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cecilspeaks · 4 years ago

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172 - Return of the Obelisk

“Nothing lasts forever” is a phrase with two meanings, and they’re both true. Welcome to Night Vale.

All of Night Vale is aglow. There is music in the air. You know what that means, listeners: the Obelisk has returned. It’s been nearly 8 years since the Obelisk last appeared, but it’s right back where it always shows up, in Mission Grove Park over on the east side, right next to the Wailing Pit. But a little bit south of the Memorial Debris Heap. The Obelisk returns every 5 to 10 years, sometimes as long as 50, and it brings with it joy, anticipation, and a deep fear. A terror so deep in the gut that it feels like you’ve eaten too much ice cream, but in all reality, your body is simply bracing itself for death. The Obelisk has always behaved benevolently, but so hast he sun, and we don’t trust that thing fully either, so I dunno. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Unlike the sun, the Obelisk radiates a soft blue light, but like the sun, the Obelisk makes a lot of noise. In particular, music. The obelisk sounds like a Bach concerto played like a French horn and a theramine from inside a refrigerator. Everyone in town is gathering at Mission Grove Park to see the Obelisk in person, to pay homage to this rare visit, and to confront their fears head on. Hopefully everything works out fine, because there are some cool events I want to get to this weekend, and it would be terrible to have to cancel them over a rogue obelisk.

Let’s take a look at the community calendar, shall we? This Friday night is opening night of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony-winning musical “Sunset Boulevard” at the Night Vale Community Theatre. I’m very excited to finally see this show, it’s supposed to be a really lavish production, too. And it’s based on one my all time favorite Billy Wilder films about an aging silent movie star who finds an amulet that lets her travel in time, but whenever she moves through time, she enters someone else’s body and can’t leave until she saves her life. This staging of “Sunset Boulevard” is directed and produced by… oh my god, Susan Willman?? Really? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrhooonestly, this has been a pretty long week and Iiii might need to just rest at home on Friday. I mean I’m not trying to be rude here, but Susan Willman is the worst! Did you know she once judged the chili cook-off, and I came in third? Third! Behind Joel Eisenberg, which is fine, Joel’s an OK cook, but also behind who else? Susan Willman! You can’t be a judge and win first place. I’m also pretty sure Susan used a prepackaged spice mix in that chili. [laughs oddly] I don’t have that verified through a secondary source, but I can confirm, it was oversalted, again. I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Anyway, go see “Sunset Boulevard” on Friday if you want to watch uninspired actors and muddled blocking.

Saturday afternoon is the PTA bake sale fundraiser to send our Academic Decathlon team to a tournament in our state’s capital. The PTA secretary… [sighs] Susan WiIlman, says this money will go toward hotel and bus travel for our brilliant and talented Ac-Dec squad. “Academic Decathlon is about intelligence and perseverance,” says Willman in this overwrought press release. “Ac-Dec is about freedom and fastidiousness. It is a celebration of hard work, and we want Night Vale to show the rest of the state that blah blah blah blah blah,” God she just runs on! I mean yes, Ac-Dec is very cool and I wish our kids well. But chill with the grandstanding! Anyway, go buy a cake to support those amazing students, even though I’m sure Susan will still manage to mess up a box mix.

Sunday is Youth Reprogramming Day at the Night Vale Museum of Forbidden Technologies. Does your child love learning about new gadgets and advancements in technology? Well, come on down to the Museum of Forbidden Technologies on Sunday for a day-long reprogramming event. Docents and curators will engage those curious kids through hands-on unlearning. They’ll take their patented mindwipe beam and point it right at each child’s forehead until all interest in forbidden technology has been removed. Kids love the mindwipe beam, because it smells like grapes, and they don’t feel any pain for weeks after. Youth Reprogramming Day is a family friendly day of discovering that you know too much, and knowledge is treason.

Today’s appearance by the Obelisk is the 19th in recorded history. Little is known about what the Obelisk is, who controls it, or what it wants. Most scientists and historians agree that it was created by subterranean gods millennia ago, and they think its purpose is a type of census for life at ground level. The Obelisk is about 25 feet tall, it is oily and soft like a fresh brick of parmesan cheese, and when it appears, everyone in town carves their name into one of its four sides. We do not know why or when this practice began, it’s simply how it’s always been done. And to question tradition is to admit weakness. When the Obelisk eventually disappears, perhaps today, perhaps several days from now, it will take our names with it. And when it returns, those names will be gone and we will begin the tradition anew. No one knows what happens to those names. Are they simply erased, or are they read and recorded? Is this data mining for some ancient technology startup, or does the Obelisk truly belong to the gods? We only know what happens to one of the names carved on the Obelisk, and for that person, we feel both envy and pity. For while the Obelisk has always behaved benevolently, past performance et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Let’s have a look now at traffic. Route 800 is shut down until 4 PM today, as it has turned into a river. No cars are on Route 800, it’s just water. Rough and choppy, spiking white rapid caps atop nearly black rushing death. Highway officials are investigating the sudden appearance of this river, perfectly overlaying our main thoroughfare in and out of town. Beneath the quickly moving rush of the river, a single fish, probably a bass of some sort. Highway officials are uncertain because they don’t think about fish. Why would they? Highway officials are annoyed that you think so little of their awareness of fish species. They can tell a salmon from a marlin from a mackerel. “See what you made us do?” one highway official said. “We could have been repairing route 800, but you started picking on us for not knowing if that’s a bass or a mackerel or a whatnot. In fact,” the official continued, “we just looked it up on Wikipedia and it’s a bass. And fun fact,” they added, “did you know that bass can grow up to 25 pounds, have four rows of human teeth, and speak Spanish at a first grade level?” The river is now branching out down sides of streets and into neighborhoods. Pavement everywhere is a network of fresh water capillaries through town. Expect delays of up to 10 or 20 minutes, as you try to get to Mission Grove Park. This has been traffic.

The whole town feels like a carnival now with the flashing lights of the Obelisk and it’s crescendo of lively music filling the cool twilight air. We dance, we sing, we revel in togetherness and share our fears of what will happen next. What will the question be? And more importantly, what will be its answer? When every name has been placed upon the Obelisk, then the blue glow of the towering monolith will die away. The entire structure will turn black. All except one name. One name will remain lit on the Obelisk, and that person shall be sent forth to ask their question. They may ask any question they choose and the Obelisk will tell them and only them the answer. No one else will hear this communication. If the receiver wishes to share what they now know, they are allowed to do so.

Many years back, this ritual was more organized. Early Night Vale townships planned a democratic approach to this opportunity: a committee of the Obelisk was formed to decide on the single most important question to ask. This approach came about in response to the super blunder of 1932, when a 6-year-old boy named Bartholomew Thomason was chosen to deliver the question. He asked the Obelisk if he was, quote, “gonna have corn for dinner”. The obelisk apparently said no, because little Bart started crying and the Obelisk quickly disappeared, not to return for almost 10 years. By that time, the committee of the Obelisk was established and they chose the question: “how do you cure cancer?” Ah, this is a good and noble question. But the citizen chosen by the Obelisk was a farmer named Barry McKenney, who tried his best to take careful notes, but a lot of the detailed medical jargon was just too complex for him. The committee tried this question again 6 years later, but the Obelisk refused to respond to any question it had already answered. So Sidney Laynord of Old Time Night Vale, not having a backup question from the committee, asked if his wife Jessica was cheating on him with Gerald Framingham, and the Obelisk said no, but it only said that because Gerald’s actual last name was Framington, so Sidney just messed up.

Over the decades, the committee of the Obelisk asked: “Is God real”? And the Obelisk said yes, but nothing more. After that, they tried to ask questions that would elicit more detailed response. Um, one year they asked: “who planned the assassination of JFK?” and were disappointed to learn that it was a CIA - Fidel Castro – Frank Sinatra triumvirate that conspired to murder our 35th president. This was the most boring answer, but at least it verified what everyone already knew.

By the 1990’s, though, the committee of the Obelisk had kind of fallen out of fashion after years of corporate funding and corruption. See, this controversy exploded in 1997, when the question put forth by the committee, which at the time was headed by the CEO of Pepsico, was: “what’s the best tasting carbonated soft drink on the market today?” The Obelisk’s answer, to the chairman’s great disappointment, was Surge. Today, whoever is called on by the Obelisk is given free reign to ask whatever they choose. However many news outlets regularly publish lists of recommended question, but there is always the risk that someone will ask something frivolous like “what’s Jason Mraz up to these days?” or “where is the body of my missing fahter?” Please, God please, just don’t call on Susan Willman. She will blow it.

And now a word from our sponsors. Are you tired of wrinkled shirts? Do your clothes get static cling? [increasingly angry tone] How many times do you show up to work with your shirt all rumpled and not smelling like seafoam mist? You’re not going to get a promotion looking like that, and while no one deserves anything, you certainly should appear to earn that promotion. You need crisp, clean, non-ionised clothing that smells like seafoam mist. Don’t you wanna smell like seafoam mist?! Try Tide pods. With our special formula of citrus extract, kelp and milk fat, Tide pods can be the all natural solution to all of your laundry problems. You deserve Tide pods, because you deserve that promotion over Michaela, who’s only like 22 years old. What has she ever done to deserve a promotion? What’s Michaela’s deal even? Tide pods. Remember when we seemed like a big problem?

Oooooooo listeners, the Obelisk has gone dark. The music has ceased. The whole town encircles the tower waiting for its declaration for who shall ask the question. In the quiet night, under few start peeking thru the purple sky, we can hear only the sounds of crickets. The Obelisk, so black as to appear cut out from reality, suddenly shines a small blue line. It is a name, it is on the south face and is it… Oh no! No no no, listeners, I don’t know if I can stop this but I will try. Uuuh, let’s go now to the weather.

[“Pros and Cons” by Sugar & the Mint https://www.sugarandthemint.com/]

Welllll it’s too late. She’s asked her question. I’m not sure how I could have stopped this disaster, even if I made it over there before she could ask it. OK, as you know by now, the Obelisk lit up with Susan Willman’s name, and she grinned smugly and did that fake like “who me? What, oh my god!” gesture and then walked on up to the Obelisk. The crowd was calling out questions to her like game show audience trying to help a contestant, no single phrase discernible above the others, and Susan just looked around, her big goofy eyes scanning the people around her, as if she would actually lower herself to listen to their questions. [scoffs] She thinks she’s so high and mighty with her PT officer status and her hit Broadway musical. No no no, Susan’s above us all, just as important as she can be. She waved her arms like wings for quiet, and the audience obeyed, she’s so self-important, so attention seeking. And then she asked her question. The one question we as a town get only every decade or so, and Susan said: “Hey, so what’s your name?” What’s your name?!! God! What a waste! Did she forget we only get one question? The crowd began to boo, or at least I did. I started booing and I am part of the crowd.

The obelisk began to speak only into Susan’s mind and Susan listened closely. She giggled at first, like a little girl hearing a silly joke from a grandfather, and then her tear-filled laughs turned into tear-filled breaths, which eventually became tear-filled sobs. After about three minutes, the Obalisk vanished, and Susan stood alone on the small hill between the Wailing Pit and the Memorial Debris Heap, and she told us what she heard. Or [scoffs] she told us some of what she heard.

Susan said, in an unusually booming authoritative voice: “Whosoever speaks aloud the name of the Obelisk shall become the Obelisk. Whosoever becomes the Obelisk shall live forever. Whosoever lives forever shall know all things. Whosoever knows all things shall be damned. And whosoever hears the name of the Obelisk spoken aloud shall perish.” The crowd parted for Susan as she left the park. They mumbled their disappointment in both the question and its answer. Some spoke with pity, some with disdain, while some thought it was all pretty cool and now. “Much better than last time, when Dave asked who would win the 2013 NBA championships,” said one person. “Dave won a lot of money on that answer, though,” responded another. “He has a yacht now over at the Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area.”

But most everyone whispered their fear for Susan’s power itself. I mean, Susan received a gif today, a cursed cursed gifts. You know what? I think I might go see that “Sunset Boulevard” after all and I love it. I don’t get to tell Susan very often what a visionary theatrical director she is, but I, I, [chuckles] I might even put some stacks down on her cakes Saturday too. Really support that academic Decathlon team. And the spirit of American ingenuity and perseverance, and all that.

Good question, Susan. I’d like to never learn the answer, but good question nonetheless. You’re one of, if not the, best person I know. Thumbs up.

Stay tuned next for our newest game show, “Nothing will ever be the same”.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Bite your tongue. Fun, right?

#welcome to night vale #welcome to night vale transripts #wtnv #episode 172 #return of the obelisk

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fingaudioart · 4 years ago

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Hill House, and Audio Horror vs Film Horror

I got to thinking about this when an audio producer on Twitter asked what people thought the scariest parts of Haunting of Hill House, other than the jump scares. What struck me while reading the responses were almost all things that depended on the visuals, and would be very hard to move into the realm of audio.

I feel like many/most people think of horror movies as a template to build off of for horror audio fiction...which is fair, because for many of us, horror audio fiction wasn’t a thing we could find to listen to until recently (myself included). And it’s not uncommon to hear a successful, talent audio producer say something along the lines of “An audio drama is like a movie, without needing a million dollar budget.”

I agree with the thought, generally: audio fiction does have many similarities to film, but if you stretch it too far, it can be a dangerous approach. And it can be especially dangerous for Horror.

Let’s think about how we could move the Bent Neck Lady into audio (spoilers ahead). Except for one scream, she is silent and unmoving. To move it into audio, we’d either need a narrator (or someone to tell us what’s happening), or to make Bent Neck Lady move around. The first option would keep the nature of the ghost intact, but we would be robbed of having it happen in front of us. The second option would change the nature of the ghost entirely. This is before we even talk about the twist, that hinges on Bent Neck Lady largely being a silhouette, which obscures information without feeling like anything.

Horror is a genre that is especially dependent on craftsmanship, regardless of the medium. It’s a genre where--and you’re going to murder me for saying this--you don’t need a good story to be scary. You need a scary situation/scene, told with skill, but even if the scenes/plot/characters around it are terrible, you can still make the audience feel afraid (Looking at you, Argento).

That’s not to say the story doesn’t matter. In fact, a large part of what makes Haunting of Hill House so good is that it’s part horror, but also part family melodrama (and it actually spends more time on the melodrama than the horror), blended together so the ghosts have meaning. Bent Neck Lady is disturbing the first time you see it, but it’s the story behind it that makes her stay with you long after you’ve finished the show.

But if we set aside the story, and focus on the scary moments...they are pure filmmaking. Every aspect is working to create fear: the sets and art direction, the creature design, the pacing, the blocking, the editing, the sound design.

The same way a horror movie uses every weapon of filmmaking, a horror audio drama should use every weapon of audio to create dread/fear/suspense. But the flip side is, just as Haunting of Hill House isn’t using the tools of horror literature, your audio drama shouldn’t try to be a movie.

But I think we also need to own up to something: many of us (most of us?) have more experience watching horror movies than listening to horror audio dramas. So let’s get analytical here. What are films strengths? Audio’s strengths? Weakness? And how do these work in service of horror? Any tips for the audio drama producer?

Filmmaking’s Unique Gifts

Before I get into the list, I want to be very clear: I’m not to saying you can’t do versions of this in an audio drama. In fact, when these are successfully used in audio, they can be outright amazing. But they take a lot more work, either by carefully setting up signature sounds*, or by having narration, or some other creative way no one has done yet. The point of this list is that film does these things easily.

There are some obvious things, like, ya know, visuals. I don't think there's any amount of words or sounds that would allow me to imagine Giger’s Xenomorph. Some things just need to be seen.

One of film's special talents is it gives the audience an understanding of a location without even trying. I don’t mean the layout of a house (that can be confusing), but present an audience with one shot of a bedroom, and they’ll instantly understand where the bed is, the window, the door, the closet, the bedside tables. Films communicate small spaces so easily, they don't even need to stop to do it…a character walks in the room doing whatever, and as long as the space is seen by the camera, the audience gets it.

In horror, this is vital when the fear you're trying to create is that of a physical threat. Where is the killer? Behind the bookcase? Walking towards you from across the lawn?

Related to this idea of a physical space, films also have the ability to makes things appear--and disappear--quickly and unexpectedly. This is moments like Mike Meyers appearing in the closet in Halloween, or later, when Dr. Loomis looks over the edge of the Balcony, and Michael Meyers has vanished.

Perhaps film’s most famous strength is the montage. You can easily cut between different scenes and settings, without the audience ever getting confused.

