#and of course free of all want and such they mostly played videogames (at least she did)

[elbiotipo]

in my space opera story, there's a character who is the last of her ancient civilization (found in animated suspension) but that doesn't mean she knows ancient precursor knowledge, she was the equivalent of a cringe and fail gamer girl who ate snacks and played videogames all day, and when they ask her "but how did the precursor's intragalactic communications network technology work? where were their homeworlds? how did they went extinct? what does this ancient inscription says?" well, she wasn't paying too much attention, she was pulling gacha, she didn't think too much about how the whole thing worked

I mean, suppose YOU got pulled into the future into a whole different solar system with aliens all around you and you are asked (in technical detail) how did internet connections work or how to get to Earth (in a star map in a completely different language with no reference points) or how to make an internal combustion engine. You'll be fucked.

(unless you're a Wikipedia addict like me, but even then, I'm not even sure how electricity works)

[yanderenightmare]

BNHA HEADCANNONS

INTIMATE ACTIVITIES

goodiebag WARNINGS: yandere, dubcon/noncon, abuse, kidnapping, abduction, Stockholm syndrome, manipulation, mind control

TIP-JAR

YANDERE ! BAKUGO KATSUKI - KACHAN

Katsuki enjoys several other things apart from bedroom activities. All he needs is to feel needed. He loves cooking for his darling, watching movies and snuggling on the couch or in bed, he even wants to dance on some evenings, all in the confines of his home though. Because he just loves those extra intimate interactions with his darling: his house is equipped with pools, a jacuzzi, showers and a sauna. He just wants and needs her in all those semi-naked situations. Needs to satisfy his ownership of her. He will allow her access to every room of their house. He has installed every safety measure he deemed necessary for it to be possible for her to wander about. Having artificial staff to clean instead of actual, interactable, distracting human beings. He loves ensuring his darling that he’s the only thing she’ll ever need. And, because of this, Katsuki’s favorite thing to do in the bedroom is going down on his darling. Whether it be before, in between or after sex, preferably all. He’s a giver, but for selfish reasons obviously. He likes to feel her squirm and squeal beneath him, under his lips and tongue and teeth. He likes to prove how well he knows her body and taste what a mess he’s reduced her to afterwards.

YANDERE ! DABI - TODOROKI TOUYA

Dabi is kinky. Not to an extreme extent, however more so than most. He rarely uses his quirks, but is not above doing so. He will brand his darling with his name and the occasional thumbprint hearts, but nothing more. He enjoys powerplay, as in collars and leashes and handcuffs, but rarely anything more than that, mostly because he isn’t that much of a patientperson. Dabi’s favorite bedroom service is a blowjob, of course. He loves seeing his darling down on her knees making him feel good, sucking him off as though her life depends on it. He loves every part of it, from her lips tightening around his shaft, to the walls of her mouth closing around him, hitting the wall in the back of her throat, even feeling her teeth slightly graze against him. But, nothing beats when she swallows so perfectly and gives him the outmost adorable little thank you afterwards, kissing his cock as if it were some gracious offering. He does enjoy other things apart from sex though. He loves the aftermath. Snuggling. Oh, how he loves snuggling. The soft drum of her heartbeat against him, the smell of her mingling with the smell of him. His darling’s soft skin pressed against the leathery texture of his purple marred flesh. He hopes she doesn’t scathe and annoy by it.

YANDERE ! SHIGARAKI TOMURA

Tomura absolutely worships his darling, he doesn’t take anything she offers for granted. Even if he has to threaten her first. He enjoys playing videogames with her, though… he’s too easily distracted. He’ll want something else, something more, quickly. Whether it be kisses, hugs, or for her to brush her fingertips across his skin. Simply feeling her warmth up against him is enough for Tomura to shiver in ecstasy. However… it’s far from satisfactory. Once he gets a taste, he almost immediately needs more, and he’s not one to hold himself back. He will take if she does not offer, and he does not take lightly to her teasing. During sex: Tomura enjoys the cowgirl position above all else. Seeing his darling kneeling so perfectly in his lap, the both of them cradling one another, her hands wrapped around his neck, his hands being able to touch each and every part of her. Savoring the moment, as she displays in offering to him. He takes time enjoying himself, dragging out every moment until he’s contently satiated. He returns the favor, never leaving his darling unsatisfied, even though she probably would prefer it that way.

YANDERE ! SHINSO HITOSHI

Hitoshi wants to talk. To talk to and observe, dissect, analyze his darling’s every word. He wants her thoughts, her emotions, her everything. Talking is part of why he fell in love with her. Because she seemed to want to talk as much as he did. She wasn’t scared either, the words seemed to pour out like poetry; unrestricted. A social butterfly incapable of staying quiet, incapable of leaving his questions unanswered. She was perfect for him. Even after he took her, she still couldn’t stop herself. He needn’t even use his quirk… most of the time. But… Hitoshi just loves taking advantage of his quirk in the bedroom, as so to have his darling focus on the pleasures he’s giving her instead of how wrong it feels. Hitoshi, quite like Dabi yet even to a more extreme, is a very kinky guy. He loves gifting his darling with trinkets. Loving to dress her up in all straps and lace and chains and stocking and collars and leashes, all branded with his name on them… perhaps even cat ears and a cage and making her call him master while he calls her kitty. He has a lot in store for his darling.

YANDERE ! TAMAKI KEIGO - HAWKS

Keigo wants to find out what a relationship is. He doesn’t have a lot to go on, except for numerous romance movies and series. He isn’t shy though, he’ll get creative and experiment. Cuddling, wrapping his wings around his darling. It proves beneficial, both in being more comfortable for him and in keeping his darling in place. Showering together, shampooing one another’s hair. He’ll trap her mouth in his hand and make her breath in the water if she refuses to oblige his wishes. Cooking together. She’ll wish she just cut the vegetables like he asked. It’s a good thing she can never get a good hit in, despite however many times she tries. Keigo seems unbothered, never dwelling, never holding any grudges. There are too many other activities that needs his attention. Keigo prefers standing during sex. More control that way. With the freedom of his wings, something of which would be hard to maintain were they to be lying in a bed. He loves taking his darling up against the wall, whether she’s standing on her own two feet with her face mushed against the boards, or with him holding her up under her thighs with her legs cradling him. Keigo isn’t picky though, so any position where his wings are free is just fine with him.

YANDERE ! MIDORIYA IZUKU - DEKU

Izuku just wants to be close, that’s really all he needs, they don’t even have to have any sex, they don’t even have to be that naked, or... at least not at first, not before she’s neatly settled in and come to terms with the fact that she is to love him until the end of times and won’t ever be leaving. Any position that allows him to reach and admire every part of his darling is perfect for him, yet he prefers to be able to see her face. He only allows her in the bed, anything else would be too rough for his little darling. The bed is the only safe place for her. So, that’s exactly where she’ll stay, out of harm’s way. He’ll bring her food and activities such as novels, notebooks, sketchbooks, anything she asks of him as long as she stays in the bed. He understands it when she gets restless. He too, would grow feral being suspended to a bed all day. But, he really can’t trust her with herself and risk her being free without his supervision. She’s bound to hurt herself, being as fragile as she is. He’ll insist on carrying her if she wants to go to the bathroom, pouring the right temperature into the bathtub and insisting on getting in with her. He’ll make it clear that he doesn’t mind, that he quite enjoys it. There will come a time where he enjoys it a bit too much, where he’ll insist that his needs and her needs are one of the same. By what time, he’ll have grown so demented, she’d count herself blessed if she’s ever given the time to sleep again.

YANDERE ! CHISAKI KAI - OVERHAUL

Bubble-baths. His darling; surrounded by soap-bubbles. Her skin being smooth and slippery against his own; glowing. He wants her constantly, but if there’s a time where he feels his composure slip, it’s when they’re clean and perfect with only each-other and the soap surrounding them. But, despite being entitled, despite being impatient, despite wanting to have her in the outmost depraved ways… he’ll go about things rather professionally and respectfully, because Kai is, despite everything, a traditional guy. He believes in decorum and customs. So, his favorite position to have during intercourse is obviously missionary, the way it should be. That doesn’t, by any means, mean he is a mediocre guy. He just enjoys the contours and slopes and curves and dips of his darling’s face. How beautifully lit, bright and glossy her eyes get when he rams into her. How plump and juicy her lips are when they absorb the tears running down her cheeks. The soft crinkle between her brows and how her mouth hangs upon, shameful moans spilling past her lips. It’s all too much for him to ever want to face away from her whilst doing something so intimate. He allows himself to remove his gloves when they’re bathing. If only to feel the smooth, clean and warm feel of her throat under his fingers, as he fucks her into oblivion.

YANDERE ! TODOROKI SHOTO

Shoto is quiet. And, it’s strange, because she used to think it was because he was a soft soul. He isn’t. Shoto’s favorite sexual endeavor is spanking, to see how far that spirit of hers actually reaches, he’s never disappointed. Whether she’s bended over his lap, the table, the sofa, any surfaces really, or chained to the ceiling, or on all fours presenting her ass so delectably for him. He loves seeing his handprint branded on her plump flesh. Enjoying what different colors he can bring to the surface by exchanging which quirk he uses. He finds it very efficient as well, given that his darling rarely disobeys him. She often wonders in fear what fresh hell his punishments could possibly be when his awards are already so brutal. He never skips on aftercare though, even though his cooing and affection is unwanted. Never understanding that his affection doesn't make up for the brutality. He’ll hold her tightly to his chest, cool down the swollen flesh, stroke her hair, kissing her forehead almost so softly she nearly forgets what he just did to her moments before. He’ll balance everything out to an obsessive degree. For every slap, she’ll also get a kiss. For every burn, he’ll also cool it down and vice versa. Every time they do something unpleasant, he’ll be sure to have something softer planned the next day. She isn’t sure which she dislikes the most, but… there’ll come a time where she won’t be sure which one she enjoys more.

TIP-JAR

[cosplayinamerica]

COSPLAY IN ALASKA : AKPiratePrince

In 2017 I spent a week checking out Anchorage and their anime convention SenshiCon. Like my second book, I spent some time visiting cosplayer getting ready for the yearly convention.

I'm a 34 year old chef from Anchorage, Alaska with a giant penchant for anime and videogames. I grew up mostly playing videogames during the majority of my free time and got into anime in the early 2000's. My collecting spree really began back in 2012 when I started going to conventions again after a 3 year hiatus (due to my job at the time). After attending Sakura-Con for my first time and having plenty of disposable income I was able to see just how much merch there was for a lot of my favorite series, old and new.

My latest prop was Sanji's bazooka from One Piece Film: Strong World. His whole outfit that goes with the prop has been on my list ever since I decided to do as many different outfits of his as I possibly could, and finally I felt I had the skills necessary to do it at least SOME justice. It took me over a month to finish as I worked on it for a least an hour or two after my work shift every night.

I've lived in my current home for 10 years now. I lived here every other week with my mother for several years beforehand, but when I was able to move in myself and call it my own home I realized I could hang up the few posters I'd amassed wherever I wanted in the house, and could display all of my games and anime merchandise in my living room. It really made it feel like "MY" house. Now I pretty much have something anime or game related on display in every room of my house save for my bathroom, and of course the volume of displayed stuff has only increased over the years.

After 4 years in college I changed my major to culinary arts, and during that time I ended up starting the series "One Piece" after seeing a friend of mine posting some clips online. My only exposure prior to it had been the infamous "4Kids" dub, but after watching these new clips I decided to bite the bullet and plunge in.

Now it's my absolute favorite current series. After being hooked I knew I had to cosplay from it, and remembered the character Sanji was known as the cook of the Straw Hat Pirates, and after seeing him in action I felt I'd found "my" character. 

Photo; princesskyuu

After cosplaying as him to various cons in 2012 I got the wild idea to try and start my own cosplay page & persona on Facebook, and from there I decided to try and branch out by doing a cooking series on YouTube as Sanji as sort of a "hook"; not just a cosplayer but also a real chef.

Cooking has become my career and a big part of my life, and seeing it seep into the anime and manga world drew me to certain characters in some of my, now, favorite series, such as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Food Wars/Shokugeki no Soma.

While I've only cosplayed as 3 chef characters total thus far, my friends and fans all see me as synonymous with with any character that enjoys cooking, and this is the best I could hope for as a fan and a cosplayer.

[nachohypno]

Nate and Dave Ch. 6

I walked down the street with Dave.

The poor guy wanted to go home again, and I was happy to comply with that. This was definitely a weird thing to do.

Mostly because he was leashed, and he was a full wolf.

He looked like a brown and yellow German shepherd, but bigger than normally. I could pass him off as a big dog I was being paid to take for a walk, and wolf Dave seemed really educated and nice to be with.

…Because he was the same guy I was making out with like half an hour ago. I wondered if he retained his mind and his ability to think when in full wolf form. He couldn’t speak, that’s for sure, but he seemed to still have consciousness about his situation and his surroundings.

I assumed he wanted to go home because after a while of walking, he started doing those sad dog noises and licking my hand, so I decided to go back home and check what he needed, of course, after he transformed back into a human with the ability to speak.

“Hi, Mr. Henderson!” I greeted one of my neighbors as the man did the lawn on his front yard.

“Hello, Nathan! And… new dog…?” He asked, but I quickly shook my head.

“Not really, just doing a favor for a friend and taking him out for a walk. He can be quite temperamental if you don’t know how to handle him” I tried to give as an excuse, and luckily, Mr. Henderson seemed to buy it!

Dave helped too, growling at the man without showing off his teeth (That would probably rat us out of him being a wolf instead of a dog) before I pulled a bit from the leash to ‘calm him down’.

“Oh well, be careful. Big dogs can be dangerous, especially when they’re… so big, never seen one like that before” It was normal for him to be surprised, even I would be. I could sit on Dave’s back if I wanted and ask him to take me home, like some kind of mount.

Hmm… I wanted to try that out! But not now, it would be weird.

The leash was attached to his bowser collar, which gave him an even rougher appearance. But in reality, he was a really wholesome puppy boy.

“He seems to be a really expensive class of purebred German shepherd, or that’s what my friend said” I made up that quickly, trying to sound oblivious and shrug the subject off as Dave sneezed and looked around, playing dumb. “But don’t worry, I think he likes me!” I scratched Dave’s head and he gave me a friendly ‘Woof!’

“Huh… Glad to hear that. And he seems to be very cute when he’s not growling menacingly” The older man said, jokingly.

“Yeah, he’s a good boy. Anyway, gotta get going. Bye!” I waved to my neighbor with my free hand and he waved back.

Me and my werewolf kept walking until we arrived to my house. I opened the door and he entered first.

After closing the door, and confirming mom wasn’t here, I let go of the leash and Dave walked back to the center of the living room.

The wolf stood on his back legs, as his body started to morph again. I loved the werewolf form, but this was way more amazing to see.

His whole body started to grow, to match that of a normal human, and then his usual size. A big muscled jock.

His snout went back in as his head became human again, and his fur disappeared, with only very little body hair remaining on him.

He was in all his naked glory, cock full hard (I started to suspect that it had something to do with me near him, I can’t remember ever seeing him soft). We couldn’t play the ‘boy and his dog’ plan if the wolf was dressed like a normal human would be.

“Phew, what do you think, bro? Was I a good boy?” He asked, as soon as his transformation ended and he regained consciousness.

The black leather bowser collar around his neck, with the leash hanging from it. The hang was still in my hand, so I pulled him closer as he smirked at me, mischievously.

“You were great, puppy boy” I whispered to him, before giving him a nice, long kiss. He kissed me back, pulling my body closer to his.

Being honest? The whole dog thing was his idea.

He complained that –and I’ll repeat his own words- ‘I never go into full wolf form because there’s a chance I may get caught and scare someone off, triggering wild animal alarms at the town, bro!’

And that was a good reason. Last thing I wanted was a curfew because Dave decided to run on the middle of the street as a big wolf.

“Anything for you, my love” Dave whispered back after the kiss.

It’s been a week since we’ve met, and I felt somewhat comfortable around him already. I’ve never had romantic feelings for anyone, except the usual platonic love like y’know, Chris Evans. But this guy… It was something new I was willing to experience.

I’m not saying I love him… yet. But as I told him once (When he was zoned out and I think he couldn’t hear me) I do like him!

“Anything?” I asked him, tracing a finger around his abs.

He nodded blissfully, with eyes full of love. “Anything, whatever you tell me, bro!”

“Could you… put on some underwear then?” His expression changed, falling into realization. He looked down and noticed his cock on full display.

He blushed a bit, before resuming his smile. “Yeah, no problem bro” I was actually going to tell him to dress up again, since it was a bit cold outside. But the view of his built body was really enjoyable.

Dave and I walked together to my room, where his clothes were laying on my bed. He quickly put on some boxers, then looked back at me. “Anything else I can do for you, babe?”

‘A lot of things I dare not mention’ I thought. But I just shook my head “Would you like to play some videogames or just… cuddle together and watch some Streamflix?”

“Videogames! I’ll beat your ass this time on COD, bro!” He beamed up, before roughly sitting on my bed. The thing did a loud creak, probably because of Dave’s weight as he sat. If the big guy didn’t control himself, I was going to end up sleeping on the floor.

“Videogames it is” I mumbled, walking over to the PS4 and grabbed the two controllers on top of it. In the meantime, Dave turned on the TV with the remote near my bed and waited for me, clearly excited. I sat next to him and gave him his controller.

Honestly? I suck at gunplay games. I prefer, I don’t know, fantasy styled games? Like, I enjoy hunting a big monster or sword fighting my way around a medieval setting. Gunplay just… didn’t do it for me.

I bought this game because of Dave, I wanted to try something he would enjoy too, and he clearly loved it. I also noticed that he would play dumb and let me win a few times, to ensure I was having fun. But that’s on rare occasions, because he’s fucking competitive when it comes to this, and starts bragging pretty quickly.

Of course, he calms down as soon as he starts with it. Probably because he didn’t want to piss me off? Probably, yeah.

However, I also had some tricks up my sleeve.

I looked over at him. Game face on and fully focused on the screen. He started preparing a private match. A few bots here and there, his favorite map, then chose his designated weapon.

“I’ll go easy on you, bro. Don’t worry” He said, patting my shoulder.

The first match went down fast. I tried to run and kill his bots as he hunted me down. It was just like that, a cat and mouse game between us. I did enjoy it, reminded me of another horror game I usually played at night.

He gave me a few shots when I went around a corner and we bumped into each other. “Hey bro!” Dave said mockingly, as he filled my avatar’s body with lead.

I tapped X as fast as I could to respawn, as Dave continued wandering around the map and killing the bots of my team. This was going to be a hard game.

“Hey Dave?” I asked, as I respawned.

“Yuh?” He mumbled, still focused on the game. I must say, his game face makes him even more handsome.

“Forget about what I’m about to say; but confuse the left stick with the right stick” I said. This was my tactic. I had full control over his mind and body, right? Then, fuck, I wanted to win at least once.

He stopped moving his fingers for a few seconds, but I didn’t have time to check if his eyes were unfocused or not, I had a match to win!

Then, I noticed he tried to play again. “What the…” He mumbled, as I pressed the left stick to run and looked for him. In the meantime, he struggled to move his character.

The confused jock frantically moved the right stick and his character looked around a lot, and gave little steps with the left stick, like he tried to move the camera with it.

