#i might actually. try to do this one better later because it's not really pac interacting with frosteria

[slumbergoblin]

That's 2/4!!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

[meticulac]

Looking Back on a Game Jam Attempt that I Fumbled Pretty Hard

I'll just list a few things I remember from trying to make a game for the Hawktober Horrors 2024 game jam. It didn't become an entry both because I ended up slightly late to submit and because I did not have much of a game to show anyway: Feel free to download it from the link above, it's a few minutes of very glitchy Pacman-like gameplay and also you have to manually close and restart the game every time your character dies. I guess I should upload the slightly updated version I made a few days later sometime, where it at least resets on its own after a few seconds, but I'd like to make some other improvements before I do that, like adding a title screen, more than one level, and stuff like that.

I'll also want to try and fix the weird bug causing the enemy character The Decider to navigate weird, which will probably require learning GameMaker better. I'm also thinking of trying to implement the game in another system, probably LowRes NX since it's likely to fit the limitations of that anyway. However, that brings me to an issue that messed up the first part of my attempt at making this game, which was using uncertainty on what type of game to make and what tools to use leading me to procrastinate on actually making the game.

So, first, I had look up the jam and accidentally ran into a previous year's version, so I came up with an idea that didn't really fit the movie trope theme of this year's jam. I don't want to go into detail on what I came up with then, mostly because I used an idea I had for a tabletop game quest and now I figure I'll put it back to using it that way.

Anyway, after I found the right page I took a while to decide on making a heist game with Pacman-like navigation, but then I took a long time deciding what to make it with. I was toying with Bitmello recently, but, and the jam recommended making a downloadable games as preferable over web based ones, which also meant I wouldn't be using MicroStudio or plain Javascript. For a bit I considered using Amulet, but that was a bit barebones for me to teach myself and then use to throw together something for a game jam in a few weeks. After that I looked at Lowres NX and Homegirl Pro, both of which seemed promising, but I wasn't sure if making it so you need to download a separate player and use that to load the game might be too fiddly for game jam purposes.

Regardless, I think picking any of them quickly would have left me in a better position than waiting, to give me more time to learn the ins and outs of the system and actually get something made. When I did choose GameMaker, it was so long since I last used it that I didn't even know how to make tile collisions, so currently there's just a single block object for all the walls. I could have at least made them invisible and put them over tiles to make the walls look nice, but I was spending a bunch of time trying to make the movement controls working right.

Specifically, I was trying to get movement working like in Pac-Man, where if you try to turn toward a wall you're running along, you keep going forward until you reach a corner int hat direction. It can feel pretty nice to do that once you're used to it, since it lets you anticipate where you're trying to go instead of having to get your timing just right. Anyway, Game Maker is not really designed to do that, so it was a hard to get it just right to where your character deters a wall to the side of itself without just getting stuck on it.

I got it sort of working, but only if you were already on the side of the hallway you were trying to turn towards, otherwise you would turn and move a few pixels forward before hitting the opposite wall. I probably should have left it at that, because my effort to make it perfect just took so much time I ended up taking the whole thing out instead of even rolling it back and making the simplest possible collision I could just to have time to actually make the rest of the game, hastily tossing in the enemy character, collectable gems, the exit, and Game Over/Win screens. The enemy navigation is not great because I didn't get it to detect when it's in the middle of a tile, so instead I have it only turn when hitting a wall, and of course some parts of the level arbitrarily prevent it from turning in certain directions properly for reasons I still don't understand.

Maybe I should have stuck to placing a bunch of one-tile blocks instead of stretching them, I have no idea if stretched objects have weird collision or not. Anyway, it's neat that for gems I could just have them randomly tint themselves so easily, and of course I'd like to learn from all this to make a future games more diligently and with and eye to keeping on schedule, preferably using something I'm already familiar with when I decide to enter something with a time limit and not overthink things too much once I do start.

[onp4012]

Pick a Card: How To Pick The Right Career

Choose one of the pictures from above to see how to pick the right career for you based off your energy. This reading is not meant to tell you “go do that” or “go do this”, so don’t take it word by word. Those are only suggestions. Some of them are long, some of them are short. All based on what I pick up.

feel free to suggest PAC ideas in the inbox!

Please like and reblog 〽️

Pile 1

9W, Hermit, 6C, Hanged Man, 6W, 7C

For this pile I’m getting that you have a couple career ideas in your head, but can’t decide which one will be the best choice (of course). I get a very artsy plan for you. I feel like the career which is the best for you is literally something you enjoy doing, something which pleases you. So whichever career you have on your list which makes you giggle, that’s the one for you. You might want to talk to your older siblings if you have older siblings.

This career you might consider unsuccessful or worthless is actually something which can help you become financially stable.

You might have the following ideas on the list: teacher, writer, dancer, singer/music composer, artist, pediatrician, farmer, nanny, anything with children, perhaps even children therapist, I’ve also heard nursing, so you might want to take into care people who can’t look after themselves. It seems you want to be someone people looking up to.

—————————————————

Pile 2

Sun, 6C, 4W, 9C, 3S, 10W

You seem to be a bit care free about this at the moment and you aren’t looking for a job right away, but you want to know what you gotta do so you don’t enter a time crisis. Many of you who’ve chosen this pile seem to want to make people happy and you tend to radiate energy and happiness most of the times. Some of you seem to want to be vets or work with animals, maybe take care of animals full time. I heard “listen to your heart”. You have good judgement, but you have to trust yourself more into this side, yk? You and the first pile have similar energies so I believe you could’ve also chosen pile 1. Like pile 1, some of you might want to take care of children. I keep hearing “animator” for some reason.

Others of you seem to have faced a downfall recently and are now looking forward changing their lives once and forever. Now, this advice will sound like shit, but you gotta fail in order to reach success. You will probably try a career you believe will bring you money which you don’t really enjoy and find out later it’s not for you. The SECOND time you try will bring you a better career and better finances.

—————————————————

Pile 3

4C, KOS, 10S, 9P, 3W, 7S

You need to get out, broaden your view and drop some of the career which don’t match you. Get to know yourself better before choosing something which you’ll do probably until retirement. Your list of ideas is too long, sorry, you’ll need to choose one in the end.

You need to inform yourself more and ask around people about different careers one can imagine. I get that some of y’all considered working in a mortuary field, others have thought about working at the cemetery, others have plans involving law and justice. So yeah, you need to inform yourself more onto this theme because it doesn’t seem you’ve found the career which “matches” you like a glove.

—————————————————

Pile 4

8W, 7W, Justice, 9C, Moon, 10W

I’ve literally heard “go ask a teacher” and “go ask your parents”. I feel like you should go to your parents if you still live with them and ask them what career you should pick. you might need to make a list and list down what Uni you should follow later and what you’re good at (if you’re still in high school). Some of you thought about applying to law school which is really cool.

Now, for example, you might not know what you want to become after finishing law and you ask yourself “ok, now what should I do, what should I become?”, well you need to become something you will enjoy being. With all those wands here I believe something might pull you back from reaching your dream career, I feel like your parents or tutors might not agree with what you want to choose or what you’ve chosen.

I believe you’ve made the right decision if you’re following any type of career at the moment. You should really follow your dream career. It has chosen you for a reason. Some of you might be into one of those occult stuff and you’re not sure if you’ll have anymore time for it. You will have.

—————————————————

Pile 5

World, 8P, Strength, QOW, QOC, 5W

Ah, pile 5, the last ones. I knew this was gonna come up. You are the opportunity chaser I believe. While chasing some opportunities, you’ll find something which will match your personality. The only thing you gotta do is run after different opportunities and listen to the messages the universe has for you. Some of you have considered becoming self employed or creating some sort of company (?) You have big dreams and hopes.

You will need to work a lot in order to make your dream career profitable. You can ask a friend for help or you can start something with a good friend of yours. Some of you have thought about collaborating with someone dear to you. I keep sending this “building” vibe. You gotta build your empire.

—————————————————

See you next time, bye👋🏻

[keanureevesisbae]

But professor… - c.6

Summary: Walter and Penny are going on a little trip together

Professor!Walter Marshall x Penny Townsend (Asian ofc)

Wordcount: 2.8k

Warnings: Some love making (sex, , blowjob)

Masterlist // But professor… masterlist // Previous chapter //

When Walter says he’s got it covered, he sure does have it covered. Because he didn’t want us to run into someone we might know, he arranged a flight in the middle of the night. The hours went by slowly, but being curled up next to Walter was so lovely and such a delight.

We checked into our hotel, got to our room and I fell asleep immediately. I’ve been on a few plane flights, but this was different, especially because I couldn’t really fall asleep whilst being in the air, despite it was midnight.

Walter has taken his boyfriend job (because yes, he is my boyfriend) to a whole new level. Always carrying the bags, doesn’t want me to do any sort of work and that includes him preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner. ‘I want you to relax, princess,’ he tells me whenever I say I can do something as well. ‘You worked hard for your assignments, you should take it easy.’

I watch him tying his shoelaces, since we’re going to the beach. He grabs his bag when he’s done and smiles when his eyes land on me. ‘What?’ he asks.

‘Nothing,’ I chuckle. ‘You’re just too cute.’

‘Ai, princess, don’t call me cute. I have a reputation to hold.’

I pout. ‘No one in Hawaii knows us,’ I say, ‘so don’t you worry too much about it.’

Walter holds out his hand for me to take and together we walk out of our hotel room. We’ve been here for almost two days, but it’s still a little bit surreal to walk around with him this freely. No need to worry about someone catching us. Slowly exploring our relationship and deepening it every second we spend together.

Walter squeezes my hand as we exit the building and we walk out into the warmth. It’s weird to spend a winter not in the freezing cold. From what I’ve heard, it started snowing back in New York and Maryland. While a white Christmas would be lovely, sure, I’m glad that the temperatures are a bit nicer here and I’m able to lay in the sun a bit.

After a little walk, Walter and I arrive at the beach and I place down my towel, before taking off my thin dress. As I’m folding the fabric into a little packet, Walter has clearly been distracted.

By me.

‘What?’ I ask with a chuckle, smacking his chest.

‘Nothing,’ he laughs, ‘you’re just so beautiful.’ He leans down to peck my lips, before he takes off his own shirt. He immediately attracts the attention of a few ladies and I clench my jaw. I mean, of course Walter is beautiful and handsome and totally forces you unintentionally to look at him, but…

He is my boyfriend.

‘Are you jealous?’ he chuckles.

‘No,’ I mumble, but it’s obviously a lie. ‘Maybe a little.’

‘Penny Townsend can be jealous.’ He holds my face in his hands. ‘Good to know, but remember: you are the only one I want and my heart is all yours.’

He always knows the exact right thing to make me feel at ease. He places his towel on the sand and pulls me with him as we both sit down. We both sit and enjoy the sun. I close my eyes, as I let the soft sun rays warm me.

Walter pushes a strand of hair behind my ears. ‘You can relax, princess.’

‘I am relaxed.’

‘No, you are flexing, thus not breathing correctly.’

I look down at my “flat” stomach, realizing that I’m indeed flexing. It’s just that I want to look extra good, especially in a bikini.

‘It’s normal,’ he continues, ‘besides, you don’t need to impress anyone here. You’re gorgeous.’

I sigh, before I relax, quit sucking in. It’s a lot more comfortable, I agree, but I can’t stop being highly self conscious. I shouldn’t have worn this blush pink bikini with the little daisies on it. It’s not flattering and—

‘Okay,’ Walter says, when he gets on his back, ‘you’re getting into your head and you shouldn’t do that.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I get on my back as well and place my head on his outstretched arm. ‘It’s just that… This bikini makes me look okay, right?’

‘Oh, princess, more than okay. No one is prettier than you. I love you so much.’

I smile. ‘You’re too sweet.’

Walter stretches his neck to check something in the distance. He mutters something under his breath and I ask him what’s wrong. ‘Just some creep staring at you. Try to stay on your back, princess.’

‘Why?’ I ask, looking over to see indeed someone staring.

‘Because this bikini bottom is very beautiful, but also a bit revealing. Besides, this dickhead has some fucking nerve staring at you like this while it’s pretty obvious that you are with me.’ He gives me a kiss on my forehead and says: ‘Stay here.’ He is already sitting, when the creep swiftly turns around and walks away. ‘That’s what I thought.’

He pulls me in between his legs and wraps his arms around my waist. He places his hands on my stomach, drawing soft circles on my skin.

I stare over the water and I have to admit that Hawaiian view is much different than the views I’m used to, but also so beautiful. I lean back against his chest and whisper: ‘I love you, Walter.’

He chuckles. ‘Oh, princess, I love you too.’

✎ ✎ ✎

Walter and I are probably the laziest couple out there, but experiencing some jet lag isn’t helping. When we got back from the beach, we took a quick shower, ordered some food and watched some movies.

Later that night, after dinner and mid movie, I ended up sitting on his lap, his hands on my hips with a tight grip. His kisses are turning sloppier than they’ve ever been, but it doesn’t surprise me at all. That creep at the beach is obviously still bothering him and it hasn’t helped at all that another man stared at me when Walter was away for a few seconds to grab something

‘You’re mine,’ Walter whispers against my lips. ‘You know that, right?’

I nod, my center beginning to burn in sensation and excitement. ‘I know that.’

He pulls back and he is actually panting a bit. ‘You’re breathtakingly gorgeous, that’s a fact. I know that, but that doesn’t give men the right to gawk at you when I stand right next to you.’

‘Aren’t you slightly possessive.’

He scoffs. ‘You can’t blame me. That little creep Fitzgerald keeps walking you to your room, staring at you during my class and Lord knows during the others. Now we’re in Hawaii, surrounded by other creeps.’

I smile in absolute adoration. ‘Walter, you’re the only one I want. I don’t even notice those looks.’

‘I know,’ he says, ‘and I don’t want you to notice them, because they don’t deserve your attention for one second. I just need them to stop gawking.’ His lips attack my neck and I bite my bottom lip, to prevent myself from moaning out loud.

We’ve been having more and more sex and slowly but surely he drops his carefulness and ravishes me completely. I hand over control so easily, but it happens so naturally. He knows me better than I know myself. From a mile away he can spot if I’m uncomfortable or not.

With one swift movement he undoes me from the shirt I was wearing after the shower and he can’t stop his grin. ‘No underwear,’ he chuckles. ‘Lemme guess, you did that for me.’

‘No,’ I snicker, ‘I was too lazy to put on underwear.’

He scoffs. ‘It’s for me.’ He rolls us over on the couch and I squeal when I plop down on my back. ‘You want this?’

I nod. ‘Please.’

Walter has this satisfied grin on his face, before his lips attack every part of my body. He squeezes in the flesh of my thighs and I grow more and more desperate for him. ‘That’s my girl,’ he says with a chuckle. ‘Telling me exactly how she feels.’

I grab a bit of his shirt and ask: ‘No teasing today, okay?’

He frowns. ‘Why not?’

‘I need you,’ I whisper, ‘and I’m too impatient for teasing.’

‘You’re lucky I can’t say not to you,’ he whispers, as he presses a delicate kiss on my inner thigh. ‘I love you, Penny.’

I smile. ‘I love you too, Walter.’

✎ ✎ ✎

I think I walk a little bit differently when Walter and I go out of our room to go to the twenty four seven game hall the hotel has. We are experiencing some issues sleeping due to the time difference, so we decide to take a look. ‘It’s almost like we’re in Vegas after all,’ I say to him, holding onto his hand tightly.

‘It sure is.’

We spend our time playing different games, Walter making a ton of pictures of me and eventually I end up on his lap, as he helps me with the easiest game of pac man. It’s a lot harder than I originally thought it would be. He wraps his hand around mine when I hold the joystick and gives me kisses on my shoulder when it goes well. I squeal on his lap, quickly continuing to play. His grip however tightens around my waist. ‘Princess, careful now,’ he mumbles in my ear. ‘Because what you and I did a few hours ago, I can do it over and over and over again. But you… I barely think you can, especially with the way you are walking now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, pushing my legs together. It’s the first time he actually said something like that to me, let alone in a public place.

He kisses my shoulder, as his hand slips underneath my shirt and says: ‘You’re still wiggling.’

‘That’s because my feet can’t reach the floor and I’m nearly sliding off your lap,’ I quickly say, hoping he is taking a little bit of mercy on me. I mean, he completely and lovingly destroyed me already, causing me to walk a little bit funny.

He can do that again.

Walter smiles, pulls me better on his lap and gives me a kiss. ‘Princess, you’re cute.’ His fingers draw circles over my stomach after he slipped his hand underneath my shirt and I feel this need to keep it in, flex it again. ‘Don’t do that,’ he says. ‘Be yourself, it’s totally okay.’ His hand slides up and cups my bare breast, since he told me not to wear a bra underneath this oversized shirt. There is no one here and since we’re hidden in a darker corner of the hall, no one will see us. ‘So perfect,’ he whispers, pressing a kiss on my jaw. ‘There are tons of things I still want to do with you. You want that, princess?’

I nod. ‘I want to.’

His hand descends from my sensitive breast further south, into my flimsy short. Two fingers slide through my swollen lips, causing me to clench my thighs together. ‘Wanna go upstairs now?’ he asks in a soft tone.

I nod and slide off his lap.

He holds my hand securely in his and he has a smile on his face, satisfied with the situation. We step into the elevator, just the two of us and I press a kiss on his lips.

The second the of our room door closes behind us, he pushes me against it. ‘I love you,’ he whispers, ‘I love you so much.’ He undoes me from my clothing and says: ‘You’re so beautiful.’

I smile to mask my slight embarrassment and help him taking off his shirt. ‘I love you too,’ I whisper, placing my hand on his broad chest, as Walter takes off his shorts. He lifts me up and I wrap my arms and legs around him.

He carries me to our bedroom and doesn’t even waste a second diving in between my legs, the second my back touches the mattress. I pull his hair, as I gasp for air. ‘Shit, Walter.’

My legs already tremble, but he pushes them down, making it impossible for me to move them.

‘That’s my girl,’ he whispers, ‘doing so well and shit, you taste so good.’

He wraps his lips around my clit and moans against it. He knows exactly what he is doing, what buttons to push to make me go crazy. While I told him not to tease me earlier, he now completely dismisses that. When he can feel and can tell I’m so close, sits up straight, licking his lips.

My breathing is heavy and I run my fingers through my hair. ‘Why did you stop?’

He chuckles. ‘Get on all fours, princess,’ he says and my eyes enlarge. We’ve never done that position, always the same old and known missionary. ‘You can do it.’

‘Sure?’

‘I’m sure, darling.’ He pulls me up by my wrists and gives me a kiss, allowing me to taste myself on his lips. ‘Don’t feel insecure, you’re with me. I’ll take good care of you.’

I know that. I quickly nod and he takes that as a sign to turn me around and get me into the position he wants me to be in. It feels so strange, my chin resting on the mattress, my back bend and butt in the air. He kneads the flesh of my behind and clicks his tongue in approval. ‘Oh, aren’t you beautiful, my darling.’ I hear him opening a condom package and the anticipation of me not knowing when he’ll slide inside, makes me throb even more. He teases his tip near my entrance and with one swift motion he has pushed in his entire length deep inside of me. I let out a strangled moan. He feels so good, filling me up completely and hitting the right spots.