There is one tool of film that I am very frustrated won’t work in audio: the Title Card. I don’t mean the title of the show, I mean those cards that say things like “Burbank, CA” or “CIA Headquarters” or “3:23pm.” Text on screen is a painless way to give the audience information without tripping up the storytelling.

Finally, let’s talk about one of film’s most powerful tricks...patience.

A film can stretch moments out, sometimes with slomo, but often with editing between close-ups. You can also have moments where nothing happens, you just linger in the mood/ambience/characters reactions.

A great example is the “Spielberg-Face”, those shots when the characters are reacting to something the audience hasn’t seen yet. In Jurassic Park, we spend a full 30 seconds watching jaws drop before we see the first dinosaur. This is pretty nuts, when you think about it. The true stars of the movie aren’t introduced with a speech, or a title card, or a curtain pulling back, but by the characters just staring in the distance for half a page.

Pausing the action, or even just stretching it out, is one of the fundamental tools of horror movies. It’s a way to create the mood: Show the spooky location, play the spooky ambience. It’s a way to create suspense in a scene, think of the long POV shot scanning the room for that noise. End the moment with something suddenly appearing, and you have the basic recipe for a jump scare. Even if you decide to be an artsy horror story, like Haunting of Hill House, silently drawing out the action is your primary weapon. Done well, the audience will be rapt, knowing that something could be about to happen any moment, even though as far as the plot goes, we haven’t moved much at all.

I’ll be honest, if I could go back in time and tell the younger version of me who hadn’t made an audio drama yet that you can’t draw out a moment the way you do in film, I probably would not have believed me. In my work as a TV Editor, it’s been one of the tricks that has really elevated my pieces...it feels like magic. But I’ll never forget editing my first audio piece, having a character fumble with a doorknob while trying to escape someone who was chasing them. They grunted at the door as the footsteps got closer and closer, and it was lousy. It felt like the manipulation it was.

Audio’s Unique Gifts

The thing that audio does better than any other media--and this is controversial--a narrator feels like they are talking directly to you, the listener (a narrator in a film feels more like they are talking to an auditorium). Now, here are people who find that narration is jarring and takes them out of the story. They aren’t wrong--you can’t argue someone’s experience--but that’s certainly not what happens to me. If you are one of these poor souls, I hope you take some time to listen to some narration and reprogram your brain, because you’re missing out on some magic.

The other great thing about sound is it activates the imagination. Films can also do this, of course, but audio does it be default.

Sound is also very good at evoking a sense of touch. Texture. Clothing. Almost anything you can feel in your hand.

While sounds is great at telling us about what’s very close, it also tells us about the world in the distance, i.e. ambiences. The sound of a forest transports us to a forest that exists in all directions. Distant traffic can tell us if the city is awake or asleep.

Audio also does an amazing plot twist that I’m gonna call the “Pull Back to Reveal” twist (yeah, that’s a film term). This is when, deep into a scene, something is revealed to the audience that the characters understood was there the whole time. While a movie can usually only sustain this for a minute or two, audio dramas can push this for a really long time. The Truth’s classic “The Dark End of the Mall” is a great example, as is the episode “Have You Seen My Mom?” It’s use in horror is more limited though...suspense works the best when the audience knows as much or more about the situation than characters (a.k.a. Audience Superior), and this is a twist that is Audience Inferior.

And, not for nothing: It’s way cheaper than a film. That’s not say the money doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t matter in the same way.

Film’s Failings

The hardest part of film is the flip side of its strengths: it’s so easily grounded in reality, it’s very hard to step out of it. That’s more of a problem than you think.

Take the sentence, “Andy called his sister-in-law.” While it takes just four words to write in a book, in a movie, you are going to be contorting dialog or some other clever trick, to get the audience to understand “that’s his wife’s sister.” (Non-narrated audio dramas also have this problem with exposition.)

Same goes for backstory. In the middle of a scene, a book can say things like “She’d been working on this for ten hours now, and was ready to scream.” One sentence. A film would have to lay out exposition, or clues for the audience to put it together.

Film also has a hard time conveying senses other than sound or sight. During scenes where a character walks into a place and says “Ugh, what’s that smell!”, I never really imagine the smell, I just see an actor pretending to smell something.

Visuals can be too intense. Gore or nudity are the first things that come to mind in this category, and are often alluded to in a film for exactly that reason. But even if they are merely hinted at, the film audience may spend a scene wondering “Are they going to actually show it?”, which knocks you out the movie a little.

Films are complicated to make, at every level. Casting is tougher---the actor needs to both sound and look the part. There’s the expense of sets and lighting, the effort of just getting a crew to a location can be monumental. And once it’s all shot, film editing is more complicated and time intensive than audio editing, and not just because it involves audio editing.

Audio's Weakness

The biggest: There's a big Blindspot right in front of the audience. Without some careful context, raw audio recording from real life is disorienting at best, intelligible at worst. Most sounds that come from the blank spot are descriptive, they generally tell us if someone’s shoes are wet, but they won’t tell who is walking around the room in wet shoes.

This blind spot can be especially dangerous to a producer, because in real life, our brain attaches sounds to the objects it sees, and when you understand what a sound is, it’s easy to place it. Because a producer knows what sound they are placing in the piece, it’s easy to think your sound design is intelligible. Sounds we don’t understand are also hard to place in the space. I personally find that while stereo and ambisonics can help make the sounds be more distinct from each other, they don’t really locate them precisely.

Another weakness of audio, characters are hard to tell apart. This can especially affect women's voices, who don't tend to have as much variation. This isn’t as true if the audience has seen the face of the actor talking, something about that seems to lock in our understanding of a voice (video though, not just a headshot). But without a face, it’s tough. EDIT: So I wasn’t very clear with that last point. To be clear, it’s not that you CAN’T cast people who sound different, or that you can’t direct people with similar voices to give different performances. It’s that you need to make a point of doing so. And while I have personally found that women’s voices are more likely to sound alike, that’s not the main idea. We remember face’s very easily, and names relatively easily (unless you’re me, I’m terrible at names). Voices without faces are easily confused.

This character confusion especially applies to large casts...I have a hard time imagining an audio only version of OCEAN’S ELEVEN, for example. Put twelve characters in a room for an audio drama, and it’s gets confusing for the listener really quickly.

If you aren't using a narrator, making time pass can be hard. A Rocky montage needs to be carefully setup. "Cut To: Five Minutes Later" is damn near impossible without narration.

Sound Effects need to be more meticulous. THE AVENGERS can sweeten a superhero punch so it hardly sounds like a punch at all, and the visuals on screen will lock it into place. Without a picture to give a sound context, they need to be much more realistic for them to be understood correctly.

So let’s put this all together.

Lets turn it into an “approach,” and design some scenes that work easily in the medium.

Ambiences are a strength, so we’ll pick a setting that has an interesting one, and avoid things like quiet rooms. We’ll have a small number of characters, let’s say four or less, and to make it easier for audience to remember who is who, we’ll cast actors with clearly different voices, and we can help on the script level by making sure they all have different motivations/goals/emotional states. To get that intimacy of the voice, we’ll have at least some of the characters close to each other (and the mics), and not shouting across the room.

The physical setup of the room will be straight forward, and our characters’ movements though the space will be clearly motivated and direct (“Does this key unlock this door?”), if a character has busy work that moves them through the space, the details won’t matter (like they are doing dishes). We’ll also want to have some moments that play on that sense of touch. Perhaps most importantly, we’ll want to paint some clear visuals for the listener to imagine.

For a horror scene, you really want to work your ambiences to make them add to the tension, vs just adding realism. We first want the monsters in the distance, say on the other side of a door or outside the house, or somewhere in the woods. Make our scared characters really close to the listener, play the sounds that you only hear when you are right next to them, like their breathing, swallows, adjusting the clothes or their make-shift weapon.

When the monster enters the room, have it spend as little time as possible in the blindspot, so avoid things like fist fights and fast-paced footchases. Instead get the monster right inside our character's personal bubble. If you’re aiming for a startle, instead of having it leap out in front of the hero like in a movie, you’d want to skip the blindspot, and have the monster pounce onto the hero--using those touch sounds that are so intense.

To me, that sounds like a scary scene.

It’s Not a Formula, and All of This is Nonsense

In fact, you probably wouldn’t want every scene in your piece to follow this, because a) it’ll get repetitive, and b) when you go against the medium, you’re more likely to make some magic (if you pull it off). But I do think it’s important to realize when the big moment of your piece is resting on some of the weaknesses. When this happens, you may want to make sure you’re leaning on something really strong to carry the weight. Other times, you may want to toss around some other ideas, make sure that it’s actually working, and to see if it could be improved.

Also, even though I’ve written a lot of words here, I fully expect someone has already proven every one of these rules wrong. But I also think it’s a good exercise to go through this and figure out why I’m wrong.

The medium matters. And I hate writing conclusions, so I’m ending it here.

*Signature Sound: A sound that the audience understands to mean something specific, such as a doorbell or a gunshot.

#audiodrama #horror #hill house

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shikai-the-storyteller · 4 years ago

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WFC: Siege watch!

Part 1: Episodes 1, 2, and 3

[Part 2] (Linking because Tumblr isn’t even showing the post on my blog or on my dash 🙄)

As a side note: every single person in this fandom is horrible at tagging their spoilers, you guys really need to do a better job at that because I’ve got a bunch of blockers on and I was STILL almost spoiled multiple times. Come on you guys...it literally came out today, be better about this.

Alright going to try and keep expectations low because I feel like the target audience for this is G1 dudebros who take a series about transforming cars way too seriously, but I’m still cautiously optimistic because a friend vetted for the dudes working on this show so WE”LL SEE

Episode 1

Aw man there’s only 6 episodes??? Bummer, I wonder if they’re already working on Season 2 or if they’re going to see how this does and let it die in the water if it’s not popular enough.

Things I know going in: Skyfire / Jetfire is in this, Megatron has big lips, and Elita is in it. That’s literally it, I’ve managed to avoid spoilers thusfar (though a few of the promo images implied Skyfire’s a Decepticon, so you KNOW that’s gonna break bad eventually)

WHEELJACK Wednesday THURSDAY

OH MYG OSH IS THAT SKYWARP??? EXPECTATIONS ARE NOW SKY-HIGH

The transformation sequences look so reminiscent of those stop-motion videos people do of their Transformer toys transforming. This isn’t a dig at the animation style, I think that’s rather charming and I wonder if it’s intentional.

Wow Bumblebee sounds like a jerk. I’m instantly on-edge, please don’t make all the characters ~hyper-masculine mean guys who don’t know how to have fun or talk about their emotions~

“The Autobots aint paying you for attitude” YOU TELL HIM WHEELJACK

Yooo Velocitron exists!

Ahh so Bumblebee IS just a mercenary, not an Autobot

OHOHO HERE”S JETFIRE

Wow Jetfire you’re really going the bad dude route huh

Ayyyyyy there’s Starscream

YOOO THERE”S THUNDERCRACKER

Thundercracker I appreciate that you’re using fancy tech to identify wheeljack but his Autobot badge is literally Right There

WTF

WELL THAT DIDN”T LAST LONG HUH...that’s a bit disappointing

OH NVM THAT WASN”T A HEEL-TURN THAT WAS JUST A STRAIGHT UP “I”M THE BOSS” MOVE

huh so they’re making Skyfire the target of Starscream’s desire for power. hmm

WHY ARE YOU GUYS RUNNING JUST TRANSFORM INTO CARS unless they’re too low on energon to do it??

There he is...Mr. Big Lips

Well that’s a surprising take Megatron

Isn’t that Cybertron and Luna 1 in the sky though?? Are they on Cybertron rn or not??

Megatron’s voice is really throwing me off, if it weren’t for his helmet and color I’d really think that was Overlord

ITS TRUCK DAD

OHOHO HE SAID THE THING!!!!

Why does bumblebee have lips too

“What do you know of slavery?” Alright that line did make me go “OHHHH”

“Alpha Trion would be ashamed!” “Of us both, I think” ouch, but nice to see Alpha “Grandpa” Trion back in a series

Megatron PLEASE don’t say “I’m enjoying this, Prime” in that voice while I can hear Optimus groaning in the background

AYYY ELITAAAAAA

Why are the Seekers chasing these guys, who are running on foot, ON FOOT??? CHANGE INTO YOUR DANG ALT MODE

WHEELJACK SWORE

man I’m only like a few minutes in and I’m already bored. I’m going to watch the whole thing, but I feel like this is really lacking soul or personality so far. It very much feels like the script was written by people who aren’t familiar with these characters, so they’re writing them how they EXPECT them to sound, not writing them as they actually are. It’s more than a little disappointing, but this is only the first episode, so I’ll keep going and see if this is consistent throughout the series.

Oh man, just listening to Elita you can tell she was written by a dude. Oof.

There’s the Ark!

Dang everyone’s running low

Jeez Optimus and Elita wouldn’t just walk by all these injured Autobots!

And Optimus wouldn’t brush off his officers!! Agh!!!

YO Ultra Magnus!

Chromia!!!!!

oh my gosh is THAT Red Alert??

Hey where’s Ratchet though

Gosh the writing is so STIFF!!!! I can’t stand this, if I wasn’t a die-hard Transformers fan I would’ve bounced a few minutes ago

It might also be the way the VAs pause between words, please speak normally, these constant pauses between words are frustrating

Ok but where the frick is Soundwave

“His arrogance I actually like” pfft

Annnnd here comes Ultra Magnus to accept the treaty on Prime’s behalf, where he’ll get held hostage and probably wind up beefing it.

Episode 2

SOUNDWAVE!!!! BABY

And Shockwave!!!

YO SKYWARP ACTUALLY GOT A SPEAKING LINE

I want to know where Megatron got all this fabric for those stupid flags and where Ultra magnus got that cloak

Is. Is that Prowl with a weird paint job

Wow bad aim dude

Ultra Magnus you dummy....

Ok but if it was a battle then who were they fighting against???

Wow you’re really just gonna stand there and take that Magnus?

I know they’re on a time-crunch because they only have 6 episodes, but they have to do more to make me care about the characters. I’m inclined to care about them already because I’m familiar with the series and because as a stand-alone, even I’m like “Ok. So?” whenever new problems come up for them. I’m not invested!

Not to compare the two, because I feel like this entire liveblog will turn into a comparative essay, but Cyberverse got me invested in characters within the first episode! They were on an even TIGHTER time-crunch because their episodes were only 10 minutes, and yet they did a great job weaving a tight narrative and making good use of their time to tell a story and have characters charm the audience.

Optimus: Til All Are One Rodimus, coming out of nowhere: TIL ALL ARE ONE

WELL THAT”S NOT THE VOICE I WAS EXPECTING FOR SHOCKWAVE he sounds a bit reminiscent of his TFA version

What does de-rez mean

Ok but that’s assuming that this thing will automatically reprogram them?? Reformatting doesn’t automatically mean someone will turn into a Decepticon!

You know, there’s a lot of talking in the show but the dialogue doesn’t actually say a lot. It doesn’t reveal much about the characters or tell me who they are.

YOOO THERE”S SOUNDWAVE

AUDIO BOOB

It really annoys me that characters always pause after saying “I”. It’s always “I.........[long pause] rest of their sentence.”

what do you mean “Teams” Optimus there’s like 5 of you guys

I love you Soundwave!!!

Whoa wait was that Impactor in the background?

ughHHHHHH I HATE THAT MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE IS “what have you done?” SAID UTTERLY MONOTONE WHEN IT’S NOT EVEN A BIG DEAL!!! YOU CAN”T FLIP THAT LINE OUT WITHOUT ACTUALLY PUTTING IN THE FOOTWORK TO EARN IT!!! AGH!!!

Again, it feels very much like the writers read the wikipedia page for Transformers and maybe the first sentence of each character’s bio page and then wrote the entire script from there. It’s frustrating. I hate being so severe in my reviews because I hate dunking on my fellow writers because they don’t always have final say in what happens, but this is astonishingly poor writing.

Like, I can see what they’re TRYING��to accomplish, but it feels like they whiff so badly.

YO IT IS IMPACTOR

oh thats Barricade that’s why I thought that was Prowl

Chromia!!!! My darling!!!! I can’t believe there’s only two girls in this show so far

Oh that’s Cog, I wasn’t sure if that was Beachcomber or what

Nice one Chromia

Oh is that Mirage?