I finally found him and didn’t hesitate. R2 and a few seconds later, Dave’s character was lying on the floor like a ragdoll.

“Fuck!” The werewolf said, as I threw a punch to the air. “What the hell is happening to me?” He whispered, looking to his hands. He tried to move his respawned character, but moved the right stick instead. Then he tried to move the camera, but his left thumb moved the wrong stick too.

Dave looked at me “Anythin’ I should know, bro?” He asked, with a suspecting voice.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about” I answered, as I continued to look out for him with a nice smile on my face. The game just got twenty times funnier.

He tried to look out for me in game, to no avail. Until a bulb seemed to light up on his brain and he turned the controller upside down. ‘Fuck, he got me’ I thought.

Dave was back in the game, but I could notice he was uncomfortable playing like that.

I found him running into a wall and killed his character again.

“Aww, bro…” He mumbled, getting frustrated.

“Alright, alright. You can stop getting confused now.” But Dave left his controller on the night table. Did I piss him off? Oh geez, I didn’t want that!

But it was the opposite. He grabbed me and pulled me in with him to lay down on the bed. I loved this, we’ve been spending a lot of time together lately and this was my favorite part.

I think I’ve said this before, but Dave was an amazing kisser. He was gentle, and the taste of his mouth was amazing (Which was kind of surprising since he was a full wolf not so long ago, I expected him to have dog breath) and he was very skilled too.

“I don’t want to play if you’re not having fun” He whispered, before smooching me. “I prefer to see ya happy, my love”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Why, thanks puppy boy” I said, moving my hand through his torso, and into his underwear. “You’ve been a really good puppy boy today, haven’t you?”

I slowly caressed his cock. I was okay with this; we were on the blowjob level of things by now.

I mean, he only gave me one, but it was an advance, right? I still had to give a blowjob to him…

“Yeah, bruh. I’m a good puppy boy!” He sounded proud of himself. Probably because he was obeying me, not gonna complain though.

I wrapped my hand on his cock and started stroking slowly. Dave just stared at me with his deep blue eyes, smiling like an idiot. “You’re so… beautiful, Nate. The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen… fuck, that feels amazing to say”

I blushed, and stopped stroking for a bit. Dave placed his big hand on my cheek and leaned in to kiss me again. My nervousness fading away temporarily with each kiss, I felt safe. Like this was where I belonged.

In bed, with a hunk werewolf infatuated with me, and…

I shook my head “You’re trying to distract me so I forget to send you home, right?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

He gave me the pleading puppy eyes. “Please bro, I don’t want to go, I just want to be with you and make you feel good and loved” He tried to convince me, and I was falling for it. I would be okay with having him stay the night, but… Dave seemed willing to drop all his other responsibilities in order to spend time with me.

“Dave… You know how it is, we can hang out from time to time if you want. But I’d prefer if you still live your life like you would normally, and that includes sleeping in your house too-“

“Let’s go together, bro. Mom and pops will love having you around, and my bed has enough space for the both of us. Please, babe…” He lightly kissed my lips. “…I love you”

‘Why do you have to be so cute?’ I thought.

“I’ll let you stay, but just a little while more, alright? And then you go back home, no more excuses, understood?”

He seemed defeated, but agreed with me. “Understood, bro. Whatever you want” He mumbled, hugging me. “I’ll enjoy every second we spend together, bruh”

I rolled my eyes, so cheesy.

…And yet, I still liked him so much.

----

As I said, I kept him around for a little longer, then sent him off to his house again.

According to Dave, his parents didn’t have a problem with letting him spend a few nights with me. But I preferred if he didn’t change his… human behavior that much.

I do like being around Dave, maybe not as much as how he likes to be around me, but still. But as I could see, Dave is willing to forget about his responsibilities just to be with me and make me happy, and that’s not something I’d like to do to him.

I have to remind him of returning to his house, studying, working out, hanging out with his friends, etc., because if it was for him, he would rather just hang out with me.

It was okay though; it wasn’t really a problem. Everything was still the same, and even better. Dave started doing his own essays! He’s… he tries, at least. But I appreciate the effort and help him in any way I can.

It’s only been a week since we’ve started hanging out, so not many changes I could do to his persona.

Next day, we had school again. School became a much more bearable place, I just focused on my studies and that was enough for me, with Dave appearing from time to time to spend some time together.

I sat down in my usual place at the science lab, put on my protective plastic glasses and looked over at Sam besides me.

It wasn’t usual for us to sit together, but it was a nice way to catch up from time to time.

“How’s our president?” I asked him when he nodded at me with a calm smile. We liked to joke about that, with him being the student council’s president.

He deserved that role, in my opinion, he worked so hard during his campaign even when he made some deals with the factions. Jocks included, but they were very clear with what they wanted.

And that was more funds for the sports division, with the cheerleaders backing them up. When you get the biggest fishes of the tank, it’s only a matter of time until the rest of the school would vote for Sam too.

“I officially hate prom night. I mean, it was fun last year, when I didn’t have to plan it from scratch!” He said, grabbing the protective glasses from the table and putting them on. He did it too quick and roughly, though. His teeth greeted a few moments as the pain seemed to fade. “I’ve received more than two hundred messages about ‘suggestions’ for it, and that was at 2 am, I had to turn off my phone now”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Can’t you just… say that the theme will be ‘Wintery forest’ or something like that and just hang a lot of paper snowflakes from the ceiling? Prom night is just dancing around a decorated basketball court Sam, not much you can do with that”

But he seemed personally attacked by my comment. He frowned and took a bag of chocolate cookies from his bag, left it on the middle of the table and started eating.

“I mean, yeah but” He pushed the bag near me, like trying to tell me to eat something. I shook my head, I wasn’t hungry. “I’d like to do something different, you know? It’s our last year here, and my last chance to be a good president!”

I nodded, understanding what he meant. “If I have a good idea, I’ll let you know, alright?”

“Do you even plan on going to prom? You haven’t even gone last year as a junior, this may be your last chance, Nate” Ouch, low blow.

I looked behind us, noticing a lot of noise on the back of the lab. Dave was struggling to put on some of the protective gloves, before he noticed me staring and gave me a warm smirk, along with a wink. Half of his protective glove was hanging from his hand, before he tried to correctly put it in place.

I chuckled a bit, and Sam noticed it. “Or…” He gave me little nudges while motioning his head to Dave’s direction. “You and the big guy there?”

“Uh? What are you talking about-” But he lifted his hand to stop me, passed me his phone with the frontal camera on. I was blushing. “Am I that obvious?”

“He just winked at you, and you still have two arms so I like to think you two are up to something together” He finished, before grabbing the bag of cookies again and putting it back on his bag. “Besides, I heard rumors that he broke up with-“

The professor had entered the room and chatting time was over. I could still hear a bit of laughter on the back, but decided to keep my eyes on the front.

Damn, I was going to blow our cover if I kept acting like a little girl. But there was probably no cover at all by this point. It’s impossible for the school to not have noticed one of the hottest guys around breaking up with his girlfriend, just a few days after he started to spend time around me.

“I won’t deny, nor accept anything” I wondered if Dave could hear us, I knew he had heightened smelling abilities, that’s how he found out I was his soulmate, but I wondered if heightened hearing was also a thing.

I’d ask him for a detailed list of his powers later, but I always forget to do that in the heat of the moment. “Now, let’s pay attention before we blow up” I finished, looking at the professor as he started explaining today’s assignment.

Sam whispered near me “We’ll talk about this lateeer♫”, in a mocking melody tone.

“Mr. Howard, take that cap off! This is a laboratory, not the baseball field!” I looked beside me and saw Dick taking off his backwards cap, while mumbling something under his breath. Probably a curse, my friend isn’t fond of people who order him around, less if they are dumb professors, according to him.

The jocks on the back laughed, but we ignored them like the professor did, resuming the lesson and preparing for playing with chemicals.

---

I felt social today, and remained with Sam for the rest of the day. Which means that I’m not alone during lunch today. He wanted to interrogate me and I honestly didn’t know what to do. I was bad at making up excuses.

We went to get our plates of food and sat in a rather empty table.

“Soooo… Are you going to tell me or not?” Sam asked, still trying to make me spill the beans about Dave, probably.

“What are you talking about?” I played dumb. I wasn’t good at making excuses, but I was pretty good at keeping secrets.

“You know about you and Dave…” But he froze in place before finishing that sentence. An unexpected guest sat beside me, so I was now surrounded by Sam and the big guy.

“I couldn’t help but hear my name, what are you two talkin’ about?” Dave said, in a pretty friendly voice. “Man, I love school’s chicken. This school is so awesome with the lunch menu. What’s up, Sammy? Cat got your tongue?”

I rolled my eyes, Sam hated being called ‘Sammy’, but I assumed they did it on purpose to bother him. Not like he can do anything about it but… I think I can. Not now, though. That would sell me out.

“W-We… We were just talking about…” Sam gulped, looking at me for help. Two weeks spent with Dave, and I almost forgot he has an awful reputation.

We’ve tried to change it, but I can only do so much with him at a time. So, I decided to focus on small things first, like his studies, then the social things afterwards.

“The upcoming… football game, yeah. That’s it, go Rottweilers!” I finished, wanting to sink my face in my plate of smashed potatoes. That was an awful excuse.

“Fuck yeah, go Rottweilers!” Dave yelled while quickly standing up on his seat, placing one of his foots on the table, and some sudden loud barks followed him. I moved my plate, because THIS is why I prefer eating alone at the school yard.

Besides being crowded, the cafeteria always had weird things like this happening from time to time. Maybe someone gets their head smashed in their plate, or a food war starts. The yard is way more chill than this place.

Dave sat down again after that, and I left my plate back in its place. I was going to ask him if that was necessary, but decided to shut my mouth as soon as the rest of the football players sat around us.

I was safe, I knew that but… It was still unsettling. Sam and I knew the football players were shady, as I mentioned once. I knew Dave was strong, he’s a werewolf after all. But could he take them all at once, or would they be able to overpower him if they actually tried to?

I couldn’t tell if Dave noticed I was nervous, I just stared down at my plate and tried to listen to the chatter around me. Sam did the same thing, leaving the jocks speaking about the upcoming game.

“Didn’t know you liked football, bruh” Dave told me, probably trying to make me participate in the conversation. I just nodded, trying to think of a valid answer to him, probably something boring to make the jocks want to leave the table ASAP.

“I-I’m not a fan of it but… our team is so good that I can’t miss any of their games” Smart Nate, just feed their ego to make them happy!

“Really? Never saw you on the bleachers during our games” One of the guys pointed out. I noticed that Lucas and Butch weren’t participating at all in the chat. They just ate and looked at us, almost in complete silence.

“I blend in easily with the crowd, you know, being small and stuff like that” It was weird. Why am I trying to prove anything to these guys? ‘I just want you to leave, take the hint!’ I thought.

Dave finally spoke “I did see him, and yeah, the lil’ dude gets lost amongst the crowd” He patted my back quite harshly, making me cough, but I was glad he backed up my lie.

Sam gave me a puzzled look and I whispered ‘Just relax and try not to piss them off’

This time, Dave did notice it, and looked down at me with a worried look on his face. He might have realized that he fucked up.

Luckily, the rest of the lunch went on normally. The jocks made a few… ‘jokes’ here and there, but I laughed off with them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like them, but I wouldn’t like Dave to go on a rant beating them all up because he wants to protect me.

Of course, they brought up my ‘faggot-ness’, but I just went on with it, countering it with a not-suggesting joke.

They seemed friendly so far, better not ruin that. But I wondered if they were here willingly, or Dave was the one who summoned them here. Not saying he threatened them but… maybe he called a football team emergency, like Butch did once.

Sam and I couldn’t wait until it was over, so we ate fast and tried to get out of there ASAP, excusing ourselves saying that we had to pick up a few books before the next class. Dave followed me with his sad puppy eyes as we left, before getting up and going after me.

“Bro!” Dave said after leaving the cafeteria, and I stopped on the middle of the corridor. It wasn’t crowded, but there were a few students around on their way to the yard, to make the most of the little free time they had.

Sam raised an eyebrow, but decided to leave us alone. I could tell he had enough of the jocks for the day, and I was worried they may be mad for leaving them having lunch alone, after they ‘rewarded us with their presence’ or something like that. I didn’t like those guys.

I looked at Dave, as he stopped in front of me and smiled. But then, he looked around and noticed a few persons in the corridor. “Uh…” He mumbled.

“C’mon” I grabbed his hand and walked to the nearby boys’ bathroom. “There,” I said after closed the door behind us. “Private moment, what happened back there? At the cafeteria, I mean”

Dave’s eyes darted around the room, as little drops of sweat appeared on his forehead. “I-I… I wanted to try and… y’know, present you with my bros?” He gulped “I know you don’t like them, but… they are my friends, and I thought everything would be much easier if they saw how awesome you are”

I was a bit confused, but not mad. I didn’t end up hurt, nor did Sam, and that was enough for me. If the jocks actually tried to sit down with us and talk, then I was willing to give them a chance.

“I sorta still don’t get why we have to keep our thing in secret, bruh. You don’t have to be afraid of anyone trying to hurt us, because I’m David fucking Walker. I own this place, I’m an alpha!”

He sounded so excited while he said that, and motivated. It was nice to see that side of him; a side I would have never imagined Dave the big bully jock could have.

“I know, you’re really great and everyone… respects you,” I started, carefully thinking my words to avoid hurting his feeling, as he looked down at me, still with a big smile. “But it’s just for some time, as we take this slowly. It would be really weird for the others if you came someday to school and randomly yell ‘I’m gay!’. Give me some time, yeah? We can sort this out together, but let’s do it slowly”

His smile slowly faded from his face. I think I hurt his feelings anyway, and it was probably an inevitable thing to do. I kind of ran out of the cafeteria with Sam as soon as we finished eating, ruining his plan of having his bros get to know me.

“I understand if you’re mad with me, bro. But I think they actually liked you! You were so smart back there, mentioning football as an excuse…” He came closer to me, and kissed me lightly on the lips, placing his big hands on my cheeks, and looked at me with really sad eyes. “But I get if you’re mad and don’t want to see me for a while, I deserve it from putting you in danger with my bros”

“Just… stop, alright?” And he did. He closed his mouth and just looked at me, waiting for me to speak. “You didn’t do anything wrong, it was a nice idea. Just try to tell me about it before doing something like that again, and I may gather some nerve to tackle it properly, alright Davey?”

He nodded slowly, giving a sigh of relief. “Y-Yeah, I will, bro. Thanks for not being mad, I would hate myself if I made you mad” I was a bit scared of someone walking in the bathroom, but at the same time I think… I didn’t care at all.

It was going to be a slow thing, yeah. But, sooner or later, it was going to be discovered. So…

Dave was looking down to his shoes, like some misbehaved kid, when I stepped forward and pulled him in for a kiss.

I was hoping for someone to enter the bathroom. Some random guy, who would apologize and leave in fear after watching the big jock angry for interrupting our kiss.

But that never happened. Damn it.

Dave recovered his sweet smile as I looked up at him. “What was that for?”

“To reassure you that you didn’t do anything wrong” I whispered to him. “We probably shouldn’t play with our luck though, but we have a few more minutes before our next class”

The werewolf jock gave me one last smooch, before saying “I love you so much, bro…”

I couldn’t help but blush, I really liked my good puppy boy.

We left the bathroom together, and headed out for the yard. As I said, we still had a few minutes before classes started, and I wanted to make the most of them with my big guy.

-----

Chapter 7 is already available in my Patreon!  And by pledging you also get access to other stories before they go public!

[cosmiciaria]

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate Review! (spoiler free - long post)

It's done! I finished my first AC game ever! And I loved it!! YAAAY!!

First things first: this is going to be an honest review. I liked the game, A LOT, more than I expected, actually, but it has flaws. Not many that I could find personally, but it has. But before I delve deeper into it, let's have an overview of the game.

AC: Syndicate is the ninth?, installment in the Assassin's Creed franchise. It's a sequel to Unity, that came out just a year before, but you don't need to play any of the other AC games to plunge into this one (or any of them, to be honest), since each game tells a self-contained story. If you've been living under a rock for the past decade or you don't know a thing about videogames, Assassin's Creed games follow a character in the present time, joining the Order of the Assassins, warriors and masters of stealth that have been at odds with the Templars since time immemorial. The Templars desire the pieces of Eden, magical artifacts created with ancient technology by the Precursors, gods and goddesses that somehow bear the names of the Roman pantheon members. These pieces of Eden are extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, but have been long lost to the folds of History and withered pages of books. The Assassins must find them in today's world, through the genetic memories buried within the DNA of the descendants of the Assassins that at some point in History have come into contact with those artifacts.

Well, that premise is true for all Assassin's Creed games. This time, we're following the same initiate we met during Black Flag and Unity, if I'm not mistaken. The previous games have followed Desmond Miles, an actual character with a face, but in these "in-between" installments, the initiate is a faceless placeholder for the player to incarnate them. But, to be honest, the present timeline is, uh, what's this word…

BORING.

Nobody cares what's going on in the present! Let's move on to the actual plot!

Syndicate takes us to Victorian London! Through the DNA of the initiate we travel in time to 1868, to the middle of the British capital. Our protagonists this time is a pair of twins: Jacob and, lo and behold, Evie Frye. I say "lo and behold" because this is the first official female assassin protagonist that we have in the mainline series of games. Prior to this game, we have Liberation which also followed a female assassin, the real first one, but that game is a spin off and mostly overlooked, since it came out only for the Vita sadly back in the day (although there's a remaster for the ps3!). Either way, all previous Assassin's Creed games (if Syndicate is the ninth, then you got the number) have starred male assassins as their protagonists. In Unity this came to a great peak when in the multiplayer co-op players were unable to play as female avatars, which caused a great ruckus. As Syndicate intended to mend many of the problems players found in Unity, we have now an official, canon female character in the main series! And I say: CHEERS TO THAT!

I MUST address this because it was one of the two reasons why I bought this game. I was never interested in the AC games but I've always wanted this one, because you could play as Evie Frye. As a female cis person, I find the lack of canon female protagonist to be baffling, to say the least (the actual word I'm looking for would be "annoying"). I'm not going to say that I'm forced to play as a male character all the time, because nobody forces me to play any game, I play them all because I wish to – but the truth is that, for many years, the videogame industry has been directed at one public only: boys. And some boys, for some reason, won't play the game if the protagonist is a girl or looks like a girl. And I don't care if the presence of a female character breaks your history immersion and whatnot: we have fricking magic in this game, do not throw historical accuracy at me for it. So, Ubisoft: I AM GLAD you created Evie Frye. She's fearless, she's relentless, she's clever, she has a clear goal in mind and solves every little piece to make the bigger plan work. She's badass without throwing her femininity off the window, and for a change she's the one saving the man in distress. I love her and her cloaks. Also she's cute as hell.

I am ALSO GLAD that Ubisoft created Jacob Frye! Jacob is a good balance to Evie, since he's more impulsive, a brawler, and likes throwing himself into battle. He speaks with fists, while never leaving his morals aside. He shows disregard for careful plans, but ultimately works in favor of them. He might sound a little stupid when I picture him this way, but he's not: he follows the creed strictly, during the assassination missions he shows clear precision, planification and ingenuity, and most importantly, he has a golden heart, and knows his ideals and principles very well. And for the love of Minerva, he's so handsome I might die.

