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enteringdullsville · 9 months ago

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A seasonally appropriate updated version of the old relationship chart.

EDIT: I just want to give advice for some other aspiring writers out there who want to write for pairings but aren’t necessarily writing romance stories.

If you want people to take your pairings seriously (and I don’t mean people who don’t ship them, but rather people with their high and mighty “this pairing shouldn’t be canon” perspectives), you need to be able to justify why they’re with someone and not somebody else. People have types; for example, Crimson (who isn’t pictured) is looking for someone who’s down to earth, sensible, mature, and dependable. That is to say, nobody in the core cast.

And on that note, if any of you are experimenting with bigger core casts, don’t feel compelled to pair everyone up with another member of said core cast. I don’t mean that in an aromantic way (although that certainly helps), but it certainly feels less forced and makes romantic plot lines come off as less suffocating. What you see here is 2/3 of my main cast. I’m also a firm believer in not changing orientations in characters that have set-in-stone canon ones, regardless of what they are, so I just make everyone who isn’t aro swing every way, no matter how camp or butch they seem. That should at least take the edge off of shipping wars.

Lastly, if you feel a pairing comes off as “boring”, congratulations on writing a healthy relationship! Much more to the point, just focus on what those characters have in common. There was a point in development where Rudy/Olive felt a little too generic, so I took a closer look at previous stuff I had done for them, as well as what their respective backstories, character flaws, and motivations were to build upon their dynamic. Olive especially benefits more from this process in the long run, since I was paranoid about people viewing her as a “Satellite Love Interest”.

Looking entirely within the core cast :

Violet X Gordon/Strong Suit

Both are giant nerds who love to write creatively

Best friends since they were 8. Began dating/got married when they were 23

Violet’s demiromantic; it took her a couple extra years to realize she wanted a romantic relationship with him

Gordon was in love with her since he was 13 and was fully prepared to let it go if it meant they could stay friends

Married for 5 years with a sweet little handful daughter

Mild mannered behemoth and his vicious scarecrow wife

They’re each other’s muses

He can carry her with one arm

Rudy X Olive/Scratch Paper

Dorks, the lot of them

Rudy has the right combination of being fun but not insane; perfect for someone introverted but silly like Olive

Initially tried to dismiss her feelings as an infatuation before settling for simply pining in secret. She completely forgot that the entire series is on the internet for people, Rudy included, to see

Rudy likes her in turn because she doesn’t view him as a menace or a child. He also sees her as the cool, mysterious loner girl and that’s a massive plus for him

He knows she has it bad but is waiting for her to build confidence

She’s teaching him how to draw. He loves her surrealist works

She’s not afraid to take shots at him or call him out on his idiocy

J. X Paige/Mystery Novel

Neither talk that much and have definite social anxiety, but they ironically are very comfortable around each other

Her interest in him started off as curiosity about J.’s generally mysterious behavior

They’re uncharacteristically cuddly with each other

J. very briefly used to have an unrequited crush on Peony. Paige is still a little salty if it gets brought up

Since Rudy and J. are brothers, Olive and Paige have gotten closer as friends in turn

Angie X Bryan/Sugar and Spice

Silly, flirty girl and soft, dorky guy

Angie hits on him constantly, but since she hits on a lot of people (and a lot of people hit on him) he initially doesn’t take her advances seriously

Angie wants to squeeze and hug him so badly

Bryan wishes he had her confidence; Angie wishes she had his sensibility

She can lift him over her head

Chloe X Geneva/Mad Science

Tsundere and Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Geneva thinks she’s just the cutest thing

She can easily pick Chloe up and it drives her crazy

Chloe catches feelings quickly; Geneva’s of course oblivious

No matter what Chloe invents, Geneva still thinks she’s cool

Chloe’d be more outwardly receptive to her if she weren’t so obsessed with looking mature

Lyman X Ingrid/Death Glare

A more low key “background romance”

Sprang from Ingrid’s “freaky is hot” mentality

Lyman has no fear of Ingrid, and that helps their relationship

It takes a bit for Ingrid to see beyond his cool empath powers

Ingrid is surprisingly huggy with him. Lyman’s cool with whatever

Noah X Whitney/Checkmate

Chill slacker and high-strung rule follower

They’ve been friends for years so Whitney’s not as tsundere as Chloe, but she still refuses to admit her increasingly obvious feelings

She gets insanely jealous whenever Noah flirts with someone else, which is often

Geneva calls him a “notorious cootie catcher”. He’ll flirt with any Drewman older than 20, but all Whitney has to do is raise an eyebrow and he becomes a stuttering dork

He keeps her balanced, she keeps him motivated

Tyler X Fuchsia/Tooth and Nail

You know what? Actually screw opposites attract. Let similar people be in love for once

In all seriousness, while Fuchsia’s less likely to antagonize people unprovoked, Ty’s got better people skills

Established relationship. Tyler’s the one who vouched for Fuchsia to join ICT

Fuchsia gets very easily embarrassed by PDA

Most people are terrified of her, but Tyler thinks she’s adorable

Sometimes Fuchsia comes in to work with massive marks from Tyler’s shark teeth. Don’t bring it up to her face

Amber X Aaron X Perry/Triple A

The old Archie, Betty, and Veronica schtick

Both fall for her early on and she thinks both of them are cute. It takes a long time before Amber gets tired of their rivalry and takes them both

Amber totally calls the shots in their ménage à trois. Aaron and Perry are completely whipped

Amber and Aaron are a classic cheerleader and jock matchup. Both are peppy, goofy sweethearts

Aaron and Perry are a great rivals to lovers story. Even after burying the hatchet, they still try to one up each other constantly

Perry and Amber are yet another tsundere and cinnamon roll pairing, although since Perry’s so excited for somebody to think he’s actually cool, he’s a lot more outwardly nice to her, even before getting together

Both Aaron and Amber agree Perry’s adorable. Any affection they give him leaves him a blushing mess

Aaron is the one who carries them over his shoulders to prove a point

Amber’s endgame is to expand the relationship until she achieves world domination. Her sights are on Tyler and Fuchsia next.

Landon X Alexandre/Gilded Lily

Semi-toxic yaoi. Like, not so toxic that you wouldn’t want them to get together, but enough to stop them from being glurgey

Al’s normally a pushover, but Landon’s great at pushing his buttons to tick him off

“I can fix him” vs “I can corrupt him”

Landon’s best friends with Veronica, who ping pongs between wanting him to become her brother in law and threatening Landon to get his talons out of her big brother

Landon’s very selective of his partners. Alex ticks all his boxes of being sweet, perky, and a little awkward

EDIT: I decided on Eloise X Georgia long after this, but I don’t particularly feel like adding them to the big picture so use your imagination.

#dullsville #it’s color theory #color theory #ict #original character #character design #artists on tumblr #valentines day #ship dynamics #writing advice

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dreamii-yume · 4 years ago

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not a request but, Idia seems like the type to make a hentai game based on his darling correct? so he uses that as a base to have experience to woo his darling. but now as he tries it irl, he's confused it worked in the game. so why is the darling crying? is there a glitch somewhere? thoughts?

It all started when he thought that you looked like a character from an anime he watched once. He was a fond of the character so, he couldn’t help but to observe you more than he should, hiding his excitement throughout. There, he found out that you don’t just share a similar appearance but a similar personality as well, the perfect embodiment of that character. Idia almost thought that you were some kind of base for that character, cosplaying even, but you were from another world, weren’t you? Could it be that you’re actually that character and just got reincarnated into his world without knowing that you’re an anime character yourself!?

Reverse Isekai, was it? A twist in that overused genre where the fictional character is the one who gets to be trasported to the normal world. Idia was there on the peak of its popularity, reading all the manga, novels that he can find, watching all the anime adaptations along the way. Then the premise just gets redone over and over again that it slowly became boring. Even if they add twists here and there, it still ended up the same.

But now comes you, a real person that got transported into his world! A person who just happens to look and act like the character from one of his beloved shows! You can’t blame him for being this intrigued by your existence! Because how can he not!? This is an otaku’s dream coming true right here!

And best of all...You have his favorite character archetype! How awesome is that!?

Before he knew it, he was all over you. Well, not really...Since he was too shy to actually talk to you, and all he was just doing is either hide behind that tablet of his and a wall at least five meters away. He had already embraced the joys of being a loner and is practically a master of running away from social gatherings or talking in general, but now that it came to this, it became a double-edged sword.

Ortho said to just build up the courage to talk to you if he so badly wants to and he does. He really, really wants to talk to you, at least once...Or twice...Or thrice- The point is that he really wants to. But as supportive as the little brother of his is, he makes it sound so easy. Of course, someone who doesn’t know jackshit about making friends would never be able to master that skill that easily. He cringes at the thought of doing so without any experience, you’d probably see him as another creepy otaku.

Then, it came to him...A thought that proves that he was actually the genius that everyone claims him to be.

Experience. Of course! He’ll just have to gain experience so he can level up! With that, he can conquer your route doing just that! And what better way to do this than to combine it with something what he’s well-experienced with?

So, he started working. His fingers worked on the holographic keyboard faster than he’d ever been, creating a dating simulator game in less than three days. Ortho himself was surprised to see his usually unmotivated and borderline depressed brother having this intense look in his eyes. Idia barely ate or sleep during all of that, but he doesn’t care, what matters is that he finished it.

He finished the game that can finally help himself out, a dating simulator with only one character to focus on. A character who’s basically a spitting image of you and named after you, he even sneaked in some voice lines that he secretly recorded you saying. Idia had observed you longer to know what to write in the game script, which choices you would make, which words you would say, there was even different sprites and assets of you, depending on your emotions! Though, his hand seems to have slipped and before he knew it, he had already hired some Top-tier doujinshi artists to draw some Not-Safe-For-Work CGs of you for some Not-Safe-For-Work scenes. Yeah...He thought so far ahead that it just kinda turned into...Those kinds of simulation games.

But he regrets nothing.

...Other than the fact that he should probably keep this game away from Ortho as much as possible.

Anyway, it was probably one of the games that he took his sweet time with. Even though it was a game that he himself created, it was like he had developed some form of amnesia and was marvelled at his first time playing such masterpiece. All the twists and events left him in awe, squealing at every single CG when your character goes as little as holding his in-game character’s hand. The more...special scenes had him gulping down his own saliva as a physical reaction, the moans and groans that he recorded from you was when you were stretching in the morning, or when you’re startled or exercising, and yet, it fits so well with each sex scene. His face flushed and his pants felt so tight as he read through the dialogue box, his hand later slipping underneath them just so he could relieve his excitement.

“(Y/N)...Hehe, (Y/N)...♡” He blissfully moans as his hand goes up and down his cock, biting his blue lip in anticipation. Sweat was dripping down his forehead and his flaming hair burned a brighter blue, expressing his excitement. His imagination was going ballistic, imagining your own tightness around him as he slid in and out of your slick insides. The closer the scene reached its climax, the faster his hands became, determine to release at the same time as your character. “Haa...(Y/N)~♡ It feels so good...So good...Haha...”

With a satisfied moan, his own strings of semen shoots against his screen, perfectly coming just in time as your character appears, all flushed and exhausted. Idia let out a sigh, calming down from his high with a few strokes here and there to make sure of a satisfying release.

“Haa...Idia-kun, I love you ♡”

That was his favorite dialogue, no matter how many times he replayed this scene, it never fails to arouse him, making him all warm on the inside. A huge blush covered his cheeks as he smirked, slowly building up into an unhinged chuckle. He brushed his hands down the tainted screen, smudging his cum even more as he imagined it as your face. “Aah...Me too...I love you too, (Y/N)~” He whispered, shivering in excitement. “Aw...I can’t wait to have you for real...Wait for a little while, ‘kay? Hehe...”

This plan was a success and certainly helped him gain the confidence and experience that he needed to finally talk to you properly. Memorizing all the available scenarios and route he can go to, he just felt like he can do just about anything right now. With all these knowledge in mind, you surely won’t be weirded out and things wouldn’t be as awkward as he had already formulated a full conversation on his head. A bad end flag was still left arise, but it was placed so low that Idia can’t just spend another batch of his precious time with it, nothing would go wrong if he just do what he practiced, right? For that reason alone, his birthday was coming up and for the first time in forever, he could use a party as an excuse to talk to you. It doesn’t matter who comes anyway, he’ll have Ortho to accommodate them, Idia’s main focus should only be directed at you.

Plus, if he was going to confess on his birthday, then that’s just a major advantage! Plenty of stuff happens when it’s your own character’s birthday in any game, developers becomes extra generous with the drop rates in gachas, they give you more game currency to spend, and extra scenarios with your favorite characters! Sometimes even free stuff of your choice! This would definitely put his chance rate well above what he expected, it’s you after all!

“Happy birthday, Idia-senpai. I brought this gift for you, I hope you like it.” Ah, there it is, his goddess’ voice echoing through the walls. You said that you were going to conduct a birthday interview with him which got his heart beating like crazy. W-Were you going to start the confession event here!? With all these people!? That’s too daring! Though, that’s really charming of you, and a part of him actually wanted that to happen so he could finally point his fingers to these losers-

But no, unfortunately, he doesn’t have that much confidence to give and so, he ended up having to push you somewhere more secluded. Somewhere more...private. Like his room for example- that’s a good place, right~? Nobody can interrupt this interview that way and...and they can do play all sorts of games right after too...That’s fun, isn’t it!?

The interview was surprisingly fun, although it really just consisted of him ranting to you all about his interests. He ended up spilling all facts about his favorite idol group, games, and movies, his big mouth going off on a tangent once again because of that one question. This wasn’t exactly part of the plan, he was planning to give off a smooth vibe to it but he guessed he was just a tad bit under-level for that. Anyway, you ended gracing him with an adorable giggle so, it doesn’t really affect his motives! He’ll still conquer your route like he did with the game!

A few more questions about his favorite and least favorite food comes, Idia couldn’t help but be impatient. When were you going to activate the scenario, huh? The love confession event, it was the one question that he was waiting for. His heart was ready, his body was ready, his everything was ready...So, why were you standing up with a satisfied look on your face? Aren’t you forgetting something here?

“And that concludes our Birthday Celebration Interview! Idia-senpai, thank you for answering all my-“ Idia’s heart skipped a beat as his hands automatically grabbed your hand and pulled you down, rather aggressively.

“W-Wait! Wait, wait, waitwaitwait-“ Idia stumbled over his words, his face flushed as he stared at you with a crooked but nervous smile. “U-Um...! T-There something else...That I want to tell y-you...”

Oh, no...This was that one scenario in the extreme difficulty mode of the game, where you’re not triggering the confession event at all. You’re probably so conflicted with your emotions that he has to do it himself as the main character. It’s not the original route that he’s going for, but it’s fine, he has the script of this mode in memory too, he should be able to pull it off...That’s weird though, he never remembered activating anything to play in this difficulty...Whatever, real life really is something else, isn’t it?

You were surprised and quite honestly, bothered at his sudden outburst but that’s fine. You were the same in the game too, he just had to take control of the situation. “I-I...” He gathered the words in his head, his face heating up than it ever did before.

“(Y-Y/N)...I like- No...” He stammered as he tries his best to form a nervous smile, his heart was beating so fast but that’s not really something new. “...I love you, (Y/N)...”

Idia heard a slight gasp from you but delusions took over his mind before logic can come bursting through, rendering him practically heart-eyed at the situation. He was distracted, but he still waited for your response even if he was already a hundred percent convinced that his confession was a success. It has to be, he had already seen this exact scenario in the game for a millionth time. “...D-Do you...love me too, (Y/N)...?” He fiddled with the tip of his burning hair, leaning close to you as he knows that it’s a special skill that increases his success rate up to at least twenty percent. “...You l-love me too, don’t you~? Hehe...♡”

Yes. You’re going to say yes. You always had said yes in the game as there was absolutely no reason for you to say otherwise. Everything that happened before this went according to plan, he followed every route, said the correct dialogue choices, so there’s no way that he can fuck this one up. He had definitely conquered your route for real this time!

“Ah...” But he had to wonder though, why were you averting your eyes for? That’s cute, but you don’t have to be shy...Just say that you love him too, he can hardly wait! “Idia-senpai...”

“...I’m sorry.”

Idia blinked, his body freezing on its spot as you bowed in front of him so respectfully. Your mouth began to move to deliver more words of explanation for him to understand, but he just couldn’t hear anything else anymore.

What did you say? You’re...sorry? Haha...For what though? That’s weird, that’s not what you were supposed to say, even if this was set in extra hard mode. He did everything correctly so, no matter what difficulty he’s in, you should be able to accept his confession every time.

...Is it a bug in the system? A glitch that he didn’t see?

You called out to him once again, you called out his name and upon looking up, he could only see your face. So full of concern and pity, but no signs of falling in love whatsover. No...You shouldn’t be looking at him like that, what the hell just happened?

This is all wrong...!

Before Idia could even properly process anything, he had found himself on top of you, both frustration and anger building up inside him. His hand, albeit really shaky, had found itself a dangerous clasp around your neck and your expression suddenly turned white. You’re struggling underneath him, like a deer caught by a hunter, kicking and scratching his arms away. But you were scared, he could tell by that look in your eyes, he could easily squeeze your neck in this position after all.

“I-Idia-senpai...!” He heard you call out but your voice just bounced off his ears, he was too distracted by his own shock. This was not in any of the scenarios that he formulated inside his mind, and he created thousands, for Hades’ sake! His breathing became unstable as he began to hyperventilate, sweating immensely as he tries to wreck his brain for whatever the hell he was supposed to do in this scenario. This wasn’t how the game continues after a confession event! Was he too inexperience or under-level to conquer your route? Did he miss a side quest from you or something? What did he do wrong? Was it the lack of gifts of affection? Normally, you were supposed to say that you love him too, embrace him before the two of you share a kiss and-

...A kiss?

Oh...Oh, that’s right! Maybe this is where the code got rewritten and that the kiss should come first now? Maybe your character was taking a different turn, you were probably shifting to other character types to accommodate your new-found feelings...You’re being a Tsundere, aren’t you~? So cute, but you don’t have to push him away though, he’ll keep coming back to you anyways.

...And so, in hopes of desperation, that’s exactly what he did, he leaned down at you as he smashed his lips onto yours. You widened your eyes with a muffled scream coming out of you, but Idia kept your mouth busy as it is. He was on cloud-nine, enjoying your soft lips against his chapped ones so much so that he just instinctively started grinding his hips against yours. You were starting to panic, but that’s fine, that’s a normal reaction. Both in real life and in-game.

By the time that he finished selfishly sucking up your lips, ultimately creating a little bruise on the side, he pulled away with a string of saliva connecting both your tongues together. Idia giggled to himself, the feeling of your lips and tongue was still lingering on his that he can’t help but be hungry for more. However, looking back at you, he blinked as tears suddenly began to stream down your cheeks. Your chest heaving up and down as small hiccups comes out of your every sob.

It made him panic slightly at first, but then remembered a scenario like this once in the game...Though, it wasn’t a scenario as drastic as this one, that he’ll admit. “A-Ah, you shouldn’t cry...” He tried comforting, letting go of your neck and wiping your tears away with a nervous smile. “Y-You’re not supposed to cry after a c-confession event, it’s not in your file...”

You flinched at his touch. “S-Stop, please...L-Let me go...” You whimpered, lifting your arms up to try and shield yourself away from him. “I-I won’t tell anyone, I-I swear-!”