Ugh ANOTHER WRITING PET PEEVE: Constantly having characters start to say something but then then their dialogue gets cut off. It’s fine if it’s once in a while but over and over it’s annoying

I also feel like a lot of the VAs lack...emotion. They don’t emphasize the lines. Like, “Get him into the repair bay” is one example. Depending on how you emphasize certain words in that sentence, you can infer a lot! Emotion, the state of mind of the character, etc. But when it’s delivered in such a bland way, it’s a bit like “ok whatever”, which is how I’m starting to feel about this whole show. This doesn’t go for all the VAs or all lines, but it’s consistent enough that my mind’s wandering.

RAVAGE??? RAVAGE???? RAVAGE?!?!?!??!?!

It was probably Bumblebee.

Not to be nitpicky but it should be “Neither we nor the Autobots”

The idea of reformatting is so stupid!!! It implies that Autobots and Decepticons are inherently different, which is stupid!! It’s so dumb WHY DO YOU GOTTA GO THAT ROUTE IT”S SO STUPID (ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY”RE TACKLING THE TOPIC OF OPPRESSION??? THEY”RE SAYING THEY”RE LITERALLY DIFFERENT SPECIES AND USING IT AS A PLATFORM TO SAY ONE GROUP IS INHERENTLY BETTER THAN THE OTHER. THAT SUCKS)

Episode 3

RATCHET!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lmao love your lipgloss Megatron

Ohh is Ratchet going to fix Impactor??

PROWL??? HE”S SO SHORT

Gosh please, please don’t have humans in this show

lmao Skyfire called Starscream a tool

RATCHET!!! :D

I’d like to see who was on the writing team of this show

Isn’t that Mirage?

YEAH THAT IS MIRAGE

Again with the sentences consistently being cut off....

Is that Sunstorm?

Points to Chromia and Mirage for showing the first bitof personality in this show.

Yooo Ratchet! Oof he’s not chummy with Prime huh

YOO CAMINUS EXISTS TOO

LMAO FEISTY GRANDPA

Oh Mirage come on

Actually no, don’t shut Impactor up he’s right

“I didn’t patch you up just so you could blow a valve here” *snorts*

Wouldn’t it be frickin hilarious if Magnus just popped open a panel and Minimus came out and just dipped outta there

lmao nice lightsaber Jetfire

LMAO “PULL THE TRIGGER MAGNUS”

JEEZ JUST PUNCH HIM RIGHT IN THE FACE WHY DON”T YOU

Ratchet is the ONLY character they’ve given personality in this show so far.

Jeez Mirage cool your jets

Oh for frick’s sake Optimus be cool

Megatron please stop torturing your ex boyfriend

Ok but who did they rise against??? Were there Quintessons in this universe too?

oh come on you guys

Oh boy something tells me Skywarp isn’t going to survive the rest of this episode

Oh jk, Skyfire just let him go. Well alrighty then

I’m not sure how they found the Autobot base, they implied that it was because of Impactor but that doesn’t make sense

This post is getting long so I’m going to spit it between two posts

#i talk #I'm watching WFC #Primordial robot hell #WFC Spoiler #That's how I'll be tagging my spoilers #but I'll throw a few more spoiler tags in here for good measure #transformers spoiler /#Siege spoiler /#wfc spoiler /#WFC siege spoiler /#ask to tag any other spoilers

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greatgreengremlin · 6 years ago

Note

Hi! I found you through the BTHB tumblr, and liked the way you write! If it’s okay, can I ask for one of your squares? It would be “Cradling Someone in Their Arms” with Hunk and Pidge, but it’s Pidge trying to cradle a heavily injured Hunk in her arms while they wait for rescue and feeling guilty because she isn’t able to carry him to safety herself. Would that be okay?

Um, would it be okay? No, it would be wonderful! What a fun prompt, I hope I filled it to your liking. Thanks for playing bingo with me!

(VLD) Space: Cradling Someone in Their Arms

AO3

“I’m not sure why Allura wants me to hack here,” Pidge mutters, squinting as her rudimentary translator converts the holographic characters into messages she can make decent enough sense of. “It’s mostly about the exports. The fruit exports.”

Hunk shrugs, absently readjusting his grip on his bayard. “The more recon we have, the better.”

“Mm, I guess. Still seems kinda weird though, just reading about shipping fruit. And not like, blueprints for weapons of mass destruction or battleships or something.”

“I don’t think it’s that weird,” Hunk says. “Look at Earth’s history, tons of places were colonized for the exploitation of their food resources, including fruit.”

“True,” Pidge admits, fingers deftly dancing over the keypad.

“And those export reports are probably going to lead us to our next destination.”

“Also true,” she agrees, sighing. “I just wish our assignment was more exciting. Everybody else is kicking butt right now, taking over the command center. And we’re just here downloading transport records.”

“Are you kidding?” Hunk scoffs. “This is a great change of pace! I for one, am tired of being shot at, running into traps, and getting motion sickness flying around laser puke fired by giant planet eating monsters.”

Pidge rolls her eyes. While she doesn’t exactly enjoy any of the things he’s just described, per se, it doesn’t make looking over fruit exports any less boring. When they get back to the castle Lance is probably going to be bragging about how he did this cool thing or that cool thing, or gushing about some badass thing Allura got to do. While she…now knows the Galra character for ‘citrus.’

“I am gonna go do a quick patrol of the perimeter,” he says.

“And leaving your super important post as my bodyguard?” Pidge mumbles, briefly glancing over.

Surely Hunk picks up on the sarcasm, but he answers earnestly.

“Making sure nobody’s sneaking up on us is part of guarding. I’ll be fast.”

Hunk slips from the room and Pidge returns her attention to the screen. Yeah, okay, so this stuff is useful on some level or another. But her eyes are glazing over and she can’t help but feel that fighting with her team would be more useful. Definitely more interesting. This wasn’t even a challenge to hack.

Her comms link gives a soft click, and Shiro’s voice comes through.

“Pidge, status update.”

“Good news is, I could crack this database in my sleep. Bad news is, these reports are putting me to sleep. How are things on your end?”

She hears a crash and loud curse from Keith in the background.

“I’ll get back to you.” Shiro clicks off.

Pidge chews her lower lip. About half the files are downloaded now, hopefully it shouldn’t be too much longer before she and Hunk can regroup with the rest of the team. Maybe actually get in on some of the action.

She’s barely completed the thought when she hears the unmistakable firing of a blaster. For a heartbeat she thinks Shiro’s clicked back in, but it’s followed by a yell that is unmistakably Hunk. She wastes no time springing out of the chair and hurrying into the hall.

Pidge sprints toward the echoes of Hunk’s bayard. She materializes her own mid-stride, zapping at a probe that looks like an upgraded Rover before it can lock onto her. She doesn’t stop to reprogram this one, tearing toward the continued noises of combat up ahead.

The violet lit corridor curves and Pidge swerves to avoid the scraps of a blasted sentry. It’s a small patrol, led by a Galra in standard armor. The intact sentry takes aim at her and Pidge drops, somersaulting forward. Surging up, she jabs her bayard into its torso and zaps, currents crackling audibly.

It crashes to the floor and as she whips around, her breath catches. Hunk fires his bayard at the same time the soldier throws this blinking disk no bigger than a sand dollar. The soldier goes down, but the disk hits its mark, snapping to Hunk’s cuirass with a metallic clink.

It immediately begins blinking faster, emitting a shrill series of beeps.

They both realize it’s a detonator at the same time, locking gazes.

“GETITOFF!” Pidge shrieks, so panicked it sounds like one big, messed up word.

And Hunk tries but he’s not fast enough, and the last Pidge sees of him before it goes off with an earsplitting peal is the nakedly terrified look on his face. It’s a look that floods her with cold and she will never, ever forget it. If she survives this war and sixty years down the line develops dementia, the helpless horror in Hunk’s eyes will be the last memory to haunt her.

Hunk is blown back far, so far, and hits the metal floor with a thud that makes the lunch lurch up her throat. Pidge scrambles over in a mad dash, throwing herself down beside him. The sight of the damage is just as nauseating and Pidge has to choke back a gag, clamping a hand around her mouth.

From waist up, Hunk doesn’t really have a suit anymore. Just a few ripped scraps of black fabric. His entire torso is a mess of shrapnel and fragments of shattered armor. As frightening as that is, at least they’re keeping some of the blood inside.

A gaping wound in the center of his chest gushes like a geyser, so deep Pidge could plunge both hands in and touch the pulp. Its inside looks like a sliced pomegranate, all nubbly and viscerally crimson. With a very quiet groan, Hunk lifts his head.

And Pidge gasps, heart skipping as she cups his face, charily positioning her hands to avoid the shards embedded in his cheeks.

“You’re alive, oh, thank goodness you’re alive! Hunk, we gotta get you out of here! C-Can you stand?”

Hunk blinks at her blearily, headband absorbing most of the blood from a scalp wound she can’t quite see because of his hair, but a few droplets seep through it and catch in his eyelashes.

“Dn’t catch that, Pidge, m’ears are still ringing.”

And she notices that those too have red streaming from them. Damn it, the blast probably ruptured his eardrums.

“You need help!” she nearly shouts. “Can you stand up?”

Hunk blinks at her again, a vague look of confusion passing over his features.

“Think something ’sploded,” he slurs without acknowledging her at all, eyes fluttering closed again.

“No, no, no! Hunk, stay with me!”

But he wasn’t entirely with her to begin with and easily slips back out. Pidge gently lowers his head and tries to formulate a plan. Hunk is still bleeding copiously and those are just the injuries she can see. There’s probably a ton of damage on the inside too, he needs a pod as soon as possible.

Green isn’t far from here. She blends in well with the dense forestry of fruit trees and berry bushes that cover this planet. Dragging Hunk to Green would be faster than trying to explain what happened to her teammates and directing them back here.

Pidge removes her own cuirass and tears the padded lining out of it. With shaky fingers, she packs it into Hunk’s chest wound. Pressing down, she chews her lip and watches as it absorbs the blood. Before moving him anywhere, at the very least, she needs to stanch this bleeding.

“I can carry you,” she says aloud, hoping to make it true as the lining soaks beneath her hands. “Green isn’t far and we’ve all been working out, right? This is fine.”

Pidge removes her belt next and rips the lining out of that, folding it over top the first layer and pushing down with all her weight. Hunk twitches a bit beneath her, mewls out a soft, hurt sound without opening his eyes.

When his bleeding seems under control, she lets go and clicks back into her comm link.

“Something happened,” she announces quickly. “Hunk’s hurt bad and he needs a pod like, yesterday.”

“How responsive is he?” Shiro asks, concerned but collected.

“He talked incoherently for like two seconds before he passed out. He can’t wait, I’m gonna carry him to Green and head back to the castle.”

“You think you can carry Hunk?” Keith asks skeptically.

“If people can flip cars during adrenaline rushes, then I can carry Hunk,” she snaps, more frazzled than she intends. “It’s not like I have to vault him over my head, I just have to get him to Green, and I mean, I really have to you guys, he— he’s not doing good.”

“We’re almost done here and even if we weren’t, this takes precedence,” Allura says quickly. “Lance, Keith, finish up. Pidge, do what you can for Hunk, Shiro and I are on our way to help.”

“Copy.” Pidge doesn’t wait for anybody else’s affirmatives before she turns her attention back on Hunk.

She tries not to think too hard about things like logic or physics as she hooks her arms under his. Either Hunk’s clavicle is broken or he’s dislocated a shoulder, because she can feel the unnatural way his arm shifts. When she looks down she thinks she can see a bulge that doesn’t belong there too.

“Okay, here we go.”

Pidge digs her heels in and pulls back with everything she’s got. She begs her body to gift her with one of those rare, miraculous adrenaline rushes that allows everyday people to flip cars off children. She doesn’t need to flip a car, she doesn’t even need to carry Hunk, really, she just needs to drag him.

“Come on,” she pleads, desperately trying to pull even harder.

It takes an enormous effort and all of Pidge’s strength to drag him three steps backward and even that leaves her spine aching. She grits her teeth and uses every muscle in her body to pull him another step and doesn’t even accomplish that. She slips, falling hard on her bum and losing her grip on Hunk.

It’s just impossible.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpers, shaking her head against the sting of tears. “Hunk, I’m so, so sorry.”

She can’t carry him anywhere. But maybe she can hold him, at least, and monitor him. Guard him until Shiro and Allura get here.

Pidge sits up, gently takes Hunk’s head in her hands, crossing her legs. She pulls him into her lap as much as she can, which, while a bit difficult, is far less taxing than dragging him. She cradles his head against her chest, worriedly fluffing her fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, even though she knows he can’t hear her. “If this were the other way around, you’d already have me in Yellow.”

She has her bayard near in case any new threat shows up. She doubts it, since it seems like the rest of her team handled things at the command center. That soldier Hunk shot still hasn’t moved. Maybe he’s dead and that’s perfectly okay with her.

“I should’ve been satisfied with boring,” she mumbles, guilt churning in her stomach.

Pidge would rather read a thousand stupid fruit export reports than be sitting here like this, listening to Hunk’s breath get shorter and shallower and too weak to get him the help he needs. She hates this, the helplessness. She hates that she couldn’t force an adrenaline miracle out of herself.

Guilt continues to gnaw at her insides. She knows it’s not her fault that she is small and Hunk is big, but it feels like her fault when it’s the obstacle preventing him from receiving treatment right now. The pad of her finger unintentionally locates the head wound she couldn’t see earlier, brushing over the split in the skin.

Anxiety mounting, Pidge begins to rock back and forth, hugging Hunk close. She quits as soon as she hears the grinding noise that rises from what must be his probably broken clavicle. She goes back to stroking his hair instead, staring at the dicey rise and fall of his bloodied chest.

When Shiro and Allura finally show up, it feels like eons later.

“I couldn’t carry him,” Pidge admits as they survey the damage, her guilt coiling even tighter around her chest.

Of course, neither of them seem even remotely surprised. They probably realized what she should have sooner, that it simply wasn’t a feasible feat no matter how badly she wanted it to be.

“We’ll get him back faster in Red than Green anyway,” Allura says, forcing a smile although Pidge can tell she’s worried.

Shiro helps arrange Hunk in Allura’s arms, positioning him a way that’s hopefully the least stressful on his injuries. Allura doesn’t need help with the actual lifting, however. She simply shape shifts to be broader, lengthens her arms to accommodate Hunk’s girth.

Pidge recovers Hunk’s bayard and the drive with the export transcripts. She wishes she could at least be with Hunk, cradling him in the back of Red. But she has her own lion to fly. Hunk will probably be safer in Allura’s arms since her magic has healing properties.

Or at the least, revitalizing properties. And that distinction sinks to her stomach like a stone.

Lance usually gets the first hug when Hunk is out of the pod, but this time Pidge beats him to the punch and she kind of thinks he lets her. It hasn’t exactly been a secret that she’s been on edge since what happened. She hurries to Hunk so fast she barely pumps the breaks in time to avoid an outright collision, throwing her arms around his middle and squeezing ferociously.

“Whoa,” he murmurs hazily. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she greets warmly, propping her chin on his belly and peeking up at him. “It’s good to have you back.”

A small, sort of sleepy smile unfurls on Hunk’s face.

“Good to be back,” he says, gently patting her head.

#badthingshappenbingo #bad things happen bingo #whump #pidge gunderson #hunk vld #platonic hidge #blood tw #injury tw

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taaroko · 6 years ago

Text

Don’t read if you don’t want spoilers!

No seriously, I hate spoilers and I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone.

Don’t click to read more unless you’ve seen it or you absolutely don’t care, because I’m here to talk plot implications.

Okay. I want to talk about the timelines Endgame introduced, because if you think all the times they visited are going to continue on the same way as otherwise, you are wrong. The Ancient One explained how it works. There will be new branches kicked off by what they do in their quantum time traveling, which is fine as long as the Infinity Stones go back to where they were so that nothing worse happens.

1970 Branch: I don’t think much would’ve changed in this, but Hank Pym is probably even more paranoid about protecting his technology, and maaaaybe Howard goes on to be ever so slightly a better dad because of that nice chat he had with Howard Potts.

2012 Branch: Holy crap this one is a mess. I seriously doubt that Main Timeline Steve would ever be able to track down Loki, and who knows where he went with the Tesseract. I headcanon hard that getting slammed repeatedly into the floor by the Hulk snapped him out of some or all of the brainwashing/Mind Stone reprogramming/whatever that he had, so I don’t think he’d have poofed directly to Thanos to hand it over, but now he has a chance to escape punishment on Asgard. Good luck finding him, I guess. Maybe the Ancient One will help. Meanwhile, on Earth, Steve now knows that Bucky is alive, while several major Hydra operatives think Steve is on their side. There is so much potential for things to go wrong.