So the Frye twins are both your protagonists this time! During the open world map and sidequests, you can switch between them on the fly. But during main missions, one of them will be assigned for you to play as and you'll be forced to complete the quest with either of them. Evie favors stealth, whereas Jacob is all about combat. This allows the player to tackle the game and the different activities as they see fit. If you're patient, probably Evie will be best for you, but if you can't handle the stealth, choose Jacob and start throwing punches! The city of London is open for you to choose the way you can liberate it.

And that takes me to my second reason why I bought this game: London.

For a not native-English-speaker as myself, who has learned and studied British English for over ten years, London will always hold a soft spot in my heart. Two years ago I was finally able to realize my dream and visit the city for the first time ever. I cried when I stepped out of St. Pancrasse station, understanding that my feet were touching English ground. So when I saw that this game not only offered me the chance to play as a female assassin, but it would also allow me to revisit London, I didn't think twice.

We follow Jacob and Evie to London, where they must meet Henry Green, the assassin watching over that city, in pursue of an important Templar figure: Starrick. Along the way to assassinate him, we'll take down other important Templar members, all responding to him. As I will keep this spoiler free, let's leave it at that. Let's just say that Starrick is in London, controlling every nook and cranny, while his second in command, Lucy Thorne, is reservedly researching the leads of a possible piece of Eden that might be hidden in the city's most secretive places.

London is so well recreated, I cried once when I stopped in front of the Big Ben. You're only able to visit and play through a portion of the city, around the Thames and Westminster, but still, even small though it seems, the map is big enough and full of activities to fulfill. The streets feel alive with its multiple, many, MANY npc's walking, running, driving carriages, interacting with each other, often having conversations as well! I was astonished when I was walking with Evie down an alley and an npc waved his hand to another npc that was some feet away, and the first one rushed to the second one to greet each other. It was such a realistic thing to see on the street that I was amazed at the technology behind it. As always, AC games excel at the presentation of countless npc's, each with a different animation and voices. On top of that, the city looks gorgeous, with so many details that I often stopped to stare, especially in the most emblematic buildings, like the different train Stations, the Parliament, St Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and, of course, the Buckingham Palace. Everything is so faithful and vibrant and alive, that… yes, I love it. I fricking love it. I travelled again there in this game and I'm thankful for it.

There are nine sequences with 4 to 7 memories each, and all of them are different and unique enough to make them memorable. In particular, the main assassination quests were complex, using exclusive scenarios to the mission, offering the player different paths to tackle the killing – they were my favorite out of all the game. The last mission was *chef kiss*.

Apart from the main missions, you can slowly liberate each neighborhood from the Templars' claws. Each borough has a set of different activities to complete in order for you to "conquer" it. Gang wars, bounty hunts, Templar hunts, there's a lot to do. It might seem a lot at first, but you'll soon see the patterns across the sidequests, only to (unfortunately) realize that they're all the same. These can get tiresome and repetitive after a while, but they're also the best way to level up and earn money quickly. My personal favorite were the child liberations, because I felt like I was doing a good deed and also as if Charles Dickens himself was asking me to do it.

Oh, yes, Charles Dickens is in this game! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, because I don't! He's one of my favorite authors, so, to be GIVEN a QUEST by HIM, I'm in tears guys, do you understand why I loved this game so much??

But Dickens isn't the only historical person that you'll encounter: Darwin also makes an appearance, as well as Marx (of whom I believed to be in Brussels, but I guess he visited London at some point – now I want an AC game set in Brussels), and Alexander Graham Bell, who will be your DaVinci of this game (Oh, now I want to play Ezio's games), offering you new toys to tinker with as you pave your way across the city. There are other historical people, but I won't mention them, since they're probably a spoiler, so I'll let you be surprised!

You'll have like a "hub world", or more like, a hub train – a train will be your hideout, your base, where you'll collect money, take some quests, interact with some characters and buy stuff cheaper. This train will constantly move around the city – sometimes I found myself appearing on the other side of the map because I was studying and investigating the things the train offered. I really liked the idea of a "moving base house", also it's quite fancy, and besides, I love trains. This game just keeps bringing me the good content.

Evie and Jacob are good protagonists – I'm not going to say they slay at it, but they serve the purpose. They're quite stereotypical, specially Jacob, as he seems to follow the trend Ezio imposed back in the day, and to which Arno also contributed – and Evie is quite the "polar opposite", a cliché often used on twins to express how "different they are". Their personalities are nothing new; what is endearing and worth noting, though, is their interactions. At first I thought "this is going to be another of the never-ending cases of twins acting like friends instead of siblings". I do come across this mistake more frequently than I'd like to, only broken by some exceptions (World of Final Fantasy is a really good one), even more if the twins are a boy and girl. I'm not saying twins shouldn't be friends themselves, but they're siblings first, for the love of Juno, and most creators who put twins into their stories don't seem to remember how siblings treat each other. Luckily, this game proved me wrong, since the Frye twins showed me that they're real siblings: not because they quarrel (they do, sometimes, quite forced in my opinion), but because of the way they look at each other, they care for each other, they often joke about the other, the familiarity and complicity they treat some topics with, because of the small banter that you can hear them have in the train hideout, how Jacob teases Evie with Henry or how Evie teases Jacob for the cloaks he's wearing – that, all of that, all combined, make up for a good sibling relationship and show me that these two have been brother and sister for a while now. I'm glad they ended up being one of the exceptions to this godawful rule among the fictional twin characters. I would've liked, though, maybe a few more scenes with them having a real heart to heart – I think we were robbed of one or two (specially after sequence 8 if you ask me- Jacob please, let's talk, baby).

Henry is another important character – although I thought he'd be more important. He ultimately appeared in less missions than I expected, and is soon relegated to be Evie's love interest and that's it. And even that is, uh… a little underwhelming. I kinda shipped them at first, then I was like "please, they're FRIENDS, don't force this", only to see myself getting disappointed. I think Henry needed more screentime for me to care more about him, and I definitely believe that, after that mission with Evie, we needed a cutscene with an explanation. It was kind of forgotten later, and he felt more like a plot device than anything else. I'm sad, because he could've been a great opportunity to show us a bit of Indian culture, and also because by the end of the game he's treated like another protagonist, when it doesn't feel like he'd earned it, though, considering the whole game. My opinion.

There are other characters worth mentioning, like Freddy Abberline, another historical person, whose running gag about disguises soon grew on me; Clara O'Dea, a little girl who asks us to liberate her fellow children friends from the claws of foremen who exploit them and acts like a little spy for us; Ned Wynart, who brings trans representation into the game; and some other sequence exclusive characters, who I won't mention because it will spoilerish. Let's just say that Jacob comes across a very interesting man.

On the technical department, I already said that London looks great, but I want to stress this: the whole game looks great. From cinematography to animations, I think they nailed the direction in this one. As my first AC game I can't speak for the others, but this one is a gem. I must mention though that the game crashed on me only once, and I was looking for the "destruction trophy", the one that asks you to break 5000 destructible items of the city – well, it seems I had destroyed enough and the game couldn't take any more wrecked chaos across London, but other than that I didn't encounter any bug nor any trophy didn't pop up. It looks great and it plays great: the controls are responsive, you swiftly dash across the city feeling unstoppable – sometimes controls didn't do what I wanted but it wasn't the game's fault, it was mine, so I can't blame it for my own stupidity.

The soundtrack is also such an unexpected jewel in this game. The solemn tracks that play on the background while you're peacefully traversing the city – some are lyrical and dramatic, others go well with a rainy suburb. The vibrant and electrifying tracks during battles or escapes did bring all the Sherlock Holmes movies vibes to the game. It was all – so English, if you catch my drift. The music did fit well with the British atmosphere they were aiming for.

The ending is satisfying – don't expect an opera prima, or a huge revelation, or groundbreaking plot twists. The story is fairly lineal in its presentation: this is the goal? Alright, the whole game goes for it. We can say that it's quite predictable, but let's be honest, we're not here for the ending or the things that might happen to discover the characters in the present time, we're here to assassinate people with our beautifully hidden blade – wait, that sounded way too violent – we're here for the gameplay, for the historical events, for the feeling of being an assassin, and for some world-building regarding the Precursors.

In regards to that, I cannot not mention the World War I Simulation – a rift in time appears in the Thames towards halfway through the game, and you can enter it – it will take you forward in time, to the same London that is now under the attack of the German. In this more modern time, you play as Lydia Frye, Jacob's granddaughter, also an assassin, who collaborates with no other than Winston Churchill to defeat the Templars. In this kind of DLC episode we learn way more about the Precursors, Juno, Minerva and other important figures to this world-building, that it's mostly lacking in the rest of the game. This simulation does feel like a DLC since it only offers a few hours of gameplay, the metaphor isn't in vain – it's a huge change of pace, it plays a little different since you'll be doing war stuff, and you also visit a portion of the city that isn't available in the main game: the Tower Bridge. It IS worth playing, though, not only for the trophies or for the extended map, but for what I said earlier: world-building. Juno plays a big part in this simulation, and I encourage you to play it, even though it's optional. Slowly but steadily, the world of the Precursors is unfolding before our very eyes. Also, Lydia, YASS another female assassin joins the family!

All in all, Syndicate is a positive experience. Sidequests are repetitive and mostly boring after you complete the first borough, some characters needed more screentime, Evie and Jacob could've used a sensitive cutscene with a deep conversation – but the mechanics, the gameplay, the city, the main missions, the relationship between the twins, the customization of weapons and outfits, and the fact that I literally entered Buckingham Palace after killing a royal guard or two – that, is more than enough to compensate for what it's lacking. You might be tired of the same formula over and over if you're a fan of the franchise, but do give the twins a shot. If you never play an AC game before, try this one out – it might turn you into an AC fangirl, like it did to me.

I'm a trophy hunter myself, so I'll try to platinum it! And now my eyes are intent on Unity, because, if you've seen this post, you know that Arno and Élise resemble two of my oc's, so now I need that game to be injected into my veins, thank you very much.

[ill-advisedrecords]

Hey guys, Chris here again!

You probably know by now that I produce music on this label under the name “Dated”, but what you may not know is that I’ve also produced the upcoming Cyberghost album as my first real Dark Synthwave album. This is a pretty sharp left-turn from my usual work in lofi hip hop, so I wanted to go into a bit of detail about why I started making this sort of music, how I learned to do it, what I used to make it, and what inspired this project.

This story begins where all stories about getting into something new in 2020 will - quarantine. While I run this label like it’s a day job, I actually have a “real” day job as an administration manager for an art gallery. March came along, and so did the COVID situation, and I found myself laid-off for about 4.5 months straight due to a lockdown. The first few months were mostly spent playing videogames and watching movies, but after a while I started to get the itch to use the time a bit more productively. Around that same time, I happened to come across a track on Youtube which I hadn’t hear in a few years - Carpenter Brut’s “Escape from Midwich Valley”. While I had heard his music before, and enjoyed it quite a bit, I never really looked into more tracks by Mr. Brut, and had mostly just listened to the odd Perturbator album as my experience with dark synthwave. This time, however, it just grabbed me, and I spent days just listening to dark synthwave music and wondering how they all made it. As someone who has always worked with samples and knows absolutely nothing about music theory or sound design, I have always been mystified as to how people actually make “real” music. For whatever reason, the obsessive part of my personality kicked in right then and there, and I found myself looking for synths to download and searching “how to stay in key” on Youtube.

What followed was a solid month of spending about 16 hours a day doing absolutely nothing but looking things up, working on my own tracks, and watching 80’s horror films on Shudder every time I had to stop working to eat something. My girlfriend was coincidentally out of town for the month, so I was able to just go in hard on this whole dark synthwave thing. The first thing I found that really made it all possible was the “stamp” feature in FL Studio’s piano roll. As if magically, I could just pick a key, see what notes were within it, and then just always be on-key if I stuck to those. It took some time to figure out my timing and how to write something that didn’t sound terrible, but at least knowing I wasn’t falling out of key really gave me the confidence to play around with notes until I felt my riffs were getting catchier. The other biggest game-changer was buying some paid synths. Free synths are great and all, but their main issue is that they are generally built to make a pretty wide-range of sounds, and I found myself getting buried in massive preset libraries rather than being able to find those authentic 80’s sounds I wanted. I picked up U-He’s Repro-5 (which comes bundled with the Repro-1), as well as the TAL-U-NO-LX, which despite only being $50 USD is hands-down my most used synth. The TAL is lightweight, has a nice simple arpeggiator, and I honestly don’t think is capable of making a bad, un-80’s sound. The Repro was also great, and allows for much more full, complex sounds which still ooze 80’s vibes, but since it is a much more resource-intensive synth, I found myself using it less often due to the need to bounce sequences out to WAV frequently to keep my DAW from lagging after a few layers. That said, you can hear all 3 synths on pretty much every Cyberghost track, as well as a few later additions such as Serum and Mono/Poly.

That bit of research had the technical bits sorted out, but an album doesn’t write itself. The actual process for creating the tracks was loosely built around a concept - that of a mysterious, isolated town in the woods, being investigated by someone who gets pulled deep into darker events than they had anticipated. If that sounds a bit vague, well, that is intentional. I wanted enough of a concept to help me decide which tracks to make and how to arrange them, as well as what to title them and what album art to produce, but didn’t want some beat-for-beat script I had to illustrate through music. Also helping things along were the avalanche of 80’s horror films I consumed during the time I wrote the album (and consistently afterwards). Some standouts were Manic Cop, The Mouth of Madness, Sleepaway Camp, and Pieces.

It took about a month to get the first 6 of 8 tracks finished, and then I finished the remaining 2 tracks (which were Midnight Detectives and The Ritual) over the course of another month or two once I had returned to work. I drew a few designs for album art and picked one, which I posted in the last blog post, but later scrapped for what would become the current album art (the inks for which can be seen above). I’ve been a visual artist for a long time, so that was probably the most approachable part of this whole project.

And that’s the story of how a guy who can;t play any instruments or write music, and had never touched a synth before wrote a synthwave album in a few months. Whether it turned out well or not will be up to you folks once you can hear the full thing on the 11th, but I’d like to think it turned out pretty decent. If you’ve ever thought about learning to create something new, but thought it was out of reach, I’d urge you to push that negative voice down and just jump into learning about it without thinking. You’d be surprised how things can sort of fall into place, and the process of learning can carry you to a point where you can actually start doing without thinking so much about it.

The full album comes out this coming Monday, January 11 2021. If you want a sneak peek at the album, you can check it out here: https://youtu.be/HkBylYMa6wQ

The album will be available on a limited edition Type II blood-red cassette which comes with a special box and a signed 11x17 poster (limited to 100 copies). There will also be the usual unlimited cassette release, as well as our first CD release. I’ll probably make another post once the album is out to cover some of the physical options, as they just turned out beautiful.

[knjnvrland]

Prank Wars - ch. 2

> pairing | jungkook x reader

> word count | 2.5k

> genre | college!au, fluff, smut

> warnings | swearing, alcohol consumption

> synopsis | College can be a stressful time in anyone’s life as it is, why don’t we throw a little prank war in the mix to make it harder?

> fic masterlist

> A/N | English is not my first language, I’m sorry for the eventual spelling mistake, please let me know if you find any! 

CHAPTER 2 - Dying it Red

Getting past the embarrassment of your first day of classes, when everyone would stare at your stained clothes, the next couple of the weeks flew by fairly smooth. You made a few acquaintances in classes, which was enough for group projects and study dates, and found your way around campus with the help of your brothers and your brother’s friends. Your friends now, too. You had lunch with at least one of them every day and stopped by Jin’s cafe almost every morning for a free snack that your brother basically forced into you, using you as a guinea pig for the recipes he was trying. It was alarmingly easy to get into the new routine. 

“Then you press this button and wait for the light to turn green.” Alice was helping you out with your laundry, teaching you how to work the machines at the basement of the student's dorms. “Just be careful to be here when the timer is done, otherwise someone might take your clothes out and who would want another person’s hands in their underwear?” She played around when the harsh sound of the washing machine began, letting you know it was doing it’s job.

“Babe?” A male voice called, descending the last steps of the stairs, and you both turned around to face Yoongi with another boy trailing behind.

“Hey Yoongs, we were just finishing here.” Alice smiled warmly at her boyfriend. “Long time no see, Jungkook.” She then turned to the messy haired boy all dressed in black, walking to him and wrapping her hands around his waist. She probably couldn’t reach all the way around his neck, as her hugs usually went, because of how tall the boy was. “This is y/n, the Kim’s baby sister.” She stepped away and signaled to you, and that’s when you realized that this handsome guy in front of you was also the asshole that ruined your otherwise perfect first day.

“We actually met before.” You smiled with your lips tight together, trying to hide your annoyance. “He bumped into me on my first day here.” At that Alice let her mouth hung open, joining the dots in her head but not adding to the conversation.

“Really? I don’t remember you.” The boy looked confused, clearly being genuine on his lack of memory of the accident. Well, how could he remember you when he didn’t even had the decency to turn around and apologize that day. “Nice to meet you, anyway.” He smiled at you but you turned around, pretending to be entertained by the rotation of the washing machine.

Yoongi, sensing the tense atmosphere, wrapped his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder. “If we don’t leave now we might miss the beginning of the film.”

“Are you coming y/n?” Alice asked.

“Nah, I have to wait for this to be finished and then I might drop by Joonie’s place, but thanks anyway.” Jungkook was already at the stairs again when you finished answering, not bothering to say goodbye at all. Alice noticed it and gave you a sympathetic smile, leaving with Yoongi behind the youngest boy.

“What an idiot.” You let out a sigh and pulled out your phone to text your sibling’s group chat about meeting up later, you might as well enjoy your Friday night with them somehow.

“That's cheating!” Taehyung yelled. “You can’t all team up against me!”

“Sorry Tae, y/n never played before, we’re just helping her out.” Namjoon explained, just as Jin killed Taehyung for the third time in a row.

Jin picked you up and you ended up at the boys' place. Jimin had a date and Hoseok was practicing late, so you and your brothers had the apartment all to yourselves. You ordered pizza and revived the old playstation 2 that was the center of so many fights between the three boys growing up. You were never a tomboy, in a house with so much testosterone, your mother made sure to keep you by her side, dressing you up in girly dresses and gifting you all the dolls you would ask. Don’t get it wrong, you could still beat Taehyung in a play fight any day, and had your fair share of scraped knees and quick trips to the hospital because you were playing a little bit too harsh trying to keep up with your older siblings, but videogames were never really your thing.

“She's fine! You don’t need to help her every time we play something new.” He whined, letting go of the controller to grab another slice of greasy muzzarela pizza. It was true, you were a fast learner and definitely didn’t need your brothers teaming up to help you out.

“But it’s funnier this way.” You stated, taking advantage and killing Taehyung once again when his guard was down because he was shoving the entire pizza into his mouth.

“Hey!” He complained with his mouth full. “That's it, I give up, you guys suck.”

“Don't be such a baby.” Jin shoved Taehyung’s shoulder with his own. “We'll play nice next round.”

“I’m not asking you to play nice, I’m asking you to play fair.” he pouted.

Namjoon patted Tae in the head. “It’s alright, we won’t count this one on the final score.”

“But I still won.” you gloated, finishing off Jin’s character on the game when they were all distracted and standing up to grab another soda from the kitchen.

“I trusted you!” The eldest shouted dramatically and you laughed to yourself, proud of your definitely-not-fair victory.

