechanic (the ability to go over the water, introduced very late in the game). It makes revisiting past areas mostly a box-checking exercise, and in general feels like an odd juxtaposition. They either should went all-in on the wild area or better merged the concepts together, because as is it feels… weird. Especially because the wild area could have done with being bigger and more diverse looking.

The game spends most of its time having no story at all, which is kind of boring. Juxtaposed with the railroading stuff where there’s still constant cutscenes with their mostly mediocre characters who don’t do all that much, it almost comes across as padding than anything. There are good characters (Piers and Marnie are the best, the gym leaders in general are good) but man do they try too hard to put Leon over.

But then at the end they introduce the story super quickly and it’s very dumb in a way that made me laugh out loud so congrats I guess.

All in all, I rather liked Sword/Shield. It’s no Sun/Moon— which innovated in tons of places and had an extremely charming story, cast, and progression— but the places that it innovates, and the ease-of-use improvements that they’ve put in the game, are great improvements to the baseline formula. While it’s caused a ton of drama online, the Pokédex and Pokémon Bank stuff are not huge impacts on my personal enjoyment of the game. It kind of stinks a bit, but the overall package is still quite good and fun.

The Legend of the Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Master Mode – 2017 – Switch – ★★★★★

Breath of the Wild was my favorite game the year it was released. The harder Master Mode is something that had interested me as something to check out for a replay, but I decided to wait until the shadow of my previous playthrough loomed somewhat less. Breath of the Wild is, after all, both a monumental game and also a monumentally large game. Going back to it for Master Mode would mean (by way of my own obsessive brain) 100%ing it all over again, which is extremely time consuming, even if I don’t go after the all the Koroks.

There was also this sort of reticence in my behind to confront the creeping suspicion I’ve had in my mind that some of the DLC additions have made the core game worse. Which, I would say… is probably somewhat the case. Certain DLC gear items extremely imbalance standard play and really fuck with the exploration of the game (specifically, Majora’s Mask basically making you not have to fight multiple enemy types). Still, I knew I could ignore those, and just focus down on the core experience of Master Mode: harder enemies, regenerating enemy health, and the introduction of floating platforms.

Turns out, BOTW is still fucking amazing, and while the additions Master Mode make aren’t essential, they do make for a fun second run of a fantastic game. The harder enemies make the early parts of that game WAY HARDER (making you really have to get good at using your bombs and stealth), and while that difficulty ramp doesn’t keep up throughout (which, honestly, the platforms are somewhat to blame as they make getting certain bits of higher-level loot earlier easier), it’s still just a great game to go back to.

Breath of the Wild remains my all-time favorite game. Hyped for BOTW2.

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4. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★★

Sekiro is in a sense the purest expression of the Souls formula. Stripped away of the jolly co-op, the PVP, the stats, the equipment, and most customization to speak of, Sekiro asks the simple question: can you do this? Can you learn all the systems in this quite challenging game, and engage with it on its own terms?

In its mechanical simplicity, I found Sekiro to be my favorite game of that lineage, as it has allowed them to really polish the gameplay by its singular focus. It just feels amazing to stealth around and backstab dudes, parry everything, and triumph in nail-biting sword duels. While you do gain new skills and equipment (in the form of the ninja tools), they are just supplementing the fundamental systems of the game, rather than acting as diverging ones. So really, most of your time is spent not learning wholly new methods of combat, but instead improving your mastery of the core one.

And the feel of mastering that combat is incredible. By the end you feel unstoppable; normal enemies that would have been challenges early on are nothing. Even a lot of the bosses become trivial as-time goes on, bar the few ‘mastery test’ bosses interleaved throughout the progression. This isn’t some “hey I got more EXP and now over-level for everything!” thing, either; this is me, the human holding the controller getting skilled enough to become a Sekiro master. It’s an amazing feeling.

I beat every single boss in the game, including the hidden ones, and enjoyed the hell out of it.

3. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’m very much on the record as being a huge IGAvania partisan. I fuckin’ love the core loop of that permutation of the Metroidvania formula. Koji Igarashi no longer being able to make Castlevanias hurt me. A lot. Over a decade of time spanned between the last IGAvania game, Order of Ecclesia, and the release of Bloodstained. I was a bit worried.

Thank god Bloodstained is really, really, really good.

