#it works fine considering its age but it’s kind of clunky | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theboredwritertm · 4 years ago

Note

hi if you write smut.... maybe mando being the reader’s first time?? if not, ignore this :))

Innuendo

A/N: I’m going to admit this was the first request I received (ever) for The Mandalorian and it’s been gathering dust for the past couple of weeks (because I’m a simp for Cobb Vanth apparently??) Anyway, so sorry it’s taken this long, anon. I haven’t written this kind of thing before, but always love the chance to try new subject matter. Thanks for sending it through! I’ll admit this piece felt kind of clunky as I was writing it, but since I’m (sorta) sticking to a posting schedule now, I just wanted to get it done. And apparently, I can’t write something without backstory, so it got a little long!

Rating: 18+ for adult situations

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader

Warnings: Awful jokes and innuendos, awkwardness, a clueless Din, probably swearing, consensual sex, loss of virginity

Word Count: 5930 (Once again, consider the first 3000 words terrible foreplay)

Summary: After putting up with months of your supposedly-unintentional innuendos, Din finally takes charge…only to find out things aren’t quite what he expected.

He’d picked you up like a Bantha tick and hadn’t been able to shake you since.

You’d managed to argue your way into a semi-permanent position onboard the Crest after what he would call a rescue, but what you still stubbornly referred to as an ‘assisted retreat’, and it didn’t look like you planned on leaving any time soon.

So, he was stuck with you. At least that’s how he liked to think of the situation.

Never mind that it was nice to have someone to come back to after a long mission that could actually talk back to him. Or that you kept the ship neat and tidy. Or that you were practically a live-in babysitter for the little one at this point. Not to mention the way you always managed to throw together decent meals for the three of you that didn’t always come out of a pack – and that you seemed to enjoy doing so.

And never mind that he liked listening to your soft, happy hums as you stirred together whatever ingredients you had managed to pull together, and that he’d stand in the doorway, silent as a shadow as he took this in, thinking to himself that if a Bantha was half as lucky to pick up a tick like you, it could do much worse for itself.

But what really got to him were the jokes.

You weren’t what he would consider shy, not since you seemed to have no problem at all talking back to him when he had grown so used to others shrinking back at the mere sight of him – still, he hadn’t been expecting the first comment that had just sort of slipped out of you after a few weeks of being in each other’s company. By that point you were comfortable enough to throw the odd sarcastic quip around at each other without having to worry about someone getting offended, so that’s what he had decided to take it as: a joke. At least, the first time.

Since the Crest was prone to the odd malfunction, given its age and what he guessed to be a few too many battles before it was decommissioned, it hadn’t surprised him to walk into a cockpit full of smoke one day. What had surprised him was the way you had stepped into the room, taken one look around as you waved the smoke from your face, and said, “Is it hot in here, or is it just you?”

He’d taken it as he thought he should. A bad joke. You were prone to them as he had come to find, and there’d been plenty of times that he’d heard you use the same kind of lines on people you needed something from. In his case, he guessed that something was shelter and a place to lay low for a while. And he had obliged.

The second time wasn’t as bad. It was worse. Terrible, even. He had no idea what you’d been going for, but as he’d approached the ship after a particularly grueling job and found you standing on the ramp, one foot balanced on a crate and look of mock-seduction, you’d cocked an eyebrow and greeted him with, “Hey, handsome. Looking for a ride?”

His response? A semi-confused, completely weary, “It’s my ship,” as he’d passed you by.

The third time he thought maybe he’d just taken it the wrong way.

You’d been discussing his work, how long it had been between jobs, and how you were both getting a little light on credits. You’d shaken your head, lounging sideways in the co-pilot seat in a way that always looked uncomfortable to him, but seemed just fine to you, when you’d said, “I don’t get it. There’s got to be work out there somewhere.” Then you’d paused for a moment before adding, “If I looked hard enough, I’m sure I could find a few openings for you to fill.” He had frowned and glanced over, certain he’d caught the passing ghost of a smirk on your lips before you resumed looking completely innocent, as if you were simply pondering the tricky predicament you found yourselves in.

Then there was the touching.

At first, he’d found excuses to move out of your reach, an attempt to make his knee-jerk reaction to shrug you off look less obvious. Then one day he’d exercised some restraint as you’d popped a warm, friendly hand on his thigh before getting up from the co-pilot’s seat, announcing you were ready for bed, and he’d realized…he kind of liked it. What, to you, (he was sure) was just fleeting, friendly touches – something ordinary and human he had been deprived of growing up – started to become something he would linger on for hours, sometimes days afterwards. There was something frustrating in the way you could make something that felt so intimate to him look so casual to you.

Another time, more recently, was probably the worst of the lot – but only because of the effect it’d had on him.

During the last stop-off, you’d both been standing in the holding bay surveying the handful of acquisitions he had stored in carbonite. Work had finally picked up, and you’d proven surprisingly helpful in acquiring them, but in that particular instance, there had been a slight problem – two of them were destined for the same planet, but the cities were in complete opposite directions. The timeframes to meet the employers would never have allowed him to make both trips. So, you’d stepped up, placing a hand on his arm as you’d surveyed the captives and said, “Look, I’ve never been much of a delivery person, but I’m more than happy to handle your package for you, just this once.” He’d stared at you, glancing down briefly at the hand on his armor, then up at your smile. “What do you say?” you’d asked, eyes never leaving his visor.

It had taken a troubling amount of self-control not to close up the ramp and show you just how okay with that proposition he was. Because it had been a long time since he’d last gotten the chance. He’d blame the dry spell on the kid, on new responsibilities that hadn’t been there before, but it had been like this for well-over a year, way before the Child had even come into his life. Gone were the days of his youth where he could pick someone out of a bustling cantina crowd and lead them off silently to some grimy bathroom or backroom for a quick fuck – them, for the thrill of being with one of his kind, and him, out of sheer physical need. He’d made peace with the fact that those days were behind him (and considering the state of some of those bathrooms – and some of the partners – it was probably for the best). But that didn’t mean that the need went away. And then there was you.

You, with your perfect skin and the glow of youth still about you. Your long, shiny hair that always made his fingers twitch with need to reach out and run them through it. Your (cute) annoying laugh, and the way you would crinkle up your nose as you found something he’d said particularly funny for some reason he could never figure out (him, fumbling with switches from the pilot’s seat as he attempted to focus, ignoring the smile prickling at his own mouth as the sweet sound of your giggling flipped the doofus switch in his brain). You with the form-fitting pants you sometimes wore when a mission called for something you could move easily in, ones that made his own pants feel a little more form fitting when he stared for long enough to let his mind wander.

You and your damn jokes.

In the end, much to his surprise, it wasn’t a joke that had finally sent him over the edge. It was a simple word, and this time you actually had context to back you up, to assure him that it wasn’t you just fucking with him. Given the situation, it absolutely shouldn’t have had the effect on him that it did. But it had triggered something in him that even he didn’t know he was into.

The kid had been seated in his usual spot, in the seat behind Din’s, when you’d walked in and spotted his big eyes beginning to droop. You had developed a routine with him now – dinner, a bit of bonding time with Din in the cockpit, then bed – and so far, it had seemed to work well for the little guy. You were new to the whole childcare thing, but it made it easier for you to know where punishment and reward was warranted – especially since you were terrible at telling him off. One look at his little face and all wrongdoings were forgotten, something Din never seemed particularly impressed with (even if he was just as guilty of it as you were).

You approached the seat, reaching down to scoop up the sleepy bundle, and pulled him close.

“Come on, little one. Let’s leave daddy to his thing. Time for bed.”

As you turned and headed for the steps leading down to his cot, you failed to notice the way Din had stiffened in his seat. He turned his head to watch you go, eyes dropping down to linger on your ass as the word replayed in his mind. Then he turned back to the flight console, hand lingering over it in a split-moment of indecision, before he flicked on auto-pilot and got to his feet.

Enough was enough.

You had absolutely been fucking with him.

The first time it had just sort of slipped out, you’ll admit. After years of dealing with the Guild, which what was honestly a bit of a boys’ club, you’d developed the shitty flirting as a reflex to seem more at ease with whoever you were working with (and, okay, sometimes it got you better jobs, too. So what?) But after catching Din’s initial reaction (back when you knew him solely as the strong, silent Mando) you knew it was a thread you had to tug at. And tug at it, you had, just to see the man unravel.

You knew the risks, knew the Mandalorian’s reputation, but part of you had wondered how far you could take it…how far you wanted it to go.

You were about to find out.

As you pressed the button to close up the baby’s metal capsule, smiling as you caught one last glimpse of his sleeping form, you turned to find yourself face-to-helmet with the man himself. Even without seeing his face, there was still an intensity to the way he was looking at you, how he leaned in until you have no choice but to back yourself up against the cold steel of the wall.

“This needs to stop,” he says, tone full of warning. Though you could have sworn there was a touch of something else to his voice. You want to say it sounds like desperation, but that feels a little self-indulgent, even for you.

“I’m sorry. Did you want to put the kid to bed? I just thought—”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

His hand comes up to rest beside you on the wall, as he leans in closer, effectively boxing you in.

Oh, boy.

You wonder if this is the same technique he uses on people he’s trying to get information from and if it should be having this effect on you. You’re almost certain it’s fear that you should be feeling, not, uh, this. You clear your throat and look up at him, wracking your brain for what you’ve done or said in the last ten minutes to warrant this kind of reaction from him, especially given the more obvious attempts to rile him up over the past couple of months. You’d picked up the kid, same as you did every other night. Maybe it was the way you’d bent over to do it. You glance down briefly at your clothes, but it’s not a particularly revealing outfit. You’d worn much less in front of him before with far less reaction. Maybe it was something you’d said?

Come on, little one. Let’s leave daddy to-

Oh.

The word leaves your mouth as a soft question intended mainly for yourself, a thought given voice. Din stiffens immediately, across from you. You look up at him, realizing at the same time he does that you’ve caught on.

“Wait, really? Is that what this abou—?”

His other hand comes up towards your throat, and for a moment you think he’s going to choke you (and you’re a little concerned that the feeling you get from that thought still isn’t fear) but his touch is gentle. His hand comes to rest on the side of your neck, thumb against your cheek as he looks at you for a moment before his voice comes through once more.

“Say it again.”

You keep your gaze trained on his visor, where you’re sure his eyes are currently burning into you, and feel heat flooding in opposite directions in your body; up to your face, and down between your legs. And you feel ridiculous. You had never been into that kind of thing before, and you feel silly saying it; but if there’s one thing you are into, it’s the big guy in front of you – the one telling you to say this one little word, just for him – and having him this close talking to you like this, well it might just be worth the humiliation. Hell, maybe that’s something you’re into, as well.

“Daddy?”

The hand on the wall next to you pulls back as he growls, and slams forward fast enough to make you jump, smacking against the light switch, bathing you both in sudden darkness. You feel him lean in closer, certain that if you were to move your head even slightly forward it would come into contact with the cold beskar of his helmet.

“Do you want this?” his voice, gravelly with lust, sounds through the modulator, as the hand on your neck begins to slide downwards.

Shit.

Even if you had wanted to say no before – you hadn’t – you’re sure the low rumble in his tone would have changed your mind. You’d never heard him keyed up like this before. He always had a way of keeping it together, of staying in control, but you’d been messing with him for so long, teasing, casually throwing your innuendos around, knowing exactly what you were doing to him. You don’t know why you feel so surprised that it’s finally come down to this. It was kind of like a daydream, a fantasy finally coming true, and you feel completely unprepared.

“I do, Din, seriously, but, uh, there’s just—”

“What is it?”

You wonder how you’re going to break it to him. Honestly, you feel like a fucking fraud after everything you’ve put him through. You feel like you’ve been leading him on. You sigh and duck your head as you make your confession.

“I’ve never done this before.”

You don’t know how to explain it, but you feel him suddenly deflate, as if the tension in the room has been replaced with something akin to disappointment.

“You’re joking?” And for once, you’re not.

He doesn’t mean for the words to come out the way they do, and even though he can’t say he’s any less turned on by this revelation he knows there are implications there that can’t be ignored if he wants to keep going. Only, right now, he’s not feeling very patient.

You wince at the level of exasperation in his tone. “No.”

There’s silence for a moment and you have to reach out to feel that he’s still there, your hand landing on his chest plate. His hand comes up to rest on top of yours, and you think that maybe its to pull it away, that the lights will come back on at any moment and this opportunity will disappear forever, but he holds it there, thinking things over.

“How much experience do you have? Any?”

There’s a change to his tone, now. He sounds curious.

“Yeah, I mean I’ve…”

Why does this feel so fucking awkward suddenly? You’ve spent the last six months in this man’s daily company, and while that might not seem like a lot of time in terms of getting to know a person, a majority of that was spent in the confined space of the Crest. You know each other’s routines now; all the little habits and pet peeves you can only pick up on when living in close quarters with someone else. You know he likes silence at meal times, but that he’s more open to conversation after time away on a job, and you’ve come to be able to tell just from his posture if that job had gone well. You know some of each other’s history – him mostly learning yours, since you’re by far the chattier person – yet, still, your face is hot with embarrassment as you recall the handful of experiences you’ve had. You’d never talked about this kind of stuff. You’d only ever joked about it.

“You know, like, mouth stuff.”

“Mouth stuff?” he repeats, and you swear there’s laughter in his voice when he says it.

Your face is beginning to feel unbearably hot, and you’re sure that if he decided to read your heat signature right now your skin would look like you’d just spent a week straight wandering the Tatooine desert.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Hm,” he replies thoughtfully, like he does and that maybe he’s picturing it, “What else?”

“Hand—”

“Hand stuff?” he cuts you off, undeniably making fun of you now.

You smack him in the chest plate, only managing to send a sting through your hand in the process, then push forward as if to move past him, like you think you could make your way anywhere in this darkness. “You know what? Maybe I don’t want this, after all.”

It’s a blatant lie, but you’re starting to think maybe humiliation’s not your thing after all.

He stops you and you don’t resist. You’d been wanting this pretty much from day one, back when he’d assisted with your retreat after a hunt had gone sideways – from the moment you’d watched him swagger into the cantina and stand calmly between you and the half-dozen armed men who were protecting their wanted leader. Back when you’d been just a young, fellow hunter in need of aid.

“Tell me what you want,” he asks you now.

You think about it for all of two seconds. “I want y—This. I want this.” You stumble over what is almost too much of a confession. It feels too soon to tell heavy truths like that, so you settle for what you already know he’s offering. “Just…go easy.”

There’s a silence that seems to drag out in the darkness, then a hiss as he removes his helmet. You feel his body move closer to yours, and you swear that’s his hair brushing your cheek as he leans in and says, “I can do that.”

He scoops you up without warning, reminding of how quick and strong he can be even when he’s weighed down by all that armor, and you find you can’t help yourself as you say:

“You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet.”

Without the helmet, his sigh meets your skin as a warm huff across your face.

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure,” you reply without hesitation, feeling him still beneath you.

“No more jokes. Please.”

You laugh at the exasperation in his voice and find yourself caught completely off guard when you hear a huff of breath escape him that might have passed for laughter, too, but before you can say anything you find yourself being whisked away towards what you assume is the small space of his sleeping quarters. He seems to know his way well enough to not bump into anything along the way, but even so you hug yourself in tight to avoid any knocks to the head. You look up as a door rasps open in front of you and you can only barely make out the outline of the bed. Din is quick to place you down on it before he drops his helmet to the floor and starts tugging off his armor, placing it somewhere nearby. You sit on the edge of the mattress staring awkwardly into the darkness, knowing you should probably start undressing, too, but suddenly feeling self-conscious despite the pitch darkness that surrounds you.

“Do you want me to undress you?” Din asks, and his tone is gentle enough for it to be a serious question.

You shake your head in response after thinking it over for a minute before remembering he can’t see you.

“You’ll have to use your words,” he says, “The lights need to stay off.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “Is that okay?”

You know it’s not him asking if you’re expecting him to betray his creed in order for this to happen; it’s him asking if you’re okay with not being able to see anything for your first time.

Your first time.

Urgh. It sounds so juvenile when you think about it that way, but so far, it’s living up to the adolescent kind of awkwardness you had expected, back when you had actually been an adolescent. You were past that now, and if you’re being honest with yourself that’s part of what’s making you feel self-conscious about this whole thing. You feel like this should have happened a long time ago. You wonder if Din thinks it odd that you’ve left it for this long.

“That’s fine,” you tell him quickly. Though you wish you could see him, not only to know what you’ll be working with, but also because doing it this way adds a layer of anonymity you didn’t necessarily want to associate with your first time. You’d always pictured it being with someone you felt close to – as cliché as it sounded, someone who was special to you. And even though that was true in this case, not being able to see that certain someone was detracting from the whole experience.

You feel movement in front of you and a large, warm hand finds your knee, running it over the fabric that still covers your body.

“We don’t have to do this if you’ve changed your mind,” Din tells you. His voice is different without the helmet; softer, gentler. Or maybe it’s just the circumstances that has him talking to you this way. You’d heard him use this kind of tone on the Child, and you had always admired the level of patience he always managed to show the kid, but you’d never found yourself on the receiving end of it like this before. It’s comforting.

Comforting enough to confirm your decision.

His hand moves away as he feels you start to shimmy out of your clothes. Your top goes first, up and over your head, joining his pile on the floor, then you reach down for the button on the front of your pants. You pause, realizing how exposed you’ll be, even with the cool air meeting your already-exposed nipples. This is a different kind of exposed, you think; more intimate. You give yourself a moment.

“May I?” he asks, and you’re surprised enough by his politeness that you nod, forgetting again he can’t see you, and breath out, “Yeah.”

You move your hand and let him take over, feeling his deft fingers make quick work of your button and zipper before he starts to tug the fabric down your legs, taking your pants and underwear all in one go. His hands find your knees and you sigh at the skin-on-skin contact, never expecting the man to feel this warm. You hear him drop down to his knees and suddenly feel warm breath between your legs. You make to close your legs at the unexpected sensation, unsure about having him this close to that area, but his hands come up to pull them back apart.

“What are you doing?” you ask, only to distract you both, because your heart feels like it’s going to beat out of your chest at how fast this is moving.

“Mouth stuff,” he replies simply.

It’s simple, dry humor, but you swear he never makes you laugh more than when he catches you off guard with stuff like that. You don’t think anyone else would believe you if you tried to tell them how funny he can be without even trying. The joke manages to diffuse some of your anxiety and you relax back onto the bed, trusting him with whatever he’s about to do. Still, you gasp when his mouth meets your core, and he hums happily against you. You’ve done this with someone once before, but the memory feels clumsy compared to what Din is doing now; his grip tight around your waist and tongue immediately finding the right places. You try not to think about where he’s had the practice, focusing instead on the sensation he’s creating with a simple flick of his tongue.

You start to make noises you don’t think have ever come from you before, unable to help yourself with the sudden assault on your sensitive nerve endings. He pauses from what he’s doing as if struck by a sudden thought, smiling at the way you whimper at the sudden loss of contact.

“Have you ever cum before?” he asks.

“I think so,” you reply, but if you were being completely honest, you’re not sure. And least, not with another person. You’re pretty sure you’ve gotten there on your own. You think. You feel like that’s something you should know for sure.

“You think so?” he repeats, sounding unconvinced.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve had, you know, urges, I took care of them, then they were gone.”

He makes a thoughtful sound and ones of his thumbs finds your clit, rubbing a couple of circles before he dips it down to your center to scoop up some of the wetness there to bring back up again.

“You don’t sound very sure,” he says casually, like he’s not driving you crazy right now with a simple touch. Feeling slightly pathetic, you can only whine, your brain feeling scrambled as his assault on your clit empties it of all coherent thought. “Next time I ask you, I want you to be a little more certain,” he tells you, and without warning dives back in, his tongue taking over from his thumb at a much faster pace. Your back arches off the bed and he slips his free arm across your hips, holding you in place.

You soon feel pressure at your entrance as he presses a finger carefully against it and in your frenzied state you push forward onto it, forgetting in a moment of desperate need your body’s inexperience with something like that. You’re wet enough that it doesn’t hurt, but it’s still a foreign feeling having something inside of you, and you realize that’s only one finger. Before you can start to imagine how something larger is going to feel, he presses the finger upwards inside of you and hits a spot you’ve never felt before. You cry out, caught completely off guard as the tight feeling in your lower belly breaks and you cum hard against him, hips bucking uncontrollably against his face. He growls against you, but doesn’t stop moving until your hips do.

“Fuck,” you whine, still panting as he slides his finger out of you and gives you one last lick. Still sensitive, you yelp and jerk back from the sensation, making him chuckle.

“Now you can say you’ve cum,” he tells you, and hell if he doesn’t sound proud of himself for giving you that.

“Yeah,” you agree, still barely able to form a proper thought. Then one comes to you. You sit up. He’s getting to his feet in front of you and it’s put him at the perfect height for what you have in mind.

He’s not expecting it when your hand finds his length, giving away his surprise with a sharp intake of breath. You take a moment to guess at his size, thinking once again how it’s going to feel once he’s inside of you, but any thought of pain is completely overridden by the very idea of having him inside you at all. But one thing at a time – you want to explore a few things first.

“Do you mind if I return the favor?” you ask him. You’re feeling different after your orgasm – feeling a sudden, renewed confidence – and the way his breath hitches as you start to pump him up and down sends a thrill through your body. He doesn’t reply, answering instead with a simple touch as his hands find your head, brushing your hair back from your face. You’ve done this before, too, but unlike your partner’s attempt on you at the time, yours had proven more successful.

You bob your head forward to find him, lips meeting the head of his cock and parting to let it enter. As your tongue laps at its underside, Din drops his head back with a moan that only encourages you further. You take as much of him inside your mouth as you can, letting the salty taste of him hit as close to the back of your throat as you’re comfortable with, and his grip tightens on your head as he fights the urge to buck forward. You’d said to go easy, and he’s mindful of that, but picturing what you must look like right now, face pink and glowing from your orgasm, mouth stuffed with his cock, he wishes he could flick the light on for a second just to see it. You guide your head back and forth, taking in all the sounds he’s making for you, testing particular places just to see what else you can make him do. All the while he continues to stroke your hair, murmuring praise that sounds strained as tries to force the words out, things like, ‘Good girl’ and ‘Yeah, just like that’.

All the praise starts to go to your head though, it seems, as you forget your earlier feelings of humiliation and whisper back, “You like that, daddy?” Then you pick up your pace and have him moaning to the point where he has to stop you. He gently grabs your head, pulling his hips back and plucking himself from your mouth with a slick ‘pop’.

“We’re going to have to stop there, sweet girl, or your going to make me cum.”