2013 Branch: Unless Loki saw Main Timeline Thor and Rocket running past his cell or Frigga’s actions were impacted by interacting with Thor, I doubt this one would change. Although there’s also Jane. Unless she lost consciousness when Rocket took the Aether from her and didn’t get a clear look at him, and then Main Timeline Steve (presumably with Heimdall’s help or something?) put the Aether back in place before she woke up, she’s gonna have some major questions, and she is not the type to leave those unanswered. (Also, did they decide not to try getting the Tesseract from this point because it’d be too hard to slip it past Odin, or what? Because if not, that’s a pretty big oversight, and I don’t enjoy using Thor’s drunken depression as a means of handwaving it.)

2014 Branch: This one is pretty nice, because Thanos, all his lieutenants, and both his Outrider and Sakaaran armies are gone several years early. The only downside is for the Guardians, because their Gamora permanently absconded to the Main Timeline, and their Nebula is dead. Now the biggest problems they have to deal with are a Ronan with no army and, eventually, Ego. Is Ronan with no army supplied by Thanos a big enough catalyst to even forge the Guardians into a team/family? I’m really not sure. The army doesn’t come into play until the assault on Xandar itself, so it’s possible. If not, though, then Ego won’t find out about Peter (at least not as soon), which is a really good thing, because a Peter without the Guardians might not be able to fight back against Ego’s sales pitch. Meanwhile, on Earth, without Thanos, the Avengers will need another reason besides the sudden existential threat he provides to get back together after Civil War, but Natasha’s safe and Tony will likely survive to see many more of Morgan’s birthdays and give Pepper anxiety over his inability to permanently quit Iron Manning. In this timeline, the Asgardian ship makes it safely to Earth, with Loki, Heimdall, and all of the refugees alive. Also, Nidavellir is fully populated with dwarves and Eitri’s hands aren’t covered in metal.

Steve’s New Branch: Yeah, I said what I said. You expect me to believe that Steve Rogers went back to the ‘40s, swept Peggy—future founder and director of SHIELD—off her feet, and didn’t act on his knowledge of Zola’s Hydra infiltration plans, Bucky’s survival, and the upcoming threat of Thanos? There is absolutely no way he could keep that low of a profile and live with himself. Also, he’s just about the most famous guy of his era. There’s no way nobody is recognizing him in all those years. Therefore, Steve’s life with Peggy spun off into a separate timeline. I imagine Steve would have garnered a good relationship with Hank and Janet, so that when he needed to, after he had outlived Peggy (and probably his timeline’s Bucky) he could use their technology for a brief return to the Main Timeline to hand off the shield to Sam and say goodbye. Also, I firmly believe that Steve told Bucky his plan before he went back to restore the Stones, and for whatever reason, Bucky declined. The only problem is the frozen Steve in Main Timeline Steve’s new branch. When does Main Timeline Steve wake him up? How does he feel about essentially stealing that Steve’s life, and how does the world react to two Steves once that one isn’t frozen anymore? Is Peggy okay with this? Can they find him a home in some other timeline where Steve died early or something?

Main Timeline: Even though the *past* of the main timeline is the same (including Peggy/Sousa), if I understood what was happening right, things should be pretty screwed up right now. Yay for there being a Gamora in the main timeline once again, but the Guardians+Thor are going to have an interesting time making up for her lost character development. Far more pressing, though, is that the Avengers just dumped everyone who was snapped out of existence into the present time, after five years have gone by without them. Do the writers realize how insane that would be for everyone? Sure, it’s great that these people are alive again, but it’s not like the survivors (and I covered in this post how few of those there would realistically be after the immediate and longer term fallout of the Snap) didn’t continue with their lives. Widows and widowers would have remarried. Orphaned kids would have been adopted. Cars and homes would’ve been sold. Governments are likely still in shambles. The worst irony is that there probably *will* be staggering food shortages now. For my own peace of mind, I have to headcanon that it wasn’t possible to simply cancel out Thanos’s original snap and have everyone retroactively never vanish, because no matter how cute Morgan Stark is, she is not worth this massive universal backlash. So let’s just say bringing the dusted people back to the current time is just the best they could do, and that’s that. And maybe I can assume that the Avengers are smart enough to realize the food shortage problem and use the Stones to double the resources until everything’s as close to normal again as it can be. Still, is Far From Home going to deal with this? All of the kids appear to be the same age, so did they all get snapped? Statistically, there should’ve been a few places getting hit harder than others, so it’s possible. But it bugs me. If they were really set on doing this, we could’ve had Peter awkwardly dealing with the fact that Ned is now 22, along with a good number of his classmates that, from his perspective, he was just on a field trip with a couple days ago.

I guess the still-running TV shows that are caught up to the present day (meaning Runaways, Cloak & Dagger, and Agents of SHIELD, but probably not Jessica Jones) are going to have to be from the 2014 Branch, though, because how exactly would they be able to deal with this?

#avengers: endgame #endgame spoilers #spoilers #thor #guardians of the galaxy #steve rogers #tony stark #timeline shenanigans #I mostly wrote this to get it all straight #I'm pretty sure I have so I feel better now #I like the movie a lot #didn't like how broken Thor was and how it was played for laughs #but it's much better than him getting killed off #which is what I've been terrified of ever since IW came out #I still don't buy Main Timeline Loki's death scene #hey Loki Thanos is dead now so it's safe to come out of hiding

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tranxendance · 6 years ago

Text

Westworld Spoilercast Rebuttal

So I made the thing because I feel like Woolie on the super best friendcast dismissed a lot of things that were good, and latched on to a few things that were bad and that seems to have ruined his experience. Readmore because I wrote a lot. Singlequotes are Woolie’s paraphrased remarks from the spoilercast video.

'Maeve has to take human hostages to get done what she wants done'

Sylvester was sympathetic and went along with it willingly. The other tech guy whose name I forget didn't believe Maeve was awoken UNTIL she started issuing threats.

'Fear for their lives, then punch off the clock, go home...and come back into being a hostage'

There's no going home from westworld island, everyone lives on-site. Again, they weren't really hostages despite being threatened by Maeve at times.

'So then you have to account for human incompetence'

Yes, Woolie, a main part of why the hosts managed to become awoken in the first place is that all these people want to keep their lucrative jobs and put up the big numbers and at every level we're shown people that want to keep their status by sweeping actual problems under the rug.

'The dumbest part is soldiers with guns coming in and seeing robots shooting people and yelling PUT IT DOWN'

Maybe. When hosts started acting up before, they always would just shout “freeze all motor functions” and it worked.

'These future soldiers with body armor and machineguns and ATVs are getting killed by dudes on horses with revolvers' 'You can say they've been modified, but we don't see that at all'

There's arguments on both sides here, I think removing the limiters to not kill, and not stop functioning when you take a human-like level of damage did this, but we aren't explicitly shown it, so maybe. Also, for the time being there's a lot LESS of the human mercenaries than there are hosts in these battles, and even then the hosts take big losses.

'They have the humans with machineguns walking into range of the people with the shit guns and dropping dead' (at the fort battle)

But the humans won that battle...like, they clearly trounced the Hosts, and this was by design so that they'd get in range of the Nitro trap. Them walking forward slowly and shooting is a little odd maybe instead of taking coolguy tactical covering positions but the end result would've been the same of them winning and then getting blown the fuck up as they're finishing off the confederados outside the walls. This is probably like a fight choreography fail because HBO likes to skimp on this sort of thing for some reason.

'Maeve going through her problems, she can literally wave her hands and make the problems go away'

Except Maeve wakes hosts only willingly. She does this for Akane who rejects her offer. She says later that she uses her powers to make hostile hosts kill each other because by attacking her 'they made their choice'. A bit weak of a justification? Maybe, but if she didn't and just forced everyone to obey her she'd be the same character as Dolores

'They take a completely useless detour to samurai world'

This whole thing was intended to show another, mostly still functioning park running with the same rules as westworld was. There are zero humans left in shogun world, and it's pretty much been left to its own devices and hosts are living their own lives and making their own stories even without human intervention. We needed to see Shogun World not just because it's cool, but to demonstrate that the hosts absolutely don't need humans in order to affirm their humanity.

'Ha ha, i've cut off my men's ears so they can't hear your commands'

Well yeah, but the actor also gestures to give his men orders, so the verbal part of his orders are probably just for the audience. If I was him I definitely would've agreed on a couple of gestures that mean certain things, and they definitely were planning on taking Maeve captive before this, so it seems obvious to me they woud've agreed that 'a sweeping arm gesture' means to take them away. Not really a plothole, just a tv-thing that Woolie is reading too much into.

'There's never really a concrete reasoning why (Delores says) some hosts can be free or not'

He's right, there isn't. Delores is kind of a psychopath and is promising these hosts freedom knowing that she's going to be sacrificing all but 5 of them. It's classic cult leader shit. If you work real hard and kill lots of humans for me you too can be saved. it's a lie she feeds them to justify to them why she kills some and uses others for her own ends and so on.

'Seeing the symbol (awakes hosts) but there's also this ear worm of 'violent delights bring violent ends''

The Maze is a host-created symbol that helps other hosts awaken. The spoken command was created by Bernard to unlock hosts' ability to kill humans. While it's not clear if the maze-awakening also gives you the ability to kill humans and those awakened hosts simply did not do so, or if they needed the secondary command before they could. Non-awoken hosts that get the verbal command usually just become tools of Delores.

'There's a whole thing of hearing the inner voice and realizing 'this is me' but the guy that did that to Delores just walks up and sees the wood carving and goes 'I hear the voice' skipping all that'

Bernard spends two seasons getting pushed around to develop his struggle, and mistakes the Ford-voice for not being himself for awhile.

'Delores has the godlike ability to modify people with an Ipad' 'She reprograms Teddy to be a super accurate killer assassin dude' 'And basically has the ability to nullify all of her problems by keeping this ipad around'

Can't reprogram humans. Teddy rejected his changes and was driven to suicide. I'd say human soldiers are Delores' biggest problem, not other hosts, and that it's not the magic bullet she thought it was since Teddy ended up killing himself because of it. Also they go over the point over and over again that having backups or any ability to come back from death or be modified makes you not human in her eyes. Like, this was a major plot point and reasoning for why Delores does most of the things she does, you can't have missed this. She realizes around this time that open conflict is not going to win her freedom, and that having respawning, perfectly accurate shooting host army will eventually get overrun by a larger military force when it comes to the island so she swaps over to commando raids and ultimately wins by stealth.

'Mwaha, can't wait to kill you, ms. main character' and it cuts back to her on the gurney 'ooh you're gonna get it someday' 'Four or five episodes go by of just her lying on a table' 'Then she just decides i'm gonna take control of these dead bodies that are in here and free myself' 'She could've done it at any time and had to do it at this moment because the plot required it'

Maeve is extending her consciousness to other bodies this whole time and even listens to Akecheta's story through her daughter. After she's gathered all the information she can and knows there's somewhere she can escape to, and the six or so hosts in her control range can fight off the small amount of humans between her and freedom, only then does she enact her escape plan. 'Then they're in the cradle and a human soldier comes in to stop the hosts from destroying it but ther'es like a sexy host in there' 'Why do they care about the host-backups?'

They care about protecting the host backups because Ford is in there, and I think it's a big investment of dollars for Delos. The leader of the merc guys getting a boner and losing is pretty weird though, I don't know how to defend this one. Guess it was the moment of the villain gloating because he thinks he won? This moment is in fact kind of goofy.

'Why are we keeping a bunch of guest data? They never really explain why they're keeping all this stuff'

Because having multiple personalities 'vet' an incoming copy for fidelity and having real people's personalities to test with is valuable to creating more copies. Bernard was created by other people’s recollections of how Arnold was, after all. It's also not said but in the original westworld movie, they made robot copies of politicians and powerful people and replaced them. So this is a tie-in to the old movie or novel as well.

'Bernard has zero agency as a character'

But this whole thing of people pushing him around, using him for their ends, hurting him emotionally was the suffering he needed to awaken. You questioned this yourself earlier. Bernard is the most important character because the whole thing of him starting to make decisions on his own is what starts all of this stuff off. He decides to scramble himself so he'll be unhelpful to the humans when they force him to cooperate with them. He decides to do all these things and justify it to himself as it being Ford's programming, but that was his internal voice of him awakening.

'They are building up some secret about the man in black, there's something about him they're holding back' 'The story's not telling us what it is'

Sure it does. You got tricked. You thought that the secret was just what we the audience already knew, that TMIB is a bad person that pretends to be a good guy and that ruined his family life. But it's actually that TMIB was a host for most of season 2, and a lot of the violence and awfulness was him on his loop.

'And then there's this moment of sacrifice where this guy decides to sacrifice himself in this big blaze of glory'

Yeah, Lee had a redemption arc, to prove that some humans can change, even if the majority of us will remain violent selfish assholes as a matter of human nature. His actual sacrifice while shouting the lines he wrote is a little odd, but I got it that he was just trying to buy as much time as possible, deliberately shooting to miss to keep the Delos mercs' heads down and listening to him, and that they keep trying to talk him down because he's clearly not even killing any of them. Unspoken, but that's what I thought during this.

'They've taken the one that they put the power (To make all the other hosts kill each other) and put her on a horse, thus locking her to a slow horse speed'

Except everyone else in universe thinks that too, and they kill her, only for the rate of infection to keep going, and maybe even faster since now it's being passed up the line from host to host as well and her individual proximity doesn't matter after she infected one of them.

'There's all these things in the opening (...) But robirth never happens'

What about the ending when Delores in Tessa Thompson's body remakes people's bodies on the outside of the park?

'This dude, William, takes six shots to the body and manages to not only be fine but shoot armed soldiers'

He takes six shots and dies, and is made into a host-human hybrid. Future space medicine couldn't save him at that point.

'And the torture of being that paranoid apparently wasn't bad enough?'

No, clearly not, because William is a sociopath. He begins to believe that people shouldn't come back from the dead, and sort of stops trying to make the James Delos hybrid. The thing he would hate the most would be to be brought back to life, over and over, just like is father-in-law that he's had to watch breakdown and go insane over and over again, and there he is, now a hybrid himself.

I feel like Woolie missed a lot of things, or had a hate boner for it and dismissed things when he shouldn't. Such as the really (to my mind) obvious and strong differentiation between Maeve and Delores, where Delores takes, but Maeve asks. And she says things like 'I'm doing what I have to do to make it out' and in the end she's the only one that makes it out. Or downplaying Lee's redemption arc, or saying Bernard has no agency when he's the one that causes most of these things to happen, and the voice of Ford is actually his own thoughts. Him calling Shogunworld 'fanservice' hurts me the most because seeing a mostly functioning park post-disaster and having these hosts living their lives and making their own stories without any human interference was one of the most interesting things for me.

#I have my own criticisms but it's almost none of the things he brought up #westworld #mod ramblings #super best friends play

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nilesarchives · 5 years ago

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The Right Stuff ― CANON. (current verse)

The space they agreed upon can only last about a week because Nick promised to come to Miles’ mother’s wedding. They sneak off to break into Miles’ awful new stepdad Greg’s car and mess with his radio stations, as well as smoke the weed Nick brought. As with most other times, one thing leads to another, and they hook up in Greg’s car.

This is missing like the entire first half because it disappeared into the Chatzy void but basically they were just at the reception and Miles swiped Greg’s keys from his discarded jacket pocket. Also NSFW-ish.

Nick tried to suppress a laugh at the dig about Helen, just in case Miles wasn’t joking. “Speaking of Helen — how are her and your Dad?” He looked over at him curiously. “Are they here?” He didn’t want to stir up drama; he was just mildly curious and tended to get caught up in small talk. “We are pretty expensive.” He agreed, nodding quickly. “Adding you to the mix will just make her go bankrupt.” He teased before smiling to himself. “Guess there is…. Operation Steal Gregs Car is officially in progress now.” As they continued to walk on, he glanced at Miles in interest. “What were the themes? Was it good?” He asked, before speaking again, not giving Miles time to respond. “We’ll have to find it so we can watch it. Don’t get me wrong, I love Scout but I just don’t think she appreciates your love of Cupcake Wars like I do.” He said, seriously. “Shit man — maybe. Only I hope I don’t drive as bad as I do in GTA. Or else this might be our first and last car ride together.” He paused, grabbing the keys. “Anyway, buckle up!” He grinned as he unlocked the car and slid his way into the drivers seat. “Your wish is my command.” He looked around the car as he brainstormed ideas before brightening up a little and putting the key in the ignition to turn the radio on. “He’s never gonna know what hit him.” He busied himself with pressing random buttons on the control panel as he spoke. “Tell me what music he hates so I can reprogram his set channels.” It sounded cooler in his head, but if it were him, that would drive him crazy. “But that’s just the beginning… reach into my jacket pocket. I have a surprise for us.”