Bloodstained is extremely “one of those.” You move about a 2D interconnected world, collect items and abilities until you find the stuff that let you move forward in a new area. It’s kind of an eclectic hybrid of IGA’s past titles. The castle design feels very Aria of Sorrow. The shard mechanics feel close to Aria/Dawn of Sorrow’s soul system. The weapons feel very Symphony of the Night meets Portrait of Ruin. The overall mechanics of movement feel most akin to Order of Ecclesia. All in all: a good mix.

The game is massive. There’s so many weird one-off mechanics (something I appreciate), bizarre callbacks, goofs. There’s an in-depth alchemy system (mostly used for cooking, which is funny). The shard system is a bit boring in places— some shards are extremely simple and forgettable mechanically— but the shard leveling system is kind of hilarious in how broken it can become. The familiar system from SOTN is back and has been essentially perfected by making it a dedicated slot so you can just hang with a fairy or sword pal.

I wish the game had more enemy diversity, and the story left something to be desired. Many shards just aren’t very interesting. But the game is just so dang fun. The core gameplay loop is just so compelling, and the game just feels so dang good. I’m glad they took all the time to polish the gameplay feel because hooooooooooo boy.

Looking forward to those DLC characters for some additional playthroughs.

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2. Outer Wilds – 2019 – Epic Game Store – ★★★★★

“Space exploration”, “cosmology”, “archeology”, and “sociology.” While these are certainly not the only fields that dominate much of my attention, they are some big ones. The Outer Wilds is a space exploration game where you explore the structure of a strange but exquisitely constructed solar system, and dig through the remains of a mysterious vanished alien species. Also, you’re stuck in a Majora’s Mask-like apocalyptic time loop ‘cuz the sun keeps exploding. Should probably find out why that’s happening.

I went into this game completely blind, entirely based on the way Austin Walker was raving about it on twitter. Austin’s interests in heady space shit is pretty similar to my own, and turns out? Worked out quite well for me. I blindly explored this solar system for about twenty hours over the course of a couple weeks, and came away from the experience misty eyed at the ending. Outer Wilds is fantastic.

It’s a surprisingly touching and cozy for a game that mostly about you going off into space on your own, all alone. And that’s because you’re not, really. Outer Wilds is less about the science of exploration and archeology and the meaning of it, why it matters even in the darkest moments. Why do we explore? Why does science matter, divorced from the parasite of industry and markets? What value does it give to us, to future generations?

The game is built on the notion that even as we individually wander, explore, and discover, we’re all together collectively building on something that may outlive us, even outlive our species, the pursuit of a collective knowledge that transcends personal enrichment and individual accomplishments.

You are but one a few alien explorers, each on their own adventure. As you adventure, you catch their signals as you cruise across space. The things you learn and do are further built on the relics and messages left behind by the Nomai, the species that came before. This sense of a personal and emotional connection in the act of discovery is the heart of this game. We’re not standing on the shoulders of giants; we’re holding hands with those before us and those after us to build a bridge to a future that we may not live to see.

It’s a positive message of hope in the face of oblivion.

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1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★★

I’ve been really on-and-off on Fire Emblem over the years. I first got in on the franchise with Awakening, which I rather liked for its anime-ass sensibilities— though not without criticism. I found the combat kind of obnoxious in its tendency to get muddied down in the Oops You Done Fucked Up, Time To Reset junk. It was too anime-ass in some places, not the least of which being its incredibly one-note characters who had little bearing on ongoing events so as to support the permadeath system without too much wasted effort on the developers’ part. Fates, the follow-up on Awakening, only amped up these criticisms, becoming convoluted, stupid, and kind of obnoxious to play.

I had hopes that Three Houses would be an improvement. Initial impressions made it seem way more serious, way more grounded, with a lot of improved systems. Turns out: it was better than I could have dared of expected or hoped. Three Houses isn’t improvement, or even innovation; it’s a revolution.

Three Houses is great. It’s long, it’s got so many different systems going on that I hardly know where to begin with describing it, but… it’s great. It’s the platonic ideal of what I’d like out of a Fire Emblem. Things feel like they matter. The setting feels weighty, the plot is actually good, and the characters are absolutely marvelous.

No, it’s not perfect— its handling of representation could DEFINITELY be better. Some of the narrative is hokey as hell in places. Certain routes seem to have gotten more attention than others. The class-based specialization systems could do with more depth such that so many characters don’t end up mostly identically specialized to each other.

But… I found the combat extremely enjoyable. The charge-based rewind mechanic removed the feel-bad gotchas of unanticipated troop appearances and bad rolls etc. The characters are fun, and they’re kept relevant all the whole way through via creative framing of events. The ability to roam an actual physical space via the monastery made the world feel more alive, and made everything feel more real.