‘That’s it, princess,’ Walter says, ‘you’re doing so good.’ He holds my hips tightly, rocking in back and forth, setting a steady pace. I fist the sheets and he lets out a loud grunt when I tighten around him. ‘Already?’ he asks in a cocky tone. ‘Oh, aren’t you an eager little princess.’

My toes start to curl and my high pitched moan is muffled down when I bury my face in the sheets. Tears trip over my cheeks, wetting the soft fabric. He doesn’t stop, oh no, it would be totally out of character if he did, but I reach my hand back, placing it on his and say: ‘Stop, Walter, please, I can’t anymore.’

That’s all I need to say, for him to gently pull out and he watches me become one with the bed. ‘Talk to me, princess,’ he says. ‘Please, talk to me.’

‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ I quickly say, ‘shit, it’s just so sensitive.’

He smiles, placing his hand on my cheek. ‘I’m sorry, darling. You’re just insatiable.’

‘That’s good to know.’ I turn on my back and take a deep breath. ‘I don’t think I can walk tomorrow.’

‘Good thing we don’t have any plans.’

I let my eyes wander over his entire body, seeing his cock still hard, as he is sitting on the mattress. I turn back on my stomach and crawl in between his outstretched legs. Slowly but surely, we’ve been practicing me to take more and more of him in my mouth, my gag reflex slowly numbing down.

I wrap my hand around his hard length and my eyes look up. ‘Walter,’ I whisper, ‘relax.’

He chuckles. ‘I’m relaxed, princess.’

‘You’re not,’ I say. ‘Please, do it for me.’

He leans back against the headrest of the bed. ‘Okay, I’ll try.’

I open my mouth, wrapping my lips around him. He places his hand on the back of my head and a grunt fills the room when I let my tongue circle around his tip. Without thinking about it, he slightly forces my head a little bit lower and when he hits the back of my throat, I manage to ignore my gag reflex.

‘Princess,’ he says, ‘you’re doing well. This is the deepest you’ve ever done. I’m proud of you.’

I take a deep breath through my nose and the remainder of his cock I massage with my hands. He pulls my hair, before he bucks up his hips. He slides down a lot deeper than I am used to, but it works.

Holy shit, I can deep throat.

I let him exit my mouth and take a deep breath.

‘That’s my girl,’ he says, ‘you did great, sweetheart. I’m proud of you.’

I pump his length and judging from his moans, he is close. I quickly take him in my mouth again, letting him slide in deep in the back of me throat again and his warm seed fills my mouth and it slides down my throat. He is getting so insanely loud, as he rides out his high, forcing himself deeper and deeper.

‘I’m one lucky guy,’ he pants, gently pulling my head back so I look at him. ‘Now give me a kiss, princess.’

[panic-at-the-fiction]

1973 pt2

Summary: (y/n) life hasn’t been the same since the school closed down and neither has her father. But there seems to be a sign of hope of the man he used to be returning with this new mission.

Warnings: I’m not doing this word for word with the movie ok. You’ve seen the movie you know how it goes.

a/n: I hope y’all like this. I know it’s going slow but I want build relationships with the characters around her not just with Peter. You got Logan who’s like the big bro everyone needs and Hank the fun uncle obviously and even Charles who right now is the absent father figure she cant even call dad. Hope you like that touch, her just referring to him as Charles other than in sarcastic context. @whyiswhatahow @willalaufeyson

We had been in the car for a few hours now with no breaks. We needed to get to Washington, DC as quickly as we could. After we found Logan’s friend, who was luckily living in Virginia only an hour away from the pentagon, we packed our things and left really early in the morning. We should be at the pentagon by 11:00.

Charles had insisted on driving. Which is bad considering he drives like an absolute madman. Hank looked like he would puke. When you're like Charles Xavier and you give up all hope, you too might drive like a madman. Logan and I, we’re in the back seat.

I’m still on the fence about believing him. Hank and Charles jumped right into helping him break a criminal out of high security prison in the hopes of helping Raven, but for all we know, she’s not in any trouble and this guy is actually working for Eric.

I turn to face him, “So Logan, tell me more about the future?”

“I already told you, kid, it’s too dangerous for you to know more than you need to. You had a good life in the future. I don't wanna mess it up.”

“Who’s to say you telling me about my life isn’t the reason I have that life.”

“That’s not how this works. Once I do what I do here, and I go back. It will be like the last 50 years I know never happened.”

“Sounds to me like no matter what you tell me, it’s going to be different anyways.” He scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Fine, don't tell me about the future. Tell me about this friend or yours. Why do we even need him of all mutants?”

“He’s name is Peter, when I met him he was much older. Let’s just say he has some personal stakes in this, just as you do. Even if he may not know it yet.”

“Can we even trust him? If you don’t meet him until years from now, who says he’ll be the same guy you knew?”

“I don’t know much about his life as a teenager but from what I heard he liked breaking into things just to prove he could do it.” Logan smiled like he remembered something, but shook his head and continued. “Don’t worry about him, though, I’m sure you’ll trust him once you meet him.”

After that, we sat in silence. He wasn’t going to answer my questions about the future, and there wasn’t much to ask about this Peter anymore. Even if I did have a feeling that there was something Logan wasn’t telling me about him. I kept reaching into his emotions and on the surface he felt like a smartalec who’s making inside jokes that we can’t understand, but when I looked any deeper it was pain, grief and regret all twisted inside him. I liked Logan, but I didn’t like being around him and his deep emotions.

After 4 hours on the road, we finally pulled up to this boy's house. It was fairly normal looking except for the burnt out welcome mat. Charles knocked on the door and only a few seconds later an exasperated looking woman opened the door. “What has he done now? Whatever it is, I'll pay for it.” I smiled, I could feel the emotions of a little girl inside the house. She was having a blast playing dress up, and it was one of the better feelings I’ve gotten in a while.

“We aren’t cops, ma’am, we just need to talk to Peter.”

She sighed and moved to let us in and pointed to where the stairs were to the basement. It was packed with dozens of boxes which looked to have been stolen. Off to the left there was a brand-new Pac-Man machine and a pull-out couch. Right in front of the stairs, tho, was a ping pong table with a blur of silver running back and forth fast enough to play a game without a partner.

I couldn’t get a clear view of it at all, but it still spoke up. “Whatever it is, I didn't do it.”

“Of course you didn't.” Charles said sarcastically, scanning the room of all its stolen objects.

“Listen, Peter, we’re not cops.” Logan said, taking a step toward the table. Before he could take one more, the blur was gone.

“What is he? A teleporter?” Hank asked,

“I think he’s just fast.” I said. This Peter was definitely something. I couldn’t even see him for how fast he was going.

“Of course you’re not cops. If you were cops, why would you be driving a rental car?”

We all turned toward the voice. He was now sitting stretched out on the couch with a popsicle in hand. He had an arrogant smile and oddly enough silver hair that looked as if he may have stuck his head out a window of a moving car.

“Are you FBI?” I chuckled at the silly accusation, and I caught his eyes. For a moment, I felt a burst of nervousness that I wasn’t sure was mine. Then a gust of wind flew by me, and before I knew it the boy was standing only a few feet from us. “Nope, not FBI. Hey, what’s this gifted youngster place?” I looked in his hand and sure enough he had dear old dad's wallet.

“It’s an old card.” He said grumpily as he reached for his wallet. Peter only dropped the wallet and moved onto his Pac-Man game.

“He’s fascinating.” I said.

“He’s a pain in the ass.” Charles didn’t seem too pleased with this peter.

I just laughed at my dad’s irritation. I walked over to the arcade game next to where he was sitting. “You have to go left first if you're going to get around in time to beat the ghost.” I said getting absorbed deep into the game.

“How do you know that?”

“I memorized the levels.” I could see him give me a shocked look out of the corner of my eye, but I just kept staring at the screen. He felt nervous but impressed, and I was trying to not let it get to my head. “I have an eidetic memory.”

He turned back to his game. “Listen, Peter, we need your help to break someone out of prison.”

I pulled away from the game and took a few steps back over to the group. “You know that's illegal.” He said sarcastically. I laughed this time, and I felt Peter's emotions tense up.

“Only if you get caught.” I whipped back. Charles was giving me the dad side eye.

“What’s in it for me?”

I could tell Charles was getting annoyed. Mainly Because he was beginning to sober up from his hangover, but also because of the new kid peter being a quoted pain in the ass. “You, you kleptomaniac, get to break into the pentagon.”

Peter turned around, his eyes wide with excitement. For a moment he looked at me, questioning something. “How do I know I can trust you guys?”

“Because we’re just like you.” Hank said.

“Show him.” Charles almost smiled. Logan kept a straight but intense face as he let the bone-like claws rise from his knuckles.

Peter's face went white at the site. “That’s gross but… I’m in.”

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: The Ghost Gang

Debut: Pac-Man

Fufufu... frighteningly Funky Friday, friends!

This post has been waiting patiently in the drafts since my Pac-Man fixation way back in July, and it has really been about time it gets to be posted. And what better Friday to talk about ghosts than the one before Halloween? I can think of two. One would be Friday the 13th, and the other would be a Friday that Halloween itself falls on. But I’m posting it today! On only the third most ideal of Fridays!

Yes, I’ve already talked at length about some Pac-Man ghosts, but there are so much MORE. And they’re all so wonderful. My Best Ever Characters list includes “Ghosts” in the Namco character section, because they are all so wonderful. And now we’ll talk about some more notable ones!

So, here we have the Ghost Gang of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, in and around their Ghost House, in an image I got from the Annoying Orange Wiki. Though I love them all, I’m not gonna talk in depth about ALL of them, and out of these four, I’ll give the spotlight to my darling Clyde.

Look at him. Do you think he’s darling? Yes, you do. You are probably aware that each ghost has their own behavior, and Clyde will target Pac-Man until he gets close enough to him, then entering��“scatter mode”, where he will instead move randomly. Why change it up when you’re so close? Does he even WANT to catch him? Well, I have a theory...

The official Pac-Man Twitter has not one, but TWO posts showing Pac and Clyde as friends, emphasizing the importance of kindness. And it’s just Clyde he seems to be friends with... so this has me thinking, they’re Secret Friends! While Clyde is part of the Ghost Gang, he doesn’t actually WANT to attack Pac, so he targets him to make it LOOK like he’s doing his job. When he gets close, he sort of just lingers around to try and seem like he’s doing something while not actively trying to get him. It’s the perfect strategy, and the others have never found out, and Clyde and Pac get to be friends, and it makes me happy.

Before I talk about some more ghosts, I’d like to analyze the ghosts as a whole! Pretty much every Pac-Man game has its own self-contained “canon”, if you can call it that, and each one brings its own interpretation of what the ghosts truly are. And my favorite of those is that of the very first game!

The first Pac-Man has three intermissions, famous for being where the second-most iconic Pac-Jingle is from, but they deserve to be even more famous for how bizarre they get. The first is pretty standard, with Pac being chased by Blinky, only to turn the tables and chase Blinky instead. The second, however, has Blinky get his sheet caught on something sticking out of the ground and rip, revealing a human-like leg! Are the ghosts just people wearing sheets...? Nope! Because in the third and final intermission, Blinky’s sheet comes ALL the way off, revealing him to be some bizarre flesh blob, wearing a sheet! Awesome! Is this true for all four of the ghosts? Is just Blinky hiding this embarrassing secret? Pick whatever explanation you think is funniest!

My SECOND favorite is from Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, a wacky point-and-click style adventure game where you manipulate Pac’s emotions in order to make him do funny things. I highly respect whoever thought this should be localized as the direct sequel to the most iconic video game of all time. But in this one, the base of villainous operations is a creepy factory, and if Pac gets caught in the machines, he turns into this familiar shape! Is... is this factory MAKING ghosts? Are they artificial? Wow!

The other iterations don’t have nearly as wacky implications for how the ghosts came to be, but I’ll tell them anyway. In the Pac-Man World series, they seem to be naturally occurring creatures native to the Spectral Realm, who entered Pac-Man’s dimension and began to live on Ghost Island. In Ghostly Adventures, they’re the souls that were forcibly extracted by the Pac-People who were on the losing side of a world war that killed Pac-Man’s parents, and are now forced to spend eternity in the Pac-Man equivalent of Hell. Bo-ring!

And now time to talk about even more ghosts you may not know about!

Clyde is the only member of the Ghost Gang I’m actually going to talk about here, because there are so many ghosts that the world needs to know about! Like Orson from Pac-Man World! He built and piloted a scary robot Pac-Man and kidnapped Pac-Man’s friends and family, but he just wanted to be loved. Pac does not accept this as an excuse. He eats Orson without a shred of remorse. I guess it’s justified from his perspective. They become friends later, though! Canon ghost friend!

Speaking of canon ghost friends, there’s Miru from Pac & Pal (she’s the pal)! I know she doesn’t look like a ghost, but she might be one. It’s kind of unclear. But I love her so here she is. She helps Pac by collecting fruit for him, but this gets fewer points than Pac doing it himself, so some players don’t like it. I, however, think it is worth losing a few potential points in order to let Miru feel like she’s helping.

Yet another friendly ghost is Yum-Yum from Junior Pac-Man! She is the daughter of Blinky, and she and Junior just want to be together, but of course, their parents will not allow it. That, however, is what ultimately allows them to be together, as while their parents are off bickering, the two little lovers are able to escape together! How lovely! Too bad Junior Pac-Man is in some bizarre copyright limbo and Yum-Yum never appeared again. Goodbye.

Here we have Bash, who is a somewhat strange character. He looks like he’d be the big bad boss of all the ghosts, right? Maybe even their ruler? Well, maybe he is, but we don’t know, because he was made exclusively for the Pac-Man crossover event in Sonic Dash! He never appeared again! I think he should, though! He’s funny. Despite his apparent authority, he just talks like a school bully.

One of the newest ghosts at the time of writing is Creepy, who as I’m sure you can tell, debuts in the Pac-Man DLC for Minecraft! This DLC is kind of weird. But good weird, because Miru is playable! Her most major role ever! But this is Creepy’s paragraph. He explodes, and this hurts not only the player, but his fellow ghosts, and even destroys walls, which crumble into glitchy text! Especially neat is that, when eaten, his eyes remain black with white pupils as they retreat to the Ghost House!

The VERY newest ghost at the time of writing is Itchy, from Pac-Man Party Royale! Itchy is not a “dangerous” ghost, but a “mischievous” one, and I think that’s great. As far as I know, they are only capable of inverting a player’s controls, but new effects were said to be included at some point. What a pleasant design, too, with the seafoam coloration and black sclerae! And how magical it was to witness a NEW GHOST revealed in real-time, during the time when Pac-Man was all I could think about! What are the odds? The odds were high. It’s the 40th anniversary year.

Finally, I will leave you with this little fellow. He appears in Pac-Man Arrangement, and is constantly vulnerable, even acting like a Power Pellet when eaten! However...

He can combine with the other ghosts to transform them, giving them new abilities! Blinky gains the ability to charge forward, Pinky can now hop to far-off points in the maze, Inky creates a mirror duplicate of himself that mimics his movements, and Clyde wanders around spitting up extra Pac-Dots in places Pac-Man has already been. That’s so cool! I love this ghost! I love that he has cute little nerd glasses, I love his role in the game, everything! Why haven’t we seen more of him? What’s his name, anyway?

I see.

[welcometomy20s]

January 10th, 2021

Action Button Review

Review

Tim Rogers reminds me of Hank Green. They are about the same age, they look about the same age which is a combination of young and old that feel eternal. They also have the same length of experience in writing in online spaces, interest in Japanese media, and apparently have Crohn’s disease? In summary, he might be the closest equivalent to Dave Green that exists in the real world. Well, I guess Dave Green is not apt, as Dave Green is not special in a way, while Tim Rogers is special, but his speciality comes from his failures rather than his counterparts' success.

Tim Rogers is a hypothetical Green brother who did not decide to publish that book. He’s a hypothetical Green brother who went to Japan instead of Alabama or Florida. Whose project crashed and burned rather than a surprise success. He’s forged in fire while the Green brothers are eroded by water. Both are wonderful people, but with a different ground of intensity and differing wealth of wisdom.

I encountered this series because I found a twitter post about a six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial, and a white middle-aged man talking about a dating sim for six hours with laudatory blurbs would always pique my interest, but since I didn’t know the guy, I went ahead and looked if he made other videos, and found he has four other review that were all about three hours or more. Now I knew that I had to watch all the reviews to prepare myself for this six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial.

Now, I wasn’t a stranger to three hour reviews of video games. I watched Joseph Anderson, Raycevick, Whitelight, matthewmatosis, and Noah Gervais-Caldwell. In fact, in the comments below Action Button Reviews, many people talked about a comparison to Noah Gervais-Caldwell (and Brian David Gilbert) and that was quite funny since I actually watched a recent Noah Gervais-Caldwell video.

His first two reviews were perfunctory, him opening himself up and trying out new things and polishing his review style, as he went through the Final Fantasy VII remake and The Last of Us. While I watched The Last of Us, I distinctly remembered and contrasted Noah’s The Last of Us Part 2 review with Tim Roger’s The Last of Us review. I liked Tim Roger’s defense of interactive movies (although he denies it!) contrasted with more cynical but ultimately positive connotation in Noah’s review. And Noah’s thesis pairs nicely with Tim’s observation that Ellie was the main protagonist all along. That fact makes Part 2 much more understandable, even the bad parts.

When I finished watch his first two reviews, I went ahead and also watched several of Tim’s videos on Kotaku, which were slightly shorter, the longest being just over an hour, which is a review of the best games in 1994, and does contain a short segment about Tokimeki Memorial, which his six hour review was my destination. To put in context, Tokimeki Memorial was #3. #1 was Earthbound, #2 was Final Fantasy VI, and #4 was Super Metroid. And I just watched a playthrough of Super Metroid basically on a whim, because it’s a monumental and a great game to play and watch.

And while the segment of the games that I knew to be great and monumental in my absorption of knowing video games was deeply personal and rightly claimed its stake that it deserved its spot, his segment of Tokimeki Memorial never got there. It was almost as if he was deliberately hiding behind something. In the end of 1994 review, Tim pitched an idea about a three hour Earthbound review, which probably was Tim’s idea of floating a departure from Kotaku, which would happen two months later, and I wonder if he was trying to deliberately throw a curveball by making a video of Tokimeki Memorial instead of the promised Earthbound review. This may be a far leap, I admit.

I went back and watched the video about Doom. It was much better in quality and in darkness. I was reminded of Film Crit Hulk’s writing of The World’s End and James Bond, another very long essay that was deeply personal and chapter for easier consumption. Few commenters noticed that Tim Rogers was just doing a dramatic reading of his written reviews on Kotaku and Action Button dot net, and how they liked that approach, and I found myself liking that approach as well. You might believe a video review needs more than just reading an essay out loud, but just the act of reading an essay out loud in the correct intonation and inflection adds ton to experience. And Tim Rogers sounds like he has decades worth of experience to present a dramatic reading of his essay very effectively, much like Hank Green.