Idia’s hand twitched, quickly covering your mouth as a nervous rection so that he wouldn’t hear the words that he doesn’t want to hear anymore. He felt scared to touch you now, seeing how defensive you got, his little angel’s crying and it’s all because of him. Your words certainly impacted him, but he shook his head instead, he has to keep himself from looking down.

“...You shouldn’t say that either, that’s not in your script.” He said with a bit of stricter tone onto it, attempting to show you how capable he can really be. He grabbed your wrist and forced your hands open, revealing your terrified expression. “Don’t worry...It’s just a little twist on the story, I’m sure. I just have to restart the system, right...?”

“I-I’ll fix you up soon enough, H-Honey~” You watched him with eyes slowly widening in realization and terror as he started to untie his tie, to remove the birthday outfit that he clearly dislikes. You were frozen, you can’t move, not like you could do much with someone as big as Idia straddling above your stomach but you were left immobile with fear. His use of love words sounds extremely clumsy and Idia himself cringes at the sound of it coming from his own mouth but he’s enthusiastic. That doesn’t make it any less terrifying for you at all.

The game’s not finish yet. It’s just as he expected, there was a little glitch that needs a little fixing. It was the cause of a scenario as unreasonable as this one to appear. But it’s fine. He can fix it all up, he can fix you all up and when he’s done with that, he’ll definitely conquer your route for real this time.

After all, there’s no game that he can’t finish, that would be a shame to his Otaku title! It doesn’t matter if it’s his birthday, he’s going to work all night to fix this very unpleasant glitch in you. What a pain~ Idia wonders what kind of price he’ll get from you after this.

...Not that he’s going to complain anytime soon lol

Idia has the personality of an ugly bastard. Just saying *cough*

#twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere #idia shroud #yandere idia shroud #Birthday Crumbs

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companionjones · 4 years ago

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Santa Claus Is Going To High School With Ethan and Y/n

Fandoms: StarKid, Black Friday, Santa Claus Is Going To High School

Pairings: Ethan Green x Reader, Chris Kringle x Reader

Summary: In the beginning, you were just a loner in high school who had a huge crush on one Ethan Green. You’re a big fan of escapism, and a certain kids movie brings you lots of serotonin. The teenage version of Santa Claus is more attractive than one might think. What happens when you and Ethan get sucked into the kids movie you’ve grown to love, and Chris Kringle starts vying for your attention? Will Ethan actually get jealous?

Warnings: This is long, cursing, speaking of cursed, I AM SO SORRY I MADE THIS

*******

Ethan Green would have rather been at home, smoking weed. Instead, he was at Lakeside Mall with some kid he was babysitting. He took the job because he needed the money for his jalopy that was in the shop. He didn’t mind the kid all that much. The boy, a nine-year-old named Tim, was nice enough. The only problem was that Tim wanted to see a very annoying-looking kids movie in theaters called Santa Claus Is Going To High School.

“Thirty bucks for two tickets? Are you kiddin’?” Ethan griped as he stood outside of the Cineplex. “Fine. But I want a refund if the kid doesn’t like the movie.”

The half-asleep cashier responded detachedly, “We don’t do refunds here, sir.”

Ethan groaned, “Yeah, whatever,” and pulled the kid inside.

In Theater 4, the previews were still playing. All the seats were empty save for one. Ethan recognized the girl in it. He knew her from the hallways at school. It was you.

Silently, you were thankful no one else was in the theater with you. That way, you couldn’t be judged as a teenager seeing a kids movie...for the fifth time. Yes, you were kind of obsessed with Santa Claus Is Going To High School. So what? That was your business, no one else’s. Or, at least, it was until--

“What the hell are you doing, seeing this movie alone?” Ethan Green, the last person in Hatchetfield you wanted to sit next to you in that moment, decided to take a seat.

At a loss for words, you were trying too hard to think of something to say. “Ethan! I...Um...I--”

He chucked, “Relax. I’m not gonna make fun of you or anything. Just because something isn’t my style, that doesn’t mean you can’t like it.”

Completely in shock that someone your age wasn’t going to judge you, you just gaped at him.

Ethan didn’t notice. “Plus, it kinda rocks that you’re here. I thought I was gonna have to watch this movie with just Tiny Tim here. But it doesn’t seem so bad now with you at my side.”

You cursed yourself for giggling. It was always like that with Ethan. You two would get paired together on a school project or something, and he would casually flirt with you like it was nothing. You would fall for it, you two would get really close, then the project would be turned in. After that, whenever you would go up to Ethan in the halls, it would be like the two of you had never spoken before. You hated it, especially after you developed a huge crush on him.

And it was all starting again.

When the movie began, you watched out the corner of your eye as Ethan fought to stay awake. He lasted ten minutes into the movie. Honestly, you were exhausted, too. You were just getting out of a double shift of waiting on tables. You thought you could get through the movie before crashing at home. You fell asleep not three seconds after the leather-clad boy.

Ethan was woken up by a school bell ringing. He found himself sitting in a desk. Disoriented, he looked to his right to find you staring at him in alarm.

“What the hell...” Ethan was able to mumble before the teacher called out to him and you to not be late for your next classes.

He and you stumbled out into the hallway.

Once out there, you whispered to Ethan in distress, “We’re in the movie. We’re in the fucking movie!”

“No. Fuck. No,” Ethan adamantly disagreed, “We’re dreaming. This is impossible. This can’t be real--” Ethan immediately went to help you up when you ran into one of the other students.

The boy you ran into beat Ethan to it, however.

“Oh my god...” you voiced, completely in shock, as the stranger helped you to your feet.

Right in front of you, holding your hand was the reason you came back to watch the kids movie over and over again. There was your #1 comfort character, your biggest crush since Ethan.

He smiled warmly at you. “Hi there. Sorry about bumping into you...Say, you must be new here. What’s your name? I’m Chris Kringle.”

“I know,” you blurted. Upon seeing Chris’ slight confusion, you backtracked, “I mean...You’re all people talk about around here. You must be the most popular kid in school, and you’re almost as new as I am.”

Chris responded charmingly, “Well, that just means that you have a chance at becoming just as popular as I am, and probably even more so because you seem like you’re at the top of the nice list.”

You felt your moth fall open and cheeks heat up from the flattery.

Ethan cleared his throat in an attempt to get Chris’ attention off of you. He didn’t particularly like that Chris Kringle thought it was appropriate to be that friendly with you upon only just meeting you. Chris was also yet to let go of your hand.

He didn’t let go when Ethan got his attention, either.

Ethan had also gotten your attention. “Um, I’m Y/n, and this is my friend, Ethan. This is our, uh, first day.”

“Oh, well you two probably need some friends around here, huh? You’re both welcome to come sledding with us. We’re heading off now,” Chris cheerfully invited.

Ethan answered, “Uh, we actually have something--”

“We’d love to!” you interrupted.

Chris beamed, “Great! Let’s go! Oh, and don’t worry, people always bring extra sleds.”

“What the hell are you thinking, Y/n?” chastised Ethan. “If this isn’t a dream, which I don’t think it is anymore, ‘cause you seem pretty self aware to me, then we gotta figure a way outta here!”

“I don’t think we can get out of this until the plot of the movie plays out to the end, which is this Friday at the championship game against South Heights. I think all we can do is wait it out.”

Ethan blanched, “Friday?! But I left Tim alone in that theater!”

“Haven’t you ever seen a movie like this?” you questioned, “Jumanji? Teen Beach Movie? I’m almost positive no time will have passed once we get out of this.”

“So what? You just want to go sledding with Chris Kringle until the game on Friday?” Ethan questioned.

Lamely, you answered, “...Yes.”

Ethan was rendered defeated by your hopeful eyes. He huffed out, “Fine.”

Happiness overtook your face. “Thank you!” you celebrated.

Ethan avoided your gaze due to how adorable he thought that was. Then, a new idea caused him to smirk, “Wait, how do you know how the movie’s going to play out?”

“I...might’ve seen the movie more than once,” you explained. It was your turn to avoid your friend’s gaze. “...Four times, not including this one.”

Ethan’s eyebrows shot up, “Four times?! Why the hell do you like this movie that much?” Just then, he followed your gaze to Chris Kringle. It clicked in his head. “Oh...”

Your gaze dropped to the ground. You bit your lip, embarrassed.

Both you and Ethan followed Chis to a large hill where a bunch of students had gathered to go sledding. You were able to borrow two extra sleds from a couple of students. After the first few trips down the hell, you and Ethan finally got used to the fact that the two of you were sledding in a Christmas movie with Santa Claus. Or maybe, you two had finally given into the insanity.

You were standing at the top of the hill, waiting your turn with Chris when he asked you, “So, what’s the deal with you and Ethan?”

“Me and Ethan?” You were shocked that someone besides yourself could see you and the Green boy like that. “Oh, no. We’re just friends.”

Chris wondered, “Is there a chance at something more?”

“Definitely not. Sorry. I guess I fucked up my Christmas wish, huh Santa?” Fuck. You did not mean to say that.

Kringle panicked, “Wait, you know I’m Santa?!”

“I, uh--Yes. I do, but you didn’t tell me, so Father Christmas’ spell is still intact. Tell Jingle and Jangle that before they freak out.”

“YOU CAN SEE MY ELVES TOO?!”

“NO! No, I can’t!” you assured, trying not to stress out Chris anymore.

He furrowed his brow, still breathing heavy. “Then, how’d you know I’m...”

“I...just got that vibe from you?” you lied, cringing because you couldn’t think of a better explanation than that.

Somehow, Chris bought that, but he still had another question. “Then, how’d you know about Jingle and Jangle?”

“Well, I see you talking to them all the time.” That actually wasn’t that much of a lie. Chris was pretty bad at talking his elves on the downlow all throughout the movie.

Chris bit his lip. “Oh. Um, you won’t tell anyone about my secret, will you?”

He had stepped closer, and your heart had sped up in response. You gazed into his eyes, a smile tugging at your lips. “Of course I won’t, Chris.”

“Are you two going to actually sled, or just stand up here talking?” Ethan asked as he approached you and Chris.

Chris, oblivious to the pissed off look on Ethan’s face, laughed and answered, “Sled.” He hopped on his sled and flew down the hill.

“What the hell was that for?” You angrily questioned Ethan.

He played dumb. “What are you talking about?”

“Interrupting us like that? We were...in the middle of something, Ethan.” You were glad you stopped yourself from saying ‘We were having a moment.’ That would’ve been embarrassing.

Green argued, “Didn’t you say the plot of the movie’s supposed to play out?”

“Yeah. So what?”

He wondered, “Doesn’t Chris have a love interest somewhere?”

“Her name is Noelle,” you answered.

Ethan sighed, “Of course it is...Y/n,” he got your attention again. “Are you sure you want to get in the way of that?”

Your mouth slammed shut and your jaw clenched.

Chris got you to turn to him by shouting your name from the bottom of the hill. He motioned you to join him.

Glancing between him and Ethan, you chose to ignore the latter for the moment. You sledded down the hill.

You successfully steered clear of the leather-clad boy for the rest of the time you spent sledding.

That annoyed Ethan, but he knew you couldn’t avoid him forever.

When everybody headed back home late that night, you and Ethan didn’t have a home to return to. The two of you decided to head back to Northville High. You and Ethan got lucky. The window to the staff lounge was open. The two of you slid in, and the school was yours.

“Okay, so we have to find a place that we can sleep in where nobody will accidentally find us tomorrow...” you thought out loud.

Ethan was still hung up on your conversation earlier. “Are we not going to talk about--”

“Can we just worry about where we’re sleeping tonight?” you urged.

Ethan sighed, knowing that talking about it was also something you couldn’t avoid forever.

Eventually, you and Ethan found the boiler room. Ethan agreed with you that it was secluded enough that no one would catch you. The two of you got lucky again when you found that there were enough sweaters and blankets in lost-and-found for makeshift beds.

At one point, you asked Ethan, “You cold?”

He was shivering. Ethan was probably the least prepared clothing-wise to spend hours sledding on a hill. He was feeling the effects of that then. Not that he’d ever tell you. “N-no. I’m g-g-g-good.”

“Yeah, right.” You rolled your eyes before waling over to the boiler and turning it on.

Ethan’s cheeks tinged in pink. “T-thanks.”

“No problem, Ethan.” You approached your bed again and covered yourself in blankets. “You know, you’ve always had issues with asking for help.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Ethan didn’t mean for that to sound as mean as it did.

That didn’t seem to affect you though. “The school projects we worked on together,” you explained, “I always had to find all these covert ways to help you out ‘cause you wouldn’t let me do it directly.” A faint smile was playing at your lips, like you were remembering those things fondly.

Ethan never noticed how much you’d helped him. He didn’t like to admit it, but he had a really tough time in school. As he thought about it, however, Ethan realized that when he did projects with you, the material he was learning didn’t seem as difficult as it normally was. You made things easier for Ethan to understand. That was really nice of you, he thought. He felt bad for never thanking you before for all you did. “...Thanks for turning on the boiler...” Ethan tried. He figured it was a start.

“Any time, Green,” you smiled before turning away from him and settling into bed.

The next morning, you and Ethan snuck into the halls when school started. Chris quickly found the both of you. He’d brought you both pumpkin spice hot chocolate.

“Oh, wow,” you commented when Chris handed you the beverage. You were truly surprised and flattered. “Thank you so much, Chris! This is so nice!”

He brushed it off. “It’s really no problem. I got them from the cafeteria. We’ve got pumpkin spice for days here at Northville High.”

You actually giggled at that. Then, you promptly got lost in Chris’ eyes again. You would’ve been embarrassed if you were even paying attention.

Well, apparently Ethan was. He scoffed, causing you to look at him, and he grumbled, “I guess I should leave you two to it. I...gotta get to class.” He practically stomped off.

Your eyes followed Ethan as he went. You wondered what in the world was wrong with him.

Chris got your notice again when he asked, “So, what’s your first period class? I’ll walk you to it.”

“Um...what’s your first period class?” you asked quickly.

He shrugged, “Statistics--”

“No way! Me too!” you lied. “Let’s go,” you suggested before he could become suspicious.

“So tonight, everyone figured we’d go ice skating. You wanna join us?” he offered, “Ethan can come too if he’d like.”

“Uh...thanks! We’d love to go,” you smiled, cursing yourself in the back of your head for speaking for Ethan again. You bit your lip, knowing what you had to ask. You weren’t exactly looking forward to knowing the answer. “Is Noelle going to be there?”

He furrowed his brow. “You know Noelle?”

“Um, yeah,” you lied, “I’ve seen her...in the halls.”

He believed it. “Oh.”

“She’s um...pretty. Isn’t she?” You hated that you were talking up someone else to your crush, but you also knew that Chris was destined to end up with her.

Chris’ eyes widened in slight realization. “Oh. I didn’t know you swung that way. Do you...like guys?”

Huh. Santa’s an ally.

“Um...” Shyly, you nodded. You felt your cheeks thinking about the implications of his question.

He just smiled. “Good!”

You spent the whole day following Chris to his classes. It was a dream. Chris kept freezing your desk with his powers and doodling little snowflakes and Christmas trees on it. It reminded you of Jack Frost in Rise of the Guardians. It was really cute too. The teacher had to tell you to quiet down several times because you were giggling too much.

At the end of the school day, you ran into Ethan again.

He’d spent the day mostly in the boiler room. He figured that he was spending enough time in regular school. He wasn’t about to spend more time in a fictional one.

When he saw you again, and you awkwardly brought up that you had signed both you and him up to go ice skating, he said, “Whatever,” which meant he’d go. The main reason he agreed was because he preferred anything over the blank cement walls of the boiler room.

He just didn’t consider one thing.

“Ethan, do you know how to skate?” you wondered, skating over to the boy hugging the wall.

“Psh, of course I do,” he lied shakily, tightening his grip on the solid, non-slippery surface. “I just, uh...like it better over here.”

You laughed. “Come here.” You took his hand.

Ethan panicked. “Whoa, whoa. What’re you doing?”

“Relax. I’m not gonna let go of you,” you assured. “Just one foot after the other, like this.”

Slowly, you started leading him around the rink.

For a little while, Ethan felt like he was actually getting it. One bad step though, and he started to freak out again. “Whoa, whoa!” he shouted.

“It’s alright, it’s alright!” you tried to say, but it was too late. You stayed true to your word, though. You didn’t let go of Ethan. You went down with him.

He was mostly scared of the act of falling down, so after that part was over, he was mostly concerned with the pain in his backside.

Ethan looked over to you to complain that you had let him fall, but he found you losing yourself in laughter. He forgot what he was going to say. Watching you, Ethan felt his heart speed up and a smile growing on his lips. Soon, both of you were laughing your asses off.

Eventually, you and Ethan had gotten your shit together enough to stand up. The two of you went over to customer services at the rink to get ice packs for your fresh bruises.

“Sorry, I guess I should’ve told you that I...uh...” Ethan trailed off.

You finished for him, “You’ve never been ice skating before in your life?”

“Yeah...” Ethan smiled because you started laughing again.

“It’s fine,” you shrugged off. “I guess I should’ve asked you if you knew how to skate before volunteering you for something against your will...again.”

Ethan was about to say he didn’t mind. He was about to say that the past couple days with you had been the most fun he’d had in a long time.

But then, Chris approached the two of you. “There you guys are! I’ve been looking all over for you! Y/n, I was wondering if you’d like to skate, um...with me for a bit.”

“Oh! Um...”

There it was. Chris was going to come along, yet again, and sweep you off your feet. You were going to say yes to Santa Creep, and Ethan would be left alone for the rest of the--

“Ethan and I are actually gonna head back home,” you replied to Chris, interrupting Ethan’s thoughts. “We’ve been skating for a while, and we’re both pretty tired. I’ll see you tomorrow though, okay?”

Chris seemed a little disappointed by your words. Ethan tried not to become too happy from the look on Kringle’s face.

“Oh...okay,” Chris replied, “I’ll see you tomorrow...”

Back in the boiler room, Ethan was still stuck on what had occurred at the ice skating rink. “You know...you didn’t have to come back with me...”

“Hmm?” You turned to Ethan and furrowed your brow.

He went on, “You didn’t have to come back with me ‘cause I don’t know how to skate. I coulda come back by myself. You could’ve kept having fun at the rink...with Chris.” Ethan had to physically push those last two words out.

“Nah, I didn’t really feel like it,” you answered with a shrug. “I’m probably not going to be skating for a while with these new bruises you gave me,” you teased, but your voice grew softer. “Plus, I wanted to spend more time with you.”

Ethan’s heart stopped. He looked away from you in an attempt to hide the growing blush on his cheeks.

“Goodnight, Ethan,” you bid before turning over in your makeshift bed, and laying down to rest.

Ethan’s last thoughts as he fell asleep that night was how the four concrete walls of the boiler room didn’t seem that lifeless with you there.

The following day was Friday. For the students of Northville High, it was the last day ‘til Winter Break, and the championship basketball game was that night. For you and Ethan, it was the last day of the movie. Santa Claus Is Going To High School was supposed to end after the big game against South Heights.

You and Ethan ran into Chris in the cafeteria during breakfast. He had more pumpkin spice hot chocolate for the both of you. “Hey guys! I forgot to tell you last night, but since it’s the last day of school, there’s caroling in the halls today. Students who join don’t have to go to classes. Do you guys wanna carol with me?”

To prevent yourself from immediately responding “Yes!” you bit your lip. You looked to Ethan. You didn’t want to speak for him again.

He glanced to you, and it looked like he was about to reject the offer, but then he thought about it for a second. “You said it gets us out of classes?” Ethan asked.

Chris nodded.