The writing was actually interesting and nuanced, exploring things like faith, race, social classes, feudal politics, and romance. While the three routes are largely similar, it’s interesting just how different the underlying messages of each of them ends up being. I appreciate that in this game where you otherwise spend most of your time hanging around with nobles in a church ends just short of you rolling out the guillotines by the end.

This is a tactical RPG in 2019 that I have put something like 150+ hours into, having beaten only two of the four routes. I was, and still am, deeply invested in everything that is. I’ll probably go back to the other two routes when the final DLC is out next year.

SAKURAI, PUT EDELGARD IN SMASH

#GAME OF THE YEAR #2019 #GOTY #nonfiction #thinkpiece #fire emblem: three houses #outer wilds #bloodstained #sekiro #pokemon sword/shield

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scrapsofsky · 5 years ago

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I have once more (and a very long time ago) been challenged by Ian Sales to join him in our un-named war to come up with the best arbitrary list of films within an equally arbitrarily selected category. You can find previous iterations of this absurdity here, here, here, here, and here. We have, alas, not done this in a long while, which we can both blame on being busy with many other things.

But in the interest of rekindling silliness, I have been loosely challenged by Ian to come up with a list of 10 underrated SF/F films from the last 20 years, which is a direct response to this ScreenRant list. Since this list is in response to a link with a remarkably open prompt, I’ve opted to stick to the 10 item list format. Future challenges will go back to our favorite number: 5.

Ian, of course, has already dropped his list. Go check it out!

With that in mind, the following list of 10 films represent my attempt to put together films that I consider to be overrated. My criteria is fairly simple:

It must be a SF/F film released since 1999.

It must be underrated in the sense that it is underappreciated by the SF/F community or has largely been forgotten. Box office numbers may be part of the equation, but mostly I will go on my own interactions with the SF/F community and sadly arbitrary interpretations of what has been “lost” to everyday discourse.

I literally don’t care if the movies I pick are considered “good” by other people, and so I’ve picked films that I think are interesting for some reason or another. This inevitably means that you will hate my list and wish me to fall into a pit of endless fire.

So, without further adieu, here’s my list:

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)(dir. Makoto Shinkai)

One of my first academic essay publications focused on this film, which should tell you how much I enjoy it. Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho is, in my opinion, Makoto Shinkai’s magnum opus. A story of friendship, betrayal, and love. A story of the Cold War, imperial control, and out of control technology. Shinkai’s method of storytelling is remarkable: low key and vibrant, emotionally tense and freeing. In a world where Hayao Miyazaki is considered the King of Japanese Animation, Shinkai’s work has sadly not received the appreciation it deserves — Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho especially.

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)(dir. David Twohy)

I strongly considered putting 2000’s Pitch Black here instead, but I think that film, while perhaps a bit underrated today, has received considerable praise. Its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, however, has often been derided for one reason or another. Unfairly, in my opinion. From its Gothic (with a side of emo) aesthetic to its expansion of the Riddick universe into a sprawling space opera to its total commitment to the gritty, morally ambiguous treasure trove of dirty, grungy themes, places, and characters, The Chronicles of Riddick is easily one of my favorite science fiction films of the last 20-ish years. Plus, the cast is fantastic. This is a hill I’m willing to die on. (Also: I look forward to checking out Furya and Merc City in the near future!)

Night Watch and Day Watch (2004 and 2006)(dir. Timur Bekmambetov)

I’m counting these as one because it’s my list and I can do what I want. This Russian duology is based on Sergey Lukyanenko urban fantasy novels about the conflict between two supernatural factions who monitor the actions of one another as part of an uneasy truce. Part detective thriller and part dark fantasy, the films pack quite a punch. However, outside of the circuit of foreign film lovers within SF/F, they’ve largely flown under the radar, this despite starring well known Russian actor Konstantin Khabensky. If you’ve never seen these films, you owe it to yourself to watch them, even if for no other reason than to watch someone drive a sports car across the face of an apartment complex!