I continued scaling the mountain to my goal. I went through his review of Pac-Man and was delighted by his reading of Namco games, and was impressed by the opening sequence, and just generally enjoyed it. I was getting excited to set a day aside and let the six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial watch over me and reduce me to dust.

And it sure did. That six hours was a harrowing experience. What Tim Rogers is best at is telling a story, and so to go through a let’s play was a wish I never made, fulfilled. In the end, I was left with nothing and everything. It was like finishing a really good book.

I wanted to watch it again, then again I never wanted to watch it again. It was almost a traumatic experience. Tim talked about there being endless variation of love, and the love Tim Rogers went through was not the fluffy yet melancholic one that I craved, but one akin to a devotion of an eldritch god. Love made in justification for one’s efforts in attending and maintaining a relationship. A love stronger than most kinds of love, but most draining and taxing as well. Tim Roger’s synopsis of Tennis Monster reminded me of Asking for It by Louise O’Neill, which is also about empathizing a quite hateable character because we kind of have to. Apparently one person knows the full plot because Tim Rogers rambled on about it as he was couch surfing in his house, and unbelieve as it usually is, I fully trust that the commenter is telling the truth.

I was like a heroin addict, who really wanted a different hit, like talking to friends or hiking, my mother wanted me to go hiking with her, and I didn’t because, after the pandemic started, all I wanted to be was inside. Outside felt diseased. The air outside felt contaminated to me, hard to breathe. I was stuck in this place.

Tim Rogers is an exceptional figure. He seems to be a movie protagonist, he reminds me of The Librarian, played by Noah Wyle. Tim has eidetic memory, as he has access every single autobiographical memory formed, but not other types of memory. We know that those types of memory are different because of people like Tim and people who are opposite of Tim, someone who has no memories of autobiographical memory but otherwise fine. These people tend to have very few emotions and have a hard time deciding things. Lack of emotions is correlated with difficulty in decision making.

So Tim is the opposite of that, Tim is full of emotions, complex emotions and he can make decisions and carry it out in a snap. He would be good at school, and he was, but he would be too focused on his grandeur to be under some authority, which is how he became who he was. His anti-authoritarian nature rings throughout his reviews, highlight the general Generation X vibe that Tim exudes but also the modern socialistic movement of Generation Z, which adds to this odd mix of old and new.

Not only does Tim have eidetic memory and intense work ethic that he never seems to move away from, therefore making a three hour video masterpiece at a clip that seems unbelievable for a seasoned viewer, he also has exceptional skills in fast math and language, he seems to be at least familiar with dozens of languages, and of course Tim’s experience is bounded by his decade of living in Japan.

I think this is why Tim naturally gravitates towards video games. When Tim says ‘welcome to video games’ there’s a natural supposition that Tim Rogers is the protagonist of video games, and I think he is. Tim wants to be in video games, because he needs to be in video games, instead of some almighty god cruelly deciding to plop him into a real life. He should be an video game adaptation of The Librarian and go on world-spanning adventure and romance impossibly beautiful girls instead of toiling the grime of what real life portends to. His life is dramatic, but impossibly mundane as well. It’s a simulacrum of a movie or a video game, which is pretty cool on its own.

But of course Tim Rogers isn’t the only part of Action Button Reviews. In the ensuing five videos, Tim Rogers tries to do something. Video games are a wide net. There is so much to video games, something like Gone Home and Geometry Dash are included alongside Wolfenstein The New Colossus and Farmville. What makes a video game? Actually, the more interesting question is, why do we have the term ‘video games’? Why do we put all of this mess into a single category, as if there is some throughline.

Tim Rogers starts to do that. Tim Rogers boldly states that things like Doom and Tokimeki Memorial are intimately connected to each other. And that all video games are in conversation with each other, through deep and complex meta-narratives. Tim Rogers is a cartographer, trying to map out how video games are made whole.

I’ve always strived to be that kind of a cartographer, to showcase the weave of reality, of connecting two seemingly unconnected parts, and showing to a profound implication both existing, instead of one or the other. If you don’t know, I have been trying to write something out of my current obsession with Virtual YouTubers, and mostly Hololive, and while I think I stumbled upon the six hour video review of Tokimeki Memorial outside of my interest in virtual YouTubers, this video, as I expected in the back of my head, gave me plenty of thoughts about Hololive. Its rumination of cyberpunk and idol culture is so directly connected with the peculiarities of Hololive that I was quite astounded.

From the very beginning, I wonder how Tim Rogers thinks about Hololive, especially after he has done that six hour review. I’m sure he will have a lot of interesting thoughts about the prospect. I want to get in contact with him, maybe work under him. But then I don’t want to hang out with him. I want to be near him as he talks to a crowd at a party, but I don’t feel safe to be near him when there’s less than ten people nearby. I think below ten, I would be swept in some danger that I won’t be prepared for.

Tim Rogers and Action Button Review is a fascinating review series and if you have the time, I suggest you should take the journey. It’s well worth it, just to get a different perspective on video games and the world around it.

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Ninety Eight

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

October 29th, 2000

Emile smiled, looking over at Remy, who was more excited than he had ever seen his new friend before. They had gone down to a local arcade to fool around and play some games, and Remy was super invested in Pac-Man. Like, more invested than Emile was in cartoons. And that was definitely saying something.

Remy finished the level he was on and whooped. “All right! New personal best, baby, let’s go!”

Emile laughed. Remy was a little abrasive around the edges, but this was proof that he could soften with time, or at least, hold his tongue in check and not be hurtful if he really wanted to be. Not one bad word left Remy’s lips, not even for the ghosts when they almost ate him. Emile was...surprised. He was starting to realize that he was fond of Remy. Not even out of pure spite. He was just fond of him as a friend.

  March 28th, 2004

Emile was sitting in the living room of his parents’ house, with his grandfather sitting next to him on the couch. Things had been really strained ever since Emile had delivered the news that he was going to marry Remy. But today, Emile could see just how much that strain had been affecting his grandfather. He looked older, withered, and Emile swallowed. If Emile and Remy hadn’t been able to get married, how likely was it that Emile would only hear about his grandfather when he had passed on?

No, stop it, that line of thinking wasn’t helpful. His grandfather definitely hadn’t been pleased that he was going to marry a man, no matter what they did behind closed doors, but he was still alive. “So...you wanted to talk to me?” Emile asked hesitantly. He cringed at how uncertain his own voice sounded.

His grandfather nodded. “I have been doing some thinking, ever since you said you were bisexual.”

Emile flinched minutely. “I don’t regret telling you back then. And I don’t regret telling you I got engaged, either. It would be wrong to just...not invite you to the wedding.”

“It’s all the way in Massachusetts,” his grandfather said, almost petulant.

“They’re the only state where gay marriage is legal, Grandpa. They may not recognize us as a legal couple here, but we wanted the ceremony as a symbolic thing. If and when gay marriage is legalized everywhere, or at least here, we’ll redo the papers and make it so that yes, we are legally married no matter what state we go to,” Emile said. “And until then, Remy and I can get papers to enter a civil union. Next best thing, although in our minds, it’s not enough.”

His grandfather put on a brave face, a fact which Emile appreciated. “And...you’re certain about this?”

“As sure as I have ever been about anything,” Emile said with a nod. “This is something both of us are positive we want. And we’ve both been tested, neither of us have any nasty surprises in the form of...you know...sexually transmitted diseases. No HIV, if you were worried about that.”

“I had...friends in the eighties, who never told me they were gay, until they got sick and couldn’t hide how they got it anymore,” his grandfather said. “I definitely don’t want that happening to you.”

“It won’t,” Emile said, putting a hand on his grandfather’s knee. He hoped he was being as reassuring as he was trying to be.

“And this makes you happy.”

Emile smiled. “Grandpa, Remy makes me feel like the happiest person alive. I love him with my whole heart.”

His grandfather nodded. “Then, there’s something I want you to have. Consider it an early wedding present of sorts.”

Emile’s eyebrows shot up as his grandfather passed him a nondescript brown package. He tore into it and he laughed when he recognized the shade of pink that had given him so much pride in the past. He stood, pulled it out and unfolded the bisexual pride flag... his bisexual pride flag. He thought he might cry.

Although, considering he had given Remy permission to bust in here should he start crying, that might not be the best idea.

“There’s another flag in there, for your fiancé,” his grandfather said.

Emile turned back to the package and pulled out a flag, folded up in a triangle like his was, sporting the red and orange stripes that Emile immediately recognized. “I...wow. Thank you, so much,” he managed, putting it back in the package.

His grandfather stood and hugged Emile tight. “I may not understand, but I don’t have to. It makes you happy, and that’s all that matters.”

Emile actually cried at that, Remy be damned, and hugged his grandfather tight. “Thank you, so much,” he repeated. “Thank you.”

“Just marry the man of your dreams, Emile. All I ever want for you is to be happy,” his grandfather said.

Emile grinned. “And Remy, too?”

His grandfather sighed and nodded with a weak smile. “And Remy too.”

Emile laughed and called, “Rem, get in here!”

Remy immediately burst into the room, wide-eyed and worried. “What?!”

“Grandpa has a gift for you,” Emile said, passing the opened package to Remy.

Remy looked inside and pulled out the flag in shock. “Wow,” he said, stunned. “I don’t know what to say.”

Emile’s grandfather shrugged. “Emile could do way worse,” he said.

Remy’s hackles were starting to rise and Emile stepped in. “Remy, Remy! Remy, he's joking,” Emile assured.

Emile’s grandfather had a sly grin on his face and his shoulders were shaking. “Emile and I don’t pull punches with each other, and we would tease each other to Hell and back when he was younger and going through a rebellious face. It’s a form of love, I assure you,” his grandfather explained to Remy.

“You’re on such thin ice,” Remy said, but lowered his guard just a fraction.

“Considering your history, I probably should have put more thought in before I said that joke,” Emile’s grandfather mused. “But my point still stands. Emile could do way worse than someone who makes him this happy, and who he trusts without a second thought.”

Remy turned a little red, and Emile laughed. “You might have broken him, Grandpa!” he teased. “And before we could even exchange vows!”

His grandfather laughed, but Emile didn’t miss the strain in it. “I’m gonna be honest, Grandpa. You don’t have to come to the wedding if this...makes you uncomfortable.”

“Emile, don’t be ridiculous,” his grandfather said. “Do you want me there?”

“...Yes,” Emile said softly.

“Then I’ll be there. I’ll get comfortable enough to throw rice on the newlyweds after you say your vows and make out at the altar,” his grandfather said. “Your wedding invitation showed me how committed you were to not only Remy, but to me. You gave me chance after chance to connect, and, well, I may have had my head in my ass for a while but I’m no fool. I’m growing old, Emile, and I want to be in touch with you whenever the Lord calls me home. I want you and your future husband and I to be in good standing when that day comes.”

“Hopefully it won’t come for a while yet,” Emile said, tears still falling as he hugged his grandfather tightly.

“Now that we have the...feelings all out of the way,” his grandfather laughed, “What do you say to some catch-up? How are your studies going?”

“Oh, Emile here has only gotten one ‘B’ his entire college career,” Remy laughed, clapping Emile on the shoulder. “And that was in gym. Apparently, his teacher was a bit less endeared by Emile’s giant puppy coordination than most.”

Emile’s grandfather laughed. “That sounds like my grandson,” he said, beaming at both Remy and Emile in turn. “So I take it you’re still on-track to graduate, then.”

“Yeah,” Emile said, scratching the back of his neck. “Like, there are kids with four-point-oh grades, so I’m not going to be the valedictorian speaker, but I’m still pretty proud of those grades. Especially considering that for a while, I was pulling night-shifts at Target, and I still work there to help fund everything.”

His grandfather nodded. “Things never seem to get cheaper as life goes on,” he said sagely. “The way inflation’s going, I don’t think it’ll ever get down to what it once was.”

The three of them got comfortable in the room, Emile and his grandfather on the couch, Remy sitting on the coffee table. Some time later, Mom and Dad walked in. “Everyone’s made nice, I take it?” Mom asked.

“I don’t think Remy would be sitting on the table if they hadn’t, honey,” Dad pointed out.

“Okay, you’ve got me there,” Remy laughed. “I don’t usually do this around people I’m uncomfortable with.”

“I hope that I can continue to make you more comfortable around me in the future,” Emile’s grandfather said. “The way I acted before was...immature, and uncalled for, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Remy said with a little smile. “You’re owning up to your mistake and learning from it, and that’s all anyone can really ask for. I learned that from Emile, here, over the years.”

“Stop,” Emile said, blushing.

“What? It’s true,” Remy argued. “I was a heartless bitch when I first entered college. You taught me that it was okay to feel. I owe a lot of my growth to you.”

“Not all of it,” Emile pointed out. “You’re the one who decided that you were going to grow. You made that choice, I just added the...stakes and the twine.”

“Still, stakes and twine are pretty important,” Remy insisted.

“Boys, boys, you’re both pretty, and pretty important to each other. No need to debate it,” Emile’s grandfather cut in.

Remy snorted at that, and Emile burst into giggles.

“You know, you’re not bad,” Remy said to Emile’s grandfather. “You had a bit of a moment, there, but I think you can get better. What’s more, you think you can get better, which is what really matters. And I, for one, am very relieved that you’re willing to put in that work. I know that you coming to the wedding has been a source of some of Emile’s anxiety for several months now.”

“Well, someone couldn’t see me until Spring Break, not that I exactly blame him for needing some time away from me,” Emile’s grandfather said. “And it wound up working out, because those pride flags I got you came in late, and if we had met up before February, I wouldn’t have had them in time.”

“I definitely appreciate the pride flags,” Remy said, laughing. “It makes things ten times easier at Pride Parades. People will seek out those specific colors like a code and once they see you with it, they’ll come up and talk to you a lot faster, because they know you’re one of them.”

“It’s a community thing,” Emile filled in at his grandfather’s confused look. “The parades bring people all over the city, or sometimes, the county or state or nation to be themselves at this one place at this one time in June. Remy and I try to make a point to go every year. It’s really nice.”

“Well, I might not join you in that, because Lord knows I’m not as young as I used to be, and I don’t handle summer heat well, but that sounds like fun for you two,” his grandfather said.

They chatted a while longer, before Mom pointed out it was getting late and everyone had a stretch of driving to go before they made it home. Emile and his grandfather hugged for a long time before they left the house.

Emile’s grandfather and Remy shook hands, exchanging friendly smiles as they stood at the edge of the house. “Good night, Remy. I’ll be pleased to see you at the wedding,” he said. “And...for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that whoever hurt you in the name of religion did so. I’m starting to learn that faith and traditions are much more fluid than rigid, and those who hold onto those beliefs will one day end up a byproduct of ages long past. They will be on the wrong side of history, and...I hope that they come to see things this way. Even if they don’t, you’ll always have a grandfather in me, and I think Emile’s grandmother, God bless her soul, would have taken an immediate shine to you.”

Remy stood there in shock at Emile’s grandfather's words, before he choked out a watery, “Thank you, sir. Really, that means a great deal more than you could imagine.”

They all exchanged one final goodbye before getting in their cars. And as Emile dozed in the passenger seat on the drive home, Remy looked at the pride flags, and excitedly chattered. Sometimes, people could indeed come around. Emile’s grandfather, and Remy himself, were proof of that concept. Emile smiled sleepily, closing his eyes. All was right with the world.

[wrestlingisfake]

Double or Nothing preview

Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara & Santana & Ortiz & Jake Hager vs. MJF & Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler & Shawn Spears & Wardlow - This is a "Stadium Stampede" match, so the contest will start in a wrestling ring set up on the 50-yard line of TIAA Bank Field. There are no disqualifications and falls count anywhere, so basically both teams can brawl all over the stadium until one guy scores a pin or submission on someone from the other team. If the Pinnacle (MJF's team) wins, then Jericho's Inner Circle will be forced to disband forever.

The Jericho/MJF rivalry has been brewing since the fall of 2019, when the subject of MJF joining the Inner Circle was broached. MJF (and Wardlow) finally joined up a year later, but it was all a plot to destroy the group from within to make way for the Pinnacle. The original five members of the Inner Circle stayed together and collectively turned babyface. The Pinnacle defeated the Inner Circle in a "blood & guts" cage match, where Jericho suffered a real dislocation in his elbow, but the Inner Circle demanded another chance to settle the score. So MJF challenged them to this match, knowing that Jericho's squad lost the first Stadium Stampede last year.

The first stadium match worked because they took full advantage of the format to do a lot of wacky comedy and absurd brawling spots. I don't think these teams can replicate that here, and really shouldn't try. They'll be better off focusing on the brutality of this blood feud and the dangers of an unfamiliar environment. Last year's match was all about finding new things to jump off of that nobody ever used in a wrestling match before. This one should be about finding new ways to hurt people.

I can't see the Inner Circle actually breaking up here, because there's a lot more left for them to do. In theory you could do it and just have Jericho keep targeting MJF all on his own. But they also still need to do Santana & Ortiz vs. Harwood & Wheeler, and Guevara vs. Spears, and I'd even be up for Hager vs. Wardlow. So it makes more sense to just give the Inner Circle the win here, although I can't deny that it's possible they could surprise me.

Kenny Omega vs. PAC vs. Orange Cassidy - This is a three-way match for Omega's AEW men's world championship, so the first man to score a fall on either opponent wins the match and the title. Omega's other championships--the Impact world title and AAA mega title--are not at stake.

As far as I can tell this match was always supposed to be a three-way. A Pac vs. Cassidy match on May 12 was set to decide Omega's next challenger and booked to go a time-limit draw. Omega would then argue that neither man won a title match, only to be overruled and have to face both of them, in a bit we've seen a million times. However, in the match Orange got legit knocked out. So instead of just declaring Pac the winner and sole challenger, which would make more sense anyway, they had to do some wacky hijinx to get back on the stupid track to their stupid draw to do the stupid trope for a stupid three-way.

So yeah, I'm not thrilled with this match, because nothing about it is more interesting to me than if the May 12 match had a winner and this match was one-on-one. Orange just beating Pac to earn the biggest match of his career would have been cool. Orange losing to Pac, so that it takes longer for him to prove he belongs in the main event, would have been cool. But a three-way just says to me "we don't think either of these challengers is a credible draw on their own, and you won't either after they both lose at the same time." Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if WWE hadn't run this sort of thing into the ground, but they did.

Anyway, Omega probably steals a pin from Orange, and the announcers all squabble with Don Callis for 25 minutes. I would really like to see this Omega heel run actually start going somewhere.

Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston - The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick) are defending the AEW tag team title. The Moxley-Kingston alliance came about when Eddie set aside their differences to rescue Mox from the exploding ring on March 7. But the ring didn't explode, so both of them wanted to beat up Kenny Omega for embarrassing them. But they couldn't get at Omega becaue his faction kept getting in the way, and then the Bucks turned on Moxley to join Omega's faction. So Moxley and Kingston started targeting the Bucks, and by the time they stole the Bucks' fancy designer sneakers we had a title match.

I think I actually find the Bucks less irritating as heels than as babyfaces. When they're bad guys, they spend half of their time being all insider-y, like "WOW THAT SURE WAS AN EVIL THING WE JUST DID, THAT SURE WILL GET SOME 'HEEL' 'HEAT' FROM THE 'MARKS' LOL." But when they're good guys, they devote that time to being all "WOW THIS SURE WOULD BE A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR A 'HEEL' 'TURN' BUT WE'RE NOT GOING TO DO IT YET YOU 'MARKS' LOL." At least now they're supposed to be annoying.

The biggest missing piece in the Bucks' current heel run has been a team that won't take their crap and just punches each of them in the mouth. So Moxley and Kingston are really the perfect opponents for them right now. Like, I really buy that the Bucks have bitten off more than they can chew here. But I also believe that Mox and Eddie's deathmathch powers won't save them if they get cold spray in their eyes. So it averages out to an even fight, which I like.

I wouldn't book the Bucks to drop the title at this particular time, but I can see where it'd be hot for Moxley and Kingston to cement their bond as a team and get a short title run to set up a rematch.

Hikaru Shida vs. Britt Baker - Baker is challenging for the AEW women's world title, which Shida has held for just over a year. It's been a tough run for Shida, being booked as a dominant champion in an empty building, while Baker got all the glory of getting built up as a cult favorite heel. The fandom is impatient for a title change, and specifically for Baker to get the belt. I knew all along that we'd get here eventually, and the long wait would build it up, but it still feels hotter than I expected.

I kind of want to consider the possibility of Shida surprising everyone by retaining. But I think fans would be genuinely pissed if that happened, after waiting so long to see Baker's "coronation." So this is definitely one match where the "predictable" outcome is the right one. Baker should win the title and feud with all the faces she clobbered to get here for the next year. Shida should have to climb her way up to a big rematch down the line.

Sting & Darby Allin vs. Scorpio Sky & Ethan Page - Sky and Page sort of got thrown together because they both have the same "bellyache about not getting opportunities" gimmick. To that end, they both targeted Darby Allin, but instead of challenging him for the TNT championship they caused him to lose it to Miro. So now they're going to get their asses beat by Darby and his buddy Sting, while Miro gets a big PPV title match. You guys might want to review your strategy.

When Sting joined AEW with the intent to work matches, I think everybody assumed he'd just do "cinematic" matches like the pre-taped brawl on the March 7 show. However, AEW went out of their way to say this will be a normal tag team match in the arena, live in front of the fans. It'll be his first "real" match since September 20, 2015, when a bad bump forced him to retire. I sure hope they know what they're doing.

It's conceivable that Page and Sky will get the win, but it makes more sense to me for Allin to get the momentum on his way to rematch with Miro. Also, I think they'll want to give the live crowd a feel-good moment with Sting getting his hand raised.

Miro vs. Lance Archer - Miro won the TNT championship from Darby Allin a couple of weeks ago, and now Allin's busy with Pafge and Sky so that clears the way for Archer to step up and demand a shot. I felt like neither of these guys got their full due in WWE/NJPW, so it's especially rewarding to see them both get pushed in AEW and then beat the crap out of each other in a MEAN GUY MATCH~!

The money is in building to a Miro vs. Allin rematch for the title, so I don't think Archer is winning the belt and I sure don't think Miro is losing it this early. So this isn't about who'll win so much as it's about BIG MEATY MEN...SLAPPING MEAT.

Cody Rhodes vs. Anthony Ogogo - Ogogo won the bronze medal for middleweight boxing in the 2012 Olympics, but of late he's been training at the wrestling school started by Cody Rhodes and QT Marshall. Then QT turned on Cody, taking several students with him to form a faction called "The Factory." Cody got revenge on Marshall, but Ogogo hit Cody with his deadly body blow. Cody can out-wrestle Ogogo, but it won't matter if Ogogo lands that one punch again.

That's what the story of the match actually is. For some reason, Cody thinks it has to do with whether the United States sucks or rules. Basically, this is the same time of year that the Great American Bash would be held, and Cody wants to take up his dad's "The American Dream" moniker for one night weekend only, so that's how he's justifying it. So yeah.

Cody's storylines seem to operate in a parallel universe from the rest of AEW, but if you go along with that and buy what he's selling, it works. I can't decide if it's more important to deliver the happy ending for the white-meat babyface or to put heat on the up-and-coming future star. It probably depends on whether Ogogo's ready for a sustained push, and we won't know that until we see how he performs in this match.

Hangman Page vs. Brian Cage - This match actually relates to the company's rankings, in that Page was the #1 contender until a loss to Cage knocked him down a peg. So the inevitable rise of Page to complete his story arc by challenging his ex-partner for the world title can't proceed becaue Brian Cage is in the way. That's enough to get me motivated.

Cage has been lowkey teasing a face turn since he and Ricky Starks lost to Sting and Darby Allin. That's mainly important because Page is playing into that, suggesting he expected more integrity from Cage than the rest of Team Taz and daring him not to bring his goons to the match. It feels natural for Cage to lose this match because he refuses to accept help from his heel allies, who then turn on him for doing the right thing. Then again, Cage could just win to send Page spiraling further into despair and drag that issue out a while longer. But I really hope we're done with that.

21-man Casino Battle Royale - This is a gauntlet battle royale with timed entry, sort of like WWE's Royal Rumble, but five wrestlers start the match and every three minutes another five enter, until the 21st man enters alone. Once a wrestler enters the match, he can be eliminated at any time by exiting the ring over the top rope and landing on the floor. The match can only end once everyone has entered, and all but one is eliminated; the last man in the ring wins the match and a future world title shot.

Twenty of the 21 participants have been announced: Anthony Bowens, The Blade, Brian Pillman Jr., Christian Cage, Colt Cabana, Dustin Rhodes, Evil Uno, Griff Garrison, Isiah Kassidy, Jungle Boy, Lee Johnson, Marq Quen, Matt Hardy, Matt Sydal, Max Caster, Nick Comoroto, Penta El 0M, Powerhouse Hobbs, Preston Vance, and QT Marshall. The final participant hasn't been named; I'm guessing he'll just happen to enter last as luck #21.

A lot of AEW's factions are represented in this match, but the Hardy Family Office stands out for getting four of their guys (Blade, Hardy, Quen, and Kassidy) in this thing. I'm interested to see if that plays into the story of the match. But the heavy favorites have to be Christian Cage (a big acquisition that is already on track for a title match later this year) and whoever the mystery man is. Of course, last year's surprise entrant was Matt Sydal, so don't assume this one is going to be a huge deal.

Serena Deeb vs. Riho - Deeb is defending the NWA women's world championship on the pre-show. We haven't seen a lot of either of these women lately, because Deeb was out with an injury and Riho's international travel has been severely limited by the pandemic. (The NWA itself has also been out of commission for months, but they're back and probably anxious to book the winner of this match on one of their shows.)

So this match feels like it came out of nowhere, but it still manages to feel important. I mean, Riho ought to be the favorite, but doing a title change with another group's belt is no small thing. I'm really not sure what's going to happen, which is more buzz than I usually get for a pre-show match.

[what-if-i-imagine]

Random story I’m going to try to write

I call it: No Capes Outlaws as Actual High School Teahers AU (with a side of Jayroy).

Roy

Roy is the AP/Honors (depending on where you’re from in the country) engeninering, mechanics and physics (1&2) teacher. His scedule every day would go: Prep Hour, Physics 1, Physics 2, PreAP/Introduction to Physics, Mechanics (first block), Mechanics (second block), Lunch, Enenering.

He is the supervisor of the science club on Mondays and Fridays, and engerninering work shop on Tuesday.

The reason he requested his Prep Hour to be in the morning is that he needs to make sure Lian gets to her daycare all right and on time.

Students love him because he is goofy and makes them smile during classes, but also very obviously cares about them. He is open about his past with substance abuse and his recovery story, as well as growing up on a reservation until he was a teenager. He gets them and how hard it is growing up in our modern world, and that means so much to them.

Kori

A warm hearted but fierce woman who came from a foreign country to teach her country’s language, culture and history to young American high school students.

She’s not familiar with lingo and many American customs, and immensely enjoys getting to learn from her students as they learn from her.

Stands strong in fighting for what you believe in and for seeing the goodness in people around you. That doesn’t mean stand by as people treat you unfairly and only reapond with kindness, it means to know how to love and respect yourself first and know how to pick your battles.

Sometimes manages to convince the principal to let her bring in her exotic pet from her home country to spend time with the class.

Acting counselor for any and all foreign exchange students.

She takes her Prep Hour during fourth period.

Artemis

The cool Egyptian PE teacher who everyone honestly love.

The students are very shocked when they realize that their awesome Coach is distantly related to Coach Diana from middle school. It gives them whiplash at first, but then they look closer and immediately start to see the similarities.

Unknowingly (but also slightly knowingly) became these young high school girls’ idea of what a strong woman looks like not only physically but mentally. She loves giving the girls advice and counciling and pretending she doesn’t notice just how much they love her.

You name the sport, she coaches or co-coaches it.

Instead of taking a Prep Hour, she fills in for a class period upstairs in the sports med class.

Bizzaro

A teacher’s aid who is on the autism spectrum.

Usually jumps between Artemis and Jason’s classes, but sometimes he likes to just hangout alone in the PAC alone to get some of his studies done (and secretly watch the dance classes when they practice on stage, he just finds them really pretty).

He looks intimidating at first sight, but the students are very quick to warm up to him.

Carries Pup Pup with him at all times. Sometimes Jason or Roy will spray it with their cologne or Kory or Artemis with their perfume. They know how happy the familiar smells make him, and any time they notice the most resent spray has worn off, the one who notices will spray it again (which means Pup Pup usually smells like Jason, but Biz doesn’t mind).

He graduated high school at a very young age due to his intellect. On his last day of school, while his much older peers were on their last day of first semester, he went to Jason. All he had to say was that he was scared to go home. Jason very quickly had CPS on Lex, and gained legal custody of Biz by the end of winter break.

Jason (I save the most fleshed out for last)

Did a double major and a minor while in university (his family still don’t know how he did it), majoring in English Literature and Psychology with a minor in theater. He acted as a “long term sub” (a title the had to legally give him for the time being) as an AP/Honors Lit teacher at the school while he finished up with his teaching degree.

After two years of teaching AP Lit and AP English, he decided it was to mentally taxing on him to see how miserable his students were and decided to leave those classes in better hands. He now teaches Creative Writing 1&2 and all of the drama classes. His daily schedule is: Creative Writing 1&2 (they have to share a class period to have enough students to make the bar for minimum class population) Drama 1, Drama 2, Stage Craft, Lunch, Prep Hour, Screen play/script writing, improv.

He had his Prep Hour during the second lunch block so that students from both lunches have access to his classroom. They can get tutoring help, emotional support, or just a safe and quiet place to eat their lunch in.

Basically runs the entire theater department alone. He manages to pick the plays/musicals every year, get the script orders in place, order the costumes and props, get the supplies for making the backdrops and still somehow has enough money from the school budget left over to throw the cast good parties. The students call it budgeting magic.

Over his years of teaching, he’s been gradually collecting more and more literature and psychology degrees from online universities (his schooling is all he spends his trust fund on. His father finds it baffling that he would rather collect degrees he may never use instead of getting a home better than his crappy apartment he lives in off his paychecks from the school or an actual car)

All of the students who have never had him as a teacher think he’s cool because he rides a motorcycle and wears leather jackets. His drama and writing students know better. They know he’s a total dork.

The teacher the kids know they can go to with home life issues. Through the grapevine, the student know he was abused early in his childhood and was homeless for a while before being taken in by Bruce Wayne. They know they can trust him with anything, because he understands better that anyone what it’s like to be in their place.

The Students!

The generation outlaws, Vessel, Sasha, Tim and his Young Justice team, Damian, Jon, Rachel, Gar, a few other assorted kids.

They all realized Mr. Harper and Mr. Todd had a crush on each other before they did.

They ship it, a lot, and try a lot of crazy schemes to get them together that always fail. The schemes only get more elaborate as they go.

“Can Coach Artemis adopt me?”

“Hey Mr. Harper, adopt me?”

“Ms. Anders can I adopt you as a mom?”

“How long do you think it will take Mr. Todd to adopt him?” “Dude, Damian is his brother.” “That doesn’t change a thing.”

They trust their teachers with their lives and would protect their teachers with their lives.

That’s all I got for now, I might add more later.

[andrea-lyn]

If there's still a spot for prompt offer, would be lovely to see the sequel to the prompt, where Michael leaves Rosewell and becomes a professor at UMN and Alex has a startup, which he presents there. I've been craving for it to continue since I read the fill. *many heart emojis here since I suck in using tumblr*

(The first part of this can be found here)

*

Even though Alex had been the one to suggest it, he still can’t believe that he’s driving to a coffee shop to meet Michael. He’d offered to drive back to Albuquerque, but Michael had quickly nixed that idea by insisting that Alex is in the middle of starting up his own company and it’s exam season, which means he has no lessons to plan.

Alex is shocked because he’s still amazed this is happening.

Ten years ago when they’d decided to part ways to try and get over the trauma that had infiltrated their lives, Alex thought that he’d never get another shot with Michael, but one Q&A session at UNM later and he’s meeting him at the local coffee shop for a cup of coffee and what Alex thinks might actually be a first date.

When he gets there, Michael is already sitting at a nearby table, looking incredible. He’s wearing an oversized burgundy sweater, his collarbones slightly peeking out because it’s too big. Alex hopes it doesn’t belong to an ex-boyfriend or something equally worrying, but he lets himself into the coffee shop and greets him.

Should he hug him? Do you kiss? What’s the protocol when you’re having coffee with the love of your life for the first time in ten years.

“Hey, Alex,” Michael greets him, and pushes himself to his feet. He makes the decision that Alex can’t when he sidesteps around the table to press a kiss to Alex’s cheek. His lips linger there, Alex breathes out softly, and then they take their seats. “I can’t believe this is happening,” Michael confesses with a laugh, reaching for his latte to gulp it back.

“You and me both,” Alex says bluntly. He doesn’t leave the table, because there’s a coffee sitting right in front of his seat. When he looks at it, he shoots Michael a confused look, wrapping his palm around it to feel the warmth against his fingertips. “Is this…”

“Skinny latte,” Michael says. “I mean, I know it’s been ten years and I only heard you order it the once, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget what you said to Valenti when he mocked you for ordering it.”

Alex smirks, because who could forget that day. “Right,” he says with a laugh, “when he asked if I was watching my figure and I said yeah, I was, because I didn’t want a fat ass like his,” he finishes, his grin so big it aches.

“You didn’t see it, but he went to the gym so early the next morning.”

Alex gives Michael a confused look. “How do you know?”

Michael shrugs, sipping his coffee. “I was still living in my truck and I parked it at school. Heard his truck come rumbling up at five in the morning, he didn’t leave the gym until seven. I think you really rattled his poor self-esteem.”

Alex ducks his head down, but his smile is tempered with the hurt of ten long years. It’s never easy to forget what happened that day in the shed, not to mention their agreement to part ways because it would be better for the both of them. Yet, here they are, ten years later and all grown up. Alex isn’t under his father’s thumb and he’s got his own business.

Michael has a job and he looks settled and happy, even if there’s the shadow of what happened all those years ago lingering over hi head.

“Do you remember…” Alex starts, and focuses on only reliving the good moments.

It works. For hours, they reminisce about the good. Michael tells Alex about his time at UNM as a student and how he’d been that student that had found a comfort zone for the first time in his life, making a home of it. Alex talks about years of struggling to figure out who he was and what he wanted to do.

Neither of them talk about how much they missed one another, but it’s there, lingering unspoken beneath the whole conversation. They talk until the coffee shop closes down, and even then, Alex isn’t sure he wants to go home.

At least, not without Michael.

Outside the coffee shop, Alex isn’t ready for the night to be over. “Do you want to come back to my cabin?” he asks, when Michael takes a few halting steps away from him. It’s almost like he’s deliberately moving too slowly, like he doesn’t want the night to be over, either.

“Give me the directions and I’m there.”

Alex feels his heart beating faster, and he spends the entire drive back to the cabin watching Michael’s headlights behind him. It’s like he’s Orpheus, but he’d be pretty shitty at it, because he doesn’t think he stops looking back the whole time, his attention fixed in the mirror to make sure he doesn’t lose Michael again.

Once was long enough and a decade’s been too long to be without him.

When they arrive, he waits on the porch while Michael parks, twirling his keyring around his finger. In the moonlight, Michael looks almost ethereal as he walks towards Alex, the porchlight lighting him up. For a moment, Alex thinks that Michael might keep walking towards him and kiss him, but then he comes to a stop, so close that Alex can feel Michael’s constant heat beside him.

“You want something to drink?” he offers, heart in his throat.

“Yeah,” Michael agrees, “You got beer?”

Alex uses the distraction to calm himself down, pressing the cool can to the back of his neck. It’s not enough to chill him all the way down, but it’s enough to give him some patience, returning and pressing the beer into Michael’s hand. Alex settles on one side of the couch, then Michael takes the other, kicking his feet up, toes curling in his socks, barely brushing Alex’s thigh.

“This okay…?”

Alex nods wordlessly and rapidly, not sure he would even argue if it weren’t.

“So, I looked into your software,” Michael admits, when they’re sprawled out on Alex’s couch. “I think I get it, but I kind of want to hear you explain it.” He’s sideways, taking up all the room, as if he can’t sit on the couch normally.

It’s frustrating and endearing all at the same time.

Alex reaches for his phone to dig it out, struggling to explain it to him. Michael’s a genius, he knows that, but he’s been working on this project for so long that it’s become coding to him and little more. “I guess it’s a little like Tinder meets Uber?” he admits, and shuffles forward to the edge of his seat as he brings up the app. “Here, look, I’ll bring up my test profile.”

Michael shifts too, and that means that they’re inching closer together, like their personal gravities are pulling them in towards one another.

“Okay, so, I’ll put in the things in my profile that I want to do,” he explains, and shifts a little so that he’s pressed flush against Michael when he shows him. “I put in coffee, since we just did that. Now, I’ll add…” He goes silent as he works to find the activities he’s after. He plugs in the hot air balloon ride, then the dinner on a rooftop bar, finishing with the coffee.

The little dot representing him starts to ping with an offer in the beta environment and Alex beams proudly as he shows it to Michael.

“There I am,” he says. “What would normally happen now is that you’d get someone in our system, fully vetted and checked, who would look at the needs of the veteran whether it’s a physical disability or a mental issue, and sign up for the task. It’s volunteer only right now, but I’ve been debating some paid staff,” he admits, laughing when Michael starts poking at the screen. “What are you doing?”

