#but the funny part is is that nobody seemed to plan for this possibility of being captured while infiltrating to save queen anora btw?

[sotc]

So two versions of Captured! quest can go down. You can choose to wait to be rescued or try to escape on your own but I like to imagine both scenarios were playing out at the same time for Milana just to add to the entire hilarity that is that quest to me.

Arl Eamon, upon learning of the Warden's capture (alongside Alistair's), would react by sending in two highly skilled and capable assassins to infiltrate Fort Drakon and retrieve them. Cue Leliana and Zevran. They've done this so many times before! This is their expertise! The way the scene plays out they bounce off each other well. She handles the captain with her bluffs, he keeps a knife handy just in case, they divert the guard's attention at her post so they can sneak in. It's going swimmingly!

Pan back to Milana and Alistair in their cell. Milana pacing back and forth. Both of them refusing to address they're embarrassingly down to their loincloths and totally don't have attractions towards each other. Alistair asking the Warden what she thinks they should do, does she think the others are coming for them? "Of course but we can't just sit around and wait either. Just be ready."

Cue Milana flirting with the guard to get his attention. BIG BROWN EYES ACTIVATED. Alistair in the background trying not to blush to the tips of his ears because 1) he was NOT prepared for that plan and 2) he'd never expect to hear such blatant flirting from the Warden even if it was a ruse. All it takes is for him to enter, a little more flirts to disarm him further, a step closer before she truly disarms him and kills him swiftly. "That's one way of capturing the guard's attention." Milana shrugs. "I saw the way he was looking at me." A chuckle rings out before a familiar voice follows. "Ah, my dear Warden, did you miss me?" I have to imagine they arrived just in time and overheard the tail-end of that whole exchange. Zevran overhearing his Warden flirting up a guard to escape? I know he finds that so fucking amusing and would tease her relentlessly for it considering even he wouldn't have expected it. "The man was powerless against those lovely eyes, just as I was. Who could blame him." :3c

Anyways, from there on out I imagine they manage to find the armory to get their gear back and charge their way out from the fortress.

It's a super fun time to imagine. 😋 But I won't lie I had an underlying darker thought to this whole scenario. When was the last time Milana was left prisoner to a bunch of guards in such vulnerable clothing and state? On the surface she may have shrugged it off but I think there's unsaid satisfaction when she kills the guardsman who was more than eager to exploit her. Like dogs, Shianni.

[brnesblogposts]

cootitis

(this is the stupidest thing i’ve ever written.)

bucky barnes x reader & avengers

a/nthis is another conversation i just had on character ai that was funny so i’m turning it into a fic

this turned out to be shit but i’m posting it anyway.

———

It was two in the morning and the two of you were standing outside your room when a figure appeared in the hall “Wha—“

Your heads whipped around to find Peter wide eyed and jaw hanging open staring at you both. Bucky instantly tensed up and you fought to come up with an excuse.. “GOODNIGHT!” You shouted abruptly before running back into your room. Bucky remained stood, stiff as a board staring at Peter awkwardly, “Were you guys..?” Peter raised an eyebrow and his voice went all high and squeaky because he felt awkward at what he’d walked into. Bucky shifted on his feet and coughed out a “No” before turning on his heel ready to walk away when another voice made an appearance—

“Barnes?” fuck it’s Stark Bucky thought to himself. Bucky coughs awkwardly “Oh hey” He smiles coyly because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Tony eyes him up noticing he’s standing outside your room in just a pair of boxers.

“Mr Stark I think Bucky and Y/n were um.. kissing..” Peters voice is still squeaky. Tony’s eyes go wide as he whips his head to find Bucky trying to walk away “Barnes.” Bucky stops in his tracks and is as still as a statue. You’re on the other side of the door eavesdropping of course and decide to help Bucky out by opening your door and stepping out into the hallway..

“Oh, hey guys! Nobody told me there was a party going on out here in the hall!” You may just be the worst liar on the planet. Bucky’s eyes shoot to you from where he’s stood and then to Peter and Tony.

“Do you care to explain why you’re both as red as tomatoes right now?” Tony has a smirk on his face, he’s finding this quite entertaining. Bucky says nothing because he can’t come up with anything and quickly you spit out “We were um— we were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest..” what. You think to yourself.

“Is that right?” Tony is full on smiling now “May i ask who won?” he’s feigning curiosity. You shift awkwardly and look around “Uhm Bucky because you know.. super soldier serum and all that. Was close though, we had several complications but he is undefeated so far—“ SHUT UP you thought to yourself because you were rambling now. Bucky grunted in agreement heavily avoiding looking Tony in the eye.

“So you have these competitions at 2am often?” Tony looks so relaxed as he’s interrogating the both of you, you want to strangle him. Another awkward silence passes, “Uhhh no, one time thing.” You hold your chin up high as if it will help.

“Mr Stark..” Peter looks up to Tony “I feel like they’re lying.” Tony smiles down at Peter “I think we can continue this conversation in the morning, don’t you all agree?” Bucky is nodding frantically and you shoot Tony with a thumbs up.

“Right, Parker go to bed.” Tony says to Peter who nods and walks away “And you two.. better start planning some better excuses for the morning.” He grins and goes back to his room. Bucky and you don’t say another word as you part ways and he goes back to his room.

———-—————— breakfast ———————-

Everyone is sitting at the table, an awkward silence lingers between Tony, Peter, Bucky and yourself. Everyone else seems to notice and keeps glancing at all of you, “Who died?” Clint breaks the silence. It goes silent again before Tony coughs and looks to you and Bucky waiting for one of you to speak up, neither of you do.

“LAST NIGHT I CAUGHT BUCKY LEAVING Y/N’s ROOM, TONY AND I THINK THEY WERE KISSING” Peter lets out a breath as if holding that in was eating him alive. It probably was. The table goes silent again as cutlery clashes from people dropping their forks or spoons and looking at the both of you. If possible Bucky and yourself sink into your seats just waiting for the floor to swallow you whole.

“Excuse me?” Natasha is smiling.

Steve is simply staring at his best friend processing what he’s just heard.

“We weren’t kissing.” You spoke abruptly and went back to picking at your food.

“Why are you both blushing so much?” Clint asks while smiling, this seems to be entertaining for all of them.

“Uh you know— allergies.” Bucky is sitting in silence letting you suffer everyone’s questions.

“Allergies?” Tony inquires and you nod, “That doesn’t make any sense—“ He continues but you interrupt “Yes it does.” The way you say it is incredibly unconvincing.

“Why is Bucky’s face also red if you have allergies?” Natasha smirks as she asks you, “They’re um— contagious allergies..” You lie through your teeth.

“Contagious?” Clint and Steve ask in unison, “Yeah.” You’re panicking.

“What are these allergies called?” Tony is practically grinning as he asks.

“It’s uh it’s called um Cootitis. very serious stuff” You blurt out and are met with snickers as everyone tries holding in their laughter and Bucky looks at you absolutely perplexed.

“Cootitis..?” Tony asks with a serious tone while holding in his laugh. You look stern as you say “Yes and I must have passed it onto Bucky in passing” avoiding eye contact as you say that because you don’t even believe yourself.

“Well this sounds like a new disease we know nothing about. I think it’s best Bruce and I take you both to the med bay and run some tests.. like take some bloo—“

He doesn’t get to finish before you blurt out “FINE. BUCKY AND I WERE KISSING” because he knew your fear of needles would invoke you.

“I KNEW IT.” Peter screams as Tony leans back in his chair with his arms crossed and the widest smile on his face. You sit back defeated letting out a long sigh.

“Well why didn’t you just say that from the start?” Steve asks and you both give him an evil look. It goes back to awkward silence now that the secret is out except for the secret glances you and Bucky give each other throughout the day, earning scoffs and fake gags from your co workers.

—————————————

reblogs appreciated :)

[yenqa]

ADVANTAGES

in which…

on jay’s live, fans point out a stuffed animal on his bed, one that seems to be the other piece to your notorious missing pair. as imaginary pieces start to connect for fans, the viewers beg for some kind of interaction. and though you and jay have never met before, why not use this situation to your advantage?

warnings : crying, panic attacks, depression is depicted but isnt really said, lots of bad self talk, food/eating, having no appetite, just lots of bad mental health talk and depictions, hurt/comfort, god this chapter is PACKED

wc: 1829

i’m sorry that i couldnt be your teenage dream.

not proofread!

☆

It had been a week and a half since you had seen anyone.

Well other than the cashiers at the local grocery store but that made you look even more pathetic. 

You haven’t been well, at all.

It was a horrible sight, honestly you couldn’t even look at yourself in the mirror without cringy. You had no productivity and had planned to do nothing for as long as possible. 

You were surprised your body hasn't exploded yet, since all you had ate was instant ramen or the three meals you could cook total. 

Today was one of the worse-r days. Three hours into the new day but your mind couldn’t seem to sleep one bit.

You had zero appetite, your room was a mess, it was worse that you couldn’t even sleep away the days even though you were so tired. Your eyes were glued shut at night but your body couldn’t stop fighting the feeling of sleep. 

So here you were, eye bags almost able to give the color purple a run for its money, and so puffy it felt like a balloon was stuck in there. But your eyes hadn’t shed any tears, instead you felt like nothing. Like you were just floating around with no purpose or any feeling at all.

The empty feeling in your head made you unable to do anything but scroll on your phone, letting hours after hours pass by rewatching your favorite show at least a billion times. It seemed like the world had gone gray, like the world was ending and you were the only one feeling it.

A part of you screamed at yourself to get a grip, to stop being so dramatic and realize there are still good things in life. 

You tried to get better, you really did. You had researched on how to get over this drought but you never could. So every night you would lay in your bed, trying to figure out what was wrong with you.

Mornings have always been your least favorite part of the day. But it seemed to get worse with every second that passed. 

Realizing you still had a whole day ahead of you seemed utterly impossible to finish, but still you would reach your hand out to the finish line, only to miss every time.

You had six hours until it was the appropriate time to wake up. You couldn’t call anyone for help, you couldn’t text anyone in the middle of the night. It was your burden, so you had to keep it to yourself and hope and pray it washes away over time.

Your phone has been your only sense of livelihood during your dull days. If you had been wasting hours after hours at least you had been doing something. 

Before you could think of the consequences, you had thought of searching yourself on the internet, just for fun. You clicked on the first source, hoping that someone would see your side of the story.

No it was not fun–you wish you could warn yourself because the title of the article read; “All you need to know about Y/niora and why she’s trending”

We’ve all seen the names “Y/n” or “Y/niora” trending on X, who is she? Some might wonder. In this article I’ll be going over everything she’s done wrong, and why fans hate her for it.

Y/n is a popular streamer on twitch, known for her funny commentary and her boyfriend Jay, but recently she’s shown a darker side to her.

Her boyfriend, Jay, is also a twitch streamer, a much more popular one at that. He’s known for his good looks and his random reactions that have us crying with laughter, but why would he date a nobody like her? 

If you’ve seen Y/niora’s X account, you can see that she posts provocative photos of herself, things that only lead to temptations of male fans. Fans speculate this is the reason they met, saying that she seduced him and used him for money, fame, and views.

If you know anything about streaming, you know BlueJay and his friends. Who stole the internet's hearts with their looks and cute personalities. But things start picking up between Jay and Y/n when she posts their matching stuffed animals, officially presenting their relationship to the world.

This seems to be a bad move on Y/n’s part, as her facade starts slipping through and we get to see her for the calloused person she is. 

She continuously shows her disinterest in anything he’s saying. Making him repeat everything he’s said to her. This strikes up the question, does she really care about him or her fans?

Arguments of this exact topic have been trending among fans, some saying

You closed your phone before you could read anything else. Flipping your body over you could feel tears start to form in your eyes, your vision goes blurry and your breath starts hiccuping. 

Wiping your wet cheeks, you start to panic when you feel like your throat is closing up, placing your hand on your chest to try to calm yourself down. 

That clearly doesn’t work. As you swear you can feel the walls closing in beside you. In a last effort to stop your ugly sobs, you open your phone once more, your breath quickens when you open the phone app, calling the person that you need the most right now.

The ringing on your phone shakes you more, “Please answer, please answer, please answer.” You croak out desperately, glancing at your window to realize it’s the middle of the night, and he’s probably getting the nice sleep he deserves. 

Unlike you who only makes things worse, and can’t even get a wink of sleep at night.

You sob harder after the fifth ring, realizing that he’s not going to answer. And you have to do this on your own–

“Y/n? Are you okay?” His voice brings relief to your ears, that’s until you realize the state you’re in. 

“Jay I’m so–so so sorry for calling you this late.” You rasp out, “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me, I can’t stop shaking and crying, I just–fuck” Bringing your hand up, you grab a fist of your hair, not knowing what to do or say.

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah, I am.” You choke through, words barely coherent.

“I’m coming. Stay there, okay?”

“Okay.” 

His tone is so soft it scares you. How could he be talking to you so sweetly knowing the mess you made? How could he be talking to you so sweetly knowing that you are burdening him at such a late hour?

Your throat tries its best to keep your hammering heart inside your chest, but it closes up, your breath is so uneven you're not even sure you’re breathing at all. 

That is until you let out a soft apology into your phone, but it’s covered by your staggered breathing, and the sound of you stuffing up your snot back into your nose.

The silence coming from him is apparently meant to drive you insane. Because the nausea of it all starts to get to you, your condition is crippling so you can’t even move from your curled up position on your bed.

You can hear your door slam open, eliciting a strong flinch from you. 

Your heart seems to be racing too fast for your liking, almost like it’s fighting to get out of your chest. “Jay?” You mutter, as you can see his dark silhouette standing through the doorway. 

Before you can actually decipher if the man is actually Jay or just some random burglar who found your spare key, you feel his arms wrap around your body, tucking your head into the space between his neck and shoulder. 

You conclude that it’s Jay’s warmth you’re feeling right now.

For a second you feel safe, for a second you feel like he’s just hugging you, not because you are literally having a panic attack. 

That snaps you back into reality. God were you really having a panic attack over an article? That you chose to read? 

Feeling your chest tighten and your eyes water up, you tuck your head impossibly deeper, letting your tears and snot get all over his shirt. 

It’s grossing you out how you can physically feel his shirt dampen with your tears, but you’re too focused on figuring out how to breathe rather than the mess you made on his shirt.

“You can let it out, or you can just cry, I don’t mind.”

You sob even harder than you were before.