Ethan sighed, “Yeah...okay.”

A smile broke out across your face. You couldn’t help but hug Ethan. “This is going to be so fun!” You felt Ethan’s body stiffen, and to it to mean that he thought it was weird that you were hugging him. You quickly separated from him.

You dismissed the pink painting his cheeks as you seeing things.

The actual singing part of caroling was pretty boring. The group of students you were with would just stop at random places in the hallway for a song or two. People in nearby classrooms would come out to watch you guys and get a little time off from class.

What made caroling so much fun though were Chris and Ethan. Between stops, the three of you would mess around in an effort to make each other laugh. Well, while you were trying to make both Ethan and Chris laugh, it had turned into a bit of competition between the two of them to get you to laugh. Personally, you didn’t notice any malice between the two of them, but you were too busy laughing to notice much anyway.

Throughout the day, everyone held their own books that had in them all the carols everyone was singing. Chris stole your book, and you had to go through the whole song and dance (no pun intended) of trying to get it back. Chris easily dodged you every time you went for the book.

At one point, you tripped over your feet while going for your book. Chris caught you before you fell, and for a second he just gazed at you with wide eyes. Then, something insane happened.

Chris Kringle kissed you. The boy, the fictional character you’d had a crush on since his movie came out, liked you enough to actually kiss you. You were frozen to your spot.

Kringle must’ve taken that as a negative reaction. He parted from you.

“Y/n...”

You heard a shocked voice behind you before you could say a word to Chris. You turned around and saw Ethan’s highly concerned face.

Suddenly, the bell rang. It was signaling the end of the school day. The sound made you jump.

“...I...I have to go, Y/n,” Chris told you. “Coach said he wants us in the gym as soon as the bell rings.”

You were reminded of the championship basketball game. “Right. Go,” you encouraged.

“Come to the game later. We can talk there,” he offered.

“Okay,” you nodded.

Chris left. You and Ethan were suddenly alone in the hallway.

Ethan stated, “I can’t believe he just kissed you.”

“I can’t believe he just kissed me either.” You exhaled for probably the first time since Chris’ lips were on yours. You couldn’t stop a small smile from forming.

“You don’t want to kiss him again, do you?”

The question made your smile vanish. You avoided Ethan’s gaze.

“Y/n, you can’t want any of that. None of this is even real!”

Your face started burning from embarrassment and anger, but you fought back anyway. “So what?” you shouted. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen?”

Ethan clearly hadn’t expected your voice to raise as well.

“Dammit, Ethan,” you really didn’t care anymore, “I’ve liked you for such a long time, but you never noticed me! The only reason you sat next to me in the theater was because I was the only person there. You had no other option. But Chris, he had all the options! And he chose me! Do you have any idea how that feels?”

You had shocked Ethan into silence.

“Look, I’m going to the gym to watch Chris practice. Come, don’t come, I don’t care.” It was true. You didn’t care. At that point, you didn’t care that the movie was supposed to play out a certain way. You left Ethan alone in the hallway and headed toward the gymnasium.

It took Ethan about a minute to even move. So many thoughts were running though his head. He was right to be mad at you, right? The movie had to end a certain way, or else you and him ran the chance of never going home. But then, there was the revelation that you had just unloaded on Ethan. You liked him? Like, liked him, liked him? The more he thought about it, the more obvious your crush became to him, and worse he felt about how he treated you in the past.

Ethan also started to realize that, maybe he liked you like that, too. Maybe he wasn’t just worried about the movie’s plot. Maybe he was so concerned about Chris’ behavior around you because he was jealous.

And that brought Ethan back to how he had acted around you in the past. Had he really been so bad? Yes. He’d been so concerned about his bad boy image that he pushed you aside whenever the two of you were around other students. He couldn’t imagine doing that after all you two had gone through in that movie. Ethan didn’t want to be away from you at all anymore, and that included right in that moment as well.

Ethan knew he was going to have to admit a lot of things to you to get a chance at getting you back. He only hoped it wasn’t too late. He glanced up at a clock in the hallway and realized he only had ten minutes ‘til the game started.

Meanwhile, you were looking at the same time on a clock in a hallway outside the gym.

“Y/n.” Chris came jogging up to you. “Thank you so much for meeting me here.”

“Uh...Hey, Chris,” you swallowed, dread filling you. You’d had some time to think since your argument with Ethan. You were still very angry with the leather-clad boy, and you still cared about Chris a lot, but Ethan was right about one thing. The movie needed to play out a certain way. You had no choice but to get out of the way of that.

Chris noticed your unease. “Are you alright, Y/n?”

You took a deep breath, preparing to let Chris down easy. “Um, we need to talk, Chris--”

“Wait,” he interrupted you, “I know what you’re going to say. Y/n, I’m sorry I kissed you. It was pretty naughty of me to get in the way of the movie.”

You blinked. Completely disregarding that ‘naughty’ line, you asked, “How’d you know that?”

At that, he just smiled, “I’m Santa Claus, remember? It’s also how I know it was your Christmas wish to start dating Ethan.”

“Wait, you’ve known this whole time that we’re in a movie? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He chuckled, seemingly embarrassed. “I was trying not to mess up the plot. Stay in character, you know? I guess I really fucked that up, kissing you.”

“Wow, I never thought I’d hear Chris Kringle curse,” you laughed.

“You just came out of no where, Y/n. Quite literally. I had no idea I’d...like you this much when I brought you here.”

Eyes nearly popping out of your head, you almost yelled, “You brought us here?!”

There was an echo. It was Ethan, who had just arrived on the scene. “Why the hell would you do that?” he frantically asked.

Chris just smirked, “You two will find out soon enough.”

The buzzer in the gym sounded, signaling the game was going to start soon.

Chris turned to you. “Y/n, I want you to hang onto my jacket for me.” He handed you his letterman. “Don’t worry about the plot of the movie, I’ll take care of it. I’m...really going to miss you, Y/n. Ethan, you got very lucky with this gift. Be very nice to them.”

He kissed you on the cheek and ran off before you could say something in return. You absentmindedly put on Chris’ letterman and turned to Ethan. Your plan was to try and explain away Chris’ leading last words to Ethan, but before you could:

“I really like you, Y/n,” Ethan blurted.

Your words got caught in your throat.

Ethan quickly continued, “I’ve only really noticed how I feel in the past couple days in this movie, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t liked you for a long time. I’m sorry for acting like such an asshole. I really don’t know how you continued to be nice to me after all that...”

He continued to ramble on, but some twinkling above your head caught your eye. You smiled when you looked up and saw it. “Hey, Ethan?”

Your voice immediately shut him up as he gazed at you.

“Look up,” you quietly prompted.

Hanging above the two of you was a beautiful little mistletoe.

“I...uh...” Ethan swallowed. “Does this mean you’ll forgive me?”

You smirked, “Well, I guess that depends on whether or not you’re a good kisser.”

Ethan’s face broke out in a grin as well. He hooked an arm around your waist and pulled you close enough where your heads barely had to move at all to kiss.

You were woken up in the movie theater by the kid Ethan was babysitting—Tim, as Ethan had called him—cheering because Chris Kringle had successfully used the ‘Santa Swap’ to win the championship game against South Heights. At least, you thought Ethan had called him Tim. Did Ethan only say that while you and him were trapped in the movie? Was any of that real at all?

Dread filled you when you started to think that Ethan had never actually kissed you, it had been a dream. That dread doubled when you realized that you had fallen asleep on Ethan’s shoulder.

You slowly started to raise your head because you had a feeling that Ethan had fallen asleep too, and you thought maybe you could save yourself some embarrassment.

However, as soon as he could, and at the same time Chris kissed Noelle in the movie, Ethan kissed you too. “I just had the most amazing dream,” he whispered to you once you parted.

Several thoughts raced through your head. Was it a dream? Is it possible for two people to have the same dream? Yet, you quickly realized that it didn’t matter because Ethan had just kissed you. He liked you! You finally got your Christmas wish.

As you and Ethan walked out of the theater hand-in-hand, Ethan asked Tim, “So, nothing seemed weird about that movie, kid?”

Tim shrugged it off. “Nope.”

“Huh,” Ethan turned to you, you guessed probably to ask you how much you remembered, but Ethan gasped when he saw what you were wearing. “Holy shit.”

Following Ethan’s eyeline, you spotted what had freaked him out so much. “Holy shit,” you repeated.

You were still wearing Chris’ letterman.

*******

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading! Fill up that heart and reblog if you liked it! I would also really appreciate a comment, if you have the time. If you would like to read more, I have more fics over on my page. You should check it out. Have a nice day, night, or whatever time it is for you! <3 <3 <3

#starkid #black friday #black friday starkid #santa claus is going to high school #ethan green #ethan green x reader #chris kringle #chris kringle x reader #robert manion #santa claus is going to high school with ethan and y/n #companion jones #i really have to go to the bathroom atm

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wearetakingthehobbitstogallifrey · 5 years ago

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Kdrama recs Part 1

Hullo and welcome to the kdrama life @camsthisky! The following list is not in any particular order, other than the fact that I start with a more rom/com vibe and head toward more romantic/action or action. All the following kdramas are set in the modern day, and part 2 of my recs for you will be either darker kdramas set in present day or historical dramas.

Let the list begin!

1. Strong Woman Do Bong Soon:

Do Bong Soon is a v smol woman who has super strength and who wants 1. To create her own video game 2. Get her police officer crush to return her affections. Which like, police officer is kinda cute but he ain’t that special. Bong Soon winds up becoming a bodyguard to Ahn Min Hyuk, the extremely rich, kinda spoiled, ridiculously extra CEO of a gaming company who does not like the police for secret reasons, and sadly does not have a good relationship with his family. (He a lonely boy underneath everything.) Min Hyuk finds out about Bong Soon’s powers, is in TOTAL awe of her, offers to train her in fighting, and literally falls head over heels for her.

The caveat with this show is there is a subplot or two that annoy me, BUT I just use the 10 second skip button and it is totally worth it because the romance is super cute—SUPER CUTE (also I have a list of favorite actors and Park Hyung Sik is def on it—one minute he is an adorkable, blushing bby the next he can be intense and sad)

He cute

2. Her Private Life:

Hello fake-dating!! Ryan Gold (an adoptee who didn’t live in Korea for a while) is a former artist who stopped painting because he couldn’t deal with his Stendhol (?) syndrome (among other traumas). Deok Mi is the classy art curator of a famous museum who definitely does not have any secrets she wants to keep from the world—well, other than the fact that she is the number one fangirl of kpop idol, Cha Shi-an (who also appreciates art) and has a major crush on him. Ryan becomes director of the art museum and there is a whole thing with getting Shi-an involved in an art show.

Following this and a series of unfortunate events a false rumor starts that Deok Mi and and Shi-an ARE dating. It’s a little complicated to summarize, but basically what you need to know is that Ryan and Deok Mi become a fake couple so there won’t be a scandal for Shi-an or violence done to Deok Mi by rabid fangirls. I enjoy the fake-dating trope a lot, and how it becomes real for both of them! The leads are played by Kim Jae Wook and Park Min Young, who both have incredible range. Lots of soft moments in this one! Good kisses, a scene where the faves bake together, and also Ryan wears a lot of deep v-neck shirts and jackets which is an attack on me personally.

The show also contains a bit of angst, which I LOVE. Hand-holding becomes an important theme 😊

RYAN NO

3. Crash Landing on You: Rich South Korean heiress/fashion designer Se-ri accidentally winds up in a North Korean village, and really REALLY wants to go home. Mostly because there are no scented candles or spa-like bathtubs in the vicinity, but also because she could easily disappear into a NK jail and never return. A North Korean captain named Ri Jeong Hyeok finds her and decides not to turn her because, one, he’s a good guy who doesn’t want to turn an innocent person over to what might be her death, and two, turning her over might get his four underlings in trouble for reasons. Said underlings are his family, basically, and they are a deLIGHT. One is an argumentative proud sort who likes to drink and to feel important and who tries to provoke (and gets provoked by) Se-ri at every opportunity, one is a lover of banned South Korean dramas, one is a 17 year old bby who misses his mom, and one is the silent but most loyal follower of the captain.

Besides all these people, there are two other characters (including a surprisingly wise conman) who become faves and major players in the plot.

There is a great mix of humor, romance, found family, and angst, and I love it very much. A few things don’t go the way I want them to near the end, but a bit of imagination and fanfic can fix anything

ALSO I FORGOT THE CAPTAIN GETS SUPER SULKY FROM TIME TO TIME AND IT IS HILARIOUS

Show of hands, who thinks they will meet again

4. Are You Human Too: A FAVORITE SHOW OF ALL! TIME!

What do you do when your husband dies and your evil mega-rich father-in-law takes your son away from you and keeps you from seeing him ever? Well, if you are scientist with more genius than positive coping methods, you build yourself a robot son who looks exactly like your real son. Great solution, am I right?

Nam Shin III is the name of my favorite robot son, played by the inestimable Seo Kang Joon. He is the purest bby you will ever meet, being designed so that he never lies and so that he will immediately go to hug anyone who cries. He seems quite a contrast to the bitter human Nam Shin, who hates his gilded prison life, hates his Grandpa, and tries to sneak away from his right hand man, Secretary Ji Young Hoon, his only friend in the world. The girl in the show is Kang So Bong, an ex-UFC fighter who was so badly injured she had to quit. She is at first a bit jaded and mercenary because of her past, but she has a golden heart that just needs to be reminded of its existence.

Not going into details to avoid spoilers, but everything upends when the robot Nam Shin has to take the place of the human Nam Shin. The show is a soft, funny, angsty exploration of what it means to be human, with some good found family throughout. The character development is phenomenal, and the connection between So Bong and Nam Shin III is *chef’s kiss*. I just want to give a shout out to Seo Kang Joon who plays a duel role like you wouldn’t believe, to SKJ’s smile, to the soundtrack, and to the character of Young Hoon, a loyal, steady, and self-sacrificing secretary that we do not deserve (gosh tho he looks good in blue!)

Look at my robot son getting a long-looked for affirmation! (his lil smile!!!

5. W: Two Worlds:

This show unique because it meta as HELL! Oh Yeon Joo is a junior doctor and the daughter of a webtoon artist whose big hit, W, is coming to a close. Much to her surprise, she gets pulled into the world of the comic where she encounters and saves the main character, Kang Chul, a former Olympic shooting champion who was blamed for the murder of his entire family, and whose sole desire is to find the real killer. It’s a good romance between them, and I also love Kang Chul’s relationship with his hyung, which, tho it is not always a main focus, is present and wonderful. Kang Chul himself is both intelligent and adorably bratty, charismatic and angsty, soft and fierce, and he is one of my favorite kdrama characters for sure.

As for the meta, the show does a fantastic job exploring the rules of the comic world, of how one can enter and leave, the importance and power of main characters and supporting characters, and the purpose of an author. There is always another twist coming, and it is just so much fun!

UM SIR PLS POINT THAT ELSEWHERE

6. Healer:

I watched half this show and never realized that the female lead is played by Park Min Young, same actress as in Her Private Life. Someone had to tell me lol! She’s just so good at playing different people. In this show, she is Chae Young Shin, a reporter for a celebrity tabloid who has big dreams of becoming a famous reporter who investigates stories that actually mean something. She is a bit quirky, very cute, very brave, and probably one of my favorite female leads. She lives with her dad above his coffee/teashop bakery and is friends with all the ex-cons he has defended while doing his other job of lawyering.

Anyway this show is more of a romantic/action drama. To get an idea of the titular Healer, picture what you would get if you took some of Batman and Nightwing’s aesthetics (wearing black, hanging out on rooftops, punching people, flipping around, etc) and put them into a night courier who likes to watch National Geographic and dream about one day going off to an island where he can live all by himself for the rest of his days because oh yeah he is a loner whose only friend is an older woman who sets up his jobs and whom he has never actually met.

There is also an older reporter that Young Shin looks up to, the fun tabloid office where she works, a heck lot of mystery surrounding some tragedy involving a group of reporter best friends/found family back in the 80’s/90’s, and of course both members of the OTP have childhood trauma that has made them who they are today. One of my favorite things that happens in the show is that Healer has to go undercover for a while, Clark Kenting it up in Young Shin’s tabloid office, which overnight becomes a real news agency for reasons.

The action is LOTS of fun, and the romance is really soft and cute, and better still, when there is a misunderstanding or something that gets in their way, they almost immediately talk about it and resolve issues. They TRUST each other and give the benefit of the doubt where many tv couples would break up or get in big fights. I find it (plus the character development) very refreshing.

I couldn’t find a gif of my favorite fight sadly. This will have to do

7. Lawless Lawyer: This has Lee Joon Gi. Watch it.

Just kidding, there are many other reasons to watch the show, but it is true that Lee Joon Gi is one of my favorite actors. The man has phoenix eyes, a jawline that could cut silk, diamonds, you name it, and such a deep well of emotional acting that it literally kills me when his characters rage/weep/love/etc.

Anyway, in this legal thriller/romance/action drama, LJG’s character Bong Sang Pil is a beautiful, very extra ex-gangster/now lawyer who opens his own office, ready to fight villainy and avenge his mom with the law or with his fists, whichever is more useful at the time. He has a right hand man named Manager Tae and recruits a bunch of thugs as his minions, and they all become a weird sort of family as the show goes on.

Ha Jae Yi is a quiet badass lawyer who has no time for sexist idiots and gets her license suspended for smacking one of said fools. She gets recruited to assist Sang Pil, and they find their goals align as both their mothers were destroyed by the villains.

Speaking of the villains? EXCELLENT acting by them all, like they need to go down obviously, but you can’t help but be in awe of a few of them or even get attached to one or two in a weird way. Props to the show for having one of the best female villains I have ever seen

What an icon

Here you get two gifs of him

Sorry I needed to make it a magical three lol

Tune in next time for historical dramas and modern dramas that are a bit darker!

#kdrama recommendations #lawless lawyer #healer #w two worlds #are you human too #her private life #strong woman do bong soon #crash landing on you #kdrama recs for cam #my kdrama recs

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forasecondtherewedwon · 4 years ago

Text

The Stripping Point

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: E (explicit sexual content) Word count: 6387

Happy Birthday, @spiderman-homecomeme!

Summary: Peter's ready to turn his new hobby into a profitable sideline. Unfortunately, he writes down his very first client's address incorrectly and shows up at the wrong house.

MJ opens the door to find some guy dressed as Spider-Man and decides the best way to mess with him is to let him stay. Almost immediately, she loses the upper hand.

Quarantine puts people out of work. A lotta people at first, then less, but never Peter. He keeps shooting for the Bugle, lugging his camera all over the city (instead of squeezing onto buses and subway cars that never really get that much less crowded) while he breathes heavily through his mask. He only takes pictures at outdoor spaces to try to avoid both crowds and loners who hassle him for taking preventative measures during the pandemic. They’re stressed, he gets that, but Peter doesn’t wanna be anywhere near conflict. Spider-Man, on the other hand… Well, when he puts on that mask, it’s pretty much business as usual. He appreciates his face covering more than ever and, hey, it’s cool to do a job with social distancing built in.

His gratitude for the web-slinging side-gig only increases as the weeks of pandemic life stretch into months and Jameson starts ordering him back into situations that are just plain stupid from a health perspective. Never mind that he got kinda accidentally stabbed the other week. It’s a totally different set of dangers. Peter resists the new assignments and because Jameson’ll be in deep shit if his number one Spider-Man photographer makes a fuss about working conditions (and because people are getting so desperate for employment that he can pay a new hire even less than Peter’s paltry freelancing rate), the Bugle shells out for another photographer to cover the work Peter won’t do. Good for Peter’s health, bad for Peter’s bank account―which is already whimpering with hunger pangs from sitting near-empty after paying rent. This gets him thinking. It might be time to turn his early-quarantine hobby into his mid-to-late-quarantine money-maker.