You simply look up to where his voice is coming from and make a sad little hum, any self-conscious thoughts or anxiety long gone at the sound of his half-ruined tone, and you find yourself eagerly awaiting the next step, your body begging for further touch. He chuckles at your reaction and leans down to find your lips, capturing them in a searing kiss, both of you groaning as you taste each other. It’s the first kiss you’ve shared with him, and as he moves forward and forces you back onto the bed, you find your legs come up automatically to wrap around him. That’s when you feel him, hard and pressing into your thigh.

“How do you want to do this?” he asks, as he grabs his length and rubs his tip between your folds to coat himself with your wetness. You moan when he passes over your clit and give yourself a moment to bask in the sensation as he continues to rub over that area.

“Just go slow,” you tell him, then you feel his cock move down from your clit to your entrance, now that you’ve finally given him permission. He only applies the slightest pressure, letting you get used to each new sensation as he introduces it, but you’re so slick down there that he begins to slip in. You tense, waiting for the sharp sensation you’re sure is coming.

“Relax.” Din’s hips have stilled, and he reaches up in the darkness to run his thumb across your cheek, soothing you. “Deep breaths, okay? I’ll make it feel good for you.”

You nod, and this time he feels the movement against his hand and doesn’t ask you to voice it, instead taking it as his cue to continue on. There’s a momentary sharp, burning sensation deep inside as you feel everything stretch, but as he slowly begins to move his hips, you find it fades more and more with each thrust, your wetness coating him and amplifying your pleasure. You’ve never felt this full before, not in this way, but he’s big enough to be hitting all your best spots at the same time. You’ve never felt this close to cumming this quickly.

“Shit.”

Hearing that single word, he starts to pick up speed and you clutch at whatever part of him you can reach, giving yourself up to the sensation as you feel that electric, tightening sensation starting again in your lower belly.

“Do you think you’re close?” he pants, because he knows he is – dangerously so – but he wants to keep true to his word. He wants to make this experience just as good for you.

You fail to answer, unable to stop the harsh cries leaving your mouth instead, and you don’t have time to tell him before the feeling breaks inside of you again and you’re pulsing around him. You cry out, louder than before, and this is enough to send him over the edge, too. He slips out at the last moment, and you feel warm bursts of liquid squirt across your stomach.

“Sorry,” he pants, grunting as he braces himself on one hand and then shivers through a couple of aftershocks, “I didn’t— I couldn’t—”

“It’s fine,” you tell him, voice just as breathless. And it is fine. You couldn’t care less about it. Your entire body feels more relaxed than it has in months. You feel spent in the best possible way and right now you’d be fine to just fall into a pile on the sheets and sleep.

He collapses onto the mattress next to you, his body close to yours in the small space, warm and sweaty, and you’re surprised when he slips an arm underneath you to bring you closer. “So, was that okay? Do you feel okay? Sore?”

“Yeah. I mean, no, I’m okay.” The words come out as a few huffs of breath and, still high on endorphins, the noise makes you laugh.

Din gives you a squeeze at the familiar sound, smiling to himself in the darkness. Then he makes a thoughtful noise.

“What?” you ask.

“It’s nothing. It’s just…You’ve never been in here before.”

“So?” You gaze around in the darkness, thinking it is a little cramped compared to the space you’d made for yourself in the much larger cargo hold, and realize maybe that’s what he’s hinting at.

“I think you should cum here more often.”

“Did you just…?” You sit up to look at him the darkness, never in a million years expecting such a horrible, so very like-you joke to be uttered by the man and he yanks you back down and pulls you close, ignoring the sticky mess he’s made of you.

Then you hear a sound you’re not familiar with, and feel his warm breath against you as he laughs.

“Din Djarin, that joke was terrible.”

He presses a kiss to the side of your head and heaves a sigh that suggests fast approaching sleep. “I learned from the best.”

#din djarin x reader #mandalorian x reader #fic requests #the mandalorian #din djarin imagines #din djarin

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youtriggeredmytrapcard · 4 years ago

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Ristretto [Drabble]

2:04 a.m., KaibaCorp Headquarters, CEO’s office.

There was always so much to do.

It was shaping up to be his second all-nighter in a row, actually. It was no small feat, preparing for the Battle City tournament-- the logistics of having to rent out an entire city was a red-taped nightmare all by itself. Which... he knew going in, that it would be. It was kind-of an insane thing to do, but Kaiba was kind-of an insane guy. (Or so many of his shareholders would claim.) The 'locator cards' concept was coming to fruition as well, though it was tricky to work out how each locator card would work with every other locator card to display the full map. And not make it so one person could have six of the same piece.

On top of that, were the final schematics for his new Duel Disk system, the other major thing that made this entire tournament tick. That was his true baby-- he'd agonized over every little detail of its build. The first Duel Disk, the one he'd invented in order to defeat Pegasus, was brilliant. However, it was imperfect. Having to reel the device back in and throw it back out every single turn to get the holograms to appear was clunky, to put it politely. He'd cut himself some slack just this once, considering that he created them completely on his own, in a house on a cliffside, while struggling to process some... stuff. But that was behind him, and he had a new outlook: To never settle for mediocrity, for a single second. This new Duel Disk would prove it. It would be perfect. Absolutely perfect. It had to be.

A couple of all-nighters and skipped meals? Psh. Well worth it.

Kaiba leaned back in his office chair, picking up the paper coffee cup from his desk. It had gone cold hours ago, but there was still some left in it. He'd brew a new pot in the break room soon (as he'd told himself for the past hour) just as soon as he finished this one last thing. The final blueprints for the Duel Disks. There had been prototype after prototype, test after test, this was the final design. Once he signed off on it, mass production would commence. So, this was important. He had to look at every detail, and make sure there were no errors.

"Do you think you should change the name?"

Huh? Kaiba looked up from his computer monitor, brows raised. Someone was standing there, by the door. A young man, about Kaiba's age, black hair. White-and-orange striped shirt, green apron. Hey, wait...

"Weren't you my barista, this morning?" His memory was sharp, he remembered things like that. What was his name? Kaiba didn't see a name tag.

"Kaito," The man introduced anyway, walking over to the side of the room, not getting much closer to the desk. "Is that the same cup from then? You should really throw that out."

Kaiba looked down at the cup. It wasn't the same coffee, he'd refilled it with the pot from the break room. ... That's not much better, is it? He almost tossed the cup into the trash can beside his desk then and there, but ultimately set it back down on his desk. "You shouldn't tell me what to do. How did you even get in here?"

"Security let me in," Kaito shrugged. “Said I wanted to see the new Duel Disk’s Solid Vision-Phaser Drive Launcher and they just assumed I worked here.”

Kaiba blinked, looking back to his monitor. He had that same part of the Disk on his screen right now. His hand was hovering over the button that called for security, but stilled. “The SVPDL-V3? It works like a charm, with the auto-guidance systems in place.”

“I bet, I wondered how you were going to condense all of that hologram tech into such a small space. The holo-chips in those things are just incredible-- they’re SV-1808s, right?”

“You know your stuff,” Kaiba observed.

“I do,” Kaito smirked.

“Did you come here looking for a new job?”

"Do you think you should change the name?"

His brows furrowed, ultimately looking back to his computer monitor and starting to type some notes, continuing the conversation without eye-contact. "Change what name?"

"The Duel Disk. It's not much of a disk anymore, is it?"

His hands stilled for a second. "... No. But the center part still references the original design."

"But it doesn't spin. And it's got that sharp bit attached to it. It's not disk-like at all, more like an axe. Duel Axe."

"No."

"Duel Blade?"

"I'm not naming my technology after a weapon," he huffed. "Duel Disk has alliteration on its side. It's catchy. It's the kind of name that will catch on."

"Even if it's not accurate?" Kaito was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

"Especially. Sometimes abstract names are the most successful. Lexus. Pepsi."

"Those are brands, not products. What about Diskalibur?”

“That still has disk in its name, wasn’t that your whole issue?”

Kaito rubbed his chin. “Ah, you’re right. Duelkalibur! Duel Dagger? No, that’s still a weapon... Duel Daedalus?”

"Why are you so hung up on this?" Kaiba snapped. "You’re wasting my time. I don’t have any reason to doubt the name. No matter how different the second generation is from the first, I was always going to keep it."

"Because it's catchy, and you have good brand sense?"

"I have the best brand sense."

"You want it to become popular."

"Of course."

“Why?”

“Stupid question.”

"Because the first one failed?"

Kaiba finally looked up. "What?"

"It failed. You wouldn't be redesigning it, if it didn't fail."

"It didn't, and that’s not true either, successful products always--”

"It failed to beat Pegasus. Failed to beat Yugi, really."

That got Kaiba to stand from his chair. The button for security was immediately pressed. It didn't make a sound up here, but the guards just got an alert. "How do you know that?"

"I knew someone who was there."

"Nonsense. And the Duel Disk has nothing to do with all that."

Kaito shrugged. "Why keep the name if it doesn’t? It makes sense. You want to replace the memory of that machine with a new one, right? A better one that everyone will love."

His palms slammed against the desk, glaring. Kaito didn’t react, just watched him. "It didn't fail," he repeated, breathy. Like a warning.

Kaito tilted his head. "Then what did?"

"Sir!" The night-shift of his security team burst into the room, a small group of men in dark uniforms and nightsticks. Their eyes were locked on Kaiba at his desk, looking ready for action. "Is everything okay?"

It felt like a joke of a question. Blue eyes, wide yet still looking exhausted, were staring off to the side. He’s gone. A blink was all it took-- all it took, to realize. A blink, and real people bursting in, as if to remind his brain how real people looked, how they behaved.

His palms felt cold, ice spreading in through veins. Kaiba slowly sat back down in his chair, forcing himself to look at the guards. Forcing himself to take a breath, though he ended up holding it. It wasn't really helping-- they were all surrounding the desk now, probably figuring the CEO had been poisoned, or something. "It's fine," he stated suddenly, speaking too fast, stopping the guards' approach. "Go back to your posts. I must've pressed the button by mistake."

"Ah." Well, the guards weren't going to question that. They bowed. "Sorry, sir."

He waited until they were out of the room and the door was closed, before he let his gaze drop to the desk, his mouth hanging open. The coffee cup was spotted-- and his arm swung out, smacking the horrid thing off his desk as hard as he could. It made a hollow thump against the window behind him, whatever remaining liquid splattering against it and dripping onto the carpet. He didn't care. It wasn’t enough. He stood, and stomped on it, watching it as the paper warped and bent under his shoe, the sounds it made. It wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough, to prove it was really there.

... His whole form crumpled, crouching down and burying his head in his hands.

He can't afford this.

#\\\ DRABBLE #hallucinations cw #Idk how many of these I'll do but I had enough of an idea for this one that I felt like goin for it #This drabble is called 'how much dialogue can I write before getting bored'#Trick question there is no limit #\\\ I'm so sane it's driving me crazy (Musings)#\\\ Verse: Battle City #\\\ Queue Eyes White Dragon #long post

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lailannajacobs · 5 years ago

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Heart to a Gunfight - Chapter 12

Pairing: Bucky x fem!reader

Summary: You didn’t want to help Bucky Barnes make it through the party by pretending to be his fake girlfriend, after all, you had just met him. You also didn’t plan on the charade lasting as long as it did.

Warnings: A little fluff and a swear word

Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: I’m sorry if the sentences feel a little clunky this week, I’ve been playing around with them for the past 48h and this is the best I can get. Anyways, would love to know what you think! Hope you enjoy! <3

Heart to a Gunfight | 12

Bucky stared down at his phone, restless and a little nervous. But this time, it wasn’t because of the wedding he was about to attend, but the person he was going with.

Something had been off with YN. Ever since their night out at the bar last week, something had felt off between them. If they hadn’t spent so much time together this summer, Bucky would have said he was imagining it, but he’d gotten to know her well enough to realize when something was off.

He ran a hand though his hair, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He was making it more of a mess than it already was, but he couldn’t help it. He needed to do something with his hands to avoid texting her. Again. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he pulled at his tie, trying to loosen its strangling grip.

Although it hadn’t been obvious, he knew she’d been avoiding him, and it had to be because of something he’d done. Bucky had tried hard to keep his distance; to play it cool and not come on too strong. They had agreed on being ‘just friends’ and he’d stuck to that agreement. Or so he’d thought. He replayed that night over again in his mind but couldn’t think of anything he’d done that would give away that their agreement was slowly killing him. He thought he’d been doing pretty well, mentioning their friendship every once in a while, to cover up the fact that he was reminding himself to cool it whenever he felt himself getting carried away. He’d done fine all summer. What had changed that night?

“Hey, sorry I’m late.”

His breath caught at the sound of her voice and he took in a steadying breath before turning around.

“Bet you drove like a crazy lunatic again,” His voice tapered off, a little breathless.

God, she was going to kill him looking like that. Bucky didn’t know if pretending to be in a relationship with her tonight was going to be the best thing that had happened to him all summer or if it was going to be the cruelest test of his self-control. Either way, like an idiot, he was all in.

She smirked, “I wouldn’t have been late if I had.”

He offered her his arm and smiled when she took it, as if the weirdness between the two of them hadn’t been there for the past week. Maybe he had been imagining it. Or maybe she’d been a little nervous about tonight.

“You ready?” He asked as they walked through the parking lot to the massive garden where the reception was being held.

“If I could do this when I thought you were a grumpy asshole then I think I can handle this now that we’re actually friends,” She must have seen something on his face, because she laughed, “Don’t look so offended, you thought I was a crazy lunatic.”

He pulled her a little closer because he could, smiling, “That I did. I wasn’t wrong.”

She bopped him with her hip, and he laughed, bopping her back.

“So, do we need a game plan or can we just wing it?”

“I think we can wing it,” He shrugged, “Add a few kisses here and there for the hell of it just to make it convincing.”

She stiffened and he silently cursed. Before last week, he might have had the impression that maybe she’d been interested in him too, but that obviously wasn’t the case if she couldn’t stand the idea of kissing him. Just went to show how hopeless he was.

He quickly added, “Or we can stick to our agreement from the engagement party?”

She pursed her lips, thinking. And not wanting to push her, he waited silently, wondering if he’d just made things weird all over again.

“You know what? Everyone’s always extra sentimental at weddings,” She grinned, “And I don’t do anything half ass.”

At the sight of her smile, Bucky let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. But the relief didn’t last long when she said, “We do have to make it convincing. She is going to be here, right?”

It took him a second to realize who YN was talking about, the whole reason for this fake dating having slipped his mind ages ago. The last time he’d seen Kira, he’d been hit with the wave the pain he’d felt the day she’d left him at the altar. But at some point during the night, he’d realized that he’d been relieving the memory and not actually feeling anything for Kira at all. Whatever he’d felt for Kira were ghosts of emotions compared to what he felt now for the one person that been on his mind lately. And she stood in front of him without a clue in the world that he felt that way. Or maybe she did and that was the reason things had been weird between them.

“Bucky? Are you okay?” She whispered, eyes filling with worry.

“Yeah, I’m good. I’ve got you, right?” He had a feeling she wasn’t convinced, so he added, “How can I not be when I’m here with such a good friend?”

To his relief, she smirked, “One of the perks of being friends with a crazy lunatic. No one else can get you out of sticky situations the way I can.”

“And there’s no one else I’d rather do it with, Speedy,” He winked, guiding her through the gilded gates leading into the garden.

Like the engagement party, fairy lights were strung up throughout the shrubbery and flower exhibits, creating a magical effect surrounding the massive tent where the dinner would be served. Soft music sounded from the band in the far corner, laughter and chatter bursting all around.

Unlike Peggy and Steve, they’d been able to avoid the long ceremony, not being considered ‘close friends or family’, and Bucky scanned the garden, looking for his friends who should have been there somewhere.

“Finally,” Steve clapped him on the back when they approached, “We were beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”

He grinned, “And miss all the fun?”

Peggy and YN hugged, sharing a look when they pulled apart. He had no clue what it meant, but he figured it had to do with the reason he thought something was off. But they began chatting about the bride and the honeymoon destination as if nothing was wrong, which meant that he wouldn’t get any kind of explanation from that interaction.

Steve elbowed him, “Let’s go get drinks.”

“You want anything, Speedy?” Bucky turned to face them, “Peg?”

Peggy shot him a smile, “Two beers is good, thanks.”

They were halfway to the bar when Steve spoke up, “What’s with you and YN?”

“I don’t know,” He ran a hand through his hair, trying not to glance back at her.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Is she acting a little weird to you?” Bucky had to ask, wondering if he really was imagining everything.

After all, he’d only known her for a couple months. Peggy and Steve had known her for years.

Steve’s face flooded with anxiety, as if he wasn’t sure what he should say.

Bucky narrowed his eyes, “What do you know?”

“She told Peg the other night,” He ran a hand over his jaw, looking up to the sky. Bucky’s heart began to hammer, having no clue what to expect, good or bad. Steve sighed, “I think YN is nervous about tonight changing your friendship.”

Steve winced. Bucky had a feeling that Steve had said something he shouldn’t have, but Bucky was glad he now knew. At least now he could fix whatever it was between them. Why she hadn’t said anything to him though, he didn’t know. Bucky had thought they’d gotten close to share that kind of thing, but then again, she probably didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He was doing a terrible job at keeping his feelings hidden from her, and she didn’t want to offend him by making sure they stayed friends. He ran his hands through his hair. God, he was a mess for this woman. He needed to get it together.

Bucky realized Steve was staring at him and that he’d been silent for too long, “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Steve pursed his lips, looking like he’d just done something terrible, “I just hope everything works out between you two.”

Bucky wanted to ask Steve what he meant, but he was already gone, practically speed walking back to Peggy. Shrugging, he walked back to find YN, watching as Peg pulled Steve away, a furious look on her face.

YN wrung out her hands, eyes searching as she waited all alone. When her eyes met his, a smile bloomed on her face, giving him the courage to go talk to her.

“What’s up with them?” YN asked, taking the beer from his hand.

Bucky looked over at Steve and Peggy, who were now in a heated discussion, her hands waving around. Steve’s eyes widened and Peggy smacked him on the shoulder, shaking her head.

“I have no clue,” He said, though he had a feeling it had to do with what Steve had just told him, “Can I talk to you?”

A wary look crossed her face, “Sure.”

He led her to a more private corner of the garden - a small alcove surrounded by tall shrubs filled with some sort of white flowers. He tried to calm his heart rate. This was YN he was talking to. He had no reason to be nervous, no matter how much of an idiot he knew he was probably acting like.

Looking at her now, he had the feeling that maybe she was nervous too but dismissed the thought. She had no reason to be. All he needed to do was make it clear that nothing would change between them. They’d stay friends. He was okay with that. Or at least he would be.

“I wanted to make sure you were still good for tonight…”

“I told you I was,” She snapped, “I’m not going to back out now.”

“I know. That’s not what I was trying to say,” He huffed, trying to find the right words, “I just wanted to make sure you know that I know that this is all an act,” He winced, realizing that probably wasn’t too clear, “No matter what happens, we’re still friends right? I don’t want that to change and I don’t want you to be worried about that.”

“Friends,” She knocked back the rest of her beer, her lips spreading into a tight smile, “Yeah. Of course. We’re friends. We’ll make sure that doesn’t change. Thanks for checking in.”

“No problem” He took the bottle from her hands and threw it in a nearby trash can, “I don’t want things to be weird between us.”

She sucked in a long breath and rolled her shoulders back, “They won’t be. We got this, right?”

“Yeah, we do,” He forced a grin, hoping things would now go back to normal.

Her eyes narrowed, staring at something past him. He almost turned to see but stopped when her hands slid up his chest and interlaced behind his neck. He looked down at her in surprise, trying to figure out what had caused the sudden change.

“You know,” She murmured, inching closer, “I think the best idea is to start this whole thing back up with a kiss.”

Speechless, the only thing he could do was nod, his head dipping slowly, giving her the chance to reconsider. When she lifted onto her toes to close the distance, he drew back slightly, teasing, their breathing mingling until he couldn’t take it any longer.

Her lips were tentative and soft, the pressure ever so gentle. He followed her lead, letting her set the pace no matter how much he wanted to pull her closer, kissing and teasing her, taking his time as he explored her whole body from head to toe. A slight groan escaped his lips and he tried to banish the thoughts, knowing they weren’t doing him any good. But her fingers curled into his hair, pulling him closer as she pressed her body up against his. If this was how he died, he wouldn’t be surprised - or disappointed.

She pulled away before he could do anything stupid, a little breathless and eyes bright. He figured he looked no different, only substantially less beautiful.

A sly grin pulled at the corner other mouth and she winked before titled her head to look behind him.

“Oh gosh, Kira, I didn’t see you there,” She giggled nervously, “You know how weddings are…Everything’s just so romantic. We just can’t help it.”

Bucky pressed his lips together trying to hold back a smirk. He’d never been happier to see Kira in his life. If she was what it took to get YN to kiss him, Kira could hang around the wedding as long as she wanted.

“Of course, I get it,” She sneered, “Hi, James. How are you?”

He turned to face her, but kept an arm wrapped around YN, “Fine. How are you, Kira?”

“So good. This wedding is really helping Brad and I plan our own wedding. He’s so great at all this, it’s going along so well,” She waved her hand toward Brad who was now chatting with Steve and Peggy.

He forced a smile, trying not to show how little he cared. She may have been the reason for that kiss, but she’d also interrupted it.

“Sounds fun.”

“Everything with Brad is,” Then her face got all serious, though he knew her well enough to know she was suppressing a smile, “Oh no! I’m so sorry for rubbing it in. I didn’t mean to be rude, but you understand right? Brad didn’t exactly feel comfortable with inviting you and well, the guest list is full now, you know?”

YN’s finger poked into his back, which he took as a cue to stay silent.

“We totally understand, Kira,” YN nodded solemnly, “Just one question though.”

Kira tilted her head, “Oh?”

“Did you remember to make room for the bride on your guest list this time? I heard that was a bit of a problem at your last one.”

Bucky choked, trying and failing to hold back his laughter. Kira looked like she’d been slapped, so surprised she couldn’t seem to paste on another one of her pleasant smiles.

“Good luck with the wedding, Kira,” Bucky said after he’d managed to wipe the smirk from his lips, “Say hi to Brad for us.”

He steered YN away from Kira, keeping her tucked in close.

When they were far enough away, she slipped out of his grasp, a wide grin on her lips, “I think if we keep doing that, we’ll be fine for the rest of the evening.”

“You don’t say,” He laughed, watching her search the crowd for Peggy, “I forgot how good you were at this whole thing.”

“You forgot how good we were at this thing,” She called over her shoulder when she’d found Peggy, “You’re now down a point, Soldier. Try not to fall behind.”

He shook his head, a smile refusing to leave his lips. He didn’t forget. There was no forgetting how good they were together.