Sunshine (2007)(dir. Danny Boyle)

I considered putting Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later here instead, but I don’t think that film is actually all that underrated even if it doesn’t get as much play today as it did a decade ago. Sunshine, however, has spent most of its existence floating between general praise for its visuals and premise and general dislike for its second act. And, yes, it is a spectacularly gorgeous film, but that second act is, in my opinion, far more interesting than most people are willing to admit. Turning a space thriller into a horror film as a commentary on the paradoxical frailty and strength of the human spirit is, in my opinion, a gutsy move. For me, that move pays off, and it’s one of the reasons I think this film has remained underrated. It doesn’t follow the pattern these stories usually follow. It’s basically Armageddon if that film took itself seriously and Rockhound actually went insane. And that makes it an infinitely more interesting film.

Upgrade (2018)(dir. Leigh Whannell)

If you didn’t get a chance to see Upgrade, you’re missing out. This sleeper scifi action thriller had some of the most compelling fight choreography and shot compositions of 2018, and yet it flew under the radar. I had the good fortune to see the film in theaters; the experience did not disappoint. Much of the fight choreography relied on some impressive camera trickery to follow the lead actor’s movements, giving the entire film a robotic and wonky feel. It’s truly exciting to watch, and I wish more people had had the opportunity to do so in an actual theater. Because it’s gorgeous on the big screen!

Push (2009)(dir. Paul McGuigan)

I will watch almost anything with Djimon Hounsou in it. Push is one of those forgotten little films that takes a less in-your-face approach to the whole super powers concept. In this world, people with powers are test subjects or hidden in plain sight, monitored by a nefarious organization with equally nefarious intents. By comparison to the typical superhero film we have today, Push is quite restrained, relishing in the quirks and trickery of its list of powers and giving actors like Dakota Fanning the space to place (watching her drunkenly stumble around is kinda fun). It’s an imperfect film to be sure, but one that I still love.

Hulk (2003)(dir. Ang Lee)

I’m going to catch hell for this, but Ang Lee’s Hulk is one of my favorite superhero movies to date. I even prefer it to that other Hulk film by a long mile. Lee does give us some of the stuff you expect from a superhero film (big fight scenes and visual spectacle), but I particularly love the softer focus on Banner and his mental state. It feels more like a film that is trying to say something about human nature than a film stuck in an endless action sequence or caught up in villainy for the sake of villainy. For me, that means the film takes more chances with its performance and themes. And I’m always more compelled by the film that tries to do something interesting and failed than I am by the alternative.

Another Earth (2011)(dir. Mike Cahill)

Independent cinema has a tendency to produce some truly introspective and powerful films. Another Earth is no exception. A film about loss, guilty, love, and second chances, Another Earth‘s science fiction premise (a mirror Earth) is really just background, offering an opportunity in the conclusion and lending weight to the central thematic of loss and guilt as the romance between the protagonists comes head-to-head with a secret that threatens to tear them apart. The narrative is at times quite haunting, but it also commands us to think more deeply about what it means to seek forgiveness, to seek second chances, to live with loss, and so on. And if you like this one, Sound of My Voice (2011) is a far creepier film about cults that also stars Brit Marling!

Dredd (2012)(dir. Pete Travis)

We will never get an adaptation of Judge Dredd that is as good as 2012’s Dredd. A vicious, unrelenting and dark film, Dredd is one of those films that desperately deserves more credit than it has thus far received. Karl Urban’s performance is textbook perfection, and Travis’ direction gives this a brutally honest tone. And unlike its predecessor adaptation, Dredd isn’t endlessly mockable; instead, it is a visually arresting satire that makes most action thrillers look tame. There are few films on this list that I would say are perfect. Dredd is one of them.

The Cat Returns (2002)(dir. Hiroyuki Morita)

Studio Ghibli gets a lot of well-deserved love for its many Hayao Miyazaki films (my favorite Miyazaki is actually Mononoke Hime / Princess Mononoke). But one film the studio doesn’t get enough credit for is the utterly delightful Neko no Ongaeshi / The Cat Returns (or The Cat’s Repayment). It’s an Alice in Wonderland type tale (or tail, heh) about a young girl who gets sucked into the secret world of cats. Calling this film delightful is an understatement. It is downright adorable, and it has been sadly overshadowed by Ghibli’s many other exceptional productions. But if you’re looking for a cute (and sometimes hilarious) fantasy adventure involving talking cats, The Cat Returns is the film for you.

And that’s it. That’s my list. I could add many other films here, but I’ve limited myself to ten.

Now for a challenge to Ian and anyone else who wants to take it: pick your five favorite films featuring talking animals! Go!

It's time for another #FilmChallenge. @ian_sales challenged me to come up with 10 underrated SF/F films released between 1999 and 2019. So here's my list! :D I have once more (and a very long time ago) been challenged by Ian Sales to join him in our un-named war to come up with the best arbitrary list of films within an equally arbitrarily selected category.