“I’m accepting,” Michael says, and taps a few more times. “I can do that, right?”

“You can’t accept your own requests,” he says, the tips of his ears going red as he goes to another screen. “Is your email the one you gave me to set up tonight?”

Michael nods his confirmation, which is good because Alex is already midway through setting up Michael’s profile. Another two minutes and he’s got it ready to go, the ping from Michael’s phone alerting him that it’s done. Alex nods towards his jeans, giving him an encouraging nod to get it.

“I gave you a profile in the test environment,” Alex says. “So now you can accept.”

Michael pulls out his phone, swiping through the set-up steps and taps on Alex’s tasks to do exactly that. He pulls up the dinner one first, and in full view, clicks ‘YES’ before typing on his phone. He says nothing at all, and then Alex’s phone pings to show him a message.

Friday, 9PM?

“That’s exactly what you’d do,” Alex praises, and tucks his phone away, glad that Michael seems to understand it. “I know that it’s a lot of work and it might not amount to anything, but I watched my brothers adjusting when they got back from overseas and it was hell. Sometimes, all they needed was a friend, even if they’d never met before that day. I wanted to do what I could.”

“It’s amazing, Alex,” Michael insists. “But uh, you didn’t answer my question.”

“What?”

“Dinner? 9PM? Albuquerque?”

Alex’s eyes widen as he realizes that Michael hadn’t been going through the motions. He’s using Alex’s own software to try and pick him up for a date. The smile on his face actually aches, but he logs in to his profile to pull up Michael’s offer.

Without taking his eyes off of Michael, he clicks, Accept.

“Good,” Michael breathes with relief, and relaxes his feet in Alex’s lap. “Cuz I don’t put on the first date and I need to shore up my chances here,” he jokes, which makes Alex’s heart pound even faster, but he slides his phone away with the knowledge that they can end tonight knowing that they have another date coming up.

*

The drive up to Albuquerque has Alex riddled with nerves. He feels like he ought to have been more nervous before he’d given his speech, but no. It’s this. It’s driving up to meet Michael for dinner, picking him up on the campus where he’s packing up from his class. Alex ducks his head around the corner to collect him, but class is still in session.

Michael’s in a frantic rush to end it, though. He’s wearing a suit jacket and tie, pacing around his desk, hands flying everywhere (and a briefcase in one of them). “Remember, I need those modules handed in next Tuesday! No, shit, next Wednesday. Fuck!”

Some of the students in the first-row titter with laughter. “Are you okay, Dr. Guerin?”

Michael presses a hand over his face and Alex bites his lip, hiding his amusement as he settles into a chair in the very last row, sinking as low as he can get so Michael doesn’t spot him. When Michael pries his hand off his face, there’s a rueful smile on his lips, but the look in his eyes is magical.

“I have a date,” he shares with the class.

Alex knows he’s old when the ‘ooooooh’ that goes up around the room makes him roll his eyes.

“Okay, all right, assholes,” Michael complains with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, your professor has a date.”

“Who is it?” calls one of the boys, even as Michael’s packing up his bag.

He clearly wants to get out of there as fast as he can, but the kids aren’t going to let him. Honestly, Alex is all for letting this draw out as long as it can, because he’s loving seeing the way Michael is so nervous. It’s a switch, considering the first time they’d reunited, Alex had been the nervous one on a stage at UNM.

“If any of you turn up and stalk me on this date, I’m auto-failing you,” Michael warns.

“C’mon, Prof. Is it the hot librarian?”

“The one who’s in a committed relationship with her girlfriend?” Michael says dubiously, but he’s leaning against the table at the front, arms crossed over his chest, and there’s an amused look on his face like he’s entertaining the idea of letting this happen. “Try again.”

The students lean together and whisper. When Michael’s gaze slides around the room, Alex sinks even further into his seat to avoid being seen.

“You gotta tell us which team you’re swinging for tonight, Prof!”

“Do I, though?” Michael replies with a smirk.

It’s cute that Michael thinks he’s going to get away with this, and maybe he would have, but he can see students pulling out their phones and going to Michael’s social media accounts. Alex knows for a fact that while nothing there is incriminating, there is absolutely a comment from him on Michael’s picture from today (him choosing his jacket, and given the softness of the suede jacket he’s wearing, he chose right).

“Who’s Alex Manes?”

Michael’s eyes widen in alarm, like he hasn’t been expecting it. “What?”

“He commented on your post today,” the girl keeps going, showing the phone. Alex had left the comment during a gas station break, so there’s every chance that Michael hasn’t seen it yet. “Says that he can’t wait to see if touching that jacket is as soft as it looks. Is he the one who’s gonna be touching you tonight, Prof?”

The tips of Michael’s ears go red, and Alex hides his laugh, because he’s so caught.

“All right, all of you, out! Out of here!” He grimaces, shaking his head and muttering something Alex can’t hear about social media. The students are laughing as they go, amused by their professor’s plight, but Alex finds it absolutely endearing to see how shaken up Michael is.

It bodes well for tonight.

He waits until every last student is out of the class before standing, watching Michael click the clasps of his briefcase shut. “You ended class early for me?” he calls, and takes an obscene amount of joy in the way Michael physically jumps. Alex ducks out of the row and starts to walk down the auditorium steps. “The syllabus says this runs from seven to ten, but it’s eight-thirty…”

“I have a date,” Michael replies, and he might be trying to hide his grin, but he’s doing a shitty job of it. His eyes follow Alex with every step, and that bodes well for how the night is going to end. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“Long enough to hear that you’re kind of nervous,” Alex teases, coming to a stop when he’s on even standing with Michael. “I hear that your date’s pretty excited too. I wouldn’t worry,” he says, smooth and hopefully charming.

Michael lets his gaze slide over Alex, reaching out to brush his fingers against the leather jacket he’s wearing. “This is a nice choice.”

“It’s okay,” Alex agrees. “But don’t think you’re getting out of me touching that jacket of yours,” he warns. “I’ve been thinking about it all drive up here.”

Michael exhales, but it catches in his throat, a tiny strangled exhalation there on his lips. “I guess we’ll have to see how the night plays out, won’t we?”

Dinner is incredible, the best Alex has ever had. He does get to fondle the suit jacket, fingers sliding all over the soft suede when he grabs Michael for a kiss outside the restaurant when they’ve settled up the bill. When they make out in Michael’s car later, he has to rank dinner behind it, but waking up the next morning in Michael’s apartment after a night relearning one another’s bodies and how they move and work together quickly dominates every other experience they’ve had so far.

“You don’t have to go back to Roswell today, right?” Michael asks, between kisses on their lazy Saturday morning.

“Nice thing about being a tech genius,” Alex murmurs, grabbing Michael by the shoulders to roll them so that he’s under Alex. “I can work wherever I want.”

Not that he plans to do much work today, but Alex isn’t going anywhere.

*

It’s been a long week and Alex is looking forward to coming home to their Albuquerque townhome to rest and relax. It’s been theirs for two years, ever since they’d decided to move in together (and Alex had decided to expand and move his offices into town). He’s been working essentially two jobs with the app expanding, while also trying to covertly get information on aliens.

Aliens, he thinks, because his boyfriend is an alien, and his father hunts them. That’s really not exactly why he thought that they’d needed to part ways all those years back, but at least they know now. He’s in the middle of prying off his shoes, giving the arches of his feet a quick massage in the front hallway when he hears his phone alerting him that he’s got a new task offer in the beta version of his app.

Frowning, he digs out his app and looks at the beta environment. There’s a new task waiting for him, right on top of the apartment in a glowing blue dot.

Hot Air Balloon Ride, it reads. And a picnic

Michael slides his way around the doorframe, giving Alex a hopeful look as he raises one of his brows. “You wanna go for a ride?” he offers, his tongue lasciviously sliding over his lower lip as he looks Alex over.

Blushing at the look and trying not to, Alex drops his bag. He’s exhausted, but how could he deny Michael’s hopeful look (not to mention the implication that there’s already a hot air balloon rented somewhere), so he clicks Accept.

Michael’s grin is so wide that Alex can’t not kiss him, so he drifts forward to cup his neck and press a kiss there. “You’re massaging my feet later,” is all he warns, “I’ve been running around all day with the app.”

“I know, yeah, it’s fine,” Michael says dismissively, and yanks him along frantically.

Alex yelps, not sure what the rush is, but Michael’s enthusiasm is catching. He lets him tug him towards the car, loaded up with a picnic basket, and watches as a hot air balloon in the distance starts to loom closer by the second. It’s almost sunset, which means that they’ll be up in the air to watch the sun go down.

It is, plain and simple, romantic as hell.

Alex thought he couldn’t be more in love, but Michael’s really challenging that assumption. “Your chariot awaits,” Michael says, once he’s got the picnic basket in the hot air balloon, helping Alex inside.

He’s never done this before, even though he knows this is a thing in New Mexico, but he’s still not anticipating the lift as they start rising into the air with the help of a technician. Alex grabs at Michael to steady himself, laughing at his unease, but he settles when he gets the hang of the rocking and the awareness that the only thing keeping them up is a heat source.

Once they’re stabilized in the sky, Michael gets on his phone for a second to type something, sliding it in his pocket (with his hand over it), before he drifts in to Alex’s side, wrapping an arm around his shoulder to bring him in close where they can watch the sunset together.

“Michael, this is beautiful,” he raves, turning a soft gaze on Michael as he leans in to kiss him, tangling his fingers through Michael’s curls to brush at them with his thumb, cautious and careful as he squeezes and pulls Michael in for a deeper kiss, eager to get as much as he can before his gaze is stolen by the beautiful plateaus and horizons.

Alex lets out a protesting noise when he’s distracted from the kiss by the pinging of his phone.

“I think you should get that,” Michael suggests when Alex eases back to stare at his pocket, looking oddly calm and collected considering he’s trying to tell Alex to check his phone in the middle of a romantic date.

Alex opens his mouth to protest, because it’d be rude as hell for him to get his phone in the middle of a beautiful sunset overlooking New Mexico, but Michael has that weirdly fixated look that means that he needs to do it or Michael won’t let it go.

He does love his boyfriend, but sometimes, he’s reminded of these odd eccentricities that makes Michael so…unique.

When he pulls up his phone, he finds a notification.

There’s a new task waiting for him.

“Go on,” Michael encourages, and now it looks like he’s starting to get nervous. Alex eyes him, and pulls up the message so he can stare at it, taking his attention off of Michael as he plugs in his password to log in to the test environment that only he and Michael have ever used, mainly to arrange dates.

This time, it’s not a date or a location, not a time or a place.

It reads: Marry me?

When Alex glances up, he sees that Michael’s on one knee, holding out an engagement ring (a fucking engagement ring, holy shit), and he actually can’t believe this is happening.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” Alex says, hitting ‘yes’ about three dozen times on the phone, even dropping it to the floor of the basket of the hot air balloon as Michael rises to his feet, takes hold of his face to kiss him, hips rocking against him and changing the balance of the balloon to the point that it dips and sways.

Alex’s stomach gives out with excitement and fear, which is absolutely perfect for this very moment.

Task accepted, reads his screen from his phone, facing up from the bottom of the balloon.

The smiley face that displays as a result of that task is nowhere near as happy as it should be, not for this task. Alex might have to change that, but that’s something for later. Right now, he’s got a lot of kissing with his fiancé that he needs to do.

[or-ng-c-ss-dy]

unbecoming

wrote another fic. have some heel gentleman’s club, doing gentleman’s club things. like making out and being drunk. 

it’s got some angst because the best friends break up. 

rated m/nsfw.

it’s on ao3 too, if you have an account, you can read it there

-----

Orange was drunk, that much was obvious. Swaying back and forth, leaning heavily against Chuck as they sat together in the locker room. He passed the half-empty bottle of Kentucky Gentleman back to Chuck, managing to slosh the cheap whiskey over both of their fingers.

“You know that we still have a match tonight, right?” Chuck asked after taking a deep drink from the mouth of the bottle.

Orange shrugged and a part of Chuck registered that their lips were touching the same place on the bottle, a sloppy indirect kiss in some ways. He had tracked the way Orange’s tongue ran over the rim, pink enough in his swimming eyes that he couldn’t help but stare.

“Fuck it.” Orange slurred out, far too late to be a response to Chuck’s question.

He could only laugh, putting the bottle up to Orange’s mouth in a silent question. Orange leaned back in response, head tipping back into Chuck’s lap as his feet came up to rest on the bench. Chuck’s knuckles were white as he fed Kentucky Gentleman to Orange, watching the way his throat bobbed as he drank, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of shitty whiskey.

“You were always drunk during our matches back in the day,” Chuck said, and it sounded fond as he sunk fingers into blond hair, short fingernails rubbing over his scalp in a way that had Orange shivering in his lap,”we were unstoppable.”

They definitely weren’t, but he certainly felt unstoppable with Orange at his side. After what Trent did to them, it was easy to sink back into their old ways. The deal was sweetened with a pliant Orange Cassidy practically purring in his lap.

Trent had gotten a taste for those singles matches, leaving him and Orange behind as he decided to go on his own. It pissed him off and it pissed Orange off, who knew him less than Chuck did, but knew that their friendship meant a hell of a lot to Chuck.

Trent made him want to be good. And, now that he was climbing the singles ranks by himself, Chuck couldn’t find it in himself to be good anymore.

It was easy to bring Orange over to his side, there was no doubt in his mind that Orange would follow without even needing to be coaxed. No matter how hard they tried to be good, they weren’t good people. It had been simmering, beneath the hugs and the ringside antics, the cracks had started to show.

They weren’t the Best Friends, not anymore. Hell, maybe they never were, no matter how Trent still looked at him like they were still fine or some bullshit like that. Or like what they used to have mattered after the dust settled, like he needed Trent or some bullshit like that.

He had the heavy, warm weight of a drunk Orange in his lap, nuzzling up to his crotch, he didn’t need Trent. They were the Gentleman’s Club now, had a new song and everything, pyro and shit. It was badass too, made them look like they were a threat.

And they were a threat. Who knew that plying Orange with alcohol like he used to back in the day would make him as lethal as it used to be, keeping him at a healthy buzz was enough to wake him up.

His fingers skated up Orange’s shirt as he planned his revenge against Trent, sliding over his toned stomach almost absentmindedly. He figured that he couldn’t commit literal, actual murder, but he was planning on hurting him regardless. Trent still hadn’t accepted his challenge though, no matter how many times he offered it.

PAC once hurt someone that Kenny Omega cared about to get him into a fight but...well...Trent really had no one those days. He used to have Orange, he used to have him, but now Chuck and Orange only had each other while Trent was all alone.

A part of him wondered if he would even come if he hurt Orange. If he broke that pretty face, made him bleed. Chuck carded his fingers through Orange’s hair, returning the bottle to his lips yet again. His eyes fluttered behind shut eyelids, lashes quivering. He was flushed and shaking in Chuck’s lap, one eyelid cracking open to look at him with an unfocused blue eye.

“Chuck…” He mumbled when Chuck finally pulled the bottle away from his lips.

Chuck’s eyes tracked a stray droplet, setting the bottle aside to drag his thumb over it. He pressed it against Orange’s lips until he parted them, letting Chuck push it into his mouth. The tongue that ran over his thumb was hot and wet, making him shiver and groan softly.

“Good,” he said, voice soft and breathy, “what’s up, babe?”

A part of him thought that he might tug Orange over, fuck up into that hot little mouth right there in the locker room. He was half-hard from watching him tongue fuck the end of the bottle, and he wasn’t too drunk to get it up like Orange probably was. Probably wouldn’t have been the first time that the AEW locker rooms had seen that sort of action, and Orange was certainly drunk enough to go along with it.

“Y’think Trent misses us?” Orange asked, slurring his words and effectively killing the mood.

Chuck scowled, finger tightening in his hair hard enough to make Orange hiss softly.

“Who cares?” He said, snatching the bottle up again.

He pressed it against Orange’s lips, forcing him to drink more despite the green-ish tinge to his skin. Anything to shut the asshole up, even if it was going to make him sick before their match. They could use it to their advantage if he puked all over the canvas anyway, it would be a hell of a surprise. A gross one, but it could work. Kind of like how Orange used to spit orange juice at people back in the day.

Nah, that’d be a little too gross. His nose wrinkled at the thought of it and he pulled the bottle away from Orange to take a swig of it himself.

The idea of the orange juice, though, that had some merit.

“You ever think about bringing back the juice?” Chuck asked after a few moments, hand moving from Orange’s hair to curl his fingers lightly around his throat. “Nah. It’s a DQ.”

Chuck laughed at that, grinning broadly down at Orange. His thumb stroked over a bruise on the column of his neck, one that he had left a few nights back. Neither of them bothered to hide the marks they left on each other’s skin, they didn’t care enough to be shy about the new angle of their relationship.

“You think I’d let them DQ us? I’d take care of the ref while you do your thing, don’t worry about that.”

Orange seemed to consider it. Either that, or it took a little too long to process from how wasted he was.

“Can I put some vodka in it?” He said and Chuck laughed, squeezing slightly around his throat. “Of course. Just remember to spit it, don’t just suck it all down in the middle of the match.”

They were better off without Trent, he just...got in the way. So it was better, a haze of alcohol and yellow overhead lighting blurring his vision of Orange’s handsome face in his lap. A fuzz of a halo around him, but neither of them were anything close to angels.

Still, he looked like he could’ve been one at some point. But they were never good, and that was the problem with trying to play as anything close to morally upstanding.

Chuck leaned down at the same time Orange moved up, licking the taste of cheap whiskey and cheaper orange juice out of his mouth. It was a filthy kiss, his hand still on Orange’s neck and the sound of people clearing their throats around them. Like their opinions mattered or something, he slipped Orange some extra tongue because of it, pulling him up by the throat to straddle his lap.

He let himself get lost in the kiss and the way Orange’s body felt against his, cupping his hip with the hand that wasn’t still resting on his neck. Orange’s own hands moved over his body, one sliding into his hair, the other on his shoulder.

A startled, familiar gasp cut through the silence of the locker room. Chuck cracked an eye open to look in the flushed face of Trent. He moved his hand down and cupped Orange’s ass, letting a smirk spread across his lips. Orange moaned into his mouth, oblivious to the new person watching them. He coaxed Orange into grinding against him, feeling the beginnings of a very hard-fought erection stirring in Orange’s jeans.

Trent looked like he was at a loss for words, face flushed as he tried to look at anything but the show they were putting on. Chuck tucked his hand in Orange’s back pocket, sliding him down to sit on the bulge at the front of his trousers, grinding up against his ass.

“What do you want?” He said, breaking the kiss.

Orange let out a soft whine, like he was going to tell Chuck exactly what he wanted him to do, until he noticed that Chuck was looking over his shoulder. Instead, he tucked his face into Chuck’s shoulder and began to mouth at his neck, looking to leave some matching bruises. Trent looked more than a little lost, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, like he had forgotten why he had come to see them.