Yeah, pandemic hobbies! By April, it seemed to him like everybody was picking something up. Bread-making, yoga, sewing masks for healthcare workers left criminally under-equipped. The hobby Peter picked up, well… it’s a little different. He began practicing it indoors (obviously), by himself, and with skills gained from reading and watching material on the internet. In those ways, it’s a lot like other people’s hobbies. In some other ways, it’s very, very different. Like, instead of putting on specialized clothing like an apron or yoga pants, Peter’s hobby requires taking clothes off. It’s stripping. Peter’s hobby is stripping.

A few things led to him picking that over sourdough or Sun Salutations. Peter loves not only old movies but also old music. Old movies with iconic dance scenes? That’s, like, the perfect combo. He spends a lot of his downtime playing music in his apartment and, when he’s not wiped or injured, dancing along. He figures it’s good for his mood as well as his fitness. Seriously, he can only do so many chin-ups on the metal bar braced in his bathroom doorframe (which is starting to crack). Patrick Swayze’s solo routine from the end of Dirty Dancing is way more fun, even if Peter did tear the knees on a couple pairs of sweatpants because of it. The more music he listened to, the more he started freestyling his own moves in between those of leading men. It was that―trying to create something good of his own―that helped him understand the routines he watched. He figured out the balance between precision and sex appeal and somewhere in there, he realized he was performing for an audience in his head. And what this imaginary audience wanted wasn’t always the goofiness of acting out Risky Business and sliding across the short strip of bare floor between his kitchen and living room in socks, underwear, and a white shirt. Sometimes, the audience wanted him to lose the shirt.

At that point, Peter was once again wandering out of what he knew. He was comfortable with movie dances, had a little of his own repertoire, but he lacked this extra element of storytelling; it was the one that took him from fully dressed down to boxers and socks without tripping and struggling and falling into his meager possessions. That was when he turned to the internet and confronted the fact that he wanted to learn how to strip. If he happened to stumble into related tutorials on how to give a lap dance, who would know? Who was there to judge Peter as he performed for an empty kitchen chair, dragging his hand along the back and body-rolling to buck his hips towards where someone’s face would be? Yeah, it was kinda embarrassing while he was learning, but he had the endurance to try a move over and over until he nailed it, the strength to draw out isolated movements like twitching his hips to keep his butt drawing circles on the lap of his invisible patron, and the overall coordination of, well, Spider-Man. Which ends up being the most important piece of all because, when Peter decides to take his show on the road (or at least out of his tiny apartment), his ‘stage’ name requires about a second of thought. Spider-Man. He’ll go by Spider-Man. He laughs his ass off when he thinks of it. It’s fucking genius! Spider-Man stripping as himself is the last thing anyone would ever suspect!

Naturally, Peter can’t use any of his actual Spidey suits. Those would probably give him away. Also, he’d feel weird about having Karen’s voice in his ear while he flexed his abs next to somebody’s head. Fortunately, after a little digging―which turns into a lot of digging and leaves his room a mess of comingled clean and dirty clothes―he finds his original suit. The zip-up hoodie plus sweatpants one. Yeah, its technological capabilities are basically zero, it’s a little grimy, and too tight, but he doesn’t need it to do anything besides come off. The wear-and-tear will lend genuine-fake authenticity to his character and the snugness around his more developed muscles (it’s been a decade since he wore it last) will make it… sexier? He guesses? The most important thing is the mask, which is the only part of his costume he won’t strip off. Apart from his underwear, obviously. He’s not that wild.

He gets to work cutting a vertical line up each leg of his sweatpants, then sews in snaps. Boom, tearaways. They look kinda shitty, but if he’s any good at all, whoever he dances for shouldn’t be staring at loose threads.

So Peter has his moves, his costume, a few songs in mind, and no engagements. Oh, he thinks he can figure out how to get jobs, it’s just that he somehow keeps coming home, sitting down to compose his ad, and then doing something completely different instead. He’s truly scared witless. Nobody’ll see your face, he chants in his mind to psych himself up every time he’s heading home to his apartment. Still, he freezes at his laptop. There’s nothing about his body that he’s ashamed of―he uses it every single day to help people as Spider-Man. Maybe it’s that, this time, he’d be using it to help himself. Is he a monster for making a buck off his superhero persona? Peter holds onto that question for about a week until the date to pay rent is approaching and his bank account shudders in horror. Ok, money’s tight and he hasn’t been hit by a car lately, so he won’t freak anybody out with road rash or bruising or more of his hand-sewing to close gashes. With a little self-pedicure here and hair-removal there, Peter looks at himself in his bathroom mirror and decides this is as good a time as any.

He advertises online and his hands are still trembling when he gets a call from an unfamiliar number ten minutes after his ad goes live. The ringing phone actually makes him jump. It’s probably a telemarketer, or a wrong number. Nobody would call him with a job this fast. He was counting on having at least a day to sit with the choice he made. Peter fumbles for the phone and answers. For the next minute and a half, he struggles to hear the woman’s voice over the blood rushing in his ears. She thinks he’s the Spider-Man Stripper. He is the Spider-Man Stripper. This is hilarious and terrifying and oddly similar to the brief moment of freefall between slinging one web and the next as he darts around Midtown. Her friend’s birthday party, she tells him, two days from now. Something else she planned (Peter’s adjusting his sweaty, slipping grip on his phone and misses the details) fell through and if he can be the entertainment for a half-hour or so it would save both the party and her friendship. Not to add extra pressure, she jokes, laughing. The sound Peter makes is a weak echo. So can he be there? Is there space in his schedule? He pretends to check that ‘schedule’ so she doesn’t think he’s a total amateur. Yep, yep, he has an opening for her. She has an opening for him, she flirts back, making his eyes go wide as he clutches the phone. God, why couldn’t his first gig have been for some 22-year-old’s bachelorette instead of this middle-aged-sounding woman who possibly wants to eat him alive? By the time she’s telling him her address, Peter’s hands are shaking worse than ever, he can’t immediately find a pen, and she reels it off to him way too quickly. He’s scrawling the address on his arm and right as he opens his mouth to ask her to repeat it, she hangs up. He peers at his arm doubtfully. Should he call her back for confirmation? No, he doesn’t have the guts. Anyway, he can figure this out. The street name was Woodman, right? Or was it Woodlawn? And the number was 712. Or 271. There was definitely a 7 in there somewhere. And his client’s name was… Lisa? Lana. Maybe Linda?

Peter cradles his face in his hands and groans. When his phone starts ringing again―different number―he frantically declines the call, then deletes his ad. One job at a time. Even that, he now thinks, seems ambitious.

―

MJ’s glad she’s not the one throwing this party together. As Liz’s best friend, it’s Betty who took the reins, organizing and then scrapping everything more than once as New York moved from phase to phase during this pandemic. The end result is still less than what MJ knows Betty wants; ideally, there would be more than a handful of guests and things like shiny helium balloons and fancy desserts would be hand-delivered to Liz’s front door on the day of the party. Instead, MJ sits on the arm of Liz’s couch as she inflates yet another latex balloon the good old-fashioned way: blowing it up by mouth until she’s dizzy.

Cindy stomps over and plops down next to her, snatching a balloon from the party pack of 50 (and Betty insists they need them all). She’s been banished from cupcake decorating. MJ would offer a word or two of sympathy, but balloon duty has the prior claim on how she spends her breaths. All she can do is toss Cindy a plastic tiara (Betty bought one―just one!―reading ‘Mom-to-Be’ for Liz, but the online shop screwed up her order and sent two dozen ‘Birthday Girl’ tiaras in its place) after tying off her finished balloon. MJ’s already wearing one. Meanwhile, the tiara-less Mom-to-Be is being driven around the block a million times by her cousin because they’re having the party at Liz’s place and Betty wants the decorations to be a surprise. Liz’s husband, more simply, was banished for the entire day. MJ originally thought they could’ve put him to work, since it’s pretty hectic, but she’s too oxygen-deprived to worry anymore.

Finally, Betty declares from the kitchen that she’s frosted her final cupcake. MJ begs for a reprieve from balloon-inflating and Betty, feeling accomplished and generous, agrees they probably have enough balloons now. Cindy casts her half-inflated one away in disgust before going to help Betty clean up baking ingredients and do dishes. MJ does her best to shoo the balloons to one side of the living room, then carries spare chairs in because their couch won’t fit everyone. Fortunately, they’ve all been recently tested for illness and been vigilant hand-washers and mask-wearers since then, so at least she doesn’t have to find a way to keep every seat six feet apart. She’s just positioning a final chair, still a little out of breath from the balloons, when the doorbell rings. In the kitchen, Betty screams.

“IT’S STILL A MESS IN HERE! STALL HER!”

“’K!” MJ agrees.

She kicks a couple stray balloons out of her path and goes to get the door. They weren’t supposed to come back to the house until Betty texted, but maybe they got tired of driving around, or Liz started feeling carsick. MJ knows she’s been pretty delicate her entire pregnancy with twins floating around in her uterus like a pair of nausea-inducing astronauts.

As she opens the door wide, she sucks in a deep breath to call out a sarcastic ‘Surprise!’ But it’s not Liz and her cousin. It’s… a guy? In a red and blue costume. She thinks it’s a guy. She can’t even see the person’s face, but when MJ reaches up to self-consciously adjust her ‘Birthday Girl’ tiara, they tilt their head and seem to follow her movement.

“Oh! I’m here for you! You’re… not what I was expecting.” It’s a masculine laugh. Young. Nervous.

She crosses her arms suspiciously.

“You’re not what I was expecting either,” she accuses.

“Shit,” he mumbles. “I guess it was supposed to be a surprise.”

What? Betty might have planned a few surprises for today, but MJ does not recall a dude in a mismatched sweatsuit being one of them.

“Guess so,” she says slowly.

“Sorry, I’m, uh, Spider-Man.” He gestures to the costume. Well, she can kinda see the very distant resemblance to what the real Spider-Man wears; there is a crudely-drawn spider on the chest.

“Uh huh.”

MJ’s suspicion is shifting into amusement―this guy really seems to think he has an invitation―when Cindy comes up behind her. MJ darts a look at her friend and is glad Cindy’s no longer sporting her own tiara. No need to confuse this poor… Spider-Man impersonator.

“What’s up?” Cindy asks, poking her chin over MJ’s shoulder, happier now that she’s fled the tasks Betty continually assigns.

“Hey,” says ‘Spider-Man’. “I, uh, I was hired to, uh, dance for the, um…” He gestures at MJ’s tiara. “…birthday girl.”

At ‘dance,’ MJ’s eyebrows shoot up. She looks quickly at Cindy and realizes she’s going to say something. Cindy will handle this how she handles any inconvenience or anomaly: with forthrightness and concision. She’ll have this faux-venger hitting the road before MJ can blink. With a short, friendly laugh towards Spider-Man, MJ angles herself to block Cindy from view and locks eyes with her friend. Cindy’s face says, What are you doing? We don’t know this guy. MJ’s counters with, Let’s see how this plays out. Cindy rolls her eyes, but nods, so MJ steps away from her again.

“As long as you haven’t traveled outside the country in the last fourteen days or experienced symptoms of fever, etcetera etcetera, come on in,” Cindy invites, gesturing Spider-Man through the doorway. “I’m so sorry, but we were running a little behind with the food, so I have to disappear back to the kitchen. But why don’t you get started for her?”

“Cindy,” MJ hisses as she closes the door. “You have to stay.”

“I believe the man said he was here for the birthday girl.”

Cindy smirks and they both glance over to see that Spider-Man has found the speaker and connected his phone. Something catches MJ’s eye and her gaze skims down his leg. What’s up with the side of his pants?

“I’m not the birthday girl,” she reminds Cindy in a panicked whisper. “There is no birthday girl.”

“Well, in her absence, it looks like you’re the one getting her presents. Careful with that one.”

“Because it seems fragile?”

“Because I feel like it’s the kind that comes with a big package.”

Cindy pokes MJ hard in the side and flees when she squirms away. MJ glares after her. Yes, she’s curious about what the hell this impersonator’s doing here in that crappy costume, but it’s so much easier to be curious when she can observe something unfolding without actively having to participate. What she was thinking was that he’d come in and the three of them―Betty, Cindy, and herself―would see how far this went before something either gave them away as not being the people who ‘hired’ him (so he claims), or the guy crumbled under the quavering weight of his own anxiety. Nothing about his look or his manner announces experience. Now, MJ’s on her own as she takes a seat in one of the chairs she brought in. She crosses her legs, bobs her foot, and hopes to hell that Spider-Man’s a breakdancer.

“Listen…” she begins to say, leaning forward to address him, but as she speaks, he turns up the volume and her uncertain voice is drowned out by chimes tinkling above throbbing bass. Oh no.

It’s the tempo that scares MJ. She thinks she could deal with a rabbiting drum intro or the bright squeal of quick fingers on an electric guitar. This song is tauntingly slow and it’s obvious, by how Spider-Man turns in her direction and walks to her with measured steps, that what she’s about to experience will look nothing like handstands or the worm, nothing youthfully, recklessly acrobatic. It’s also clear that she’s in this alone now because the guy putting his back to her and swirling his hips with agonizing slowness as the gravelly vocals come in is in some kind of zone she can’t follow him into.

When I look in your eyes… the song goes. …I can feel the fire.

Nope, MJ’s outside of this, in the real world, where she hears him lower the zipper on his sweatshirt. When he rotates to face her, taking his time, she finds her hands are gripping the seat on either side of her thighs.

A see-through disguise can’t conceal desire.

Spider-Man’s disguise is hardly see-through―seriously, he must’ve been sweltering in those sweats on his way here―but it’s open now, from his clavicle down to where the band of his pants grips his taut abdomen. He probably can’t hear the groan that pushes out of her mouth when she’s just trying to exhale. God, please let the music cover it, MJ thinks. His hood’s still up as he steps even closer to her chair, subtly twitching his hips in her direction, and the ends of his sweatshirt dangle, flashing glimpses of more chest, more abs. MJ swallows and reminds herself that this is all kind of a joke. That she’s the one indulging him and they’ll laugh when this is over. She’ll apologize for the mix-up and he’ll shrug it off as he accepts monetary compensation for his time.

I’ve been readin’ your lips… the singer announces in a louder growl. Spider-Man abruptly strips the blue sleeves from his costume, leaving his torso bare beneath what’s now just a hooded red vest. He’s a fake superhero, but those arms are the real deal. Wow. …they don’t need no translation.

He widens his stance, drawing her eye down to his solid-looking thigh, then slides his hand across her shoulder to grip the back of her chair. His hips roll forward and she instinctively uncrosses her legs. With the extra room, Spider-Man briefly presses his thigh to hers. It scrunches the hem of her dress up before dragging it back down as he retreats. It’s reasonably innocent, likely not even intentional, but heat flares up MJ’s face like one of the candles she might blow out if this were actually her birthday. Honestly, she keeps forgetting it’s not.

They want more than a kiss, I come to make my donation.

Ok, she feels more than just thigh when he glides higher on her lap. MJ automatically flicks her gaze lower, because he’s a stranger and right in her space, and it lands on his groin. Spider-Man bucks suggestively and MJ immediately raises her eyes from the bump in the front of his close-fitting sweatpants. Jesus, is it warm in here? Somebody should do something about that before Liz gets home, fiddle with the thermostat or, or something…

So turn out the lights! the singer’s voice rockets up and goosebumps ripple up MJ’s arms as Spider-Man’s hands smooth down them in his fingerless gloves. He bounces low into a crouch and can’t be more than an inch away from the fabric of her dress as he rolls up her body, face in her lap for, I’m goin’ down slowly. Her pounding heart and rapid breathing almost push her boobs into his forehead when he reaches her chest.

Don’t tell me what’s right, just tell me you want me.

When their heads are level, Spider-Man surprises her by sitting lightly on her lap, nearly chest-to-chest. He takes her hands in his―MJ’s sufficiently stunned to allow him to break her grip on the seat―and guides them to his head, making her push his hood off. It’s strange to feel the mask under her palms. Wondering what his hair looks like really shouldn’t be a main concern right now.

Oh, tell me you want me. Just tell me you want me, want me, want me!

The more insistent the song becomes, the more persuasively Spider-Man gyrates in her lap. Sliding a hand over his head shouldn’t be this seductive without visible hair to push his fingers through, but the way his arm bulges with the motion makes up for it, in her opinion. MJ doesn’t know what to do with her hands. They hover in the air between their bodies.

Let’s make it, baby! the song explodes as he thrusts forward powerfully, throwing his head back.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

His hands go to his shoulders.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

He works his vest off, revealing the rest of his chest.

Let’s make it, baby!

He flings the vest toward the sofa. MJ doesn’t know whether or not it lands there. She doesn’t turn to look. This is… more muscle than she’s ever seen in person on a single human body. Once more, he takes hold of the back of her chair, but it’s with both hands now and his forearms squeeze her in, compelling her to lean forward as he grinds across her lap, forward and back, to, Come, come, come a little bit closer. His face angles into her neck; she feels his nose brush her skin through the mask. She can hear him breathing and it electrifies her. The only reason she clamps her thighs together like she does is to give him more room to straddle her. Really, it’s for his comfort, as a professional. Because this is all just… very professional.

She hasn’t determined where to lay her hands, which is fine because he has another use for them.

I wanna play doctor, the singer drawls while Spider-Man brings her hands to his pecs. Is his heart beating as hard under there as hers is right now or is she imagining it? He effortlessly takes gentle hold of her wrists and encourages her hands down his body. She doesn’t even notice when he lets her go to peel the gloves from his hands and push his sneakers off, leaving MJ to trace the thick, defined ridges of his abdomen.

It keeps gettin’ harder, harder, harder to keep it away!

With the end of the line, Spider-Man rips the sweatpants off―a series of metallic popping sounds too close together to count. Not that counting’s on her mind. Eyeing the cherry-red boxer-briefs that are even tighter than the sweats, she swallows. She can’t remember how to exist on the outside of this. She can’t find the door. Believing that this guy―who’s not really Spider-Man, just like she’s not really a birthday girl―understands, that they’re sharing the scorching intimacy she suddenly feels, is naïve. MJ is not naïve. She just can’t exactly explain why what should be an obvious (skillful, but obvious) pantomime of sex is working on her like real foreplay.

I wanna taste the sweat…

She swears he’s breathing harder than the dancing alone can explain when he palms her knees and pries them apart. Her legs are slack and willing. She is sweating.

…that’s runnin’ over your body.

Tucking his fingers into the backs of her knees, Spider-Man jerks her forward on her seat. It raises her hem to mid-thigh and her pulse to low orbit. He hikes her legs around his hips and she crosses her wrists behind his neck without guidance as he stays in what has to be a strenuous squat to body-roll. Everything comes forward in a delicious wave, from his shoulders to his crotch. From lots of angles, it probably looks like he’s fucking her into Liz’s kitchen chair.

In actuality, there’s no contact between them―not anyplace interesting―until…

Get the sheets all wet!

MJ doesn’t know if his hips nudge between her legs accidentally or intentionally on an overzealous roll. She’s never been given a lap dance before! Is this right? Is this permitted? He seems ready to run with it, repeating the action with greater certainty.