You brought back drinks for everyone as a way to say sorry, and you all settled, trying to choose another game to play next. Namjoon was distracted by his phone, texting someone non stop. Jin snatched the phone out of the other boy’s hand to read without permission, and both of them started wrestling on the ground for the device.

“Give it back!” Namjoon was on his side with his legs wrapped around Jin’s waist while Jin was laying on the ground, chest down with one of his arms pushing Namjoon’s face away and the other trying to keep the phone as far away as possible. You already knew what would happen next before Taehyung even made the first move to stand up, so you were prepared when the phone flew to your hands, being snatched by Tae from the pile of limbs tangled on the floor and thrown at you before he was pulled into the mess.

You scrolled through the texts in the open conversation and handed the phone back to Namjoon, who had given up and was on the floor, red faced and short of breath. 

“It's just a party.” You informed the other two.

“Who’s? Where? When?” Taehyung eagerly wanted to know.

“Some guy named Jackson? I don’t know, it sounds like it’s at a fraternity.” You answered, not really interested and just wanting to go back to the game.

“It’s at Delta Sigma.” Namjoon clarified. “It’s next weekend and it sounds like it’s going to be big, it’s their beginning of the school year party and they’re introducing their new boys to the world, I guess?”

“Oh, we’re definitely going.” Jin stated. “I went to a lot of their parties when Mark was still living there and it’s always legendary. Also, they have the best booze."

Namjoon went through the details while Jin sent a text to the group chat with the rest of your friend group to let them know and soon after everyone -even Yoongi- was in. You chose the next game and the four of you went back to playing and bickering as if you were still teenagers in your home’s living room.

“Can I borrow this earring?” Alice asked you, popping her head into the bathroom where you were doing your make up. You nodded and she disappeared again.

The party began an hour ago, but Yoongi was finishing his shift at the radio and he was your lift there, so the two of you could take your sweet time getting ready to go. The week went by fast and, apart from having to see Jungkook more now that he was settled into his new apartment and finally began hanging out with the rest of the group, you couldn’t complain. He still had no idea why you were always so cold with him, but made no effort to find out either, assuming you were just a little bit closed off. He was also driving there with you, taking advantage of Yoongi’s promise of sobriety and the fact that they lived in the same building, and you had made up your mind that, by the end of the night, you would make him apologize to you for ruining your favorite shirt and the perfect planned first impressions you intended on making on your classmates.

Just as you were finishing applying your lipstick, Alice’s phone rang and she letted you know that Yoongi was waiting downstairs, so you grabbed your phone, handed your keys to your roomate, letting her responsible for it, and walked out the door.

The ride there was quiet, Jungkook ended up going earlier with the rest of the boys and only needed Yoongi as a ride back home later, so you didn’t have to sit through the uncomfortable silence that would've settled if he was on the back sit with you. When you got there you could tell people were already wasted. You spotted Hobi right away, he was chugging down god knows how much beer at once and being cheered on by a group of people around him. Yoongi left to find Namjoon and tell him about some new project and Alice made her way to where the alcohol was with you trailing behind her. 

Jimin was there with a group of people, mostly girls and, of course, Jungkook. Alice said hi to them and you waved, not really wanting to introduce yourself to the strangers in the group and specially not very keen on getting another step closer to the boy who spilled his coffee on you and never apologized. Did I mention he never apologized? Because he never did. What an asshole. Jimin handed you a shot and you poured it down your throat without even asking what it was. You were not really a big party person, and the only way to get through it was getting shit faced drunk, and that’s what you were planning on doing.

You spent most of your time dancing with Jimin and Alice, or by the kitchen filling your cup. You bumped into your brothers but honestly, you were not really into the idea of seeing them make out with random people or embarrass you with their drunk dancing, so you kept your distance. You would bump into Jungkook every now and then as well, and Alice had to keep you from going up to him and making a scene. You just wanted him to apologize, really, but you were not sure you could let him know that without calling him a few names you thought suited him much better then ‘Jungkook’ before.

It was just a second that Alice turned around to look for her boyfriend and you were already gone from her sigh. You were a little bit tipsy, sure, but you could get a drink by yourself without your friend constantly by your side. On the way to the kitchen you even had a small conversation with a handsome stranger with light eyes and dreamy lips that you were sure would not have happened if you had Alice with you. You were looking for another beer, just to drown your nerves a little bit and go find that godlike creature again, when you spotted Jungkook. There was a girl standing by your side with a tall red cup filled with god knows what and you didn’t think twice before gabbing it and throwing it. Your aim must have been a little off though, because instead of hitting your target, the splash of alcohol landed on the person beside him, who just happened to be your brother.

“Y/n what the fuck?!” Taehyung turned around to find you frozen in place looking as guilty as ever. The group of people around them took a step back from the mess and Jungkook started laughing hysterically.

“Sorry Tae that wasn’t for you.” The words barely audible over the loud noise of people talking around you. You had no idea what had gotten into you and could feel your face getting warm. “I was aiming at Jungkook.” 

At that the other boy stopped his laughter and looked offended at you. “What? Why?”

“Because you should learn some manners, asshole!” You couldn’t hold back you annoyance even though you knew you were overreacting, but the alcohol in your blood took control of your ability to filter your words and you would rather have people think you were red because of anger then because of shame. Taehyung started to laugh then, not really understanding what was happening, but amused seeing you argue with someone that wasn’t him for once.

“What have I ever done to you?” Jungkook was just as confused as your brother.

Before you could answer and give him a little bit of your mind, Alice and Namjoon walked in and found the absolute mess you had made. See, the drink you threw was a dark shade of red, and the kitchen had white tiles and white cabinets all around that were now all tainted a lovely shade of pink, as was your brother’s bleached hair and light clothes.

“Dude what happened?” Namjoon was the first to speak, but Tae just waved him off, finding the situation more funny then anything else. He could get back at you later anyway, and growing up with you gave him the ability to read you better then anyone else, so the act you were putting to sound tough didn’t mean a thing to him and he was enjoying seeing how far you would go to hide you embarrassment.

“Maybe I should take y/n home.” Alice stated, grabbing the empty cup from your hand and leaving it on the counter, as if disarming you of a powerful weapon. She then passed her arm through your waist and led you to the door. You could only follow along, unable to react when you fully realized what just happened.

Finding Yoongi was easy, he was on his way to the kitchen and met you halfway, not needing any explanation before following the both of you to his car. The drive home was silent, apart from some underground rap song playing from Yoongi’s sound system and Alice calling a friend of hers who was at the party to see if they could give Jungkook a ride home later. You laughed to yourself, remembering the boy's face when he realized the target was him, and that alone made it worth it. The fact that you stole his ride back was just a plus to the situation. He was a handsome boy, you couldn’t deny it, so wiping that bunny smile from his face gave you more pleasure than you were able to put into words. You would have stopped there, honestly, but deep down you knew that what took place at the party was just the beginning.

> A/N | It /really/ starts here, I guess. Have a nice day, wherever and whoever you are :)

TAGLIST IS OPEN

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Eddie, You Had One Job

Written by @greenornaments

Gift for @eduardoandale

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Eddie Kaspbrak

Word count: 4,937

Rating: Teen

AO3 Link - https://archiveofourown.org/works/21248489

Summary: Eddie can’t think of anything he’d rather do less than spend his Friday night at the drama department’s annual haunted attraction. Little does he know, he’s about to have a life changing encounter with one Richie Tozier....

Eddie trudged along, shivering in the chilly October air despite the warmth of his fleece hoodie. He couldn’t believe he had allowed Bill and Stan to talk him into spending his Friday night going to the haunted house put on by their university’s drama department. The three of them hardly ever got to hang out lately, what with midterms and part-time jobs demanding much of their free time, and Eddie’s suggestion for this rare night of togetherness had been to rent a stack of movies (or even better, videogames) and hole themselves up in his and Stan’s dorm room with a healthy supply of popcorn, chips, and soda. 

However, Bill, the resident drama geek, who had worked the haunted house for the past two weekends, had suggested that they all check it out from an audience’s perspective. Stan had, of course, readily agreed, so unfortunately, Eddie had been outvoted. Which was a shame because he’d really been looking forward to a relaxing night with just them, not them plus a hundred other people in frosty temperatures while his fingers turned into mini popsicles. 

“Step it up, Ed, or we’ll never get there,” Bill called out to him, turning his head back to look at Eddie, who was several strides behind his friends. 

“I’m gonna say it again, this is dumb,” Eddie grumbled. “It’s fucking freezing out. We’re all going to catch hypothermia and die, if we don’t catch the flu first from being surrounded by so many people during peak season. Besides, it’s not like you don’t know what this thing is like, you’ve worked it.”

“Yeah, but you guys haven’t seen it yet,” Bill pointed out. “And we’ve all worked really hard on it, so I wanna see how you like it.”

“Come on, Eddie. It’ll be fun,” coaxed Stan. “Besides, do you really want to spend every weekend of your entire college experience in your room?” he added. 

“Yes, because at least my room is clean. At least MY half of it is,” replied Eddie, which caused Stan to roll his eyes in exasperation. 

“Don’t worry, Eddie, we’ll be there to protect you if it gets too scary,” teased Bill. 

“I am NOT scared,” Eddie declared firmly. He wasn’t, not really. Sure, sometimes horror movies and stuff frustrated him. He was usually the one to cover his eyes whenever they watched them together, after all. Granted, some (well, most) of the time it was because he literally could not watch someone make a stupid decision that led them right into the monster’s trap without getting irrationally angry and going off on a rapidfire tangent that quickly made the other boys regret watching with him. But still. 

Mostly, he wasn’t all that enthused with going to the haunted house because he knew Stan and Bill were going to be all touchy and clingy the entire time and he was probably going to spend the entire evening as a glorified third wheel. 

He saw Bill and Stan exchange a look. “Whatever you say, Ed,” said Stan. “Tell you what, next time we all have a free Friday night, you pick what we do. Deal?”

Eddie sighed. “Deal,” he agreed, resigning himself to an evening of freezing his ass off while being surrounded by a bunch of over-enthusiastic theatre kids who were determined to make him jump out of his skin. 

The three of them made it at last to the edge of the vast field which, in warmer months, usually played host to traveling carnivals, but which was currently sporting a carefully crafted maze made of painted plywood, in addition to a series of temporary mobile buildings, all of which were decorated to look as spooky as possible. Which, if Eddie was being honest, wasn’t very. Crude wooden signs that said things like TURN BACK, BEWARE, and ABANDON HOPE were strategically placed along a pathway that led to a large, black tent adorned with orange and purple string lights. To be perfectly frank, it all looked a lot tamer than Eddie had been expecting, not that he would ever risk hurting Bill’s feelings by saying so. 

A throng of people were already making their way inside the tent. Bill led the way in, Stan following closely behind him, and Eddie bringing up the rear. He looked around, unable to see too much since the inside of the tent was dark except for the spaced out battery-operated lanterns providing the only source of light. They served as illumination for a small, wooden platform that stood in the center of the tent like a stage. A guy, clearly one of the drama students, sat on a stool on top of the platform, holding a microphone in his lap and watching as the tent began to fill with people. He briefly caught Eddie’s eye as their group of three settled in a spot toward the front of the crowd, directly facing the makeshift stage.

“So, what are we waiting for, exactly?” Eddie murmured to Bill as the tent continued to fill up with excited patrons. He rubbed his hands together in an effort to warm them up now that they were semi-inside and out of the cold air. 

“This is the holding area. They’re just gonna explain how the tour works and…” Bill began to explain, but Eddie was only half listening because, in spite of himself, he kept finding his eyes wandering back over to the guy on the platform. Even though he’d silently admitted to himself in high school that he might not be straight, he still had a great deal of difficulty allowing himself to check guys out for more than a few seconds at a time, as though he were always afraid that someone would notice and judge him for it if he let his gaze linger too long. He supposed that came from a lifetime of someone always telling him he was wrong in some way, whether that be kids at school or, usually, his own mother. 

In the dark tent, though, he felt a bit safer letting himself take a good look. Not that there was anything particularly special about this guy. He was just a typical college student. He looked pretty nerdy, really, what with his tacky long-sleeved Hawaiian shirt, unkempt dark hair and huge glasses that took up a sizable portion of his face. It was a very cute face, though, which was probably why Eddie felt like he had to keep stealing glances at it while catching bits and pieces of whatever Bill was saying. 

“.....and you definitely shouldn’t touch the actors,” Bill continued. Eddie blinked, momentarily taken out of his enrapturement with Mr. Hawaiian Shirt. 

“What?”

“You can’t touch the actors, it’s a major rule,” said Bill. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve almost been beaten shitless by some weenie who got too scared.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Eddie with an eyeroll, even as he silently thought that, maybe, he wouldn’t mind touching at least ONE of the actors. He glanced back over to the guy on the podium, who, to Eddie’s absolute horror, was looking right back at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“Motherfuckin shit fuck,” Eddie whispered in a panic as he averted his eyes, his face so burning hot he just knew he was probably as red as a tomato. He hoped it was dark enough that the other guy didn’t notice, but knowing his luck, he probably wasn’t that fortunate. 

“You ok, Ed?” asked Stan, giving him a curious look. 

“Fine,” Eddie mumbled. He only wanted a hole to open up beneath him so he could fall into it and disappear, but yeah, other than that, he was great. He saw Stan and Bill exchange another look out of the corner of his eye, but thankfully, they didn’t press the issue. 

Just then, someone closed the open flap of the tent, plunging it into almost complete darkness. A spooky sound effects tape began to play on a low volume from somewhere across the tent. The lanterns shone onto the platform, where Mr. Hawaiian Shirt was standing up and getting ready to address the audience. 

“Alright, how is everyone doing this fine evening, ladies and germs?” he said into the microphone, his voice reverberating throughout the tent. A mumbled scattering of voices responded, and the guy shook his head in disappointment. 

“Oh, come on, you bitches can do better than that. I said, how is everyone doing?” He thrust the mic out into the audience, who responded with a loud chorus of “GOOOOOD.”

“Beautiful,” said the guy happily, catching Eddie’s eye again as he said the word. “Anyway, my name is Richie and welcome to our humble little haunted attraction!” Ah, so Mr. Hawaiian Shirt had a name. Richie. Eddie filed it away in the back of his mind as he tried to stop his face from flushing every time Richie looked in his direction. 

“Let me be clear, our goal here is to make sure you all have a friggin great time, and we do that by trying to scare the absolute shit out of you,” said Richie into the mic, one hand casually resting into the pocket of his jeans as he leaned against the stool. “I mean, not literally. Please do not actually shit while inside the attraction. A lot of these props and costumes are rented.”

The audience laughed. Eddie bit his lip, pissed off at himself for finding such a gross and lame joke funny. He was determined not to laugh, since Mr. Hawaiian...sorry, RICHIE...seemed to be making a lot of eye contact with him specifically, and Eddie felt it was important that he know that his jokes were stupid. 

“So, like I was saying, this ain’t your mama’s haunted house,” Richie continued, playfully tossing his mic from one hand to the other. “Or maybe it is, I wouldn’t know, cause your mama never called me the next day.” His eyes locked on Eddie’s again as amused giggles rang out from the audience, and if Eddie didn’t know better, he could have sworn that the guy actually winked at him. It was probably a trick of the light reflecting off of his glasses, but even so. He couldn’t believe he still thought this guy was cute now that he’d actually opened his mouth. 

“So anyway, guys, I’m not gonna keep you here, I’m just here to debrief. We just have a few basic ground rules,” said Richie, getting down to business at last. “First, make sure to always follow the lighted paths from one show building to the next, cause nobody has time to go looking for your lost ass. Secondly, no flash photography. We’re all broke college students and we can’t afford a trip to the ER if you blind us and we trip and break a leg. And third, for the same reasons, PLEASE don’t touch us. I know you’ll be terrified ‘cause not every actor here is gonna be as handsome as I am.” He made eye contact with Eddie again as he spoke, and Eddie felt his stomach betray him with an excited flip. Why the fuck did he find this guy so damn intriguing? 

“Some of them will be the scariest shit you’ve ever seen,” Richie continued. “But, keep your paws to yourself and we’ll all have a good time. Are we ready?” 

“YEESSS,” the audience roared out, and the tent opened back up as everyone started to pour out. Eddie cast one last glance back at Richie, who was retreating out the other side. Specifically, he focused on what Richie’s ass looked like in his jeans. You know, just in case he needed to reference it for later. 

“Come on, Ed!” he heard Bill shout. Eddie shook himself and hurried to stick close to Bill and Stan, who were leading the way, hand in hand, down the path toward the first attraction. They all piled into one of the temporary buildings, which was decorated on the inside to look like a dark bedroom, the only source of light coming from several blue-bulbed lamps. A girl in a nightgown lay on the bed with a grotesquely made up face, disregarding everyone in the room except for the guy in a priest costume standing beside her. 

“What an excellent day for an exorcism,” the girl said in a creepy voice that set Eddie’s teeth on edge despite the fact that he was well aware it was just a student in a costume. 

The next building they visited was similarly creepy. This one featured a sad looking ghost boy on a tire swing, slowly swinging back and forth with a forlorn “Won’t you play with me?” Eddie mentally gave it an A for effort. 

The rest of the attractions played out in much the same manner, and it wasn’t until Eddie reached the fifth or sixth unvarying show building that he realized that he’d somehow managed to lose track of Stan and Bill in the crowd of people moving from one section to the next. “Great,” he muttered. “Stan! Bill?” Where the fuck were they? He sighed heavily and curiously peeked inside of the building he was currently in front of. It was full of clowns. 

“Nope,” he murmured to himself, quickly backing out and heading back down the lighted pathway. Creepy clowns were where he drew the line. He looked around for his friends, but couldn’t see any sign of them. Unfortunately, he also couldn’t stand around in everybody’s way, so he had no choice but to keep moving. 

He ran ahead a bit onto a quieter part of the path, toward the maze, where the crowd had yet to reach and started looking around dully, his eyes falling onto a building that was slightly bigger than the others. He walked up to it, trying to peek inside, but he couldn’t see much. He debated with himself briefly over whether to just go inside by himself, finally deciding that whatever was inside couldn’t possibly be that scary. Besides, it would serve his friends right if they couldn’t find him for a little bit. 

He steeled himself and entered the building, which turned out to be empty of patrons and separated into several different rooms. The first room featured more clowns, which sent a shiver down Eddie’s spine even though they were clearly just mannequins in masks. He supposed that the drama department had run out of students willing to give up a third weekend standing around in gross makeup. A room off to the side was dark and empty except for a fog machine and a sound effects tape playing lowly over some hidden speakers. 

“Wow, fake fog, how utterly terrifying,” he mumbled sarcastically. He veered off into the third room, the biggest in the building. This one featured what Eddie assumed to be more mannequins dressed to look, loosely, like classic horror movie monsters. He walked around slowly, taking in the details of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolf Man, all decorated as accurately as possible, but decidedly not even remotely scary. 

“Lame,” he said to himself with a snort, turning around to check out the Mummy figure on the other side of the room. He was absentmindedly running a finger over the white crepe paper of the figure’s costume when he suddenly heard a loud roar behind him. His stomach dropped to his knees and his heart leaped into his throat as he turned around to see that the Wolf Man, most definitely NOT a mannequin, had moved from his spot and was charging toward him with outstretched arms. 