He’s so warm. He’s so warm. And you have no idea why it’s the perfect descriptor for him. 

“Jay,” You mutter, being muffled by his shoulder, “I’ve ruined everything.”

His arm rubs your back gently, “You haven’t ruined anything, pretty.” He whispers, talking like if he speaks any louder you’ll crack into hundreds of pieces (you actually might but that’s not the point).

“I have! You can’t even deny it without lying,” You hiccup, “I mean—I’m trying so hard, but I can’t do anything right.” You pull your head back to look up at him.

He stays silent, letting his hand cup your face, wiping away any tears that fall down.

“And I’m so tired. I’m so tired of doing everything I can but still being hated for not doing enough. I mean who wouldn’t? I can’t even cook a proper meal, it just goes to show how hopeless I am.”

“Y/n you can’t possibly think about yourself.”

“I can because it’s the truth.”

He tucks your head back into his shoulder, “Y/n, not being able to cook a proper meal is okay. Some people never learn how to cook an egg.”

Your breathing calms down slightly, you let out a small chuckle, trying to stay forever in his warmth.

“I’m sorry for calling you here so late, I know you’re tired from streaming or something.”

“I could never stay away from you for too long, even if it’s in the middle of the night.”

Letting out a breathy smile, you look back at his face, a small smile spreads through his face looking at you.

Your eyes were tired, for the first time in a week your body was tired. “I’m going to go to sleep. Thank you, Jay, seriously.”

He gets up from your position, you feel the absence of his warmth even though he just got up, he’s about to walk out the door when you build up the courage to ask, “Can you stay? Just for tonight?”

Looking back, there's a smile on his face as he replies “Always.”

Walking back to you, he lays himself under your blanket, tucking you in before wrapping his arm around you, he pulls you into his chest.

And for the first time in what felt like forever. You fall asleep, in Jay’s arms.

☆

back masterlist next

yenqa > um title is reference to teenage dream by olivia rodrigo! umm hope u enjoyed while i ripped my heart out and put it in my writing… thanks!

taglist (CLOSED): @yeokii @hanniluvi @euncsace @jongsiemain @mrchweeee @fakeuwus @ashy1um @rikisly @filmofhybe @nwjws @yizhoutv @soov @tocupid @tzke1ta @yannew @manooffline @mars101 @haechansbbg @enhaz1 @teddywonss @en-happiness @kim2005bomi @be0mlvr @luvswonyoung @flwoie @lilriswife4life @nicholasluvbot @ikeusol @lylovw @alwayswook @astrae4 @choi-beomgyulvr @aishigrey @infpistj @jiawji @planethyuka @mari-oclock @222brainrot @jakevascaino @rory-cant-sleep @hyehae @vixensss @hearts4hanni @kgneptun @tongtongie @www-jungwon @lovejunz @fluerz @jiyeons-closet @nyuzip @leehanist @heerinnie @eneiyri

yenqa © please do not copy, steal or translate.

[rileyslibrary]

if reqs r closed pls ignore this sorry im genuinely so blind so idk if u were taking them rn, but can i request “the captain will have to get involved pretty soon” situation from that fic where a new lieutenant joins, overall just like a part 2 where price does have to get involved 😭😭 like ghost is just so annoyed with this man

Hey reader! 🍫 No need to worry; I don’t have a “policy” on requests apart from the nsfw thingy (i don’t know how to write smut). Whatever comes, I accept it wholeheartedly! :)

Synopsis: Ghost and the new Lt. get in a fight. Price handles the situation accordingly and nobody is happy.

Relationship: Simon “Ghost” Riley x F!Reader, Captain John Price

Word Count: 1,112

Notes:

For those who haven’t read Part 1, here it is.

Lots of swearing and mentions of physical injuries. Other than that, it’s fluff.

Want more?

———————————————————————

Yup. Unfortunately, the Captain had to get involved in the end.

Not just him, though; an entire room full of trained soldiers had to jump in and separate Ghost from almost strangling Lt. Wilson, or “Mr Toothless,” as he often referred to him.

Why “Mr Toothless”, you may ask? Well, Ghost decided to baptize the new lieutenant with that nickname for a couple of reasons. 

First, he took your comment about Wilson’s fake teeth to heart. “If they’re fake,” he reasoned, “that means the fucker is already toothless and wears veneers to cover ’em up.”

And when you told him that’s not true since some people undergo cosmetic surgery to improve something they might have suffered an injury from, Ghost came up with his second reason as to why the new lieutenant is—or rather will be—toothless.

“Might have suffered an injury?” He contemplated. “Well, he’s about to suffer another one when I knock them out again.”

So, it was either “Mr. Toothless over there” or “Mr. Future Toothless one again.” Whatever the case, Ghost never called him by his real name, which started to piss off Lt. Wilson a whole lot. And that’s how it all escalated.

The breaking point came while at the briefing room, with Price at the head of the table and the two lieutenants seated across from each other. The rest of the team was strategically scattered around, avoiding being too close to Riley or Wilson. They were like furnaces, ready to burst at any time and burn you along with them, so you all figured it was best to stay as far away from them as possible.

Price was dividing the teams for the new mission: Team Alpha (Ghost’s Team) had to reach the target’s point by air, while Team Bravo (Wilson’s Team) would travel by land. The tipping point was when Price absentmindedly assigned you to Wilson’s team. Being Ghost’s Achilles’ heel, you were enough to light up a spark in the furnace. Wilson, on the other hand, was, in fact, a motherfucker. He knew that you, being assigned to his team, would piss Ghost off, so he turned towards you and winked upon hearing your name.

“Awesome,” he said, “doll’s with me.”

“Call them a doll again,” Ghost replied, “and I’ll make you as shiny and smooth as a Ken.” A threat that seemed nonsensical then but became clearer over time. And it wasn’t funny at all. See, Ken dolls lack organs, including a brain, heart, and, as Ghost hinted, a certain... anatomical feature.

And, as you stand in front of Ghost at Price’s office, tending to his cut lip and bruised eye, questions swirl in your mind. First and foremost, why is Ghost so obsessed with Lt. Wilson’s bones and limps? How was he planning to execute such a horrendous action? And how did he manage to leap onto the table and kick Wilson in the face like Leonidas did in the movie “300”?

“You fucked up big time, Simon,” Price warns Ghost as he paces around the room with his hands on his waist.

“He started it,” Ghost retorts.

“No,” Price shouts, running towards Ghost and inching away from his bruised-up face, “you landed the first kick, and then things escalated faster than a wildfire in a dry forest.”

Ghost sighs. “How is he?” He asks.

You look at him, shocked. This guy amazes you. All he wanted was to kick Wilson right in the face, and now he’s worried about his health.

“He is fucked; that’s how he is,” Price replies, “and you’re fucked too.”

“What’ll happen now?” Ghost asks

Price lets out a sharp chuckle. Not one of entertainment, for sure. Something that hints you’re both about to find out.

“I’m relieving Lt. Wilson of his duties in the field and relocating him to another position,” the Captain announces.

“Good,” Ghost replies. “At least he’ll be out of my business for a while.”

“Oh, on the contrary brother,” Price smirks, “he’ll be all up in your business now.”

You stop treating Ghost’s wound and turn to Price. “W-where exactly are you relocating, Lt. Wilson, Captain?” You ask, confused.

Price approaches you and wraps an arm around your shoulder, now both facing Ghost.

“I’m putting Wilson in the same office as you two,” Price says, smiling. “That is until you and him sort out your… issues.”

Ghost doesn’t react. He stretches his neck while looking at Price.

“You think I wouldn’t find out what the apple of discord was?” Price whispers at Ghost, “You and him either become best friends, or you’re both out.” He says. He removes his hand from your shoulder, adjusts his hat, nods at you, and walks out of the room.

You turn towards Ghost, who’s now leaning on his legs, looking at the floor.

“Look at me,” you command, “I still need to patch that lip of yours.”

He obeys and looks up. You sigh. As much as you trust Price and his strategic decision to put the three of you in the same room, you fear that the ball is now in your field. Juggling Ghost’s outbursts was something you learned to handle with skill and prowess. But including Lt. Harris in the equation is like putting two starving lions in a cage with an antelope.

“Why?” You ask, as you treat his bottom lip, “Why act so stupidly when you know it is you that I fancy?”

He looks away and shrugs. “He called you a doll.”

“And look where we are now, Simon,” you say. “Price gave you your last chance, and we get to have Mr Toothless with us at the office.”

“Won’t be an office anymore, love,” he mutters, “it’ll be a dollhouse full of Barbie and Ken dolls.”

You smile and lift his chin up with your fingers. “So, if I’m Barbie and he’s Ken,” you say, bringing your face closer to his, “who are you?”

“Oh, I’m Action Man, love.” He says and tries to wink with a swollen, already shut, black eye.

———————————————————————

Part 3 ->

[chaoticgoodthief]

STP Voices Personality Swap

Inspired completely by @remaking-machine's awesome AU! I decided to put my own twist on the idea and see how it turns out! (ramble under the cut so that my mutuals don't have to watch me go insane, as per usual)

Self-imposed rules:

Personalities swaps must be based off of this line (or at least my interpretation of it) to force me to think more about how that would even work:

Princesses must be kept as close to canon as possible. I would give a good reason but honestly, it's just more fun that way

Ok, without further ado, let's get started!

Hunted (swapped with Opportunist): Will be on whatever side keeps him alive. Will be completely on board with defeating the Beast since he knows he will die if he doesn't fight her. However, he drops all pretences the moment they aren't in danger of dying. All the other voices actually like him up until he drops the helpful act, which at that point they all immediately hate him for deceiving them. For the most part, acts similar to his canon counterpart but a lot shadier in a way that nobody else seems to notice.

Opportunist (swapped with Hunted): Treats the Witch like an ambush predator and thus always is correct about her next move. False bravado comes off like a prey animal puffing itself up to be more intimidating. Genuinely looking out for your survival, but generally disliked by the other voices for his flighty nature. Does not trust Thorn, but empathetic towards her pain. Generally acts very different from his canon counterpart, but his facade is a nearly eerie replica.

Skeptic (Swapped with Smitten): An seriously unhealthy amount of trust in the Prisoner and only the Prisoner. If she told you to stab yourself he would agree with her because he's that sure that she has a plan. Completely distraught in the Drowned Grey route because he knew she had a plan and it's all your fault for not believing in her like he did. It's actually creepy how easily Skeptic falls down the exact same path as canon Smitten after a personality swap. I love it.

Smitten (Swapped with Skeptic): Serious trust issues after being stabbed to death by the princess and locked away by the Narrator. Rather than you being the one to ask questions in the start of Chapter II, he will ask them before you get the chance. Since he will force you to grab the knife, there is a much higher chance of getting the Burned Grey route. Can be calmed down if you manage to get him to put his trust in the Damsel, but manoeuvring away from Deconstructed Damsel is also a lot harder due to his insistence to get answers. Somehow even more sceptical than canon Skeptic.

Stubborn (Swapped with Broken): Most downtrodden of the lot because of just how exhausted he is from the seemingly endless fighting. Even getting with him to the cabin is a pain due to his refusal to Do This. All the other voices think he's annoying and whiny, with only Contrarian vaguely getting along with him. Interrupts the Narrator's "You're here to -", with "Die. And die. And die again. And if we're lucky... die quickly." He's just as bad as canon Broken and it's so funny yet so sad at the same time.

Broken (Swapped with Stubborn): He's not physically strong in the slightest and failed to kill the princess once already, but this time he's going to win. Comes off as a yappy chihuahua trying to fight a lion. Again. However, he's actually on friendly terms with a good few of the other voices due to this. The Tower is vaguely amused by him up until the moment that he actually wins. And then? Then's she's pissed. Would be great friends with canon Stubborn, but only after proving himself in a fight.

Paranoid (Swapped with Cold): Turned off his emotions to focus on getting everyone out alive (think MoC Cold). Clipped, clinical tone for everything, including the Survival Mantra. Thinks the others don't appreciate him enough for the sacrifices he made in order to keep their body working. He is right. Completely numb to death in the MoC route to the point he doesn't even bother to use the Survival Mantra anymore, not that it matters at that point anyway. Very similar to canon Cold, but more apathetic than bored.

Cold (Swapped with Paranoid): Extremely superstitious, believing the princess to have cursed him with her death, which is only amplified when she returns as a ghost. Urges you not to touch the mirror because you might break it, begins talking about finding an exorcist if you let the Spectre possess you, refers to the Narrator as a malevolent spirit (I mean.... he isn't wrong), the whole shebang. I'm not going to lie, this one is honestly one of the funniest to me. Do not put in the same room as canon Paranoid. It will not end well for either of them.

Cheated (Swapped with Contrarian): Over the course of interacting with the Razor, he quickly starts just messing around after realising nothing he does matters. He treats the situation less and less seriously, to the point that he's making actively dumb decisions just to see how everyone reacts. Throw the blade of the window? Sure, why not? She'd kill us even if we had it! Throw her out of the window she's she's a bunch of blades now? Sure! Why not? She'll just come back, right?

Contrarian (Swapped with Cheated): Tried to get out and now look what's happened. Actively bitter about being trapped into a set path and determined to make it as much of a hell for everyone else as it is for him because of it. Curses like a sailor and is generally just So Done With This. He's not trapped with you. You're trapped with him and he will make everyone knows that. Will still try to make it up to the Stranger, the Hero and the player for his actions later on but does not hesitate to berate you for leaving him behind in the Stranger's cabin. Honestly, he's probably the closest to canon. Spicy Contrarian, if you will (get your mind out of the gutter not like that)

Hero remains the same, but his opinions about all the others are... very different, to say the least.

Phew, that was a lot of fun! Maybe I'll come back with a part two for SwapAU meets canon!

[cybertron-after-dark]

You should write beast wars, can I have some silly predacon headcanons?

I should absolutely write beast wars. Silly Predacon headcanons coming up

-Megatron talks battle strategy with his rubber duck all the time. He considers it his most trusted advisor because it's never said anything stupid and never tried to kill him. Honestly, he's tempted to think of the little dude as his only real friend.

-Speaking of Megatron, the man is a WHORE for a good bath bomb. Lush addiction, 100%. He has a whole hidden stock of bath bombs, bath salts, scented oils, candles, decorative soaps, scented metal polish and flower petals specifically for spoiling himself when he feels like hes completely surrounded by idiots. Which is often. Has he ever tried to eat one of the decorative soaps that look like baked goods? It doesn't count if it's the t rex hand.