As the evening went on, Bucky felt himself relax to the point that all his earlier anxiety was just a memory. More often than not, he had YN tucked into his side, and just knowing she was there made an otherwise boring wedding enjoyable. After that first kiss, they had fallen into a familiar rhythm; one he’d missed this past week. Though tonight had the added bonus that whenever he spotted Kira in the vicinity, he could use it as an excuse to kiss her. And what was even better was that YN would surprise him with a kiss from time to time too.

If he were being honest, he kind of felt like he was back in high school, getting all worked up over a kiss from a pretty girl. But she was a beautiful, funny and caring woman and there was nothing he could do about it.

“So, who’s winning this ridiculous competition of yours?” Peggy asked, taking a bite of wedding cake.

YN looked up at him with a knowing smirk, “Me. Looks like he came off the last win a little too cocky.”

He laughed, “For now. I’m not far behind.”

“Yeah right,” She narrowed her eyes, “I’ve got this in the bag, and you know it.”

“If it makes you feel better. Delude yourself all you want,” He winked.

“You guys bicker like an old married couple,” Peggy shot them a look he couldn’t decipher.

By the way YN tensed beside him, he figured she had, but she melted back into him just as quickly, “That’s only because we learned from the best.”

Steve placed a hand over his heart, “Low blow.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of YN’s head, “I’m going to get another drink, want anything?”

“Nope, I’m good,” She shook her head, the ghost of a smile still on her lips.

He looked around, Peggy and Steve shaking their heads.

“All right. Be back in a second.”

As he made his way to the bar, Bucky smiled. He’d been afraid that tonight would make things weird, but it actually had the opposite effect. Things had finally gotten back to normal, though he had to admit that he was feeling bittersweet about the whole thing. He’d finally gotten a real glimpse of what it would have been like if he’d had the courage to ask out YN that first time they’d gone out together, and he was going to lose it at the end of the night.

He forced himself not to think about the inevitable. They weren’t leaving for another hour, and it wasn’t like they were going to stop being friends any time soon.

He was on his way back when he was intercepted by Kira, “James. I was wondering if we could talk. In private?”

He was tempted to tell her no. Kira had kept her distance most of the night and Bucky preferred it that way. But he’d never gotten an explanation for why she’d walked out. She hadn’t even left a note. It was the only reason, that despite his better judgment, he nodded.

Following her, she led him toward the parking lot, where they had a semblance of privacy. She stood there, biting her lip as if waiting for him to speak first.

“Talk, Kira.”

He hadn’t meant to sound so blunt, but he wasn’t about to waste his evening with he last person he wanted to see when the first person he wanted to see was back at the table with his two best friends.

“Cutting to the chase, I see,” She laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

He sighed, “What chase?”

“Don’t play coy, James. I saw the way you’ve been looking at me all night. I know you’ve been kissing that,” Her face soured, “That girlfriend of yours just to make me jealous.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Kira?” He demanded, searching for some sort of reasonable answer.

She stepped forward, causing him to back up with nowhere else to go but into the shrub. He put his hands on her shoulders to stop her from coming any closer. The smell of her perfumed engulfed him but the sweetness, which he used to find enticing, was nauseating. Bucky knew he had to leave.

“Kira, stop.”

“What?” She batted her lashes innocently and purred, “I was talking about you and me.”

Before he had time to react, her lips were on his, pressing fiercely. For a second his lips reacted on instinct and he hated that he did, pushing her away just as quickly.

“What the hell, Kira?” He snarled, “I have a girlfriend. And you have a fiancé, but obviously that’s never meant anything to you.”

Bucky shoved past her and his heart dropped. There was no mistaking the anger in YN’s retreating steps, and he knew she’d seen the whole thing. How the hell was he going to explain this?

Wait.

They weren’t actually dating. So that kiss shouldn’t have bothered her…unless… Bucky paused, not sure he wasn’t fooling himself. It was possible she was upset because it was simply a dick move but if there was a chance he was right and that wasn’t it, he would take it.

He whirled to face Kira again, the smug look on her a face a test of every inch of restraint he had.

“I will not let you fuck up my life again,” He spat, wondering how the hell he was going to keep YN in his life after something like this, “Stay away from me and my girlfriend.”

He tore after her, hoping he could somehow save this and convince her of the exact opposite of what he’d been doing from the moment they’d met.

#Bucky Barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky #bucky x you #bucky x reader #reader insert #MCU fic #MCU fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #fake dating

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radramblog · 3 years ago

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Nickelodeon Star-brawl All-man (or whatever it’s called)

The hype around the Nickelodeon Platform Fighter has been pretty sizable. Considering the last post on this blog, you might assume I have an opinion about the game, now that its been out for a couple days.

Well, I do. Because I played it last night. So how does it shack up?

…ehhhh?

The mechanics of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl are kind of similar to other similar games, but I think the word I’d use for them is consistent. The developers looked at how input and control mechanics worked in other games and asked why certain things are the way they were, and changed them if they didn’t approve. Why can’t you do strong attacks or grabs in the air? You can in this game now. Why are your attacks different if you’re holding left or right or no direction? In this game, they’re the same. Why would some characters be better at dealing with projectiles than others? In this game, everyone gets the same options. And so on. I would argue this simplification better suits a game aimed at a younger audience, but I’m not entirely sure this one is given the roster.

The roster indicates to me that the nostalgia market is really what the game is going for. The game’s 20 playable characters represent 13 cartoons, only 5 of which have any media from the last decade (and I’m not sure Hey! Arnold’s 2017 movie should count), and 3 of those are either long-running (TMNT, Spongebob) or are connected to older series (Korra). So I’m fairly certain they were going for a higher age bracket than the people who are these show’s target demographic now.

I think the best way to describe this game is clunky. Jank, even. Taking characters with such varied artstyles and making them look cohesive is difficult at the best of times, but the overall aesthetic of the game is pretty unattractive (this is my opinion). Some of the mechanics feel confused- the Strafe mechanic would make a lot more sense if the advancing back-aerials it would allow were actually in the game, and if less attacks (particularly n-airs) hit both directions anyway. The controls have very limited customization, which is particularly frustrating considering how many buttons the game uses by default and how utterly weird the default mapping is- not to mention the bug my friends and I experienced on the Switch version that kept rebinding our controls between games. A fair few things clearly needed more time to test- as an example, in the game’s Sports mode, there are cases where you can score a point by hitting the ball with one attack from where it spawns (e.g. Aang F-strong on Omashu), and while I’m not sure how well you can or how much you should test something like that it stuck out to me.

There’s also just a lot of little things. A lack of “are you sure”/confirmation buttons on inputs that are easy to make as a mistake (e.g. control rebinding) or will lead to a long load screen when you make a mistake (e.g. after a game, A defaults to a rematch while B takes you all the way to the main menu). The game’s maps are often frustrating or confusing (the portion of the plate you can actually stand on for Powdered Toast Man’s stage is super unclear), and only a few of them are actually, like, fun (basic maps notwithstanding). Some graphics need serious work- Toph looks completely lifeless on the character select screen, and I’m pretty sure you could count the polygons on Sandy’s hat in her loss screen animation.

Finally, this is a fully-priced game- 70 Australian Dollarydoos!!!- and it does not have the content to justify that. There are no alternate skins, basically no customization, and only one music track per level. 20 characters/maps was a lot back in the days of the first Street Fighter or Tekken games, but this game has less content than similarly priced games from 20 years ago. This would be fine if the game cost maybe 20-30 dollars less, but at that AAA price, I’d expect a bit more.

It’s frustrating, because there is a genuinely good game under all the issues. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a solid fighting game, with genuinely satisfying mechanics and surprisingly snappy gameplay. Once you get a handle on the controls, they do work pretty well, and there’s a lot of fat trimmed compared to other games. It does the Rivals of Aether thing of making Wavedashing easy and fun, and the inputs aren’t nearly as complex as games like that require which is nice for the less dextrous among us. The characters’ kits are solid, even when it’s clear what they’re aping, and the animations are full of both charm and nods to both the shows they hail from and the memes arising from them. And some of the music utterly slaps. I think after a few updates, which we know are coming, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl could be a very good game- it just needs time to get there.

…And there, I managed not to (explicitly) mention Smash Bros once. You’re fucking welcome, nerds.

#ramble #nickelodeon #nasb #i dont think this game has an acronym? or a hashtag really #video games

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years ago

Text

Down the Rabbit Hole part 16 (nsfw elements)

“Take a break!” comes the barked command through the squad radio link, and it takes all of my willpower not to collapse onto the fleshy ground then and there. I take the camera slung around my neck and turn it off, telescope the lens back into itself, and then find a nice soft bit of wall to sink into before I pop the helmet and give Elena a weary gaze. She grins at me cheekily.

“How you doing, cutie?”

I barely have enough energy to grin, but somehow I manage it. “God,” I tell her. “I had no idea there was going to be this much hiking.”

I had never thought of myself as much of a slouch as far as physical activity went. I liked keeping myself fit, liked the rush I got after a workout. I did a lot of cardio, a lot of jogging, that kind of thing. Occasionally I’d lift some weights but it didn’t appeal to me as much as just the inchoate joy of moving quickly and feeling air push in and out of my lungs. I had a fair amount of endurance as well; I wasn’t running marathons or anything but frequently I’d end up jogging for upwards of an hour, just for something to do, just to unwind after work or take my mind off something. I’d looked at the several miles we’d have to travel today, down there in the stinking guts of the Pit, and thought something along the lines of ‘no sweat, I’m active, I take care of myself, it’ll be a workout but nothing more.’

Christ.

What neither Peter or Makado had mentioned to me is that if you aren’t travelling in a Made Place down here, in a place that’s been specifically sanitized and reinforced and structured for something the size of a human, something that moves like a human instead of crawling or writhing or wriggling, it is capital-letter Tough Going. Everything down here, down to just the texture of the gigantic veins we pushed through, our suits sopping with nameless excretions and juices, seemed designed to only sullenly give way to us, and that after a great deal on our part to convince it to do so.

Example number one – the tightness of some of the veins is so great that we had to use something called a venterial jack, a pneumatic, hydraulic device that Slate carried slung over his back, in order to force them open so we could pass through. Everyone kept saying that once we hit the organ trail it’d be more open and we wouldn’t have to use it, but in the meantime in some of these conduits Slate would have to get three or four of us to help him pull back the weird, spongy tissue of the sides back far enough for him to plant it there in the middle, and then we’d all back away, and with a thundering sound like a pile-driver it would expand and splay open, pushing the tissue back with such force that at times it would leave a gigantic bruise coloring the Pit’s peach-hued flesh afterwards, and then we’d be able to crawl past it in the newly expanded space perhaps twenty feet or so before we’d have to hit the small trigger on its hull to collapse it, and then lug the thing back up to the front and repeat the process.

Example two – these vents aren’t perfectly straight, flat areas to walk in. They dip and bend and curve; sometimes they roll upwards, great creased crinkles of flesh stretching upwards into a ninety-degree angle. Then there’s nothing to do but get over it somehow, either by pulling yourself up if it’s small enough, or by breaking out the damn rope and pitons and climbing up, and then helping everyone else up after you. Then imagine doing all of this in pitch darkness, the only light coming from everyone’s headlamps. Then imagine that the floor is damp and sticky and squishy and generally revolting. Slippery with fluid at times. Imagine that it groans and writhes and wriggles around you if you manage to unstick your cleats at the wrong time and it bucks and pitches you to the ground. And then imagine that if you do fall to the ground, in the space of time it takes for someone to come and help you up you become covered with all forms of parasites, tiny things ranging between the size of a knuckle and the size of a fist, all urgently eager and hungry. Tiny worms like nematodes, crablike mites, stranger, less defined things that scuttle or slither or undulate off at the first sign of motion but are altogether too eager to swarm over you and excrete digestive juices or sensory pheromones or urine or shit or what the hell ever else.

I ask Elena about them and she explains that the duct that we’re moving through is part of the Pit’s digestive system and that all of these little creatures snag scraps of food whenever it passes through, or sometimes they prey on each other. They evolve quickly, down here in the dark, generations zipping by in the course of a day.

I can see my helmeted reflection in the glossy visor of Elena’s helmet and I shudder. My camera is already splattered with grime, no matter how careful I’ve been to keep it clean. Nothing that interferes with its operation, thankfully; I don’t relish the idea of grappling with the clunky, low-resolution camcorder secreted somewhere in its case in my pack. At least the operation of my DSLR is second-nature to me; at least I don’t have to think about it.

Peter stomps over and sits down next to us. In here, in these wider basins, the little scummy creatures crawling all over don’t seem to venture into the middle, leaving a broad round circle of bare flesh where we can sit without being molested. I’ve already popped my helmet and I keep my eyes on Elena as she takes hers off, shakes her head doggedly, smooths her hair out. She catches my eye and grins, and then flicks her eyes over to Peter.

“Peter, right?”

“Yes,” he says. He holds his fist out and they touch knuckles. A less complicated gesture than trying to shake hands with the suit gloves on. “Sorry I haven’t been around much, I’ve been –“

“Too busy with Veret?” Elena interjects smoothly, and I nearly choke on the mouthful of water I’d taken from my canteen. Peter claps me on the back and grimaces.

“I hoped people wouldn’t have talked much,” Peter says, and Elena laughs.

“Please,” she says. “People are going to do nothing but talk if you’re fucking the boss. I’m Elena, by the way.”

Peter’s blushing. I nudge him. “So you and Makado, huh?”

He snorts. “Slate walked in on me and her, um. Well, you know. In one of the supply closets the other day.”

“And of course,” Elena adds, “considering that Slate is a 12-year-old girl, he ran and tattled to everyone.”

“That’s Slate,” Peter agrees. “When did you join?”

“Three years ago.”

“Huh. That’s back when I was here.”

“Yeah, I was attached to a research team for a while. They were doing some gastric stuff and they needed a diver. Probably why we never met.”

“Makes sense,” Peter nods. Elena’s eyes flick over to me and she reaches out a hand.

“Want me to open that for you?” she asks, and I shake my head. I’ve almost gotten the granola bar open now, but these damn gloves –

“I’ve got it,” I tell her. “I almost –“

“You sure you’ve got it?”

“Shut up, Pete.”

“Here, let me –“

“Fine,” I say, tossing the granola bar to Elena. She strips the wrapper off it with one deft motion and I shake my head. “How the hell –“

“Lots of practice,” Peter says. “So Elena, when you joined, did you…”

As I sit there munching and letting the quiet rustle of conversation blur into the background, letting some of the strength come back into my weary legs, I think for a moment about the fleshy, veined interior of the basin I’m sitting in. There are places in my body just like this, I think to myself. This is just the same as me, writ large. And I’m sure I have parasites just like those squirming things, all the mites and leeches and worms and other tiny things, just even tinier, single-celled or at the very least simple organisms, living inside of me, just like these are.

I put my hand on the floor hesitantly and I swear I feel, just for a moment, the throb of a titan heartbeat somewhere resounding in it like the echo of a vast drum.

“Alright people! Let’s get moving!”

I push myself up, nearly bang heads with Elena. Our helmets are off still so it’s dark, the lights are strobing all around as everyone puts theirs on. “Sorry,” I say to her, but before I can get the word out fully she’s seized me by the shoulders and kissed me hard and deep on the lips, her tongue skating over my teeth lightly before we part, her gleaming grin the only part of her I can really see, and I’m left breathless. For the next fifteen minutes of hiking I can’t seem to wipe the smile from my face.

* * *

The first difficulty arises only about an hour after we left the rest site. The vent we were passing through widened out, a sign Elena explained meant that we were beginning to enter the old Organ Trail, sort of a central hiking path through some of the more interesting areas of the Pit. It meant easier going, which I was thankful for; the area had been cleared and levelled a long time ago, back before 2007, and even though some of the built areas had been wrecked by those titan convulsions, now years past, there was still a great deal of flat ground and even in some parts metal platforms and walkways for us to use, which certainly gave my aching arms and legs a little solace.

It happened just at the end of one of those walkways, a short, narrow tunnel through a conic gape of flesh that truncated down from the ceiling like an abraded sphincter. The walkway through it still had age-old hydraulic jacks keeping the fleshy ceiling from collapsing inward on it, and though the Sergeant and Fumi, up at front, showed a little trepidation at the notion of passing through with only those jacks to secure it, there was no other real option; the portable jack Slate had wasn’t strong enough to provide any sort of security, even if we set it up in the middle of the passage at full load strength. Plus, Crookshank had loudly and crudely reasoned, if the fucking thing hadn’t caved in in the last four fucking years, what are the fucking odds it’ll fuck us in the ass right as we walk under it?

Hard to argue with that logic. And, to Crookshank’s credit, the fucking thing didn’t fuck us in the ass, although I couldn’t stop myself from staring up at the bloated, swollen flesh of the ceiling as I passed under it, a tiny ice-cold trickle of fear welling in my gut as I considered the sheer weight that was likely behind that glossy, straining surface. Suit or no suit, that’d kill me.

We hardly make it thirty yards from the ending of the tunnel before Joker tears through the flesh of the trail and plunges down into darkness. Euler actually yelps and we all whip around and see the outline of the pit the robot had fallen through, an irregular craggy chasm of flesh. We make our way cautiously to its edge and peer down and I almost laughed, for there just fifteen feet or so below us is Joker, his head inclined upwards, the running lights on the side blinking anxiously, looking for all the world like a forlorn and anxious dog waiting for its master to come rescue it.

Then all manner of cursing and expletives. It was for all the world like watching the groups of construction workers you’d see sometimes on the side of the highway, about six of us standing around mutely with our arms folded or akimbo, watching, while two others ran about frantically trying to accomplish something. The Sergeant and Euler had another shouting match which ended with the Sergeant throwing up his hands in disgust when Euler explained that the damn thing weighed around five hundred pounds and that nobody had told him to look out for crevices like that. Crookshank was in favor of jumping down and tying a rope around Joker’s waist and then the rest of us hoisting him out that way, but Klaus stops him and tosses a tiny white tab down into the murky liquid pooling around Joker’s feet.

“Acid test strip,” Elena murmurs to me when I shot her a questioning glance.

Nearly a dozen headlamps focus in on the tiny floating strip. Crookshank spits a disgusted curse when it turns a violent shade of pink.

“Good thing Klaus threw that in,” Elena calls, a tiny smirk coloring her words, and Crookshank rolls his eyes at her.

“What’s going on – oops. Sorry.”

Makado’s voice had flourished in my ears, sounding as rich and full in the helmet as though she’d been standing right next to me. Then the transmission clicked off. A couple of chuckles from the rest of the squad and then I realized – she must have dialed to the wrong frequency, spoken to all of us instead of just the Sergeant. He inclines his great slab of a head, one hand pressed to his helmeted ear, nodding occasionally, and then motions to Euler. “Euler,” he says. “Can you make it dig in and climb out?”

Euler stares at him blankly. “You mean into the - ?”

“Yes, goddam it, into the side of the wall.”

Poor Euler. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to. His hands are shaking lightly on the remote and all of us staring at him waiting for him to do it probably isn’t helping. He presses a complex series of buttons, manipulates the joystick carefully, and down in the pit Joker reaches up and plunges his hands into the fleshy wall, using about as much effort, it looks like, as it’d take to push into sand. Joker lifts himself off the ground and then hesitantly pulls one hand out, dripping with gore, and reaches upwards.

“Today, Euler.”

I almost, almost snap something at the Sergeant, but I bite my tongue. Whatever sort of peace we brokered the other night, it seemed like a tentative one, and I’d rather he was yelling at Euler, not me.

Sorry, Euler.

“Hey, Roan?”

I reach down to the radio and click it on. “Makado, what’s up?”

“Hi,” she says. “I just wanted to let you know that earlier today I got a call from our mutual friend Erica.”

I can feel my eyebrows raising of their own accord. “Really?” I ask. “Was she able to get in touch with - ?”

“With her guy down there? No, she wasn’t. She was calling to let me know that she was sorry,” Makado laughs, “and to tell you the same, that she’s sorry.”

“Christ,” I mutter. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

“I’ve already spoken to the Sergeant about it and we’ve decided that on the way back up you’ll make some detours, check some spots that he might be holed up, but since we can’t make contact with him…”

“Right.”

“How are you doing down there?”

“Um. I’m alright. This is a bit of a new experience for me.”

“That’s one way to put it. Getting good footage?”

Me and my camera watch as Joker pokes his head up over the lip of the crevasse. Next to me Elena gives a little whooping cheer. “Yeah,” I say, turning so that Elena’s in the shot. She looks over at me, looks down, the lens reflecting in her helmet, flashes index and middle finger in a v at me. “You could say that.”

“Good. Well, that’s all, just wanted to check in with you.”

“Heard about you and Peter,” I blurt before I can stop myself. Makado grunts questioningly, and I roll my eyes at placing my foot directly in my own mouth as usual. “You know,” I clarify, “in the supply closet.”

There’s a moment of frozen silence and then Makado bursts out laughing. “Goddam it,” she sputters. “Slate told everyone, didn’t he?”

“More or less.”

“That fucker. Well, yeah. We, ah, got a little carried away.”

“I’m happy for you,” I tell her, and I find myself mildly surprised that it’s actually true. “He’s right here if you want to talk to –“

“No, no, it’s okay, I’ve actually been talking to him all day, more or less. Cause, you know, the equipment up here, I can put a direct line in to whichever one of you I like.”

“Right, of course.”

“Well,” Makado says, and I smile softly to myself beneath the helmet.

“See you, Mak.”

“See you.”

The radio line clicks off and then I’m alone inside my own head again.

Joker is dripping with blood now and I make sure I take plenty of video of him; a couple of stills as well, just because it looks metal. Like something straight out of a movie. Then once Euler has checked him over and wiped off the worst of it we go back to trudging down the vent like nothing has happened. Euler takes more care to keep Joker walking in step behind us and though Elena points out a couple of the fissures to me, skin crawling as I examine the thin membranous layer separating them from the air, nobody falls into any more.

Another couple of hours of walking and then another break. I have to go back three menus to check the time on my camera; some of the others’ helmets, I’m told, have heads-up displays on the interior that show details like that; mine either doesn’t have this functionality or it’s switched off so as to not overwhelm me with extraneous visual noise. It’s six in the evening; Elena tells me that the plan is to make it to our stopping point for the day by nine or ten. We’re over the worst of it, she says grinning, and then because we’re towards the back with only Joker behind us to see, she reaches down and squeezes my ass lightly and I respond in the only way I know how, by upping the ante, and reaching for her and groping her taut breasts clumsily through the suit before she spins away from me laughing. I still cast a nervous glance behind and meet Joker’s faceless metal gaze. I peer at him again for a little before I turn back around. I haven’t told Euler yet of what happened in the gondola on the way down but the more I think about it and turn it over in my head the more I’m convinced it must have been nothing. Just a little software glitch of some kind.

It amazes me how easily the fantastic surroundings I’m in become mundane. Just scant hours ago I was nearly getting sick breathing the air but now I’m grateful for it when I pop my helmet and gulp down great lungfuls of it, cloying and organic and thick but not recycled, not passed through a dozen filters before reaching my lungs.