“You’re...uh. You’re on next, you need to go.” He said, not meeting his eyes. “Guess we’ll have to pick this up later then,” Chuck said in response, drawing his hand back and letting it crack against Orange’s ass, “c’mon, babe, let’s go kick some ass.”

Orange slid out of his lap, tucking himself under Chuck’s arm as he stood. It was mostly to hold himself up, partially for the closeness as he eyed Trent over his shades with a slight sneer on his face.

Standing across from Trent, he could remember what had happened as clear as day. When Trent decided that he had taken things too far, when the match ended and Chuck just kept going.

It hadn’t been his fault. They had gone after Orange, had put him out, made him bleed. It was just retribution, especially when they went after Trent next. Proud and Powerful were ruthless, they couldn’t stand up against them if they just sat to the side and let them do whatever the hell they wanted.

Chuck ended up with the pin, but it didn’t matter. Not when he had caught the sight of Orange’s battered little face, bleeding all over his shirt and jacket. The hours he’d spend trying to get the blood out, they wouldn’t be worth it if Chuck just stood aside and did nothing.

What the fuck was he supposed to do? What kind of best friend would he be if he just let them beat the shit out of Trent and Orange without stopping them?

And, if the only way they were going to respond was through violence? So be it.

He still remembered the way it felt to have Trent pull him off of Ortiz right before his boot made contact with his nose, robbed of the chance to see that violent red splatter everywhere. Robbed of his chance for revenge for Orange, he turned and pushed Trent back.

Chuck knew that he wasn’t fine, but...but seeing Trent across the room? It brought it all back, and he reached for the bottle that they left on the bench to take a deep swig of it, throwing his free arm over Orange’s shoulder and dragging him in even closer.

Orange hung off of him, seemingly uncaring as he lazily reached for the bottle. Chuck let him take it, eyes still on Trent because he really was at a loss for words. A small part of him wanted to forgive Trent, a larger part knew that Trent didn’t think he needed to be forgiven. That Chuck had been the one to fuck up, and that was why they couldn’t say anything.

They could say what the other wanted to hear. Or they could just move on without each other, a part of each other’s lives that were in the past. But Chuck still wanted his revenge, and he frowned, pushing past Trent.

“Chuck, I-” Trent started, cutting himself off when Orange pushed the bottle into his hands. “Save it for when I kick your ass in the ring.” Chuck sneered, shouldering past him.

They left him in the locker room, cradling the now-fully-empty bottle of Kentucky Gentleman. He couldn’t stop to think about consequences or closure or even revenge, although that was always on his mind.

He’d get his revenge. But, first, they had a match to win.

[razorblade180]

OC Test: Strength

With only the use of hands and semblances, test each other in combat in any way you see fit.

Valerie:*Smirking* anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?

Everybody forms a circle around Carmine almost immediately.

Carmine:So that’s how you wanna play this huh? Should’ve figured as much.

Valerie:Blame yourself for proclaiming to be the strongest.

Carmine:I hope you know this is an automatic loss for me right? Even I can’t beat all nine of you at once. From what I’ve seen all of you are tough people.

Sienna:Let me guess, you’re just the toughest is that right?

Summer:Anyone else concerned that she doesn’t look scared?

Lucas:Not really, I can hear her heart rate increase.

Carmine:*glares at him* So what if it is? Maybe I’m just getting excited.

Jacquelyn:I say we make this a little fair. For example......

With a stomp of her foot roots and plants start to spread until a lush forest is made.

Jacquelyn:There, that’s all the fighting you’ll get at of me. Use the forest as an area to make things a bit more fair. Everyone rushing her right here does seem drastic. Also if someone says “uncle” or knocked out then they lose.

Jael:That seems like a nice handicap. Also I think we should give her a head start into the forest.

Yujin:Oooo it’s like reverse tag almost. All of us trying to corner one person.

Tenzen:Pretty sure that’s just Pac-Man; I’m done with it.

Valerie:Yeah whatever, we’re still going to win without a real problem.

Carmine:You know what, I’ll give you guys a handicap too.

Nick:Umm why does that make me concerned? I thought we were the ones helping her out?

Carmine:I will not use my semblance on anyone. If I do then I’ll tell you who my parents are. Hell, beat me and I might become a little bit more open.

Everyone:Deal!!!!!

Carmine:(That was easy....)

Jacquelyn:Alright you crazy kids, scatter!!!

*ten minutes later*

Carmine stands right in the middle of the forest with her eyes closed. She waits patiently for the first person to show up.

Carmine:(I’m currently equal distance from any direction inside the forest. They’re smart and probably picked different entry points; possibly even split into teams of two. That wouldn’t be difficult if I could fight them quietly. No weapons help but it’s still gonna get noisy and that will attract the rest.)

The wind blows calmly through her hair and she opens her eyes to look around the area.

Carmine:(Hiding would make sense but I’m sure Lucas and Sienna could hear me move around regardless of how careful I am. They most likely know where I am and that means four people to fight almost immediately. Tenzen is probably with Yujin and would rush over here in a second. That makes six in the worse case scenario. Man, I wonder how mom would handle this? All out attack most likely with thinking on your feet.

.........

Carmine:(No wonder Jacquelyn opted out, I have my hands full and I haven’t even factored the twins yet. Maybe I should just tell them who I am? Valerie would still want to fight but the others might blow this thing off. Why is it so important that they know I’m-)

Suddenly Tenzen appears right in front of her fully powered up and going for a roundhouse kick. Before it connects she ducks and sweeps his leg, causing him to fall. Not wasting time she pins his arm behind him.

Tenzen:You actually dodged that! I’d geek out if this didn’t hurt so much. *wincing*

Carmine:(That closer than I liked. He’s pretty fast.) Say uncle Or I’ll break it dude after the test it will heal anyways so I have no problem snapping it.

Tenzen:Sorry, can’t make it that easy for you. Everyone is dying to know who you are.

Carmine:Why is this so important to everyone? I don’t get it in the slightest. *tightens grip*

Tenzen:Because we look up to you!

Carmine:......

Tenzen:We barely know you but we can tell that you’re the bar we all want to reach. We might not take all this experience in our actual worlds but when we are it’s something we want to have. You’re inspiring Carmine.

Carmine:.......Last chance to give up before you lose an arm.

Tenzen:Sorry, I can’t give up now.

Carmine:I know you can’t, but Yujin can. You hear me!? Say uncle or I’ll break his arm!

......

Carmine:I hope you’re not right handed.

Yujin:*runs out of the bushes* Uncle!!!! Don’t break it.

Tenzen:Yujin!

Yujin:I panicked okay!? Besides...*smirks* I already did my part.

Carmine:What are you- *sees a shadow*

Without looking up she immediately jumped out the way as trees started to fall like rain. Jael had all the ammo she needed as she floated right above the forest and continued to chuck trees down at Carmine. Staying in the middle was no longer a viable option so took off running.

Carmine:That semblance is gonna be a problem. I better-

Tenzen:*running next to her* Sup.... *kicks her*

Carmine:Not a bad plan. I can’t run away, Jael is watching from above, and the sound of falling trees definitely alerted the others. Why make Yujin give up though?

Tenzen:She said her heart wasn’t in it. Didn’t mind throwing in the towel after she did her small part. I think you’ve grown on her the most.

Carmine:(Yeah well it goes both ways)

Tenzen:The rest of us though....

Valerie and the others show up surrounding her again.

Sienna:We’re really motivated to see what you can do. Time to put your money where your mouth is.

Carmine:.......

Carmine:Screw it, I gave up......

Everybody:WHAT!?

Nick:You won’t even try!?

Carmine:Try what? See how long it takes before I’m pinned to the ground? I have no weapon or semblance at my disposal; I was doomed from the start in all honesty. Just wanted to get a sense of how all of operate.

Tenzen:*powers down* Man I guess that makes sense. I was so ready to-

He gets knocked out cold with a kick that sends him into a tree by Carmine. Before anyone registers the attack she lunges at Nicholas and throw him into Jael; knocking her out the sky. Summer gets pulled in a head lock and immediately tries to gasp for air..

Sienna:Jael! *runs to her*

Valerie:What the hell you-

Carmine:Didn’t say Uncle. Should’ve listened carefully. Now say it before Summer passes out from lack of oxygen.

Summer:*already turning blue*

Valerie:Lucas! Shouldn’t you have seen this coming!?

Lucas:Let’s assume I did see this coming. Do you think you could’ve reacted fast enough to stop her? Sometimes not knowing and being on guard is better than thinking everything is accounted for. I will say that this was unexpected.

Carmine:Uh I think Summer is getting a little sleepy over here.

Valerie: Sigh...Uncle....

Carmine:Cool, *lets go* sorry for being rough with you.

Summer:*coughing* What kind of strength!? How are you so strong?

Carmine:My world doesn’t play nice. Can you please do me a favor and say-

Summer:Uncle.... that goes for me and Nick.

Nick:*getting up* No way, I still have plenty of fight left! *summons Arma Gigas’s sword*

Carmine:(Well that’s unique....)

Sienna:.....*holding Jael* You okay?

Jael:Yep, just dizzy is all. That hurts when you’re not suspecting it. Can’t remember the last time I fell out of sky. *holds head* Still hurts like hell. Starting to think we’re out of our depth.

Sienna:What!? The four of us vs her is still easy.

Jael:Perhaps, but honestly I can’t keep up with you on a good day. *gets up* it’s funny, she’s not much older than me but I can already feel gap between us. If I had my sword then my odds may be different, at least a little.

Carmine:You’re selling yourself short. I don’t think you realize just how tough you are. I’m actually worried about you the most. Gravity is no joke.

Jael:I’d shake your hand right now if I wasn’t seeing two of you. *sits down* Sorry sis, fighting like this would be reckless; uncle....

Sienna:....Well I’m still going for it. *cracks knuckles* You just take a break.

Lucas:I’ll help you out. * jumps back*

Nick:Three against one it is then.

Carmine:Lucky me.....

Both Jael and Summer move out the way to Valerie to let three try their luck. The two felines rush in at the same time was claws out. Lucas goes high while Sienna goes low; each firing off kicks and slashes simultaneously. Carmine bobs and weaves frantically away from the two while constantly being blocked by glyphs. She tries to back up but is blocked by another one and is double uppercutted. They try to follow up with right and left swipes but Carmine catches the attack; pulling them together harshly and kicking them back.

Carmine:*rubs chin* Can anyone explain how three people from different worlds work together like old friends.

Sienna:Simple, I do what I want and commit to it. *jumps and kicks were right*

Lucas:I see it ahead of time and attack accordingly. *falling with a left kick*

Carmine:*jumps back* Tsk....

Nick:All I do is make up the difference.*stabs sword in the ground*

Glyphs close in around her with her two main opponents inside. Before she can react, both of them slam her into glyph and hold onto her limbs. Everyone on the outside unable to see.

Lucas:I found it weird that you chose to not be able to use your semblance.

Carmine:Makes things too easy, trust me.

Lucas:Or it’s a dead giveaway on who you are.

Carmine:.....

Sienna:I’ll tell you what, both of us don’t want to win this way and nobody can see us right now. So cut loose already.....

Lucas:We won’t tell if you do.....

Carmine:Yeah but.....*groans*

Red aura glows from her as the ground trembles. Both of her opponents let go calmly and brace themselves for a fight.

Carmine:You sure about this?

Sienna and Lucas:Bring it on!

*minutes pass*

Valerie:Can you see what’s happening?

Nick:No but I think-

The glyphs break and a wave of pressure flies out. Carmine is seen standing while the other two lay on the ground tired but happy.

Sienna:It’s over....give up Nicholas. We already did.

Nick:Seriously!? But she looked like she was on the ropes and- ah screw it. Fine I give up, Uncle.

Carmine:Sweet, glad that’s finally over. Let’s get out of this place.

•

Jacquelyn:You all lost!?

Everyone:Yeah.....

Valerie:Some of us didn’t get to try for real! *huffs*

Tenzen:Yeah, not my finest moment either. That kick was something else.

Jacquelyn:I guess you’re still a woman of mystery aye Carmine? We’ll get you next time.

Everyone:Thanks for the match! *bows*

Carmine:You all aren’t gonna stop trying are you?

Yujin:Of course not! One day we’re gonna prove to you that we can keep up! You better be ready Carmine! *smiles*

Carmine:......

Carmine:Don’t hold your breath. Keeping up with the one and only Carmine Arc-Rose is something not everyone can say. *walks away*

Nobody says anything, almost like they didn’t hear her for a moment. Then then next minute all heads whip around to see her laying down with her eyes closed and a contact case on her stomach. Like she didn’t just say what everyone was waiting for.

Everyone:.....*smiles* Nice to meet you Carmine Arc-Rose.

Carmine:Zzzzzzz

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 16X09

This week’s episode was the Fall Finale and it did not disappoint let me tell you! It was so good! The theme of this episode for me was 'I did not see that coming!' And the ending really shocked me! It felt like the old Grey's! I have to say this is the first episode of Grey’s Anatomy I've watched in a while that made me want to actually go back and re-watch it. We open on Meredith coming out of an elevator. It’s her first day back at Grey Sloan! We find out that Mer is looking for a package. Apparently, Cristina sent her something to make her feel better after almost losing her licence to practice medicine and getting dumped. They are persons and BFF's forever! Maggie and Amelia are happy to have her back and the residents are excited to see her. They present her with a welcome back cake and Helm finally gets her hug. It’s all very sweet. Then DeLuca pipes up about not knowing that Bailey had re-hired her.

To which Meredith responds that she was going to tell him, but he was too busy dumping her. DeLuca tries to argue that he didn’t dump her. He told her to take some time. To which she responds, “Rob, Steal, Murder, Kill. It all means the same thing.” Love that salt Mer! Throw that shade honey! Such a Queen! Meanwhile over at Pac North a woman comes by to tour the ER as a potential new hire and Owen has to show her around because Alex is away in Iowa because something is up with his Mom. Yikes! That’s definitely going to be a major plot point when the show comes back in the New Year. Owen shows the woman around and is all doey eyed while doing it which Richard immediately calls him on in the most hilarious way possible!

Back at Grey Sloan Vic and Jackson are having a moment when Catherine pulls up. She doesn't know that Jackson and Maggie have broken up and as a result is cold as ice to Vic in the funniest way! I love her line, “Station 19? What is that a TV Channel?” Oh Catherine. We get a hot and sexy Amelink moment followed by a Schmico moment. Everybody is knocking boots. LOL. Good old Grey's. Side note, where does Nico work right now? Did he take a fellowship position at Grey Sloan? Is he working somewhere else and here to see Levi? I feel like they probably addressed this and I missed it. We cut to Amelia and Link have an adorable little moment where they play a cute little game of what attributes they hope their baby has from each of them. My heart!

Their game is interrupted when they find out that Jo has become a Safe Haven volunteer and just found out that a baby has been dropped off at Station 19 and she has to go pick them up. Oh boy. Link is wonderful and supportive of Jo and what she's trying to do. I love him for that. Amelia gets pulled away to talk to Bailey. They swap pregnancy updates. It's adorable. I’ve noticed Jo's hair is darker now and they haven't addressed why. That’s interesting. I like that they've turned the black female resident named Hannah Brody who was previously a background character that rarely said much into a full-fledged character this season. After losing the actors who played Sam Bello and Dahlia Qadri to other roles they could have just cast a new actor to play a resident but instead they promoted from within and I like that.

We cut to Maggie rounding on her first patient who turns out to be a man who needs heart surgery and whose wife just gave birth ahead of schedule. Maggie is nervous after what happened with Sabi and unfortunately this comes back to bite her later on. Bailey rounds on her first patient and we find out that it’s none other than Captain Herrera from Station 19 and his cancer is back. Oh boy. The residents are still doing rounds when Meredith comes in to see her first patient a teenage girl that she operated on two years ago and that's when the new Head of Paediatric Surgery walks in! His name is Dr. Cormac Hayes. He's Irish and he started this morning. Him and Mer do not get off to a good start to say the least. Hayes doesn't like it when residents round on his patients when he's not there and doesn't seem to understand that Meredith is Meredith freaking Grey and that she part owns the hospital he's standing in.

Meanwhile Jo arrives at Station 19 to pick up the baby. We find out that it’s a three day old infant and that Ben is happy to see her. Back at the hospital Maggie approaches Teddy and asks her to scrub in on her valve replacement surgery. Maggie is clearly nervous and concerned and Teddy picks up on none of it somehow. Meredith and Dr. Hayes butt heads again over their patient, who they decide to send for a CT scan, while DeLuca looks on longingly but decides not to say anything to Mer. Probably a good idea seeing as he just dumped her. Idiot. Meanwhile Bailey is giving Captain Herrera an ultrasound while they talk about her pregnancy and how she thinks it’s going to be a girl. Jackson finds his Mom in one of the conference rooms and they finally talk about what’s been going on in each of their lives and their relationship problems. I love Catherine's outfit in this scene! The striped multicoloured blazer and pink sequinned blouse are fierce! She always has the best clothes!

I like that this show has moments where they work to dispel harmful myths like the idea that using formula instead of breast milk is bad for your baby. It’s not and we need to stop shaming mothers who can't breastfeed or choose not to. Meanwhile at Pac North, Gemma and Richard are having an impromptu AA meeting in Richard's office. They're in the middle of praying when one of Pac North's incompetent employees barges in! Because they are holding hands the employee mistakes Gemma for Richard's wife! They have a good laugh over that and finish doing the serenity prayer. Pac North: Never a dull moment! Meanwhile Jo is still at Station 19 with the surrendered baby. Her and Jack have a heart to heart about being former foster kids. I really love Jo's bomber jacket! It's super cute! They upgraded her wardrobe this year and damn! Back at the hospital we find out that Amelia has yet to have an ultrasound because she's terrified of what she might find out. Bailey convinces her to get one.

Mer and Hayes butt heads again over their patient's CT scan and Hayes throws major shade. Mer throws it right back though by asking who hired him Bailey or Koracick? When Hayes won't answer and asks her why she wants to know Mer fires back with, “Bailey usually has too much sense to hire surgeons whose egos are too big to fit in an OR.” Savage Meredith is the best Meredith. Maggie and Teddy operate on their heart patient. Teddy wants to chit chat. Maggie does not. Meanwhile Catherine shows up at Pac North looking for Richard. She runs into the incompetent employee from earlier and tries to throw shade. It backfires hilariously. Unfortunately, the employee mistakenly tells her that Richard is having coffee with his wife and so now Catherine definitely thinks he's having an affair. Jeez louis.

Meanwhile back at Grey Sloan we find out that Hayes went behind Meredith's back and told their patient and her mother that she might have cancer. Mer is not happy to say the least. Amelia and Link talk about the fact that she hasn't gotten an ultrasound yet. Link assumed she had. Amelia realizes that she really does need to get one. I love her line, “He dumps my sister and you put him on your service?” Amelia. Always coming in with the one liners! Link was unaware that Mer and DeLuca had broken up. DeLuca tries to clear things up while talking to Link and Nico as they scrub in. Link calls him on his BS. Mer has very few equals because she's that good. Which is the truth. As Link points out Mer is one of the world's top general surgeons. DeLuca is still a resident. She doesn't see him as an equal because he's not. No one is. Nico makes some good points about how Schmitt isn't his equal but that doesn't mean he doesn't respect him.