Yeah, I wanna make ya feel nau-nau-nau-nau-nau-nau-nau-naughty!

When the singer quits stuttering out the word, Spider-Man lifts MJ right off the chair into his arms. She inhales hard, desperate for air as the song returns to, Let’s make it, baby! And let’s make it, baby! Well, let’s make it, baby! And let’s make it, baby, baby! He has one hand grasping the underside of her thigh, the other clutching the middle of her back. He thrusts toward her through the chorus, shy of nudging the way he did before. The motion sways MJ fairly gently, thanks to his sure grip and ability to carry her weight with ease, but she might as well be tumbling around inside a washing machine for all she currently knows of up and down.

The animal urgency of the chorus drops down to the slow lull of instrumentals and Spider-Man sets MJ on her feet. She just about rolls her ankle and plans to never admit this made her weak in the knees. As irregular drumbeats keep her on edge, he sneaks around behind her and takes her wrists, raising her arms over her head as she fights the instinct to turn and stare at this guy’s mostly-naked body. She hasn’t dated anyone since before the pandemic, but it’s more than that. While she holds her arms up there, Spider-Man rocks against her from behind, the inside of his thigh rubbing the outside of hers, messing up her skirt, confusing her heartbeat. His hands clamp down on her hips and work them in a circular motion with her ass pressed directly against him.

Wait.

―

Peter’s hard. Of all the things that have definitely gone wrong (having to make up a routine from scratch after blanking in the face of a woman 20 years younger and 500 times more beautiful than who he expected to find) and probably gone wrong (he hasn’t shaken the exhilarating feeling that he’s almost certainly at the wrong house), this is the most serious. He’s in so, so far over his head and sinking deeper, metaphorically, as the woman he’s wrapped around cautiously returns the pressure, pressing his erection.

He was so nervous after meeting her that he went straight to setting up his music and forgot to ask for her name. It’s not like he can casually ask now. It feels like things have gone too far for that. Wasn’t he supposed to feel some layer of detachment, doing this? Stripping’s supposed to be a part-time job, like taking pictures for the Bugle. Maybe he’s too used to caring about people to set himself apart from this. Maybe it’s the shock of her youth and the feeling of touching a real-live person after practicing with an empty chair over months of physical distancing.

Maybe he’s just horny.

The instrumental section goes on and on and Peter yearns. This is a job, he thinks, running his hands up to her waist and back to her hips. As the musical intermission’s finally drawing to a close, he improvises again, scooping the woman up into his arms in a bridal carry just to eliminate the sweet friction against his dick. Where does he go from here? He knows what the tutorials told him, what really gets the target of a lap dance/strip show going. Could go with the couch and push his red vest aside, but the soft rug underfoot beckons.

Now turn out the lights! Bon Jovi rasps as Peter moves gradually to his knees and nuzzles his masked face into the woman’s chest because, at this point, why the hell not? She smells so good. He hears her gasp, then her fingers dig fleetingly into the back of his neck like she wants to hold him there. But she lets go and he lays her on her back in the valley created by leisurely-migrating silver balloons. The light refracted on the woman’s face is crisp and ethereal.

Don’t tell me you love, love me, no… Just, just tell me you want me.

Peter springs on top of her, arms braced and locked, and performs an exaggerated horizontal roll, his hips close above hers. This is the million-dollar (or, like, twenty-dollar) move. The one that unambiguously mimics sex. Though it’s so overstated, so dramatic, the tutorials claimed that, by this stage, the person being performed for would be so wound up, so aroused, that they’d just about believe it was the real thing. He watches the woman’s shaky breathing and flushed cheeks, feels her hands caress his abs, and thinks he’s doing pretty damn good. Too bad he can’t count this as a performance. The desire he feels when he lowers himself closer to her is not an act.

Don’t tell me you love me.

The skin-tight front of his underwear skims her dress. And, though she should really keep her legs out straight to do her part in preserving the distance between them (because he’s fucking failing), she slides her foot along the floor, raising her knee. Peter snatches hold of that knee with the feeling that they just signed some kind of contract and grinds himself against the fold of skirt between her legs. The woman’s chest heaves as she pants. His balls ache for him to stop playing.

Oh, tell me you want me, want me, want me, want me, want me, want me, want me! Bon Jovi and Peter’s sex drive demand, from a rumble up to a scream. Let’s make it, baby!

The woman beneath him tosses her head and bats away a balloon that clings to her hair. Her birthday crown’s askew.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

Peter’s hand is on her ribcage, too near her breast.

Well, let’s make it, baby!

He huffs, loud inside his mask, as he thrusts against her like she’s not some accident, like she asked him to meet her here. For this.

And let’s make it, baby!

Distinct lyrics burst into a high, expressive shriek of noise that sounds enough like a woman being pleasured to send a tingle up Peter’s spine. He grinds down hard, gripping the woman’s hip. By the second shriek, her back’s bowing, her hands commandingly squeezing his arms. By the third, she’s moaning as she rocks against him, tearing an appreciative grunt from him in response. The fourth shriek finishes her right before the song. Peter’s breathing hard on top of her, on the jaw-clenching edge of climax himself, feeling her writhe as the music fades out. It just leaves the two of them here, damningly entangled.

After a long silence, his playlist moves on. Peter stares down at her another few seconds as she strokes her fingers across her mouth, then her eyes snap to where she can’t see his through the goggles.

“Oh shit,” he mutters.

The woman laughs awkwardly like those two words are an understatement for the degree to which this has not gone as planned. She didn’t even know the plan, but anyone would know this was not the intended conclusion―a stripper dressed up in a novelty Spider-Man costume should excite, entertain, inspire lust. But he should stop short of dry-humping his client to completion. Yeah, that has to be an unwritten rule someplace. Peter really shouldn’t have needed to read it to know better though. This has just gotten incredibly out of hand and he has no idea what to say or do.

“LIZ IS ON HER WAY!” a female voice yells from the back of the house, maybe the kitchen that the other woman vanished into earlier.

Peter jerks to his feet, still rigid in the front of his underwear. He thinks the woman he just, uh, danced for is requesting help up, but she’s actually pointing. He looks and sees the bathroom just off the stairs.

“I’m good,” she says. “Go before Cindy sees you.”

Snagging his pants from the floor and the vest portion of his sweatshirt from the couch, Peter bolts for the bathroom as the woman sits up from the rug. Inside, his hands quake with adrenaline as he zips his sweatshirt and refastens all the snaps on his pants. He does his best to adjust things so his waning erection’s not too obvious. For a minute, he yanks the mask from his head and stares at himself in the mirror as he breathes. This is not the side-hustle for him. This was his first and last gig as the Spider-Man Stripper.

Mask back on, he returns to the front room to find the woman he was grinding all over standing with her arms crossed protectively as her friend appears to grill her under her breath. They both look at him as he stuffs his feet back into his shoes and grabs his gloves and the blue sleeves of his sweatshirt. He’ll just carry them. If he stood here and began redoing them, he’d probably die from mortification before he got the last snap snapped. He collects his phone, stopping the music mid-song. He doesn’t know what’s playing. Could be his favourite song in the world and he wouldn’t be able to hear it right now over the volume of the look his ‘birthday girl’ is giving him.

“I’ll just, um, show you out,” she offers, shepherding him away from the woman he takes to be Cindy. She doesn’t volunteer anything about the other person, Liz, who they seem to be expecting.

“Great.”

He’s thankful that Cindy gives them a little space and doesn’t follow. They pause in the entranceway. The woman presses two fifties into his hand, avoiding eye contact. Peter clears his dry throat and nods, closing his fingers over the money because he’s more uncomfortable about the idea of prolonging this with a back-and-forth over him saying it’s too much while she insists than he is about the idea that she’s kinda paying him for sex, even if thinks she doesn’t mean to.

She pulls the door open and Peter jumps aside for two women, one very pregnant. There’s a flurry of voices all of a sudden and when he slips outside onto the step before someone can ask who he is and what he’s doing here, he doesn’t expect the birthday girl to come after him.

“MJ,” she blurts out.

He grins under the mask.

“Peter.”

He never gets to tell people that when he’s in disguise, but she doesn’t know he really is Spider-Man. The honesty feels good.

“So, that was…”

“This wasn’t supposed to be… Um,” he starts again, swinging his arms slightly. “That was my first time. Doing this. I’ve never done a routine for anybody before, so I want you to know I haven’t, like, done that with a bunch of people. I’ve never done this. And I think, uh, based on what happened in there, that I probably shouldn’t.” Peter’s laugh is strained. “I really don’t―”

“Do you want my number?”

He chokes.

“What?”

“I… thought I might as well ask,” she says, clearly self-conscious, looking prepared for rejection.

“No, of course I do,” Peter tells her quickly, holding out his phone. “Please.”

“Ok.” MJ gives him a quick smile, then looks at his screen as she adds herself as a contact. He’s grateful she’s the one putting the numbers in. He really can’t be trusted with that. Peter’s not nervous now, just excited as he thinks about using the money she gave him to buy her dinner.

Though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer, he says, “This isn’t the right house, is it?” as she hands his phone back. She laughs.

“No.”

“Yeah, I… kinda had a feeling.”

“Hey, whoever she was, her loss was my gain,” MJ says bluntly, then blushes hard. Peter chuckles to himself, looking down.

“Ummm…”

“Well, I should get in there. Baby shower.”

“Right, yeah, sure, you gotta.”

“But call me.”

“I will. I definitely will.”

“Maybe you can even show me what you look like without the mask,” she says.

Peter nods, body nothing but a cage for a butterfly swarm, then turns. Behind him, he hears Cindy’s voice as MJ steps back inside.

“Did you just give him a hundred bucks?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what you owe me for going in on the stroller!”

“I’ll go to the bank and take out another hundred right after the party if you want,” MJ offers, sounding unconcerned.

“But a hundred bucks? MJ, he was here for ten minutes!”

“Trust me, Peter earned it.”

“Peter?! That’s Spider-Man’s name?”

“Cindy, come on, he’s not actually Spider-Man.”

The door shuts. Of course he’s not. Peter could no more be Spider-Man than he could fall half in love with a woman simply because of the way she smelled and the fact that she wouldn’t let him off the hook for a lap dance. He starts down the sidewalk with a skip, smiling wide beneath his mask.

#my writing #spideychelle #spideychelle fic #spideychelle fanfiction #peter parker #peter x mj #peter x michelle #peter parker x michelle jones #michelle jones

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entamewitchlulu · 4 years ago

Text

lulu does flash reviews again

hey it’s been a while since i did one of these, anyway i just finished Princess Connect and I have some Thoughts so this is genuinely just me rambling about it

So, Princess Connect Re:Dive. It’s essentially a 12 episode long commercial for the associated role playing mobile game. It follows the adventures of the Gourmet Guild, a group of four adventurers whose goal is to investigate and enjoy the various foods of their fantasy world.

The Guild is made up of Yuuki, ostensibly our protagonist: a somewhat blank-slate sort of character who’s obviously supposed to be whoever your face character in the mobile game is, but who is actually, surprisingly, rather charming. He has lost his memories after some unknown battle he participated in with a bunch of former party members, and tends to respond to things in monosyllables, preferring instead to communicate with thumb’s ups and “mn!” in most cases. Despite this, he seems to be a very sweet boy who cares about his friends and is eager to do his best. Personally, I found him to be kind of a breath of fresh air in terms of male protagonists of fantasy shows otherwise populated by women. There’s not a single bit of “lucky pervert” tropes, he doesn’t seem at all interested in pursuing or flirting with any of the other girls, and only one of the girls is interested in him romantically. He’s generally pretty straightforward and good-hearted, so at worst I could call him boring - but even so, again, I found him charming.

Next is Kokkoro, an elf from a small village sent by someone who appears to be a goddess of some kind to find Yuuki and assist him as he recovers his memories. Kokkoro is, in a word, cute. She’s the only member of the cast who is interested in Yuuki romantically. Despite this happening immediately after she meets him, it sort of makes some sense to me, since she’s clearly been taught that he’s a special and important person whom she is duty-bound to serve, so it makes sense to me that she would hold him in high regard - and since he’s just genuinely so...genuine, it makes sense that it wouldn’t take long for a more sheltered girl to develop feelings for him. And, happily, she has a personality outside of this attraction as well: she’s reliable, patient, and good at sewing, and she enjoys spending time with the rest of the guild. Her silly faces she makes every time Yuuki gets chewed on by a wolf are hilarious, too.

Third up is Pecorine, who, while Yuuki is supposedly the protagonist, is pretty much set up to be the real protagonist of the show. Pecorine is not-so-subtly secretly the princess of this fantasy world, Landosol, however, it appears for some reason someone else is acting as ruler. Pecorine is ridiculously strong, ridiculously peppy, and always hungry. She’s literally made of nothing but love, joy, and excitement for whatever the next day will bring. She’s always helping people and seems to consider making others happy to be her life goal, alongside eating lots of yummy food. Everyone she encounters eventually becomes her best friend, even when they start off by trying to steal from her. She’s straightforward, doesn’t seem to notice when people don’t have her best interests in mind, and yet, beneath that, she is extremely lonely and vulnerable. If you couldn’t tell, she’s far and away my favorite character of the show.

And finally, there’s Karyl: a cat girl who is, in my opinion, the perfect example of a cat girl. She’s initially a loner who doesn’t see the need for friends, and is, apparently, supposed to assassinate Pecorine. As Pecorine doesn’t notice, she quickly inducts Karyl as her new girlfriend best friend, and Karyl, for all of her tsundere, don’t-touch-me cat vibes, absolutely starts falling for Pecorine’s kindness back. While she’s the one to call out the guild’s stupid plans and ideas, she generally ends up joining in on the shenanigans, much to her eternal chagrin.

So, I don’t mean to make this just a description of the show, because I do have thoughts and opinions, but I felt like setting up my feelings on the main cast was important before I got into the details of the show itself. From this point forward, there will be spoilers.

So, what this show does right:

As I mentioned in my talk about Yuuki, in terms of “1 male protagonist surrounded by girls”, it’s a relief to watch a show where the main cast is just all a bunch of good friends and they’re not just all hanging on the bland main character. Each of the cast is given their own time to develop their own personalities both with each other and outside of each other, and they’re all, genuinely, rather endearing. There are two characters who show up later who are a bit annoying about their care over Yuuki (calling themselves his big and little sister respectively), but since they aren’t main cast members and connect the show to a larger “what happened before this?” narrative, I didn’t mind it so much. Plus, despite a cast of all girls in a mobile game, outside of a few skimpy outfits and Pecorine’s occasional boob jiggle, there wasn’t a SINGLE bit of fanservice, which shocked me for this genre. No upskirts, no accidental boob touches, no lewd comments or innuendos. I was floored, and in a good way.

The character design really isn’t bad for a show based on a mobile game. Characters are distinct in design and personality. The best design is, of course, the girl who is Just a Llama.

I actually really liked being thrown into this world where it was very obvious that something had already happened Before, but you were only given pieces of it. It built a very intriguing premise by starting us off seemingly after the climactic battle goes wrong, and adds a sense of unease here or there about knowing that something is a little bit off, but you don’t quite know what. Not getting all of the answers at the end of the show wasn’t a dealbreaker, either, because I knew I wouldn’t going in - it’s a mobile game show. The story is still going in the mobile game, so they won’t play all their cards in the adaptation.

Karyl and Pecorine are definitely the main characters of the show, and while I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, their story very much feels like a love story, and I just really, really enjoyed that for what I expected to see going in, I instead got two girls who were allowed to have a complicated and yet very sweet relationship that developed slowly over the series into a truly beautiful climax. Speaking of Pecorine, as well, I have to give some props to the plot twist about her character. It was obvious to me for a while that she was the princess of Landosol, and I assumed that her parents were dead. I kept wondering why she was leaving her people to the whims of her impersonator instead of taking back her throne, and it was something that sort of bothered me throughout her seemingly cheerfully ignoring what her usurper was doing to her kingdom. Finding out that the fake princess had, in fact, simply replaced Pecorine with herself in everyone’s memories, leaving Pecorine with no idea what to do and deciding to disappear knowing that even her own parents didn’t remember her as their daughter was a shocking, and powerful, plot twist.

When it’s good, it’s really good. There are some genuinely heartfelt and powerful moments. The animation is surprisingly good, beautiful to watch especially during fight scenes. The final scene especially with its emphasis on Karyl and Pecorine really touched me, as it was clear they put a lot of effort into just the last few frames to make it really touching.

And here’s what this show does wrong:

When I said that when it’s good, it’s really good, the same can be said that when it’s bad, it’s bad. The main problem with this show is that it wants to be everything. It wants to be a comedy. It wants to be a drama. It wants to have deep character drama and heartfelt moments. It wants to have intense battles and evil villains alongside a story about four friends making sandwiches out of monster meat. The comedy bits and drama bits are both solid enough on their own, but smushed together, it makes for a tonally dissonant show that cheapens some of the more heartfelt moments.

The show takes way too long to even get into its main conceit, too. I think it wasn’t until episode 4 that they started their Gourmet Guild - and then even after that, the food hunting sort of disappeared in a lot of episodes so that you kind of forgot what their goals even were. And even when the food episodes happened, they almost felt like filler. Because of the show’s lack of focus, it was hard to truly enjoy any part of it.

And I cannot forget to mention that though I praised the character design in the good stuff section, there were some...concerns. Episode 3 introduces a fatphobic, borderline racist design. He is shown as cruel, violent, gleefully mean, and morbidly obese in a cast that is otherwise made up of skinny characters. And worse, he’s the only brown character in a sea of pale, white-coded characters. His appearance in episode 3 almost made me stop watching. He showed up briefly in several more episodes after this, and it sucked every single time. Despite a lot of the other things I loved about this show, I really cannot recommend it to anyone with a clean conscience just because of this character. He’s distressing and uncomfortable to me, so I can’t imagine how a POC might feel while watching it.

Genuinely, if even one or two of their “here’s a cute girl” designs had been Black or brown, I would have felt way better. But the juxtaposition of this guy being the only dark skinned character in the show combined with his abhorrent personality just really, really distresses me, and I think it’s a warning that people should be aware of before giving it a try.

That being said, overall, I don’t think Princess Connect Re:Dive was a bad show. As I said, there was a lot of elements I enjoyed, and I will probably go look and see if there’s any Karyl/Pecorine art out there, and since the app is Japanese only, I might even go and read the continued plot somewhere.

So this wasn’t much of a “flash review”, I had a lot to say, I guess lol. Anyway, if anyone else watched it, please let me know what you thought~ I’d be interested to hear anyone else’s take. For my part, I’ll give Princess Connect a solid 6/10.