We’re in the Organ Trail proper now, great wide cavities and veins and vesicles and all these other little fiddly medical names that pass between everybody like old friends but which leave me halting. What’s the difference between a vein and a vent? A vesicle and a ventricle? What about an organ and a cavity? I don’t know, and if I asked I’d only expose my ignorance, I’d only be patronized. I did ask Elena a few innocuous questions in that nature but every time she answered me she did so with a smug little smile and it made me feel small so eventually I stopped asking, even though I know she probably didn’t mean to do it.

Break. Another granola bar, another bottle of water. Have to stay hydrated. Sergeant comes around to all of us, makes sure we’re drinking enough. He doesn’t bark at me, he’s – not kind, but not awful. I hold hands with Elena surreptitiously there in the dark and though I can barely feel her through the thick suit, knowing she’s there is a comfort.

I think about Erica’s boy, whoever he was to her. There wasn’t enough of a resemblance for me to think that they were family but obviously she cares about him. I think about him alone down here for almost four days now. I think about how scared I’d be in the same position.

I have to fucking piss.

I get up and Elena eyes me. “Where’re you going?”

“To take a leak. What’s the protocol down here, just squat down and go wherever?”

She makes a face. “Unfortunately. If you’re male you have the luxury of using an empty water bottle but if not…”

“Right,” I say. I’ve gone camping before so the concept isn’t entirely foreign to me but it still isn’t particularly tasteful either. I make my way towards a discrete corner, a little fold of flesh that drapes down from the ceiling like a curtain.

“Don’t go far!” Elena calls from behind me, and I throw her a thumbs-up without turning. It’ll just take a moment anyway. Behind the curtain is actually another corridor – a vent, I guess, is the term everyone else seems to use most commonly. I eye it a little warily before I step forward. It’s dark in there, and I feel a little more exposed than I thought I would as I unzip the bottom portion of the suit and squat down, choosing a dingy little corner, a little wrinkled knot of flesh like the accordion-like joint between the thumb and the rest of the hand.

I do my business quickly and then seal the suit, taking time to check all of the joints like I was shown in the brief training the engineer fitting me had given. I –

Something moves in the vent ahead of me and I freeze. I can’t see it properly, it’s far too dark, but it seems large, larger than I am. I take a hesitant step back, eyes locked on its wavering silhouette, and then I reach down with my thumb along the side of the helmet, carried loosely at my side, and press the button for the headlamp, and it casts a beam of light over the thing, and it is so large, larger than me, towering at least eight feet tall there in the vent, all whipping tentacles and soft spongy tissue. It has wide, strange eyes that peer at me blearily in the sudden light, its long, snakelike, curiously vulnerable-looking body surrounded by a halo of pale venous fronds or tendrils, light pink and throbbing. It reaches out for me and I start to scream but the sound catches in my throat, and then I take a panicked, scrambling step backwards and the cleats dig in the wrong way and I pitch to the ground. I hit hard, knock the air from my lungs, and then I really can’t scream even though my brain has finally caught up with what’s happening and I’m trying to force my abused lungs to work, all I can manage is a little croaking noise.

The thing scuttles closer to me. The tendrils are starting to wrap around my leg and I kick at it and scoot backwards, but they tighten around my ankle and hold me still. I can feel terror inside of me like I’m a cocoon, like it’s clawing at my skin and if it makes a hole in me I’ll disappear, evaporate, vanish, I’ll scream and scream and -

“Roan?” Elena calls. It sounds as though she’s coming towards the coil of flesh I’d hidden behind. “We’re getting ready to go.”

“Help,” I manage to croak, and then Elena bolts around the corner, her pistol already clearing the holster. I feel the tendrils around my leg loosen and then slip away as she marches towards the thing completely fearlessly. She isn’t even pointing the gun at it. She stands up on her tiptoes as best she can in the bulky cleats and stares at it, stares it down, the thing retreating on its millions of whiplike tentacles, before finally it turns tail and flees down the vent, making a noise like pudding being poured into a bag full of live eels.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as Elena helps me up. “What the fuck was that?”

“Venous shamble,” she tells me. “Big one, too. Would have stuck a proboscis in you and sucked you dry if you let it. Why didn’t you shoot it or something? They’re pussies, even if you missed it would have run away.”

“I didn’t think of it,” I say quietly, looking at her. I can feel myself trembling with the comedown of the adrenaline and I feel defensive. “I didn’t - I don’t know, I froze up and -“

Elena’s face falls, and then she is crouching next to me and undoing my helmet gently, cradling me in her arms. “It’s okay,” she tells me. “It’s okay, nobody could expect you to do any different.”

I blow a big breath out. “Okay,” I say. “Okay, I’m good.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Here, come here.”

“What is it?”

“Kiss me,” I tell her, and I see Elena grin.

“We are moving, ladies!” the Sergeant calls from back in the main chamber, and both of us jump. Elena hauls me to my feet and I slot the helmet back onto the neck of the suit.

“Thanks for saving me,” I tell her, and though she rolls her eyes she still smiles at me.

“Why do I feel like I’m going to hear that a lot from you?” she asks, and I shrug and then we hold hands for the next two hours, there at the back with Joker trudging along behind us with squishy pneumatic footfalls, and after long enough of that I finally, finally feel my insides loosen up and the terror that had been lurking inside of me gradually vanish.

The rest of the night passes without incident. We make it to the broad flat exposed bone plate that we’d planned to camp on and Fumi sets up a portable stove and passes around MREs. I get one that’s a vegetable omelet and though Elena offers to trade with me because apparently it is the foulest piece of food science that the US Military has ever seen fit to inflict on its soldiers and I, being a mere civilian, am unprepared to face its manifold horrors, I actually kind of like it, especially once I mix in the little hot sauce packet.

Afterwards, Elena helps me set up the weird hexagon-panelled tent, which I am hopelessly confused by, inside one of the many vents leading to the basin, which she explains is necessary because the tent has to brace against the vent walls in order to keep its shape. Eventually she laughs at me, though not unkindly, and tells me not to worry about it, she’ll set it up. The tents are two-person, and there seem to be a series of accustomed pairs, Fumi and Ellis, Klaus and Slate, Crookshank and the Sergeant. Elena, when I ask her, tells me that she got a tent to herself normally. That leaves Peter and Euler to bunk up together, but they seem to be getting along alright, so that all works out, I suppose. We’ve left Joker there on the bone plate by himself. Euler hasn’t shut him down but put him into some sort of guard mode so he’ll wake us if anything gets into the basin, but Elena assures me that up this high in the Pit nothing noteworthy is going to bother us. The biggest things up here, she says, are the shambles, and they only bother to attack isolated stragglers, things they know they can kill. They’re very fragile, apparently, and know it.

Elena goes to relieve herself and I clamber into the tent, lay out the mats and sleeping bags. I double-check the map on my suit computer, make sure I know which vent leads to the ballast bulb Makado had mentioned to me. Just thinking about it gives me shivers but I resolve not to worry about it until later. Then I strip my suit off and then shrug out of my underclothes as well. My hair is a little lank from being in a helmet all day and although I’ve applied antiperspirant liberally I can’t escape the suspicion that I don’t smell anywhere close to roses.

No matter. I drape myself across the sleeping bags in what I hope is a sexy manner and play with myself lightly until finally Elena unzips the tent.

“Sorry I took so long,” she says, clambering inwards. She hasn’t seen me yet, she’s making sure her pack makes it inside. “Fumi is fucking with the stove and –“

She sees me then and her mouth drops open. I keep my voice low and sultry.

“How should I reward my savior?” I ask her, and she puts the bag down slowly, a grin spreading across her face.

“I could think of a few ways,” she says, her voice low and husky, and then she is crawling over to me. Her lips meet mine and become entangled and she is slipping her suit down around her shoulders with my one-handed help, and then her hands are roaming over my breasts and my stomach and my thighs and the place where my thighs meet, and then what she does to me next makes me stop thinking.

* * *

“Mm.”

“That was nice.”

“Here, hold me. Tighter.”

“If I hold you any tighter you’ll break something.”

“Do you ever feel,” I ask, shifting myself slowly around in her arms so that I could face her, “as if you simply can’t get close enough to someone once you’ve just made love? Like, you’ve got your arms around them and you’ve put your leg up over their hip –“

“Like this?”

“Yes, just like that. And you’ve got your face pressed just here into their collarbone and you can feel them breathing against you, but it just isn’t close enough?”

“I know what you mean.”

“That’s how I feel.”

“That tickles, don’t kiss me there.”

“But you have such a nice collarbone,” I tell her. “How can I not kiss it?”

“God,” Elena laughs. “That’s so cute. You are so damn cute, has anyone told you that?”

“Once or twice, but I don’t mind hearing it again.”

“This really is your first time with a girl?”

“Yes, if we don’t count last night.”

“You’re very good.”

“Mm. Call me a good girl.”

“You’re a good girl.”

“Your good girl?”

“If you’d like to be.”

“I think I’d like that.”

Elena reaches up and puts her hand in my hair, holds me closer to her. I feel such a giddy upswelling of joy in my heart and stomach that I nearly start laughing. Elena feels it, some little shake or shudder in me, and looks down at me with sudden concern. “Are you okay?” she asks, and I nod.

“Yes, I’m just – happy.”

We are silent for a long while. I can feel Elena’s nimble fingers counting the vertebrae in my naked back, and her soft tapping touches make me shiver and clutch closer to her.

“Tell me about yourself,” she tells me, and I feel a little irrational stab of fear clench in my gut. “I don’t know hardly anything about you, just that we get on well.”

“Alright,” I say after a moment. “I grew up in Corpus Christi. No siblings, only child. I – “

“Me too.”

“Only child?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“God, no,” Elena laughs. “I was so lonely as a kid. My family, we lived way out in the boonies in Wisconsin, nobody around hardly. Just me and my folks.”

“It sounds nice.”

“You are not very much of a people person, are you?” she asks. She inclines her head downwards and kisses me on the forehead, and then I manage to scoot myself up enough that she can find my lips.

“What gave it away?”

“Tell me more. You grew up in Corpus Christi.”

“Went to school in Oklahoma. Got a degree in Literature, bounced around for a while doing journalist things. Worked at a television station for a while, ended up here.”

“How the hell did you end up here?”

“Same way you did, probably,” I grin. “Dumb luck.”

“No, really, I’m curious.”

Goddam it, Elena. I cup her breast in my hand. When I pull back from her to do so I can still feel her breathing against my chest, the ocean-swell rise and fall of hers fitting into mine. I run my thumb over her nipple and see her bite her lip, and I smile to myself, trying not to look too self-satisfied. Elena doesn’t let me enjoy it, though; she shakes her head at me and slips her hand over her breast, covers it from me. “Don’t avoid the question,” she says.

Goddam it, Elena.

I shrug, pretend embarrassment. “I knew someone in management who pulled the strings for me. Came in as an intern then got offered a full position and I accepted cause the pay was fantastic. I do clerical stuff, mostly, you know, data entry, office stuff. I was afraid to tell you, cause…”

“Cause why?”

I decide, for once, to tell her the truth. “Because you intimidate me,” I say. I look her in the eyes for as long as I can muster before I shut mine and bury my face in her collarbone again. I lasted about five seconds. Her eyes are ferociously grey. “Because I feel like you’re going to realize that I’m not –“ I start, and then I realize what I’m saying and cut myself off.

“I don’t want to know how that sentence ends,” she says firmly, taking my head gently in her hands and bringing it up to hers. “You lock that down,” she tells me, pressing her forehead to mine, staring at me. I force myself to look at her, even offer her a tiny smile, or at least I try to, but it feels like the same great hand that’s wrenching at my heart is tugging at my lips as well.

“I just don’t – Elena, there’s –“

Where the hell am I going with that? What am I going to say? There’s nothing I can say.

“Shh. Don’t.”

“Goddam it,” I mutter helplessly. She doesn’t understand, I can tell from the way she’s looking at me. Mute sympathy writ large in those wide, pretty eyes. Fuck.

“Look,” she says. “If you’re having doubts it’s, it’s okay. If it’s just sex maybe that’s one thing, but I don’t know if you want to think of anything more, I don’t know how you feel, but if I make you feel bad or wrong or guilty or -“

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

I let out a little laugh, barely a breath’s worth. “I have a lot of things I’m sorry for.”

“Has it been a while for you?”

“How do you mean?”

“Being with anyone, I mean.”

I feel like I’m going to cry. This isn’t going how I wanted it to. I don’t know how I wanted it to go. This isn’t it.

I feel a huge, stupid paroxysm of guilt welling up inside of me. I turn around so I don’t have to look at Elena, so she doesn’t have to look at me. She puts her arms around me, one arm draped across my chest, tucking me close to her, the other slipping down around my hip and pulling me closer in to her. I can feel the tapered v that her hips and her thighs make resting softly against my ass. She’s so warm.

“Roan,” she says. I can feel her lips moving against the back of my neck. “I don’t know what’s happened to you in the past, I don’t know what kind of shit you’ve had to go through. But I promise that nothing you can tell me is going to change –“

She thinks it’s about her. I almost laugh out loud at the simplicity of it. She thinks I’m having regrets, she thinks – she thinks whatever kind of pathetic moral compass I have spinning in circles inside of me is disagreeing with my monkey hormones’ efforts to make me cum. Goddam it.

“I’m gonna hurt you,” I tell her, knowing as I say it that it’s true. “I’m not going to mean to but I’m going to anyway, I’m going to hurt you, I’m going to fuck this up, and I don’t want to –“

“Roan –“

“- and I’m fucking dreading it because the last relationship I was in was not good, and I don’t want to believe that I’ve been changed by it, but –“

Alright Roan, you can stop now.

“- and I’m just scared because I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want you to hate me, and -“

“Roan!”

I stop. I put my face in my hands. I feel a tiny drop of moisture on my back and I realize that Elena must be crying, and I roll over. “Oh no,” I tell her. “No, no, goddam it, don’t cry, I didn’t mean to –“

“You didn’t make me cry,” she tells me. “I’m crying because whatever happened to you, you didn’t deserve it, and hearing you like this makes me so sad –“

“Elena –“

She hushes me again and for a long, long while we lay there entangled, her lips pressed to my collarbone now, her sweet-smelling hair in my face, and she holds me so tightly that I finally begin to calm down. I think for a long, long while about what I should say, about what I should tell her that might excuse the – the mess I made of what should have been a relatively pleasant evening, but then as her breaths ripsaw upwards into tiny wheezing snores, I realize that it doesn’t really matter.

It takes me about ten minutes to slowly extricate myself from her grasp, to grab my suit and snake my way out of the tent with it in tow. I turn back around to zip the tent back up and I see Elena’s eyes cracked open, watching me, and though I almost jump I give her a soft little smile.

“Where are you going?” she groans, reaching out for me, and I lean back in and take her hand, bring it to my mouth and kiss her on the knuckles.

“I have to take a piss,” I tell her. “I’ll be back soon, go back to sleep.”

She looks as though she wants to protest but she’s too sleepy to do so. She gives me a little smile and then falls back onto her pillow, and I zip the tent up and shrug into my suit quickly. It feels strange and coarse on me, not having bothered to put on any underclothes beforehand, but it’ll do.

Then I turn and make my way as silently as I can towards the dark branching offshoot of tunnel that I marked as the path to the ballast bulb.

Continue with Part 17

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#mystery flesh pit #alt lit #writing #writeblr #thriller #Michael Crichton #horror #caving #disaster #acid

20 notes · View notes

indiavolojones · 5 years ago

Text

anon your MIND…

YE━(｡･`ω´･｡)ゞ ━S!!

Idk if you meant this as a request but I did it!!! I hope you like this incredibly spur of the moment, university wicked au lmfaoaoooo

5kish words, gen, asmo/solomon

“I can’t concentrate on coursework or go to bed if you’ve got someone moaning in your bed every other night.”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Asmo sniffs, and Solomon very quickly finds the situation slipping through his fingers. All of his phenomenally constructed arguments for why Asmo should be a respectful roommate have disintegrated in the face of Asmo’s pure obstinance. “Besides, where would I take my partners if not to my room?”

“Their rooms. A car. A bathroom. A dark alcove somewhere. I don’t care--anywhere else but here.”

Pls keep in mind a bunch of small notes:

-I haven’t seen Wicked, only listened to the soundtrack! I don’t remember what happened to make them room together/much of the plot hahaha. This is less of a wicked au and more a magical college au, whoooo~ -I made up so much shit for this. I was pulling lore outta my ass like nobody’s business -Everyone is human! -I skipped around a lot, so if there’s something that doesn’t make sense pls ask and I’ll clarify hahaha, I wanted to keep this short!! (is,.... 5k short...)

“We're all supposedly the best of the best, and yet none of us could stop a burst pipe," Solomon bemoans the status of their old dormitory.

“In our defense, it happened in the middle of the night and we had no idea what was going on?" Simeon offers, tilting his head with a sympathetic smile.

"But midway through the semester!" Solomon won't admit that the loss of one of his few friends being constantly at his side is more daunting than he thought it would be. Simeon is a phenomenal roommate, and understands Solomon better than anyone.

With the unfortunate mad dash to get all the affected students into new, undamaged rooms, the two of them are being split up, and now Solomon will have to get used to another, likely annoying roommate.

"I never realized you were this dependent on me." Simeon teases, and Solomon glares at him. Simeon swirls himself around in Solomon’s desk chair while Solomon walks by, cardboard box in his arms. Just to annoy him, his foot shoots out to stop Simeon mid-spin, and Simeon huffs, looking up at him.

“Didn’t you say you were going to help?” Solomon asks.

Simeon laughs.

“You asked me to come help move boxes? I thought it was for sure because of you freaking out at getting a new roommate.” Solomon’s lips quirk downwards, and turns his head away with a scoff as he brings the box to the corner of his new dorm. Simeon props an elbow up on Solomon’s desk and watches the other.

“What could you possibly do to help with that?” Solomon asks, palm pressing to the box and releasing the sealing spell on it. “Do you have a solution for this?”

He gestures at the other half of the (thankfully) large room.

Instead of the traditional bunk bed and lower desk set like on Solomon's side of the room, the other half of the room consists of a large wardrobe as additional closet space, an extravagant vanity filled with beauty products, and a nest. A massive nest of pillows, sheets, and blankets—describing it feels ridiculous, but to look on its glory is surprisingly enticing. It does look… very comfortable.

“I think it looks rather nice,” Simeon examines the fairy lights strung up around the walls near the bed. The edges of his roommate's influence barely encroach onto what Solomon would consider to be his side, but as he’s the one imposing on this person’s space halfway into the year… he’ll bite his tongue.

Realistically, there’s no reason for RAD to have shared dorm rooms--the school is prestigious enough that each student could probably get their own living suite… but the chancellor of their particular location is the direct son of the president. He’s a bit eccentric, and enthusiastically vocal about the benefits of shared dorms as integral to the relationships they develop with their peers.

(There are things Solomon’s heard of him too: how he’s the youngest person in his role, how despite the accusations of nepotism he’s completely taken the magical community by storm in his unconventional approach to education.

An interesting man that Solomon would enjoy meeting face to face, rather than admire on a podium, even if he is quite handsome.)

Simeon purses his lips, before snapping his fingers, “A privacy screen?”

Solomon rolls his eyes hard enough that they feel like falling out of his sockets.

“I don’t know why you’re so up in arms about this. I’m sure your roommate will be fine,” Simeon says then, gentle--Solomon looks at the opposite side of the room and has his doubts. “It’ll be good for you to try making more than three friends, you know.”

Taking the books out of the box and lining them up on the shelves of the book case, Solomon tosses a glance back at Simeon.

Simeon isn’t wrong.

Solomon could be the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but it means absolutely nothing if he can’t effectively operate in the modern magical community. Maybe if he was born several hundred years earlier he could have swept up the world in the sheer magnitude of his power, but nowadays, politics infect everything. Solomon can’t patent a spell to wipe his ass without a sponsor, and no one wants to sponsor the intense kid with a bad attitude.

His ability to cast magic without any kind of aide or incantation launched him into the spotlight at an early age. Solomon has always been aware of what other people thought of him. When empty praise didn’t ingratiate his sycophants to him, it just as easily turned to criticism; kids are cruel, after all. As a result, Solomon has always struggled connecting with others.

By the time he realized he would have to work on his people skills to get anywhere, he was halfway through high school with a bad reputation, no friends, and no open doors.

(Funnily enough, it was around the same time that he met Simeon that he realized he needed to be less of an asshole if he was to ever get anywhere in life.

Simeon has been integral in teaching Solomon "how to person", as he puts it.)

“Who’s your new roommate, anyway?” Simeon asks when Solomon doesn’t respond to his comment. “I don’t think you said their name.”

"Did I not?” Solomon hums, “It’s someone named Mephistopheles.”

“Mephistopheles?” Simeon parrots, head tilting to the side, “Didn’t he get expelled?”

As Solomon opens his mouth to question Simeon, the door handle jiggles as someone unlocks it.

It swings open unceremoniously, followed by the quiet moans and shuffling of clothes as two people stumble inside the threshold. Simeon and Solomon can only watch in stunned silence as the taller, curly haired man presses a shorter woman against the wall, his face fully obscured in the curve of her neck as he lavishes it in open mouthed kisses.

Her eyelids flutter, he must be doing a great job--but the second she makes eye contact with Solomon, she shrieks.

“Asmo, Asmo wait--” The girl bats at his chest, her face bright red, “There’s people here!” Asmo pulls his face away from her skin to look at the room, a gorgeous smile on his face as he notices the others does not falter in the slightest.

“Oh, you’re Solomon!” Asmo smiles, before looking at Simeon, “And you’re Simeon. Lovely to meet you both.” Solomon looks at Simeon for some kind of hint as to what the fuck he should do here, but Simeon also seems at a loss. Before either of them can say anything, Asmo slides a hand up the girl’s side to cup her cheek, speaking to them even as he stares deep into her eyes.

“Now, would the two of you kindly get out?”

The rest of living with Asmo is pretty much a continued repeat of their first meeting. Multiple times a week, sometimes once or twice in a day. Solomon has no fucking clue how someone like Asmo gets any schoolwork done, or hell, when the other gets sleep?

Regardless, it’s two weeks of Asmo getting laid and Solomon not getting proper amounts of sleep, and he’s sick of it.

“There need to be,” Solomon grimaces, swirling around in his desk chair but faltering as Asmo emerges from the bathroom, toweling his hair and jeans hanging low on his hips, “...ground rules.”

Asmo tilts his head, “Rules?” He says the words like it’s a foreign language, new and clunky in his pretty mouth. Solomon wants to sock him.

“You can’t keep bringing partners back here,” Solomon says. Asmo goes back to toweling his perfect fucking hair.

“And why is that?”