I loved Nico’s line, “But if he told me to take some time, yeah no, I would not respect that.” Drop that truth Nico! Drop it like it’s hot! I love that DeLuca is finally realizing what an idiot he's been. He's acting like he's this great catch when he was dating Meredith freaking Grey. She's the catch. There are lots of men out there who would give their left arm to go out with Mer and he dumped her over his own feelings of inadequacy. He didn't deserve her and he's figuring this out after they're no longer together. You snooze you lose pal. Link tells DeLuca to go fix what he did because he's not her equal, but Mer went out with him anyway and fell in love with him knowing that. He was the one who suddenly decided that was a problem not her. Meanwhile Maggie and Teddy are operating when Tom comes on the intercom and compliments Teddy's work and then leaves. Maggie asks her why she doesn't tell him to leave her alone. Teddy responds that he's her boss and she feels guilty for breaking his I loved Helm’s line, “Wow. So many lawsuits in one explanation.” Never change Helm. Never change.

Maggie then calls Teddy on the fact that Tom is not harmless in the sense that he wants a future with her and she does not seem to want to clear that up. Just as they are getting ready to close Teddy gets called away to the ER. Teddy leaves and right after Maggie realizes that the patient's heart isn't restarting as it should. Meanwhile Bailey comes to see Captain Herrera. She confirms that his cancer is indeed back. Bailey wants to discuss treatment options. Herrera says he won't do chemo again. That's when he looks down and realizes that Bailey is bleeding. When I was watching the episode the first time through I thought for sure this was going to be a cliff hanger. That we would find out there was something wrong but not find out what it was until January. Alas we do find out. Ben and Jo arrive at the hospital with the surrendered baby. That's when Ben gets a text that there's something wrong. He runs off to be at Bailey's side leaving Jo looking worried and confused. Meanwhile Maggie tries desperately to re-start her patient's heart.

Teddy comes back in and says the heart is probably hibernating and that they need to give it time to come back and re-start. Ben rushes to Bailey's room to find her in bed talking to Carina with Pruitt standing beside her. Their faces say it all. Bailey suffered a miscarriage. I cried watching this scene. Poor Bailey. Poor Ben. She is not having a good year. This also means they'll have to tell Tuck that he isn't going to be getting a sibling after all. My heart breaks for them. Meanwhile Meredith and Hayes are in the OR doing a biopsy on their patient. It's not malignant. Meredith was right and Hayes was dead wrong. Once that's confirmed she lays down the law. “Listen Dr. Who Ever You Are, this is my house. You're a guest in my home. I got this.” Damn straight Mer! On the fashion front, Mer is back to wearing her purple pink scrub cap with the floral pattern on it. Meanwhile over at Pac North, Owen has just finished giving the new potential hire a tour. Richard gives him major side eye. He knows what’s up. Richard warns Owen that he's standing on a slippery slope.

Owen says he's not dead inside, but he's also happily taken. Richard counters by asking him if he’s proposed to Teddy yet. Owen says he hasn't. To which Richard responds, “But what? You're waiting for her to have your third child?” I love Richard. Back at Grey Sloan Mer proves to Hayes that she was right all along and he finally seems impressed. Over at Joe's Bar Catherine meets Jackson for (several) drinks and laments about how Richard is having an affair. Jackson calls her on the fact that she has no proof, hasn't actually talked to Richard, and that it seems like a simple misunderstanding which it is. I love his line, “I cannot be responsible for my relationships and yours! Alright? There's not enough therapy in the damn world for that." Oh Jackson. Back at the hospital Ben chases after Bailey in a hallway. He wants to take her home but she just wants to be alone. Which would be heartbreaking enough except that as she rounds the corner she runs into a very cheerful Amelia.

Amelia asks Bailey if she got her ultrasound, oblivious to the fact that she has just suffered a miscarriage. She urges Amelia to get one. She says she's going tonight. As if you weren't tearing up enough already, Amelia asks Bailey if she decided to find out the baby's sex or not. Bailey tearfully tells her it's a girl. Unaware of her heartbreak Amelia joyfully jumps up and hugs her before skipping off down the hall. Oh Grey's, always hitting me right in the feels. Meanwhile Teddy and Maggie try to explain to their patient's wife what happened in surgery. She is understandably upset. Maggie excuses herself because she can't take it any longer. As she walks away Koracick catches up with her in the hallway and asks what happened. Maggie says she would like to tender her resignation effectively immediately. Koracick tells her to hang on a minute. One bad outcome does not mean she should quit.

She tells him she had a bad feeling about the surgery and she should have trusted herself and had someone else do it. Maggie tells Koracick that she can't be a surgeon if she can't trust herself. She quits. Tom tries to argue with her but it's no use. She walks away. Teddy comes out to talk with Tom. He tells her he is in need of a new Cardio Chief and asks if she's interested. At which point Teddy loses it believing that Tom just fired Maggie to give her what he thinks she needs. Teddy tells Tom that she has moved on, that she loves Owen, and she's sorry that she hurt him. But that he has got to stop barking up this particular tree. Tom tells a stunned Teddy that he didn't fire Maggie. She quit. But he does think she should be Chief of Cardio. After a moment’s hesitation he also tells her that he wants a life with her and would marry her tomorrow. Tom points out that Owen has a baby with her and still hasn't proposed. He asks her if she's really sure she wants to close the door on them before walking away. Meanwhile, Bailey finally breaks down alone in her office about the loss she's suffered.

Meredith and Hayes finish treating their patient who is upset that the boy she likes hasn't texted her back. Hayes pipes up and says that as someone who has raised a couple of teenage boys he knows a thing or two. Hayes tells her that all teenage boys care about is Fortnite and pizza and that they're terrified of girls. And that they can't talk to them, especially the ones they like. This cheers her up considerably. After work Link comes over to see Jo at the loft. He asks how things went and finds out that Jo took the surrendered baby home! Did she steal that baby? Did she talk to the social worker and work something out? We don't know. The day ends with Meredith in the elevator texting Cristina. Cristina asks if she got her package. Mer says it never came. Just then Hayes gets on the elevator too. She stops texting and asks him what his deal is. Hayes tells her that he doesn't try to figure out what people want to hear. He prefers to give them all the information up front and let them figure out how to deal with it.

He follows up by saying he does this because his wife's doctors didn't pay him that respect before she died so he does his best to do so for others. He ends by saying Grey Sloan might be Mer's house, but someone gave him a key so maybe it's best if they try to learn how to live together and welcomes her back. He says he can see why she was missed and just as he walks away she gets another text from Cristina. The package isn't an it. It's a him. The package Cristina sent isn't an object. It's a person. Dr. Cormac Hayes is Cristina's gift to Mer. He's the new head of Paediatric Surgery at Grey Sloan, he's a widow (or McWidow as Cristina calls him), and he's a father to at least two teenage boys. Cristina signs off her texts to Mer with a bunch of three leaf clovers. She's gifting Mer with the luck of the Irish in the form of a new love interest. Which is such a Cristina thing to do. LOL! Everyone needs a Cristina in their life! I'm excited that Mer has a new love interest. From what I can tell Hayes checks all the right boxes. He's an attending Department Chief.

He appears to be a talented surgeon. He appears close to Mer's age. He's a father. And he's got Cristina's stamp of approval! The fact that Cristina had a hand in picking him and bringing him from Ireland to the U.S. to work at Grey Sloan to be the new head of Paediatric Surgery also suggests that Alex might be in on this too. Cristina is a heart surgeon, not a peds surgeon. It’s not her speciality. You know whose it is? Her good friend Alex. Where is Alex working right now? At Pac North and he’s happy there. Which means Grey Sloan needs a new Peds Chief. Cristina wouldn’t send Mer and her beloved hospital someone crappy. Cristina is hard to impress and if she sent Hayes to Seattle it’s because he impressed her. He’s someone Cristina thinks Mer will get along well with, can potentially build a life with, and who can do his job well in a way Alex would approve of. To me this implies that Cristina would have talked to Alex about bringing Hayes to Grey Sloan as a potential new hire before she set things in motion.

Although I doubt she mentioned the boyfriend element. My guess is she reached out to get his thoughts on Hayes and get his stamp of approval. One of my biggest pet peeves is that Cristina and Alex have butted heads with or openly disliked most of the people Meredith has dated (and vice versa). I'm excited to see her with someone her best friends actually like. We’ll have to wait to January to see if I’m right or not, but I’m really excited to see where this goes! To be honest, I think they should have gone this route from the beginning after having Mer date for a while and not wasted our time with all that Link and DeLuca nonsense, but were here now and that's the important thing! But the episode's not done yet! We see Amelia having her ultrasound. Everything is fine with the baby (yah!) except we find out that Amelia is actually 24 weeks pregnant, not 20 weeks like she thought. Which based on the look on her face means either Link or Owen could be the father. Yikes! We then cut to Joe's Bar where Ben and Captain Herrera are drinking at the bar, Jackson is drinking alone, the residents are drinking together, and Nico and Schmitt are on a date.

Herrera tries to comfort Ben to no use. Ben then questions why Herrera himself was even at the hospital. Schmitt turns to bring drinks back to his and Nico's table WHEN A FREAKING CAR CRASHES INTO THE BAR!!! I legitimately screamed when that happened! Not Joe's Bar! No! Wow. What a finale! This means several major and minor character's lives are hanging in the balance until January! I wonder what's happening with Alex's Mom. Whatever it is it doesn't sound good. Imagine how freaked he'll be when he gets back. He's already dealing with family issues and now everything in Seattle is a mess! Jo took home a baby. Cristina sent Mer a new boyfriend from Ireland. Bailey just suffered a miscarriage! Maggie just quit. Amelia might be having Owen's baby and a car just crashed into Joe's Bar! Alex's first day back in Seattle is going to be a doozey!

Until then dear readers!

[sailor-cresselia]

The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: SPECIAL EDITION! Ex-Aid “Tricks”, Kamen Rider Genm

…Oh, no, I’m stuck with tv-nihon subs again, since apparently nobody else got around to subbing the Genm specials. Welp.

Like, I do want to say, right off the bat, that I’m grateful that they sub pretty much everything, but the formatting tends to sleave… a lot to be desired.

Anyway, here we go, with the awful legend rider forms and the first time we see that bright yellow should never, ever be put onto the Ex-Aid suit.

Ever.

––

We open in Dan Kuroto’s secondary lair, panning over the first fourteen Heisei Legend Rider Gashats. I am struck by the realization that I like the colors they used for these a whole lot more than the Ridewatches.

Kuroto’s also just got a Ganbarazing game cabinet in here, implying that the game is a joint project between Genm Corp and Bandai in-universe. This implication is only further enforced when he holds up three unlabeled gashats in front of the cabinet, data streams from the screen into them, and they gain labels of their own.

Introducing the Legend Rider Gashats “Magic the Wizard,” “Toukenden Gaim,” and “Full Throttle Drive.”

Legend Rider Gashat names are weird.

Kuroto says that he finally has them – gashats with the powers of legends.

…Okay, so this implies that you went and got battle data from the other 14 Heisei Riders, but I’m just saying that might have been a little difficult in a lot of cases. You know, seeing as Godai doesn’t transform because of the risk of going monstery, Kenzaki is basically in hiding while wandering the world most of the time, nobody ever knows where Tsukasa is, and Takumi is just flat out dead at the moment.

(Right here is where, up until this week, I would have thanked Zi-O for fixing two of these issues, but nooooo.)

(gfdi Sougo.)

––

After the title screen, Emu and Asuna are walking through a park, where apparently Kuroto’s called them out to meet.

…Actually, now I kind of wonder why half of the time, early-series Poppy refers to Kuroto as ‘Genm’s CEO’. Straight up using those terms, or ‘chief,’ or similar. Later on, she’ll use his name, but… like, she knows who he is. She’s not unfriendly with him. I know it’s probably some sort of formality thing that I’m not picking up on, but it still feels weird.

Anyway, he’s called them up to get back the Kaigan Ghost gashat. They’re walking, right up until a Gekitotsu Robots Collabos bugster steps out into view. Emu, being an absolute sweetheart, asks Takeru to lend him his power as he readies the gashat.

…I still don’t like the legend rider helmets.

There’s a distinct problem in his choice of gashat, however. Namely, he’s using a squishy mage form against a heavily armored robot, meaning his punches have less than no effect, and he gets sent flying just by being sideswiped by not-Gatton’s fist.

Kuroto runs up, asking if Emu’s alright.

No, no he’s not, but he’s also more concerned with making sure you stay safe, because as far as he knows, you can’t do jack to defend yourself.

Kuroto looks ‘taken aback’ by the sight of not-Gatton, and tells them that the gashat in it’s head is proto-gekitotsu robots, one of the gashats that Dr Pac-man had stolen, and asks them to get it back for him.

Emu, being Emu, immediately agrees, and runs off to go fight again, despite having just gotten knocked on his ass. Kuroto hastily opens the breifcase he’s carrying, and tosses Emu the Full Throttle Drive gashat.

Said Gashat, when activated, briefly summons an energy Tridoron out of the Game Start screen, which promptly goes and hits not-Gatton. This car also promptly disappears off screen.

(At this point, my torrent of a higher-quality version of this special finishes, and I get some much cleaner visuals. Looks like I’d been using the lower-res one, and this is much better. Also, some of the wording has been fixed up. Emu’d said that he’d made a ‘newb mistake’ in his choice of using Ghost in the DVD version, but in this one he says a ‘huge mistake.’ Much better.)

I’d like the Drive armor, because the general aesthetic converts far better into an Ex-Aid suit than Ghost’s does, but… there’s that stupid eyepiece overlapping with the eyes on the Drive helmet. This is the only problem I have with the anime eyes on the gamer suits – that the frames stick around in the legend forms, cutting into the rest of the visuals. That’s it.

As Emu starts wailing on not-Gatton with his shiny new Steering Sword, Kuroto admits that he was collecting battle data during the fight against Dr. Pac-man. We have a brief shot of him just. Lurking around a column and watching Shinnosukes fight against Robol’s minions, with a notebook in hand. Because that’s totally how he usually collects battle data. Sure.

Whatever. Anyway, Emu thinks that’s really impressive, beats on not-Gatton some more, and readies a finisher. I can’t even get mad at TV-Nihon’s typesetting habits for making the announcement a nigh-illegible red with white pinstripes, because they’re just matching what the show already had on screen, so this one’s on Toei. (Toei had a better font choice, though.)

Also, the background for the attack title card is a road, with a pair of Type Speed tires in the corners. The energy Tridoron makes a re-appearance to let Emu do Shinnosukes base finisher, and not-Gatton gets the Proto Gekitotsu Robots gashat knocked out of him.

Impressed by Drive’s power, Emu tosses the proto gashat back to Kuroto, and Asuna reminds himt hat he still needs to actually finish off the bugster.

Whoops. That warning came a little late, because the Collabos shoves the Proto Giri Giri Chambara into it’s forehead slot, and immediately goes to slice Asuna and Kuroto.

…Okay, I did not remember this – Kuroto shouts for her to look out, shoves her out of the way, and gets his back slashed in her place. As in, he’s knocked to the ground. And bleeding.

I’m pretty sure that’s for real on his part, I don’t think Kuroto expected his minion to do actually attack him. He does, however, still manage to pass Emu the Toukenden Gaim gashat, saying that since the enemy’s using a katana, this would be a better choice.

He’s right, of course, and I’m pretty sure this is, at least in part, him trying to stick to the plan, despite the ‘holy shit I am very injured right now’ factor.

The Gaim start screen opens a Helheim crack – my gaim-watching instincts immediately recoil – and the Orange Arms… well, orange drops onto Emu’s head, as robo-fruit are wont to do, at the same time as the level up screen passes by. So, he’s using both transformations here! That’s really neat!

Now please put that back because I do not want any more Helheim here than necessary thanks.

Gaim’s suit doesn’t translate nearly as well as Drives does. The flattened version of the eyes and chest piece just… they don’t do it for me. It looks like a cheap imitation. I mean, the non-chest and helmet parts of the armor work, but those… urgh. No.

Emu winds up chasing not-Kaiden down a path to another section of the park. Hah. Get it? Because part of Kouta’s armor announcement is ‘The flowered path’? I’ll see myself out.

Asuna comments to Kuroto that Emu’s doing amazing – except she’s not talking to him, because Kuroto’s taken off.

He’s leaning on the corner between a wall and holding wall for a grassy area, breathing very heavily and holding his side. He’s. He’s genuinely injured. And he’s pissed. I mean, he was sliced on the back, and he’s holding his side, but I can’t even say that it’s because he’s actually holding his driver, because he pulls that out with his other hand.

Also, uh, Rider Wiki? I have you open for easier access to names… and I don’t think ‘ruffled, but well’ is an accurate descriptor of Kuroto’s state when he hands over the Gaim gashat. Not if how he’s panting and pausing while he’s saying that that it’s time to enter the final stage of data collection is any indication.

Harutos very textured helmet, much like Kouta’s, does not translate well to the flattened image of the Ex-Aid helmets.

––

Looks like Emu and not-Kaiden have made it to another plaza, where Emu has since swapped out Kouta’s sword for his own, likely so he can actually use a proper sword-based finisher.

He wipes out not-Kaiden, and properly, this time. The proto Giri Giri Chambara gashat clatters to the ground, and the Collabos bugster appears to have finally been destroyed. Emu, cleraly remembering that there were three protogashats stolen, immediatley starts looking around, saying that “if there was a second, then there’ll be a third… Or not.”

He’s proven… sort of right, when a black and purple suit with a red and black longcoat steps into view.

“Aw, come on! You’ve got to be kidding me!”

The not-yet-named Black Ex-Aid doesn’t say anything, even after Emu realizes that “hey, you’re that asshole!” No, he just starts laying a beatdown, with lots of very Wizard-y kicks and arm strikes. Nice touch, having him use Haruto’s fighting style.

Kuroto starts up a finisher, to which Emu seems resigned to his fate of being about to take a Rider Kick to the face.

Getting knocked out of his transformation, Emu goes tumbling to the ground, the three legend rider gashats he’d been carrying clattering away.

Kuroto picks them up, switching back to his usual Proto Mighty Action X form. He activates all four gashats in turn, tossing them to the ground as their areas start generating. In his creepy, we-wish-you-had-stayed-silent disguised voice, he says that he’s obtained all the data, and the lights from the four gashats stream into one pale blue one.

Emu, picking himself up off, asks what that gashat is.

Black Ex-Aid doesn’t dignify him with an answer, instead going over to the still not defeated Collabos bugster, who is basically sprawled out on the ground. He kicks it into a sitting position, and sticks the newly-created Kamen Rider Ganbarazing gashat into it’s forehead.