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dukeofriven · 5 years ago

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Let Boys Love Girl Things

For a deeply depressed, angry, and vitriolic bisexual 20-something who stumbled out of a toxic 2-year intensive college program confused as fuck about his gender and hurting everyone around him, it is with no exaggeration that I say My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic’s low-key stakes, warmth, humour, kindness, and utter lack of cynical irony was my first step on the road not only to recovery but coming even sort of close to having an accord with my identity. So I quite frankly I am exhausted that I have spent nine years being judged on the behaviour of a fandom group from 4chan. Nine years ago there was a gross perpetuation of toxic masculinity where men were ridiculed en-masse for liking a “girl’s show,” a campaign of derision that only intensified as the worst elements of 4chan gave everyone the evidence they seemed to want to justify their snap-judgement that boys liking girls shows was fundamentally weird, gross, and worthy of censure. We like to clap ourselves on the back for how woke we are now. There’s no discourse that says it is “skeevy” that men enjoy She-Ra, and petulant MRAs on Reddit getting upset about the show’s new ‘feminist’ agenda is considered to be representative of nothing other than petulant MRAs on Reddit, not the She-Ra fandom as a whole. Steven Universe is triumphed everywhere as a victory for better masculinity - without anyone ever noting that Steven would love every single moment of My Little Pony: FiM. He’d cry at the wedding, and he’d weep at the destruction of the library, and he’d think the Storm King was an effective villain while Connie rolled her eyes and tried and failed to point-out the weak characterization. Steven would cheer and cry every time a villain was redeemed through the power of love and friendship. Because he’s Steven, and he loves schmaltz, and it’s okay for a boy to like schmaltz. If we truly believe that, as we say we do, it’s time let the habit of shaming boys who liked a cartoon show go. It’s been a decade. Yes: MLP: FiM had a disgusting contingent of its fandom. You know what other franchise has that problem? A little film series you might have heard of called Star Wars. A contingent of Star Wars fandom was so racist it drove actors of colour off of twitter because it piled hate upon them. It was so misogynistic that somebody out there recut the entirety of The Last Jedi so that men save the day and all the women get reduced to bit parts. And yet if I see a Star Wars avatar my first assumption generally isn’t “oh you like Star Wars, so you must therefore be a misogynistic racist.” Because statistically speaking, you aren’t - just like, statistically speaking, the men who liked My Little Pony weren’t 4chan users. Not that most people bothered to find that out, because - shockingly - the worst elements had loud voices and got all the press, and the standard we applied to them was so entrenched in patriarchy that none of us wanted to accept that men could like the girls show without it being some gross violation of the proper order. I’m tired of that. The show’s been on nine years - long enough that kids who grew up watching it are old enough to start entering “The Discourse Space,” and what kind of example do we want to set for them that a show that might have meant so much to them growing up is given a defacto label of deviancy? ”Adult males like this show about the little kiddie ponies - that’s so creepy.” There’s a point I want to make here that I think really needs to be said so I am going to make it large

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a show for children; it is not a show about children.

What do I mean by this? Adventure Time is the story of Finn, a 12-year-old. Steven Universe is a show about Steven Universe, a 12-year-old. Ok K.O. is a show about K.O. a 6-11 year-old. Avatar: The Last Airbender is about a group of kids aged 11-14. She-Ra is a show about Adora who is… 16-ish? 17? And so on.

MLP:FiM is a show about 20-somethings. It’s a show about a grad student, a small business owner, a baker, a farmer, an environmental technician, a… trust fund baby?*... and, later, a former dictator. Yes, there are some kid characters, but the primary cast are all young adults who’ve reached adulthood and found themselves having to learn over and over again all sorts of shit they really ought to have known by now but don’t. It is, in short, a story about Millennials: an entire generation who reached adulthood not knowing what that meant or how to cope. Every time you laugh at the characters and go “how do they not know this [obvious thing that is obvious to adults]” you do so while watching a children’s cartoon rather than paying your taxes because you’re still not sure how to do that properly and are just low-key freaking out about it and hoping the problem goes away on its own. I speak from experience. The list in endless: we might ridicule the ponies ignorance at social graces, but i’ve been on this hellsite long enough that I’m pretty sure most of you are social-anxious neurotics who cock-up just as often and just as spectacularly as any pony on the show.