“I can’t concentrate on coursework or go to bed if you’ve got someone moaning in your bed every other night.”

“Their rooms. A dark alcove somewhere. A car. A bathroom. I don’t care--anywhere else but here.”

Asmo ponders this for a moment, before he shrugs his shoulders as he walks across the room to his drawers by the window, “Nope. I don’t think that’s considerate for them.” He digs through to presumably find a shirt, and Solomon bites the bullet.

“You’re on academic probation, aren’t you?” Solomon says, and Asmo freezes with his back turned to Solomon, tension evident in the line of his shoulders. When he turns around, his expression is colder than anything Solomon’s ever seen directed at him. In his brother Levi’s words, there it is: the infamous Bitch Smile.

“I didn’t know you cared about gossip,” Asmo looks like a dragon picking his teeth with human bones as he sits against the window sill.

The afternoon light drifting in through the sheer curtains casts him in an ethereal glow, and Solomon bites back his unnecessary request for Asmo to move out of such flattering lighting so he can negotiate with him properly.

“I don’t, which is how I know it’s true.”

“And? What? You’re going to try and blackmail me with this information?” Asmo sneers, but even crippling distaste is an attractive look for the other.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Solomon scoffs, “I’m offering to tutor you.”

Asmo blinks at that.

“I won’t tell anyone. You know my grades. Half of our required classes are together, so it’s not like it would put me under any more stress than not sleeping. And I’m not unreasonable,” Solomon says, “If you must bring people over, just let me know in advance and I’ll go to a coffee shop or the library. I do need to sleep, so I want them out by nine or ten at the latest.”

Asmo doesn’t immediately say no like Solomon thought he would, so things are already going much better than he expected. However, it still does not prepare him for Asmo’s response.

“Fine. Is that all you want?” He asks, and Solomon pointedly ignores the double entendre.

“I want one of the shelves in the bathroom cabinet,” Solomon blurts, because Asmo has too many beauty products and there’s no space for him in the current set up. Asmo’s brow rises, even as his mouth twist into a wry, surprised smile.

“Maybe.”

“I can work with maybe,” Solomon smiles in return, standing and extending his hand out for a shake. “It’s a deal, then?”

Asmo stares at the hand, his expression unreadable, before something seems to break. He pushes off the window sill and in a few short strides, huffing with laughter, “What’s with the handshake? So formal.”

Solomon doesn’t rise to the bait even if there is a light dusting of pink on his cheeks. This is the first time they’ve touched, he realizes as his magic hums as Asmo’s hand is warm and steady in his own.

“It’s a deal.” Asmo says, and there’s a hint of interest in his eyes as he seems to see Solomon in a new light.

Solomon doesn’t mean to overhear it. He spends so much time in RAD’s library that it’s essentially his second home.

“How’s your shady roommate?” He hears a voice say, and it’s familiar enough to jarr Solomon from his thoughts.

A tinkling laugh, and Solomon blinks in realization. Asmo? Solomon tries to not eavesdrop, tries so hard to not let his interest wander from the potion formula in front of him, because it really has been giving him trouble...

“He’s not bad. Too stiff. Looks great when he comes out of the shower,” Asmo purrs. Solomon feels the bright pink blush rise to his cheeks. They’re talking openly about this in a library, of all places. RAD’s library is unreasonably huge, though--even on a busy weekday, one could be several aisles away from another human being in this space.

They’re both taking the same potions class, so it’s not too far off the mark that they’d both be in the same area looking for reading materials. Solomon should really just leave before he hears anything else that makes his ears burn.

“I don’t trust him.” Asmo’s brother, Satan, says. Of course. Solomon grinds his teeth. Asmo hmms.

“He definitely has a weird powerful vibe about him. I don’t blame you. His face just looks like he’s up to something,” Solomon swallows the spike of hurt that hits at Asmo’s words, even if he’s heard them before. Two months since he started tutoring Asmo. Three months since he moved in. Their cohabitation isn’t domestic, but it is at least civil. “I’ve seen him sleep but I don’t believe it, you know? I’ve never seen him do anything for fun. He’s so pent up and proper that I’m not sure how he does it.”

“He doesn’t.” Satan tsks, “You’ve heard about what happened, right?” Solomon feels his blood run cold.

That was different. It was an accident. He was a child. He was weak then. Solomon would never do anything like that on purpose again. Surely, surely Asmo wouldn’t--

“Of course! It figures though, all the super powerful kids are fucked in the head. But other than that, he’s not bad.”

But he’s not bad. But he’s not bad. As if Solomon would ever settle for not bad after such an callous description of his person. Fury, the kind that makes his magic churn under his skin at a rolling boil, rises in him: at Satan, at Asmo, at himself for.. For what? Believing that Asmo may actually have been different? That they could have been friends?

“What was that?” Satan asks, likely sensing the swirl of Solomon’s magic.

Cursing inwardly, he wrangles his wild emotions under control through years of practice. He will not prove them right. Solomon closes his textbook. His chair screeches against the floor as he stands, Satan and Asmo crossing out of the aisle into the open study area where Solomon has been seated, completely unhidden.

“Were you eavesdropping?” Satan accuses, his bright green eyes sharp and disdainful.

Years and years of diligently studying. Never losing his temper. His single minded determination to better himself has erected a wall that others look on in contempt. Do not prove them right about you, Solomon tells himself, nails digging into his palms hard enough to leave red crescent marks. Do not let the rumors be true.

He cannot look at Asmo, so instead, he smiles at Satan.

“No,” Solomon laughs, and the politeness in it is so fake that it hurts, “I was studying for the same test that Asmo is studying for. Voices carry quite well in a library.”

Satan glances at Asmo, but Solomon still cannot look at him. Tossing his book haphazardly into his bag, he throws it over his shoulder.

“I’ll leave the two of you to it, then.”

“Solomon, hey, wait!” Solomon is not running away, but he has a very brisk pace and does not feel bad when Asmo has to job to catch up with him. “Listen, about what I said--”

Solomon stops sharply enough that Asmo almost runs into him, but Solomon uses his magic to help steady Asmo. It isn’t to be helpful, it’s to stop Asmo from getting close enough to touch him, as if that will protect him from all of these hurt, churning emotions. He exhales through his nose.

“Since you’re actually taking the time to go to the library… I don’t think you need my help anymore.” Solomon forces himself to look at Asmo, steeling himself against whatever petulant expression is probably on the other’s face.

“Right?”

Asmo’s face is not petulant in the slightest. He seems… upset? Solomon feels the beast snarl inside him, a lick of rage at the downtrodden expression on the other’s face. He gets caught shit talking him openly and then has the gall to look hurt when he gets his free tutoring cut off? Asmo’s family is disgustingly rich and well connected. Let him lose his pride and ask them for help.

Solomon will last the year. He and Simeon will room together next year. Asmodeus will not be what breaks him.

Asmo falters at the intensity of Solomon’s gaze, the severity of his words.

“... Right.” Asmo says, and Solomon lets his feet carry him away before either of them say anything else.

- - -

After a week of tense, peaceful avoidance, Satan dropping into the seat opposite him at the campus coffee shop is the last thing Solomon expects.

“I apologize for my conduct the other day.”

Solomon blinks at him.

What is Satan doing here? Irritation immediately blossoms in his chest--he may not be furious anymore, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see Satan, nor had he expected to.

After cancelling their tutoring sessions, he’s made it a point to spend as little time in their (when had it become their room? It was always Asmo’s room at first) room as possible. Sure, it means spending garbage amounts of money on overpriced coffee and shitty wi-fi when the library gets too stuffy, but at least he can breathe.

None of that explains why Satan is here. Apologizing to him. Surely it must be some kind of a trap? A childish prank? Really? Would Asmo stoop so low? He doesn’t know either of these brothers enough to truly say. It’s best for him to be polite for now, until he can figure out Satan’s true motiv--

“You realize that a lot of people don’t trust you because there’s a moment on your face where you look like you’re actively plotting, and then you say some polite nonsense,” Satan says, and Solomon’s brain stops like a record screeching.

“Is this really an apology.” Solomon says, drily. Satan shrugs his shoulders.

“That was an observation. This is the apology.” Satan clears his throat, looking Solomon straight in the eyes. “It was unbecoming of me to speak of you like that in public. I should know better, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s what you thought,” Solomon says, because it’s true. It’s what they all think, and for a good chunk of his life, Solomon rarely tried to make them think differently.

“It was ignorant.” Satan’s bright green eyes stare into his own, and Solomon senses no dishonesty in his words. When Solomon speaks, he finds that he actually might believe them.

“Apology accepted.” Now leave me alone.

Satan narrows his eyes, “Really?” Solomon resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, really.”

“Will you speak to my brother again, then?”

“It’s a little presumptuous of you to ask for my forgiveness and a favor in the same breath.”

“Asmo flunked the last test,” Satan says, in lieu of a proper answer, “He’s in a world of shit at the moment.”

“Why doesn’t he try flirting with the professor?” Solomon scoffs.

Satan props his chin up on his hand with a lopsided smile that’s far more relaxed than he’s ever seen from the fourth brother, “That’s the thing, he hasn’t. Lucifer chewed him out about it and he took it with his tail between his legs rather than kick up a fit about it too.” Solomon’s quick mind lets him skip over the next lines of whatever shitty banter they’ve got to reach Satan’s point.

“You want me to tutor him again.” Solomon asks in disbelief, despite himself. Satan snorts and leans back.

“Nothing so pedantic as that,” Satan waves the notion away, “Just stop avoiding him at every turn, and hear what he has to say. If you’re still mad at him after that, then that’s perfectly reasonable too, considering my brother is one of the biggest assholes to ever exist. He’s unbearably dramatic when he gets into fights with his friends.”

“... Friends?”

Satan stares at him like he’s grown another head, “Obviously.”

Solomon laughs so hard, he’s sure that he’s confirmed all of Satan’s weird opinions of him.

“Solomon?” Asmo breathes his name, hand lingering on the doorknob as he enters the room to see Solomon sitting in his desk chair.

“Satan talked to me,” Solomon says, reveling in the stunned look on Asmo’s face, before crossing his arms, ”He apologized for what he said. And then he asked me to at least hear you out because you’re sulking.” Asmo pouts at Satan’s words, and Solomon quirks his brow.

“Is he wrong?”

In response to this, Asmo’s face looks pained, lips pressing together as he glances to the side. He’s like a petulant child, Solomon thinks, even if he’s somehow still amused by the other’s expression.

When Asmo looks at Solomon, and he throws his hands up in the air, “I shouldn’t have said it. There, are you happy?”

“Not really,” Solomon admits, “I understand why your brother might think that of me, but to hear it from someone that I’m helping out...” He adds a little bit of a softer, sadder tone to his voice to make Asmo writhe, and ha, does it work.

Asmo groans, ruffling his hands through his hair, “Alright, I’m a dick! Are you happy? I’m a gossipy bitch and I say things I shouldn’t. You helped me out and I.. took advantage of it. I’m sorry!” Asmo’s arms cross, and he looks so genuinely uncomfortable that Solomon wants to laugh.

“You’re terrible at this. I was confused as to why Satan might say I can still be mad at you after you say your piece but.. I get it. You’re even worse than he is at it, dare I say.”

“You haven’t met our eldest brother,” Asmo sniffs, before continuing, “Besides, words and emotions are hard, bodies are easier,” Asmo shrugs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“You sound like a bad high school drama,” Solomon scoffs, rolling over Asmo’s affronted gasp, “In any case, I heard you flunked the last test we shared. Maybe if you spent less time flirting with the TA in that class, you could retain the information on the board.” Solomon brings his knuckles to his chin, holding his elbow in his other palm.

“It can’t be helped. If we can get you set up with some extra credit there and you ace the next few exams that should keep your grade above water.” Solomon runs the numbers in his head, but Asmo is waving his hands in the air.

“Wait, wait, waaaait! You’re forgiving me?”

“I’m considering it. You have to make it up to me somehow, but as for the tutoring.. we’re too close to exams for me to want to deal with another roommate if you get yourself suspended. I don’t have blackmail material on anyone else, unfortunately.” Solomon’s kidding about the blackmail, but Asmo deserves a little ribbing after that awful apology.

Although Asmo doesn’t seem offended by the joke. No, it actually seems to be... the opposite? As he speaks, Asmo’s looking at him with a blinding smile.

“Are you listening to me?” Solomon frowns, knocked off balance by Asmo’s expression, “Because if you aren’t, I swear i’m going to--”

A flurry of motion, Asmo crosses the space of their room quicker than Solomon’s ever seen him.

Asmo’s hand cups his face, the other lands on his hip; Solomon has very little time to think, because Asmo’s gorgeous face is in centimeters away from his own. The scent of Asmo’s perfume fills his senses, rendering him stunned--Asmo glances down at his parted lips, and then back up at Solomon’s eyes.

Asmo kisses him, and Solomon’s magic blows out the fuses in their entire building.

In the chaos of their plunge into darkness, Solomon’s hands shooting out to shove Asmo back accidentally activates his magic, and Asmo stumbles a few paces further before falling to the ground.

“Ah,” Asmo yelps, at the same time Solomon rises from his seat, “What the hell, Asmo?”

They’re not in total darkness, thanks to the dim light from the streetlamps outside, but it still takes Solomon’s eyes a few seconds to adjust. Asmo’s vague form is still seated on the floor, propped up on his elbows.

“What was that?” He demands, still haunted by the firm press of Asmo’s lips against his. Asmo shifts to get up, and Solomon’s arm immediately reaches out to offer his assistance. Asmo huffs at the motion, but takes his hand anyway.

“I thought I could make it up to you this way.”

“By offering to, what, make out with me?” Solomon says, disbelief mounting. Asmo shrugs his shoulders, one hand trailing up Solomon’s hip.

“Sure, we could do that. We could do whatever you want,” and now that Solomon’s eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting, he can see the coy smile playing at Asmo’s lips, “I see how you look at me, how could you not? Besides, you’re quite handsome yourself…” Asmo purrs, his free hand reaching up to graze against Solomon’s blushing cheeks.

For a moment, Solomon hesitates--Asmo is gorgeous. Even if Solomon were deaf to the campus’ adoration of him, he would have to be blind as well to not realize that just by existing near Asmo. There’s always a mix of challenging and inviting in his eyes, an ease that shows itself in all of his movements. Asmo exudes a level of sensual energy that is a powerful skill in its own right, and Solomon is a healthy young adult…

But Solomon has no desire to fall into Asmo’s bed like another one of his hundreds of admirers, clamoring to get into the other’s bed space. He has more important things in mind.

“That’s not what I meant by making it up to me!” Solomon is very proud of his voice not cracking as he pushes Asmo’s hand away, and the coquettish expression is quickly replaced by Asmo’s pout.

“Well, how else am I supposed to show you how truly repentant I am!” He whines at his failed seduction.

“I can’t even begin to explain how screwed up that is, Asmo.” Solomon groans, running his hand through his hair, “You could have offered me another shelf in the bathroom cabinet or more sink space and I would have considered it a start.”

Asmo blinks, tilting his head to the side, “... Really? That’s all you want?” He seems stunned that someone would turn down his body.

“Now that I know you were going to offer your body, half of the sink sounds too fucking small, doesn’t it?” Solomon retorts, and Asmo laughs.

A loud knock startles both of them out of their conversation, and he hears the muffled voice of their RA from the other side.

“Are you alright in there? There’s been a power outage -- will you be alright casting magelight, or do you need flashlights?”

Solomon, in desperate need of a reprieve from Asmo’s… Asmo-ness… goes to open the door as the RA speaks. After a quick exchange of assuring the doting senior in their pajamas, Solomon shuts the door with a sigh. When he turns around, Asmo is seated in his desk chair with a soft pink magelight floating idly nearby. Asmo seems to be deep in thought, and Solomon approaches him with slight hesitation.

As soon as Solomon gets closer, Asmo’s gaze snaps up to look at him so suddenly that Solomon almost balks.

“I know what I can do for you,” Asmo says, his eyes twinkling with mischief and utter glee. The pink light casts an almost eerie, and somehow still enticing shadow on the other’s face.

Solomon isn’t too proud to admit he’s terrified by whatever Asmo is about to offer.

“... So you didn’t sleep with him?” Simeon asks, and Solomon chokes on his tea.

“What! Of course not!” He coughs through his instantaneous response, pounding his fist on his chest. “He said… oh hell, I can’t say this, it’s ridiculous.” Solomon covers his face with his hands, an unbidden blush rising to his cheeks.

“He said he was going to make me popular,” Solomon groans, a little quieter in volume. Simeon is silent for a long enough time that Solomon takes his face out of his hands to look at him questioningly, but Simeon’s got one hand over his mouth as he shakes in stifled amusement.

“Wh--” At Solomon’s confused expression, Simeon is unable to contain himself any longer, bursting into a loud fit of laughter. Simeon throws his arms around Solomon in a crushing hug, even as Solomon tries to shove his way out of it.

“Oh, this is going to be great.”

I feel like this would definitely be considered #crack or #ooc slightly because it’s always hard to translate personalities that are defined by specific experiences (such as being alive for thousands of years) into any AU, but especially ones where they’re only 19/20 year olds lmaaoo

Facets of their personalities I tried to keep: Solomon’s ambition/the fact that people think he’s so shifty, and Asmo’s sexual bravado/blatant insecurities of his person. Who knows if that comes off here, but hey, I had fun lkajflaks

As always, ty for reading!!! I appreciate your kind words and responses on my stuff ;w;

#ch: asmo #ch: solomon #pr: asmo/solomon #obey me fic #obey me asmodeus #obey me solomon #writing #ch: simeon #is here #and so is #ch: satan

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ladyloveandjustice · 5 years ago

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Shadow of the Batgirl: A review type thing

I just read the graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux, which reimagines the superhero origin of Cassandra Cain.

It was overall good and EXTREMELY cute! If you want an awesome story about a teenage assassin running away from her shitty dad and finding a neat library, a community of cool ladies and the hero within herself, AND WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT THAT, definitely get this!

It’s a standalone Batgirl story completely accessible to all and with none of the weird baggage and the complicated continuity of the regular Batman universe! it’s appropriate for younger teens but still a good read for adults, the art’s colorful and great, it’s packed to the brim with joy and hope.

And on top of all that, it gives a great character who’s been traditionally horribly neglected by mainstream comics for some reason (*cough its because she’s not white cough*) a spotlight and a chance to shine (and get written by an Asian American author for once!)! This also features one of my other faves, who had her disability and adult identity erased in the main universe, but not in this comic, hurray!

SO YEAH, if you like superheroes at all, highly recommend this!

NOW for a more detailed review, calling on all my expertise as a Cassandra Cain superfan and going into pros and cons. This’ll be long, but I’ll do it as a list to break it down.

Let’s start with the good stuff, there’s a lot of it:

- This story takes place in world where Barbara Gordon as Oracle (and former Batgirl) and Cassandra Cain as Batgirl exist, but Batman and The Killing Joke do not appear to. That is honestly transcendentally great to finally see this as an officially realized concept, Batgirl allowed to stand on its own as a legacy of powerful women, with all history of these characters being victimized for the sake of manpain erased. I am elated.

-The art was adorable, the designs were great, the clothes and Cass’s costumes were super cute, the setting was vibrant.

-Jackie was a really fun character and mentor figure for Cass. Loved her snark and how she and Babs basically become Cass’s two Moms and an awesome team in their own right. The relationships in this were just heartwarming. Loved the range of characters in general.

-Cass basically lived in a library aka my life dream. I mean, she did it because she was homeless and on the run from her assassin father, but like.

-Cassandra FINALLY knows her own race, (she’s half-Chinese) and gets to have a goddamn connection and basic feelings about it (Jackie bringing up what the bat means to Chinese culture), etc, god it should not have taken this long for this to happen.

(And it’s really important to have a version of Cass’s story where, y’know, the positive inspirational figures in her life include other Asian people, they aren’t just white people. it wasn’t until I read this it fully dawned on me how screwed up it is she never had that before.)

-For the first time in her entire existence, Cassandra Cain got to be in a canon romance that wasn’t fucking awful, can you believe it. Her love interest Erik was adorable, and him being a budding romance writer was an especially sweet touch- and I think there’s an implication/hint his dad’s the Bronze Tiger? Which is really cute Easter Egg for Cass fans, considering she had a strong friendship with the dude in her original series!

-The idea of Cass liking to draw and expressing herself through art is really fun and fitting. Her being visually focused, it makes a lot of sense.

-Cass extending her body language ability to sort of being able to guess at people’s underlying emotional problems from how they carry themselves is a really neat idea- it could have been implemented a little more smoothly but I like the concept.

-Cass going after the “evil-doers” in the library after becoming a hero was one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Deserves to be framed. I love what a huge nerd Cass got to be in this.

-The comic understood that core of Cass’s character is compassion and empathy, that how she reaches out for people, refuses to harm, and really believes in people and embodies change, rebirth, hope. THAT’S IT, THAT’S MY GIRL, THAT’S MY HERO..

-I’ve read a ton of comics with Barbara Gordon and this is the first one I’ve come across where she discussed her relationship with her mother having any sort of influence on her interests and personality, she isn’t even the main character of this and her mother matters more in it than every other comic I’ve read with her combined how sad is that

-I liked Babs just casually making gadgets and stuff all the time, and loved that she expressed she honestly preferred doing this and that was why she was giving Batgirl to Cass. MADE ME WANT TO SCREAM FUCK YOU DC ALL OVER AGAIN.

-Compared to the original Cass Batgirl comics, this story is obviously more accessible as a standalone, but it’s also just overall more appropriate for a wider range of ages since the darker elements of Cass’s story are way toned down. I was a young teenager when I read Cass’s series and was fine, but there are young teenagers that DON’T want like, graphic onscreen deaths in their comics, so it’s good there’s a lighter Cass story for them. It was just a really sweet, affirming story.

Now for some cons, none of them damning:

The romance was cute, but wish it’d had room to breathe. Ideally, it didn’t need to be happening alongside Cass’s origin, I think it would have been better if it was just hinted at and then was allowed to fully play out as an after-she-became-Batgirl thing, but I can get that Kuhn didn’t know if this would get a sequel and there were probably a lot of good reasons she wanted to include it.

-I think this came from Kuhn being used to writing as a YA author rather than doing comics, but it was weird to read a Cass comic with so much narration and the way it was used really detracted from the potential power of the story. We’re told through Cass’s super chatty narration she’s not a normal teen, she TELLS US that she barely knows how to read and speak and TELLS US she’s better at reading body language-but we never get a sense of this, not even at the beginning, because the story doesn’t trust the reader to take in the visuals without narration, and then she’s able to talk like a normal teen pretty much right off the bat.