-the reason skorponok occasionally reverts into caveman speak for some episodes is the writers couldn't figure out what to do with him he knows talking like that pisses off tarantulas and he thinks his annoyance is funny even though literally nobody else is amused by the bit.

-skorponok actually kind of misses dinobot because he made his job a lot easier. Constantly pitching ideas, suggesting battle strategies, pointing out flaws in plans. He was useful, even if he seemed to hate skorponok. He doesn't really know how to be a good second in command anymore because a crucial part of the dynamic is missing and he just can't adapt.

-waspinator is perfectly capable of speaking in normal grammar and not in the third person but he's been doing it since he joined in with Megatron and at this point he thinks he's in too deep to knock it off. He thinks it makes him sound cuter because it's actually an evolution of internet uwu speak. Memes get weirdly translated from earth to Cybertron and back.

-waspinator is actually really good at baking but he'll get blasted to bits a thousand times over before he lets anyone other than terrorsaur know because none of his other coworkers deserve to try his cupcakes (and also because he doesn't want to get "promoted" to kitchen slave). Dinobot knew, but he didn't snitch. Wasp never found out that Dinobot would occasionally snag a brownie, he always thought he just counted wrong.

-Terrorsaur is not above attempting to seduce a maximal but all his flirting attempts go horribly awry. If they don't outright reject him they just have no idea what he's getting at bc Predacon flirting is usually a lot different than maximal flirting so everyone thinks he's just kind of being a dick like usual. Dinobot knows exactly what is happening and ranges anywhere from amused to disgusted by the cross-faction fling attempts. The flying weasel clearly has no principles.

-Every couple weeks or so wasp and terrorsaur will get together to watch terrible movies over a bottle of highgrade and it always devolves into bitching about megatron. They tried inviting tarantulas a few times but he'd always make things Weird by bringing in slashers with really good special effects and proceeding to gush about how tasty the gore looks.

-Tarantulas knows what just about every living species in the known galaxy tastes like, organic, mechanical and everything in between. If it's made contact with Cybertron, chances are he's he's tried their flesh (or lack thereof). If it's at all possible, he wants to find out enough about the Vok to figure out how to capture, kill and eat one.

-Tarantulas also thinks rampage is a total poser when it comes to cannibalism. He doesn't even look like he's having fun with it. Barely any torturing or teasing beforehand, only dramatic monologues about fear and anguish. Bah! Amateur...

-Blackarachnia has a trash tv addiction. She doesn't know WHY the Darksyde's datatrax has every season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and like 30 TLC produced shows, but she refuses to stop watching them. Tarantulas fucking hates it. She does not care and if he complains she will turn the volume higher.

-Blackarachnia has incredibly mixed feelings on the story Cinderella. On the one hand, it gives her a degree of hope. A girl reduced to a work slave for terrible people that gets to escape and live it up with a guy that lives her? Great conceptually, but she only got to get out of it because she was a good person and nice to everyone. Blackarachnia? Not quite so disgustingly sweet. She's a bad girl through and through. And evidently bad people don't get to escape bad situations. Oh well. She can always try to fake it til she makes it.

-Inferno has always secretly hoped that when the war is over, his Queen Megatron will settle down with him and repopulate the colony together. He has wildly saccharine domestic daydreams of being with his giant beloved lizardy queen and their 3000+ kids. He has accidentally let this slip around Megatron once, who proceeded to pointedly ignore what he just said.

-Terrorsaur and Blackarachnia got Inferno to watch Drag Race but upon hearing the contestants being called queen, he took it a bit too literally and interpreted the show as the sad, underwhelming way human queens settle disputes between their colonies instead of just fighting the proper way. Lame.

-Quickstrike is so so very sad he can't play video games. He wants to play GTA and cause excessive and wanton death and destruction, but his fucked up hands cannot hold the controller. He forsakes Primus for building him the way he did. He keeps trying to get tarantulas to make him a usable controller but he gets brushed off every time.

-Quickstrike has attempted to ride inferno in his beast mode into battle. It did not end well but for about a solid 18 seconds it looked metal as hell.

-Rampage actually really likes depth charge and wants to be friends sooooo bad but he doesn't know how to handle that in a healthy way so he keeps trying to get his attention by playing up the cannibalism thing and hoping they fight again. Honestly he just kind of likes depth charge holding him, even if it's in a chokehold.

-After losing transmutate, Rampage projected a lot of his grief onto waspinator, which lead to a very strange period of time on the ship where rampage would get very cuddly and protective of wasp, who was incredibly terrified of what would happen if he shoved the crab off. Usually accompanied by Rampage being Incredibly Sad.

-every month the preds have a game night. Usually a board game or card game with Megatron's house rules. Said house rules are specifically designed to make a fight break out for his amusement. These game nights typically end with at least three people in the r-chamber and somebody missing at least one limb.

[mypoisonedvine]

idk if u are into this kinda thing but u should write something for a pedro character with a foot fetish 🫣 personally i think either javier or marcus would absolutely worship every part of ur body

ohhh I'm very much into this kind of thing... marcus totally seems like the type (I assume you mean pike not moreno so that's what I went with)

warnings: subby marcus, semi-public/fooling around at work, foot fetish (duh), orgasm control

He should've never said anything about your heels. He realized that now.

"Dominatrix vibes, huh?" you smirked as he felt his face heat up. "Is that a bad thing? Should I grab my tennis shoes from my car?"

"Uh, not necessarily," he replied. "I just meant 'cause they're stilettos and all— and the spikes, I mean, come on. You can't tell me you don't see it."

"No, no, I'm not disagreeing," you assured. "Maybe that's what I was going for."

He swallowed thickly. You were a pretty intense lady, a real go-getter in the office, and that's saying something considering pretty much everyone who works at the FBI is dedicated and serious. You were bordering on uptight, though; you didn't really go out after work, which Marcus resented because he wanted a chance to get to know you better. You didn't joke around with people, you didn't talk about your personal life. So he was just a bit taken aback to see you wearing those shoes— black, shiny stilettos with silver spikes around the pointed toe. He only pointed them about because he thought it might start a conversation, and I suppose in that way, he got what he wanted. But you were looking right through him now and he realized he'd definitely bit off more than he could chew.

"I wear the same thing basically every day," you shrugged, "black slacks, black blazer, white shirt. I think different outfits can be... distracting."

"Those shoes are definitely distracting," he agreed.

"I can tell," you smirked. "Your slacks are giving that away, Pike."

He choked and adjusted himself in his pants as he wiggled around slightly in his desk chair, but it was already too late; he was so gonna get written up for getting a boner at work... "S-sorry," he blurted out, "it's not— sorry— I was just—"

"It's fine," you laughed, "I won't tell. I just think it's funny."

"Yeah," he breathed, trying to figure out what he could possibly say to that. "I guess it is. But you can't tell me you didn't want somebody to notice your shoes."

"Notice? Sure. Get off on? No, that wasn't my plan," you assured with a bit of an eyeroll.

"Woah, woah— nobody's getting off on anything," he defended, "I'm just surprised, is all. Sort of the last thing I expected you to wear."

"You don't know anything about me."

"Whose fault is that?"

You sighed, turning in your swivel chair to face him again. "What do you wanna know about me?" you asked, point-blank.

"Uh..." he hesitated, not sure where to start with that question. "Sort of an... abrupt way to open up, don't you think?"

"I figure once you know me, you'll get over your crush," you explained, "and we can all get back to work."

Thankfully, we all was a pretty small crowd with only you two in this portion of the office— there were other people somewhere in the building, he wasn't sure where and he couldn't possibly think about it now, but for all intents and purposes, you two were alone. That fact dawned on him rather suddenly.

"I don't have a crush, I'm just interested in you," Marcus insisted.

"That's what a crush is," you replied.

"I mean as a person! I'm interested in who you are, I don't mean like... that, really..."

"Uh huh," you agreed, though you didn't seem to believe him. You rolled your chair closer. "Just ask away, I'm an open book."

"Well, okay," Marcus decided, spinning to face you again as well and hoping his tie was long enough when he was sitting to cover the bulge in his pants. "Where did you... grow up?"

"Not far from here," you said quickly. He opened his mouth to say more, but shivered when he felt your shoe brush against his ankle. Oh fuck. "I'll answer before you ask: easy childhood, normal family, my parents are nice, my siblings live far away."

But he was hardly listening— you were running the pointed toe of that heel up his leg, making his jaw drop a bit.

"Keep asking," you ordered.

"Uh," he choked, "do you have any... hobbies?"

"I like going to the movies," you said, planting your foot between his spread legs on the chair, letting the end of the stiletto heel brush his inner thigh as he jumped, "and concerts sometimes."

"Fuck," he breathed before clearing his throat. "Do you like... uh... do you like Indian food?"

"That's your third question?" you raised an eyebrow incredulously.

"I was thinking of taking you out," he said, his eyes glued on the way you teased his thigh with your heel, "for Indian. Would you like that?"

"Oh," you replied, "you were thinking of taking me out. I see. Just that, then— you were thinking of buying me dinner."

"Y-yeah..."

"You weren't thinking about fucking me?"

He whimpered as your shoe pressed up (gently) against the bulge in his slacks, and his hips rocked up against you ever so slightly. "Oh, god—"

"You weren't thinking about bending me over your desk?" you continued, taunting him with a proud grin on your face. You were so fucking pretty, he kept looking back between your face and your heel between his thighs— and that long, gorgeous leg in between, he could see your pantyhose up this close...

"I— I wasn't— I mean—" he stammered.

"Or is that not your thing?" you tilted your head. "Were you wanting it more, like, I'd come up to you and straddle you in that chair and ride you until I was satisfied? Maybe make you eat me out under my desk?"

"Oh, fuck," he gasped as you pressed your shoe harder against him. "I— I never thought about it like that. But I... I am now."

You giggled happily, and the sound made his heart twist. "You seem to like my shoes a lot, Marc, I hope you don't mind if I take them off."

He had to bite his lip when you kicked your heel off and let it fall to the ground, leaving your foot in the skin-tone pantyhose to tickle his leg instead; the shoe was a great visual, don't get me wrong, but feeling you bend and flex your foot, pointing your toes, and seeing that you had your toenails painted with some kind of sparkly polish? It drove him fucking wild.

"Yeah, I don't think you mind."

"I— fuck, angel," he groaned, his head falling back as you pressed your now basically-bare foot against his bulge, your toes tickling his head while your heel put pressure on his aching balls. "Fuck."

"I think you thought about this before," you smirked. "Don't lie to me."

"I did," he admitted, "it's just— that day you wore the stockings with the black line up the back..."

You smiled proudly. "You're a bit of a pervert, aren't you, Pike?"

"I— yeah, I guess so," he panted, starting to grind himself against your foot shamelessly. "But you're the one that wears dominatrix shoes."

You chuckled and bit your lip. "Yeah, that's fair. You know, I think I'll let you take me out for dinner sometime after all."

His eyes opened again and he looked at you. "Really?" he asked.

"If you come in your pants for me, right now."

"Oh, fuck," he grunted, his hands holding on tight to the armrests of his chair.

"You think you can come just from my foot on your dick?"

"P-probably..."

"You're such a naughty boy," you cooed, and he bit his lip.

"I'm— I'm close," he admitted quietly, jumping slightly when you moved your foot down so your toes could tickle his tightened balls. "Shit, angel, m'gonna— yeah, I'll come. Fuck."

"Mm, good— I like when you're obedient," you decided. "Good behavior gets you far with me. Just do what you're told and you'll get what you want, got it?"

"Yes— yes ma'am..."

You grinned and rubbed your foot harder against him. "Come, Marcus."

He winced, hissing through his teeth, and a second later he was over the edge— his cock flexed against your foot and hot, sticky come flooded his boxers. His flushed face was twisted in pleasure, and he heard you hum in delight as he relaxed in his chair with the last pump of come leaving his balls.

"Good job," you praised, though your voice was still stern; he reached down and rested his hand on your leg, grasping your foot briefly before running his fingers up your stocking-clad skin.

"That was... Jesus," he choked. "Was that just to get back at me for saying you had on dominatrix shoes?"

"Not just that," you giggled. "Besides, you're wearing submissive bitch boy shoes."

He looked at his oxfords and back up at you. "What? How?"

You shrugged. "Just because you're wearing them."

As if you hadn't embarrassed him enough already. Not that he was complaining.

"Now get back to work," you sighed, pulling your foot away and slipping effortlessly back into your heels; you turned away from him again and tapped at your keyboard to get your computer awake again. "You can take me out Friday night."

"O-okay," he nodded, awkwardly clearing his throat and preparing to pretend to work for the rest of the day— because obviously, he was not going to be productive whatsoever.

[ganondoodle]

need help for rewrite

so ... im still stuck trying to decide who fits what sage role best, mainly its a tie between purah and monk miz kyoshia for the role of spirit sage, current plan is that the spirit temple is located beneath the forgotten plateau and is accessed via shrine of life/the DLC dungeon from kyoshia but its broken and leads into the temple

purah pro

female character in a mostly male cast in the sages roles

tech enthusiast = tie in with mineru

kinda hinted at in the game to be a sage but then isnt (imo)

possible tie in with josha so she actually gets something to do

possibly fun companion for a dungeon

con

already gives link his shiekah prosthetic arm and its abilities + upgrades

doesnt seem that spiritual all things considered

what would her ability be?/would a guardian laser fit her??

doesnt seem to have any magical capability without her tech (then again does mineru?)

monk kyoshia pro

hes cool :)

very spiritual

would be a very unexpected choice

located right where the temple starts

can do a guardian laser just like that

having a floaty mummy monk in the sage meeting would be kinda funny

possibly having funny interactions with koga as he/the yiga seem to take after the original shiekah alot before they were split (plus my HC of koga having been a monk from the same time as well ... should they know each other ..??)

con

he was a DLC character

another male character, making zelda and riju be the only sages

duplicated moveset with koga, what would be the most logical ability to gain from him and in turn whats more iconic for koga? (as in AoC tho non canon koga does a laser thingy too, would be neat to pick that up here, then again kyoshia and koga both teleport like nobodies business)

lore clash bc he should know too much, he could tell everyone whats going on robbing away alot of the mystery (and if not mentioned, is there a good excuse?) plus would render alot of the research into new tech useless bc he might know all of that .. unless being monk doesnt mean also knowing the tech ..

possibly less fun companion for a dungeon

additionally, zelda mainly being the sage of light (perhaps the time thing being just an inate thing the shiekah arm can do bc its a more developed version of the stasis rune) could also mean she could do a laser attack as we see rauru do, then again the moldora attack is not part of the rewrite so if ever used by rauru its when he and ganondorf fight one on one in one of the new memories which brings up the problem of what would be the most logical ability to gain from either, is the teleport the yiga do not a little .. to little impactful for someone like koga? also kyoshia can do the same, again a moveset overlap and .. if it was purah instead, what is her ability (same problem with paya, she doesnt have any ability either .. tho i could imagine giving you a shield like sidon does in canon and change sidon ability to be something healing related bc of mipha?)

if i took kyoshias ability to make clones of himself as an ability (since you dont have the sages running around you in the rewrite) as a distraction tech and battle support, would it fit koga more to have a laser attack or the teleport? i kinda like the idea of giving zelda the laser attack bc she rarely gets an overly offensive role

more thoughts, if it was kyoshia, couldnt he just waltz around with you all the time bc he doesnt have any leadership roles he needs to furfill? or perhaps he cant leave the area of the shrine of life, hes a mummy after all, would that be a good excuse? (thought about impa too bc it would be cool to have an old character kicking ass in the main team, but after giving her role to paya she doesnt have any reason why she wouldnt be able to tag along everywhere too)

[teecupangel]

What if the assassins were in Doom Eternal?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz8_a47OetM&pp=ygUUZG9vbSBzbGF5ZXIgZ2FtZXBsYXk%3D

I was contemplating if this should be a case of the Assassins meeting Doom Guy during the start of Doom Eternal or go for the Assassins having a very bad time in Mars all by themselves.