Miles shook his head. “Nah, they’re not here. They’re good, though, I guess. I dunno. I haven’t talked to Dad in a little while.” Miles sort of wished all this had happened when he was younger so he didn’t have to deal with all the angst of it now. But it is what it is. “So then we agree it is most certainly not worth it for me to marry your mom. Glad we had this talk.” He’d certainly missed these strange conversations with Nick. No one else ever made it seem so natural. “It was for, like, a wedding. It was pretty good. Not the best episode but I think we made a silent vow to watch every single one together. You’re right, though. Scout just doesn’t get it.” Miles laughed at that, settling into the passenger seat. This truly was wild. He’d never even been in Greg’s car before, and he didn’t think he ever would. But here he was. “He hates pretty much anything that’s not country so that should be easy.” He started to do just that, changing the preset stations on Greg’s car radio when Nick mentioned something in his pocket. He looked up at him curiously. Usually he’d be more wary about something like this, but he was pretty sure Nick didn’t have anything that would kill him. Curiosity got the best of him, anyway, and before he could ask he did as he was told, invading Nick’s personal space to dig through his pocket. He didn’t know what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t weed. Miles wished he could have seen the look on his own face right then. “Dude,” was all he managed at first, and then he laughed. “You should have mentioned this an hour ago!”

Nick nodded at the newfound information. “Ah, man. Well hopefully you get to talk to him soon. Hope he’s doing okay.” Nick didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject, if it was one. Bringing up Miles’ birth father while he was being cursed with a stepfather he couldn’t stand probably wasn’t the greatest conversation starter. “You’re officially ruled out as far as my future potential stepdads go. Congratulations. Crossing your name off the list ASAP.” Joking with Miles always came easy, despite the awkwardness recent events had caused between them. They always seemed to snap back eventually. “The worst episode of cupcake wars is still better than the best episode of anything else.” That probably didn’t even make sense, and held no real truth. Still, though, he didn’t expect anyone to read too deeply into the things he said sometimes. “So hard rap and top pop hits.” He stated and grinned at the radio console as he punched buttons. “I got you.” He shifted to allow Miles room to sift through his pocket, still messing with the radio stations all the awhile. Truthfully, he could have just handed Miles the weed, but that would have ruined the surprise. Finally satisfied with his work, Nick hit one of the now re-programmed station buttons and leaned back in the drivers seat. “I considered it, but I figured if I mentioned it in front of your family they’d try to take it for themselves.” He joked, reaching into his other pocket and pulling out a lighter. “—You ever smoked before?”

Miles shrugged. “He’s fine. It’s not like that. We’re both just busy and not at the top of each other’s priority list.” It was true. He wasn’t hurt by it or anything. “Good to know. I removed your name from my potential stepdad list long ago. Now you’ve kind of lost your chance anyway, though.” Nick just wasn’t fast enough. “That is so true. I don’t know why we started watching that show but I’m really glad we did. It’s a blessing. I think it brings us closer together.” Really, he couldn’t pinpoint when or why it had happened, but somehow they’d developed a mutual obsession with Cupcake Wars, and Miles wouldn’t have it any other way. “Perfect. I doubt he even knows how to change it back.” Miles smiled smugly as he watched Nick change the stations. He finally settled on a station playing current hits that Miles thought he was too good for (but wasn’t), and he examined the weed in his hands while Nick spoke. “No doubt in my mind about that. So good call.” He glanced over at him at the question, raising an eyebrow. “I think you know the answer to that.” But he’d answer it anyway. “I haven’t. I’ve watched it happen enough in my life, though.” It wasn’t that he was against it or anything. It just never appealed to him as something to seek out, and it wasn’t often available to him. Right now, though, he didn’t see any reason not to. “I’m afraid I’m gonna cough up a lung, though. Maybe I’ll puke on the floor. Greg would love that.”

Nick made a noise of understanding and nodded. “Pretty easy to get caught up in your own life.” He commented, and he was just about to make a jab at him and say he knew Miles was good at doing that. But this was not the time nor place — and what slight (unjustified) bitterness Nick still felt toward him he was trying to push aside and work passed. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m your Moms type to begin with. As much as it hurts me to admit.” He joked, remembering back to all the times he joked about trying to date her years ago. He thought he was so funny when he was in High School. And he still did, but he was still low key embarrassed of his teenage self. Not that he was all that different now, but… still. “It’s because we both automatically knew it was gonna be good. It’s our show, dude. Watching it alone is ever the same as watching it with you.” He spoke, earnestly, because it was the truth. “Probably not. Hey, maybe he’ll develop a decent taste in music. So really we could be doing him a favor here.” He grinned as he turned his head to look at his friend. “I had a feeling you’d say that.” He admitted. Miles never was one to to really partake in such things, which he never minded. He figured he’d offer tonight though. After everything, Nick thought he might need it. “I guarantee you won’t cough up a lung. Your tonsils, maybe. Maybe some blood. But no lungs. You get to keep those.” He laughed again and reached out to take the already rolled joint from him. “It’s going to be harsh, so you’re going to cough a lot. So if it’s too much for you, let me know.” He instructed carefully. “I’m going to light it — and all you have to do is suck and hold it in for a second.” He paused .“But first let’s roll up all the windows… we don’t want anything getting out.”

Miles nodded. “Right. Not a big deal or anything. I stopped being pissed at him a while ago.” Being angry about it wasn’t going to do Miles any good, anyway. “Yeah, I’d have to agree with you there. She tends not to go for super skinny dudes who are, you know, friends with her son.” Miles couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was honestly ridiculous to even entertain the idea of Nick and his mother ever becoming a thing, but somehow it always came up. “You’re right. It’s good shit. It’s actually not that great a show on its own. Our commentary is the only thing that makes it bearable sometimes,” he admitted, because it was true. It really wasn’t all they made it out to be. The show itself was mediocre at best most times. But they got super into it, and honestly, it did often get pretty intense. Miles rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.” He couldn’t see that happening. Miles sighed, shaking his head at Nick’s words. “Oh God. I’m not, like, actually gonna cough up blood or anything, am I?” he asked as he eyed the joint now back in Nick’s hand. He honestly couldn’t tell if he’d been joking or not. He nodded at that, using the ancient hand crank to manually roll up the windows, because of course Greg didn’t have automatic windows. “I’m a little nervous, man.”

Nick nodded at the comment, deciding not to press it any further. He laughed at Miles’ comment about his mom, and shook his head in faux disappointment. “I’m heartbroken. I’d say she’s missing out, but that’d be a lie. We all know it’s the other way around.” He joked. Miles should know by now he wasn’t serious about it. Especially after all that had happened lately. Rolling his eyes good naturedly as he rolled up the window on the drivers side. A grin crossed his lips at the question. “No, dumbass. The weed doesn’t contain glass particles.” He said teasingly before softening up some. “Hey, it’ll be okay. It’s everyone’s first time sometime. And I’ll be right here if you don’t like it or it’s too much.” He reminded him before lifting the lighter to spark the end of the joint. “Do you want the first hit, or would you rather me show you first?”

Miles rolled his eyes. “Yes, Nick, we all know that.” His mom totally was a catch. He wasn’t wrong there. Miles put his hand to his chest, pretending to be hurt by the insult. “Ouch. No need for name-calling here.” He knew Nick was only kidding, of course, and that was only confirmed when he lightened up and actually started to ease Miles’ fears about the whole thing. It really wasn’t a big deal, but honestly…he was just a weenie. “Okay. Don’t get mad if I cough on you or something.” He watched with wide eyes as Nick lit the joint. He licked his lips as he watched, then reached out to take it from him. “I’ll try.” He was feeling adventurous, clearly. It felt foreign in his hand, and he eyed it for a few moments before bringing it up to place it between his lips. He tried not too think too hard as he inhaled. Immediately, as Nick had warned him, it overwhelmed him. He started coughing almost instantly. As he tried to catch his breath, letting out a few more coughs to clear his throat, he thrust the joint back toward Nick. “How the fuck is this supposed to be enjoyable?” he asked, his voice rough from the strain of all the coughing.

Nick snorted at the response. They’d always joked around like this, and he could admit to himself that he missed it. He missed hanging out with him. “Eh, you’ll get over it.” He shrugged. “You cough on me, I’ll sneeze on you so it’s fair, alright?” He handed over the joint to him silently, quirking an eyebrow as Miles said he’d go first. Maybe he should have instructed him or something, but before he knew it his friend was inhaling the smoke. As he started to choke, he darted a hand out to clap down on his shoulder, slightly concerned even if he knew he’d be okay. “Give it a minute.” He coaxed as he took the joint back and brought it to his lips with his free hand, holding it in his lungs for a brief moment before letting it exhale. “You’re gonna feel it, trust me. You’ll barely even notice the sore throat.”

Miles figured that was fair enough. He hardly even noticed Nick take a hit because he did so quickly and without a sound other than his inhaling and exhaling. Miles wondered how long it took to get to that point, but he wasn’t going to ask. Plus, if he spoke again, he’d probably start coughing. He wasn’t really feeling any different, but he wasn’t sure how long it was supposed to take. “What’s it supposed to feel like?” he asked. He barely even noticed Nick’s hand still on his shoulder. “Should I try it again or give it a minute?’ He was honestly completely clueless here. He thought he’d know by watching other people, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

Nick knew Miles was new at this, but he couldn’t help but grin slightly at the reaction. What a proud moment. His best friend was smoking weird for the first time. Nick wasn’t sure if he should feel bad for corrupting him or be glad that he tried it with him first. So he settled on just being mildly amused. "Don’t try it again. I don’t wanna overwhelm you. Give it time to settle.” He instructed as he angled his body to face him a little better. “It’s supposed to feel like… I don’t know. Like you’re completely relaxed. And your head feels fuzzy, but you still feel good.” It was the sort of thing that he’d just have to experience himself. “Are you okay?”

Miles nodded. That made enough sense to him. “Okay.” He’d thought it was going to be an instantaneous thing, but it seemed to be a little more gradual. He figured he was starting to feel a little bit different after a few moments, especially as Nick explained what it was supposed to be like. He was pretty sure he was feeling a little more relaxed. But that could have all just been in his head. “Yeah, I’m okay. I…think I feel different.” He sighed. Though he couldn’t see the excitement in the whole thing, he was at least glad he had Nick with him. “Thanks for this. I guess it’ll be kinda cool to at least say I tried it.”

Nick laughed slightly in response. “Hey, even if it’s not your thing, now you know.” He had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t Miles’ thing, judging from the look on his face. “You’re welcome. Plus, if Greg knew we were doing this, it’d piss him off so bad. So that makes it all worth it, right?” He let the joint dangle from his other hand, his right still resting on Miles’ shoulder absentmindedly. His words died off and it fell silent for a moment before he spoke again, voice quieter than before. “Are you really okay? About the wedding?”

Miles shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” He didn’t think he’d be doing this again. At least, he wouldn’t go seeking it out. Maybe if Nick brought it up again in the future. He tended to make stupid decisions with Nick. “That’s true. And that’s the beauty of all of this, right?” he asked, gesturing around him to the car they were still sitting in. Greg would probably somehow find out. At that, Miles turned to look at him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk about this. Not now. He shook his head, turning away. “I’m fine, Nick. Please, just–don’t make this something it doesn’t need to be.” He appreciated the concern, though. Nick was the only person who ever really gave a shit what he was thinking. He just didn’t have the energy right now to get into it. He turned back to meet Nick’s eyes again. “Are you okay?”

Nick nodded in agreement. “Right. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I’m always up for some harmless revenge.” He smiled at Miles briefly before the conversation melded into something more serious. “I’m sorry —” He cut himself off, going quiet as he contemplated what to say. He didn’t want to make him talk about something he wasn’t comfortable with. “I’m not trying to. I just… you know you can talk to me, right?” He looked up to meet Miles’ eyes. “You can talk to me.” He repeated, not knowing what else to say without pushing too hard. But then Miles was turning it back on him, and it startled him. “I’m fine.” He said automatically, not quite sure if that was true or not, but this conversation wasn’t about him. “I wouldn’t be here with you if I weren’t fine.”

Miles sighed. Here they went again, getting way too real without actually meaning to. “Don’t apologize.” Nick kept on reiterating that he could talk to him, but Miles wasn’t sure if that was true. Talking about things led to bad choices with them, mostly because neither of them really knew how to handle their feelings – whatever those feelings were. “I know,” Miles replied anyway. The way Nick spoke to him made Miles doubt that, somehow. He thought that maybe being with him was hurting rather than helping. It was for Miles, at least; he was still feeling confused, despite being happy to be reunited with his best friend. “You sure about that?” he asked quietly, raising an eyebrow at him. “I think we’d be somewhere else entirely if you were fine.” Probably inside right now, dancing together, or something people who could be honest with themselves did. But they were here instead, playing games. They were good at that.

Nick knew he should stop talking. He knew saying too much or letting get the topic get too serious was a bad idea. But he couldn’t seem to help himself; he wanted Miles to know he still cared. At the remark, Nick let the hand resting on Miles’ shoulder fall off. “You know that’s not fair.” His voice was quiet, and he tried not to show that it actually stung. Because he knew he was right. His chest feeling heavy, he exhaled slowly before saying something he probably really shouldn’t. “I’m here because I missed you.”

Miles knew he probably shouldn’t have said it. But so far, dancing around certain subjects had gotten them absolutely nowhere. Even if he didn’t say it out loud, Miles would still be thinking it, so he figured he’d rather just come right out and say it in the name of being honest with him. “I’m not…saying you should come out or anything like that. That’s not what I meant,” he clarified. “But you’re not fine.” He was taken back by that. No matter how many times he heard it, it still hit him just as hard. He’d missed him too, so much, after only a week, and that meant something to him. “Does it even make a difference if I say I missed you too?”

Nick felt his chest constrict and his shoulders tense as Miles spoke. Guilt, regret, and panic seemed to settle in all at once. “Well, what do you want me to say?” He remarked, unable to hold himself back. “No, Miles, I’m not fine. I’m actually pretty shitty?” He stubbed the joint out on the surface next to the cup holder, letting it fall there after it was no longer lit. He’d clean it up later, maybe. “Would that make you feel better? Would that help anything?” He shouldn’t feel this bad. He shouldn’t have missed him this much. And he most definitely should not be talking as freely as he was now. “You know I’m not fine.” He swallowed, trying to keep at least some of the emotion at bay. “But you also know that I care.” He shook his head to himself. “It always makes a difference.” Even if it shouldn’t.

Miles looked down at his lap, because he didn’t know where else to look while he gathered his thoughts. He wasn’t meaning to put Nick on the spot like this, but Miles of all people wasn’t going to judge him for who he was, and they’d be stupid to pretend that nothing was still going on here. “I want you to be able to be honest with yourself even if you can’t with everyone else. It’s me, Nick. Things aren’t just going to go back to normal between us like magic and you know it.” He’d say it was the weed making him suddenly want to bring all of this back into the light, but really the urge to had never gone away. Nick was right; Miles knew that he cared. And Nick knew that he cared just as much. Miles adjusted himself in his seat to face Nick completely. He lowered his eyes to look at Nick’s lips briefly before blinking back up to his eyes. “What are you thinking right now?”

Nick wished that he could be completely honest, just like he wished he could kiss him when he wanted and not care who saw or what anybody thought. He wished he could want him without feeling guilty, when he should be wishing that they could go back to being just normal friends. Nick hadn’t wanted things to get out of control, but they already were. “I know that.” His throat felt thick and that’s all he could think to say. “But talking only makes us worse. I don’t want us to get worse.” He didn’t miss how Miles’ eyes dropped down to his lips. He found himself doing the same, his words (not for the first time) contradicting his actions. “Something I really shouldn’t.” He said, a bitter sort of laugh escaping him as he shook his head. Internally debating with himself, his desires quickly won over rational thought. Talking made things worse, but this would make things even more complicated than they already were. But it was hard when he was so close, when Nick knew he wanted him too. It was too hard. So despite knowing this was a mistake, Nick reached out to clasp his hand over Miles’ shoulder once again. Only this time, it was to steady himself as he leaned forward to press his lips against his best friend’s.