This is about fifty percent payback for cutting him, I just know it. “You went off script, and now you get what you deserve. And what you deserve is an untested gashat taking control of your body, and summoning a game start screen that our local genius gamer has never seen before.”

…I really hope he picked up one of those regeneration energy items before he came out to kick ass and take data.

Anyway. Three ‘riders’ jump out of the screen before it goes blank. No, Emu, these aren’t actually them. These are Game World data copies, and they care not for your morals or history.

…Uh. The, uh. The hips of the Double suit have seen much better days. Those joint sections are completely falling apart. This isn’t like the issues with Takeru’s driver being grungy, or Kenzaki’s belt being really worn out during Zi-O, or the numerous dents in Decade’s armor. This is… it’s sad and it makes me sad.

The three ‘Riders’ advance menacingly on the very much not transformed Emu, before…

Before a figure in a white labcoat and yellow helmet shoves them away, and stands over Emu.

Kuroto: Wait, what.

Emu: Wait, what? Dr. Pac-Man?!

Kuroto asks what he just did.

Dr. Pac-Man just silently holds up three gashats, for Pac-man, Xevious, and Family Stadium.

See you next game.

––

Or, see you right now, because I’m going right into the second part!

Dr. Pac-Man momentarily stares down the three ‘Riders’, before pulling out his bugvisor – on the opposite arm from in the film – and firing, providing a distraction for him and Emu to get away.

Kuroto growls.

––

Dr. Pac-Man is basically dragging Emu by the arm to a warehouse as they run, before they come to a stop.

Emu asks, hurriedly, what Dr. Pac-Man is doing here. They defeated him!

“I have no idea how, mind you, but I’ve been assured that you were very much re-killed, and I’m willing to chalk Takeru’s reluctance to say anything up to his not quite remembering either after his near-death experience.”

Suddenly, a wild Taiga appears, punching directly for Dr. Pac-Man’s face… which is at about the same level as Emu’s, so when he dodges, Emu’s forced to leap out of the way, landing in a sprawled heap on the ground.

“So, you’re back from hell? We’ll just have to keep sending you back.”

“Wait, hang on!” Emu scrambles to his feet. “He did save me, this time!”

“That’s impossible.” Hiiro emerges from yet another column. Seriously, how did you two even know to be here? “I don’t know who that is, but we’ll just have to cut him out.”

The black Ex-Aid approaches, flanked by three figures whose suits have seen much better days.

Taiga, rather justifiably, assumes that they’re a new strain of bugsters. Emu quickyl puts a stop to that train of thought, saying that they’re fellow Kamen Riders… although they are being controlled as game characters.

Taiga’s still taking them out, though.

Dr. Pac-Man seems to approve, and tosses each of the three a Classic Namco Gashat. This pisses Kuroto right the hell off, and he pursues the now running Dr. Pac-man.

As the three inspect the new Gashats, they… well, Taiga admits they sure seem like the real deal.

Emu’s excited, because he’s a nerd and way too nice for all of this, and says that he told them Dr. Pac-Man was a good guy now!

EMU. Emu, you need to learn not to take strange gashats from people who are really, really ominous. I know this advice will go unheeded, but really. Survival instincts. You need them. Badly.

Hiiro agrees with me that your huge grin is entirely baseless, and as the imitation riders prepare to attack, the three real riders transform.

There’s some brief fighting, noticeably not in the matchups that they’ll be having soon, before Ex-Aid pulls out his new gashat. He winds up giving a quick description of Pac-Man while he’s basically got not-Fourze’s arm locked, and not-Fourze is trying to break loose from his grip.

Nice.

Brave shoves not-Double away, and describes Family Stadium, an old NES baseball game. …Okay, sorry, old Famicom baseball game, because this is in Japan. Also, I have to wonder how Hiiro of all people would know literally anything about video game history, much less that Famista basically set the standard for baseball games.

Snipe palm-strikes not-OOO off of him, and… says ‘let me try this.’ Are. Are the Namco Gashats somehow giving them these lines?! I mean, there’s no way they don’t have a heads-up display in their helmets, so… is this info just streaming from the activated gashats to the riders who would otherwise have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about? Because that is the only way I can see Taiga knowing anything about Xevious, including the name of the ship you pilot.

So, all three start up their newest gashats. Oddly, Pac-Man is the only one with an individualized name – Pac-Adventure – and Xevious doesn’t even get a jingle beyond the driver just saying ‘Xevious.’

Emu and Hiiro both charge their opponents, while Taiga, who is once again wearing a plane, makes the logical decision and activates stage select.

––

Snipe, now in a forest-esque stage, proceeds to engage in combat with not-Fourze, via copious use of miniguns and fists.

I like the Xevious recolor of Jet Combat a lot better than regular Jet Combat. The colors aren’t nearly as awful. The blue goes a lot better with Snipes usual color scheme than the garish orange. There’s a little too much linework from the source material, but I can let it pass for the better color scheme.

––

Ex-Aid and not-Double are in one of the many, many factory fight locales. They charge at eachother, but Ex-Aid leaps over Double’s punch, and books it in another direction.

I. I don’t like the Pac-Man armor. It’s a yellow and orange recolor of the torso section of Gekitotsu Robots. Color-wise, neither of them work with the bright magenta of Ex-Aid’s suit. The dark red of Robots looks out of place, more-so in motion than in static images,while the garishly bright yellow is just. It’s bad alongside magenta. It just is. The orange boxing glove fists don’t work, either.

…Actually, are those gloves from Knock-Out Fighter? Let me check real quick…

Oh. No, no they’re not. They get re-used for Ex-Aid’s version of Knock-Out Fighter 2, though.

––

Famista apparently doesn’t just equip it’s user with new armor, it comes with its own battlefield, a bugster baseball team, and gave not-OOO a baseball bat.

…Let’s just not ask why Hiiro, of all people, knows how to play baseball, and instead focus on the little baseball decals that get added to the speaker system for Doremifa Beat.

The red and white of this upgrade doesn’t quite suit Braves cyan, but it’s far and away better than what Emu got. Also, the baseball cap/visor? It has an ‘N’ on it, for Namco.

Additionally, Hiiro is able to throw a baseball so hard that it caught fire and blasted the bugster mook catcher and umpire into the wall.

I am no longer going to question anything Famista Gamer does, because that was awesome.

––

Snipe and not-Fourze exchange some decent punches, before not-Fourze remembers that he has switches! Including a rocket, which he uses to get in the air.

Snipe immediately follows suit with his jetpack, and they begin an aerial dogfight between Snipes miniguns, and not-Fourze’s gatling powerup.

I’m just going to assume that these gashats are giving the riders info, because I really can’t see Taiga knowing what the names of weapons and such are in here for any other reason.

Not-Fourze is shot out of the sky.

––

Meanwhile, Ex-Aid is running for his life. Because right now, he’s Pac-Man, and Pac-Man is on the defensive for most of his game.

It’s a nice touch that when we see Emu and not-Double running through new sections of the factory, the dots that were in the game projection disappear. They managed to get this right in the maze scene in the film, too. Nice attention to detail.

Same attention to detail goes to the small gust of green-lit wind at one point when not-Double’s Cyclone half punches, and the purple effects when his Joker half tries to land a kick.

Unfortunately for not-Double, this is right about where Emu finally finds the power pellet, and is able to fight back. To great effect, at that.

(Come on Toei, those grunts don’t sound anything like Shotaro!)

––

Snipe has unlocked a targeting system, and isn’t giving not-Fourze a chance to get airborne again. After a sizable amount of gunfire, he finally relents and just goes into his devastating finisher.

You can practically see the ‘oh crap’ on not-Fourze’s face before he gets defeated.

––

Brave manages to get a Strike on not-OOO, via the pitch going fast enough to just go right by him…

And also hit the poor, abused bugster umpire in the crotch.

The umpire and catcher feel true fear as Hiiro readies his finisher, but not-OOO still tries to hit the ball. All three of them get launched bodily into the air and explode.

––

Emu relents on his beatdown of not-Double – I feel awful about the things that poor stunt suit has gone through – and starts up his finisher.

Said finisher summons an energy Pac-man around him, and he jumps onto poor, poor not-Double. Energy Pac-man then eats said false rider, leaving only an explosion behind.

Emu realizes what I hadn’t with the other two riders, and that’s that there’s no ‘Game Clear’ announcement.

––

Poppy warps to the still unresponsive collabos bugster, who is just standing stock still as the blank Ganbarizing is projected from the gashat.

She spends a fair amount of time trying to get any reaction from it, including shouting at it, poking at the screen, and punching him, with distinct metallic clangs.

The Ganbarizing gashat flickers back into color, and the collabos’s eyes light back up. It starts going on the flailing, ineffectual offensive, chasing after Poppy.

This is just sad.

Even more sad is that Ex-Aid, in his usual armor, does a flying hip-check to knock it away from her. She takes this opportunity to get out of there.

“Now, let’s just get this gashat out of there… What’s Ganbarazing- ohhh no that didn’t work, you’re still flailing around and trying to attack me.”

Emu manages to kick the poor, useless collabos bugster away before inserting the Ganbarizing Gashat into his Gashacon Breaker for a finisher. This summons a floating swarm of Heisei Rider emblems into the air.

I like these, actually. They’re not the usual plain black silhouettes that the emblems usually are – they’re all colored, and some of them have multiple colors, namely Hibiki, Double, OOO, and Ex-Aid. It’s a nice touch.

They all merge into a giant version of the Ganbarizing logo, which Emu strikes with his hammer to blast it towards the Collabos bugster.

(Now is that thing dead?!)

I think it’s a bit early for you to say ‘Game Clear,’ Emu, or for Poppy to be giving any congratulations. I mean, this was cool, but we still haven’t heard the announcement.

And yup, they both realize that, as well, just in time for the Ganbarizing Gashat to start shaking, and pull itself out of the finisher slot in Emu’s hammer. This is fine.

It then proceeds to float into the Game Start screen, which is still here for some reason. This is fine.

Drumbeats and bells can be heard as a silhouette approaches within the screen, and pulls out a pair of drumsticks.

––

As all of that is happening, Kuroto’s still been chasing Dr. Pac-Man. He manages to corner him against a chain-link fence, and demands to see who he is. Pulling off the helmet, he startles.

Dr. Pac-Man still doesn’t speak, and holds up a Taiko no Tatsujin gashat, conveniently blocking his face.

See you next game

…Wait, what?! I thought I had- shit, now I have to find the third part in this mess of files.

…Okay, I guess I kept the DVD version for a reason, and that would be that the third segment of this was never individually subbed? I guess?!

FINE. Lower res, DVD quality it is.

––

Okay, cutting back into the unified version, with its horrible artifacting around the text, the shadowy figure hops out of the Ganbarizing Screen, and Ex-Aid and Poppy are brought face to face with not-Hibiki.

Somehow, Emu knows who he is, presumably the same way that the other guys knew about games, because nobody ever sees Hibiki.

Poppy doesn’t stick around for any more explanation, and runs the heck out of there.

Emu complains that he wasn’t done yet, as Dr. Pac-man walks up. Emu asks what happened to the black Ex-Aid, but receives exactly zero answer. Instead, he receives the Taiko no Tatsujin gashat, and gives some information on that.

He starts the finisher right away.

How better to fight the Oni drummer rider, than to play a drumming game on Oni difficulty?

And with the Ex-Aid character skin for Don-Chan when he starts up TV-Size Excite, no less!

The duel winds up being not-Hibiki launching small fireballs, which Ex-Aid cancels out with strikes from his gashat-supplied drumsticks. Once the majority of Excite is done, he truly activates the finisher, and the notes he hits during the repeated chorus start to charge up fire of their own… which grows to a massive fireball, which gets launched at not-Hibiki, defeating him.

Finally, finally, the Game Clear announcement plays.

Snipe shows up as Ex-Aid goe to pick up the Ganbarizing Gashat. He’ll be taking that, thank you very much.

Or not, if Brave has anything to say about it.

And it turns out none of them will be keeping any of their Namco gashats, since Dr. Pac-Man nyooms on in, and nabs all five from them in one go.

The black Ex-Aid shows up, and Dr. Pac-Man backs off as he takes the Ganbarizing gashat for a finisher.

Said finisher summons holograms of the previous Heisei Riders, in their pre-asskicking poses, before Genm leaps into the air, taking all of them along, and oh look that’s a whole lot of Rider Kicks aimed right at our heroes.

Fortunately, they aren’t hit by all 18 of them. Unfortunately, that’s because the holograms merge into a giant icon of the Ganbarizing logo, which Genm drops down through to kick all three heroes at once.

Nobody manages to keep their transformation once they hit the ground, and Genm just walks away.

Emu sums it up best. “What just happened?”

––

Back in his lair, Kuroto sets the Ganbarizing gashat next to the rest of the Legen Rider ones, saying that he finally has them all. I think the Showa Riders would beg to differ, but regardless.

Dr. Pac-Man comes in through the door. He has to duck a little to get through the frame, because of the helmet.

Kuroto turns around. “Take off that stupid helmet, already!”

Setting the helmet on the table, Parad smirks. “Come on, I was just having a little fun! You took off and got started without me, after all.” He sets three of the Namco gashats down on the table – the first three. Taiko no Tatsujin is nowhere to be seen.

As Parad calls dibs on Kuroto’s chair, Kuroto saunters over to where Parad left the mask. And. Uh. Starts… stroking it. While saying that everything is going according to plan.

Why. Why are you caressing it?! That’s… that’s like, a whole different level of creepy than the one you usually operate on!

Man. Now I’m going to be stuck on that for a while.

––

Anyway, that’s the Tricks: Genm special done! Not much to say about it that I haven’t already said in the liveblog, so I’ll just leave with one last comment.

The Dr. Pac-Man disguise is literally the only other outfit we see Parad in throughout the entire show, and it’s not even his. At least Graphite got that hoodie outfit when he faked having stolen the level three gashats.

Give Parad a wardrobe 2Kforever!

[friendshiptothemax]

Hey guys! Sorry for taking a while to get back to this! Spent time hanging out with my fam, but now I’m back. My episode party in LA was pretty sweet except that the grill caught on fire and we had to extinguish it out! My parents’ party in Texas was also awesome. My dad didn’t know I was coming, and when my best friend and I pulled up, he started to tease her for being early before he saw me and he got all choked up!! Also my high school creative writer came, and my dad’s best friend showed up in Red cosplay (and when we opened the door he was down on his knees facing away with his hands behind his head and said he’ll only talk with Elizabeth Keen, which was v. funny). An awesome episode weekend all around! I also loved the reception from you guys – I got a lot of really sweet comments from you that I really appreciated. You guys are the best!

Now a few little BTS details that I promised:

The thing I’m most proud of that made it into episode 618 is the Weepies song at the end. Something a lot of people know The Blacklist for is our music – JB loves to pick out the perfect songs for each episode. I put The Weepies in my very first draft and was delighted to see them make it all the way to the final cut – it’s actually quite a high honor from JB, that he likes my taste in music!

My other favorite thing is the Ms. Pac-Man stuff. When I started writing the outline, all that was written there from Aram when Ressler gives him the quarters is “What’s this?” I think Aram is a really fun character, and I wanted to give him something more distinct to say, so I put Aram saying he used to hold the high score in Ms. Pac-Man. What is really cool about that is the second part, at the end of the scene, where Ressler calls it back, was added by the Johns later. It was a fun “yes-and” – they saw my original joke, and they liked it enough to build on it! Even more flattering? They’ve shot a callback to it in another scene this season! I’ve created a part of Aram’s character, y’all!

So a few notes on the development of the episode. Typically, when lower-level writers/assistants pitch for the show, we don’t know the specifics of where the plot will be in that episode. We might know the general arc, but not exactly what the B/C/D stories in the episode will be, and I was no exception. My idea was specifically that there was a true-crime podcaster who was killing people to make it look like the crime was resurfacing. The seed of this idea was my love for this true crime explosion that’s going on right now (if you love Serial, Making a Murderer, the Keepers, etc, my go-to recommendation is Criminal, which is a really excellent podcast). What intrigued me is that you listen to a true crime podcast, you are putting an extreme amount of trust the podcaster to give you all of the facts – when they might have biases you don’t realize.

My original idea had what I called the “wrong things for the right reasons” ending, where in the end, we find out that Tobias is innocent, the professor is guilty of the original murders, and Kimberly has been committing the new ones because she fervently believes the police got the wrong guy and is willing to go vigilante to correct their mistake. This is what I pitched in the room, BUT, from pretty much that first pitch, JB got really excited by what I call the “spiderman-pointing-at-spiderman.jpg” ending, where Kimberly kills people because she believes Tobias is innocent, but after she gets him out, she learns that he really did do the original murders.

The Spiderman ending stayed for a really long time! We were well into breaking the episode when we realized it didn’t really work – it made the final two acts SO CLUNKY. There had to be a scene where they each realized the other was a murderer, learned why the other did it, and we got their perspective on how they felt about the other being a murderer. Which was A LOT. It also left us without an innocent person for the FBI to be rushing to save (we call this the “muffin”).

At one point earlier on we had discussed the version where Kimberly had been the killer all along, which I hated when we initially discussed it. I couldn’t get my head around why, if she’d gotten away with it all of those years ago, she would not only return to her old ways, but also make a podcast about it? It seemed like a very broad villain move to me. But then, when we were banging our heads against the wall trying to get the Spiderman ending to work, someone suggested that she had done all of this, from the very beginning, out of love for Tobias and suddenly it was like *angels singing sound effect* and everything fell into place!! It’s funny how that works sometimes – I’m sure some of you fic writers can relate! Sometimes it seems really hard until just one little puzzle piece makes it all work. And thus you got the ending you saw on screen.

In my position as script coordinator, I name probably about a quarter of the characters on the show, so I didn’t have a ton of names in the bank that I really, really wanted to use, but I did get a few special ones in there. Tobias is for Tobias the Animorph, who I knew I was going to get a tattoo of to celebrate my first episode (he doesn’t have a canon last name, but I have used Tobias Carlyle in fic before). Kimberly is for my college roommate, who has done some radio work. I wish I could have used her full name, but her last name is REALLY FUCKING METAL. Imagine that her name is, like, Kimberly Swordsteel. It’s not quite that, but you get the idea. I knew the Johns would never let me get away with using it, so I just gave her a random last name (she was still honored!). I wish I could have named the professor after one of my faves, but since he was a creepo obviously that would not be a compliment, so I named him after Anne McCaffrey, the author of Dragonriders of Pern. Everyone else is just a jumble of first and last names from my Facebook feed.

Anyway, I hope you liked it! I had a great time writing it and an even better time watching it on the TV! I decided I wanted to be a TV writer back in 2007 when I was in the height of my Heroes fandom, so that I can say I wrote an episode of something on NBC twelve years later is pretty fucking surreal! As I’ve said in other places, James Spader is a master of his craft, and it was an absolute honor to have him perform words I wrote. I couldn’t have been luckier for my first episode.

I’m also really excited because I’ve been asked to record DVD commentary for this episode, which I’m looking forward to! :)