I think a full AU would be fun so Imma go with that XD

So, in this case, we’re going for the whole the main ‘past’ protagonists is integrated in the story.

Since we’re going for Doom Eternal instead of Doom (2016), we’re setting this up in Earth that is in the process of being overrun by the demons.

The Brotherhood would be a distant ally of the ARC with the Templars have, surprised, surprised, actually has NOT joined the Union Aerospace Corporation.

Because the Templars do not like the whole ‘yeah, we’re bowing down to demons’ bit.

But the Order of the Ancients does.

They believe they can gain power and the secret of the universe by siding with the demons.

So this is more of a case of the Brotherhood and the Templars having a bit of a… tense alliance to protect what remains of mankind.

And the funny part?

The Templars are the ones in power in ARC.

The story would be focused on Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton. Of course, if this was multichaptered, there would be chapters that focused on other POVs. Anyway, Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton would be part of a three-man squad and focuses on infiltration, sabotaging and assassination. Their main focus is getting as much information as possible to have an idea on what the demons would be planning next (or targeting next).

It’s during one of their missions that they find a sarcophagus that seemed to have been guarded tightly by demons. It opened during the fight and-

We’re bullying Desmond once more because Desmond is the one inside the sarcophagus. And he remembers his life before as Desmond Miles so he recognized the three who ‘saved’ him.

They escort him to Leonardo Da Vinci who is working as a scientist and doctor for the Brotherhood, fascinating by his tales of the Animus and his ancestors. Desmond is surprised to see that Shaun is actually Leonardo’s assistant and he doesn’t recognize Desmond. Nobody does.

The mentor of the Brotherhood who goes by the name Amunet tells the three to keep Desmond with them because he’s good (maybe even better) at freerunning and stealth. Desmond stresses that he’s only good because of his Bleeding Effect and he realized that Altaïr, Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton have a lot of room to grow. It seemed like he had met them during the time when they haven’t yet mastered being an Assassin.

So there’s bonding there and maybe Desmond acting like the unofficial ‘mentor’ of the three (not that anyone acknowledges it)

For the rest of the AC characters…:

Edward is one of the high ranking members of the Brotherhood and serves as a liaison between the Brotherhood and the Templars. He travels using a reinforced light tank called Jackdaw together with his second in command Adéwalé. Adéwalé is more or less the only thing keeping Edward from doing crazy shit that could get them killed.

Aveline is one of the leaders of the Brotherhood’s largest headquarters and is a member of the council together that directly takes orders from the mentor. She’s focused on making sure the Brotherhood has all the supplies they need to fight and survive and she mostly contact other surviving ‘organizations’ to trade with them. She’s close to her stepmother but learning she was a Templar has strained that relationship. They still keep in touch but they don’t talk about anything ‘work related’.

Shao Jun is an Assassin under her instructor, Wang Yangming, and seemed to be friends with Claudia Auditore. Whenever they meet, Ezio acts more like an older brother to her.

Nikolai is actually more of a rogue Assassin with his son and his nephew, Daniel Cross. They don’t talk to the Templars but they would assist the Brotherhood… for a price (usually food and supplies. The Brotherhood keeps telling them they always have a place with them but there are rumors that Nikolai had done something that the Russian Brotherhood didn’t like and had run away with his family before the whole demon invasion happened and that’s why he’s keeping to himself)

Arbaaz has gotten roped in becoming the Frye twins and Jayadeep’s supervisor. He’s part of the council as well and he has no idea how that happened. The death of his close friend Ethan Frye during the invasion has made him a bit protective of the twins.

Speaking of, the twins do not like Arbaaz’s overprotectiveness so they tend to go… their own way whenever they have a mission. Jayadeep gets roped into all of these because he’s worried about them………. Jacob may or may not have some kind of ‘it’s complicated’ romantic entanglement with the leader of the mercenary group known as the Blighters hired by the Templars, Captain Roth.

Arno… well… Arno has his own squad under Bellec’s command (the Assassins in the Unity trailer) and he’s one of the best Assassin in the field. Unfortunately, his relationship with the Templar Élise de la Serre makes some Assassins distrustful of him. The fact that Élise’s father died during the initial wave of the demon invasion because Arno was not able to give him an important report that could have saved his life has complicated their relationship, driving a wedge between them. Some believe Arno became an Assassin to ‘make it up’ to Élise who don’t want to see him. Some believe Arno became an Assassin to spy on the Brotherhood for her. Bellec’s support is one of the few things keeping him safe from those rumors.

Bayek is an Assassin who prefers to check the headquarters and help out. More like a nomad and it’s rumored that the mentor gave him free rein to do whatever he wanted. It seemed he lost his son during the second wave of demon invasion.

Kassandra and Eivor are in charge of their own mercenary group who is more or less allied with both the Templars and the Brotherhood. Alexios is Kassandra’s younger brother who she needs to keep an eye on because he gets to all sort of trouble.

Haytham Kenway is the Grand Master of the Templar Rites and everyone knows he’s Edward Kenway’s prodigal son. The Brotherhood doesn’t like him and his rise in the Order is the main reason why Edward left his seat as a council member of the Brotherhood (his seat is taken by Benedictor who commands two squads led by Aguilar (with María and Mateo) and Callum Lynch (with Lin and Mousa))

Shay Cormac is an Assassin turned Templar who is part of the main force. He works directly for Haytham Kenway and has his own tank named Morrigan. His secretary (sorta) goes by the codename Numbskull.

Maria Thorpe is part of the squad under Robert de Sablé and they serve as the main force against the demon invasion. She doesn’t like the mercenary group the Blighters and think Cesare should not be a leader at all but she keeps her mouth shut because it’s not her place. Robert de Sablé and Altaïr have an ‘if we didn’t have a truce, I would have killed you already’ thing going on.

Basim is… Basim. They know he’s an Assassin but he’s gone dark since before the demons invaded. Some believed he got his hands on a forbidden ‘artifact’ that makes him dangerous. Basim definitely has some kind of connections with the Sentinels and he called Desmond ‘Reader’ when they met. Desmond has no idea what he means by that and Basim seemed both interested in him and disappointed in him.

(Of course, the twist could be that, while we’re focusing on the AC characters here, Doom Guy is actually doing the Doom Eternal canon at the same time and the ending would be about him meeting up with the survivors after taking care of the Icon of Sin to help wipe out the remaining demons)

[ducktracy]

Conspiracy theory I didn't come up with: Part of why Hollywood is so weird with Looney Tunes and Muppets is that they resent the voice work involved. Even dumbass execs know you need Kermit to sound like Kermit and Daffy to sound like Daffy and they HATE that they can't just recast them with some random celebrity.

HMMMMM… i unfortunately don’t know enough about the Muppets to throw my two cents in there, but with LT—i both see where you’re going with this and somewhat object at the same time.

i guess my point i’m about to bring up just as much proves you right, but they DID get away with some celeb stunt casting with Space Jam 2 (lol) thanks to Zendaya and Gabriel Iglesias. and hell even going back to TLTS, you have Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen… Frank Gorshin voices Daffy in Superior Duck.. so there IS the fair share of celeb stunt casting with these characters, which i guess does in a way sort of prove your point, but to me still makes me think it’s not entirely it

one of my biggest complaints with modern LT revivals IS, however, that they never seem to write the characters with Mel Blanc in mind. i realize the man has been dead for 35 years and we obviously can’t raise him back, but the originals were so often written to cater to his voice talents and his quirks and his specificities, and while you have incredibly talented voice actors like Eric Bauza or Bob Bergen or Jeff Bergman or Joe Alaskey (RIP), the one little ingredient missing from their deliveries is because they aren’t written with Mel in mind. Mel’s involvement is just as important to the characters and their personalities as the directors and writers and animators

which leads me to my next point in that i just think that nobody understands the Looney Tunes characters, simple as. they don’t! they are not some big happy family à la the Muppets, who, in turn, are not some big happy family. likewise they are not mindless drones who drop anvils and blow each other up and repeat the same 2 bits over and over and over again. i don’t think Space Jam 2’s ineptitude is a product of execs losing their minds over the inability to stunt cast—i just think you don’t know your Looney Tunes if you’re going to genuinely play up a Bugs Bunny death scene as a sincere, heart felt moment. come on!!!!!

i still think a lot about the excerpt in Jerry Beck’s 100 Greatest LT Shorts book where one of the contributors—whose name escapes me—had a WB exec tell him in the ‘90s that nobody likes Porky because “people don’t like pigs”, and his quip in the book was “well, i’m people and i like pigs!”. likewise the whole political correctness bit in Back in Action is true to life! the Speedy complaint surprises me less but the whole “first they tell me to lose the stutter, then they tell me i’m not funny” actually happened! WB hasn’t known what to do with these characters for half a century at this point and it’s unfortunately nothing new. i wish it were just a matter of grievances at celebrity voice casting, but i really do think it’s just because nobody knows how the hell to characterize or approach the characters.

likewise, that is very much by design. the original run is lightning in a bottle. its brilliance is the product of so many ultra specific circumstances and benefits and histories and trial and error that you just can’t really replicate. i mean, you can, but even with the most meticulous studying and planning and adaptation and mathematical calculations and all that other jargon, even if you put all that into your work… you’re still not Chuck Jones with Chuck Jones’ life experience, you’re not Bob Clampett with Bob Clampett’s life experience, not Friz Freleng, not Bob McKimson, not Frank Tashlin…

i am a loud proponent of thinking that honoring these characters correctly and accurately and respectfully is possible. i think it can be done. i think it is possible to study all of the quirks of the directors, of the writers, the animators, the characters, how the characters talk and walk and play off of each other, how the directorial tone is dictated. you have to be a complete nut to do it, but i think it’s possible. but that just goes back to the original question of: well… why try and make carbon copies of the originals when the originals are right there? (which, i admit, is another question that i myself get huffy about and am like “just because!!!! why not!” but i can’t act like i can fully deny it either. it’s a valid question.)

ANYWAY. i just went on a huge tangent, some of which is completely unrelated to your ask and your point so MY APOLOGIES! i do think you have something there, but i really do think the main perpetrator is just a lack of understanding and awareness. or, we do have adaptations that show potential and they aren’t given the light of day to be realized and help set the course a little because we need to think of our tax write-offs first. god forbid!

[anons-has-hlvrai-aus]

The Metamorphosis of Gordon Freeman [Chapter 6]

Asking About Monty Armadillos

Chapter 1 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Summary: Gordon just wanted to get some errands done. Unfortunately, the wall had other plans.

Word Count: 6,425

Ao3 Version Link

Notes: This chapter was originally going to be about Bubby’s job at Burger King, but I decided that Gordon needs to spend this chapter and part of the next one dedicated to more slice of life stuff. Or at least the closest thing to slice of life that’s possible with these characters. That’s partially why this chapter took so long to release, it was meant to go in a completely different direction.

It had been a couple weeks since Benrey had moved in. For now, life was pretty much the same as it had been for Gordon, except now he had to deal with somebody eating his Honey Nut Cheerios straight out of the box like a fucking animal, and he now had to dedicate about thirty minutes of every evening to purposefully utilizing his Sweet Voice. He was at a point where he could easily toggle the ability on and off without fail, and he hadn’t had any particularly extreme emotions recently that would cause him to spew it out involuntarily. He was incredibly thankful with how easily it came to him, because he did have a life outside of the Science Team, and he couldn’t afford to lose it on account of some bullshit that was absolutely Benrey’s fault.

Always Benrey…

He supposed the man’s inclusion in the household did have some benefits other than having a ‘teacher’ near him at all times.

It encouraged him to play more video games he hadn’t experienced before, for one. As somebody that had familiarized himself solely with computer games in the last four years, Benrey’s surprisingly wide PlayStation collection was admirable, but his weird fascination with 2000’s Crash Bandicoot games, specifically Mind Over Mutant, was a tad concerning…it wasn’t a massive game changer, though. As long as Benrey didn’t start making proud exclamations that he was going to name his firstborn child after the funny marsupial, it was probably fine…

Another benefit, Gordon considered, was that Benrey was generally helpful around the house, offering to do his share of the chores not even a day after their first lesson, and this seemed to tie in well with Benrey’s technical skills with the various appliances in Gordon’s possession.

Benrey was immensely competent with technology in a way that nobody else in the Science Team could possibly rival. Tommy was up there in terms of technical literacy, able to explain in simple terms to Gordon how to restart his router when the internet had crapped out, or how to fix his computer when he accidentally flipped the screen upside-down that one time, but Benrey seemingly knew every appliance and piece of technology in the house from the inside-out. He’d even figured out how to get discs for his older games to read on the PS4. It wasn’t supposed to do that, but Benrey had found a way, like with the Internet Wad.