I’ve grown up in-sync with these characters. I’ve seen them go from floundering at 20 to sorta getting their act together and coming to grips with adult life as they reach 30. I’ve seen them become successful, get new jobs, start new careers. There have been episodes about how to deal with parents who embarrass you, how to get your parents to understand that you’re an adult now and want to be treated that way. There str stories about how to handle deadbeat older brothers who won’t stop mooching off your emotional labour, and how to mourn parents who’ve died. There are also stories about the byzantine nature of school regulation. (If next season is all about Twilight Sparkle reforming the Equestrian tax code it will be entirely in keeping with the adult-life-trend the show has been on for a while.)

My point with all this is that the “liking the kid’s show” narrative is disingenuous in the way it frames fans as creepy. To get tu quoque about it all I could raise my hand and point at all you adults gushing about all these kid protagonists in your favourite cartoon shows and go “Isn’t that CREEPY and GROSS you DEVIANTS” and on and on and on.

But I won’t.

Because it was never really about that, was it? It’s never been about that.

It was, at first, about what it was and wasn’t okay for boys - for men - to like. As a kid who’d been mercilessly bullied for being even the tiniest bit effeminate, openly embracing the fact that I liked this show about the colourful cartoon ponies felt like painting a target on my back. As for the boys younger than me - the boys still in high school in 2010 and 2011 who openly embraced this show? Braver than any US marine. When this all started it was about policing what was ‘appropriate’ for boys - nobody gave the adult Transformers fandom the same kind of shit, I assure you. It was about patriarchy - and how unwilling we all were to let go of it, no matter how progressive we told ourselves we were. Just like any moral panic, it developed a far more disturbing tone of disapprobation because if a handful of fans on 4chan were creepy than surely all the fandom was creepy. I’ve had plenty of fun mail in my inbox as people with cartoon avatars told me my opinion was invalid because I had an avatar from a different cartoon show. If I had an MP avatar that made me a “brony,” which made me a creepy MRA edgelord. Never mind that I don’t even use the term, and haven’t since… well, since the grossest elements of 4chan got it tattooed on their phalluses and trumpeted it to the heavens as the calling card of their misogyny.

There was a moment, I think, back in the halcyon days of 2010 and 2011 where we could have taken this another way. Where, socially, the rise of boys watching ‘the girl’s show’ was treated as a breakthrough, as a paradigm shift, as something to be celebrated and nurtured instead of something to revile like an anti-homosexual PSA from the 1950s. “Can’t let the adult men near that children’s show, who knows what might happen. They might repeat the trends that all fandoms have done for decades upon decades - the horror!”

We could have been better - but we weren’t. We mocked, and clutched our pearls, and looked appalled, and in doing so we fed the trolls all the ammunition they’d ever need to turn themselves into The Poor Oppressed Babies who just wanted to be left alone to watch their ponies and belittle women in peace. So the gender-questioning bi boy trying to feel good about himself got rounded-up with the usual 4chan suspects because we both enjoyed the same television program.

Patriarchy is not an external force with its boot upon our necks: it is a collaborative social effort, reinforced both consciously and sub-consciously every day. The internet of the early 2010s was a very different place, and the decisions we made then still live with us today. If we want to stop the perpetuation of toxic masculinity, we have to ourselves cease to perpetuate it. There’s an entire generation of queer boys and non-binary boys and non-bro cis-boys - the kind who cry and care and give a shit about kindness - who have grown up on Steven Universe and Adventure Time and yes, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. These are boys who deserve to have a better place prepared for them than I had, one that isn’t still littered by the baggage of all the dumb stupid crap from 2010 and 2011.

It’s time to let the ghost of Toxic 4chan Fandoms Past go already, and let this show about cartoon ponies be free to entertain and delight without incurring a moral inquisition. Life is so bad right now, the news is so dire. Curl up with My Little pony: Friendship is Magic and let all its goodness, and kindness, and laughter, and caring carry you away and remind you that we can still tell stories about worlds in which those virtues are treasured. Let the show stand on its actual merits, and not the cultural lodestones of long-gone reprobates. And stop granting the phantoms of 4chan the power to say anything meaningful in 2019.

_________________ *Serious question: what does Fluttershy do for a living? Like, as her job? For most of the series? She’s the only one who doesn’t have a meaningful career, and after meeting her enabling parents you just know she’s been living off pre-existing savings for years (she’s thrifty like that).

[Note: this post was originally posted in this thread. It has since been re-edited and slightly modified.]

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