I’m okay with Cass becoming a chatty girl, and her voice in this comic was fun- I know “silent Asian” has a lot baggage and Cass’s original character leaned into some stereotypes- but the first chapter/part would been far more powerful if it had her world be a little more silent and fully emphasized the visual, for her interactions with people and words be garbled and confusing, and if it gave us more of a sense of the world she comes from and how her perception of things differs from the average person. Cass’s original debut and the beginning of her original series did a really good job giving us a sense of this, and took great advantage of comics as a visual medium, and I missed that.

-Cass learns to read and talk SUPER EASILY and it just comes off as unbelievable. I do like the idea of her camping at a library, eavesdropping, and teaching herself, but I would have liked to see her actually struggle like a person would. Moreover, while I know the presentation of it was very flawed, Cass basically had a learning/language disability in the original series. I was kind of hoping this comic would lean into that, and actually give a more realistic and nuanced representation of that kind of disability (it could have been presented as something she always had that was exacerbated by how she was raised, not caused by it!).

Honestly, I think her romance with Erik would have been far more interesting and meaningful and tied in better if she’d actually struggled to read, maybe even discovered she was dyslexic and couldn’t quite read the same way he could. That could have been a source of development between them.

-David Cain’s a super flat as a character in this comic, he doesn’t have much presence, menacing or otherwise, and Cass’s complicated feelings and relationship with him is not nearly as painful as they were in her original series.This is partly because there wasn’t a lot of a space for it though, and that’s fine.

-Overall, the main thing that hurts the story is that we don’t see all that much of what Cass’s life was like as an assassin, and her life with David Cain was like. It’s harder to invest in Cass’s transformation into a hero when we don’t really have a sense of who she was before,it’s hard to appreciate her breaking free when we can’t get a sense of what kind of cage she was even in. How much language DID she know? How much of the world was she exposed to? What was she really deprived of? I hope if there’s a sequel we can see more of this.

-Babs isn’t the main character of course, so this isn’t a real complaint, but I did miss her cynical and angry edge. She’s pretty much just a chipper nerd with no sign of her own baggage in this, and it makes her relationship with Cass less interesting. It’s implied that her “accident” did affect her and she just managed to work through a lot of it before she met Cass, but I missed the element of their relationship where they both were hurting from losing “the world they knew” and working through it together, sometimes clashing, etc.

-I read one of Sarah Kuhn’s YA novels in anticipation of this, and while I’m relieved this is better about it than her first book was (I expected it to be, writers improve, I definitely know how messy a first book is) there’s still some cringe-y ideas of how “average” teens talk creeping in, occasional clunky pacing etc.

But all in all? It was a really nice little story that did a lot of cool things, and I really want a sequel and want more of this version of Cass and her universe. As someone who was driven away from DC comics in part because of how badly they treated Cass, Oracle and the Batgirl legacy. it’s really like a salve on old wounds.

#cassandra cain #batgirl #shadow of the batgirl #oracle #barbara gordon #sarah kuhn #graphic novels #dc comics #my reviews #reviews #batfamily #nicole goux

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vedj-f-bekuesu · 4 years ago

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Ninjago Unpopular Opinions

Following on from my watch of the entire old series (combined with already having seen the last two series), I have enough material to work with to make a sort of unpopular opinion list. Some of these are lightweight, some of these are...uh, not so much.

These aren’t in any particular order, this is more of a “I’ll just put them down as I remember them” sort of deal. That’ll be why they appear so messy.

-Even after all this I prefer the newest seasons to the older stuff. There have been a surprising number of good to great older seasons, but I just love that hit of S1/S2 campiness with the more developed writing of later seasons.

-Cole sucked as a leader, aside from in the pilot episodes. In the series proper he varied from complete meathead I hated (first part of S1), to having the same mentoring personality as everyone else (S1 - S2), to being consumed by the love triangle which made him pull a really shitty move (I don’t need to tell you what that refers to). He eventually gets ironed out in season 4, but Lloyd had already taken over as leader at this point. And rightfully so, even if Lloyd’s material got knocked from season 3 as a result.

-I couldn’t really warm up to Ronin that much for some reason. I get the reason why he’s popular, since it was pretty obvious he was supposed to be like an off-beat mentor figure to Nya, but...I dunno, unlike with Dareth, it felt like his skeevy moments were more off-kilter, plus I didn’t really like his arc in Skybound (even if that was written out of reality). That being said, his was strong in Possession even with said moments. Maybe I just need a future appearance to see how I ultimately swing with him.

-I mentioned this in my Hunted overview, but I think Skylor’s just bland. Part of the problem is that she’s mainly just wedged in as an action girl and doesn’t have too many moments to interact outside of that. That’s mostly reserved for moments where she acts as Agony Aunt (which is fine, that shows that being supportive is in her nature), but she needs more to work with. And as an obvious offshoot, if Kailor is the intended endgame it sucks in its current form. They don’t have chemistry or a decent dynamic.

-The other Ninjago ship I don’t particularly like out of all of them is...actually Geode. Yeah, Rebooted obviously wasn’t good for it considering the love triangle, but what actually did more damage to it for me was Skybound. It went so far in trying to oversteer back that it beat you over the head with the fact they were making Cole and Jay best friends after said love triangle (made really obvious when Jay is worried about Cole’s reaction to him seeing Nya in his reflection in both Possession and Skybound, when Cole isn’t even phased when he’s told). It was just really off-putting.

-Jay is a better big brother figure to Lloyd than Kai. Yeah, Kai’s true potential moment in Rise of the Serpentine hinged on realising he (and the others, mind) were supposed to protect Lloyd, they all spent Legacy of the Green Ninja’s first half being Lloyd’s proper mentors, Zane’s death prompted Kai to hover with thoughts of the Green Ninja again (which seemed to me for different reasons to being envious of power at the start, although its handling was very clunky after that), and he had the first episode in Possession which was arguably the strongest showing of a dynamic with Lloyd, but Possession didn’t have much about it outside of said episode, and the show seemed to just forget it from that point beyond some very, very fleeting and sparse bits. In the more modern seasons, it feels like Jay’s stepped up to be more supportive of Lloyd on a more consistent basis (which would make sense with the common fanon that Jay is the youngest of the original Ninja, he’d be closer to Lloyd’s age). It’s something I kind of want tapped into in a proper way at some point.

-Sensei Garmadon is a bit overrated. Just a smidge. When he’s good, he’s good, but most of the time he’s no more interesting than Wu would be in the same position. And I feel like they didn’t really develop his fatherly bond with Lloyd too well despite that being what his character was there for. Again, aside from moments where he was really good.

-Most underrated season of the old batch for me was the last minute shock, March of the Oni. I did enjoy Day of the Departed (which has a worse reputation), but I can understand why someone wouldn’t like it considering how bare it was. March of the Oni is far from my favourite season but I thought it came together really well, so the fact it’s generally panned legitimately confuses me. I guess Hands of Time would be a contender too, but I think opinion on that has swayed in its favour after the new seasons came out (and Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjutsu would be here if I included the new batch) so that’s why it’s edged out.

-Most overrated season for me was undeniably Tournament of Elements. It’s not my least favourite season, but Rebooted and Hunted are pretty maligned to begin with, while Tournament of Elements is usually considered one of the top ones. It starts strong, has an interesting premise and there are ideas that are executed well. The thing is that the elements that people tend to praise the season for are ones I actually think the writers dropped the ball on, hence why this ended up the toughest season to get to the end of, even more than Hunted. It’s a shame, but it’s just not for me.

-Best ninja suits...honestly, I don’t really notice the suits unless they’re really bad, because I’m used to franchises where costume changes mark radical permanent redesigns, and are not just par for the course of the brand (it makes perfect sense with a toy brand who want to sell you the same characters over and over again but still). Not counting the S11 suits since they weren’t part of the old batch, I guess I’d honestly say the ZX suits, maybe? They’re simple, but they’re cute and very distinct. Also Sons of Garmadon Cole channelling the Movie costume was a very good move (and arguably looks even better ripped up in Hunted aethetically), and Kai’s suit was bleh in Sons of Garmadon but its overhaul in Hunted was way better. Also, just as a wildcard, Rebooted Lloyd looks like a more finely tuned ZX suit. Actually, just one last bit on a tangent to note a difference the show makes to the figures that demonstrates the figures’ limitations. For Kai and Jay’s S11 suits, their figures invoke similar feels (because underneath the accessories they do have a lot in common), whereas they feel very different in the show because while Jay sticks to the figure and looks snug, Kai has a lot exposed around the neckline, as if his gi is hanging loosely on the shoulders and should join Cole in the “For fucks sake it’s an ice realm wear a jacket please” club.

-Worst ninja sui--what the hell happened to Cole and Nya in Hands of Time?! Nya’s main issue is that it’s trying to work too many colours and they just don’t mesh well. I think this was the time they were partially adapting the movie’s change, but they were clinging onto her having red to both represent Samurai X and her ties to her brother, but they should have just picked one or the other because it just doesn’t work the way it did in Skybound. And Cole’s outfit is just hideous. Its balance of colours and accents is all off-kilter, and to top it off the shoes just don’t work and somehow look like socks with sandals. I didn’t know that was doable with a whole suit. Finally, on a general note, I’m not a fan of when the suits are all very similar bar some very, very minor differences. One could argue that it makes them look more like a team, but I prefer the individual personality to come out.

-It’s hard to judge the best and worst episodes, honestly. The seasons from Tournament of Elements onwards are done so tied to each other that picking an episode is rather difficult outside of designated finales (or the odd Jay-focused/Zane-focused episodes that happened in seasons 7, 8 and 9). I guess for best I’d say stuff like The Quiet One, or The Fall, or Grave Danger, or stuff like that would be up there. Worst episodes in those seasons are even harder, because usually it’s how arcs over episodes are written that get to me, not individual episodes. This all being said, it’s much easier to do this with the more episodic first three seasons, and to that end I would still say that Tick Tock is my favourite standalone episode still, and Home is still my least favourite. For all the times the writing has dropped the ball, nothing has legitimately pissed me off more than what this episode did because it’s in its own category of bad writing.

-There have been some concepts thrown in that, while they definitely wouldn’t work out in the long term, make for interesting snippets of what-ifs. Like, I loved the bit where Jay was a show host and got around the stage using his lightning powers. That seems like such a natural fit outside of his ninja identity I wish I’d thought of it. Imagine Bradley Walsh using lightning to get around the studio, that would be metal as fuck.

-On the other side of that coin, the bizarro Ninja are the single most overrated concept in the show. I don’t like Scourge the Hedgehog to begin with, but he at least had some efforts to make him unique (that fell flat, but eh). The bizarro Ninja are the equivalent of Evil Sonic; cliche and undeveloped. They’re not even useful for the cliche idea of framing the actual Ninja since even though they’re seen doing delinquent behaviour, this is never addressed. Heck Nadakhan was more effective with this idea. Thing is that I can’t blame the show at all for this. While the concept is naff, the show itself treats them as they actually were; Garmadon’s puppets and the scheme of the episode. Aside from bizarro Jay’s behaviour to Nya being full of unfortunate implications, there is no greater purpose for their existence, and the show never tries to do it again. It’s really the fans that have inflated their appearance in this case because I guess the idea of “take this nice character and give them an evil version” is just so appealing to the teenage demographic. Screw that, corruption is way more fun and interesting.

-What I can blame the show for is the single worst execution of an idea, because to this point I still consider Kai’s green ninja “arc” in Tournament of Elements to be the single worst executed arc (yeah, even worse than the love triangle, but that one is still bad). The sad thing is it managed to convince me that it wasn’t such a bad concept when they explained it by being an offshoot of his depression following Zane’s death (before that I was very sceptical it could fit it in naturally after the last three seasons). But then it was used once when Skylor tried to get Kai to stab Lloyd in the back during the skating match (which Kai completely rebuffed and seemed over his depression-rooted negative vibes on Lloyd), and once more when he was overcome by the power of the staff. The latter is especially infuriating since this would have been the perfect opportunity for a character moment. Like, Lloyd and/or Skylor could have fought to get Kai out of the trance of the staff and see that his friends mean more to him than having power. It practically writes itself and is a perfect set-up. What happens instead is that Cole is technically the one to save Kai from himself as he rams the Roto Jet into the chamber and makes the rocky serpentine structure come crashing down on Kai. Maybe interesting to read into if you want a Lava reading of the show, but in that moment is just a wasted opportunity. Come on!

-Actually, also talking about other bad concepts, I don’t miss those weird energy dragons they could summon starting from Tournament of Elements. The dragons in Rise of the Serpentine/Legacy of the Green Ninja were fine because they had a logical reason for being there and actually were integrated into the plot (so you got to watch them being maintained and having moments with the ninja). The energy dragons in Tournament of Elements existed for one character as a plot thing (Zane’s, because he always had the good plots in the earlier seasons), but then everyone else suddenly could do it too and they became convenient plot devices and nothing else. Airjutsu I was more okay with because it seems more like a tool they’d use and could be integrated better, but I can also see why that stopped being used (outside of that one bit in Prime Empire).

-The Elemental Masters are both over-hyped and underdeveloped. The normal civilian cast really got the shaft once the series decided it wanted to explore this lore, yet the only ones I really got interested in in any way were the villain EMs and Karlof. And even Karlof is overlooked by the fandom, by the looks of it.

-Jay actually came off the best in the Rebooted love triangle. He’s not entirely perfect, but he is essentially the biggest victim as a result of it in that season, and what Nya and Cole did either bordered on or was outright callous for different reasons. I think if people gave Jay the biggest shtick for Rebooted’s events, it’s influenced with how Skybound botched trying to patch it up.

-The movie was a net positive influence on the show. Aside from me preferring the designs of the movie anyway, it forced the characterisation to actually pick a lane for each character and stick to it, mitigating a lot of the haphazard characterisation issues. The inconsistency in later seasons is tone instead, which is maybe why people thought the characterisation was inconsistent between Sons of Garmadon/Hunted and March of the Oni/SotFS (when really, they weren’t that different if at all). The show also made a good call in ignoring movie Zane’s characterisation; as much as I enjoy it in the film, it really didn’t gel up with what the show had done with him, so trying to force it in would have been more of a characterisation jolt than any of the early season stuff.

-I’m generally fine with Jaya and Pixane. The former I can see why people would be off about it because there have been some badly written periods for them, but I think on the whole it manages to hold it together. The latter was written in surprisingly smoothly given the circumstances, so it’s no wonder I don’t see discourse about it.

-Oh yeah, I don’t get Wu/Faith as a ship. Like, she was the cool drill instructor/aunt to everyone, including Wu. This is a quick one because it’s just a very small aside.

-Also I can’t really get behind Polyninja either. If the characters had a fairly even spread of interaction and moments between each other I could, but the spread ends up like lots of moments between Cole and Kai varying from little moments to huge dollops, and Cole and Jay having a whole best friends affirmation arc due to the fallout of the love triangle, to Kai and Jay having barely anything to work with and anyone with Zane getting a couple of table scraps occasionally. It’s not even enough.

-Following on from that though, Zane feels the least integrated with the group dynamic in general. He’s has some of the best plots and stories in the show, but nearly all of them have been focusing on him solo. And not even SotFS or Prime Empire helped with this one. Hopefully MoM can smooth this one out a bit.

-Finally for this post, after going through all those seasons I still prefer Nya’s movie voice to her show voice by a significant margin. Sorry Kelly Metzger.

I think that’s it. I’ve actually been on this for a week but I’ve been allowing time for more thoughts to come to me, because there have been a lot of thoughts coming in batches. I think I’ll leave it at this though, because I think most of it is covered pretty well.

I have at least two more text posts like this planned, but they’re not strictly about the old seasons so I’ve left them for after. I’m looking forward to them though, because they’re on specific topics and that is my bread and butter pudding.

#ninjago #vedj-f talks #rambling is second nature to me #it's also my first nature

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reasonablespeculation · 5 years ago

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endings beginnings reactions

an compilation, under the cut. (and my review at the very bottom)

thewanderlustcat: Ok so I finished EB. I don't know how I feel about it , there's way to many things left unsaid, to many things open to discussion, to little dialogue, like an hour long trailer for a movie. In terms of editing, I liked it. It had potencial to be a good movie (with the exception of the HUGE CLICHE plot ""twist""). I disliked Shaline and Seb's characters, but I found it cute that Seb said that he see's himself in jamie's character, I see that too. Him laying on the ground hmmm SO worth it, hot af

anon1: Can we talk about the dog?! OMG IT'S SO CUTE! It's a Corgi! - SAME!!! In the scenes in the car all i could think was "where's the dog?? they did let him run away?!?"

anon2: I’m literally 20 minutes into EB and I’m already cringing. Improvising can be wonderful, but you have to have the right actors to do it. All the interactions so far feel so forced and off..I’m trying to enjoy but the dialogue is killing me

anon3: That sex scene... pretty dramatic to me. Also I feel like shailene definitely has a thing for Sebastian.

anon4: Oh man! I did try and finish EB but I couldn’t ... I feel so bad, I really wanted to but it’s too boring despite S being the sexiest thing on earth x

RS: I actually liked it fine. I had super low expectations after the clips that came out made me cringe SO hard, but I enjoyed it overall. It was chill. Something to kinda watch for 20 minutes then go make tea and put on a load of laundry, then keep watching, then scroll instagram for a bit when Seb isn’t on the screen, ya know?

I found Daphne really relatable and have def had similar struggles with life, men, and relationships. The shit she did reminded me of like that situation that we’ve probably all been in where a really good friend, like someone you’ve known for ages and basically consider a sister, just keeps making really dumb decisions and won’t own up to anything she’s doing and you’re like honey, I adore you, but please for the love of god just stop doing things for a minute. That friend of hers felt like an audience stand-in in that way. On the other hand, is it just me or is it a romantic movie cliche for the leading lady to have some kind of cutesy etsy-adjacent hobby? That she returns to as she ““““finds herself”“““? That bugged me. I’m officially putting my request into the universe to see more forestry ladies in romantic movies, our steel toe boots are extremely sexy.

I didn’t loooove that her process of self-actualization and self-love really kicked off with a pregnancy. (Also that much unprotected sex?? Folks! C’mon!) I have a tiny seed of a thought about how much she actually did really want to be pursued? She sends that text about feeling like the bachelorette and I think she was lying to herself about not wanting that... among the many other things she was lying about. You can see it in her reactions - the dude that keeps going after her is the one that (for then) wins.

What else, plot-wise... Oh, I was expecting the drug moment to be a lot bigger and darker, but I found it realistic. Definitely been there (not Frank there, Daphne there). Some of the character moments felt like an uncool 20 year-old’s idea of what a cool “grown up” does, like the absinthe which made me looool. Oh Drake,,, I too thought absinthe was cool and edgy when I was 23. Overall I didn’t really find there to be that many things left unexplained? I thought the flashbacks to her assault made sense and I got what was happening there before it was fully fleshed out. One of my frands pointed out that ring that she hawked was probably NOT worth any amount of LA rent though which is.. yeah.

I didn’t find the dialogue as clunky as I would have thought from the clips (and peoples’ comments). I thought Shai and Jamie did a fine job and unfortunately due to who I am as a person could see myself falling madly in love with Frank and dating him for way too long (not just because of Seb, that type of dude is just catnip for me - the Big Sur trip (and to my eternal shame the playlist) would both work gangbusters on me). Both of them had good chemistry with Shailene and I thought their dates and whatnot were cute and/or romantic and sexy. It would have been really cool to see more of the guys relationship/interactions with each other sans Daphne, but maybe Drake was doing something filmmakery with the limited perspective and tunnel vision that Daphne has that she doesn’t really care about their relationship with eachother, just what they bring to her life.

It was a little hmmm anodyne? It didn’t make me feel any big emotions (other than lust but that’s Sebastian’s fault not the movie). I don’t huugely vibe with this style of filmmaking? Like the slice of life thing? I tend to want a little more oomph in my storytelling. I agree with the critiques that it was a lot of style and not as much substance. If it was a little more up its own ass I would have been happy to write it off but it skirted the line for me. It just.. didn’t say much? Even Daphne’s speech at the end (which I’ve seen that many people found emotional) felt a bit nothing-ish personally. But overall, for a movie that’s trying to do a realistic, “this is what life/love really is, man” kind of thing, I thought it succeeded decently well.

#endings beginnings

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mediaeval-muse · 5 years ago

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Video Game Review: GreedFall (Spiders, 2018)

Genres: action RPG, fantasy

Premise: Players assume the role of De Sardet, a human noble who arrives on the recently-discovered island of Teer Fradee. Able to ally with either the natives who inhabit the land and/or any of the foreign nations competing to colonize it, De Sardet seeks out a cure for the mysterious illness that plagues their family, while also battling monsters and magic.

Platform Played On: PC (Windows)

Rating: 3/5 stars

Disclaimer: My rating is in response to multiple aspects of the game, not just its politics. If I were evaluating solely on politics and gave the developers the benefit of the doubt that they were trying to make something with a good message, my rating would be around the 1 to 2-star range, depending on player choices.

***Full review under the cut.***

I am evaluating this game based on four key aspects: story, characters, gameplay, and visuals.

Story: I’m immediately wary of any pop culture item that tries to tell a story about colonialism and Indigeneity because it usually ends up indulging in colonialist fantasies rather than critiquing them. Complex, morally-grey stories are great and all, but when it comes to tales about colonialism, “both sides” narratives tend to look a little insensitive. So, I can’t tell you why I decided to play GreedFall, other than I heard that it filled the Dragon Age-sized hole in people’s hearts. Since I’d rather use my own judgment than read video game reviews, I bought this game on sale and gave it a go. If nothing else, I told myself, I could use my history and literary analysis chops to say something intelligent about it.

In terms of politics, I don’t think GreedFall was as terrible as games where the goal in itself is colonization, but I also don’t think it achieved a narrative that was critical enough of colonization. De Sardet’s primary goal is to achieve balance between all the nations (which I’m calling factions because they’re mostly that). While I can admire that GreedFall really pushed for peaceful relationships, as well as pushed back against abuse and racism, I ultimately thought the developers didn’t consider how the struggle for balance actually facilitates colonialism. This game presents colonialism a diplomatic issue, so as a result, Teer Fradee is kind of a fantasy where colonists can settle on native land while maintaining friendly relationships with Indigenous peoples (at least, if you play it that way - at worst, you can seize absolute power). The experience was similar to the one I had playing BioShock Infinite, whose politics involve a “both sides” argument - the difference is that BioShock Infinite made explicitly clear by the end of the game that Booker was the true villain. With de Sardet, it’s a bit more ambiguous, depending on how you play, but I do think the game pushes you to be diplomatic rather than power-hungry. As a whole, it brings up the very valid question of whether or not colonialism should be in media period, or if there’s some value to be derived from consuming problematic media that tries to do good and talking about it.