He shouldn’t have been surprised at this point that Benrey was continuing to challenge any and all previously conceived notions Gordon had about him. Hell, Benrey had literally walked up and asked to borrow the manuals for all the home devices within a few days of moving in; Gordon had obliged to get the man off his back, but he did, in fact, see him reading those manuals throughout that following day. Of course, this only led Gordon to wonder why Benrey seemed to arbitrarily forget things they had talked about, even if it happened minutes before.

Benrey wasn’t dumb, that much had always been obvious, but there was definitely something holding him back. Maybe he was scared of large responsibilities, so he played dumb to avoid them…no, that was giving Benrey too much credit. He was smart, but all his decisions were notably short-sighted and only focused on his current wants and needs. So, yeah, he had no idea what was going on there.

An operatic tone pulled Gordon out of his thoughts.

“Yooooo.”

“Hey Benrey.”

The other man pried his attention away from the box of Honey Nut Cheerios being held close to his chest. “…Nice shirt.”

Gordon looked down…and gave an awkward thanks.

“Where’d you get that?” Benrey probed.

According to a conversation Gordon had with one of his neighbors some time ago, there was a long-running joke involving novelty shirts that was entirely localized in the Anomalous Materials department and had resulted in said department having the means to create them whenever they wanted, which certainly explained how he had ended up with so many in the first place. Outside of a few notable exceptions, almost every single novelty shirt Gordon possessed came from his old apartment in Black Mesa and followed the criteria of either being related to his pre-game backstory, or was a joke shirt he had (apparently) created in his free time; unfortunately, neither of these things existed in his current memory. The fact that all of these shirts came from the same printing company, and that the few remaining members of the original Anomalous Materials crew could be counted on one hand and were incredibly spread out geographically, meant Gordon would have to take the daunting task of determining which shirts were legitimate creations by his workplace and which ones were created by himself in a previous life, or at least inadvertently by The Player, into his own hands.

Gordon wasn’t sure which category ‘I got my top surgery done at Black Mesa’ fell into, and honestly he didn’t care enough anymore to find out.

He responded to Benrey’s question with a shrug and a very neutral “I don’t know,” which seemed to appease the non-human enough to continue eating breakfast on the couch like a heathen.

“Is there another reason you called me over, or did you just wanna see my pajamas?”

The lingering silence, occasionally broken by audible crunching and sniffling, could drive somebody crazy. Gordon had learned that rushing Benrey didn’t help any, so he just walked away to make his own breakfast (sadly not Honey Nut Cheerios, because a certain somebody was hogging them). If his new housemate had an answer for his question, he would get it out-

“Bubby’s on his way.”

“What?”

-right now, apparently.

Benrey sniffled again before responding. “Bubby’s on his way. Gonna be here soon.”

“How do you know that?”

“Smell ‘em.”

“You can…smell him coming? While it’s raining like hell outside?”

“Yeah.”

Great, wonderful. Write that up as another horrible power to look forward to. “Why is Bubby coming to visit?”

Benrey smiled, a mischievous green color escaping from his lips. “He’s got a uhhh, feet pics.”

“He does NOT!!!!!!”

Gordon blew his own Sweet Voice back at his tormentor, who simply laughed. ‘Blue means stop it, you!’

Okay, so maybe saying he didn’t have any extreme emotions was a bit of an exaggeration, but so far these slip-ups were only happening at home and almost entirely triggered by something Benrey said or did.

It’s fine. He’s fine.

The sudden rapping and ringing of the doorbell that occurred immediately after their spat, thankfully, did not come as a surprise.

Gordon had the Science Team’s usual hints of arrival memorized: Tommy had a slow and calculated knock, Darnold rang the doorbell twice in succession, Coomer rang the bell then knocked, and the ever so extra Bubby would perform five knocks and a ring of the bell.

The seamless performance of ‘Shave and Haircut’ more than confirmed the claim of Bubby’s arrival. Again, not like he should have been surprised anymore. Benrey’s behaviors since he moved in made it clear he made a lot of shit up, but so far he never lied about how his powers worked; although he did get oddly quiet whenever he was asked about how many powers he had.

Weird but…whatever.

Gordon got up from his spot in the kitchen and opened the door for Bubby.

“I got the job at Burger King, Gordon!”

“What?”

“I got th-” He paused. “Where the hell did you get a shirt like that from?”

Normally, Gordon wouldn’t have advertised any part of his absurd shirt collection to other people, other than Benrey who he had correctly assumed on day one wouldn’t have cared, but he wasn’t really in a position to keep Bubby waiting. It was, after all, wet as fuck outside. Explaining the whole backstory behind the shirt would be too much, so he simply replied “I don’t remember.”

“Well uh, let me know if you do…I want to get one for Harold. He’d find it hilarious. Anyways, I got the job at Burger King, Gordon!”

“Oh shit, congratulations.”

“No need to boost my ego, I knew it would be easy!” Bubby beamed with arrogance. “I start in the next week or two, you should come say hi once I get my hours!”

“I don’t see why not. We’ve celebrated much smaller occasions.” Gordon looked over his shoulders, “How about you, Benrey?”

“Oh fuck YEAH bro!” Benrey’s disgustingly loud affirmation peaked like a cheap microphone. He slipped into a valley girl accent, making the experience significantly worse for everybody involved as he began chanting “Road Trip! Road Trip!” ad nauseam.

Gordon responded with another line of blue at Benrey, much less aggressive than his earlier stream. The message was conveyed, but he wasn’t sure if it actually had the same influence on Benrey that it had on himself or if Benrey was just listening to him out of kindness. He wasn’t exactly willing to try it out on anybody else to find out, either…

“You’re really getting the hang of that!” Said Bubby.

“Thanks.” A warmth peppered itself around Gordon’s cheeks. He still felt awkward about ‘expressing’ himself like this around other people. A little bit of praise did a lot for Gordon’s fragile ego, even if he had no plans to display his powers in front of anybody outside of the Science Team. “So uh, when do you want us to show up once you get your hours?”

Bubby hummed in thought before responding. “If it’s the morning shift? Probably around lunch. It’ll be the best possible time to show off my sick customer service skills.”

“You have customer service skills?”

“Well, not yet I don’t!” He half-chuckled, “But I imagine the other workers will have me trained up real quick! See you then!”

“See ya, man!”

Both men exchanged waves before Bubby slammed the door behind himself, leaving Gordon to look over his nasty self. It was, like, 1 PM. He desperately needed to put on some normal clothes.

“I’m gonna take a shower.” Gordon loudly announced. “Please don’t do anything crazy while I’m in there.”

He didn’t hear Benrey’s response, but he did catch a glimpse of him returning the cereal box to its rightful place before clipping back into the attic, which he had officially declared his place of residence. Personally, Gordon would have preferred the nice and comfy guest bedroom with a massive window to let sunlight inside, but he didn’t particularly care one way or another if Benrey rejected the objectively better living space.

If the man wanted to sleep like an opossum, then so be it; more luxury for Gordon. Although, he did secretly wish Benrey would move his sleeping quarters for the sake of his legs. Climbing the ladder to the attic kinda sucked ass.

Other than that, there were no issues…at least, not any that needed worrying about at the present time. It was the weekend, after all, which meant he had two full days to attend to whatever needed doing at a leisurely pace, not that he was pressed for time in any way. He was still unemployed after all, it was the illusion of leisure that really mattered here.

So Gordon took his sweet time in the shower, or at least he tried to. For a moment he remembered that it was raining outside and he was reminded that it was possible to get electrocuted in the shower during a thunderstorm. But, it wasn’t thundering right now so…maybe it was-?

There was a rumble outside.

Hastily, he scrubbed the remaining soap suds from his hair, ran some conditioner through for good measure, and hopped out from the awkward tub. It was annoying to maneuver over the knee-high wall of porcelain, but it was so much easier to clean compared to the sliding glass doors that had been there when he moved in, a necessary evil. Plus, you just couldn’t get the same privacy from a frosted window that a shower curtain could just as easily provide for much cheaper.

He threw on a bathrobe, a habit he had to start picking up to avoid any uncomfortable encounters with his new housemate in the hallway since the master bathroom was sadly not connected to his bedroom, and hurried across the hall to complete his routine.

There was a knock at his bedroom door while he finished combing his hair. “Goin’.”

“Going? Going where?”

“Forzen’s.”

Gordon silently let Benrey be on his way. The odd man had been hanging out with Forzen a lot since he showed up, which checked out since they were apparently best friends again. Or…maybe they never stopped being best friends from Benrey’s point of view? He wasn’t sure, and it didn’t really matter anyways.

What did matter right now was getting some of his tasks done, like grocery shopping and stopping by the movie rental shop. He decided to get the latter done first, the grocery place was bound to be crowded right now. It wasn’t that he doubted his ability to be seen in a crowded public space without a Sweet Voice outburst that wasn’t prompted by the presence of Benrey, he could do that just fine, he just didn’t like crowded spaces.

He swiftly grabbed the copy of All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (which Gordon could now definitively say he did NOT die at the end of, much to Benrey’s continued insistence) and its predecessor from the TV stand and made way to his car.

‘Who DID like crowded spaces?’ Gordon wondered. He certainly couldn’t name anybody off the top of his head. It was a question he would consider pondering later.

In around one hour he had gone to the rental store, carried a pretty casual conversation with the lady at the counter, and exchanged his duology of animated films about dogs and the consequences of toying with life and death for the original trilogy Jurassic Park, a completely unrelated series of movies also about the consequences of toying with life and death. And he’d gone through the entire scenario without even a single bubble of Sweet Voice, once again proving to himself that he was fully capable of integrating himself into human society without breaking the veil of normalcy. He could only hope that Benrey would be able to do the same. If Forzen could do it…

Actually, that was a good point.

Forzen and Benrey were pretty much the same guy aside from Forzen obviously being human, that much Gordon already knew but…shit, man. Maybe this was a good thing.

If he could teach Forzen to fit in, why couldn’t he do the same with Benrey?

Clever Gordon, very clever Gordon. And it would work out perfectly fine in the long run because Benrey was teaching Gordon how to handle his new fucked up alien puberty anyways, why not do Benrey a favor in exchange and help him integrate as well? It was a win for everybody involved.

This was good.

This was SO good!

He was absolutely electrified about this revelation; he’d dare say he was actually looking forward to Benrey getting home so he could share this brilliant plan. It was amazing, HE was amazing, and…and…his house keys were gone.

He didn’t forget them this time, he wasn’t making that mistake again, but there was a hole in the back pocket of this particular pair of jeans that he’d never really paid any mind to, just large enough for his keys to wiggle through. It wasn’t a particularly heavy set of keys: just the house key itself, the key ring attached to it, and a little plastic tag for scanning himself into the local gym. Perhaps a clunkier keychain would have saved him the embarrassment of losing his keys, but it was a bit late for that.

‘Don’t panic, Freeman.’ His inner scientist urged.

…

He wildly checked his car, convincing himself that the distinct lack of stuff on the key chain would have allowed the keys to slide around with the almost minimal amount of friction possible on a carpeted floor mat. And of course, there was some space underneath the seat that could have allowed the keys to slide to the back of the car as well. Alas, there was neither a nook nor cranny that he could scour that yielded his house keys.

Defeat engulfed Gordon like an ocean wave, he had to face the possibility that his keys were, at worst, being toted about by whatever burglar found them on the pavement outside of Aftermath Plaza; best case scenario was that they were just in another pocket…

He checked, just in case…Nope.

‘Silver lining: they may be somewhere on the floor of the rental store, and you just have to drive back for them.’ Another fair point from his inner scientist.

He leaned against a wall near the front door while he called the store. He hated the rain, it had stopped reminding him of being shot a long time ago and now just felt uncomfortable, but he was too stubborn to return to his car until he was absolutely certain that he actually needed to go back in. The overhang of the roof did a fine enough job of keeping him and the DVDs dry as it was, anyways. Perfectly justifiable.

The phone hummed, once, twice, three times. If he lingered on the noise for too long, he felt shivers from a now-ancient memory. It paired itself to pins and needles across his whole body and his mind pulling itself like taffy to see beyond a veil that he was lightyears from being able to physically reach; a voice that both was and wasn't his own spoke behind it. So thick was the veil, the voice was not even a whisper when it came through, and his own voice, when he was held together enough to speak, was even quieter by comparison. Their voices made no sound, their presence was felt and to each other was deafening. An argument in two separate realities, both sides rumbling in his skull.

His own voice manifested from the vibrations.

He leaned his focus into the voice…

“This is FYE at Poastgame, New Mexico. Judith speaking.”

“Hi Judith!” He answered way too cheerfully. Reality continued as it normally did.

Gordon explained his predicament to the woman on the other end, getting quiet hums whose meanings he didn’t quite grasp; he waited for a response once done.

The silence on the other end lasted for just a while longer before Judith spoke again. “I’m afraid I don’t see any keys around here, sir. I’m sorry.”

Great. He thanked Judith for her help regardless and followed through with the pleasantries of wishing her a good day, waiting a bit too long for her to hang up first before he stashed his phone away.

“Fuck my life.” He groaned.

He had Benrey’s number. If the man could sniff out Bubby, maybe he could sniff out the house keys as well, it was just the matter of…messaging Benrey for help that made him fucking livid. He didn’t wanna ask somebody for help.

He didn’t wanna ask Benrey for help, but it would have to be done eventually.

He gently thumped his head against the wall rhythmically, swearing under his breath with each successive impact.

This continued for about a minute. It likely would have continued for much longer if his head hadn’t decided to abruptly disobey every law of physics and pass through the wall like a knife cutting through silk. A tickling sandpapery feeling enveloped a sliver of his face, moving as his head moved. He craned his neck so that he could slip more of his head through the wall. When his eyes went into the wall, the white texture of its plaster glitched with weird black lines that quickly flickered in and out of his vision. This visual error vanished as soon as his eyes were entirely through the wall, whereupon he could now see the (upside-down because of how far back his neck was craned) interior of his house.

Noclipping.

This was noclipping.

Gordon had noclipped his head into a fucking wall.

And he was still noclipping his head into a fucking wall. He couldn’t help it, he was simply too baffled to move further.

It was like the universe was teasing him by putting him into the exact scenario where he would need to learn how to clip himself back into his own house.

He was not partial to the idea, but it was better than the alternative of…asking Benrey for help, he supposed. He didn’t care if the man was supposed to be his teacher, he should be allowed to figure at least some of this shit out on his own. Just like how Benrey had already sorta been independently figuring out how to act human beforehand. Something-something ‘independent learning’ or whatever.