#princess connect #lulu's flash reviews

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angstymarshmallow · 5 years ago

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Who did you romance in the Storyscape games? 😊

Dearest anon -

Okay the first time I tried to write my thoughts, tumblr just decided not to post it but I would like to say thanks for asking me (i’ve been secretly hoping someone would lol). Now let me try this again

I’ll start with Life 2.0 (mostly because it’s the story I’ve replayed the most). On my first device I romanced Jaime (and what a mistake that turned out to be), because his life was a mess. Like a hot mess. He’s cute, but the guy has to figure his stuff out. I know MC’s life is kind of a mess too as she moves into San Francisco but his life is REALLY a mess. But I guess I wasn’t expecting just how much of a mess it was, it kind of surprised me lol (kudos to the storyscape team for being able to do that). And now replaying it the few times that I have - I get it. I get some of his choices, how he’s gotten to this point. Other than how the game hinting at the rough neighbourhood he grew up in by showing you where he’s lived (which he will defend tooth and nail about), the little bits with his cousin and his ex. I get why specifically he feels stuck in his ex-relationship. And not just his relationship, I feel like it spills over in other parts of his life too. But in regards to his relationship with his ex, I think I understand especially since I’ve had friends in similar positions in the past. Not to absolve him of any guilt - because he totally should have given MC more of a warning and been more open about it when he had the chance. It still just sucks on the other end of that. Even though my first MC Zara is more of open and to kind of likes to take everything day by day; she isn’t the type to fall for someone that isn’t upfront about something like that. Honesty is huge for her. So this as a big-time red flag. So nipping that into the bud, Zara moved on between flirting with Mishel and Cute Dave (who is very cute but very awkward lol, and I feel like there isn’t enough chemistry there) until Etan came along and honestly? I really like Etan. He’s older which surprised me but in a good way. He has this kind of sophistication without being a dick about it. And although his introduction was kind of cringey considering MC’s circumstances at the party and his ‘rescue’, BUT when he DECKED that asshole of a CEO - 10/10. I was like yup, that’s all I needed for you to convince me.

I also made it a point to romance Mishel on my second device with my MC Dior - who is very very gay. The whole Jaime flirting didn’t work out well for him and I forgot to mention how smitten I was with Mishel’s design? The girl is gorgeous and her cgs are probably my favourite in storyscape. (So are her flirting scenes). They’re hot, raunchy - and she’s got a great personality. I also like that they didn’t introduce her so…girl-next-door, I’m-only-here-to-be-your-friend, and more like a force to be reckoned with. Abigail grew on me in a way I think she was supposed to and I find that drunk kiss near the end of the book, very endearing. Also that the kiss in the rain? Romantic, beautiful *chief’s kiss*. Basically I sort of ended up romancing a little bit of everyone but what I really enjoyed is that the game doesn’t force you to choose one or the other and some characters (like Mishel when it came to Abigail) encourages you to pursue your options.

The characters made Titantic interesting for me. I wasn’t particularly sure I would enjoy it but I think every character had a part to play and the LIs were all interested but for their own different reasons. Matteo was definitely my favourite. He started off the way I expected; cold, callous and very-business like. Even when as he kind of came to terms with his attraction to the main character, he didn’t see it as anything more until later. But her influence on him changed the way he perceived things and I really love that kind of character development. I didn’t like Charlie’s as much and haven’t finished pursuing him; mostly because you have the option to leave him on the ship willingly or beat him over the head to knock him out. But his be the hero shtick made leaving him the best choice (and I’ve read that he gets really upset at you for taking him against his will), which sucks because his romance was more light humoured and sweet while Matteo’s was a lot more passionate and raw. I’ve started again for romancing Zetta because that woman is gorgeous and she deserves much better than the man she intended to marry but I haven’t finished that route yet.

I’m not sure if the X-files has any romance because I haven’t played it yet, but Eternal City kind of hints towards romance with the people your MC has known for their entire life. Because my MC was more of a loner it was kind of hard at first to make that connection seem intrinsic, but she did get a long pretty well with Cinder and when the option to kiss him came up as he was saying his goodbye, I was like huh? It was cute and bitter in a heartbreaking kind of way for him to leave their little circle but I wasn’t sure beyond that how to feel. IT HAD A CG AND EVERYTHING. Plus there’s also this really adorable scene between Violet and MC if MC chose to complete the Cager ritual with her by going to rescue her. Violet kind of brushes her forehead against MC’s after and I was really touched by that moment. But I don’t think there’s romance persay as yet in this part of the story, but I’m hoping it will continue with another season of Eternal City.

Well, I’ve written it all (mostly) again. I’M SORRY I WROTE SO MUCH. I just had so many thoughts about it. I hope I didn’t bore you, I appreciate the ask :)

#ask all the things #storyscape #life 2.0 #eternal city #titantic #thanks my dude #storyscape games #long post

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scoutception · 5 years ago

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Final Fantasy Type-0 review: Depression central

If there’s one Final Fantasy subseries whose fate gets me feeling down, it’s the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, a novel and ambitious concept based around various games and stories of different settings and casts of characters, but sharing common themes and mythos, putting them in different contexts in each. While a fascinating idea, it ran into nothing but trouble with each of its entries, with Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels being very divisive, to say the least, Final Fantasy Versus XIII running into an infamously extended development hell, only to finally emerge as Final Fantasy XV, now almost completely separate from its original concept, and the final big entry, Final Fantasy Type-0, vanishing until 5 years after its announcement in 2006, as a PSP exclusive that only came out in Japan, a rarity for the series when it comes to its higher profile spinoffs. Thankfully, in 2015, Type-0 got a remaster on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, finally allowing other audiences to enjoy it. Was it worth the almost 10 year wait? Well, that’s something we’re about to find out now.

Story:

Final Fantasy Type-0 takes place on the world of Orience, divided into 4 great nations blessed with Crystals: the Dominion of Rubrum, a place for the study and teaching of magic granted by the Vermilion Bird crystal, the Kingdom of Concordia, a female led monarchy able to communicate and control monsters and, more importantly, dragons, and home to the Azure Dragon crystal, the Militesi Empire, a technologically advanced state able to produce great machines of war known as Magitek Armors, or MAs, through the power of their White Tiger crystal, and the Lorican Alliance, whose citizens are much larger and powerful than any other in Orience thanks to their more direct connection to their Black Tortoise crystal. Orience is, unfortunately, not a place of peace, with each of the 4 crystal states wishing to unite Orience under them, and making plenty of attempts to in the past. The motive behind this is the legend of the Agito, a messiah said to appear during Tempus Finis, an apocalyptic event prophesied in the somewhat dubious, yet widely believed, Nameless Tome, with every crystal state seeing it as their divine duty to create Agito, to the point of Rubrum training so called Agito cadets from its brightest and most magically adept citizens.

The story opens with yet another war being started in the year 842 by Milites, whose emperor has been deposed by the brilliant and ambitious Imperial Marshall Cid Aulstyne (Final Fantasy games have a tradition of having a character named Cid somewhere, and finally, he made it as main antagonist), who immediately sets out to attack Rubrum. What would otherwise be a “normal” invasion quickly turns disastrous for Rubrum when Milites unleashed a new device called a crystal jammer, which cuts Rubrum’s legionnaires from their connection to the crystal, rendering them helpless before the Militesi invaders. Even worse, Milites also deploys a l’cie, a human chosen by their nation’s crystal to become its direct servant, in exchange for immense power and near immortality, the use of which in warfare was mutually banned by each of the 4 nations. Just when Rubrum seems doomed, the mysterious Class Zero arrives, 12 cadets who are unaffected by the crystal jammer, raised by Rubrum’s even more mysterious archsorceress, Arecia Al-Rashia, who proceed to liberate the capital, Akademia. Now, with the addition of two promising but otherwise normal cadets, Machina Kunagiri and Rem Tokimiya, Class Zero becomes a vital part in Rubrum’s efforts to reclaim their lost land and defeat Milites, once and for all.

To just come out and say it, the story’s biggest weakness is the cast, or, more specifically, its use of the cast. While the playable cast alone is certainly large, at 14 characters, and the supporting cast only grows from there, almost nobody gets proper focus. The main 12 members of Class Zero, named after playing cards, consists of Ace, Deuce, Trey, Cater, Cinque, Sice, Seven, Eight, Nine, Jack, Queen, and King, and despite being the “proper” members of Class Zero, they all only have a few character traits each. Trey is a knowledgeable type that tends to ramble, Sice is an arrogant loner, Nine is a violent muscle head, Cinque is nice, but downright weird, and so on. While after a while they all grew on me, it’s still pretty unsatisfying, especially when Ace, the face of the game, gets neglected just as badly. The supporting cast gets it even worse, as outside of Arecia and Class Zero’s commanding officer, Kurasame, most of everyone else that’s notable either has minimal at best story presence, or doesn’t show up in the story, period, being relegated to sidequests. Ultimately, the most focused on characters are the two “normal” people in Class Zero, Machina and Rem, which kinda makes sense, giving a more grounded air compared to off how putting the others can be to begin with, but even they don’t work out quite well. While Rem is fine, she doesn’t do very much interesting with the time she gets, while Machina, on the other hand, is very, very unlikeable to the point of hurting the story, whether it be his own cold attitude or broodiness to put the usual RPG protagonist stereotype to shame, he ends up way more unsympathetic than near anyone else in the story, even most of the antagonists. While the cast overall is definitely flawed, though, they’re definitely entertaining at a lot of points, whether they come from the main cast, mostly Trey or Cinque, or from some of the side characters, mainly the extremely greedy Carla and, most memorably to me, the paranoid, bombing throwing Mutsuki.

Since the story doesn’t focus on the characters very much, the main focus is instead the war itself. While it definitely has a few twists and turns, especially starting in chapter 4, overall, the battles and events of the war aren’t the most interesting subject by itself. More interesting is the elements around the war. This is by far one of, if not the darkest game in the franchise, and it doesn’t shy away from showing just how messed up Orience is. Rubrum’s main strength comes in the form of its Agito cadets, meaning, teenagers, as young as 14, at that, and the tactics the military uses means they tend to die in droves. Even when it’s technically pragmatic, between magic proficiency peaking at teen years and decreasing with age, plus not having many other means to resistance, it’s still very uncomfortable, and keep in mind, this is what the good guys, or the relative ones, get up to. Milites, meanwhile, is all too happy to deploy superweapons, such as literal nukes, and its soldiers are disturbingly fanatic, being more than happy to massacre towns, and even refer to Class Zero as demons. Class Zero themselves were raised to be soliders, and feel almost nothing in battle, and Rubrum’s leadership are paranoid and petty, to the point of the military commander actively trying to get Class Zero killed out of pure spite. Eidolons, extremely powerful monsters able to be summoned by mages, demand the lives of their summoners, and there are outright suicide squads of cadets who are only meant to summon more powerful Eidolons. Additionally, a very important plot point is that the crystals automatically erase the memories of anyone who dies from everyone’s minds, to the point Rubrum’s citizens need to wear dog tags just so it can be confirmed they even existed after they die. While they try to justify it as a blessing from the crystals that allows people to move on and not be held back by the dead, all it’s done is completely desensitize Orience to death, and having characters casually talk about being informed of their friends or family dying, and not feeling a single thing, is pretty disturbing, especially when it’s named character involved. It does a very good job of showing how constant warring and lack of reverence for the dead has corrupted this world, even when many of the characters affected still remain sympathetic.

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw of the story to me is that there simply isn’t a lot of it to be found, at least in regards to the main story. While the game is comprised of 8 chapters, that’s more than a little inaccurate, as half of those consist of a short introduction and a singular mission, rather than the 2 or 3 missions in the rest of the chapters. The story only really gets moving in chapter 4, and even then, many important points aren’t addressed until chapter 8, which is a downright bizarre and sudden change of subject and tone compared to the rest of the game, to the point a second playthrough is required because of how many holes are left otherwise, and even then, it can be a bit difficult to figure out just what is going on. The biggest achievement of the writing, on the other hand, is the lore of the setting. Orience is a fascinating world, with a detailed history of each nation, plenty of info to find on the various characters, and examinations of the various enemies of the game, all stored in a book in the hub called the Rubicus. It’s also quite interesting seeing the perspective flip compared to Final Fantasy XIII; instead of l’cie “merely” being granted the use of magic, and quickly going through their usefulness, at least by their masters’ consideration, along with the main cast being comprised of them, l’cie in Type-0 are near demigods who often live hundreds of years, and are just as fearsome to the party as to everyone else, for instance. Overall, though, while there are certainly many problems with the writing, I can’t help but say it works quite well regardless. Even with the limited time for both the story itself and the characters, it still builds a cast worth rooting for throughout the horrible situations, and an effective atmosphere that’s quite good at leaving you feeling somber. Moments like the entirety of the opening chapter, showing the utter devastation inflicted on Akademia in a mere three hours, and the various costly, large battles are very effective moments, and the ending is easily one of the saddest endings I’ve seen in a video game, for all the right reasons. Even the final chapter, odd as it is, has a lot of cool revelations and setpieces to me, at least now that I comprehend it.

Gameplay:

Type-0 is an action RPG that has you control the 14 members of Class Zero on various missions, each one possessing a different weapon. Ace uses cards, Deuce uses a flute (I swear they aren’t all this weird), Trey uses a bow, Cater uses a magic infused pistol, Cinque uses a mace, Sice uses a scythe, Seven uses a whipblade, Eight fights with his bare hands, Nine uses a lance, Jack uses a katana, Queen uses a longsword, King uses dual revolvers, Machina uses dual rapiers, and Rem uses dual daggers. Each one possesses a vastly different moveset and playstyle, such as Cinque being slow, but strong and tanky, Sice encouraging an aggressive hit and run style of play, even getting stronger for the more enemies she defeats while taking minimal hits, Trey excelling at range to a much degree than anyone else, while being near helpless up close, and Deuce being more of a supporter, having great support abilities, while her attacks are fairly weird to get used to, though effective on their own once you understand them. Despite the huge amount of characters, they’re actually fairly well balanced, all of them having important strengths and weaknesses, and while some can definitely be better than others, with Trey in particular coming to mind, possessing absurd range and the ability to charge his shots, it’s never quite game breaking. You can have up to three characters in your party, though their AI isn’t exactly great. They can certainly distract enemies well, and will make sure to heal you if your HP gets low, they don’t tend to be aggressive, and are terrible at avoiding the attacks of most enemies more complex than your average imperial trooper, and are near guaranteed to die to bosses. Speaking of which, the main wrinkle is that, while it varies, overall, your characters are not very durable, and in fact take hits about as well as wet toilet paper when faced with most enemies. This is balanced by the sheer amount of people you have. One person dies on a mission, don’t sweat it, you’ve got 13 backups. Of course, this also encourages training them all up and learning to play them as well, which is complicated by only characters in the active party gaining experience. Leveling up, in addition to granting the usual stat boosts, also grants ability points, which you can use to purchase or upgrade command or passive abilities and moves.

While just attacking enemies normally is decently effective, it can put you in unnecessary danger, and while you do have items like potions you can use to restore your health quickly, the most efficient way to fight is to use breaksights and killsights. Every enemy has at least one attack that leaves them vulnerable for a short time either before or after using said attacking. Hitting them during this period will trigger a break, or, if their health is low enough, killsight. Breaksights take a good chunk of their health away and stuns them, giving you a chance to attack them freely, while killsights just kill them outright. This one mechanic adds a lot to the gameplay, encouraging you to learn enemy patterns and attacks to see when they are vulnerable, and getting the timing down can make otherwise fearsome enemies easy to take care of. Of course, some enemies won’t take this very well, and may counterattack or even go into berserk states after recovering from breaksights, so you still have to be careful. Every character has 4 commands: regular attacks with their weapons, 2 slots that can either hold abilities or offensive magic spells, and a defensive command, whether it be the cure spell to restore health, putting up a magic wall to nullify some attacks, or just flat out blocking, which, while still causing you to suffer damage, prevents being knocked down, letting you score breaksights easier than if you were to simply dodge. Magic can be upgraded by harvesting phantoma from dead enemies, coming in various types like red for fire magic, green for defensive magic, and purple for unique spells. While powerful, magic usually takes a large chunk out of your magic points, meaning it’s better to save it for more dire situations, though harvesting phantoma restores small amounts of MP. As for equipment, aside from weapons, you have access to accessories that do things such as increasing HP by a certain percentage, giving immunity to status effects, or raising defense, though everyone can only have 2 accessories at a time. You also have three different squad commands: triad maneuver, which simply causes the party to do 3 powerful, rapid attacks, Eidolon, which summons an Eidolon you can control for a short time, in exchange for KOing the character that summoned it, and Vermilion Bird, a powerful spell that, to actually become powerful, has to be upgraded using crystal shards, which, while fairly easy to get most of the time, aren’t very numerous.

Type-0 uses a mission system, throwing you into various locations to complete objectives, though it usually equates to to reach the end of the area and kill an enemy commander. Most locations are pretty linear, though they all have a few side areas you can go to, usually for more items. You get graded based on how fast you completed the mission, how much phantoma you harvested, and how many party members got KOed during the mission, with getting the best rank on all three categories getting you an S rank, which gives a bonus item. Beating each mission on a difficulty above easy also unlocks other bonuses, whether they be additional items up for purchase or unlocking new spells or Eidolons, or just flat giving you a rare item. Completing missions also gives you money, with more the higher the difficulty and the higher your rank. Speaking of difficulties, there are 4 of them: cadet, which is just easy mode, officer, normal mode, Agito mode, which is a hard mode that makes every enemy 30 levels higher than on cadet and officer, and Finis, which is only available after completing the game once, and is, just plain absurd. All enemies have their levels increased by 50, they’re in permanent rage mode, causing them to move twice as fast and hurt twice as much, and you’re restricted to only being able to use one person per mission. It’s not much worth the effort. Aside from completing missions, your main source of items, magic, and Eidolons is from completing special orders, optional objectives that can pop up in various areas. While there’s various generic, white orders that only give items at the end of the mission for doing stuff like not getting hit for 30 seconds or not using magic for a few minutes, there are also specific, red ones with more specific objectives like taking out certain enemies, that give out better rewards. The main problem with accepting them is that, if you fail to complete them, you risk instant being killed over it, though you can avoid it you’re fast enough, as it’s delivered through portals on the ground.

In between missions, you’re allowed to explore Akademia, chatting with NPCs or party members, or engaging in “free time events” which are either conversations with random people, or cutscenes that tend to have much more interesting information. You only have a limited amount of hours until the next story mission starts, with each event taking two hours away, though time doesn’t pass just running around and talking to people without events. While a neat concept that could easily be like Persona, in practice, it doesn’t add much. While you can get some interesting information at times, and doing events also gives you items, it’s not very in depth otherwise. Even the sidequests with the more prominent side characters just consist doing their events whenever they’re available and doing a sidequest for them, eventually getting admittedly very good bonuses at the end of their little storylines. The other thing you can do with your free time is go out into the world map, where you can visit extremely small towns, get into random encounters, visit dungeons, and... not much else. While the world map isn’t tiny, there’s just not much to find. While there’s many towns, they are, again, tiny, only consisting of a single small area with a shop or two, a sidequest, and a little unofficial side quest to get a l’cie stone, which can be traded into a certain NPC to unlock lore entries in the Rubicus. There’s just not much of interest, and you’re very heavily restricted in where you’re allowed to even go on the world map, only being able to go to areas officially reclaimed by Rubrum, or that are the destination of the current story mission. Only in chapter 7 do you finally get some kind of freedom, to the point of being able to gain an airship to allow easy traversal of the world. Plus, most dungeons aren’t even meant to be explored on a first playthrough, with only about one or two being reasonable at that point, not that there’s even much to find besides l’cie stones and a chance at a rare item, emphasis on chance, since they’re always in a specific chest at the end that can only be opened once without reloading your save, and the chance of getting the most valuable item from them is rather low.