“AAAAAH!” Eddie let out a blood curdling scream and tripped slightly over his own feet in sheer panic. He felt his hand ball into a fist without him even thinking about it, and before he could stop himself he had used it to deliver a swift punch directly to the Wolf Man’s face, hard enough to hurt his hand and knock the other person backwards onto the ground. 

“Jesus fuck,” the Wolf Man whined as they brought one hand up to their face, the voice muffled by the mask. Eddie just stood there in shock, trying to get his breathing and his heartbeat to return to normal as he absorbed what he’d just done. He fumbled into the fanny pack around the waist of his jeans for his inhaler and took a puff, his eyes keenly focused on the poor, writhing werewolf he’d just sucker-punched into the floor. 

“You got a license for that fuckin right hook?” asked the werewolf, the voice sounding slightly familiar to Eddie. It was hard to place it though, since it was so muted by the rubber of the mask. 

“Oh my fuck...fuck, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t….are you ok???” Eddie put his inhaler away and ran over to the person, who was desperately trying to remove the mask. He knelt down to their level and reached his hands out. “Here, let me help.”

“It’s fine, I got it,” they replied, their fingers finally managing to slip beneath the rim of the mask and pull it off. And if Eddie had been wound up and embarrassed before, that was absolutely fucking nothing compared to how he felt when he realized that it was Richie underneath it. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, his face burning hot and his stomach doing somersaults for an entirely new set of reasons. “Fuck fuck fuck, God, I am SO sorry, man, I...Jesus, I really fucked you up, I’m sorry!” He reached again for his inhaler and took another long puff as he looked over the sight of the rapidly spreading bruise on Richie’s right eye.

“It’s fine, I never really liked seeing out of both eyes anyway,” Richie quipped, wincing as his fingers brushed over his injury. “At least I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Besides,” he added, glancing at the inhaler still in Eddie’s hand, “You’re the one who looks like they’re about to die.” 

“I thought you were a mannequin,” Eddie offered as a weak excuse, flinching as he watched the other boy reach into a nearby wooden box by Dracula’s feet and retrieve his glasses, which he delicately placed on his face. Even as careful as he was, his expression contorted in pain. 

“Yeah, that would be the entire fuckin point,” Richie said. “What did we JUST say back there about touching the actors? I know you heard me.”

“It was a reflex, dude, I’m sorry,” Eddie apologized. “In my defense, you almost gave me a fucking heart attack. I didn’t know you were going to charge at me like that,” he added defensively as he tried to resist the urge to throw himself out a window at the thought that he had literally just punched the same guy he’d been eye-fucking half an hour ago. 

“It’s not like I was gonna touch you,” said Richie. He looked Eddie over with his good eye and grinned cheekily. “Not that I wouldn’t want to, though.”

Eddie’s cheeks flushed again, his heart skipping several beats as his eyes locked with Richie’s dark ones. Had he really just heard… ok, no, quit being dumb, Eddie, he didn’t mean it THAT way. 

“That looks really bad,” he said, casually ignoring the other boy’s words and changing the subject as he gingerly reached his hand up to examine the injury. “Fuck, there’s actual blood. Is there a first aid kit anywhere around here? I could help you fix that up.”

“Yeah, there’s one in the dressing room, I think,” replied Richie, getting up off the floor and unsteadily standing on his feet. “Well, the camper we’re using as a dressing room. It’s just...ow...it’s just out here a little ways. Follow me.” 

Eddie complied, his mortifying embarrassment growing stronger with every step as he followed Richie out of the show building and across the grounds to a small RV parked on the edge of the property. Richie led him inside and plopped himself down on the ratty old sofa that stood against one wall, still holding his eye in pain. “The first aid kit is in the bathroom,” he said, pointing toward a small door across the camper. Eddie went in and took the opportunity to wash his hands in the sink before he quickly found the kit and brought it over, setting it down on the couch. He spotted a small refrigerator next to the sofa and opened it up, grabbing the first cold object he saw, a small can of Coke, which he handed to the other boy. 

“Take off your glasses and put this on your eye,” he said as he took a seat beside him and placed the first aid kit in his own lap. “It will help the swelling go down.”

Richie did as instructed, removing his glasses and holding the can dramatically onto his swollen face as he gave Eddie a saucy smile. “Yes, Dr….uh...I don’t think I caught your name, cutie.”

Eddie blushed. “Eddie,” he said, hoping his voice sounded at least somewhat normal, which was more difficult than it should have been when Richie was staring right at him with those fuckin gorgeous chocolate eyes framed by dark lashes. “Eddie Kaspbrak.”

“Ok, whatever you say, Dr. K,” said Richie. 

“Have I mentioned that I’m sorry?” Eddie asked as he opened up the first aid kit and busied himself taking out an alcohol pad, a bandage, and a small tube of antibiotic ointment. 

“Once or twice.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I had no idea I could even do that,” Eddie continued, gesturing for Richie to remove the Coke can so he could gently dab at the small cut near the bridge of the other boy’s nose with the alcohol wipe. 

“Do what, almost kill a man with your bare hand?” Richie quipped, wincing slightly when Eddie applied a small dot of ointment to the wound. 

“I’d hardly say I almost killed you,” Eddie protested.

“Well, you definitely maimed me, anyway,” said Richie. “I’m gonna have to come up with a better story for when people ask how I almost lost an eye. I can’t tell them I got beaten up by a boy with an inhaler, they’ll think I’m fuckin lame.” He smiled and Eddie’s heartbeat increased, his fingertips lingering on the other boy’s skin for slightly longer than was really necessary. 

“I think your dumb jokes would lead them to think that well before any story about your eye,” Eddie replied dryly as he unwrapped the bandage carefully. 

Richie gave an exaggerated gasp. “Jesus fuck, was bodily injury not enough for you? Now you gotta start hurting my emotions and shit? That’s cold, Eds. Do you mind if I call you Eds?”

“Yes,” muttered Eddie, even though he kind of liked the idea of this boy giving him a nickname. “Don’t call me Eds. Now hold still,” he said as he applied the bandage to Richie’s face. 

“Ok, Eds,” said Richie. Eddie rolled his eyes and finished putting the band-aid on him, sitting back to admire his handiwork. 

“You’re all fixed,” he said, handing the soda can back to him. “Put this back on your face.”

“Yes, Dr. K, sir,” said Richie, teasingly saluting him as Eddie cleaned up the supplies and stood up to throw the bandage wrapper in a nearby garbage can. He sat back down, feeling Richie’s eyes on him and wondering what he should say next that wasn’t just another profuse apology. 

“Eddie!!”

The sound of Stan’s voice outside in the distance snapped Eddie out of his thoughts, and he jerked his head in the direction of the RV’s small window. He’d almost completely forgotten about his friends in all the commotion. He got up from the couch and crossed over to the window, glancing outside to see Stan and Bill close by. The two boys were clearly looking around for him as they stood in the middle of a small crowd of people.

“EEEEEDDDD!” called Bill. 

“It would appear that you’re being summoned, good doctor,” said Richie, suddenly appearing right behind him. Eddie flushed as the other boy’s arm brushed against his own. Richie grinned and reached one hand over Eddie’s shoulder to pry the window open. “We’re in here, Billy!” he called out to them with a wave. The boys looked at Eddie and Richie in the window and then looked at each other oddly before they ran across the field to the RV and burst through the door, their faces red from the cold. 

“There you are,” said Stan, sounding relieved when he saw Eddie. “We didn’t know where you’d gone.”

“We thought you were pissed at us and took off,” added Bill. 

Eddie opened his mouth to reply, but Richie had a faster mouth. “Nah, he took his aggression out on my face instead,” the other boy said jokingly. “Which wasn’t exactly how you promised I’d be introduced to him, Billy,” he added pointedly. 

“Wait, what?” Eddie asked at the same time as Bill finally noticed Richie’s busted face and did a faceplant into his own palm. 

“God, Rich, please tell me you didn’t,” he groaned.

“In my defense, I didn’t think he was going to go all Die Hard on me,” said Richie. 

“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” Eddie demanded, looking from his friends to Richie and back again. Bill cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. 

“Well, uh….see,” he stammered. 

“Bill wanted you two to meet and hit it off and start dating so we could all hang out sometimes and you wouldn’t feel like such a third wheel,” said Stan calmly as he leaned against the wall of the RV with his arms crossed. “What?” he added when Bill gave him a death glare. “It’s the truth, why waste time beating around the bush?”

Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Bill, I swear to fucking god…”

“Ok, so maybe this isn’t exactly how I pictured it would go. I was going to introduce you normally after the whole tour was finished,” Bill protested. 

“Guys, just….please leave.”

“Eddie..”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Oh my god just go outside, I’ll meet you in a minute, ok?” His friends sheepishly did as they were told, filing out of the camper and leaving Eddie alone with Richie once again. 

“Great friends you got there, Eds,” teased Richie. 

“Don’t worry, I’m going to murder them later,” grumbled Eddie.

“Aw, don’t kill Billy, he just thought we’d go good together,” said Richie seriously. 

Eddie sighed. “Look, I… um...I’m really sorry. Again. About your face. Really.”

Richie shrugged. “It’s no big, really. I wasn’t that attractive to begin with anyway, so really, you probably just improved things.”

Eddie snorted. “I wouldn’t...I wouldn’t say you weren’t..uh...I mean…” He felt his face start to burn for the fortieth time that evening, and he wished for nothing more than to just disappear from the entire situation before he ended up dying of an embarrassment-induced heart arrhythmia. 

Richie’s mouth curled into a cheeky smile. He dug around in the pocket of his pants, pulling out a small black marker, which he kept in one hand as he suddenly grabbed Eddie’s hand with the other. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Eddie exclaimed as Richie turned his hand over and began writing something on the back of it. 

“Writing my number on your hand,” replied Richie, as though he’d just been asked about the weather. 

“Uh huh. And what the hell am I supposed to do with your number?” asked Eddie, swallowing as his hand tingled at the contact with Richie’s skin. 

“Well, you could play the lottery with it, but mostly I was hoping you’d use it to call me and let me know when you’re free to grab a bite to eat sometime,” said Richie, finishing his work and capping the marker proudly. “You can pay to make up for karate chopping my face.”

Eddie suddenly felt like he was going to die for real, but in a good way, as he looked at the digits and the name ‘Richie Tozier’ emblazoned on his skin like a tattoo. 

“I, uh...I’m...I’m just gonna..” he stammered as he backed away toward the door. Richie just smiled at him as he finally found the handle and let himself out, the other boy cheerfully calling out “Talk to you soon, Eds!” as Eddie scrambled down the stairs of the camper and almost ran right into Stan and Bill, who were trying to pretend they hadn’t been standing with their ears pressed up against the vehicle. 

“Ok,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm as they turned to face him, both of them looking guilty but interested. “I’m not going to kill you….TONIGHT… but in the future I’d like a little advanced warning before you decide to set me up with someone. Got it, BILL?” he said pointedly, glaring daggers at his friend, who blushed remorsefully. 

“Got it,” Bill squeaked. 

“Ok,” said Eddie, holding his head up high. “Then let’s go the fuck home.” The three of them started back across the field and Eddie cast one last glance back, catching a glimpse of Richie watching them leave through the window. The other boy waved, and, in spite of himself, Eddie gave a small wave back before he kept walking. 

He glanced down at his hand and felt himself start to smile, because yeah, he was definitely going to give Richie Tozier a call later.

[goodbye-i-need-space]

Matchup for ♥️ Anon (I messaged you, so you know who you are ~) - - - Here is what I got for you:

Out of all the OM! characters I feel like Satan is the most interested in foreign languages so if you need someone to help you with a new language, don't be afraid to ask for his assistance. He owns a lot of books that he'd love to translate into another language. Of course he could ask one of his brothers to help him out with those (since unlike him they've all been born as angels and it's most likely that they're able to speak any language naturally) but there's something very calming about teaching you and working on your own translated book together.

Mammon will test your patience permantly, but since you get along well with kids you may be able to get along with him as well. He can be a handful ngl but at the end of the day he just wants some genuine attention! It's similar with Asmodeus tbh, but that's no new news considering he's the avatar of lust and a very attention demanding individual.

Beelzebub doesn't share a lot of similarities with you, which doesn't stop you from hanging out with him of course. He's generally very accepting and easy to get along with.

Levi probably has a small crush on you, which doesn't come as a big surprise. Due to his tendency to stay inside his room all day long he rarely meets new people, let alone people that share his hobbies. He likes to show off a lot at first, expect lots of bragging about anime and him beating you at his favorite videogames. Someone teach him how to get a girlfriend/boyfriend pls. He realizes that losing every game against him doesn’t have the best impact on your mood/patience as soon as the first controller went flying out of your hands in a fit of rage. There’ll be  a bit of an awkward silence between you two for a moment. He’s not mad or anything but then again wtf did you just do? Both of you probably just laugh it off after a moment but it kinda left a hint for him to start getting a bit more considerate about how he spends his time with you.

Also regularly provides yo with fresh memes so !!! 10/10 good boi pls be his frend

Belphegor is definitely surprised by how easily you can lose your temper over small things and usually finds it quite amusing when you get angry. Mostly because it's nothing compared to what his own anger can do, if he were to let it run free that is. Prob will laugh at you should you ever get angry at him. I'd gently sock him for that but that's up to you!

At first the person I wanted to ship you with was Lucifer, but the more I thought about it the more I felt like his pride would get in the way of a healthy relationship between you two. I don't think he'd treat his s/o too softly, at least not in front of other people. Once he gets close to someone in a romantic way he can get quite possessive which, combined with his general need to be in control, wouldn't help with any insecurities or negative experiences you had so far at all.

Since I mentioned almost every other character already, you probably already guessed by now that I am shipping you with

Simeon !

When I was reading through your matchup request I already thought "Wow, this girl really needs someone to appreciate her!" Someone who adores your clumsyness, enjoys the things you talk about and makes you feel good about your happyness. I mean, who'd be better than this than a literal angel?? Although it might take him a while to realize the severity of his feelings towards you, once he does he's not afraid to hold back his affections and let you know how important you are to him. He's very attentive and definitely notices even small things about you that others would look past . There's a good chance Luke also grows fond of you, since the smaller angel follows Simeon everywhere like a puppy. Don't treat him like child though, he'll get all pouty at and complain to Simeon who just sweatdrops at the whole scene. At the end of the day Luke does have a fond opinion about you though no matter how much you tease him.

Barbatos would definitely catch interest in this human/angel affair as well and given his power he might even play a bigger part in how well all of it turns out. It'd be wise to get on his good side.

Back to Simeon though. He’s a very balanced person. You wanna talk for hours about something? His attention is all yours. Don’t feel like talking today? No problem he’s got you covered with years & years of knowledge. Archeology/History? Simeon is your personal guide through ancient times, there’s so many stories he could tell you and he sure isn’t above using his powers to let you witness a piece of history. (Srsly why is no one talking about the angles/demons & what kinda powers they could/should have? Just imagine! Memory reliving/memory projection! That'd be such a intense way to bond with each other)

I feel like angels of the Obey Me! Universe don’t have a very close connection to the human world since the Great Celestial War happened (maybe they’re even forbidden to go there without strict orders) so Simeon is also genuinely interested in (and a bit clueless about) current human cultures/technology

(Usually I include a small scenario at this point, and while I already have a rough concept of how I want to write it I'm kinda stuggling on how to put it together! 

(> _ <) 

My brain might just need a bit of time, so I decided to upload the first part already and add the rest later. (I'll definitely add the finished scenario as well though so keep your eyes open for a message from me once I'm done with it !)

[firebrands]

acta non verba

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, T, college AU, 2.5k words

fill for stony bingo prompt: gladiator

also onao3

*

There are few things in academia that Tony actively dislikes, and being called to his lab advisor’s office after class is definitely one of them.

 Tony fidgets as he stands in front of his professor’s large oak table.

 “You can sit,” Dr. Pym says, motioning to the couch across his table. Tony doesn’t move, hoping that by standing up, they can keep this discussion short.

 “After the explosion last week—” his professor starts, and Tony immediately opens his mouth to defend himself. Unfortunately, Pym has spent a sufficient amount of time with Tony, and raises a finger to silence him before Tony can make a sound. “—we believe that the best way you can give back to the school is to serve your mandatory hours tutoring,” he finishes.

 A moment passes. 

 “I would rather die,” Tony says emphatically.

 “Spare me the theatrics, Tony,” Pym says, sighing. “Just two hours, twice a week. We have some engineering, math, and physics students who’ll do this as well, so you’ll only have one tutee.”

 “From where?” Tony grinds out. “Can’t I just… make a program to teach math…?” he asks hopefully.

 “While that would be fantastically helpful, I don’t want you spending more time on something that can be solved by just showing up,” Pym says primly. He pushes a piece of paper across his desk. “We’re having the orientation tomorrow morning.”

 Tony wants to throw a tantrum, because morning? Tutoring? Tutoring in the morning? But he also knows that battles with Pym rarely ever end in his favor, so he doesn’t. 

 Instead, he finds satisfaction in slamming Pym’s door as he leaves.

 *

 Tony, after two years in university, has come to realize that a lot of it is about weighing costs. This is what he tells himself as he takes two steps at a time to get to the assigned room Pym had given him. It’ll be even more annoying if I don’t do this, Tony reassures himself, as he pulls open the door.

 “Nice of you to join us,” says Pym coolly. He motions to an empty chair, and Tony sags into it, breathless from his mad dash from his dorm room to the classroom. Tony doesn’t have time to survey the rest, instead focuses on blinking away the spots in his vision. Too early to be this tired , he thinks.

 Pym talks about the importance the school gives on providing support for all students, or something, Tony isn’t really paying attention, even if his condition has stabilized.

 “Since you’re all from different colleges, we’ve partnered you up.” A table flashes on screen with their names. “Let’s go around the room introducing ourselves.”

 Tony rolls his eyes and plays videogames on his phone as people introduce themselves. Eventually, he’s called to stand. “Tony,” he says, then sits back down.

 Eventually, people stand to introduce themselves; again, Tony isn’t really paying attention, until someone hovers beside him awkwardly.

 “Hi,” says the hoverer.

 Tony sighs, and looks up, meaning to say “hi,” in the least friendly way possible just because it’s 9AM and no one should ever be friendly in the morning.

 He meant to say that.

 Now he’s just staring at the beautiful, blonde, buff guy standing beside him. His shirt is a size too small, and Tony wants to write a check to whoever told him that it was the right fit. Good lord, Tony thinks. And then the rational part of his brain, small as it is, finally catches up with him.

 “Hey,” Tony says, doing his best to sound suave.

 “I’m Steve,” he says, offering a hand. Tony shakes it. A good grip. A good hand. Oh, god. His thoughts on Steve’s hand stutter to a halt when Steve tells him what he’s taking.

 “An art student?” Tony scoffs. 

 Said art student raises an eyebrow in response.

 “Why are you even taking a math class?” 

 “It’s part of the curriculum?” Steve’s brows knit together and that’s when Tony realizes: hey, he’s even cuter when he’s annoyed.

 “Okay well I’m only ever free Tuesday and Thursday evening,” Tony says. 

 Steve bites his lip and looks irritated. “Fine. I can move stuff around. You better be fucking great at math,” he huffs.

 “Oh darling, I’m fucking great at a lot more than math,” Tony smirks.

 Steve, god bless him, blushes.