Still, I have to give credit where credit is due. GreedFall had the guts to actually try to tackle little-discussed themes in this game, such as forced conversion, abuse within the sciences, and institutionalized bullying. While the missions associated with these big themes were accomplished with varying degrees of success, many of them added emotional depth to the game. Companions would have emotional reactions to these quests that tugged at my heartstrings, and there were never any shots of graphic violence or mutilated bodies, so it didn’t feel like I was playing the game for an edgy thrill. All of the side quests had a lot of bearing on the main plot and the worldbuilding - I don’t think I encountered any “fetch quests,” so most of the things I was doing actually related to enhancing my understanding of the world and its social dynamics.

The game also did a good job of presenting players with factions that were constantly in conflict with one another, lending an added layer of complexity to all the political aspects of the plot. Character’s personal quests were also very well done and had emotional depth. Vasco’s arc about learning about his true family was a nice exploration of birth family vs found family (he’s a sailor whose birth family gave him to the naval faction, the Nauts). Kurt’s quest was also a good one about the bonds between military recruits and really showed his commitment to people over institutions (he’s de Sardet’s commander at arms). Siora’s quests were more about staying true to her culture (she’s a native and daughter of one of a now-deceased tribe leader), while Aphra’s were about learning to be open minded when learning about a different culture (she’s a scientist interested in plants). Petrus’ were a mix of taking down the head of his Church and helping your character find their roots (he’s something of a pastor who also wields magic to fight). You can tell that the developers were inspired by Bioware games in that you can cultivate reputations with your companions and eventually romance them. Many of these romances are available to both male and female PCs, so there’s potential for a queer ship.

I will say that by the end of game, I was emotionally wrecked, despite all the political problems. So, I do think the developers of this game have a good sense of storytelling - I just wish they had done better politically.

Characters: Similar to Mass Effect or Dragon Age, GreedFall gives players a player-controlled character (PC) and a host of companions to take on an adventuring party. De Sardet, the PC, doesn’t have much personality when they’re being diplomatic, but I did enjoy the moments when they were confronted with information that impacted them emotionally. I played a female de Sardet, and the voice actress did a good job of balancing emotion with the facade that’s required of a diplomat. Constantin, de Sardet’s cousin and governor of New Serene (one of a few colonial settlements on Teer Fradee), is also carefully written as a charismatic, sympathetic nobleman’s son who wants to prove his worth. He and de Sardet share a close bond, which made moral decisions a bit more personal and emotionally difficult. I do think he became a scapegoat for all the evils of colonization, though, and I wish more was done with him to implicate every colonizer on the island. The companions are likewise very likable and fairly unique. Each of them had personal quests and stories that were compelling and sympathetic. I do wish there had been more opportunities to chat with them, or that they talked to each other during exploration (like Bioware companions do). I also appreciated that the Teer Fradee natives weren’t one, homogeneous group. I think too often we see pop culture try to write Indigenous peoples as having the same culture and goals, but with this game, there was some variety regarding what the best course of action would be against an invading force. I’m sure, however, that the depiction of the natives overall was problematic, but I’m not well-versed enough in native representation in pop culture to articulate the issues. While they weren’t portrayed as primitive or child-like (at least, I didn’t think so), I don’t doubt that there were tropes in there that I just couldn’t recognize (for example, Siora maybe a Chief’s Daughter/Indian Princess trope - it’s complicated). I suggest finding and reading an Indigenous critique of the game. (There’s also this one, which is valid, and I do think the game’s efforts and failures are worth talking about.)

Gameplay: This RPG mainly relies on balancing skills, talents, and attributes. Skills define what weapons you can use and how (one-handed blades, two-handed blades, firearms, magic, etc). Talents are things like charisma, science, or lockpicking - stuff which will affect the way you interact with the world. Attributes are mental and physical abilities like strength or willpower which affect how you wield weapons. Overall, the process of leveling up and gaining points to spend in these areas was pretty straight-forward, and I enjoyed the mental challenge of building a character that fit my play style.

Combat was a little clunky; basic attacks ran just fine for me, but there wasn’t much grace in the way characters dodged or rolled. I also kept getting thrown off by the fact that you can’t press space to jump! But in all, it wasn’t the worst experience. Enemies had helpful health bars, and I enjoyed the combination of a pistol and a rapier to finish off my foes. The diplomatic elements were by far the best part of gameplay for me. If players assign their skill points well, de Sardet can use a number of different tactics and choose from multiple dialogue options, from intimidation to taking advantage of intuition to laying on the charisma. It was fun to figure out which tactic would work on which characters, and how my skill sets translated into consequences for my decisions. I do think, however, that more options could have been presented to players in terms of dialogue choices and role-playing elements. While players make important choices regarding how to handle any given situation, there was little opportunity to purely role play. More opportunities to influence the direction or tone of the dialogue in non-crucial situations, I think, would have helped and made my De Sardet feel more unique.

Visuals: Aesthetically, I very much appreciated that we were given a fantasy game that wasn’t set in the faux Middle Ages. I loved the 18th century vibe to all the clothing and town layouts, and each of the maps were distinct and fully-realized, from the urban settings to the natural ones. There was a bit of repetition in the urban layouts; the palaces, for example, were the same, and some houses were recycled, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Dragon Age II. I also appreciated that there were people of various races and genders in all positions and all social circles. There were women in the guard, women working on ships, and so on, without any hint that it was unusual. There was also a fairly wide variety of skin tones, with people of color being included in higher social classes and not relegated to lowly servant roles. There are some problems in that “diversity washing” detracts from the racial conflicts that were very present in the 18th century. I don’t think the developers thought through the implications of putting POC in positions of power where they could commit violent colonial acts against the natives. The creatures on the island were interesting to look at. Their designs frequently combined natural imagery (such as vines and wood) with horror to create foes with an eldritch, elemental vibe. The same creepiness was reflected in the fictional disease that afflicts the colonists; the afflicted had black, vine-like tendrils running through the skin, and there was an impending sense of dread whenever I looked at someone who was infected. Despite all the things I liked, GreedFall’s biggest problem is its animation. For a game that was made in 2019, facial expressions and combat are quite clunky, to the point where the characters felt robotic. I understand that not every video game needs to have top-tier level animation, but playing GreedFall was similar to my experiences playing the first Witcher game or the first Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins games. Still technically playable, but it feels very outdated.

In-Game Triggers: violence (especially racial violence), colonialism, racism, religious zealotry, torture,

I feel the need to point out that while I don’t think this game is gory or explicit in any way (PG-13 would be my rating), there are some scenes that people may find triggering. There’s also one where a Native is killed by a religious zealot, and I found it extremely upsetting (it happens when you first enter San Matheus, if you need a heads up). Other than that, you never actually see characters torture native peoples, but you do hear about it later.

Recommendations: I would recommend this game if you’re interested in the 18th century, the age of imperialism, role-playing games, and fantasy. You might also like this game if you’re a fan of Bioware RPGs.

#video game review

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atomicwedgienerd · 6 years ago

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A Family Resemblance

CW: Scat, incest, everything else. You’ve been warned. This was a collaboration with Smelliot the Slob, who is probably as dorky and gross in real life as the victims in the story.

Elliot came downstairs into the large living room. The room was split into the lounge area and kitchen in one room. In the corner he could see his father, Dan in the corner instructing one of his private clients. Reaching into the fridge Elliot pulled out the milk and poured himself a large glass before taking a long swig of it.

Dan counted off on his hands as the patron was on the ground doing a pushup. "Come on! Keep pushing! Don't give up now man, you don't want to end up flabby do you?"

“It’s hard Dan!” The patron said as he struggled. He looked up and saw Elliot. Everyone saw the patron as just an out of shape middle aged man but none could see him for what he really was. A being of pure chaos who could shape reality just using his words. This time, his target was Dan, the hottest personal trainer in town and his equally hot son Elliot. “This must be your son! There’s definitely a family resemblance!”

Elliot smiled and gave a thumbs up "Alright dude."

Dan turned and smiled "Yes, very proud of my boy, and he and I worked hard for our bodies. You can too. It is hard, but the rewards are worth it, so keep pushing!"

“I am!” said the patron. “Maybe if you were wearing your glasses you could see how hard I was trying” A pair of thick hornrimmed glasses appears on an end table. Elliot frowned at this but Dan just reaches over to the end table to grab his glasses and slide them on his face. "Since when did you wear glasses dad?"

Dan threw a bewildered look at his son. "I've always worn glasses." This caused Elliot to mimic Dan's bewildered expression.

“Whew Dan! Could you close your mouth?” begged the patron. “Those crooked yellow teeth are so hard to look at and your breath is so foul I bet your son can smell it from across the room!”

Elliot frowned. “Watch your tone buddy!" Clearly the lad was getting upset at someone insulting his dad, although he did a double take as he saw his dad’s now yellowed teeth.

"Well I need to open it to keep you motivated. Maybe it will motivate you to work harder."

“P.U.! That’s an awfully condescending tone for someone with such a big gut too!”

Elliots eyes widened in shock as he saw his father bloat up, gaining layer upon layer of fat, thighs thickening along with his arms, a large flabby gut pushing out. "What the fuck!?" Elliot quickly started to go for the phone presumably to dial 911. Dan patted his stomach. "Mm, but I am proud of my belly, you want to get rid of yours."

“Honestly I think that’s about all I have in me for today. Didn’t you say you wanted to show me the computers you had been building in the gym you turned into a study?”

Dan nodded and started to waddle off with you following him. Elliot however had other plans. "What the hell is going on!?" He asks aloud, phone in his hand. "Someone explain or I am calling 911."

“Oh please you’re just as clumsy as your old man!” the patron laughed. Dan stumbled and tripped over his own feet and Elliot, in a moment of unusual clumsiness, dropped his phone right into the sink full of dishes. Elliot swore as he fished for the phone but it was ruined as it came out.

"What are you doing?" Elliot asked as Dan got his balance back.

“I’m just hanging out with my friend Dan, which is honestly pretty charitable on my part. After all, he may have stopped working out and put on a lot of weight, but he still has the body odor and sweatiness of an entire weightlifting team.”

Dan sniffed at his armpits, smelling his sweaty BO. "Man, I do smell bad don't I?" Elliot had to cover his nose as the room became overpowered by it.

"You're doing something to him! Fine, if I can't call the police I'll go get help." He marches towards the door with purpose.

“Aw but you’ve always liked guys who stink terribly I thought,” the patron said with a grin.

Elliot has stopped covering his nose and is clearly breathing normally. "I mean...sure it's nice but you can't be changing my dad."

“Oh don’t worry, I’m doing more than that. Say, did you happen to pick up your old man’s lice shampoo?”

"I did but...hey wait, since when does dad have lice?" He asked as he saw his dad was now scratching at his hair.

“Since forever! The shampoo doesn’t even really do anything other than leave his hair super greasy but we have to keep trying. That’s what your father told me anyways, even though it took forever with his terrible stutter!”

"I just wish it didn't make his hair greasy." Elliot commented as Dan's hair became very greasy. "and dad you really should see a speech therapist."

Dan nodded. "Y-you got t-t-t-hat right sss-ss-son."

“I don’t know why you’re so concerned. I heard you liked greasy haired fatsos with lice and stutters”

Elliot’s face flushed red and he was glad his lower body was obscured by the counter (“Whatcha hiding there Elliot? I bet it’s a big old hard on just like your dad always has. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a man cum his pants as often as your father”

The front of Dans pants grew damp as Elliot’s face flushed some more. "Its uh...I just woke up, I had an intense dream." He lied, a little ashamed that his father got him aroused.

“It’s a good thing your dad only wears these cheap thrift store khakis and white socks all the time or it would be a shame that he’s constantly wetting himself. At least they look nice with his button down and suspenders!”

Elliot’s mouth fell open at his dads new outfit. "He looks ridiculous like that!" He says as Dan plays with his suspenders and straightens his bow tie.

“Oh please,” laughed the patron. “Everyone knows this is the hottest way a man can dress. And the pants are so cheap, it doesn’t even matter if your dad is usually carrying a few turds in the back”

Elliot blinked as something came over him. "I mean, at least he's dressing in something attractive...despite the shit and piss."

“Come on, the shit and piss make him unique and kind of even hotter!”

Elliot bit his lower lip as he turned around, hoping to stop his large erection. The patron grinned and continued to weave a new reality with his words.

“But I mean you would expect someone to shit themselves every once in a while considering that Dan—errr Dilbert here never stops farting. Phew, it smells like someone threw a hundred hard boiled eggs in a dumpster on a hot summer day in here!”

Dilbert let out a loud smelly fart as a log of shit filled his underwear. Elliots nostrils flared heard the fart, but did not complain about the stench. "Yeah..." he stated nervously.

“Wow” the patron said as he finally peered insides Dilbert’s computer room. “This is the nerdiest room I’ve ever seen, well not counting the rest of the your house I mean. I’ve never seen someone with so many comic books, fantasy novels, and empty pizza boxes!”

Dilbert nodded proudly. "I l-l-love my c-c-c-c-comics! I also a-a-dore pizza. B-b-but I need to u-use my z-z-z-zit cream after eating it to a-a-a-void breakout out."

“Oh yeah it was such a mistake to shave your beard, Dilbert. Your skin broke out so bad after that. Plus look at how bad your insanely large ears and nose look without the beard to distract!”

Dan's beard quickly pulled into his now softer jaw as his skin breaks out in bad acne, white headed zits appearing over his face as his ears got larger and started to stick out. With a snort his nose inflated to a pudgy schnoz.

“And honestly Dilbert, I think you should talk to your orthodontist because considering how big and clunky your headgear is, those two giant buck teeth should be looking better by now”

Dilbert’s cheeks blushed and he adjusted a screw on his braces. "I c-c-cant help it" he whined quite pathetically before his belly rumbled, he let out a loud belch right into your face, the smelly fishy breath was heavy with the scent of pizza and fast food.

“Aw well hopefully there’s a man that appreciates all this out there somewhere. I know how desperate you are for a boyfriend!”

Dilbert looked down at the floor as the front of his pants grow wet again and the smell of urine filled the air. "But w-w-who would d-d-date a l-l-l-losher like me." He looked sad when he admitted he was a loser.

“I’m sure there’s someone out there who is into disgusting dweebs like you.” The patron looked up with a grin at Elliot. “Say don’t you think it’s time your son got his favorite meal. A hot pocket that got your cum and piss all over it?”

The patron’s words made this a reality and Elliot shrugged as if it was normal. "I am pretty hungry dad..." With that Dilbert waddled over and stuck a hot pocket into the microwave. After a few minutes he pulled out the turnover and put it down on the floor. Pulling out his smaller, but hard dick he proceeds to piss over it, a little jerking and globs of cum also cover the treat. He places it down in front of his son who just picks up a knife and fork and starts to take bites.

“Wow Elliot you sure look hungry! I bet it’s from looking at all those posters up in your room. Of those pretty ladies? No wait, that’s not right, you have posters of fat nerds, guys covered in their own pee and cum, ugly pimple faced four eyes, isn’t that right?”

Elliots cheeks burn as he takes another bite, it was true, but he didn't want to show that he was embarassed about it. So he decided to downplay it. "Yeah, I'm into fat nerds. What of it?"

“It just seems like considering your father, it must be kind of a bummer that you aren’t one too. I mean he’s so pathetic and you’re this hot perfect jock. It must just be unbearable not having inherited his extremely geeky genes. It must just drive you nuts. Plus according to your journal, it looks like no matter how hard you beat off, you can’t cum. I bet that’s because you know you need to be a total nerd first.”

Elliot took another bite, this time slower and more thoughtful. "Yeah....dad says I take after mom. I mean look at him. Look at what a loser he is. Who wouldn't want that?"

“I bet you pray every night to become a loser like him. I bet you would give up everything for a chance at that huh?”

"You bet I would! I even looked into a laser eye surgery to see if they'd ruin my vision. Sadly they weren't interested, nor was the plastic surgeon. Besides, dad is lonely now, he has no one."

“Yeah I mean compared to your dad, you’re so cool. Even with the nerdiest bedroom I’ve ever seen. And your bedroom is so so dorky. Dirty clothes everywhere. Three computers. Chess club trophies. Pokémon sheets. It’s amazing you’re as jacked as you are considering how much you love chess.”

"Well, they are online chess trophies. My room is an expression of who I wish I was. Even dad gets jealous. I tell my friends I have a cool room and I play my guitar every night. Well...its not a guitar. It's an accordion."

“Yeah your dad told me you basically never stop playing accordion. That it’s one of the only ways to drown out the noise of your incessant farts.”

A large blasting fart escaped from Elliot's rear, filling the already smelly room with his own gas. "It was no surprise, they did say the chronic flatulence was hereditary."

“The farts are one thing but hoowee the rest! Your BO and halitosis put your father’s to shame.”

"Well, I hate taking showers...and eating these special hot pockets don't help my halitosis. Not that I don't want them, they are my favourite!"

“I know and considering they’re all you eat, it’s no wonder you’ve inherited your father’s.... rather ample physique.”

As the patron’s words changed Elliot’s body, he pat his new belly as he sat there changed, a lardass like his father. “Mmm, I know! I'm a fussy eater...its embarassing you don't need to rub it in."

“Not as embarrassing as the way you rub all the piss from your pants in your hair all the time. It just makes you stink worse and, despite what you read on the web, it’s not gonna do anything to help your lice problem.”

Elliot’s belly rumbled and he lets out a loud fart as his hair grows greasy and lice infested. Reaching into his pants he cups his hand and pisses into it. "But the website said it helped with lice." With that he wet his hair with the piss he cupped.

“The only effect it seems to be having is making your skin break out worse and worse and worse. God you have bigger pimples than even your father does!”

A grin crossed Elliot’s face. "A side effect I didn't expect but I am delighted about. Even if it doesn't help my lice, if it helps keep these zits, just try and stop me."

“I don’t wanna stop you or get anywhere near those zits. I bet they’re so bad because you like squirting the zit pus into a glass and drinking it. That can’t be good for your skin.”

Elliot licked his lips as the patron’s words became law. “Mm, I am thirsty...and I've been milking these babies for months. I'm due a treat." He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a jug with a label reading 'Elliots zit pus, DO NOT TOUCH'. He lifted it to his lips and took some gulps before returning it to the fridge.

“Yeah I mean why do you think I’m wearing rubber boots? Gotta protect myself from the inches of piss, cum, shit and pus that are just sloshing around on your floor!”

Elliot blushed. ”That’s thanks to dad, and sometimes I miss the jar. It’s why I am wearing rubber boots too." A loud fart rumbled from his rear, the heavy aroma stinging the patron’s nostrils

“Wow, well you really do outpace your father in terms of fart stink. And BO. And halitosis. You really do smell terrible. It’s a bummer you can’t close your mouth with those giant yellow buck teeth with the huge gap between them.”

Elliot grinned as the patron brought up his overbite. His front teeth almost looked like fangs with the space between them. "Dad jokes you could drive a train through the gap."

“I mean combined with your giant nose and those big ears, you really look like such a geek. Not that you’d know it since you don’t even have your glasses on. Where did they go? Ah!” The patron sees them sitting in a puddle of cum and piss, the lenses several inches thick and the frames more duct tape than plastic at this point.

Elliot shivered and rubbed at his fat nose, it was even bigger than his dad’s. He absentmindedly wiggled his ears as his vision blurred. "Can you see them? Where did I put them? I'm blind as a bat without them!”

“They’re down there. By your feet. I won’t pick them up so don’t even ask. Besides your tight little nasal passages make your voice so whiny that I can barely stand to hear it. It’s amazing you can breathe at all.”

With another rumble, Elliot opened his mouth letting out a loud belch. He leaned down, his breathing heavier as he picked up the glasses, and without even wiping them putsthem on his nose. "SNORT there we go. I'm always SNORT losing my glasshes, or SNORT breaking them."

“They’re in such bad shape, i imagine they’re a pair of your dads old glasses. Makes sense since you wear all of his clothes too. I’ve heard of hand me downs but you know you’re supposed to wash them right? Instead, you just put on his soiled clothes from the day before and go about your business.”

"We don't have a washing machine..." he adjusted the suspenders, the khaki shorts he was wearing clearly had a dried cum and piss stain on the front, and the back of them looked more brown than khaki. The button up shirt had food and piss stains on it as well as a collection of dried boogers here and there.

“It’s probably for the best considering you shit yourself much more frequently and with much bigger loads than your father does.”

A loud fart escaped him but Elliot seemed to follow through on this one as the back of his pants expanded a little and turned a deeper brown, the rear starting to steam a little from the shit. SPLOOSH...SPLASH, some remnants fell out of the the short legs and splashed in the room size puddle.

“God that smells so bad. Good thing your father had the foresight to name you Smelliot! He must have known you’d be like this.”

He chuckled but it turned more into a series of snorts. "Daddy likes to say I came out shitting so thus the name."

“And you’re so proud of it too. Is that why you’re always pulling your slimy shit stained underpants up into an atomic wedgie?”

"Oh SNORT yesh!" another fart escaped him, the splashing of shit hitting the liquid echoing around the room. "Although it's SNORT much more fun if SNORT it is someone else giving me a SNORT wedgie."

“Well gosh, that sounds like something that’s a perfect bonding activity for father and son.”

The patron turns to Dilbert, seeing he's been busy reading a comic book on the couch in his room, his feet gently disturbing the liquid on the floor. He let out a fart as a stream of yellow piss also slid down his left leg.

“Hey Dilbert. Isn’t it time for you and your son to give each other atomic wedgies so you can see who has the most shit caked undies?”

Dilbert tossed the comic onto the couch and got up, waddling over to Smelliot. A lump formed in the front of Smelliot’s khakis. Both seem to do this like it was a routine, each of them reaching into the others pants, getting a grip on their underwear, and then with a quick count down the two pull, the messy underwear being pulled up. At one time both were probably white but were now more a yellowish with brown stains. Smelliot’s undies were worse on account of them being hand me downs.

“Wow if it weren’t for the stink, I would say someone had poured a few gallons of mud in your pants Smelliot. You’re definitely outpacing your old man.”

Dilbert pouted but then let out a crooked yellow smile

"T-t-the d-d-d..." he took a breath. "d-d-d..." a fart escapes his rear as he also fills his pants with steamy shit, "d....doctorrs! did ss-s-say that the conditions are more s-s-severe for the of-of-ofsp-ofsp...the children"

"It's so nice to see a father and a son get along so well. Is it true that for snacks, you guys pick each others ears and noses and eat each other's boogers and earwax?"

Both nodded as Smelliot digs a fat finger into his fathers nose, a slimey snotty booger pops out and he licked it off, a grin crossing his face. "Y-you bet. B-besides the h-h-hot pockets, i-its all he'll eat."

"You're looking pretty hungry yourself, Dilbert. Didn't you say your son makes you a special pizza that you just can't resist?"

Dilbert rubbed his rumbly tummy and nodded. "Y-yes. I s-s-should c-call the pizza place."