This was good though, admittedly. He wouldn’t have to wait in the rain or in his car for Benrey to show up. The thought that he’d have to grab his spare house key from the bedroom and make a copy of it so he still had at least one spare key wasn’t fun, but he supposed it would be a small price to pay for a chance to figure some shit out on his own for once.

He slowly moved further into the wall, trying first to get the Jurassic Park rentals into a dry place; his empty hand passed through just fine, the one holding the DVDs, though, required a bit of force and him mentally begging for them to follow his will. He was able to place them on a side drawer so he could put the rest of his focus into just clipping himself through the wall.

He started by reorienting himself so he could see his house rightside-up again. His back was not happy with the hunched over posture he was in, but it was fine. He would be on the other side of the wall very soon.

He pulled one arm the rest of the way, then his shoulder, then the other arm. His whole chest was inside the house now.

His legs and feet refused to go through, he’d had to try pulling himself in like a cartoon gopher. Getting his hands to cooperate was hard too, they kept wanting to clip again when he really just…needed them to stay solid so he had leverage. Was leverage the right word? He wasn’t sure.

Eventually his hands decided to play nice and treat the wall like a solid object again. Good.

He pushed his arms some to pull himself inside, the rest of his chest coming through just fine…so far so good, and then part of his stomach. The awkward position of his clipping meant he had to lift his legs some to get himself further inside, but it all was working fine.

All he had to do now was get his legs, and hope he didn’t get stuck halfway. That would’ve sucked.

He dragged himself in now, his upper body sulking onto the floor, further inside and…of course, of course he got stuck. The sandpaper feeling was a ring of sensation around where the belly button was.

He’s fucking jinxed himself. No amount of clawing or kicking got him any further into or out of the house, and his hands were still treating the wall like a wall again so he couldn’t pass them through to grab the phone from his pocket. He was a spitting image of that coyote character chasing the bird, stuck in a problem of his own creation.

It’s fine.

Benrey would be back soon, hopefully. He just had to wait.

It was later now, he supposed…might as well ponder that question about people who like crowds while he waited…and maybe reconsider getting a garage for the car while he’s at it.

-

Benrey was beholden to a pretty humorous sight: Feetman half-clipped into a wall near front door, the bottom half of his sweatpants fucking soaked from the rain, and his phone, on the wrong side of the house, just slightly covered in mud after seemingly falling out of his pants pocket. The whole situation reminded him of something but…he wasn’t sure what.

He peeked his head through the door, no key required. “Yo!”

“The hell were you doing at Forzen’s?!” Damn, not even a hello? “I was starting to worry it would be dark out by the time you got back.”

“Catching up on all the memes I missed, bro.” Was he going to use any of those memes? No, not really. He didn’t roll that way, but he did like being in-the-know when it came to humor.

He phased the rest of the way through without issue, he was pretty sure Gordon was displaying jealousy on his face for a couple seconds before responding. “Of course you were. Can you uh, help me out? I’m uh, Gordon’s…Gordon’s kinda stuck.”

“Like a square peg?”

“Yeah, sure, like a square peg.”

“Yeah.” Benrey echoed Gordon’s feelings. Being stuck wasn’t fun, he remembered that much from when he was still fresh and new. This remembering was completely different from the other thing he was currently trying to remember on purpose, but he did remember that fact.

He hovered around Gordon from multiple angles, inside and outside of the house, carefully assessing the degree of stuckness so he could help with utmost care. He spotted the phone again in the ground while outside and scooped it up, wiping off the mud and the rainwater so it looked clean.

“Here’s your phone sir. One phone, extra wet. No fries.” He said, handing the device off to its owner.

“What do you have against me and French fries???”

“Kettle chips are better.” He said. The appeal for the humble french fry was entirely lost on Benrey, the insides were simply too soft for his liking.

“You know what?” Gordon said, “I’m not gonna argue with you about that.”

Holy shit for real?

“I’m totally with you about that, man. Kettle chips are awesome.”

If Benrey wasn’t determined to become Gordon’s best friend before, he 300% was now. Do you have any idea how much 300% is?? That’s like, a LOT!

“Tommy…” Benrey had to pause so he could process how excited he was to find something he and Gordon had in common. Potato products are a big deal, after all. “…Tommy makes good kettle chips.”

“Oh fuck yeah. First time I actually tried Kettle chips was when Tommy made them for my birthd-can we please focus?” Gordon’s face went all serious as he cut himself off.

“Yeah man no problem.”

“Cool.”

Wait. “Wait!!!”

“What?”

Dude. Oh god. “Oh my god dude.”

“What??”

“Bro I…I missed Tommy’s birthday! I’ve missed like, four birthdays! I gotta make it up to him, man.”

“Can we PLEASE fucking concentrate on what’s going on right now instead of some shit that’s already happened?”

“Wow, okay.” Benrey huffed, trying to convey a playful tone. “What a way to talk to the guy getting your ass un-wet from the rain.”

“Please do not use those words in that exact order ever again.”

He laughed and did another lookover of the situation, starting from the outside. There was a faint chuckle from the interior. What a wonderful laugh. That was a laugh that needed to be put in the laughter hall of fame with Tommy’s laugh, and his own…

Yeah. Gordon was suuuuuper stuck no matter how he framed it. He could drag him out himself easily…or he could make this into a Benrey Teacher Moment.

He dramatically flung himself onto the floor in front of Gordon, posing brilliantly. “So uh…you got stuck in a wall, did’ja?”

“Are you fucking flirting with me?” He waited for an answer before sighing. “…Yes. I did get stuck in a wall, thank you for noticing. Are you gonna help me out?”

“Not yet, not yet, this is, uh…impromptu lesson.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.” Benrey nodded. “You gotta learn to get your settings menu under control. You can do shit by thinking about it, if you think too hard about something, it’s gonna happen, and then you’re gonna get in situations like this all the time. Yeah?”

Gordon nodded back at him, slowly. He couldn’t tell if the man’s face was from anger or from thinking very hard about his settings menu.

“Gonna get stuck a lot more often if you don’t figure yourself out. Just like uh……”

“Like what? What are you trying to conjure up with your head?”

“Like uh…” He still couldn’t remember. It had something to do with walls and… “armadillo?”

“…What?”

“Armadillos, man!!” Yeah no, he was totally onto something. If he just explained it enough, he would remember. Or at the very least Gordon would know what he was talking about. He started to kick his legs behind him and play with the ears of his fuzzy hat in excitement, not really focusing on Gordon like he was supposed to.

“What do you mean armadillos? What are you talking about?”

“You know, armadillos! They’ve got the thin curly horns. Monty armadillos. They were in the uh, the floorboards or something, or…actually it was also in the walls, like you are right now…”

“Benrey…”

“…Like they were just living there. And there’s this guy and he’s like ‘Uuuugh. Buuuh. There’s armadillos in my wall in the basement or whateverrrrrr.’ Cause there’s holes in the wall right? Like armadillo holes. So they were getting in and out with the holes…”

“Benrey.”

“…and the reason they were coming in was because they were stealing his wine. Just taking all of it. Don’t know why though, maybe they just like it. So he tries to fill in the holes in the wall and the armadillos are like ‘bro you don’t have any caulk we stole it all’ and he was like ‘okay then what’s this?’ And then bam! He had the caulk with him the WHOLE time!”

“BENREY!”

“Whaaaaaaa-tuh?” Benrey whined. He looked in Gordon’s direction with his arms splayed out in front of him.

“I need you to be quiet so I can focus.”

“You don’t like armadillos bro? Funny deer guys? Live in Africa?”

“First of all, pretty sure that’s antelopes. Second of all…are you thinking of fucking…the Edgar Allen Poe thi-” Gordon let out a pained profanity, punctuated by a particularly loud thud.

“Oh shit you got out!”

He flipped himself over like a pancake to meet eyes with Gordon, who was now clambering himself out of the Ass-Up-Crumpled-Napkin Position he had managed to get into.

“Crongatulation you have uh, paper clips.”

Gordon physically cringed at the mutilated pronunciation of ‘Congratulations’ and shook his head, “No. No way, man, you’re gonna have to explain this shit better…But-!”

Benrey jumped.

“I need to tell you something first, and before that-” Gordon strutted into the hallway. “I need to get into something not soaked with rainwater, I can NOT work like this.”

“Don’t like rain bro?”

The conversation continued at a medium-volume shout between the foyer/living room and Gordon’s bedroom. Yet another thing Benrey didn’t quite get…not the bed part, the open windows. At least this one he understood was because humans didn’t go into immediate sleepytime when drenched in blue light. Lucky.

“I like the CONCEPT of rain and I like how it sounds on the roof at night when I’m going to bed, but I don’t like the feeling of getting rained on. It’s like a shower I didn’t consent to.”

“We gotta fix that.”

“Fix what??”

“That sleeping thing. Shouldn’t have to do it every day. Super inefficient.”

At this time, Gordon had walked back into the living room with a new pair of jeans and had returned his voice to a normal volume. “Are you telling me you don’t need 8 hours of sleep every day?”

“What? No!” Man he WISHED he could stay up for days on end. That would be cool as fuck. “No, I just think it’s dumb that we need to sleep every day. They should make it so you only have to do it once a week…or just make it optional.”

“Who the hell is gonna change how sleep works?”

“Sleepytime gods.”

“I don’t think those are real. Anyways…”

Benrey huffed. Again, to display he wasn’t being serious. He even made an exaggerated pout. “You don’t know that.”

“ANYWAYS!”

He was led into the living room, Gordon picking up a stack of DVDs near the front door and placing them on the tv stand before sitting in his recliner. Benrey debated on whether or not to sit on the floor, but out of courtesy decided to sit in the seat nearest to him instead.

“So, I know I said I wanted you to help me work out the noclipping stuff, but I need to share this with you before I forget it.”

He nodded.

“I have an idea on how we can make this…” he waved his arms around, “situation more beneficial for the both of us. Okay?”

Another nod.

Gordon started with a long-winded explanation on how he had ‘fixed’ Forzen’s social skills.

Bullshit, there’s nothing wrong with Forzen, he’s just Forzen. What happened to him wasn’t even his fault…but then again…did Gordon even know about that? Forzen didn’t like to elaborate on stuff unless he needed to so…shit, maybe Gordon doesn’t know about That Thing, then. He would let this offense slide since he obviously doesn’t know what happened…

Now, Gordon was talking about helping Benrey himself with social skill stuff and…okay, but like…he’s already doing so good at fitting in? At least, Benrey thought he was doing good. He’s not human though so…maybe there’s some stuff he’s doing that isn’t sufficiently human-enough.

Normalcy mattered a lot to Gordon, that’s what Doctor Coomer had said to him a couple days ago. Something was going on with Gordon that was making him paranoid, something that had him convinced that the Science Team as a whole needed to act as close to normal humans as physically possible, especially while in public. It was going to be addressed in that meeting that ended up not working out…but, well, that kinda blew up for reasons somewhat outside of their control. And now Gordon was asking for Benrey to be more like HIM, to tighten up how he acts around other people.

It was…he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He absolutely wanted to fit in, now that he was free from Black Mesa, but what would that entail? What were Gordon’s standards for him fitting in? Was it worth it?

…

It…it had to be worth it. It just had to be. Benrey had spent a lot of time alone, figuring things out on his own before Black Mesa captured him. He liked attention, even bad attention, but he didn’t like the consequences of the bad attention. This, though? This felt like good attention, being able to have Gordon’s approval felt like good attention.

This was worth it, he decided.

If it meant they could become friends one day, then jumping over however many hoops Gordon wanted was more than worth it. Proving he was worthy of Gordon’s friendship was worth it. It wasn’t like this was being done without compensation, he was already helping Gordon with his own shit. By that logic, it only seemed fair that Gordon do something for him in return, besides letting him stay at the house.

So…he smiled back at Gordon, to the best of his ability, and agreed.

“Yes! This is great!” Gordon laughed, what a gorgeous laugh it was. “This is perfect, even!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, dude!”

Benrey laughed too. This was worth it. It was fine. This would all turn out fine.

“God…that reminds me.”

Benrey tilted his head. Did Gordon forget something too? He wouldn’t blame him if he did.

“I was gonna go to the grocery store today but, I’m honestly too people’d out to physically go anywhere now. And I’d rather get the noclipping figured out before I leave the house. Do you wanna like…come with me tomorrow?”

“For real?” If Benrey had a tail, it would be wagging with excitement.

“Yeah just…so that I don’t have to worry about getting stuck again. I actually can’t afford to NOT go to the store tomorrow so the help is appreciated. And it-it’ll be good practice for you! I’ll even let you buy, like…a fun snack or something for the trouble.”

“Road trip?”

“No.”

“Road trip?!”

“It is NOT-”

“ROAD TRIIIIIP!”

“BENREY!!!” Gordon got up from his seat, phone in one hand while the other was cupped around his mouth. “I need to-I NEED TO CALL ACE HARDWARE! ABOUT COPYING MY HOUSE KEY! AND THE GYM ABOUT MY MISSING MEMBERSHIP TAG THING!”

“ROAD TRIIIIIIP!”

“I’LL BE OUTSIDE!”

Road trip! Road trip!!!! Fuck yeah!!!!!!!!

Totally worth it!

-

Gordon’s shoulders slowly relaxed, his relief nearly palpable. “Thank you, I appreciate the understanding.”

“Of course, sir. There’ll be a $15 fee for the replacement tag, but you should be fine as long as you can provide the phone number your account is under.”

“Awesome, thank you again. Have a good night.”

“You too, sir.”

Click!

Given how long he’d been stuck in the wall for, he was not too surprised that pretty much everywhere was nearing closing time, not that it mattered since he had no plans to leave again tonight. He just wanted to know when everything opened tomorrow so he could get everything done as soon as possible.

Now that he had done that, he could enjoy the sound of rain on the overhang above and reflect on his conversation with Benrey. He expected a tiny argument at the very least, but the man had accepted the deal without a hint of complaint. He was honestly thankful that Benrey accepted so quickly, he wasn’t sure he would have had the energy to properly defend his idea if they had argued. Overall, this had been a very successful proposition.

“Dude!”

Gordon yelped. “What?!”

“Cask of Amontillado!”

“Huh??”

Benrey was gone before he could ask any sort of coherent question. Not too surprising, but certainly not ideal…

The first thing on his Benrey-specific to-do list was going to be volume control. The second was going to be…context, he supposed. Context for whatever the fuck he was talking about at any given time.