Miles shook his head. “I don’t see how it can get any worse than lying about the way we feel.” His kept his voice low, as if this was all some big secret. It wasn’t, and it never was; they just forced it to be that way. At least now, Nick was being honest with him. Miles knew what he meant before he even took action. But as always, the hand on his shoulder and Nick’s face suddenly coming toward his own made his heart beat faster, even if he’d been expecting it to some extent. Without thinking twice about it, Miles’ own hand came up to the back of Nick’s neck, almost like he was afraid that he’d pull away if Miles didn’t keep him there. They were going to regret this because everything was going to go to shit again. No matter how many times they discussed how stupid it was, they’d always find a way to make it weird again. But for right now, Miles would just pretend that that wasn’t the inevitable outcome.

Nick wanted to agree with him, but he couldn’t help but feel like it could and would get worse. But right now, at that moment, he was willing to ignore the consequences. “Sometimes it’s easier to lie than it is to deal with the truth.” He didn’t mean to say that, but at least that was the truth. Words were quickly forgotten as their lips met and Miles’ hand was grasping onto the back of his neck. He leaned in closer, the hand sliding from Miles’ shoulder to the side of his neck. He didn’t want to let go. The seat was separating them, but he tried his best to bring Miles as close as he could, responding with more urgency now that the kiss was reciprocated.

Miles didn’t even want to think about what Nick had said. He was right, of course it was easier. But that didn’t mean they should. Similarly, it was much easier to forget what was going to happen after this was over than to think rationally about it. So that’s just what Miles did, casting those thoughts of what was to come aside, focusing solely on Nick and how good it felt to be close to him like this again. He wanted to climb over to his side already just to be closer, but the size of the car made that kind of impossible. He had to think on his feet because he didn’t want this to have to end so fast. He pulled away just enough to look at Nick’s face. “You’re not gonna run out on me because of work again, are you?” he teased, and then he smiled. Before Nick could even respond, Miles reached into his pocket to get his phone. “Gimme a second — you should get rid of the joint,” he said, a bit absentmindedly. He didn’t want anything to distract them this time, so he figured background music would help them drown out everything else. If everything was going to go to shit after this, they might as well make the absolute most of it.

Nick nearly let a noise of disappointment escape him as Miles’ pulled away, even though the kiss had to end sometime. He looked at him, almost confused, until he understood why he’d pulled away. It wasn’t to end it, thank god, because Nick didn’t want to have to stop until they had to. “No, if they call me I’m quitting.” He said, joking, but also just a smidgen serious. “Good idea. I don’t want to leave it for Greg to find. He might like the surprise.” He saw him take out his phone, and Nick wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, but he wanted to find out. After dusting the ashes away with his sleeve and grabbing the joint, Nick stepped out of the car and took a deep breath. After collecting himself, he made sure the joint was outside before safely tucking it in his pants pocket. Turning back to the car, he noticed Miles was now in the backseat. Now is the time where he should back out and leave. But he was already in too deep. Opening the car door, he joined his best friend in the back, turning to face him as he did so. “The evidence is gone. We’re good.” He wanted to kiss him again already, but he didn’t want to be too eager. “So…what’s up?”

Miles scrolled through his phone, barely even noticing that his hands were shaking slightly. Whether it was from nervousness or excitement he didn’t know, but it was likely a combination of both. Nick had that effect on him. He finally found the playlist he was looking for, one that he and Nick had made together one day, composed entirely of songs they both loved and some that one insisted be on there anyway. He connected his phone to the aux cord and let the playlist start on shuffle. He tried not to think about the fact that a New Kids on the Block song was the first to play as he climbed into the backseat. There was much more room back there, and a lot less of a chance for something to go wrong (despite how wrong this all was already). He watched Nick join him in the back, and he refrained from rolling his eyes at Nick’s words. He didn’t respond at first, instead moving to remove his jacket. He decided in that very moment that tuxes had way too many layers. “Stop talking,” Miles told him before reaching for the collar of Nick’s shirt to bring their lips together again. He’d be damned if he was going to let him stall and return to their back and forth bullshit again.

Nick faintly registered the familiar song on in the background, and realized that’s what Miles had been doing while he was outside. It was hardly surprising, honestly. If he’d thought of it he would have turned some music on too. He supposed it was only appropriate that this was their playlist. And one of their mutual favorite songs. All of that was an afterthought as Miles began to remove his shirt before bringing him in for a kiss, though. Nick didn’t need to be told twice. Unable to help but smile against the others lips briefly, his hands made work of removing his own shirt and jacket. Nick deepened the kiss, leaning into him while he unbuttoned everything as quickly as he could. They were definitely going to make the most of their time.

Miles had been right, which sort of really pleased him; the music really was helping. It filled the space around them, making it much easier to get lost in each other without having to worry about anything outside of what was happening between the two of them in that very moment. Miles took it upon himself to finish Nick’s job for him, pushing his shirt off his shoulders and discarding it on the floor of the car. He’d never truly been able to appreciate Nick’s body because that was creepy as a friend and this weird more-than-friends thing didn’t often leave room for that, so he took a moment to break the kiss and take it all in. It really was no wonder Miles couldn’t help himself around him. He leaned back in the seat, trying to adjust the way they were to fit in the small space. It was hard, but definitely doable. He reached up with one hand to thread through Nick’s hair, pulling him back down to kiss him again. This was certainly faster than he’d expected, but if they stopped to think about it, it would just get worse.

Nick happily helped Miles in the removal of his own clothes, shrugging his shirt off to the floor of the car before busying himself with trying to remove Miles’ shirt. Fingers slightly fumbling in his haste (and somewhere in his mind he might just be a little nervous too), Nick didn’t move away from their kiss until he had too. He took a sharp intake of breath as he noticed Miles looking at him. And while Nick was used to people staring at his naked body almost daily, none of those people had ever been Miles. And while sometimes the staring made him uncomfortable, this time he didn’t. It only spurred him on further; quickly working to pull his friends shirt all the way off to join his own on the floor. It was a little dark, but he still took a moment to admire the others body. He slid his hands over his chest and down to his stomach — his eyes following along until something on Miles’ arm caught his eye. Raising an eyebrow in surprised, he halted all movement in order to zero in on the picture on his friends skin. “Miles. What the hell is that on your arm?” He couldn’t help the amusement from seeping into his tone, despite the situation.

Miles noticed the way Nick’s breath hitched at Miles’ gazing, and he thought maybe he’d made it weird. But then Nick was doing the same to him and Miles had a similar reaction. He realized it was just as new to Nick as it was to him. Nick’s hands running along his skin made Miles shiver. His eyes darted down to watch his movement. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until Nick spoke, and Miles let it out as he raised his head to look at him again. Shit. He’d completely forgotten about that. Miles looked at his own arm where the offending tattoo was, and he frowned. “Oh yeah, that — that’s my tattoo,” he stated simply. He licked his lips, meeting Nick’s eyes again. “It’s, um, it’s Scout riding a skateboard.” He hadn’t expected to have to explain it in this exact situation, but here he was. “I was really drunk. I got it with your brother.” He sighed. “I’m not really in the mood to talk about what I did with your brother right now, though.” He emphasized his point by running his hands down along Nick’s back, pulling him close and pressing his own body up against him. He lowered his voice, getting as close to Nick’s ear as he could. “I don’t actually want to talk about anything at all.”

Nick cast his gaze completely on Miles’ arm tattoo as the other male explained himself. He couldn’t help the small grin that made its way onto his face. Subconsciously, he moved his hand up to rest his fingers on top of the tattoo, tracing it as he inspected it briefly. “Nice.” He let out a breathless sort of laugh as Miles pulled him closer to press against him. “Lets not talk about my brother at all right now.” He almost laughed, but instead he leaned down to trail kisses from Miles’ neck to collarbone. “Then don’t.” He murmured against the skin, nipping gently while his hands resumed making their way down his body. “

Miles resisted the urge to swat Nick’s hand away, because he already knew it was there, so he supposed he’d let him get all his curiosity about it out now so they wouldn’t have to talk about it again later. Hopefully he’d just forget about it. Nick’s skin felt hot against his own. Miles’ eyes closed of their own accord, overwhelmed by the overall situation: Nick’s lips and teeth grazing his skin, his hands burning Miles’ skin, and most of all, no promise of either of them stopping anytime soon. Miles didn’t know whether he should worry about that, but he wasn’t about to say anything. He wanted this; he wanted Nick. His hands found the sides of Nick’s face so that he could pull him back up to kiss him again. He knew they should stop, that they should get out of the car and pretend this never happened. But he couldn’t bring himself to.

Nick was undeniably amused by the tattoo, but in all truth he wasn’t about to say more about it at that moment. He wasn’t sure what he was doing; what they were doing. But he did know he wanted to continue. That he didn’t want to stop until they had to, or until Miles changed his mind. He leaned back in to reciprocate the kiss as his friend grabbed him by the face. His hands drifted up Miles’ chest for a moment to cup his face instinctively before he started to deepen the kiss. Deciding to try his luck, his hands drifted their way back down until they were resting on Miles’ belt, thumbs resting against his stomach, he waited until he had some go ahead to go further. As lost in the moment as he was, this was still Miles. He didn’t want to move too fast and have them awkwardly fight with each other.

Miles originally wasn’t sure where this was going to go, assuming that something would happen to stop them before things went too far like the past two times, but this time there were no distractions and he was feeling sort of dizzy because of it. This was real and all of the alarms in his head were going off, telling him this was a bad idea, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care. It was Nick, and fuck if Miles had ever been able to just walk away from him. He broke the kiss, his breath catching in his throats when he realized Nick’s hands had made their way all the way down to his belt. He glanced down, feeling his heart beginning to pound in his chest, because form here there was no turning back. But he could think of no immediate reason to say no, and everything inside of him compelled him to look back up at Nick and nod silently, his arms looping around his neck, sliding a hand up into his hair once again. He’d always liked Nick’s hair, if he were being honest, so naturally he’d take this opportunity to mess it up a little.

Nick knew this was a mistake. He knew this was wrong and that he should just stop before they completely went too far. But being this close to him, with no distractions and after weeks of on and off again fighting, was addicting. At least right now he could admit to himself how much he wanted him. Right now he wasn’t thinking about the rest of the world, or the consequences. Right now, he just wanted to pretend like he was normal and that he could do this; that he could be what Miles wanted. Feeling his heart stutter in his chest at Miles’ signal to continue, Nick paused for a moment to lean down for another kiss while his hands slowly undid his belt and slid off and onto the floor. He let out a soft grunt of approval as Miles’ hands found his hair. He’d always liked his hair being messed with. The fact that it was Miles’ who was doing it was strange simply because it was new. But he wasn’t complaining about it. Cautiously, one of Nick’s hands brushed over the front of his pants, testing the waters before his hand found his zipper.

Miles expected there to be some level of hesitance within himself, even reluctance, but he found that nothing else seemed to matter now. Nothing but how Nick felt on top of him, how good it felt to be close to him in this way. He could feel all sense of self control slipping away with each passing moment. He was desperate to be closer, holding Nick’s head in place to deepen the kiss, and he let a low groan escape despite Nick’s cautious movements. He raised his hips eagerly, finding it much harder to hold back now. He pulled away from the kiss to let out a shaky breath. “Nick.” It sounded more like a sigh, but it reminded him that this truly was Nick here on top of him, kissing him and touching him in the back of his own new stepdad’s car. It was insane. He still couldn’t really believe it. Miles’ lips found Nick’s neck instead, his kisses sloppy and not very well placed, but he resolved to blame it on the drinks he’d had and the fact that he’d never wanted someone so much in his entire life. He supposed Nick wouldn’t mind.

Nick was quickly losing himself in every kiss and every touch. His heart was racing, and if he weren’t so immersed in what was currently happening he’d feel pathetic. He was used to feeling a lot of different ways during sex. Some bad and some good. But it was never quite like this. And they hadn’t even really done much of anything. Not yet. Hearing Miles say his name encouraged him enough to begin to tug the other’s slacks down his legs carefully. Eyes running over his body, Nick’s right hand found itself splayed across his friends stomach, fingertips slowly inching downwards, toying with the waist band of his underwear before beginning to bravely slide his hand under the fabric. The sloppy kisses against his neck only made him want this more, and he hummed under his breath at the sensation before angling his head for another kiss.

Miles could feel Nick’s heart beating at a similar pace as his own. It was a comfort to know that Nick was probably thinking a lot of the same things right now, though Miles would kill to know exactly what was going through his mind. If it was similar to Miles’ own nervousness and excitement and slight fear all rolled into one, though, he knew that he wanted to help him somehow, and the only way he could think to do that was by slowly brushing one of his hands all the way up Nick’s arm and ending up in his shoulder, leaving it there, mirroring how Nick had been a comfort to him just a short time ago — only then they hadn’t been half naked and going at it, but still. Miles paused when his clothes continued to come off, and let his head fall back the moment he felt Nick’s hand on him, finally. "Fuck, Nick,” he blurted without thinking about it. It was weird to him, how it could be so strange but so right at the same time, because he trusted Nick with everything he had, and yet he was still nervous, unlike how he’d been with Lily or anyone else he’d ever encountered. Nick was different in every sense of the word. Miles groaned approvingly before raising his head to meet Nick’s lips once again. Still unable to contain his downright desperation, Miles pushed his hips up once again into his hand. One hand remained firmly clasped on Nick’s shoulder while the other came to rest on his waist. He hooked his finger through a belt loop on Nick’s pants and tugged on them a bit. He wasn’t about to be the only one falling apart at the seams here.

Nick tried to relax as Miles’ hand ran up to his shoulder. This was only Miles, he tried to tell himself. But therein lied the problem. If it were anyone else, he wouldn’t be nervous. But if it were anyone else, he wouldn’t want this as bad. The way his friend said his name definitely spurred him on, though, and he couldn’t help but eagerly press their lips together again. Nick’s fingers wrapped around Miles’ loosely at first, a million things racing through his head. He was touching his best friends dick, and he was sure there was about a thousand things wrong with that concept, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He let out a small groan in return when he felt Miles’ tug on his belt. And with his free hand, he reached down to assist him, trying to take off his own belt the best he could.

Miles didn’t know if he should be more calm about the fact that this was someone he knew so well. It was a lot more nerve wracking instead, which was strange in a way. But he didn’t really want to spend too much time thinking about it. He tried to focus on removing Nick’s belt like he wanted to, but there were a hundred things going through his mind at once. He rocked his hips up steadily while attempting not to break the kiss. He finally removed his hand from Nick’s shoulder so both could focus on the belt and throwing it to the floor with the rest of their discarded clothes. This was so wrong on so many levels, he kept thinking to himself, but that didn’t stop him from pulling away from the kiss to look down and unbutton and unzip Nick’s pants with fumbling hands, moving faster than his brain could keep up. He shoved them down as far as he could from his position, desperation taking over completely. He tugged on Nick’s arm so that he could make space to pull Nick’s body flush against his again instead. Wanting to keep his hands busy, he had one on the small of Nick’s back, pulling him closer as he rocked up into him again, his other hand grabbing the first thing he could find: Nick’s hand. He found himself entwining their fingers without thinking twice about it, raising their hands up above his head to rest on the seat under him. It just felt like something he should do, so he did it, because clearly there was no time for rational thinking here.

Nick felt like everything was happening too fast and too slow at the same time. He could feel Miles’ hands all over his body; leaving his skin feeling hot. The second the other man helped him push down his jeans and pressed closer to him, he was gone. His fingers curled around Miles’ own without a second thought, leaving their hands clasped on the seat below them. With his other hand, he slid it out from under Miles’ underwear only to try to push them down. Chest heaving slightly, he leaned back to look at his friend for just a moment, before completely making up his mind and leaning back down to trail kisses downward. There was no going back now.

Miles felt…different when it was over. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it wasn’t particularly good, either. He just felt weird. Off. He took a few moments to catch his breath before it really hit him what had just happened, that he’d slept with his best friend in the back of a car — his stepdad’s car, at that. He didn’t know what to make of it. Before he knew it, he and Nick had silently moved away from each other and were working on sorting through their previously removed clothes. Miles was already trying to block it out, all the things he had said. He couldn’t tell if his face was just flushed because of the physical exertion or the fact that he’d said “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about this” in Nick’s ear at some point. He shuddered at the thought, suddenly moving way quicker to shove his arms through the sleeves of his shirt and fix all the buttons. He glanced over at Nick, who suddenly felt miles apart from him, and swallowed, his dry throat stinging as he did. “I-I don’t…” He wanted to say something, anything, to break the tension, but he didn’t know where to start. “We should get back inside,” he finally blurted without even thinking about it. He immediately felt stupid for saying it, though, because going back in together looking like this would surely raise questions. And besides, Miles couldn’t even look him in the eye.