 *

 Steve’s late for their first session. They’d chosen the study hall for their lessons; it was situated right at the midway point between their two colleges, and it was usually only filled up by quiet freshmen (the library, on the other hand, was filled with over caffeinated seniors, which didn’t sound very productive to be around).

 Tony’s scribbling calculations about the battery he’d been trying to figure out when Steve comes rushing in. “Sorry I’m late, but I got you coffee to make it up to you,” Steve says, and Tony hides a smile by taking a sip of coffee.

 Steve’s wearing a dark blue henley that brings out the color in his eyes and Tony thinks that he should probably inform Dr. Pym that he is no longer qualified to tutor as he’s going to lose his damn mind.

 When Steve starts solving the problems on the worksheet Tony prepared,  Tony sends Rhodey a message: Oh no. hes stupid cute.

Rhodey immediately responds: ur so dumb istg

 Steve touches Tony’s arm to get his attention. “Okay, I don’t understand how you got from this,” he motions to his calculations, “to this,” he finishes, pointing at the equation Tony had written out.

 Tony stares at the problem equation, then casts a glance at Steve’s hand on his arm. He wants Steve’s hand everywhere, he thinks, with a hint of mania. 

 Steve follows Tony’s gaze and snatches his hand away. Tony tries not to weep at the loss, and instead writes out step by step how he got to the solution.

 After an hour, Tony stands up to get another cup of coffee, and he’s so distracted by the weight of Steve’s hand on his arm that now he can’t remember where they were sitting. Tony peers around and spots Steve resting his face on his palm, seemingly lost in thought.

 Tony stares, memorizing the slant of his nose, the soft curl of his lips.

 And then he walks straight into the glass door.

 Thankfully, the coffee is safe. Tony’s reputation, not so much: everyone had turned to look, and Steve covers up a laugh with his hand.

 “Don’t laugh, do your worksheet,” Tony hisses, sitting back down beside Steve.

 Steve continues to chuckle as he does his calculations. 

 Now it’s Tony’s turn to cover his mouth with his hand, horrified by how fond his smile is.

 *

 “Earth to Tony!”

 Tony looks up from his laptop, where he was preparing a new worksheet for Steve. “What?”

 Rhodey frowns. “I was asking what you wanted to get for lunch.”

 “Whatever you’re getting, honeybear,” Tony responds absently, still tweaking equations as Rhodey huffs and walks away.

 Tony’s reviewing the worksheet when Rhodey comes back with their meals and gently pushes down the monitor of Tony’s laptop to get his attention.

 “Okay! Okay already!” Tony screeches, snatching his laptop away from Rhodey’s reach and saving the file before folding it shut. “Jeez,” he says.

 “Didn’t think you’d have it this bad,” Rhodey smirks, digging into his mashed potatoes.

 “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tony sniffs, removing the plates of food from his tray and arranging them on the table. “It’s—it’s not that big of a deal,” he says. “Totally harmless, he’ll be out of my hair in a few months.”

 “You guys are a walking thinkpiece about the need to bridge the gap between STEM and humanities,” Rhodey says, rolling his eyes.

 *

 Tony spends more and more time with Steve, eventually meeting his friends (and vice versa). It’s nice, mostly because having more friends means more people forcing him out of the lab and forcing him to live a life, which—it’s nice.

 None of these things matter, of course, at 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday, where Tony is sitting on the floor of Rhodey’s dorm room with his head in his hands.

 Thor pats Tony’s head consolingly. “You could try and talk to him?”

 “He doesn’t like me that way, okay?” Tony’s voice is small, muffled by his position.

 Rhodey groans. “Everyone can see it,” he says.

 “That he doesn’t like me?” Tony asks despairingly. 

“No, that he does like you,” Thor says, rubbing Tony’s back. “Like, everyone. Both sides.”

 Tony curls even deeper into himself. “Yeah, but you’re all idiots,” he mewls.

*

The October air is crisp with the onset of autumn, and Steve lets out an exasperated puff of breath as he pulls up the blanket draped over his shoulder. Sam raises an eyebrow in response.

 Behind them, Bucky slams the door to their apartment shut with a triumphant woop, and begins hustling Steve and Sam down the street: “Let’s go! ”

 Steve’s toes are cold in the night air, and he has never hated Halloween more in his life. Yes, even more than that one time his mom and Bucky’s mom had plotted against him and dressed the two of them up as Woody and Buzz, forcing them to go around the neighborhood much to ten year old Steve’s chagrin.

 “I hate costumes so much ,” Steve whines, and it’s likely the fifth time he’s said it this evening alone, but it bears repeating. Sam and Bucky roll their eyes in tandem. 

 *

 Thor’s house is noisy and cramped and Steve bites down hard on any more complaints, instead making a beeline for the kitchen. Sam and Bucky follow after him, carrying a bottle of tequila and vodka each. 

 Of course, the kitchen isn’t any better—in fact, it’s worse. Still, Steve needs a drink, or fifty, to make this night somewhat bearable. The things he did for his friends, really.

 Thor is in the kitchen, dressed as a pirate (wide brimmed hat and eyepatch included). He’s talking to a guy dressed up as a gladiator, wearing a gold chestplate on top of red robes, and as they approach, Steve realizes who it is.

 “Tony!” Bucky grins, draping an arm around the shorter man and pressing a kiss to his cheek. Tony smiles up at him and the disentangles himself to give Sam a quick hug. “Elvis and… hot professor?” Tony asks, turning from Bucky to Sam, respectively. 

 Sam is clearly taken aback, but before he can correct Tony, Bucky says, “and obviously you went above and beyond with the costume again.”

 Tony preens, and Steve has to wrench his eyes away from the way muscles in Tony’s arms flex as he wipes nonexistent dust off his chest plate. “What can I say? Not all of us can come in wearing a blanket and look as good as him,” he says as he nods at Steve, who's wearing a toga and a crown made of fake golden laurel leaves. 

 “Ugh,” Steve says, eloquent as ever.

 Tony takes this as an opportunity to keep teasing. 

 “Oh boys,” Tony says as he’s approaching Steve, “did you oil him up?” He traces a finger down Steve’s bicep.

 Steve flinches away. 

 Sam laughs. “That’s just his sweat,” he says. 

 Now it’s Tony’s turn to laugh and Steve fights down a blush as he begins looking around for something to drink. 

 *

 So the party’s pretty fun, and it was a blessing in disguise that Steve was barely wearing anything. It’s so crowded in the house, and everyone is sweating. 

 Steve bends down to pull out a beer from one of the coolers stationed strategically around the house and when he straightens back up, Tony’s standing right in front of him. Steve, momentarily disoriented by how stupidly hot Tony is, hands him his bottle of beer.

 Tony, the unflappable flirt, winks at Steve.

 Steve’s however many drinks in, so it’s not his fault that he’s flustered. It’s awful, how flustered he is. 

 Tony laughs, and blows him a kiss as he’s walking away.

 Steve turns to the cooler and briefly considers just dunking his head into the ice water.

 *

 Natasha passes Steve the joint, angling her head away from him as she blows out a cloud of smoke. 

 She juts her chin forward, motioning at the general area where Tony is currently talking to Bucky. Tony looks regal, which is crazy considering he’s wearing sandals, to match the rest of his costume. Still, Steve lets his eyes wander over the expanse of exposed flesh. Tony’s legs, Tony’s arms—Steve swallows as he checks out Tony’s ass.

 “You two should take a picture. It’s cute,” she says, jolting Steve out of his thoughts. Natasha smirks, fully aware of what Steve was doing.

 Steve does not deign to respond, and scowls at her as he takes a hit.

 “Why are you so huffy?” Natasha asks, rolling her eyes.

 “It’s just like,” Steve says, passing her the joint, “you know! He’s just fucking with me.”

 Natasha’s face crumples with disbelief. “You are so dumb.”

 *

 Steve is leaning back on the couch, watching the strobe lights make patterns on the ceiling. He’s having fun, even if he’s just seated with his legs sprawled out in front of him. This is what a good time is like, for Steve: a little tipsy, a little stoned, and very comfortable. He’s not really into parties, much less costume parties, but Sam and Bucky had forced him to come. But they all shared in the knowledge that Steve only agreed because he knew Tony would probably be at Thor’s party, too.

 After a while, Steve gets bored of the lights and he toys idly with the label of his beer bottle, and startles out of his concentration when Tony flops down beside him.

 “Hey,” he says. “You good?”

 “Yeah.” Steve smiles slowly and nods at him. 

 Tony leans against Steve’s bare arm and Steve has never felt so happy to be in costume in his life, he thinks serenely. He hazards resting his hand on Tony’s leg, reassuring himself that if Tony said anything, Steve would just laugh it off and say he was drunk and high (which is sort of true). 

 Thankfully, Tony doesn’t say anything. Instead, he spreads his legs a bit wider, pressing his thigh against Steve’s. 

 Steve lets out a shaky breath. 

 Tony turns to look up at him, his chin resting on Steve’s shoulder. Their eyes meet, and they stare at each other for a moment; Steve can feel Tony’s shallow breaths, can smell the alcohol on him, along with a hint of tobacco. Where would Tony have a pocket to keep cigarettes? Steve thinks, as he continues to chart the plains and valleys of Tony’s face, from the thick lines of his eyebrows to the soft swell of his lips. Steve bites his lip, and he sees that Tony’s eyes flick down at the movement.

 Tony looks up at him again, and he offers Steve a small, apologetic smile.

 “I want to kiss you,” he whispers.

 Steve smiles and leans forward, finally locking their lips together. 

[human-south-of-north-pole]

Obligatory Cyberpunk 2077 rant

(Spoilers, duh; also I'm an absolute noob)

Somehow I didn't enjoy the game, and I think I may have figured out why.

I guess I approached the game with the wrong expectations.

I expected there to be more gang politics. You had a goddamn trailer about gangs. I expected to make allies and enemies. To fight in battles between them. Turn the streets of night city into a warzone. I didn't expect all gangs to still exist once I finished the game. Or at least make interacting with them in any way more meaningful than changing the voice lines of your enemies/friends. Change the items shops have to offer. I didn't notice a diffence in combat styles, but I may just be inattentive. You changed the cars, why not the rest?

I expected to not only see the skyscrapers from the outside (with a few exceptions). I expected to have firefights on rooftops and apartments, to jump across skybridges. Maybe fly from rooftop to rooftop in a helicopter?

I expected the corporations to not be distant entities which do... Something? I expected to be involved in their actions. To work for various employees. To hack the cameras of boardrooms, steal files, to manipulate, persuade or blackmail my opponents. (Don't get me wrong, there are "steal file" type missions, except they don't matter at all)

Perhaps I even hoped to be able to play my enemies against another. Frame a rival gang for the murder of a corpo.

This is the big one:

And I guess I didn't expect the world to be so horrible, the story so unsatifyingly sad. I was under no illusion that I would be playing in a dystopia. But I was also expecting that I would be playing as an overpowered protagonist killing machine (and in combat, you do). From this I concluded that I would be able to "fix" the world. After all, noone can stop me. Except the plot, apparently. In cp2077, "mission completed" has a good chance of meaning either "nothing I cared about happened" or "someone I cared about died, and there was nothing I could do". And I'm not talking about a dramatic death; I'm talking about pointless deaths ofscreen, without me even beeing there. All important choices are between bad and worse (and of course the npcs will blame me for it). (Or maybe these are just the parts that I remember).

I expected to win. Or at least to be able to. To save my life. "Oh no, your body started rejecting you because the relic overwrote it with johnny. We only have an AI a that can swap engrams at will and the relic still stuck in my head. It was even designed to work on dead bodies. There is definitely nothing we can do. /s". And why? I get that raising the stakes last moments is a plot device or something, but not after I did all the things, shot all the npcs, made my way to the big glowing monolith and pressed the button labeled "you win". Not with zero foreshadowing. At this point I expect to have the credits roll, wake up and continue playing side missions (properly after the mission, none of that "reload last save" bs)

The last two paragraphs were major story complaints. People sometimes use the term "emotional rollercoaster", but rollercoaster engineers are artists. Every bend is just wide enough to not actually hurt you, every acceleration is just low enough to still be fun, and once you get off it, you enjoyed it. Cp2077 is a pair of rocket boosters and infinite 90° angles. The game can't decide if it wants to be a lighthearted power trip or whether you should experience total helplessness, leading me to enjoy neither. I do not care about floating items, t-posing enemies or what must be worst car AI since forever (even though I do appreciate the "drives to side of lane to let you pass easier" part), if you just make sure your game doesn't feel like it was designed to make you feel bad. I guess I expected the "game of the decade" to be happy. (Also, does anyone else find it weird that the ending clearly labeled "none of your friends die" is considered the bad ending?)

I am actually quite happy that you almost didn't do the whole "Skillchecks for better endings" and diplomacy skill bs, because it would have turned the game into "how must I invest my skill points to pass the next check", which I consider extremely boring. Slipped up in the last Delamain mission though.

There are a couple of small letdowns like that actually, for example, why is a 90k €$ motorbike worse than Jackie's arch, which you get for free long before you get 90k €$?

On the topic of €$, I actually quite like the 2077 slang.

Another note: what tf is the deal with max tac? They get their own special introduction in the into-car-trip and an ominous loading screen tip, and then just don't show up for the entire game???

I guess I also expected more diversity in items, especially Cyberware. The current one is fine, but I exped more than fine. There is still a bit of stuff locked for me, but my point still stands. You could have done something more with eyes and legs at least. Increase movement speed? Reduce fall damage? Increase max-tagged enemies count? Detect enemies though walls short range? Display camera fov? Honestly, I'd pay just to make the enemy highlight less obnoxious so that I can see if they are standing before or behind cover.

I expected crafting to be less boring. You have a whole skill tree for that! But it's installing generic mods, creating items, and a generic "upgrade" option that just adds a bit of damage. I expected to take my guns apart, build or configure scopes, firering-patterns, magazines, barrels, stocks, ammo types,... But I do absolutely love the "turn any weapon non-lethal" option.

And I expected this game to have a descent UI. Ignoring the glitchy HUD (actually, don't ignore it, pleaaaase make the minimap zoom out while driving), what's up with that inventory menu? How am I supposed to navigate that? Find aything? I get that you have to optimize for controllers, but seriously? Is there any real structure? You have your main page, which is nice, but then you have all the subpages, form which you can navigate to some others. Sometimes there are random elements dotted about? The Messages and shards menu are almost unusable. Have you never heard of "sort by new"? And the grouping is off anyway. Also, why tf do car advertisements not include the car's ps / curb weight?

Worst part is, I will come back to the game. I can just leave a broken world. I enjoy the combat. I even started to like driving with a keyboard. The scenery looks beautiful. But for some reason they need to keep telling me how terrible the world is and don't allow me to do anything about it. Maybe realistic, but if I wanted realistic, I wouldn't play a videogame. Overall it's not fun, at least for me.

Does anyone feel about the story like I do? The reviews mostly praised it iirc, but it just make me feel bad, and not in the enjoyable melancholy way.

</rant>

Sorry you had to read that.

[thesynthesist]

Alter Ego, Es, Another Silent Conversation

Or: Yelling about videogames about books

This got away from me really fast so uhhh have a cut

Recently I picked up a little mobile game called ‘Alter Ego’ just to see what it was all about. You’re dropped into a long dark hall, given a quote referencing Freud, meet the character stand in for the Super Ego and start tapping speech bubbles. 

These speech bubbles change what they say over the course of the game based on two things. The first is the results of little personality tests given to you by Es (pictured above the cut), ostensibly the game’s Id stand in. 

The personality tests are to help you know yourself better, but like most personality tests they’re of limited use since there’s a lack of nuance. Never the less you can read the results of these tests in your little study, and each result produces 4 statements based around the result that go into your speech bubble. Not even once was I in agreement with all 4 statements, but that’s alright because the personality tests don’t affect the games outcome in anyway and you can redo them if you want. 

The other thing that changes the content of your speech bubble are the books you read. These are all books that exist out in the world for you to read, all philosophical texts aimed at self discovery. You spend your clicker points to ‘read’ a page, and once you get to a book marked page a new speech bubble with a quote appears. 

This I think, is the strongest part of the game. The quotes are from a larger section of text you can read from your digital copy of the book in your study, about a paragraph, and they’re well chosen for the games theme. It works best if you actually go and read the books, and the game gives you some incentive for it. So that’s what I did. 

Of the 15 books on the reading list given by the gave I’ve read 7 so far and here’s where we get into the first problem with the game, at least from where I”m sitting. Some of these books are impossible to find! 

The third title the game gives you is a book who’s only English translation was published over a decade ago and is out of print. There’s not even an ebook copy. It’s a Japanese book, so I assume anyone who can read it in the original language probably doesn’t have this same problem but Moon Over the Mountain isn’t the only title impossible to track down. The other title I couldn’t find isn’t a book on the main list but is a ‘post-game’ book.

The books and the personality tests draw you along a narrative that’s almost more about Es’s journey of self discovery than your own. Through your journey you galvanize and drive her to one of three endings. There are two ‘bad’ ending and one ‘good’ ending. 

Here’s where the game really starts to tear at the seams. First of all, you have to play the game 3 times to get to the ‘good’ ending. The endings are about the balance between the super ego and the id and it’s pretty obvious what ending you’re going for as you’re only ever given 3 choices. 

The choices I naturally pick are the choices that lead to the good ending of the game, or would have if you were not forced at the end into an ‘interpretation’ of the story that begets one of the two bad endings. 

The second and third time through you’re allowed to skip the personality tests and carry over your results, which takes a lot of the meat out of the story. After the good ending, however, what counts as post game content opens up. 

You can chat with Es and she will recommend further books for you to read and then talk to you about them. I was excited for this part until I was hit with two problems. The first is that unless you wanted to look up the three book titles she gives you before hand, there’s no way to know if you’ll be able to get your hands on the book. The first one I picked is beyond my grasp, but there was no changing it and I had to wait 2 hours to talk the book over with Es. 

After the time I was up, I talked to Es. She asked me if I read the book and like a dirty liar, I lied about it, and we had a chat. I was given a synopsis of the book and asked a simple question to which there were three answers. Like in the story none of the answers convey the nuance I wanted. 

If it seems like the post game content is mostly talking to Es about stuff you’re right! So lets talk about Es. 

Es is sort of the game’s Id stand in, but she also goes on a small journey of self discovery with your help. At the end however, I get the feeling that Es isn’t so much internally self-sufficient and with a deeper understanding of herself than she is in a co-dependent relationship with you. 

You can greet her each day for a login bonus and she’ll chat with you, but she will regularly mention how she’s scared that one day you will leave. She also offers to greet you one of 3 ways, the third is ‘I love you’. You can make her extravagant promises of being together forever. 

This makes no sense to me. Es, presumably has read all the books on the main game’s reading list, quite a few of them deal specifically with the transient nature of love. She also seems to be at least partially aware that she’s a computer program as she knows you live in ‘different worlds’ and occasionally questions her free will. 

Again it’s the lack of nuance that hamstrings this game. If Es could be more a more nuanced person she’d be more worth discussing philosophy with, there would be something to bring you back besides the fact that it’s pretty easy for people to get attached to some pixels and she asked me nicely not to leave. 

The thinness produced by the game’s lack of nuance as it tries to foster this relationship between you and Es along with these philosophical conversations is why I can’t bring myself to explore the post game scenarios that cost me money. If I’m going to talk to someone, I’d rather talk to the author of the books I’m reading. And to quote another game, (quoting another author, Walter Savage Landor) ‘What is reading but a silent conversation?’