Goodness knows Gordon was gonna need it.

[fadebolt]

I've seen some people posting their attacks collection from this year, so here's mine:

With the lovely targets being:

1. meowynn

2. aquaticnebulae

3. soul-sylver

4. sb-is-a-thing

5. saintwyrm

6. bindibites

7. phishtoast

8. pansear-doodles

9. toiletpapericecream

Decided not to ping them here, since I already did it once when I posted the attacks individually. But these are their blog names, and they're cool people with cool art - so feel free to look through their stuff!

This was an awesome first year of Artfight! Huge thanks to everyone who sent me their creations involving my powerswap scugs, I adore them all quite a lot! And thanks for all the wonderful comments and reactions to my attacks as well!

You guys were wonderful, and I hope I'll get to see you next year as well! :)

(Bonus ramblings about AF thoughts below cut. Be warned, they do be lengthy)

So when I was starting out with the site, I looked around on the internet to see what people had to say (out of curiosity, and to maybe find something helpful). And apparently, there are a bunch of entitled users that complain if the art you send them isn't "high quality" enough, or if you don't send a revenge for their attacks.

And I'm just sitting here, and wondering which Artfight did these people show up to, cus I've frankly never seen a person like that. Everyone was super sweet and appreciative when I attacked them, and I received zero scorn from attackers I didn't revenge. Perhaps it's something that happens only outside the Rain World community?

Anyhow, I ended this year with a solid 9/5, which might seem like rookie numbers for many, which... is actually kind of fair, considering that I am technically a rookie.

I really didn't expect to get attacked at all, considering that my refs were slightly rushed, and not particularly polished (something I'll hopefully get around to addressing in the meantime). Though I did have hopes that sharing my profile on Tumblr, and some Discord servers might help.

Funny thing is, I don't think any of those 5 people came from there, as they haven't interacted with me on Tumblr yet, and they haven't joined the servers that I was in. There's no way for me to confirm this, but they probably found me while browsing through the AF website itself, which is extremely flattering (especially since I initially thought that folks usually just attack their friends... turns out that ain't quite the case).

But this also proves that my theory about people liking powerswap Slugcats was actually correct! Which is great, cus they're a blast to create, and hopefully by next year, I'll get to have the other half of the cast (name ideas are 'Lightcat', 'The Crusader', 'The Solitary' 'The Augmented' and 'The Gambler', but it's all subject to change).

There were also some of my OCs which showed up in my attacks - I'm planning on adding them in, too. (So if you like necromancers, wizards that copy the spells of others, and weird fanchildren of niche ships, then I got some wonderful news for you!)

Speaking of my attacks, I definitely didn't draw nearly as much as I did for Art Month. That's because I decided it would be better to take things a bit slower, to have more fun, and avoid burnout. As I would rather send over a few attacks that I enjoyed, than to rapidly rush out like 60, to hit as many people as possible.

Sure, it'll mean that I won't get to attack as many people, but I still think it's worth it, as I get to enjoy myself more, while my target gets a better piece.

I was slightly concerned that a lot of people would find it insulting that I used a randomizer to pick targets, but nobody seemed to mind, which is great. After all, there were no bad intentions on my part, I just simply had too many people I considered worthy of being attacked, and I needed some outside help to combat my indecisiveness. There's simply too many great artists in this community!

My list consisted of SC members that stayed (I was grateful for their efforts to keep the place alive, and I felt this would be a great way to thank them), some other people from the fandom that I liked, and my attackers, who were given a multiplier of 5 to their chances, cus yeah xd

There were over 30 people there, so it's safe to say that I didn't get to most of them. I think next year, I'll give them increased chances too, and hopefully, I get around to most of 'em. (Unless I'll have to work on my thesis in July... I don't quite remember when that's going to happen. Hopefully, that won't be the case, and I'll have a bunch of free time, like this year, and I'll be able to do more than 9 attacks then. Fingers crossed)

So that's pretty much all I wanted to say here. I'm not sure if I should post any updates or uploads I do to my characters there btw. I suppose we'll see.

But the event was real fun, and I'm looking forward to experiencing it again!

[vintage-bentley]

From what I've heard from like five people atp: It's implied that Crowley was a very high ranking angel; he's working on a star system and summons a subordinate angel to help him, who happens to be Aziraphale. But he wasn't actually paying any attention to Aziraphale. Crowley was completely fixated on his work, and gets upset when Aziraphale mentions that his stars are only for humans to view from far away and will ultimately get destroyed along with everything else during Armageddon. It's further implied that Crowley's reasons for Falling were because he went and questioned God about how his work deserved a bigger role in Her Great Plan, and feels secure enough about his place in Heaven's hierarchy to think he can get away with it.

Hmmm I’m really not sure how I feel about that. As I said before, when he mentioned working on stars, he said “I helped build that one”. Not “I’m super cool and special so I made this all by myself”. So I wonder if Neil always had it in mind for him to be a higher angel than Aziraphale, or if he decided on it after seeing that’s what a large portion of the fandom wanted? Somebody in the notes of the last ask brought up a good point about his powers—he can stop time, which doesn’t really seem like something just anybody would be able to do. I also wonder if the whole lightning thing we see in the trailer is related to the lightning we see from Gabriel on the airbase in S1. So it’s possible this was planned all along…I just can’t get myself fully on board until I see it play out myself. I had my hopes up for the husbands to have always been perfectly equal.

I don’t blame him for getting upset though…as an artist I can agree it would really suck to be seeing your work up close and think it’s great, and then be told “lol sorry nobody’s going to see the details, they’re just going to see a blur from far away” 💀

It’s kinda funny that him being a cocky little shit is part of why he falls. “All I ever did was ask questions” sir you let your ego get the best of you and you know it.

Honestly the scene sounds intriguing and I’m very excited for it! I’m sure I’ll warm up to the whole higher angel Crowley thing, especially if it doesn’t play any part in his current life as a demon. As long as he and Aziraphale are equals now, I’ll be happy. As he said himself, his days as an angel were a long time ago. So they don’t really hold much weight now.

[literaticat]

I notice that many debut authors feel like they don't get any or enough support from publishers as their book launches, feel like that's the reason why their sales aren't an immediate splash, that their book not being an immediate splash means that it won't do well, and that their future opportunities are limited. They've heard the focus on your next book advice, but how do you help clients take a breathe and understand building readership and sales take time?

I guess I try to manage expectations generally. Most debuts DON'T blow up the bestseller list or whatever, for any number of reasons, the main one being NOBODY HAS HEARD OF YOU.

Your publisher could put ads up in the subway or whatever -- but it probably wouldn't be that effective, because nobody knows what your thing is, and nobody cares. Do YOU spend a lot of time looking up info about billboards you see for something you've never heard of before? I'm betting not. That kind of advertisement works when an author or property ALREADY has a following. So you see an ad for a new book by like, A Celebrity, or A Famous Author, and you go "oh wow, Jose Canseco wrote a book? My brother would like that!" -- whereas if you see an ad for something that has no name recognition or "hook" for your brain, it probably just looks like wallpaper to you.

So your publisher actually isn't totally stupid (regardless of how it might seem at times), and they KNOW that for an unknown author, spending big money on an advertising blitz is extremely likely to NOT bear fruit.

The thing most likely to get your book to blow up: Organic publicity surrounding it -- ie, UNPAID buzz that gets it in front of people's eyeballs. The trick here, it can't JUST be book reviews in Kirkus or whatever -- those are nice, but for a book to blow up big time you need MORE than positive reviews. Trade reviews really only reach people who are already enmeshed in the book industry -- to blow up BIG TIME, you have to be able to reach beyond that audience to casual readers, or even people who rarely buy books. Things like you or the subject of your book being part of a news story, or an influencer doing a funny tiktok about your book that goes viral. The problem here is, it's REALLY hard to make this happen "inorganically" or PLAN for it, and usually if a publisher or author TRIES to make this happen, they can't. If a publisher were to try to replicate that viral tiktok moment that worked to blow up a book last month, and did everything JUST the same way, it would likely never go viral.

Being that "going viral overnight" is likely out of both your and the publisher's control, you probably have to build the old fashioned way: Getting people to read your book, and build by word of mouth, and grow an audience in a slow-and-steady fashion so that when your NEXT book comes out, there are already some people waiting for it, and when the NEXT book comes out after that, there are MORE people EXCITEDLY waiting for it, etc etc.

What the publisher is likely going to spend their marketing dollars on is NOT the subway ad or whatever splashy thing like that-- but rather, things that are somewhat more invisible to you -- bringing the book to librarian and bookseller conferences, doing "bigmouth" mailings, trying to talk it up to buyers and tastemakers, etc. Rather than try to reach one reader at a time, they are looking to get your book in front of the eyeballs of folks who place orders for bookstores and bookstore chains and library systems. If THOSE people love the book, then the book will be available in stores and libraries for random consumers to buy and read, which is the best possible first step. :-)

All of that, too, is largely out of YOUR control, though.

Some things IN your control: Patience, grace, kindness to yourself, your publishing team, your readers or potential readers in person and online. Putting yourself out there, being befriending booksellers and librarians and other authors, boosting other people's books online, going to book events, etc -- all this truly can make a difference. People WANT to support people who are nice to and supportive of them -- Diva attitude wears thin fast.

But the biggest thing in your control is to write a great NEXT book! That's why people give that advice -- in a world where little is in your control, at least THAT is. And the best boost for sales of backlist books is a new book coming out.

LOL did that even answer the question? (Sorry, this got long and was in drafts for a bit and then I added MORE instead of subtracting - sigh)

[therappundit]

PUNDIT PICKS: "THE CREAM" of the Crop [My Favorite Albums of 2024 (*so far*)]

ICYMI, my ongoing series on the best of 2024: https://therappundit.tumblr.com/post/756082881246461952/the-pundits-picks-more-of-2024s-finest-part

***Please note: the selections on this list had to have dropped by 8/31/24, FYI***

Back in June/July, I began compiling what would become my ongoing "best of" list for 2024. I wasn't trying to rank my favorite music at that point, I was mostly concerned that the weekly onslaught of new music throughout the year could lead to a noteworthy piece of art missing these ears, and slipping through the cracks. I wanted to close out *the summer* with a list of my favorite albums of the year up through the end of summer, and I planned on releasing that list to public scrutiny at the end of Labor Day weekend...

It is now October.

Welp, plans are meant to be flexible, I guess. 😬 Timing be damned, I want to share with the world all of the shout-outs I possibly can, the cream of the crop, my favorite albums of the year as we closed out the summer season (bring on hoodie season, that tends to be when I feel like me the most).

And in no particular order, here are some of my favorite albums of 2024 [*up through the end of summer*]: Out Of The Blue by Blu & Shafiq Husayn, Lil Old Town by DJ Lucas & DVNTBEATS, WE DON'T TRUST YOU by Future & Metro Boomin, Pinball by MIKE & Tony Seltzer, For Hustlers Only by WB Nutty, MMCHT by Nickelus F., The Pride & Glory by Teller Bank$ & Ed Glorious, Nubian Cruiser by Ronday, Black Box: JOSHUA IS DEAD by Joshua Virtue, Black & Whites by Big Hit, Hit-Boy & The Alchemist, the First to Make Contact When We Dap by R.A.P. Ferreira & Fumitake Tamura, Shadowbox by Mavi, EMBERGO_ by Nakama., DOOF & ESCEE 2 by Doof, Escee & August Fanon, So Much Enrgy & Sav by Ysr Gramz & enrgy beats, Mr Beat The Road by Bossman Dlow, soul food for the family by rimhan, WATCH THE THRONE by Jaeychino, Marciology by Roc Marciano, PLAYWAY OR NOWAY by RRB LILMEL, My Story Got Stories by Bruiser Wolf, BIG MYAAP, NOT THE LIL ONE by Myaap, The Tonite Show The Sequel by Curren$y & DJ.Fresh, Nobody Planning To Leave by ShrapKnel & Controller 7, CHUPACABRA by JasonMartin & DJ Quik, Scoob Wav by WTM Scoob, LOYALTY: BIRTH OF SUPER RUFUS by Rufus Sims & Billionaire Boyscout, Flint 2 Detroit by YN Jay, Plea$e Don't Think I'm Actin Funny by Bub Rock, BLUE LIPS by ScHoolboy Q, Memoirs In Armour by Navy Blue, Can't Go Bacc by Nino Paid, Day Shift, Vol. 1 by Lil Tre, Pigmen In the Vitreous by Knoweye, Brown in America by HOODLUM, Alchemy by Jay Cinema & Chow, All Infinite by Kooley High & Tuamie

24. A Forsaken Lover's Plea by Chuck Strangers

(I always look forward to new Chuck, who frequently racks up accolades as a producer, but never seems to get his just due as the great MC that he is. A true double-double threat with every release.)

23. Deathtape 2: We Gon' Need Each Other by Quelle Chris, Cavalier, and Denmark Vessey

(Any time one of these artists releases anything, you know it's must-cop art....so naturally when they all collaborate, they make one hell of a short but sweet haymaker of a project.)

22. DECON$TRUCT!ON by Maassai

(What was pitched as a collection of loosies recorded over the past few years came off as a sharp, memorable showcase for one of Brooklyn's most talented MC's.)

21. Save The Bees by Big Flowers & Messiah Musik

(Big Flowers is part of one of the greatest communities of exciting NY talent that we have seen in years, so pairing the thoughtful MC/producer with Messiah Musik - one of the most potent producers in underground hip-hop right now - yields a palette of sounds and messages that feel stronger with every listen.)

20. WOODSTOCK '99 by Nick Satchel & dp0mmy

(Nick really seemed to put his foot down into this one, shining alongside an old friend in Atlanta-by-way-of-St. Louis producer dp0mmy...who continues to raise the bar of what he can achieve sonically, remaining one of the greatest secret weapons in hip-hop right now. More on dp0mmy in the weeks to come...) 👀

19. Bag Man Julio by Jaysanityy

(A name you are sure to be more familiar with in the near future, the DMV's Jaysanityy is one of the most complete artists you will find in underground hip-hop. Check out any of his work, and I guarantee you will wonder why he's not already mentioned in the same breath as artists like Mavi, Pink Siifu, and Maxo.)

18. 74: Out of Time by Ol' Burger Beats

(Another fantastic, less heralded producer helms this compilation album, which is stacked with great songs from some of the indy world's finest, and sounds far too cohesive to leave off of my favorite album list.)