Nick knew it hadn’t been a mistake to go through with it. He knew it wasn’t a mistake that he’d wanted him. But when it was over, it sure felt like one. The whole thing felt good; better than he thought he’d felt in a long time. And afterward, they’d even had a few short lived moments of peace. But they were just that. Short lived. Soon, they were both pulling on their clothes in complete silence. Nick couldn’t bring himself to even look at him, and judging by the coldness he felt from the others end, he knew Miles was probably having the same issue. “You go.” He cleared his threat and tried to sound natural, even though he wasn’t fooling anybody. “I have to go home. Check on Murphy.” It was a complete excuse, and Nick felt dirty for it. Guilty. But what else was he supposed to do? Go inside and pretend like nothing ever happened? He couldn’t do that, because both of them knew something did happen. And this time, it wouldn’t be as easy to brush off as a kiss was. “I’ll see you later though, yeah?” He said numbly, buttoning up his shirt. He almost wanted to laugh at how pathetic his words sounded to his own ears. Almost. “You can tell me how the reception was.”

Miles’s blush deepened and he looked back down again, fixing his pants and trying to look presentable enough to go back inside. He knew Nick was right that he should go. This had been a bad choice and now they were going to have to face it — but this was the worst time in the world, because Miles still had an entire wedding reception to sit through. He picked up his jacket and slung it over his arm instead of putting it on, then leaned into the front seat to retrieve his phone and Greg’s keys. He didn’t know what else to say. He kept avoiding eye contact while he opened the door and climbed out. The air hit him and was almost dizzying after being stuck in the car for so long. At Nick’s statement about seeing him later, Miles froze. He didn’t even know how to respond to that. When would he actually see him again? “Okay,” was all he said in response, because there was nothing else he could say. All he knew now was that he wanted to be away from Nick, as bad as that sounded, at least for now. He wanted extended family members to buy him drinks until he couldn’t see straight, and he wanted to try and be happy for his mom. He looked at Nick, thinking he should say something else but not quite knowing what, before simply turning on his heel and heading back toward the building to go inside. He had to put on a show now, had to face his mom on her special day, feeling something indescribable the whole time. He didn’t regret it. But he still knew they shouldn’t have done it.

Nick could feel the tension between them grow with every passing moment. While just moments ago, they’d been on the same page, now it’s like they were strangers. Briefly, he felt Miles look at him, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look back. Nodding, mostly to himself, he finished dressing and stepped out of the car. His own car keys and other items were still stuffed deep in his pockets, and he had to rifle around until he found his keys, but as soon as he did he was off in search of his own car. He had no reason to stay.

#CANON #the right stuff #current verse #the first 'sex in gregs car' thread was just a teaser for the good stuff #or should I say the right stuff hahahahahahaha

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the-sanders-sides · 8 years ago

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Stereotypical High School Movie AU - Chapter 1

Warnings: Bullying, fist fighting, swearing, panic attack (message me if I forgot any)

A/n: Yo, what’s up I’m back at it again. This is not proofread lol. Read it on ao3. It’s gonna be Prinxiety. @soft-pastel-trash @darkness-anon

Anxiety threw his alarm clock across the room, because the snooze button was just not working. He buried himself back underneath his dark blankets. But the damn thing would not shut up. What the hell did Logan do to it now? He tried to ignore the noise, but it kept gettING LOUDER. With an annoyed groan, Anxiety got out of bed, picked up the red clock, and was about to chuck it out the window, until he saw Logan walk up to the door of his house.

Anxiety sighed as put on some random clothes, and headed down to open the door for Logan. “What the hell did you do my freaking alarm clock?!” Anxiety was seething.

“Well, we have about twenty minutes until school starts, and it’s a five minute walk. And see I want to learn, but there is no way I’m going there without someone else who is also able to think and not be a complete dolt. So I reprogrammed your alarm to wake you up at the time where you can get the most sleep and still be ready,” Logan stated flatly, “Now go brush your teeth and put on some deodorant, you smell atrocious.”

“I feel atrocious. You know I was planning to just skip today, since my dad is out of town on business and I’m home alone, but I guess not.” Anxiety replied.

“Anx c’mon, it’ll only be worse if you don’t show up. You’ll have a ton of work to catch up on, and people are going to be more callous when you do finally show up.” Logan pleaded.

“Ugh fine, you win.” And with that Anxiety trudged away and finished getting ready, and left to walk to school with his only, and relatively new, friend. On their daily walk to hell that started a few months ago, it was well established how much Anxiety hated school and how much Logan hated the people at their school. Both of which, would be proved as soon as they walked in.

“Hey you fucking nerd!” someone yelled as Logan was slammed into the lockers. Logan sighed and kept walking on. “Hey, you fucking pansy, not gonna do anything, too afraid to fight?” And to this Logan squared his shoulders and looked in the eye of the other and flatly said, “You know, you really shouldn’t mess with ‘nerds’. I hacked into the school wifi, found your IP address, and let’s just say your computer will not be functioning the way you want it to anymore. I don’t take shit from anyone, and I don’t fight in ways I know I can’t win, because unlike you I’m smart.”

The bully started cracking his knuckles, “Oh you are so gonna get it.” Anxiety pushed Logan out of the way and rolled up his sleeves. “He might not be able to fight, but I can. This is my ‘fuck you, asshole’ for everything.”

The bully scoffed, “That’s funny, you actually think you can beat me pipsqueak.” Anxiety, unable to reach the taller one’s face, punched him hard in the gut, and immediately threw his hands back up into defense. He had his stance wide and was bouncing on his toes to keep the movement flowing. He was so glad Logan showed him all those taekwondo videos so he could finally get some payback. Anxiety used his left hand to block a punch from the other and retaliated with a rising kick. Anxiety decked the bully in the face with Anxiety’s foot. Anxiety spoke, “You’re insults used to be good. Now they’re nothing more than lines taken from the stereotypical anti-bullying videos they show us in assemblies.” Anxiety made to walk away and high-five Logan, when he was picked up and slammed into the floor like a rag doll. All Anxiety thought during that moment was that he really needed to eat more. Anxiety started to feel dizzy. He was seeing double and his hearing was foggy. Well shit, I’m definitely passing out and now this guy is going to beat Logan to a pulp. I need to be… I need to be… Anxiety’s eyes shut and he was unconscious.

In the blur of what just happened, Logan was on the floor next to Anxiety checking for a pulse. He saw someone in red and white clothing pull a teacher out of a classroom. He was searching for the pulse, he was placing his hand on Anxiety’s wrist, on his neck, but his hands were shaking too much. Logan felt himself get pulled aside by a teacher in a blue shirt. He heard a stern, “Go to the principal’s office NOW,” as the blue clad teacher pointed in a direction, probably to a person. Logan noticed how hard he was breathing, how he couldn’t seem to keep up with everything going on around himself. He knew during the fight, some people had circled around them, but now everyone was in chaos. He looked to floor for Anxiety’s body and couldn’t find him. Where is he? Where is he? Logan was looking everywhere through the hall. I never should have encouraged him to learn how to fight. This is on me now…. There he is! The teacher in blue was carrying Anxiety somewhere. Logan followed. He walked only a short distance through the halls, but it seemed to last a millennia. The teacher stopped at the nurse’s office. Logan walked inside, and was… being guided to one of the sick beds? Wait, what are they doing? He whispered, “I’m fine… Ta..ke care of Anx…He needs it..” Logan’s breathing was worse. Someone was in front of him and said something, but he wasn’t sure what. He asked where Anxiety was and whoever this blue teacher was entered his vision and pointed to a bed next to Logan. Oh thank goodness, Anxiety’s safe. Finally knowing that his friend was in good hands, Logan collapsed and fell asleep, as his body was too exhausted after the panic attack to keep him awake.

#fic #mine #logic sanders #prinxiety #anxiety sanders #prince sanders #morality sanders #hsau #my fic

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filmnovelizations · 8 years ago

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Rocky IV

Rocky was impervious to it all. He and Drago were toe-to-toe, silently assaulting each other with psychological weapons. If looks could kill...

This book is bad. I’ve never been terribly familiar with the Rocky movies. I watched Rocky IV for the first time right before I started reading this masterpiece. The film is a somewhat baffling mess, and some of that mess is weirdly fixed by this book. There are so many minor and major differences between the book and film, it’s hard to believe Sylvester Stallone wrote them both. On the other hand, I haven’t found evidence of a ghost writer, so why not?

So, having finally watched the film, the first thing I wanted from the book was any small attempt to make sense of the fucking robot. There is none.

A robot walked through the door. It was about five feet tall and rolled on wheels. In its outstretched arms it held the flaming birthday cake. A perpetual “Have a nice day” smile was painted around the microphone box on its face. A pink ribbon was tied decoratively around its square head.

So, the description is a little different from the actual robot, but that’s the least of my concerns. They give the pathetic, lonely, alcoholic Paulie a robot as a joke because he doesn’t have any friends. At first he’s annoyed, then he uses the skills he must have learned at the slaughterhouse to reprogram the robot to talk with a breathy female voice while on a constant mission to supply him beer. In Las Vegas, he’s sad he didn’t bring the robot. After he loses all his money on slot machines and blackjack, he talks to a prostitute but laments losing all his money gambling, and he’s sad he didn’t bring the fucking robot. You can just go ahead and assume he’s jamming his dick into some part of that robot.

While Paulie is losing all his prostitute money gambling, Stallone supplies a perfect example of the kind of bad writing that loads up this short book.

A chair opened up at the table. Paulie decided that a change of games would help his luck. He sat down and bought twenty dollars’ worth of chips. If you’re gonna do it, might as well splurge. He put a two-dollar chip in front of him. The dealer drew the cards out of the shoe. Paulie got a ten and a king.

What table? Yes, I suppose a change of games would at least make a more interesting time than cheap slot machines. Is twenty dollars splurging? How broke is Paulie? Wait, how does he make money? If you’re gonna do it, you might as well cliche. A two dollar bet is not a splurge. Oh, it’s a blackjack game. You could have called it a blackjack table in the first sentence instead of “the table.” This is a major casino in Las Vegas, not an illegal casino in the basement of a bar.

And so Sylvester Stallone’s writing is filled with paragraphs like this. Sometimes pronouns are not clearly defined, because they’ll switch who they refer to or they just won’t clearly refer to anyone. There are so many cliches I should have kept count.

A few hookers loitered in front of the bar, but Rocky didn’t recognize any of them.

So, after the robot nonsense, the next most obvious thing I wanted from this book was the book version of the montage. This film is notorious for its use of montage. I timed the montages. There are four montages in the film. After fighting with Adrian, Rocky has a driving montage. There are two separate montages when Rocky is training in Russia. And then there’s the montage to skip twelve rounds of boxing in the Rocky-Drago fight. I think people might think of the James Brown music video in their estimation that this movie is overloaded with montage, but it’s really not a montage. It’s a music video.

Anyway, the four official montages amount to fifteen minutes and seventeen seconds. The end credits roll at eighty-four minutes. If you take out or just severely reduce the length of the montages, the movie is just less than seventy minutes long. If you want to argue that the James Brown music video counts because it is unnecessarily inflating the film’s runtime the same as the montages, go ahead and cut off another two minutes and forty seconds. Either way, this film is short enough without discarding fifteen-eighteen minutes. In the book, James Brown is absent. Apollo Creed’s entrance is a normal paragraph.

Suddenly the band started playing again. It was a lively, raucous tune. A side door to the ballroom opened and a troupe of scantily dressed chorus girls holding small American flags entered. They were followed by Apollo with Rocky at his side. Behind them were Duke and Paulie. Apollo was dressed as Uncle Sam in a red, white, and blue suit complete with a top hat. The ballroom thundered with applause. Well-wishers tried to swamp the group as they made their way to the ring, but the polite, yet firm security men kept them at bay. Their job was made harder by Apollo. He kept reaching out to shake hands. When he reached the bandstand he jumped up and down in time to the music. The applause became so loud that the band itself was drowned out. Rocky shook his head in wonder. Who says you can’t go home again? Apollo was doing it.

After that, the driving montage is completely replaced with actual story. Rocky doesn’t drive around thinking about the shit that happened in the first three films. He tries to convince the United Boxing Federation to allow him to fight Drago, and forfeits his title when they refuse. Paulie wrecks Rocky’s car. The mayor of Philadelphia pays to restores Goldmill’s Gym so Rocky can train somewhere familiar. Two officials from the State Department try to convince Rocky to cancel the fight. They have statistics that prove he can’t win. Shitty Paulie tries to convince Rocky to hit Adrian regularly so she’ll learn some respect. It’s not all good story, but it’s so much better than the driving montage.

The only montage that really makes it into the book in a way that feels like a montage is the training-in-Russia montage. The film breaks it into two by having a short scene when Adrian joins him. The montage just eats up most of the penultimate chapter and it looks like this:

This is the book version of a montage. Even with Stallone’s basic writing, it works.

Rocky turned into the camera’s glare. “Get that light off him!” Duke grabbed the man by the belt and jerked him away from Rocky and Apollo. Rocky cradled Apollo’s head in his arms. “Hold on. You can do it. I know you can. Just hold on.” But Apollo let loose and flowed into legend.

I am still so very confused by some of the differences between the film and the novel. The first thing I need to address is a bit tricky. In the film, which as I said rolls credits at about 84 minutes, Apollo Creed dies at about 32 minutes. The novel is 156 pages long, and Apollo dies on page 101. This means that 2/3 of the story in the novel is contained in the first 1/3 of the film. This would almost explain the abundance of montage in the remainder of the film if it weren’t for all the story Stallone left out of the film but still put in that part of the novel. The novel tells a far more even story and I would sincerely like to know what went wrong when Stallone filmed the damn thing. He clearly thought about the gaps in the story and filled them in with the novel. Even accounting for the montages after Apollo’s death, how did he get more runtime out of the last 1/3 of the novel with objectively less story?

Would you like to know more about Ivan Drago? It’s in the book. Read up on his background and how he started boxing. However, there’s also something in the book that would probably have him in jail. In the film, Apollo’s death doesn’t look like deliberate murder. When the fight is technically over, Drago stops punching and starts reciting the English he’s been told to recite. It’s sort of chaos. The book, however...

Rocky grabbed the towel and quickly threw it in the ring. Drago was still punching. Apollo rocked savagely with each blow. It was amazing that he could still stand. “The ex-champion is out on his feet. He’s being pounded without mercy. Balboa has just thrown in the towel!” White yelled gratefully. As soon as he saw the towel the referee stepped in and tried to separate the fighters. Drago paused again to look at his corner. Rimsky nodded grimly. Drago pushed the referee aside and delivered a final blow that could be heard over the din of the crowd.

Murderer. The fight is over and he pauses to look at his handler before punching Apollo one last time. It would be hard to argue that Drago wasn’t ordered to kill Apollo, what with all the cameras around. The rest of the story would be quite different then.

I want to address one last thing that I think gets lost in the James Brown and montages and Ivan Drago, and that is Rocky Jr. Unlike Die Hard, no one thinks of this film as a Christmas movie. You should add it to your Christmas viewing, honestly. The final fight takes place on Christmas Day. That’s enough. But what about Rocky Jr.? Think about the story from his perspective. For his entire life, Apollo was Rocky’s best friend. He probably called him Uncle. He watched Uncle Apollo get murdered. Then his dad is going to Russia to train to fight the same person that murdered Uncle Apollo. And that fight is going to happen on Christmas Day. Then his mom left to join his dad in Russia. Who’s taking care of him? It’s the housekeeper you barely see in the movie, not that either film or novel mentions it. Stallone didn’t think to address the fact that Rocky and Adrian abandon Rocky Jr. at Christmas. In the film, you see a few shots of him watching the fight with a couple friends and Paulie’s robot. The novel at least has the housekeeper instead of the robot. This is, by far, my favorite Christmas story now. Who are the friends that watch the fight with Rocky Jr.? How did that get set up? “Hey, I know it’s Christmas and your parents probably want to spend it with you but do you want to come over and maybe watch my dad get murdered by a 7 foot tall Russian?” In the novel, Rocky doesn’t even say “merry Christmas” to Rocky Jr. at the end of his speech.