[cosplayinamerica]

Cosplayer : AKPiratePrince

I'm a 34 year old chef from Anchorage, Alaska with a giant penchant for anime and videogames. I grew up mostly playing videogames during the majority of my free time and got into anime in the early 2000's. My collecting spree really began back in 2012 when I started going to conventions again after a 3 year hiatus (due to my job at the time). After attending Sakura-Con for my first time and having plenty of disposable income I was able to see just how much merch there was for a lot of my favorite series, old and new.

My latest prop was Sanji's bazooka from One Piece Film: Strong World. His whole outfit that goes with the prop has been on my list ever since I decided to do as many different outfits of his as I possibly could, and finally I felt I had the skills necessary to do it at least SOME justice. It took me over a month to finish as I worked on it for a least an hour or two after my work shift every night.

I've lived in my current home for 10 years now. I lived here every other week with my mother for several years beforehand, but when I was able to move in myself and call it my own home I realized I could hang up the few posters I'd amassed wherever I wanted in the house, and could display all of my games and anime merchandise in my living room. It really made it feel like "MY" house. Now I pretty much have something anime or game related on display in every room of my house save for my bathroom, and of course the volume of displayed stuff has only increased over the years. After 4 years in college I changed my major to culinary arts, and during that time I ended up starting the series "One Piece" after seeing a friend of mine posting some clips online. My only exposure prior to it had been the infamous "4Kids" dub, but after watching these new clips I decided to bite the bullet and plunge in.

Now it's my absolute favorite current series. After being hooked I knew I had to cosplay from it, and remembered the character Sanji was known as the cook of the Straw Hat Pirates, and after seeing him in action I felt I'd found "my" character.

After cosplaying as him to various cons in 2012 I got the wild idea to try and start my own cosplay page & persona on Facebook, and from there I decided to try and branch out by doing a cooking series on YouTube as Sanji as sort of a "hook"; not just a cosplayer but also a real chef.

Cooking has become my career and a big part of my life, and seeing it seep into the anime and manga world drew me to certain characters in some of my, now, favorite series, such as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Food Wars/Shokugeki no Soma.

While I've only cosplayed as 3 chef characters total thus far, my friends and fans all see me as synonymous with with any character that enjoys cooking, and this is the best I could hope for as a fan and a cosplayer.

The meal I cooked here was based on a very basic Japanese-style breakfast of steamed rice, miso soup, broiled salmon and rolled omelet. Japanese cooking and cuisine has become one of my favorite and most studied culinary subjects, and I enjoy learning & trying recipes at home whenever possible, as well as introducing others to these new dishes.

[themockingcrows]

Pieces In The Game Ch. 1

JohnDave This chapter is SFW cw: blood and violence This chapter available on my AO3!

Trapped in a gladiatorial combat game without control of his own body, Dave must rely on his player to control his movements and win his freedom. John, a bit of a prodigy with video games, is his player and recently has come to the realization of just how intense these games really are. Without knowing who is on either end of the controls, is it possible for one friend to win the other's freedom? Or will they all just wind up pawns in the end?

     It was a dangerous life, and if Dave had a choice he never would have gotten involved in it. Nobody with a shred of sanity would want this life. Most fighters didn’t live very long, relying solely on their controllers to translate their own abilities into motion, giving up their bodily control for the sake of overdrive. The only ways out were death, or to win and get to retire... But it all came down to how talented their controllers were in the heat of battle. The modern gladiatorial games were the cutting edge of science and gaming technology with a wildly successful gambling edge to it, the characters made of pixels replaced with flesh and blood, and the stakes made far higher. The newest and greatest in blood and gore, with a cult following the world over.

     While most of the competitors were criminals, Dave was not. He knew he’d been scammed into this, must have pissed off the wrong person with his outspoken distaste for the current regime in charge online, but he’d never gotten a chance to find out who or how for certain. Even now, during the downtime when he wasn’t fighting, he couldn’t find out. His access to his old social media accounts and bank accounts were blocked, but he was free to make fresh and indulge in online life as he pleased. ...Within limits of course. Some phrases couldn’t make it past the censors, as well as some topics, caught automatically by the system and rejected, left unposted or unsent. Everything else? Fair game.

     He’d learned to work with codes to try singling out other fighters, or people who currently had thoughts against the Condesce and her family, phrases and changed letters signifying freedom in new and different ways that the censors couldn’t keep up with. It was a small window, but a comforting one. He could leave messages this way, leave a trail, even if to the outside it looked like nothing. A legacy was left in his social media ramblings, waiting for someone to understand them who could enact change.

     This bit of freedom was why Dave was able to have some semblance of friends online, and got to learn more about them, as well as be able to play videogames of his own… though he was more picky about what he played, usually opting for things as far removed from his own reality as possible. Farming simulators and games dealing with run and fetch missions brought hours of entertainment to him compared to other prisoners who enjoyed playing games of warfare and battle. Another keen interest of his was games involving skill that he could break, going out of bounds or glitching the character in unimaginable ways. It gave him hope that someday, somehow, he’d figure out how to ‘glitch’ himself and leave the confines of his prison.

     It’s not like he was missing much by avoiding the war and fighting games. In here their own abilities didn’t really matter, it’s not like they could learn techniques from those games. The players? They could. But the pieces were just there to go to the limits of their bodies and hope they didn’t get assigned to a newbie. ...Or if they were assigned to a newbie, praying that the person in question, whoever they were, were absolutely baller at the game itself.

     With his emails answered, Dave worked on feeding his digital flock while checking in with his friends in the other window. Rose was talking about a new knitting project for her girlfriend, someone who was pretty attractive if Dave could say so based on pictures she’d shared in the past. Jade was going off about some kind of physics thing that Dave couldn’t track, but occasionally she’d stop and talk about game engines. Dave was pretty sure she designed new gaming technology, new virtual reality tools and force feedback things as opposed to the units that he dealt with every fight. Pretty sure she wasn’t the type of person to be that into things being embedded into human bodies, or at least he hoped. Not like he could give her feedback even if she did, thanks to the censors.

     Then there was John, who despite being the most open of the group, was the least understood. He’d talk about this game or another, sometimes joining Dave and the others for a relaxing game where they could gather resources and build things together, other times just rambling about competitions. He seemed the type to collect cards too, based on how seriously he talked about it, and seemed the type to win at a decent rate. Yet as often as he talked about games, he talked very little about himself or his home life aside from the occasional ‘my mom’s calling I’ve got to go’.

     Dave wondered if he knew much about the piece games he was involved in, or knew how they worked. Not that he’d get recognized anywhere with the helmets everyone wore, but it was still a strange connection to think about. What if any of them knew he was in here? Would they treat him like a run of the mill prisoner, or someone bad? Or would they treat him like a victim of the system, forced to run in the wheels to stay alive in the machine?

     ...Dave lost his urge to play with his chickens, and once Belle and Henrietta and the others were fed, held, and put back in to avoid the next game day’s rain, he disconnected from online and got up to pace. Pacing helped. It helped to settle his racing thoughts, his worries, the stress. Pacing and working out, though he knew better than to do too much of that in the wrong way. Too much and he’d bulk up and be slower, too little and he wouldn’t be strong enough even with overdrive initiated, and any outside of his cell in the yard would just be a cause for infighting and more reason for people to try ganging up on him.

     Winning multiple times in a row tended to put a target on one’s back, and Dave knew his spine was painted with the red of his victories in a nice big bullseye for everyone’s focus to be drawn to, so he tended to keep his head down and not react when provoked. It was safer. It was easier. It was the only way to be ready to keep going forward if he wanted to keep winning with his player.

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

      John had been playing games competitively for years, but he’d never played a game quite like this before. The controls to the humans bodies unleashed that untapped potential in some amazing ways, but the character that he’d been assigned as the player of had a few quirks. For one, he was the fastest thing John had ever seen in his life, hard to keep track of as if he phased in and out of reality in a blur when really pressed. For another, his reaction times and response times were through the roof. It was like he’d been born to be a piece on the board.

     Every time he won, John received some prize money and accolades, though as the wins racked up, so did his curiosity. Who was behind that helmet? ...Did they like being a piece? Were they treated well when not on the board? Were they okay?

     He’d never bothered with such concerns before. Being his mother’s son, he’d developed a bit of a streak for nihilism to get by, and everyone’s losses were just another game to him. That is, till a recent win had sprayed blood back on the feedback receiver and the piece died a slow death instead of the quick one he’d been expecting as the ultimate loss. Sometimes they were just incapacitated and could come back for another try, but other times killing blows happened. His swordsman piece was intensely powerful and he wasn’t afraid to use him till that second.

     Now, John found himself second guessing the game entirely. They weren’t even able to scream when in pain, weren’t able to call it quits on their own. Broken bones or not, they could be pushed to the breaking point all over again at the hands of their controller, so long as their body could keep up under the strain. It looked like torture, he started to realize, not just some act. What kind of a life was that to live?

     He’d asked about buying the freedom of his piece before, knowing his mother would agree if he plied her just right, wore his best bow tie and smiled as brightly as he could after doing some bonding activity or another with her, but rules were rules and not even the son of the regime leader could bend them once in place. If one could be bought out, they all could, and where would the games be then? The pieces remained where they were.

     If he couldn’t get this person out illegally, then he decided he’d just need to win legally, and then see what they were like. Maybe plan for when he was older and more capable of fighting against his mother’s wishes to change the rules that were in place that no longer seemed fair.

     John spent a lot of his time playing war games, battle games, fighting games, anything with intense combos and a reward and punishment system for fuckups, trying to hone his own reaction times so he’d be more useful for his piece. It was stressful, though. So stressful now that he knew the true weight of what hung over him. That’s why there was always time to wind down with his friends and play low stress games, farming sims and cooperative fantasy games that were mostly hunt and fetch. Everyone seemed to be into that kind of game, but Dave seemed to like them the most. He was always the first to volunteer to play, or was already playing on his own.

     Sometimes John wondered what Dave got up to when he wasn’t online, it seemed like he was always there whenever John was. Oh.. maybe he didn’t have many friends? Aside from Rose and Jade and himself, who were all fairly busy people, maybe there wasn’t anyone else who could really play with him or talk with him or keep him company.

     John knew how that felt.

     Growing up as his mother’s son, he’d been lonesome in a lot of ways. People were either intimidated by him or pitied him, scared of the Crocker name and reputation that reached the world over. The Condesce was not to be trifled with, and her family was Perfect in ways that humans weren’t meant to be by sheer repetition and force. Perfection was expected, if not demanded, and John was… happy to comply.

     That sure was one way to put it.

     John diluted his stress through the games that took skill and timing to better deal with his home life, though now that he knew the truth about the piece game he played, the stress was rekindled in new ways. He didn’t have to be good enough for his mother anymore, he had to be good enough for her and good enough for the swordsman he controlled to keep him alive.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

     There was a game set for today, and Dave’s number came up. He spent the morning getting ready, making his usual posts on social media, stretching, eating breakfast and taking the first dose of medication that would relax his muscles and further attune him to the implanted receiver that rested against his back that would be plugged into the suit. He said hi to his friends like it was any other normal day, though John wasn’t around. Lately that had been a pattern that kind of sucked: any time it was a game day for Dave, there was a 50-50 chance John wouldn’t be around. He couldn’t say goodbye to any of them, not really, without being able to explain his situation… but it was still comforting to be around them whenever he could. Missing one of them was like an ache in his stomach.

     No matter. There were bigger issues at hand.

     Dave showered and put the plug suit on in his prep room, form fitting and designed for minimal armor, and adjusted the neck till he felt the receiver and the main plug connect and slip into place. Wired up, Dave sat down to put on his boots, high to the knee and laced tight, and then checked on his sword.

     He hated the damned thing, but it’s what he was most attuned to already. It had been replaced a few times by now, sometimes breaking in the moment in older fights, or getting chips put into the metal from hitting the other players bone or armor or weapon head on. This new model was flawless, metal holding an iridescent sheen to it, weight good in his hands. His brother would probably love it, if he were still around.

     ...No. He’d probably hate it. Even with all the pimping out, his brother’s sword was still better, and he was still bitter about what they’d done to him. No amount of shine could polish that murder out of his mind.

     With a soft whoosh sound, Dave felt the first relays acting up, signaling it was time to get ready and reach the main area. The players were prepared. Slipping on his helmet and cinching it in place, Dave took up his sword and waited by the door for it to open, releasing him to the main waiting area with other pieces. Some had hammers, others had lances or bow staffs, different weapons here and there. It really was like being in a video game, the uncomfortable flux of reality and game being all the more overpowering here.

     They all reacted at the same time to the tone over a loudspeaker, the signal that the first connection burst was coming, stinging along their nerves like fire from head to toe till they almost dropped to the ground. The second burst was lighter, a relief to the body, freeing them from control. They didn’t have to think about their actions anymore. Everything was out off their hands at this point, left up to the unseen controller, the player in control of each piece guiding them forward in a procession to the arena and taking their pre-destined places. Dave’s was near the inner edge of the arena, closer to the middle that signaled the final battle to be won: if he got to go to the middle, and withstood the onslaught, he would be freed.

     He couldn’t recall the last person who’d made it out that way, but he wondered if they were doing okay with their freedom. With their new life.

     Dave found himself bouncing foot to foot soon enough, taking practice swings with his sword as his controller warmed up and prepared. Same controller, then. He did this every time before a fight, making sure the reaction times were up to snuff, making sure there were no latent issues before a match began. The red light above Dave turned yellow, and the bouncing of his body stopped, his stance lowering, one arm lifting like something out of an anime. ...What kind of a nerd was his controller, this was almost embarrassing.

     Green light, and Dave was running full force ahead, hunting the first target.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

     John was hooked up and prepared, gloves on his hands, visor over his eyes, and controls ready to be activated by hand or foot. He could hear the commentator giving live descriptions, and tried to tune him out. Anything he was describing had already happened, was too late, was pointless to focus on. A distraction. All John needed was his shared sight with the piece, the weight of the glove on his hands, and a reminder of just how much drag the sword had.

     Combos were easier to execute with hands and feet, making the piece jump and slash, rebound, then spring towards another target almost faster than the commentator could track. Blood sprayed, reddening his vision, but it didn’t stop him. The only thing on John’s mind was combos, and avoiding being hit. Yeah, being hit wouldn’t stop him immediately… but it would slow his piece down considerably, and cause problems in general. Since coming to the realization that the pieces were living breathing people, since having the realization he was controlling a human’s life or death, John had become all the more ruthless.

     He couldn’t save everyone but damn it he could try to save one of them, and he’d do everything he could to do that.

     Breathing slowly, John counted down in his head as another target approached, swinging a large weapon wildly. One, zip close when the weapon was pulled back. Two, attack the torso. Three, attack the back before using it to spring free and away. Four, flee the area entirely, come back to finish them off later if needs be. They wouldn’t be much of an issue anymore either way. Cleanup was just for extra points and guarantees, but points didn’t matter in this game. Not really. The point were more there for the gamblers and the people trying to gauge odds at home. Staying alive was what mattered.

     Another enemy came from the left, fast enough that John had to jump back to avoid the lance. A spurt of speed however, and he was running up the weapon at an angle, slashing for the helmet and shoulder of the user, leaping off in a tuck and roll flip when they started to go down.

     John raced his piece around the center of the arena, sizing up a third target, taking the initiative this time. While they were busy with someone up front, he rushed up and stabbed through their middle from behind, blood pouring over his hands. The grip on the sword stayed true, however, cutting a deep angle into the body before withdrawing and slicking blood off down the blood groove thanks to a flick and some gravity. It left him face front with the piece the former had been fighting, who luckily hesitated before trying to do something complex.

     John stabbed the sword down to ground himself and turned, aiming a harsh kick at the twisting midair figure, then followed through by grabbing the sword and slicing with a full body’s worth of momentum as he turned. Off went the competitors arm, and down went John to one knee to recuperate for a moment.

     He’d pushed the piece’s body pretty hard, and knew all the blood was probably not great for their psyche, but what could he do! The best that could be done was to rest for a moment, let him catch his breath before going to pick over who was left till the number was low enough t-

     The green lights turned red, signaling the end of the round, and John blinked. 

     Oh. Well then. Guess he was more thorough than anticipated.

     Slowly, John got the piece back up to his feet and walked him to the waiting area where control would be disconnected. He kept the helmet on till last, wanting to catch a few more glimpses of his player character from the outside as he removed his gloves and finally the visor. Sound regained meaning to him again, as suddenly a microphone was placed in front of his mouth, the announcer wanting a few words from his victory.

     “John, you’ve just placed first again in an unprecedented victory! Do you have any words for the fans at home?” asked the smooth talking fellow, his clothes too flashy, too bright for what had just happened. He’d just ended people’s lives with his own hands, made someone else kill people with their hands, bathed someone in their blood, and this jackass wanted to know what he thought?

     Oh he thought plenty. ...But John knew his mother was watching, and if his mother was watching then he had to continue to be the good boy she knew and expected. He propped up a smile, bright and normal and perfectly balanced. Perfectly rehearsed.

     “Well, darn, it’s not like it’s hard to do this. Just need to remember the right combos and have a feel for your piece,” he chuckled, giving a little wave. 

     “You heard it here first, folks! In his fifth victory, all you need to do is know how to play the game and you’ll win. Wise words from an excellent player, and wise actions from the son of our very own Condesce,” the announcer tutted, amused by the boyish words.

     John remained on site for a while, answering questions and dealing with the bitter but good sportsmanlike handshakes from his competitors. They didn’t really seem to have the same worries John did. Their pieces had died, and the most they were upset about was losing, not that someone was dead. Not that multiple someones were dead. Not that more people would die the next week and the week after that, and the next time they came in to play they’d be involved in more bloodshed. None of it seemed to bother them, to touch them in the slightest.

     When he was free to go back to his home, back to his room, he took his nauseated self to the lavish bathroom and turned on the shower as hot as he could handle it. Dinner would be delivered to his quarters later, since he usually ate in his room after games, but he wasn’t sure how much of it he’d really eat. Enough to keep his mother off his back and others from asking questions, at least.

     Off went John’s clothes and his glasses in the steamy room before he entered the shower and sat down, letting the water run over him steadily. He watched his hands, flexed his fingers, and tried to remember the weight of the gloves. Tried to imagine how it would feel if he were the piece holding the sword instead of the controller. Tried to imagine what color his piece’s eyes were aside from the electric blue that signaled John’s control. 

     What did he look like? What was his name? How old was he? The helmet left so many questions, and though the armor gave pretty clear outlines to the body, it was hard to tell many details beyond general shape. His piece was slender and had lean muscle, was average height, and had long limbs and strong fingers. Controlling a sword felt natural with these controls. And then there was the strange speed… How could he even manage that? Even with the body modifications from the connection, even with the body being pushed to maximum, that speed was almost terrifying.

     John slicked his hair back and reached up for one of the expensive shampoos from the edge of the tub, scrubbing his hair while he sat to make the most of his sulking. He eventually stood up and washed the rest of himself, rinsing off and leaving when he couldn’t stand the heat anymore, flopping on his bed with his towel wrapped around his waist so he could drip dry. Flipping to his stomach, body steaming, he grabbed his laptop and logged on, seeing the usual group.