17. WAKING UP AND CHOOSING VIOLENCE by YUNGMORPHEUS & Alexander Spit

(Few MC's are able to sound so cutting with their words without sounding enraged quite like YUNGMORPHEUS, who has steadily put out some of the best rap music out of anyone's catalogue over the past 5-6 years. He's joined by another one of 2024's MVP's, Alexander Spit, who happens to be one of the most skilled producers at creating cool instrumentals to help support, rather than outshine, the messages of his MC's collaborators.)

16. This Too Shall Pass by Yo OG

(Rapidly becoming onf of my favorite MC's, No Label collective's Yo OG - sometimes shortened to just OG - is strong enough to carry an album on his own, but when he joins forces with other talented affiliates from No Label, it's clear that this whole team is about to be a force in hip-hop music.)

15. Black Blues Brothers by HALAL BOYS

(Representing Phoenix AZ, I knew nothing about Lord Ra and Gorgeous Jefe heading into 2024, but leaving 2024 they're high up on my radar as one of the most exciting duos I have heard in a while.)

14. Memory(ummm) by Sleep Sinatra & bloomcycle

(Speaking of 2024 MVP's...Sleep Sinatra is a tried and true veteran MC/producer that seems to be going the fine wine route, while bloomcycle - the producer alias of previously mentioned Big Flowers - also seemed to be making an impact on various different projects this year. Together they created a standout album, equally effective as a tightly made cohesive personal work as it is a collection of great collaborations with fellow amazing artists.)

13. SOLACE by Marco Plus

(To make a name for yourself coming out of Atlanta's deep, deeeeep music scene, and to do so without being already tied to a major industry name, or even delivering the "typical" type of crossover rap music that the ATL is known for, is pretty impressive. But once you hear Marco Plus spit, it's not too surprising. His ear for beats is only surpassed by his hungry delivery on the microphone, so of course it's no surprise that this year he has received dap from some of the most established artists in the ATL, like JID. I would say keep an eye out for Marco more in the future, but my guess is that he will knock down more doors and make a name for himself without anyone having to dig too deep to find his work.)

12. Almighty So 2 by Chief Keef

(Am I surprised that Chief Keef dropped one of my favorite albums this year? No, I'm more surprised that in 2024 I am so eager to hear his work at all. I was woefully late to - dare I say, straight up refused to board - the bandwagon for Keef. He has been buried on my "happy for him and his success, but I don't feel the need to hear anything else from this man" list since the "Bang" video. Sure, I dug more than a few Keef cuts over the years, here and there, while he was putting in work on project after project to become a better all around producer and recording artist. He really understands rap, trap, and how to deliver a sonically appealing album that in spite of his relatively limited subject matter, doesn't come off as cookie cutter. Almighty So 2 has been very well received, but garnered some "meh" responses from his core base, since this is probably his most accessible, polished, mainstream-ready project to date. But make no mistake, there is no lacking in raw energy and clever commentary, both are provided in abundance here, and we're all better for it. I can now say what I began to feel back with 4NEM in 2021: I am a Chief Keef fan.)

11. PERSEVERANCE by Jay Cinema & JUNE! as JUNECINEMA

(Sure they share great chemistry as MCs & Producers, but what shines through the most on PERSEVERANCE is their pure love of music. It's one thing to come off hungry, but to come off as being excited just to make and release music? That's become an increasingly rare commodity. JUNE! and Jay Cinema have really put their mark in underground hip-hop over the past two years, and this album feels like a culmination of their growth and confidence as recording artists. Take Jay's classic NYC MC swagger, plus JUNE!'s delivery that often reaches construction site levels of gravelly, then interweave clear shout-outs to their loves and musical influences, and you get a dope underground collaboration with strong replay value.)

10. Sour Dub by Rich Jones & SINAI.

(A unique talent that threads the needle between singing and rapping in a casual and authentic way - possibly the best to juggle both since a certain famous Canadian actor/rapper/singer, Rich Jones is always guaranteed to put out some interesting work. Here he joins forces with SINAI. a.k.a. Sleep Sinatra - and boy what a year he's had - and the two deliver some of the most grounded, feel-good somber music that I have heard in quite some time. I'm not sure if "feel-good somber music" is even a thing, but if it is, Rich & Sleep are maestros at the artform.)

9. 3rd Shift by J.U.S. & Squadda B

(I'm not as familiar with Squadda B as I probably should be, but I know he made an impact as one half of Oakland's Main Attrakionz. Here he delivers engaging, diverse production for Bruider Brigade's J.U.S, who I am more familiar with, as he has been near the top of my personal "most slept-on MC" list for several years strong now. Together their chemistry is sublime, with Squadda's slappin' beats providing ample space for J.U.S to speak his mind over.)

8. F.U.N. T.O.Y. by Sideshow

(Alexander Spit got busy on this one, tossing a varied collection of sounds at Sideshow to work with. In turn, the L.A. MC delivered another interesting piece of work, touching on a rolling list of thoughts, but not staying long enough in any one passing thought to reach a completion. While this could be problematic for a lot of artists, for Sideshow it works quite well, in my opinion. F.U.N. T.O.Y. feels like the equivalent of going on a long drive alone to clear your head, and jumping from song to song on the car radio. That might not be the most purposeful and effective drive in the world, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable or thought provoking. Sideshow is the epitome of a "leave them wanting more" MC.)

7. The Thief Next to Jesus by Ka

(The writer's writer returns. At this point, I don't know what else can be said about this man's pen, but from a longevity standpoint, let's talk about how challenging it must be to maintain a certain level of elite rapping - and well into one's fifties. Ka's experience as a MC is well documented, but as a producer, Thief lives amongst his finest, dare I day accessible production work. Here he keeps the darkness at bay with powerful soul, grit, and determination, delivering a fantastic album that doesn't denounce the purposes of devout faith, but parses the complexities behind keeping a religious mindset in today's world.)

6. sunscreen by shemar & Child Actor

(Likely the shortest project on this list, but surely one of the year's most potent. shemar speaks to a generation of artists that have grown up in and around NYC accepting the music of artists like Armand Hammer, and not as "alternative underground rap", but simply where the bar happens to exist today. In turn, on sunscreen shemar comes off with a stream of consciousness flow and a chip on his shoulder, which when combined with the raw and majestic smokiness of Child Actor's instrumentals, makes for an ear gripping listening experience. This is peak 3:00am on the L train music.)

5. Los Angeles by Blu & Evidence

(I'm not sure if any other MC can brag about having the sheer volume of dope music drop within the first 3/4 of a calendar year at Blu's level. The underground vet seems to be enjoying a hungry renaissance, releasing three albums by my own personal deadline for this list (another great piece of work with Exile has also been released since). The news of Blu releasing a full project with fellow west coast underground legend Evidence, was only surpassed by the actual final product. Los Angeles is a sonically phenomenal, lyrically on-point love letter/indictment of the coast's most infamous city. Hip-hop history is stacked with unforgettable releases that perfectly capture the soul and feeling of L.A. life, but I don't know if it's ever been done this successfully with such a full a collection of beautifully curated vintage 90's underground vibes.)

4. Different Type Time by Cavalier

(Cavalier had a great year. Folks in the know have been not-so-patiently waiting for this one, because whenever Cav drops anything it might not be the loudest album in the room, but it will always be one of the finest. When fans learned that this album was going to be released through modern day Def Jux-esque powerhouse and bily woods boosted record label Backwoodz Studioz, even higher expectations were bestowed upon Different Type Time. Cavalier might not be a New York City resident anymore, but the feeling across this album is an open diary of a wizened New Yorker, a grown man in the rap game that's seen enough light and darkness to know that day to day life will always end up being somewhere in the middle. Similarly to other razor-penned MC's like Ka and Skyzoo, Cav is not preoccupied with knockout punchlines as much as he is focused on making each bar land like it's own story, each a bittersweet memory over a swooning jazzy backdrop.)

3. Service Merchandise by Previous Industries [Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, Still Rift]

(Sometimes the only thing capable of being funnier than a great stand-up comedian, is a group of old friends just shootin' the shit together. Comedy is dependent not only on well-written jokes, but also impeccable timing, chemistry, and a certain level of connection with the audience. Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, and Still Rift have no trouble making a connection with their audience, and they know their voices well enough to probably finish each other's sentences, and stick the landing on any cultural reference within a verse. Service Merchandise is an underground rap album that could only be made during these times by middle-aged hip-hop artists that have long since come to terms with the fact that they just aren't destined to be flashing rollies in glossy rap videos surrounded by gyrating bikini models...and that's okay. Stacked to the brim with nerd nostalgia, pop culture references, and thematic homages to fallen retail chains - not to mention expert rapping, lyricism, and a laundry list of some of hip-hop's finest underground producers - Previous Industries excel at balancing the art of waxing nostalgic without dismissing the positivity that could come from the present and future. Fellow writer/music thirster, the great Son Raw, spoke positively of the album as well, matching it to De La Soul vibes, and surely that's a comparison to be proud of.)

2. #RICHAXXHAITIAN by Mach-Hommy

[The mysterious Mach man strikes again. After what felt like a long enough delay to start asking "is it actually dropping, or was it scrapped?", Mach-Hommy released #RICHAXXHAITIAN in May to strong reviews, albeit with less hype than what came with the first album listening session back in 2023. A handful of familiar guests, as well as a handful of expected trademarks (Mach is still successfully "flippin' _____ like" whenever possible) made the album feel like a Mach album, but musically he was working with a higher level of pristine selections. Without losing any hint of his unpredictability or raw delivery, Mach managed to work in an additional layer of polish or two, curating each song on the album as if "this could be the one". Thoughtful, culturally attuned to his Haitian American status, and as willing to dip a toe in experimental territory as he's ever been, if #RICHAXXAITIAN isn't Mach-Hommy's most well-rounded album thus far, it's damn near close.]

1. Sewaside III by Mike Shabb

(Montreal, stand up. Whatever Mike Shabb may lack due to his youth, he more than makes up for it with his body of work in hip-hop, utility knife of talents. Shabb is an elite beatmaker and MC, and he possesses a rare assortment of skills that work equally well with both trap and boom-bap sensibilities. He may have the highest ceiling of any MC on this list, because like other gifted artists like MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, and Vince Staples, he represents a modern MC that doesn't see a problem with placing Lil Baby and Roc Marciano back to back on the same mixtape. Sewaside III is a great representation of how Shabb continues to grow more polished with each release, without sacrificing his raw underground essence. Staring at the last few months of 2024, if this one ends up being my favorite rap album of the year when the ball drops on Dec. 31st, I will be quite fine with that.)

Next up...my favorite SONGS of the year (*as of the end of summer*)...thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

[glassprism]

It's been said that Webber Christine shows the most strength and fierceness, more than other any other versions. But when watching 2004 movie Webber Christine that same feel isn't there. Why did they insist to have her be a bit more weaker than the stage? Did that look better to do for movie purposes?

Oh, I don't know about being the strongest and fiercest, plus it really depends on the actress. (Meghan Picerno? Very fierce. Sarah Brightman? More dreamy than fierce.) Like, I think Leroux's Christine, who slams a door in Erik's face, wields a pair of scissors in case Erik should "stop acting like a gentleman", lies to Erik's face for two weeks, bashes her own head against a wall - that's pretty strong. Not to mention Claude Rains's Christine, who ditches both men in favor of her own career, or Robert Englund's Christine, who literally sets his lair on fire, both badass in different ways.

I think the best way to say it is that ALW's Christine experiences the most growth and change, since she starts off naive and passive but becomes independent over the course of the show, while others, like Leroux's Christine, are quite strong to begin with but do display less growth as a consequence. (And then there's Kay's Christine who just doesn't mature at all. Just a flat line of character development.)

But anyway, one thing about the movie is that they cut off scenes that show more of Christine's defiance. The big one for me is 'Notes II', a scene in the musical where Christine 1) yells at Carlotta, 2) yells at the managers, 3) yells at Raoul, and 4) yells at everyone before running off. The movie, however, removes most of the scene, leaving only Raoul's plan and 'Twisted Every Way'. This is part of the adaptation process, of course, where scenes get shortened or removed to bring the runtime down, and it makes some sense because 'Twisted Every Way' is moved to after the graveyard scene, not before as in the musical, but it does mean that a moment of Christine actually speaking out for herself is excised.

Another aspect is just the direction given to Emmy Rossum and her acting, such as in 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again'. In the musical, most actresses use this scene as Christine's big growth moment - Christine is finally moving on from her grief, she's ready to stand on her own feet, etc. In the 2004 movie, though, Emmy Rossum is just... sad. She's sad. It's honestly a bit funny because it seems like nobody actually listened to the lyrics of the song ("No more memories, no more silent tears, no more gazing across the wasted years!"), as if the director was just like, "Oh, 'Wishing'? It's the sad song, right? Just tell Emmy to play it sad, that's all we need."

And a third factor is the blocking of some scenes. 'Final Lair' is the big stand-out to me, because in the musical Christine is everywhere in that scene: she's trying to free Raoul, she blocks him from the Phantom, she is sometimes actively fighting the Phantom or making him back down or yelling at him, and it really shows how active and defiant Christine has become. But in the movie's 'Final Lair', Christine just stands there, again looking sad ("about as useful as a mannequin" went one review). Maybe she didn't want to get her dress wet, I don't know. The overall effect is that Christine comes off like an observer, not an active participant in the scene.

As for why they did this, there are some possible reasons. I think a big part of is that the movie was made to appeal to a younger, more mainstream crowd, teenagers to very young adults, and one way to do that is to strip the audience surrogate (the character that people will project themselves onto, in this case Christine for young women) of her personality traits. This is something that Stephenie Meyer did with her Twilight series, where Bella was written "so that the reader could more easily step into her shoes", to the point of leaving out even a description of her appearance.

That being said, this isn't necessarily confined to movies for teenagers; it's a fairly common thing to do in romances too, and one thing about the 2004 movie is that it really upped the romantic aesthetic, humanizing the Phantom, making him much more an object of sympathy, and so on.

And of course... maybe that's just how the filmmakers see Christine! Maybe that's just how they see the story overall, as a love triangle with a passive girl being fought over by two men; unfortunately, I think love triangles in pop culture in general come off that way. Heck, women in media are still being written that way, and Phantom is far from the first or the last to have that happen. After all, stripped of blocking and staging and actresses, the story can be seen in that sense. It wouldn't be the first time someone has misinterpreted the musical (ahem restaged tour).

So there you have it.