As for other activities, you can train in the arena, for downright piddly gains, or take on sidequests, most of which just contain of going out and defeating a certain amount of specific enemies, giving over items, and so forth. Most rewards aren’t great, but a few, namely from the more notable characters like the leaders of Rubrum, Kurasame, and Arecia, give very notable rewards. Sidequests don’t take time to do, but often require you to leave Akademia, meaning you need to weigh the time lost going out to do the quests against the time you could use doing events, which is difficult when you don’t know just what rewards either give out. When it comes mission time, though, you gotta venture out on the world map to your next destination. Speaking of the world map, along with the regular missions, there are also RTS style missions, where you, controlling a party member on the world map, help the dominion army reclaim forts and towns by taking out enemies and having units generated by controlled areas weaken said areas until you can invade them in a regular mission style. Instead of being graded on phantoma harvested, you’re instead graded on objectives completed, as occasionally you’ll get orders to do stuff like defend a fort for a specific amount of time or taking out a large enemy. While technically optional, you get bonuses for completing them beyond mission grade, such as access to “hero units” and direct control of certain areas. There’s a decent amount of these missions in the game, and they do make for an interest change of pace, but they aren’t much notable. You’re even allowed to skip participating in them, though obviously you miss out on rewards.

The highlights of the game are, rather sensibly, the end of chapter missions. Not only are they much longer than typical missions, they have much more unique settings, and, of course, bosses. This game has some very enjoyable, if difficult, bosses, ranging from the giant mech Brionac that is more than capable of wiping you out in a single attack, to the highly mobile mech of Qator Bashtar, Cid’s second in command, to several fights with the near invincible Gilgamesh (another recurring character in the series). My personal favorite is the boss of chapter 5, the dragon Shinryu, which is also all too happy to instantly kill you with most of its attacks, even more so than Brionac, and spend most of the fight enveloped in the darkness surrounding the arena you’re in, only being visible by the lights of its glowing red eyes. It makes for an amazing setpiece, and losing to it is almost more enjoyable than winning simply due to the failsafe implemented since the devs expected most players to lost, the details of which I simply cannot spoil. Finally, on a second playthrough, two new types of missions are available for you: expert trials, and Code Crimson missions. Expert trials are optional missions you can do during your free time, which you’ll likely have a lot of since events you see on a previous playthrough can be viewed again at no time cost on repeat playthroughs. While technically available in the first playthrough as well, they are way too difficult for the average player, i.e who isn’t insane like me. Code Crimson missions, on the other hand, are replacements for the end of chapter missions, consisting of you going off to do other stuff. While an interesting concept, in practice, they aren’t anything special, especially when they’re replacing the most interesting parts of the game, and they barely give any more story context either. The chapter 7 mission is the one exception, being very short, but an interesting concept and adding a bit more to the story. Plus, completing them all on one playthrough unlocks an interesting alternate ending, so that alone makes them worth a go.

As for the hardest challenges to be found, they’re a bit lacking. Aside from the regular optional dungeons, there’s one notable bonus dungeon and two notable superbosses. The bonus dungeon is the Tower of Agito, which can only be reached by airship, which consists of 5 floors where you need to fight 100 specific enemies, such as tonberries and behemoths, with plenty of chests to open in between, ending off on an extremely disappointing end boss that is just a Malboro that happens to be massive. While it certain sounds difficult, and pretty much everything is capable of one shotting you, once you get into a good pattern, it’s really just boring. Most of the time, they just spawn so slowly, and while after a while more of them come out at a time, it takes about an hour and a half at best to get through even if you’re otherwise efficient. As for the superbosses, there’s Nox Suzaku, only available in a second playthrough and onward, who has a chance of appearing whenever you harvest phantoma, stealing everything you try to harvest until it decides to go away. Aside from making it go away on its own, you can beat it up, which is quite a doozy. Instead of fighting you directly, it summons phantoms of various enemies to fight you, and while you could just defeat them all, this doesn’t do anything to Nox itself. Instead, you have to let the enemies defeat you, causing Nox to appear for a short time, allowing you to attack it until it retreats. Rinse and repeat, it’s not that difficult, and the rewards aren’t that great, so the main reason to beat it up is just to make it go away, because it stealing your phantoma is extremely annoying, especially when it can show up during missions, since you can’t just leave to fight it, and it’s entirely possible for it to flat make it impossible to get an S rank on that mission it decides it doesn’t want to leave. Not exactly a fun mechanic. The other superboss is, per tradition, Gilgamesh, in a stronger form than in the story. He only shows up on a third playthrough, at a few different locations on the world map, in the form of a portal. Entering said portals causes him to randomly select one of your characters to challenge. If you win, you get that character’s ultimate weapon, but if he wins, he steals your character’s current weapon. The ultimate weapons are kinda underwhelming, especially considering you may well have everything else done after a second playthrough, and it’s annoying getting specific people picked, but it’s actually a fun and fair fight, if easy to figure out.

Overall, Type-0 has some of the tightest gameplay among all the Final Fantasy spinoffs, and is the main thing that holds it together. It has a fast, hectic pace to it, interesting enemies to tackle, and a wide variety of people to try out. Really, the main criticism I have is the actual missions you have with which to try them out. The other main story missions aren’t much to look at, and same goes for the expert trials and Code Crimson missions. I’m sure this is at least partially due to originating on the PSP, and having to deal with its limitations, something that’s about become a theme in this review. Overall, though, it’s still more than satisfactory.

Graphics:

The visuals of Type-0 are a very mixed big, unfortunately leaning more towards negative. More than anything else, they make it very apparent that Type-0 was originally a PSP game. While the members of Class Zero themselves have decent looking models, if rather unemotive, everyone else, except a few important characters like Arecia, are much lower quality, especially the faces. Here’s a comparison between Ace and Carla.

The textures don’t fare much better, looking very blatantly stretched and blurry, especially on the world map, where bridges are just one long, hideous texture. Most locations outside of, again, the end of chapter missions don’t look anything special, and so many areas are just reused over and over. You go into a town, it’ll look like every other town, at least of that region. You invade a fort, it’ll look like every other fort. Repeat for almost every mission in the game. Thankfully, the big story missions look quite impressive and creative, my favorites being chapter 5′s, taking place on frozen clouds that end up near breathtaking, and especially the setting of the very final mission, which is, to avoid anything too specific, downright insane, in a good way. Another positive are the enemy designs, more specifically, the actual monsters, with enemies such as bombs and flans resembling their earlier FF designs much more than most modern entries. Unfortunately, there’s just one problem: the actual variety of enemy designs is rather lacking, with the majority of enemies being slight alterations or palette swaps. It’s a more minor point than most, but still something. The original enemy designs are quite inventive though, and overall, this is a game that excels more in general design than actual fidelity, like the spiraling Concordian capital surrounded by a sea of clouds.

Sound:

The music of Type-0 is plain great, as is usual for the series. The boss themes especially are fantastic, along with the main theme, The Beginning of the End. It also sounds quite distinctive compared to most of the rest of the series, having a greater focus on metal, fitting the more modern aesthetic. The English voice acting, on the other hand, isn’t quite great. It’s pretty obvious the dub was a rush job, considering Type-0 lacked the simultaneous localization process of the main series games, resulting in it being very lackluster overall. There are some notable voice acting names in it, like Cristina Vee as Cinque, Bryce Papenbrook as Machina, Danielle Judovits as Carla, Cassandra Lee as Mutsuki, and even Matthew Mercer as Trey, and they all do good jobs, but the rest of the cast varies, especially Class Zero itself. Ironically enough, the side characters tend to have much more solid performances, with special props going to Steve Blum as Cid, giving a very menacing perfomance, as well as other characters like Aria, Class Zero’s orderly, and Kazusa, the resident mad scientist. Corri English as Sice and Heather Hogan Watson as Queen also fair quite well. Beyond that though, the performances can be rather forced, like Nine and Cater, or just weak overall, like Rem and Deuce. This is not helped by the normal, in game cutscenes themselves, with their structure causing many long, awkward pauses nearly every sentence. It does, however, improve as the game goes on, to the point of the final cutscenes not being hurt by it near at all.

Conclusion:

Overall, this is a solid recommended by me. Even with the weakness of elements like the graphics and the short, underdeveloped story, the core gameplay just holds up that well, and there’s quite a bit to enjoy in the weaker elements even beyond that. Overall, this is one of my favorite Final Fantasy spinoffs, and the fact that it will most likely never get a sequel due to the departure of its director, Hajime Tabata, makes me very sad. With that unneeded note, this shall be the last of the Final Fantasy spinoffs I play in some time. The next time the name Final Fantasy pops up as the subject of one of my reviews, it shall be about the main series. Till next time.

-Scout

#Final Fantasy #final fantasy type 0 #game review #long post #action rpg #JRPG

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mumbal33 · 6 years ago

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The Warrior Within

Dark, brooding, and burly, one-time badass Ronon Dex has come a long way since he first jumped through the Stargate. Now a trusted member of the Stargate: Atlantis team, Jason Momoa reveals that there’s more to Ronon than just his muscles…

By Byran Cairns, Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis Magazine

Big guy. Big muscles. Big gun. Big attitude. There’s no denying these qualities immediately impressed Stargate: Atlantis viewers about Ronon Dex, a Satedan soldier from the Pegasus Galaxy who was implanted with a tracking device so the life draining Wraith could hunt him down. After easily getting the drop on Lt Col John Sheppard and Teyla Emmagan in the episode Runner, Ronan agreed to help them capture the infected Lt Ford if Dr. Beckett removed the alien mechanism under his skin. Realizing his potential as an ally against the Wraith, Sheppard later invited him to join his team and although they’ve slowly gained his trust and have been a positive influence on him, it has still been a difficult transition.

“To a certain extent, it has,” notes Momoa in his deep, gruff voice. “Ultimately, Ronon is still kind of a loner but has taken direction from Sheppard as long as he thinks it is right. That is the great part about him though. He’s military so he’ll still react and have that instinct within him but at the same time, he’ll still listen to commands.”

Since his inauguration, Ronon has been a key participant on multiple missions and the outings have given him the opportunity to connect with his team mates and adjust to his surroundings.

“Sheppard is Ronon’s commander but to me, he and Teyla are the only ones I can trust,” offers Momoa. “I go to Teyla for everything because Sheppard isn’t big on the emotional things. If I had a problem, I would go to Teyla because we’re both aliens. She’s like my sister. Shep is like my best friend through the whole thing. Weir is just my boss, I don’t know too much about her but at the same time, I respect her. Rodney is the brains and I’m the brawn and it will always be like that between us. I can kick his ass but he’ll outwit me. Beckett saved my life numerous times and in these episodes, you’ll see he’s probably saved me more than anybody. He is someone I trust and Beckett is like a good buddy now.”

The second season concluded with Ronon and McKay captured and cocooned onboard a hive ship awaiting either rescue of imminent doom. Among the Atlantis squad, those two are arguable the most polar opposite as McKay can be annoying and Ronon takes no crap. The unlikely pairing is a guilty pleasure and the new season sees them sharing even more screen time together while engaging in their trademark witty banter and scathing remarks.

“The upcoming Tao of Rodney is really good because there’s stuff where McKay is getting a lot of power and thinks he can beat Ronon,” reveals Momoa. “I’m like ‘Oh yeah? Want to take me on?’ And he’s like ‘Um no.’ It is still very much him eating all the time and me making fat jokes about him, McKay saying I’m not smart enough or I am his big friend with few syllables. He’s been calling me Caveman too and I call him fat ass. He’ll poke jokes at me or I will poke them at him but there’s a mutual respect. When it comes down to it, he’s saved my life and I’ve saved his. I am the Pitt Bull on the show and I can tear anyone apart. If McKay and me are bickering, I would chop somebody’s head off to save him.”

As the muscles on the series, Ronon’s special talent to intimidate, threaten, and kick some serious Wraith butt makes him better suited as a fighter rather than a peacemaker. Unfortunately, such roles can sometimes be limiting to an actor by not providing enough depth and development.

“Well, that is the character and the way he is,” defends Momoa. “You can’t expect him to get real emotional. That’s hard to write for. That is why in Sateda, there is a lot I don’t say but am suffering through. [Robert] Cooper and a lot of the crew guys were coming up and going ‘Wow! That was amazing!’ I don’t necessarily have to say anthing, but that doesn’t mean I’m not acting. As long as there are good things to chew on and you don’t have to ramble off all this mumbo jumbo like McKay. I would never want to say all theat sci fi garbage or Beckett with his doctor terms. I speak through my actions and the way I hold myself. I’m not the way Ronon is in real life so it is still fun to play but it is an an ensemble cast and they write for everyone.”

Luckily, Stargate: Atlantis has no intention of pigeonholing anyone and the talented writing staff has been shattering any preconceived notions by sprinkling juicy nuggets throughout season three for Ronon. The humorous Irresistible was such a case. With Atlantis somehow enthralled by a man named Lucius Lavin, Momoa was thrilled to see his tough guy alterego crack a smile.

“That was great, man,” he enthuses. “The night before, I was talking with my fiance, was a little intoxicated, and she’s making me laugh. I would go ‘Hhon! Hhon! Hhon!’ and it sounds like a motor. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was one of those giggles and the next day, I had to shoot this scene where I’m laughing and we’ve never heard Ronon laugh at all. I thought it would be great to be this big dumb animal and be, ‘‘Hhon! Hhon! Hhon!’. He just has this big, funny, annoying laugh. Irresistible was fun because I got to laugh and be goofy.”

Momoa also appreciated the series shifting from the Wraith-heavy adventures to something more light hearted.

“That is what is great about the show; we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” he admits. “The most serious character on the show is me. In that respect, Joe Flanigan plays the lead so great. He’s this unsung hero. I love the way everyone acts on the show and that it has that comedy element to it.”

However it was the recent Ronon-centric Sateda which truly excited Momoa. Once again, Ronon encounters the Wraith, returns to his home world, exposes his tragic past and vulnerable side while dealing with a dangerous present day threat.

“I had to do so much in Runner and this year, Sateda just blows it all away,” exclaims Momoa. “They finally gave me something to act with. Being an actor, I want dialogue. My guy doesn’t say much, but when he does… Sateda was an amazing episode and worth everything. We shot it as the third episode, it aired as the fourth, and it was like ‘Oh man! Now there’s not going to be anything! The rest of the season is going to suck!’ but it has been really good!”

According to Momoa, Sateda was probably the series’ most ambitious and time consuming production to date.

“Sateda was unreal,” he acknowledges. “I usually do four or five days per episode and if it is every day, it is with the whole group and I have little lines here and there. Sateda was a 12-day shoot when we normally shoot in seven. It was the biggest budget I think we’ve ever had and the most stunts and explosions. We’ve never had that many locations. I was exhausted. We basically shot a full-on movie in 12 days on a movie schedule.”

The experience was further heightened when Executive Producer Robert Copper stepped in to direct the episode.

“Robert was fantastic to work with,” praises Momoa. “I hadn’t talked to much with him before that. He’s a very quiet guy and I never go up to the office unless there is a serious problem. I came with my ideas and when I first met him, they were having a little meeting so I went in and gave him the hugest hug. I had to prove to him that I could act. He was there every scene, if I needed the set to be quiet, he would make sure they were. He gave me my time. Not to float his boat but he is definitely one of the top directors I’ve worked with on the show, let alone my career.”

Not exactly a big talker, Ronon’s right hook or his weapon shoved in your face speaks louder than words. Thankfully, outside of Stargate: Atlantis, Momoa kept in great shape on Baywatch Hawaii and North Shore. Neither series were as physical taxing as playing Ronon yet the gung ho actor immediately embraced that warrior spirit.

“When I was doing Baywatch Hawaii, my cousin was a big toe in surfing and now he’s a full-on stunt coordinator so I’ve done a lot of water stuff that has been pretty heavy in big waves,” says Momoa. “That was the only thing I knew. I had never really been in any fights and my manager is Japanese so I wanted to work with a stick. I basically did that for a bit and watched movies before I got the role. I watched tons of samurai and action movies, studying people’s body movements which is what actors do. I was finding my own way, incorporating them into the role, and listening to Bam Bam who is just a talented artist and can come up with a fight like that [snaps fingers]. We work well together because he’s not, ‘No, do it this way!’ He takes into account what you made for your character and how your body moves.”

For Momoa, that included laying off a previous injury which flared up early.

“I have bad knees, so grappling and going low are very hard for me,” he notes. “Runner just got me because we didn’t have the lighter guns so it was five-plus pounds and it was hammering on my right knee. At the end of the day, you soak in the bath, have some wine, pop some Advil, and you’ll be fine. But we established Ronon isn’t really a kicker and more of a head butt, punch kind of guy. The studio likes it and it is working well. Sateda did rip me apart because I had armor on too.”

Before the SG-1 spin-off geared up, most of the actors reportedly signed a five-year contract. Yet when asked whether he could imagine himself in the series for the long haul, Momoa momentarily pauses.

“Tough call. I don’t know if I would want to play Ronon for five years. Playing a character for four years is a little much for me so I’d like to move on. Ultimately, I’d like to be in movies. It’s kind of up in the air. This was a fantastic role and I’ve never played anything like it but not to expand or try other things would be selling myself short.”

Naturally, Momoa isn’t necessarily vying for those adrenaline charged parts.

“Originally, I did not want to be an action star,” he confirms. “I felt it was a trap I’d get into and it would come easy for me. I’m a pretty coordinated cat. I don’t want to be an action star because I don’t want to limit myself to anything.”

In the meantime, Momoa couldn’t be happier on Stargate: Atlantis. However, with only a handful of episodes to finish, he isn’t prepared to speculate on where Ronon is heading. Yet after adding his two cents on his imposing, dreadlocked character last year, the 27-year-old is hoping to fulfill a growing ambition on the series.

“I’d really like to do a story and have a credit for that,” says Momoa. “If I stay on the show longer, I’d love to do a director’s attachment where you sit down and go through the whole thing with him in post-production. I’d eventually love to be behind the camera, going through the dailies, editing, and enhancing what has been shot. I’d love to do that. Hopefully that may be possible next season.”

#jason momoa aquaman #jasonmomoa #ronon dex #aquaman #stargate atlantis

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synthaphone · 6 years ago

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doing this whole OC meme thing for me mostly, very likely not interesting to anyone else (because I’m not really explaining who any of these guys are and I don’t expect anyone to know all of them, also its formatted badly and i didn’t edit it well) so i’m putting it under a cut

The oldest OC I still bring back occasionally is Bluebell, who is an alien creature I invented in 6th grade. She used to be named Hana, because I was taking Japanese lessons and was in that phase of elementary school where you think that naming your characters after a word in another language is always the best and coolest idea

The newest OC I have that’s like, a main character is I guess Viarnne, but my newest OC that’s not a fan character is Slice the rainbow layer cake dragon

I can’t pick a favorite OC very easily- I love Pike and Tu personality-wise a whole lot out of my Dialien characters, and I think Viarnne is my favorite Neopet right now. OH also i love my old character Alkaline

picking a favorite OC design is even harder- of my neopets, Alxxa has the coolest design I think, both to draw and as far as general appearance goes. For all original characters, my favorite for a long time was the character I made whose design was... literally adapted from Alxxa but not a Neopet. I think I called it Tiramisu?? its been a while since I’ve actually drawn Tiramisu

My main reason for making OCs is sort of different for different types of characters- I think part of it is that I legitimately want to tell stories, but the biggest thing IS that I just find character design fun, in particular designing and drawing creatures.