     Rose and Jade had been involved in a deep conversation about recreating musical tones digitally, wondering how to improve electric violins by going a step beyond, making it virtually possible to practice even without a violin in hand. Jade had experimented with a flute option but found it too difficult, while a bass option had worked well. Stringed instruments seemed to be heads above other types thus far, but she promised to iron the kinks out of it over time. Eventually an entire orchestra could be composed in virtual reality with accurate tones and intensity by a single person who would then be able to do the same with real instruments, or at least that was her plan.

      gG: really, its not going to be that hard. It all just comes down to input and human error, but if things work out it would be like a training course that could carry over into the real world!

     gG: remember those old games that taught you guitar while you played a game? same thing, but a ton of different instruments! :D

      Dave logged on by the time John’s dinner was delivered by a maid, posting a picture of himself fresh out of the shower, blonde hair wet and hanging over his red eyes, skin pink from the heat. He was smirking, as if knowing the disruption would stir people up, and he was right.

      gG: geeze, warn us first! :o

     tT: If he warned us I don’t think he’d be able to post with that smirk.

     eB: oh hey you just got out of the shower too.

      There was a pause before Dave typed next in the group chat.

      tG: well you cant just say that and leave the adoring public high and dry egbert

     tG: pics or it didnt happen

     gG: now were talking!!

     tT: Not there’s challenges to uphold, no less. Jade, do you suppose we should do the same when we shower later?

     gG: :( i already showered this morning though...

     tT: Pity. Next time, then. I’ll be sure to remind you.

     tG: that mean we get to see some lalonde action later or what

     tT: By Lalonde action do you mean seeing me in a towel? Because yes.

     gG: hubba hubba!! ;)

     tT: Jade, please.

      John blinked and scrolled back up to Dave’s picture, looking it over again while biting his lip. ...Shit. Okay, he was attractive when dry but seeing him wet just added another dimension to it. Hello future images for the guilty fap bank. He paused while saving the image with a slight frown, however, looking at his friend’s torso. There were bruises on him here and there, and the impression of what looked like a halter strap on his flushed torso. A shape that looked somewhat familiar against his flushed skin...

      tT: John are you going to leave your public thirsting, or are you just building up anticipation before slipping something into the chat?

     tG: hot

      Oh. Right. Coughing, John sat upright and tried to pose himself with his towel similarly to how Dave had posed, showing off a bit while still being demure. It turned out different, John being chubby compared to Dave’s slender form, but he assumed it looked good enough to send. 

      tG: i repeat

     tG: hot

     tG: goddamn egbert is this why you dont post selfies more often

      John bit his lip harder and groaned quietly. Someone who looked like that calling him hot? Shit, even if he was joking it went straight to his dick. The girls complimented him as well, and within an hour or two Rose had added a picture to the chat that they all showered with compliments, but it was Dave’s words and photo that haunted John as he went to sleep.

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

     It had taken a while to wash all the blood off from the day’ competition. Dave returned to his room exhausted and dazed, deciding to show off for fun. At the right angle, nobody could see the implant or signs of where he was, a simple white wall behind him the ultimate incognito space to work with. If he couldn’t flirt with his friends, who could he realistically flirt with? Random people, sure, but it didn’t matter in the slightest comparatively. At least these people cared about him, and he cared about their opinions.

     He’d already made up his mind: whenever, or if he ever got out of here, they’d be the first people he visited. Dave wanted to see Jade’s smile in person, and maybe kiss her. He wanted to hear Rose’s voice without the faint crackle of distance between them, and maybe kiss her too. And John… well. Shit. He’d kind of shown all his cards on that one this time, but who could blame him?

     He was getting closer and closer to either winning or losing, and there might not be much time left. There was nothing to lose anymore. If he died, at least his friends would know he cared about them in a lot of ways. Dave stayed up late into the night shooting the shit with everyone, and once John went to bed, continued talking with the girls till only Rose was left in his direct messages, the group chat quiet for the night.

      tT: Did you mean to spill homoeroticism all over the place earlier, or was it a slip that you just decided to own up to? It’s not the first time you’ve done it, but this is the first time you’ve been so blunt.

     tT: However, if it’s a joke, it’s a tactless one. I think John was really flattered.

      Dave sighed. 

      tG: it wasnt a joke

     tG: i dont feel like getting into it right now

      Not like he could really get into it, after all. The censors were ready and waiting for him to fuck up, and even if he tried, he wasn’t sure if Rose would understand the attempts at telling her about the game.

      tT: Understandable, though I do hope you’ll let me in on it at some point.

     tG: you feel like going on about why you were hitting on jade so much tonight

     tT: She’s hot, who wouldn’t hit on her.

     tG: touche

      Maybe he could try, though.

      tG: if i tried to explain something do you think youd be able to pick up what im putting down

     tT: One way to find out, isn’t there. Am I masculine enough to pick up what you’ve placed down, or is this a request for a bend and snap.

     tG: focus

     tT: Yes, yes, focusing.

      Dave licked his lips.

      tG: i play a very intense thing

     tT: An intense chicken hoarding game?

     tG: im living an intense life in a place not my home

     tG: and i might be famous without being famous

     tT: Hm. Are you an internet celebrity? I admit I’m not on many social media sites, and the ones I’m on I more pay attention to my circles than anyone outside of them.

     tG: nobody knows who i am

     tT: Ah, the price of fame.

     tG: i dont want to be famous

     tT: I’ve heard the limelight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, yes.

      Dave groaned and rubbed his face, frustrated, and hurriedly typed and sent a reply.

      ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

     ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

     tG: for fucks sake im a living piece in a game board and i dont want to die and id give anything to tell you all about this shit but theres a piece of shit watching me that wont let me

     ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

     ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

      Cussing, Dave shoved his laptop away as the post was strangled and his connection was dropped for the night. Unable to distract himself, he slept restlessly on his cot, arms crossed and red eyes repeatedly looking towards the night sky from his barred window. Somewhere out there was all of his friends, and damn it, someday he’d get to meet all of them and let them know precisely what they meant to him.

[daleisgreat]

Cobra Kai - Seasons One & Two

I never considered myself a hardcore fan of the original Karate Kid films. I enjoyed them growing up, and the first film held up when I re-watched it with a friend three or four years ago. A few years ago, YouTube picked up the rights to have their own exclusive series that features the characters from the original movies and have it pick up where those characters are today, 30 years after the original trilogy left off. It is called Cobra Kai (trailer), the name of the rival karate school that series antagonist Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) attended. The first episode of both seasons one and two are available to stream for free, but to see the rest of the seasons you will have to be a paid subscriber to YouTube Premium, or you can be like me and pick up the DVD set that combines the first two seasons for under $20. The first season picks up in the present, nearly 30 years after the original trilogy wrapped up. It starts to focus on where deadbeat Johnny Lawrence is currently at in his life, barely able to make ends meet on his own and finding himself recently out of a job. He reluctantly helps his neighbor Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) out of a jam with some bullies. Miguel is impressed with Johnny’s karate skills and wants him to be his sensei, and once Johnny stumbles into some money, he re-opens the Cobra Kai school.

Cobra Kai is not all about Johnny’s journey as fate leads to Johnny soon enough getting reacquainted with his rival, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). Daniel is in a much better place in his life; he runs a car dealership with his wife, Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) and they have a daughter Amanda (Mary Mouser) that Daniel has passed on his karate tutelage onto. Eventually Johnny and Daniel’s egos heat up once again and in their proper way of thinking the best way to exact revenge on one another is for them to train their prized pupil in order to win the regional karate championship to rub in the other’s face. Only Amanda is hesitant on getting back into karate and fate leads to Daniel taking Johnny’s estranged son Robby (Tanner Buchanan) under his wing where this eventually all builds up to Robby and Miguel squaring off in the finals of the all-important regeional karate tournament. By the end of the first episode I was completely on board, after originally thinking there was no way they can pull this off thirty years later. However, once you see Johnny and Daniel exchange words for the first time again all these years later it is readily apparent there is an organic chemistry between the two and it was eye-opening how the two did not miss a beat after three decades. Another factor that helps is Cobra Kai nails the tone it is going for. It retains just enough of that cornball-80s charm with elements of Johnny and Daniel still living in the past. Apparently Johnny boycotted new technology post high school and scenes with him discovering the Internet, smartphones and dating apps are all a riot. The humor is balanced out by playing it straight with the new younger faces introduced and going along for the ride with Miguel, Amanada and Robby’s teenage growing pains.

Seeing all the characters evolve over the course of the two seasons is a remarkable feat of television. Johnny goes on a journey from being deadbeat dad, to trying to be the same ruthless sensei that his teacher Kreese (Martin Kove) was to eventually learning a moral or two. Miguel’s and Robby’s season spanning arc is truly something else and watching them gradually become different people stayed with me. The build up to the season finale at the karate tournament hit all the right nostalgia wrinkles and I love how the tournament organizers overplayed it and properly recognized Cobra Kai’s AWESOME entrance. The karate tournament itself is masterfully produced and once again brought back fond memories of the original films with plenty of nice little nods and callbacks throughout. The final fight between Robby and Miguel lived up to the hype that built to it throughout the season. After picking up the DVDs I invited my brother over to watch this with me as I had a gut feeling he would appreciate Cobra Kai as much as I would, and sure enough by the season one finale tournament we both were unabashedly rooting for our favorites and feeling every kick and blow dealt throughout. Season two raises the stakes with an old face in the controversial original Cobra Kai sensei Kreese coming back to help with Cobra Kai’s expanding student-base while Daniel officially starts his own dojo, Miagi-do to combat Cobra Kai’s influence in the area . Season two focuses more on Daniel and Johnny building up their respective dojos and minor friends of Amanda, Miguel and Robby in season one have bigger roles in season two when they also pick sides in the high school karate wars. Seeing the dojos poke and prod at each other during the course of the season appropriately built up tensions in skirmishes in the mall and a house party before culminating in a epic 10 minute fight on the first day of school where apparently school security is worryingly laxed. The fallout of that tumultuous brawl for the ages has major ramifications for certain characters at the end of season two, and while season one closed on a mostly positive note for most characters, season two saw its finale swing in the other direction with most characters in precarious positions.

I dug season two almost as much as season one and liked how the kids were a bigger emphasis in the sequel season and we got to see more of the periphery characters shine in the second season. The adults still play a big role in the follow-up season with Danny patching up squabbles with the wife, and Johnny having a standout episode where he reunites with his fellow Cobras in a ‘special’ heartfelt episode. Krese is still as ruthless as ever and wears Cobra Kai’s motto, “No Mercy” on his sleeve. Watching both dojos try to expand their rosters and quarrel at school during the daytime got both my brother and I riled up as we anticipated everything would come to a boil at another karate tournament, but were thrown for a loop for the gratifying over-the-top fight scene at the school. Again, the consequences for that big fight were felt in the closing scenes of season two with a few added little twists that put the future of Cobra Kai and Miagi-do in jeopardy for season three. Speaking of Mr. Miagi, while Pat Morita passed away long ago, I will give props to how Cobra Kai has his presence remained a glowing constant on the show with frequent references and past clips implemented at poignant moments throughout the series. Almost every episode of Cobra Kai has quick clips and callbacks to the original movies, even The Next Karate Kid got a couple subtle nods (the Jaden Smith/Jackie Chan reboot got ret-conned out of cannon according to producer interviews). By the end of season two I was surprised how deep the writers and producers pulled for references and periphery characters that made a return, and I am grateful they peppered in brief shots of the original films to remind me of them.

There are a fair amount of extras for both seasons. The first season only has 20 minutes of bonuses with deleted scenes, audition reads, interviews with the composers for the series and two musical performances from William Zabka’s band. Season three has almost double the extras and aside from a gag reel and deleted scenes it also features more extended behind-the-scenes specials covering both season’s fight choreography, character profiles and a very handy feature highlighting most of the references to the earlier films. Not a boatload of extras by any means, but what is here is pretty good and I will give props to YouTube for not being content with only the episodes on disc. I recall giving the cold shoulder to Cobra Kai initially thinking there was no way they could pull this off after all these years. I got there was a little bit of Johnny Lawrence nostalgia going on with some of the commercial spots of the character several years back, but in no way was I prepared to be blown away by how good Cobra Kai is and how it recaptured the same underdog spirit that made me love it in my childhood. Nor was I prepared for how they would introduced a new generation of students that won me over as much as Johnny and Daniel did three decades prior and made their journeys equally as riveting as Johnny and Daniel’s. Do not brush off Cobra Kai like I initially did and at the very least give the first episodes that are currently free on YouTube a shot. Past TV/Web Series Blogs 2013-14 TV Season Recap 2014-15 TV Season Recap 2015-16 TV Season Recap 2016-17 TV Season Recap 2017-18 TV Season Recap 2018-19 TV Season Recap Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series Baseball: A Ken Burns series Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2 OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13 Roseanne – Seasons 1-9 Seinfeld Final Season Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7 Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle Superheroes: Pioneers of Television The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

[rawliverandcigarettes]

A Sleep-Deprived Journey of Batarians in Halfway Home

(or: the adventures of me in “Everything is problematic and I want to cry”) (also I have lost count and I am not consistent in anything regarding these updates please bear with me)

I haven’t slept and I am exhausted, as in, globally. So of course I decided it would be the perfect time to write something about the daunting, complex and delicate process of weaving the batarian narrative in Halfway Home.

Because, of course, I have to be like that.

I’d say the “batarian subplot”, as I call it, is the biggest subplot of Halfway Home, and one of the more intricately connected. It is present in some capacity from the first chapter to the last, and it’s the story of three things:

the long, muted fall of an entire civilization (as in the games, so I’m not really counting it as spoiler?)

the narrative on said long, muted fall from the perspective of an outsider (namely Shlee, hi Shlee) shifting gradually as the picture gets more precise and nuanced

Khocress Kam’gestar and his fight against the entropy; to secure a new cultural identity and a new home for his gang, and the batarian people at large (and the ideological turmoil it causes him, hi Khocress)

This subplot is also extremely linked to the political subplots (mostly the growing human influence and its clashes with turian powers), the Omega subplot and who gets to rule that damn upside down edgy space rock. And the main plot as well, of course.

So. Batarians.

Honestly sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking trying to go deep in the intricacies of that culture and its horrifying course throughout the games. Because… So beware! the Spice, but batarians, as a “planet of hat” culture (which they very much are in the games)… is kind of not great to begin with? And I don’t mean “not great” diegetically to the Mass Effect world, because yes they are very much not great in-world: they are slavers, with a caste system, pirates, racists and dismissive of other species, involved in “human” trade, sort of sexists, the species by far the most associated with sexual assault canonically, thrive in gangs, terrorists, want to aggressively impose their culture on the civilized other species and ain’t that preposterous… Yeah, so what I mean is that batarians, as a concept, are not exactly… Woke(TM), if I may. While kind of hard to pinpoint as a shortcut to one singular culture, they evoke a narrative that isn’t new but remains vague enough to be used as a “conversation starter” without being too outrageous. Basically batarians, when compared to the expected demographic of the game (which I assume is “western” whatever that means), embody All Of The Bad Tropes coming hot out of the “non-white” hat of cultural shortcuts, except up-played to 11. Wow, I know, what a take right.

I don’t think it has been done out of malice at all. I think the goal, with batarians, was to create a species you could freely hate and shoot (and do a tiny genocide on) without feeling too bad about it. And creating guilt-free antagonists is kind of normal when you’re making a shooter game, especially one like Mass Effect that does everything it can for the player to feel empowered and right (and it evokes this feeling masterfully, which is crazy hard to do). The antagonism between batarians and humans create tension every time Shepard crosses path with one of them, especially if the player went the Colonist route. That’s actually pretty cool to maintain, and the contained aggressiveness with every Omega interaction in Mass Effect 2 makes for interesting momentum (and makes me sort of wish we had some greater batarian antagonist, because there was potential, videogame-wise). And Mass Effect 3 finally paints a little more nuance on this species as a group of people who lost everything (though it kind of paints it with its “congratulation you played yourself” light that we also have with asaris after the Reaper attack –really not a fan, but hey, self-righteousness feels deserved after 150+ hours poured in an RPG series, so good for Shepard I guess).

But yes, culture bias is unfortunate, so invoking racist stereotypes can be a shorthand to achieve diplomatic antagonism pretty fast with our human protagonist, even if unknowingly and with the best intentions in mind.

But now I’m stuck with this too, am I not.

So I got stuck with a lot of decisions from the trilogy since several years ago, the worst offender still and always the Cerberus plot on Omega, which I will never not whine about. But for some reason, I never fought the batarian characterization, and I tried to roll with it and go underneath what that characterization means. What such a culture would be about. Also: after thousands of years of cohabitation (they made contact 40 years after the Council was formed by salarians and asaris, which dates them as crazy old), how they have been reflected back and shaped by other cultures too. Why this crazy long time period had been shoved under the carpet in their characterization, their presence not even mentioned for several major wars, why krogans, while still quite vengeful as a whole, are apparently more deserving of progressive empathy (at least in the way it’s shown) than batarians enslaved by their own kind and unable to leave their propaganda-fueled homeworld on the verge of economic collapse. There is a lot to unpack, a lot under the surface, and I get a sense of disconnect between the simplicity of their portrayal and the complexity of their reality in this world. I guess this is what drove me to them, in part.

So the task was to lay down the story of their fall. Cool.

But with a material so deeply flawed to begin with, it’s very hard to do right. Calling it up right now: I am bound to mess up somehow, because this very narrative is so connoted. I don’t know if there is a name for the trope of the Fatally Flawed Culture, the Unsavable Morally Doomed Civilization, but as much as I dance around the idea that the problem is not with what their culture had become but with the system that put them in that position in the first place, the slip is so very easy to make, especially given their proto-fascist ways. Also how easy it is to shove in some taste of White Savior, even without meaning to, even actively fighting against it, especially when the POV isn’t part of said culture (though Shlee doesn’t save anyone, barely his own ass, and mess up quite incredibly every time he attempts to meddle with a culture he believes really hard he understands and belongs to, honestly). Also, well. Batarian culture is flawed, it is part of their characterization, and washing them off as pure and unproblematic wouldn’t be very helpful either, nor would it be interesting. Victimization is as dehumanizing as blind antagonism. And then, and that comes with how the games sets them up in the narrative: their story is a downward spiral by essence. And this display of tragedy is kind of used, in the games, as a way to get the player to feel that maybe they deserve a little empathy after all. In a story that flips the switch to put the spotlight on their perspective and still maintains the systemic horror of their narrative arc, how do you avoid trauma porn, miserabilism?

I don’t have a perfect solution, obviously. One of my attempts is to multi-facet this whole situation as much as possible, with as much batarian faces as I can fit them in, but then you don’t want to bloat the story either, and then you contrast the pain with anger, and the anger can be horrifying, and another problematic problem in itself (I’m going to dubious places involving some batarian characters, and it’s kind of overwhelming, and also necessary but also kind of a never ending swarm of questions and double guesses, but welp ain’t no way I’m not getting canceled over something in this puddle of hot mess). Hope too, of course, but again, keep the message clear, don’t bloat the story. But hope, still. Somewhere.

All of that convoluted, sleep-deprived post served only to deliver this message: batarians are a mess to get right. They come packaged as a mess, are a mess to work through, and I have very little hope for them not to still be a mess at the end of the road. I will try. They deserve as much.

Who said writing fanfiction was easy again.