Dilbert waddled over to the computer and booted up the EatingOut app, pulling up his previous order of two cheese pizzas. His history seemed to indicate he ordered this every day...

"Well you certainly have the body and cleanliness of a man who eats pizza every day! I'm excited to see what makes it so special!"

"T-they say it w-w-will be here in an h-h-hour." He stuttered as he pissed the front of his pants again.

An hour passed with the father and son feeding each other their boogers before the doorbell rang. Dilbert waddled, the last few steps cause him to blast a fart out into the room. Grabbing the doorknob he twisted it, the door swinging open. "H-h-h-h..salutations!"

The pizza delivery guy recoiled from the stench, almost ready to barf and bail.

"Ah good," said the patron. "I hear the pizza guy in this town loves nerds too and really loves watching you eat pizza so much, that he gives them to you for free!"

The pizza delivery guy laughed and handed the pizzas to Dilbert. "Oh yeah if you haven't seen the way these dorks eat pizza, you are in for a real shock."

Dilbert blushed as he saw the tent the man is now sporting. Carrying the pizza boxes over to Smelliot, Dilbert asked, "S-s-s-sss-smelliot? C-can you p-p-put daddy's f-favoruite toppings on?"

Smelliot smiled and nodded. "Oh SNORT yeth Daddy! I know SNORT how much you SNORT love it!" He put the pizzas down on the coffee table and opened them, sniffing them. Unhooking his suspenders he let the khakis fall into the wet puddles on the floor, and pulled down the front of his tightly-not-so-whities. All it took was a few jerks and he exploded cum all over the pizzas like a special sauce. Then he turned around and with a fart let globs of shit fall on the pizzas.

Dilbert smiled and took a deep sniff. “Mmm, smells delicious." He took up a slice that got nice and coated with his son's cum and shit and took a bite, munching happily.

The pizza delivery guy just chuckled and laughed. "Now you see why I don't even make them pay. I love seeing that!" The pizza delivery guy rubbed the front of his pants until he came in them and then headed back to his truck.

"H-h-he's alway s-s-s-so nice." Dilbert farted while Smelliot started to play his accordion expertly.

"Wow your accordion playing sounds so good Smelliot. Is it true that your father has learned to blast his massive farts in time with the music?"

Dilbert and Smelliot nodded and exchanged a look. Smelliot changes=d the tune to something a bit more upbeat. Dilbert started to let out farts of different sizes in tune with the music, creating an almost percussive backing to the accordion. Smelliot farted and shit his pants as he played, the farts starting to make the room smell absolutely foul. With a flourish and a long fart the two finished their routine.

"Well, that was just wonderful. You too are just so in synch! It's a real shame that you're both so lonely and unlucky in love. I know that your son loves big fat farting nerds, but is it true that you like them as well Dilbert?"

Dilbert noded and licked his lips "Mm, y-y-y-y affirmative! I love big fat loser nerds!" A smile crossed his face as he came in his pants.

"That's such a shame then that Smelliot is your son! Except, well, I mean it really doesn't matter does it? Love is love and you two ARE perfect for each other. And your son is an adult, albeit a pathetically nerdy shit stained one, so shouldn't he be able to date his own father if he wants to?"

Dilbert slowly nodded as if coming to a realisation. "S-s-s-ss-sure! L-love is love."

Smelliots eyes widened. "But SNORT..." a fart escaped him. "Incest is..." he was quickly interrupted.

"Incest is perfectly fine if it's what you really want Smelliot and you do want it. You both want it!"

The body language between father and son instantly changed. Both not looking at each other, exchanging side glances, but turning away whenever they met each others eyes. Gently Dilbert reached down and squeezed his son's hand. Smelliot farted and shit his pants. "D-daddy.."

“Y-y-you are such a p-p-p-pathetic dweeb." Dilbert said before pressing his puffy lips against his son's, their pudgy noses pushing together, orthodontic headgear clacking together.

Smelliot belched into the kiss, but broke away. "Mmm SNORT...Pokémon bed?" Dilbert nodded and chuckled "You're such a dork!" The father and son held hands as they waddled towards Smelliots bedroom. The patron followed father and son up to Smelliot's bedroom and watched the two get into it.

The nerds peeled off their clothes, exposing their naked, unwashed, flabby bodies to each other, both of them cumming right there and then. Smelliot rolled onto his bed, the frame sagging from his weight. His dorky daddy climbing onto the bed, grinning as his pathetic member was so close to his son's messy, dirty shit chute.

The Patron smiled and with a click pictures of the slobby nerds appeared around the house, one of them a particular picture of them kissing, in dirty suits...in a chapel.

"I love you my stinky son hubby." and with that he rammed his hard member into his son's rear, blasting the shitty hole with gallons of nerdy cum before pulling out, inserting his giant pimpled nose, and blowing thick jets of snot into his son’s asshole. The patron grinned and disappeared, his work here done. He checked the list of other personal trainers with sons in the city and figured out his next target.

#nerdification #slobification #nerdtf #gaytf

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shinywailordguy · 4 years ago

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2020 Games

Replays

DKC Trilogy (5/5) - As great as ever, competitive co-op was a fun twist

Super Mario 64 (4/5) - A lot more playable than I expected after all this time

1 - I Knew It Would Be Bad

Mega Man X7 - Widely considered to be an awful game. Mega Man doesn't work in 3D and some bosses repeat the same voice clips literally several times per second.

2 - Stop Trying To Make Retro Games Happen

Dragon Quest 1 - Fine but tedious and basic these days

Dragon Quest 2 - Fine but tedious and basic these days

Dragon Quest 3 - Fine but tedious and basic these days

Mega Man 7 - Nice colourful graphics but too hard and annoying for me Mega Man 8 - Nice colourful graphics but too hard and annoying for me

Mega Man 9 - Nice NES-style graphics but too hard and annoying for me

Mega Man 10 - Nice NES-style graphics but too hard and annoying for me

Gorogoa - Very clever but I'm no good at these kind of puzzle games and should have known better

Hitman Go - Same as Gorogoa, I got too frustrated after a while. At least I learned and didn't get Baba is You Shantae (Gameboy Colour) - You can see the beginnings of the great Shantae series but the difficulty is way higher than its sequels and it feels very clunky to actually play

3 - Mega Mans

Mega Man X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X8 – Not point in repeating myself so I'm just going to combine these together since I played them all very close together. The X games are my favourite Mega Man games but I'm still not a huge fan of the bosses, the structure or the difficulty

Songbird Symphony - Lovely little platformer but the rhythm sections quickly became too messy to be fun. At least they were optional.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz - Would have been great if not for the awful, awful boss battles that ruined it

Zanki Zero - Great story and cool aging mechanices but skip the dungeon gameplay.

Disgaea 3 - Not top tier Disgaea due to somewhat forgettable characters but still quite enjoyable

Atelier Ryza - Very nice rpg but the heavy focus on crafting dragged me down more than I thought it would

Etrian Odyssey IV - I loved mapping out the dungeons on the touch screen but the battles and puzzles left me cold

Toby: The Secret Mine - Surprisingly decent puzzle platformer that wasn't just the Limbo ripoff that you might think at first glance.

Aegis Defenders - Fun puzzle platforming with tower defense that eventually got too overwhelming for me

Little Acre - Really nice cartoony Irish game that felt like it ended a little abruptly

4 - Second Chances

Pokemon Shield Expansion Pass - Really great add-ons that make me excited for what's next

New Super Luckys Tale - I had a lot of fun with this cute and charming 3D platformer

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - Nice Metroidvania where you transform into different animals to progress

Cadence of Hyrule - I can't handle the proper timed Necrodancer gameplay but this was a fun mini Zelda experience in Wait Mode

The Messenger - I enjoyed this game but the difficulty and sparse fast travel points in the Metroidvania section put me off by the end.

Scribblenauts Unlimited - The best Scribblenauts game which focuses on words instead of awkward physics (unlike the DC one)

A Short Hike - A fun and wholesome adventure

Snake Pass - I gave up on it originally but I'm glad I came back. The controls are very awkward but once I got used to them I was amazed at what I could do and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Murder by Numbers - It's Picross! Strong Ace Attorney vibes but doesn't quite match the excitement and humour of that series.

Sonic Racing All Stars Transformed - A very enjoyable kart/boat/plane racer with a fun mix of characters and levels

Team Sonic Racing - I think Transformed made me appreciate this game even more and against all expectations I loved the team mechanic

Animal Crossing New Horizons - Very relaxing but breakable weapons and crafting ruined the fun a bit for me

Owlboy - Glad I gave this a second chance, a beautiful looking Zelda-like game where you can fly Phogs - Brilliant co-op game, I loved the bedtime and arcade worlds so much

Trine 4 - Very good co-op puzzle platformer, shame about the combat

Gris - Lovely platformer that was like playing a painting

Fall Guys - Frustrating at times but a clever idea and a lot of fun especially taking turns with a group

5 - The Top 10 (in no particular order)

Sayonara Wild Hearts - The way it combines the music and visuals makes it so exciting to play through and at about an hour a go I've replayed it several times since

Links Awakening HD - Lovely diorama style graphics and even though it was the same great game as ever it still felt very fresh

Dragon Quest 11 - A massive, beautiful, traditional style jrpg that constantly surprises

Luigis Mansion 3 - The best Luigis Mansion, so much fun to explore all the unique floors of the hotel and Gooigi was a great addition

Into the Breach - Brilliant strategy game, being limited to just 3 units and only around 5 turns per battles means it has all the best of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem minus any tedium

Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair - If you ignore the Impossible Lair itself which is one of the most ridiculous difficulty spikes I've ever seen, this felt like having a new Donkey Kong Country

Paper Mario and the Origami King - I was worried about the battle system and that it was continuing the Sticker Star style of Paper Mario, but having now played it, it's a game I'm very fond of.

Shovel Knight Treasure Trove - I'm so glad I revisited this having only played the original. I loved Spectre Knights campaign but my favourite was King Knights due to the shorter levels.

Fire Emblem Three Houses - Great gameplay as always and I loved getting to know all of the characters

Monster Hunter Iceborne - Very difficult but fantastic monsters and great as an online co-op

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scifimagpie · 7 years ago

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Want to Write Better Books? Stop Watching Television

When it comes to storytelling, most of us grow up immersed in visual language. Television and movies and Youtube series can be extremely potent, and tell inspiring stories - but when it comes to translating that storytelling method to the page, they can be a writer's worst enemy.

I can always tell when people have been watching more TV than reading books because there's a similar pattern of errors. Drawing from my own screw-ups and experiences and combining them with things I've learned from reading hundreds of books, I've compiled a useful list intended for newer writers with an eye on publishing.

At the risk of bowing to clickbait with my title, I'd like to make a case for aspiring writers to scale back their television-watching time and spend that on short and long-form fiction. Even fanfiction inspired by TV can help exercise that writing muscle more than watching stories alone, and I've made the reasons why into an easy-to-read list.

1) TV writing is often bad and illogical

There's no good way to put this - the behaviour of characters on Lifetime made-for-TV movies, criminal dramas, and night-time dramas or medical shows is often exaggerated and vastly distant from reality. The best TV shows and movies do have good writing - but let's be honest; we don't always watch the best of the best. That's not a bad thing, but when it comes to writing, 'you are what you eat' is very much an applicable idiom.

It's hard to write emotionally authentic decisions and ethical debates when paranormal teenagers are fighting in the most dramatic ways possible. Because of the narrative constraints of episodic storytelling, which is the norm for continuing TV shows, antagonists are often thinly written and illogical, and characters who conflict with the main cast tend to be cruel, rude, or selfish in ways that an actual human person would not dare to be when confronted or opposed. Villains and antagonists are an important part of every story, and they're usually the biggest letdown, because their actions are often dictated by whatever inflicts the most suffering on main characters. Shows have to compress as much interest in the problem-of-the-week as possible, while still adhering to the (usually more complex) long-term plot.

The thing is, these are really bad habits for writers to pick up. It's taken me a lot of work to unlearn the villain-of-convenience habit. Antagonists and villains need to have strong motivations - even stronger than the protagonist(s)', at times. Otherwise, their actions make no sense on a fundamental level, and the narrative thread of the story will completely unravel. This is not to say that antagonists and villains have to be "evil" per se - in fact, evil is usually a matter of perspective. However, stories are driven by what people want and the people who want things. If they don't have a thing they want that remains somewhat consistent, or has a reason for changing, the story will sputter and its engine will stop turning over.

2) Visual storytelling and literary storytelling are different mediums

This sounds obvious, but hear me out. In working on a recent project, a character went up the stairs after a party, took off her jewelry, texted her friend - and suddenly, her abusive alcoholic father appeared in her room and started threatening her. The scene was clearly patterned after the classic "jump scare" style.

The problem is that jump scares don't work in written fiction. In order to mimic the effect created by a jump scare, we have to break down the scene and the rising tension created by it. A camera panning around and showing the scene, the slow shot of a character walking up the stairs, and the subtle tension created by having a character do ordinary things without realising that they are in danger may not be conveyed by simply saying that character walks up the stairs, takes off their jewelry, and prepares to use the bathroom. Those words don't express the information conveyed by the same camera shots and edits, or by the creeping shriek of violins or synth music in a score. Words can express that tension - but not if writers take what they see on TV (or computer) screens at face value.

Mimicry is not enough. We have to understand why things happen and why we are shown or given certain pieces of information, and why things are portrayed in certain ways. We must learn to see the framing devices used in fiction of all kinds, not accept them as the way the world works.

3) Hide things from the reader

As the audience, we may not realise that storytelling techniques are being used to convey a story, because we're busy reacting to it. That's okay! It's good to watch or read something and just experience the emotions intended, and enjoy the ride of the story. However, if a book has a deep impact on you, and you admire it, it's worth reading the book at least one more time to try and see the places where it was most effective.

For example, in a tense scene, a character might scan a room, looking for a weapon, and the author or narrator may describe the contents of said room.

In a dingy hotel, a bed covered in rumpled sheets, the bolted-down lamps and furniture and a clunky television may not offer much. As the character looks around, they might notice there are some glasses on the bureau or in the bathroom, and pick those up, hoping to throw them at the assailant pounding on their door.

In this vignette, the words 'pounding', 'dingy', and 'rumpled' offer the most descriptive power. However, we don't know what the antagonist on the other side of the door looks like, what kind of weapons they have, if any, or even what their name is. While there might be a little more context in a book, the very limited scope of this one scene shows that using immediacy and restricting the view and information available to the reader can create more tension.

I often see this problem in longer-form works as well - and I've certainly made the mistake myself: the error of trying to cram in too much exposition in the first few chapters. It's hard not to worry that an audience will get lost or miss something, but audiences just don't need as much information to enjoy a story as authors do to write it.

4) All books are not created equal

Some books are designed to convey a story as efficiently as possible, often to meet the reader's emotional needs - this is the case for most commercial fiction. Some books are intended to please the reader's intellect or evoke more complex emotions, and often take their time in the storytelling or break rules - this is often the case for literary fiction. Upmarket fiction combines both of these needs. That's not to say that commercial fiction can't have moments of beauty, or that literary fiction can't be fun to read, but it's important to know that these two broad types of fiction have different goals - and that both have their advantages and disadvantages.

It's important to know which markets your book is destined for, and to be honest about it with yourself. Do you write weird fiction that kind of straddles genres and has little philosophical narrative kicks? Do you secretly just want to write fun books about sex and guns? Do you like writing about kissing and emotional drama, but crave a good plot to complicate things? There are readers who want books like each of these, and looking for similar books to yours can help you figure out who will want to read it.

It's vitally important not to confuse the people you want to impress with the people who will probably read your book. I've made this mistake. It's hard not to want to change the world with a book, but you're more likely to achieve that goal if you get the book into the hands of people who will like it in the first place - enthusiastic readers will share what they like, and word of mouth is still the oldest and strongest form of marketing.

5) If you're working in a medium, engage with it

Having a good vocabulary is essential. This seems like a daunting task - how do we learn more words? Where do we even get the words? How do we know which words are better to use? However, it's not as bad as it sounds. Reading non-fiction news articles in one's Facebook feed can help; honestly, just snatching everything with written words in it and picking it up to read it, even warning signs in bathroom stalls or advertisements at bus stops, can make a difference.

Of course, books and short stories are an ideal place to start. Short stories and short story collections can be a great way to work more fiction into your diet. Ideally, it's best to read a wide variety of books. Having favorite authors is fine, and having favorite genres is fine, but both a) reading widely within your genre and b) reading widely in general will help you try new things and expose you to different ideas and inspirations. Have you ever read a western? An old Harlequin bodice-ripper? A modern romance novel? Women's fiction? A techno-thriller? African-American literary fiction? A gay coming-of-age tale? Grab something off the shelf with your eyes closed and start reading - you don't even have to start from the beginning, if you really don't want to, but try to give the strange new book a chance.

The more you read, the more comfortable your brain will become with the storytelling methods, conventions, and styles that authors use. It's not about copying people or being 'unoriginal', although those are okay for practice techniques - it's about fluency. Writing well is very difficult if you don't read!

6) Emotions are important

Just putting in a description of a character's actions doesn't convey their mood, emotions, or what's going on inside their heads. It can - but it's essential to think about why a character is doing something, and which life experiences have contributed to the decision they're undertaking in that moment. People never just do things - and stopping to consider why a character grabs a wire hanger to fight back, whether they'd cower or flee, and whether they'd be able to speak their thoughts honestly are all vital to communication.

In daily life, we may hesitate to speak or act frankly, and that's not always a bad thing. There's something to be said for honesty, but there's also something to be said for respecting the feelings and desires or needs of others. For example, if Manpreet and Cynthia are friends, and Cynthia is wearing a new sweater she just finished knitting, Manpreet may want to tell her the sweater is ugly. But then Manpreet's desire for validation of her opinion will conflict with Cynthia's need for validation of her efforts. There's nothing wrong with these conflicts, nor with learning when to hold one's tongue or put something carefully, and expressing that characters are going through those steps is a great way to show conflict and emotion in a work of fiction.

7) Traditional literature may not be for you

Frankly, I think more authors should try different storytelling formats just to see if they find one that's a better fit. Books tend to be the default for creative storytelling, but honestly, they're just not for everyone because they don't always skew to people's internal storytelling style. Sometimes books just don't play to people's strengths. People who are dialogue-oriented may find that plays do the trick. People who like visuals that are continuous may want to try out writing screenplays of various kinds. Still others may want to try writing graphic novels, and either hiring illustrators or illustrating work themselves. The trick is to figure out how you think - in pictures? In moments? In words? - and find the medium that expresses your feelings and thoughts most adequately.

Telling a story is an act of communication, and to communicate well requires a lot of effort, practice, and study. New authors should consider this before rushing to publish their first work, because the enthusiasm and fire of the story experience inside an author's head may be different from the experience of the reader from going through content on the page.

Ultimately, writing is hard. There's a reason that career authors, amateurs, and aspiring writers often despair over it. And honestly, that's okay. There's a joy to the process of learning techniques, to finding the right word. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, because it's easier to get appreciation from others if your work is careful and shows skill.

8) Writing a good book means creating a book to be read

This is always the hardest part of storytelling. Do we, as writers, craft stories we want to read and tell, or for our audience? Sometimes a weird cross-genre story works, and sometimes a story pulls from so many different genres and influences and goes in so many directions that it's hard to see who will pick up on it. Many of us may dream of adulation or praise from masses of readers, but putting faces on those masses is the important part. It's okay to want that - but wanting it alone is not enough to grant it, and merely creating something is not enough to deserve fame and praise.

It's not about 'that mediocre book that's doing so well! I could write better!' - it's about writing better than yourself. It's hard, during the honeymoon phase of completing a project, not to feel like it's the apex of creative works in one's native language. If I sound sarcastic, it's because I know this euphoric high, and I know the unfortunate consequences of trusting it too blithely. Simply put, the problem is not even bad reviews - it's crickets. Unless a book is waterproofed beyond the 'good enough' state, it may not be worth reading.

All creative works are risks, and to attain the prizes of money and positive attention, it's worth making sure a book makes sense from an external perspective, and is a satisfying read. Of course, not every friend or person you know will be an ideal member of your reading audience, so finding anonymous or professional beta readers can be very helpful - even if just for the sake of seeing how a book comes across to someone who knows very little about it. You may find that your book is very appealing for a reason you totally did not anticipate.

Above all, writing the book isn't about you. It's about the audience, the characters, or the story itself.

9) Publishing is scary and hard

It's okay to be overwhelmed from time to time. It's not even that I'm trying to discourage people from putting their books out for mass consumption - it's that I want to help people make sure the books they put out are as good as possible. There's no such thing as a bad book, just an imperfect book; 99.99% of books that have issues can be saved with a good editor or editors, multiple sets of eyes, and a willingness to tweak and revise.

Drafting books is a process. It took me years to get over the idea that one draft was enough, and that I'd get every idea and nuance down in one go-through. That isn't the case, and it rarely is for many authors! Eventually, realising that I just had to get down a skeleton, and that I could modify and elaborate on things when I had the patience for them, was tremendously freeing. Not only have I stopped hating revisions, I look forward to them. When you know in your bones that the scene and the story feels right, few experiences compare to that.

Publishing, however, is a lot of work - getting used to learning about advertising, knowing where to find information about advertising, buying a cover, researching genres, writing a good blurb, finding people to hire for these various services - it can really add up to an ordeal. Still, doing all that work is a little easier and a lot more rewarding if you feel a rock-hard certainty about the quality of the book in the first place - and it can even make the other stuff easier, because you know what to draw from and what to look at.

10) If all else fails, Google is your friend

Just going for a Google safari or searching around on Amazon isn't something most of us do anymore - our 'wasted time' on the internet usually involves going to a website we already know or frequent regularly, clicking through content, and scrolling through various newsfeeds. However, these habitual paths may not yield as much information when preparing to publish. Simply going to Amazon or Google as if you were looking for a new book and entering various keywords in the search bar - things associated with your book or genre, like 'science', 'scientist', 'adventure', 'comet', 'asteroid', 'crash', 'aliens', or other pertinent terms - can be surprisingly fruitful.

You can also look up books (or shows) you admire and see what people read after reading or watching them. The more books you have to compare to, the more readers will understand your book's place in the market or library. Referencing shows and movies in a blurb is not ideal.

At he end of the day, I'm glad so many people take the leap into trying to write, and finishing projects, but actually trying to sell a book to readers isn't the same thing as merely writing for the satisfaction of it. And writing privately for satisfaction is fine! It's just that when a book hits either an editor's desk or the market, it should be as ready for readers' eyes as possible, and thoroughly vetted - even if it's been self-published.

*** Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and their cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and nightmares, as well as social justice issues. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. Catch up with Michelle's news on the mailing list. Her books are available on Amazon, and she is also active on Medium, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and the original blog.

#writing #how to #write #writers #new writer #new author #publishing #tv #television #books #book #how to publish #ya

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