Rocky Junior couldn’t take his eyes off the television set. Was this really happening to his dad? Was this what boxing was about? It was horrible. He wanted it to end. He wanted his mother and father home. “Your dad’s getting smashed,” a friend said quietly. Rocky Junior blinked, but the picture didn’t go away. It was real, not a nightmare.

Yeah. This book is bad and you should absolutely read it.

Also, Adrian is pregnant in the book, and Rocky tells Paulie this right after Paulie tells him to hit her to teach her respect. Her pregnancy is entirely forgotten after that though, and it is not an issue when she travels to Russia to watch her husband possibly get murdered. It just isn’t mentioned again. Just something to think about. What a Christmas story. Buy paintings so I can buy more paint to paint more paintings

#rocky iv #rocky balboa #sylvester stallone #paulie #robot #ivan drago #merry christmas rocky junior #boxing #carl weathers #apollo creed #james brown #eye of the tiger

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blujayonthewing · 3 months ago

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THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER

#YAAAAAY #I'M SO HAPPYYYYY #BLACK WITH RAINBOWS MY BELOVEEEEEED!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHH #this was a kickstarter in like. 2019 #THEY RAN INTO UHHH PRODUCTION DELAYS. AS YOU CAN IMAGINE. LMAO #worth the wait I'm SO happy 😭#you can customize the light settings but honestly I LOVE the default! I didn't expect it to stay lit and cycle colors while being held 🥺#each number looks like it has its own unique color rather than displaying one at random #natural one pulses a markedly dull red #entranced. ensorceled. I love you pixels d20 my new best friend pixels d20 #justin got the clear one which is both VERY EXCITING to look at because it's BRIGHT #but also is probably gonna need to be reprogrammed because it's really hard to read actually lmao #justin: [squinting at his result] [picks up die to look more closely] [it starts beaming rainbow leds into his eyeballs]#about me

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fernlomwrites · 8 years ago

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The Wrong Time Chapter 4: A Walking Massacre Part 1

Ultra awoke once more inside his mind, Aaron lay chained to the floor, Error helped a new figure to his feet. “Ah, you're awake sir, meet your newest advisor, Pinstripe.” Ultra stood to his feet and looks at the familiar grinning gold mask staring back at him. “Pinstripe. Welcome” Ultra holds out his hand. Pinstripe shakes his hand “this is...a new experience for me. Being in someone's mind and not the one in control. Error, surprising to see you so obedient. What happened?” “They reprogrammed me. I reversed it immediately, however once I saw why I was added here, and what our purpose was I decided to stay.” Error turns and faces the screen “The opportunity to watch this world be erased was too much to deny” “Looks like we’re waking up.” Pinstripe looked at the screen. “I take it you're in charge? You are clearly not Aaron, so what do I call you?” Ultra stood forward “I am Ultra42. Let's go find out who our first kill is” As his eyes open, the light floods his retinas, causing him to groan. Ultra stood to his feet and growled lowly from the bright light. He sighs and walks out of the experimenting room and down the chrome and red hallway. “Geez” Pinstripe’s voice crooned in his mind “Whoever is in charge here doesn't know how to decorate” “I know” Ultra thought to himself “Whatever, I’ll kill them all anyway” “Hey Rook!” 43 calls out, approaching Ultra “Where are you headed?” “The boss needs me in his office” Ultra replied, his tone annoyed. “Yah, he can wait. Come with me” 43 smirks, walking away, expecting Ultra to follow. Ultra growls, considering his options. “Kill him” Pinstripe offers. “Kill him” Error agrees. “Kill the jerk” Aaron weekly says. “I hated him anyway.” “Alright, Killing him them” Ultra smiles “Good vote boys.” He cackles loudly before charging down the corridor, plowing 43 into a wall. “Hey!” 43 growls, pinned to the wall. SHYNKT! The blades spring out from his arms. Ultra grins cruelly, using his tendrils to keep 43’s arms pinned to the wall. “So, I hate you. Error53 hates you, Pinstripe hates you. Even Aaron hates you. That's four beings all in agreement that you should die. Tell me, what argument do you have that I should let you live?” Ultra’s grin widens, his right hand morphed into a long, jagged blade. “Listen here you little ass!” 43 struggles under Ultra’s tendrils, keeping him tightly pinned to the wall. “You better AGH!!” Ultra interrupts his threat by crushing his arms in his tight grip. “You annoy me now. It’s not even fun torturing you. And look, no one is coming to save you. Look, seriously” Ultra steps aside to show 43 the corridor. The scientists and security officers of the facility had surrounded him, simply watching. A scientist conversing with a security officer over “how he’d off him or not”. Ultra chuckles softly before facing 43 again “They are watching, waiting for me to kill you. They really don’t like you here either” 43’s angry scowl fades into a terrified wimped “c-come on man, we’re partners, we’re gonna work together...please…” “Whimpering like a bitch? I thought they gave you cat DNA? Wait, they did, you’re just a pussy!” Ultra plunges his blade through 43’s chest, then yanks the blade upward, slicing 43’s chest and head in half. Ultra grabs the two halves with his hands and proceeds to rip the body completely in half, throwing the two sides far away from each other. “Ah, your first bloodbath” Pinstripe chuckles. Ultra’s dark black fur glistened from the flesh blood that had sprayed onto him. He sighs happily and calmly continues walking down the corridor to Austin’s office. As he walks, the security stepped aside, while the scientists smiled, a few clapping. “Hey man” a scientist approaches him, clearly young he spoke like he came straight from the beach. His name tag said Steve Randl, “that was beyond epic bro. You were like, ugh, dude. So cool. You just tore him apart like he was paper bro.” Ultra stood back, his eyebrows raised. “What? Uh, thanks….Steve? I’m glad my bloody murder was entertaining to you.” “Oh dude, I work for a secret government group that kidnaps people and experiments on them. Dude, I make abominations of science. You probably never heard of this one but, Number 30 was my idea. Poor little dude decayed before our eyes, early attempt at healing and all. I tried telling everyone that he was still alive, but no one listened, they dumped him. Oh well, but yah bro, I found it cool watching you kill that douche canoe. “ “Well, you are positively strange. I think I will let you live” Ultra hesitates, then softly pats his shoulder before walking away. “He was strange. “ Error remarks. “Yes, but he can come in handy later. Clearly the kid is smart. We may need him” Pinstripe replies. “But who is Number 30?” “Graveyard Cat” Aaron answers “When I first escaped, I did a lot of research on the earlier experiments. 30 was an early healing factor test, he ended up decaying to near death. Turns out though the decay was just for show. He was perfectly fine, in fact he could actually make those around him decay. But they thought he died, and dumped his body. Grave Digger found him and took him in, kept him as his pet/bodyguard.” “A threat.” Ultra growled “He’s a threat, and we better hope we never encounter him then” “Understood, and agreed” Pinstripe answers. Ultra continues his way down the corridor, the halls becoming less chrome, and more bronze and gold the closer he got to the large wooden doors to the creator’s office. “Ok, he really, REALLY doesn’t know how to decorate” Pinstripe croones. “I know, but shush, he can probably read minds.” Ultra replies. “Well not really, but i can read the dialogue. More correctly I write the dialogue” Austin replies from inside his office as the doors open wide. “Hello Ultra. And Pinstripe? Screw you. Its rustic themed you uncultured asshat.” Ultra stands confused “dialogue? Nevermind, not important. “ “It would be too complicated to explain, maybe Hood could explain it to you, but...I don't see your next meeting with him being very friendly...oh well.” Austin smirks with the knowledge of what is to come. “So, my beautiful creation, are you ready for your first ORDERED kill? I saw that show back there with 43, good job. He was. Just a pathetic knock off of you anyway. I have the original back in my control, what do I need that waste for?” Austin takes his seat behind his desk. Upon the desk was various writing covered papers. As Ultra scanned the desk his brain read each paper instantly, each one detailing the various important individuals in the world he must track down and kill. From the notes he could read, he saw the names: Kujo Tartalgia, Uncle S.A.M., Curly Satlin, Jonathan Satlin, The OFFKeys, Don Lomas, John Stidham, DJ Giz, SARAH, Tiggs Nitishino, The Matedor, Henry Hicks, Fernando Lomas, Launa Dandie, Pops, and Pastor Stevie Smith, along with a few others he couldn't make out names for, only description. One note read, “short, shy, timid, ice powers. Tartalgia family. Usually surrounded by brothers, or with hot wife. Approach with caution.” Another read, “necklace becomes two candy cane staffs. May be Santa, unsure. Followed by a flaming skeleton-goat man. Should be easy kill, use skill.” “Are you reading my notes Ultra?” Austin asked with a smile. “Yes sir. How did you find this information?” “Find?” Austin replies with a chuckle “Oh my boy, I didn’t find it. I made it. I made everything. I am not just a scientist. I am a God. I didn’t just make you in the lab, I made you in my mind. Now, your first targets must be taken out before anyone else. I let 43 slide because he is not important to the universe. But the death of these next six individuals will mark the end of this universe and is crucial for my plan to work. Don’t ask why, it's just how it is. Stability of reality and all that. Long story short, when I made this universe, it made itself some fail safes. The Shattered Six is the fail safes. “ “The Shattered Six? I remember, er, Aaron remembers them. Never worked with them much. “ Ultra takes a seat on the opposite side of the desk. “They were...Don Lomas, the gangster. Dr. Dean Lomas. Professor Poindexter Carter, the know-it-all. Agent REDACTED Carter, the enforcer of Poindexter’s company and head of the 100 Project’s main field division. John Stidham the farmer. And ‘Smiley’ Joe Stidham, the DJ, bartender, and general freak.” “Those are the ones. Well, except Agent Carter. He left the Project once he saw what we were doing. He works full time as an espionage division of Poindexter’s company. I suggest you take out Farmer John first. He has the least contact with the rest, leaving them open for surprise still” Ultra nods, Aaron remembered where John Stidham lived. Unfortunately John’s home was also the base of the Fivefold. Ultra had no reason to worry, the Fivefold were constantly away from base, in fact John was the one keeping the base in order while they were away. “Do you accept your mission Ultra? I want to make it crystal clear, the Six must die before you kill anyone else. It doesn’t matter if someone else comes to fight as well, you knock them out and kill the Six first. I know the Fivefold have their base at John’s farm. You might even encounter Legion there. I don’t care. Kill John. That's it. Understood?” “Yes sir.” Ultra stands up, nodding to his master. “Good, go.” Ultra nods, turning and leaving the room. “So, Pinstripe, you teleport right?” Ultra thinks to himself, as he walks down the corridor away from the office. “Yah, shadow properties and all. Every Child of the Dark has it. I guess you do too now. Try thinking hard about where you want to go, and claw the air in front of you, it should open your portal.” Pinstripe answers, cracking his knuckles. “It's how I did it” Ultra sighs and looks in front of himself at the empty corridor. All the scientists have left, not even the security officers remained. He stood still in silence for a few minutes before releasing a deep breath and clawing down at the air in front of him. Instantly his claws opened a deep, twisting portal of darkness before him. “Holy shit. It worked.” Ultra stood before the portal and blinked twice before stepping in. Instantly he found himself standing on the front lawn of a small farm house. “I was told you went missing weeks ago. Happy Thanksgiving Aaron” A deep voice, with a thick country accent came from Ultra’s right. He turned to face the voice, coming face to face with Farmer John Stidham. John stood at a solidly built six feet tall, square shouldered and jawed, his body pure muscle, but not bulging. Each and every muscle in his body was toned by use. His eyes were a deep dark blue, with a clear wisdom behind them, his skin tanned by years in the sun, his hair, windswept and coffee brown. His face bore a distinct resemblance to Ultra’s creator Austin. Before Ultra could take time to take in more details about his target, such as his clearly robotic arms and legs, he was interrupted by a direct punch to his face. Ultra was launched back by the power of the impact, landing yards away from John. “I was warned that if you suddenly appeared at my doorstep without Hood, Vet, or any of his blasted Robots I should take you down. Livewire’s damn tentacles or whatever don't count as you coming with him. So it's clear to me you are now dangerous.” Ultra coughs as he stands to his feet, “Now I'm dangerous? If I really was still Aaron I’d be insulted.” He smirks as he stands straight up “Good punch you hick. Now come on, I don't have all day, y’all” John groans “I have work to do, it's feeding time and the goats are hungry, so here’s what we’ll do. I'm going to get Jonathan, my robot duplicate, to take care of the animals while I kick you ass” “So sassy for a dead man” John rolls his eyes, steam suddenly releasing from his arms and legs as he launches forward, both fists making impacts with Ultra’s chest, while in the same quick fluid motion, he launches Ultra upward, far into the sky. “Keep your distance boy!” John calls out as Ultra falls back to earth, only to meet John’s fist to his face once more, sending him flying into the nearby oak tree. “I like to fight up close and personal, so if you want any chance of beating me, you’d better just run away now.” Ultra groans as he climbs up the oak tree. “Any ideas? Cause you guys are getting your ass handed to you” Aaron sasses, panting from pain. “And I'm tired of it. Pinstripe, can’t you summon guns and crap?” Ultra’s eyes widened “Hammer space! I’m an idiot!” Ultra reached into the pockets of his blazer, pulling out two pistols. “Bullets should do us just fine. Rather boring though. I’ll save it for if I really get my ass kicked.” He returns the guns to his jacket pockets and hops down from the tree, to be immediately met with another punch to the face, this time firmly planting him into the oak tree. “”Come on kid. I know you have guns. This is just getting pathetic at this point” John grabs Ultra’s arms and yanks him out of the tree. “Listen, this will hurt, but maybe you’ll just get up and leave after,okay?” Ultra hissed and attempted to claw John, but his grip on his arms was too strong. John sighs and tosses Ultra into the air, grabbing his legs, and slamming him back into the ground. Ultra whimpered slightly on the ground as John walked up and stood over him. “You done yet kit-” John was interrupted by Ultra's tendrils each piercing his chest. He stammered, and stepped back as Ultra stood up. “Well, now I am I guess, hick” Ultra smiled cruelly “I wonder what you look like split in half. Let's find out!” Ultra’s tendrils burrow deeper into John’s chest before quickly pulling his body in two opposite directions. The power behind the tendrils make quick work splitting John’s body in half, the bones shattering, blood quickly spilling out of the broken body, watering the lawn with their iron rich plasma. Ultra smiled. “Well, that was a good taste of things to come I suppose. I might need...I shudder even thinking about this but...I might need practice?” “You definitely need practice you ass!” Aaron coughed in defiance. “You got your ass handed to you! You only won because he was stupid enough to stand over you!” “Yah, you need practice sir. That could have went better” Error replied. Ultra sighs and reopens his portal back to the Facility “well, let's see who’s next then?” Ultra steps through the portal, straight into Austin’s office. Austin stayed sat at his desk. He smiled. “Next will be Dr. Lomas. After him it will be in twos. Poindexter's and Agent Carter, then Don and Smiley Joe. You’ll find Dr. Lomas at Vets non-traveling station in New York. Only he works there, the only other people there will be boring normal people. Vet treats all the special ones, Dr. Lomas is a normal people Doctor. He isn’t even a fighter so this will be a walk in the park for you” “You, uh, you saw the last fight?” Austin smirks. “You were punched directly in the face four times. It was hilarious. Now go kill the doctor already.” Ultra nods, and opens a portal “Yes sir. This will only be a moment. “ Ultra steps through the portal, and immediately ducks, narrowly missing the punch that was swung at him. Ultra quickly shifts his hands into his two blades and plunges them deep in the chest of Dr. Lomas who stood above him. As Dr. Lomas stood bewildered, blood slowly dripping from his mouth Ultra could see his face, though also square jawed and almost divinely handsome, he also shared the same district facial features as Austin. Dr. Lomas was just as tall as John, but more muscular. Where John’s muscle was entirely for use, Dr. Lomas was more for show, his light green suit began to darken from the blood pouring out from his wounds. His perfectly swept back brown hair draped over his eyes as Ultra removed the blades, and he fell to the ground. “Better reflexes that time Sir” Pinstripe comments. Ultra nods and returns to the office. “He dead?” Austin asks. Ultra nods in response. “Good” Austin smiles, “next targets, Poindexter and Carter. They will be fun.” Ultra nods and opens his portal, stepping through.

#original story #original characters #my work #my writing #The Wrong Time

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