Uhh it’s different for different characters but it usually involves finding something fun to draw and then drawing it a bunch, to see if it stays fun, or if I can keep it fun. If I don’t have fun drawing a character, they tend to sort of fall away- like, you don’t see me drawing Jukebawks often, even though I had fun coming up with a design, because she’s... hard to draw, and doesn’t have as much range of expression as a lot of my other characters. (plus I don’t have a personality for her- if I have a backstory I’m really invested in for a character, I can basically draw very similar pictures of them over and over again and have fun because I like their story so much, which is probably a bit of a flaw)

I don’t really ship my OCs with anyone else’s- I’ve never even really shipped my OCs with like, canon characters from anything? I’m not necessarily opposed to the idea of shipping my characters with someone else’s, but I’m not very good at communication or roleplaying, and a lot of my characters aren’t really what I would call ‘shippable’, so it tends to be easier to just work by myself on that kind of thing.

uhhh i have a couple ocs who I ship but i’m really self conscious about doing so, so i talk about most of them almost never. I ship Sam and Viarnne but I want to actually have a story where it makes sense for them to end up forming a relationship like that, so for now i’m mostly focusing on how their friendship will work (also, just like, assume none of my OCs are fucking I guess?? even the ones i ship together- that’s one of those things that’s just never really been interesting to me, and i mostly just don’t want to deal with jokes about it because like, please?? i like relationship stuff but i just don’t get anything out of sex stuff, jokes or otherwise, most of the time. also please don’t take this as a moral judgement if that’s something you do, i don’t care as long as its not like, something morally reprehensible, you do you). oh i also have Alxxa and Sensurround (neopets), Zotyre and Gyronaut (neopets), Alkaline and Skurl (original story), uhhh kind of not sure if Tu and Iris are gonna end up having a romantic relationship in my Dialien story, i need to do more thinking

weirdest... oc... uhhhhh i’m not sure what that would entail, exactly. my fursona might be the weirdest just from like, not having any sort of world or story or anything, she just floats in space and picks up space radio signals and stuff

I don’t really have enough villain ocs- I guess at this point, Chexerton is kind of a villain, he’s like a shitty space security guard for Virtupets. most of my completely original stories don’t have villains- Dialiens (it needs a better name- maybe just Dial) is more about mental health struggles and potentially capitalism or colonialism, and with LOSER (a story i think i have barely ever talked about on here, its the one with Skurl and Alkaline) i straight up can’t decide whether its a fun road trip where character flaws are explored and then like, amends are made, or if it ultimately ends with the characters not overcoming their flaws and destroying each other. its kind of been both in my mind for a long time which is why i can’t write it- can’t decide whether the relationship should be ultimately healthy or toxic

This is a tough question- I don’t think of my OCs as real people, exactly, that I could be mean to or ‘torture, muahaha i love seeing my babies suffer’- but they’re deeply personal to me, and I don’t think its always useful to see them as constructs unworthy of being treated with kindness. I guess what I would consider being ‘nice’ to my OCs is trying to realize them better and have them make sense and function properly in whatever stories I’m trying to tell using them. In that regard, I guess there’s some I theoretically ‘neglect’ by not really focusing on them very often, or by getting tired of their stories but never officially ‘getting rid’ of them?? Plus I don’t have time to develop literally every character I’ve ever had. I have all kinds of old OCs that i’m not planning to do anything with anymore, but they meant something to me at some point, and its not like they’re going to pile up and take up space in my house if I don’t, like, sell them. I like knowing that if I ever need to look back at my old stuff for ideas, there’s a bunch of stuff I might be able to use or repurpose again someday.

Again, I don’t really think about it as ‘killed’. I guess I don’t have the main character from Skurl’s original story anymore, who was like a mammalian Invader Zim-esque fantasy evil fortress knight?? and Skurl was the funny animal curmudgeon sidekick. I made that protagonist up because the story needed a protagonist, and he never even really had a personality to speak of- his rival was better defined, the mad scientist from the idea had a more interesting character design- basically every other character from that story I might bring back, but that protagonist is probably gone for good. Maybe I’ll bring back his weird ear decorations that smushed his fabric-y rabbit ears down, those were kind of the most interesting thing he had going on. OH if you mean literally killed off in a story, in the nightmare angst version of LOSER Skurl ends up like, not DEAD exactly, but severely fucked up to the point where he’d be better off dead. And Viarnne is technically dead

Oh man years ago I had an OC named O-BR who was a robotic panda bear toy who was possessed by the soul of some dude who died who was a father, and now is kind of the robotic parental figure of the child who owns the bear toy. i don’t think that actually works well as a story- i never even figured out what that dude’s name was, just the name of the bear. it’s name was O-BR because its ears were like, floating purple plastic cheerio shapes that hovered next to his head. this was another ‘i’m obsessed with invader zim’ era character

80% of my Neopet OCs at any given time- also 80% of my non fandom based OCs at any given time. I don’t have time to come up with stories for all of them, and I tend to just focus on whatever is interesting enough that I remember it

I hate drawing Jukebawks... i’m sorry jukebawks........ maybe i should like, offer her up for trade, but i’m not sure anyone else would want her?? i like the idea of her!! i should actually probably design her to be easier for me to draw, in all honesty. When it comes to writing though, Moe has given me so much grief because I honest to god don’t know how he fits into the story and group dynamic in Dialiens. He’s like, kind of an asshole loner who keeps to himself and doesn’t want people to bother him?? i’m not even confident he uses ‘he’ pronouns. i don’t know

this feels like its more designed for people who have more humanoid ocs where they’re heights are more, like, similar, so being short or tall is a thing?? like, for Neopets, Alxxa’s the tallest because he’s really long, and Viarnne is the shortest because he’s an oval that’s like a foot tall. as far as the only character heights that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, the Dialiens, tallest to shortest, are: Pike, Moe (not counting the ears), Iris, Chives, Tu

I guess my oldest ocs are Zotyre, Gyronaut, and that mutant Moehog lady- youngest would be Chilston, i guess. and as far as OCs, i have no idea, i don’t think enough about age. approaching characters from the angle that they’re Cartoons!!!! and then deciding to try and give them nuance later means that everyone’s just sort of nebulously adult-ish

Do I dislike any of my OCs, like, as characters, or as people? I think Pike, despite being one of my favorite OCs, would irritate me quite a bit in real life, because his personality is heavily influenced by traits that annoyed me about other people I’ve met, but like, trying to see them more sympathetically?? but he’d get on my nerves. Iris fits this a lot too- I don’t think I’d like Moe much either?? i dunno its a weird question, i like them because they’re my characters and also because they’re not real. i don’t think most of them would be friends with me or anything if they were real, even if so many of them are based on parts of me

oh i’ve made self inserts- i definitely had a self insert Invader Zim character that i drew maybe a single time, and then pretended to be in daydreams in my head while bored during school. she had an angsty backstory. then after that i pretended to be Trigger in my daydream stories all the time in school for like, 3 years (like, during points in time where i was zoning out during class, or walking between classes)

uhhhhh I regret not doing more with these characters, and i regret that i can’t answer a lot of important questions about characters I’ve had for years Now. i’ve had them for years, so they feel really definitive and rock solid in my mind, so they’re hard to change, but also they’re really not as nuanced as i want them to be. its a bit tough

well someone in freshman year of college who i ended up cutting ties with because of some kind of wild friend group drama and like, important political and philosophical differences, actually knew me from deviantart and remembered one of my OCs. that was pretty wild. that’s one person though... uhhh, are any of my OCs popular?? I’m just excited when anyone finds a character i’ve come up with interesting. I’m glad other people seem to like Viarnne!!! it fills me with terror that i’ll like, ruin him by writing a bad story, but its also exciting and validating to come up with a character story and for other people to also enjoy it

uhhh its Viarnne again. i drew him to try and demonstrate how a robot Kiko could be an appealing character design and it backfired on me. i love drawing Orb with a Face and Arms and i am happy when i see him as my active pet on neopets. I guess Pike also qualifies- when I initially drew the Dialiens, I had very vague personality ideas for them, and I felt like he would be the bully. he has since become very much NOT the bully (like, he seems more like a person who would get bullied) and I’ve grown really fond of him. also i created Trigger to be a Chuck E Cheese style mascot back before fucking Five Nights At Freddy’s existed and destroyed that that as an original idea (fuck you FNAF i have two characters now who are basically... that and you can’t ruin that for me. i was here FIRST (this is a joke its not even that great of a premise, my shit isn’t horror, and i’ll deal)). he was also based on a glow in the dark grey alien and a skeleton and lived in an abandoned pizza entertainment building and was basically an evil villain, and then high school me decided that instead of being that he was gonna be a mutated teenager and it was going to be really angsty. I don’t really have as much interest in that backstory anymore??? but I sure had a lot of fun with it for like 4 years so i think that counts

#my ocs #original characters #long post

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the-apocryphal-one · 6 years ago

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Novel Review: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

I’m sorry, but when you open up your book with that paragraph, intentionally invoking and subverting typical fairy tale tropes with a fun tongue-in-cheek narration...you’ve got me hooked. And if you get me hooked like that, you’d better follow through. And this book did. Hot damn it was good. I binged it in a day.

Apparently the author used to write fanfiction; it shows, because she took away all the good lessons you learn from it and left behind the bad parts. Uprooted is a stand-alone medieval fantasy with a refreshingly original tale and lovely use of fairy tale tropes and you should definitely check it out.

Summary: Once a decade, the Dragon comes and Chooses a single girl from the valley he protects as payment. Agnieszka (Nieshka for short) doesn’t worry about being taken; she worries about her beautiful, talented, perfect best friend Kasia, who everyone knows will be Chosen. But for a reason Nieshka can’t fathom, the Dragon picks her instead, and she gets sucked into a world that is dark and horrifying...but not in the ways you’d expect it to be.

Spoiler-free cliffnotes review:

- After a while, YA female protagonists start to get cookie-cutter. Nieshka is not at all cookie-cutter; she’s unique, sweet, and genuinely flawed. I never found myself irritated with her, and I kept getting prouder and prouder of her as she grew into her own.

- Likewise, YA romances tend to be cookie-cutter and feel shallow or lust-based. And don’t get me started on the love triangles. But thankfully, there are no love triangles here, and the romance is background, slow-burn emotional goodness. Bonus points for neither lead being hot; they’re actually kind of plain. Poor Nieshka especially gets called horse-faced and nothing special to look at.

- The other characters are all developed well; Kasia, the wizards at court, the royals, the antagonists, they all have their own distinct personalities and motivations. And boooooooy I love Nieshka’s friendship with Kasia, it is Good and Strong and we need more platonic relationships like that in literature.

- Worldbuilding was enticing, I was genuinely interested in the different legends and histories and songs. Downside is the world itself felt a little confusing in terms of layout; nothing that created a plot hole, but I could have used a map.

- Novik’s prose is beautiful, and especially shines when she’s creating atmosphere, but can be a bit too long at times. It definitely slowed me down while I was reading.

- She’s great at pacing and tension. The stakes start small but important, and then they grow a little larger, and then they just spiral up and up and more and more is at risk and I kept holding my breath waiting to see how the heroes would get through it this time.

...And have the spoiler version below the cut:

The Gushing:

- honestly I love Nieshka because she is just so unlike your typical YA protagonist. A lot of them are cold, brave, loner-types who don’t need help. Nieshka’s a self-admitted coward, genuinely clumsy (she’s always dirty from spilling stuff on herself and tripping), and anxious...but also a big sweetheart, idealistic, and kinda spacey. Like the Dragon took her to teach her magic, and she keeps thinking about how restrictive it is. Then she starts thinking about it in terms of wandering through the woods not knowing what she’s looking for, but she’ll know when she finds it, and she’s picking berries in her head, and suddenly: boom, magic. And the Dragon is furious because that’s too unorganized, what do you mean woods there aren’t any woods here, how are you doing it????

- it is essentially Wizard vs Sorcerer, to put it in DnD terms, only she is the only Sorceress in a world of Wizards and they can’t. get. it. it’s hilarious. (but she also can’t do their stuff, she has all the power without the precise control. They’re all stronger working together, so it’s not “super specialness”, it’s a fair trade)

- Delicious slow-burn, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance, yum. It’s written subtly and beautifully; I love the detail when she stops thinking of the Dragon by his title and starts thinking of him by his name. You just see the relationship changing without being told it is.

- speaking of, I love the Dragon. He’s laid out as nuanced and “not a bad lord” from the start--protective of his vassals, enough to personally step in to help them, but also extremely distant. He thinks of the needs of the many vs the few, he’s grumpy, he never socializes, and he demands a sacrifice of a girl every decade--just to clean his tower, but everyone thinks the worst because he doesn’t do anything to make them think otherwise. So no one likes him except in that local proud “he’s our lord” way. And he keeps getting taken off-guard by Nieshka (again: “HOW ARE YOU CASTING LIKE THAT?!”) in a way that’s kind of adorable.

- Nieshka's profession at the end is becoming a druid-type healer. I LOVE THAT. there’s like some stigma against women doing feminine things in YA literature, and Nieshka just goes for it. She has the power to be a war-witch, and she’s used her magic that way, but she hated seeing battle and death. She goes “nope, I’m gonna peace out and heal the damage caused by this war.”

- I love how Nieshka knows the Dragon is gonna run from their relationship and decides she’s not gonna beg him to stay bc he needs to figure that out for himself. If he doesn’t come back, she’ll be sad, but she’ll move on. Her life doesn’t revolve around him, that’s refreshing, and it makes the moment he does come back (bc of course he does) that much better.

- Nieshka and Kasia’s friendship is the Good Shit, they’re just completely devoted to each other and it’s not at all framed in a romantic way. ACTUALLY their platonic love is the central relationship of the story instead of the romance, and I LOVE THAT, because romance shouldn’t be The Only And The Biggest bond in our life. But they also have their secret envies and hurts, but their friendship just grows stronger for it??? it’s just so good???

- Okay, for some non-Nieshka things (but seriously I love her), how about the side characters? They’re never reduced to “stop mattering when the hero leaves the screen”, they get motivations explained and other facets of their character explored. Alosha the witch-blacksmith, the Dragon’s rival the Falcon, KASIA, Prince Marek. Marek is like the perfect shadow archetype of Nieshka, they both really want to save someone they love from the Wood, they both refuse to quit, and it’s just plain bad luck that his quest was doomed from the start. So even though she hates what he does, she understands why he’s doing it, and admits she might well have done the same in his shoes.

- The Wood is terrifying. Novik uses a lot of pretty descriptive words in her narration that borders on flowery at points, but when it comes to the Wood, it underlines how horrific that place is. At one point, the Wood corrupts Kasia, and she describes sap seeping out of her eyes and mouth and I gagged reading it. Or here, take this paragraph:

“I could see light shining through my own skin, making a blazing lantern of my body, and when I held up my hands, I saw to my horror faint shadows moving there beneath the surface. Forgetting the feverish pain, I caught at my dress and dragged it off over my head. He knelt down on the floor with me. I was shining like a sun, the thin shadows moving through me like fish swimming beneath the ice in winter.”

- yes thank you I really needed the imagery of living evil fish swimming under someone’s skin in my life (translation: beautiful prose but ahhhh!)

- plus the Wood is alive and incredibly smart. It spends the whole book playing speed chess and keeping you double-guessing every apparent victory the heroes have. Combined with the supernatural/horror aspects, it really feels like an eldritch and dreadful force of nature.

- there are like three books’ worth of plot in this one, but they all get developed and paced well. there’s just so much content, and it’s varied and exciting and gripping--training with the Dragon, rescues in the Wood, courtly intrigue, a siege on a tower, kickass magic battles, and The Big Final Mission which ends in a way I don’t want to spoil, even in the spoiler section.

Critiques:

- I really wish Novik included a map of the land, because I just kept getting confused where everything was. At first I was under the impression the Dragon’s tower was to the west, closest to the Wood; then it and the Wood turned out to be in the east? And the capital is...north, northwest of that? But then why are Nieskha and Kasia crossing mountains to get to the Dragon’s tower in the south, the mountains are in the east too, dividing them from Rosya, right??? where even is everything??????? it’s possible I was a dumbell and just misread/misremembered stuff, but that’s why a map would have been helpful.

- Novik’s writing style is beautiful, it’s fairy tale-esque and fits the setting...but once in a while it’s too much, you know? She really, really wants you immersed in the physical sensations of the world she created, and in cases like the Woods, it works well to convey the sheer monstrosity of the place. In other cases, it feels kinda like a slog; there’s one point where she writes at length about the pattern of a carpet. How interesting.

- Usually in YA fiction, the heroine doesn’t care about her parents or vice versa. Thankfully that’s averted here, but Nieshka mentions she has three brothers...who she doesn’t really think or care about. There’s a nice scene when she first arrives at the tower and starts crying about how she’s lost her parents, but her brothers? Nada. They don’t even get names or show up, with no explanation; at the very least a line about how they’re so much older than her that they’re not close would have satisfied me, but there’s nothing like that. It’s not huge, but it’s jarring.

- while I love the Dragon and Nieshka’s emotional relationship, I do admit the physical aspects felt sudden. Novik basically has it so that magically working together creates a charged intimacy between them, and the first time it happened I loved it because it seemed like it was gonna be ‘the gateway’ to more. Instead, it kind of ends up a crutch for their physical relationship. It’s like “slow burn, slow burn, magic, KISSAGE, slow burn, slow burn, magic, SEX”.

#book review #uprooted #book rec

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bugheadfamily · 6 years ago

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This week the spotlight is on Anna ( @writeradamanteve )! Click the read more link below to get to know our member!

Spotlight by Mila, @jughead-jones | Graphic by Katie, @betty-cooper

Anna | @writeradamanteve

Name: Anna

Age: 40

Location: New Jersey

Any other languages aside from English people can contact you in?: Filipino.

Favourite Riverdale characters and ships?: Aside from Betty and Jughead, I do love the awfulness of Cheryl Blossom and spitfire that is season 1 Veronica.

Cheryl Blossom is unapologetically terrible, and in real life, I would absolutely HATE her, but there’s something to be said about a woman who just goes all in. I get that hardness in her, and I like it that she admires others for it, too. That Toni brings out her soft side is a plus, but I would prefer that she stays true to her character outside of her romantic relationship.

Season 1 Veronica Lodge was a champion of women. I loved that about her. I may not have bought the whole “Betty is my best friend” assertion, but I did like that she was doing it to make amends for her past. S1!Veronica wanted to do better and she looked at Betty and thought Betty was a good person to hang out with to further that. Veronica as a person is methodical. Deliberate. And those are characteristics that can be both good and bad. I like it that Veronica can go both ways. I also mean that in a very gay way. No amount of her sleeping with Archie will convince me that her character can’t be bi. I can’t even say I hate her in season 2. She seemed a little lost there, but she was deciding between her family and her principles. For a while she thought that both could coexist, but when she realized in the end that it couldn’t, she broke away. That’s badass.

As for Betty and Jughead, I have at least 500K worth of words in fanfic that expresses the many ways I love them. But to be clear:

I love Betty for being so steadfast in her beliefs. She may have her insecurities when it comes to how she looks and what her mother may think of her, but when it comes injustice and friends endangering themselves for sex, she isn’t going to let anyone prevent her from doing the right thing. She is a go-getter, from saving Pop’s to saving her relationship (especially when Jughead was pulling away from her). She is a master at wielding household items — a skill, we learned, she got from Alice, who’s clearly handy with a lamp. She’s kinky, and she can be scary stone cold — forcing Cheryl to testify the truth with blackmail, watching Jughead punch Chic in the face without flinching, drowning a man to get him to confess to his sins (although ask me some other time about the morality and racial undertones of that, as that is an entirely different conversation). But she also deeply values her relationships. She cares for her loved ones so much, friend or family. That makes her so strong.

Let me tell you the many Jugheads I love: Soft!Jughead, Smughead Jones, Curious Jones, Snowflake!Jughead, ProudBF!Juggie, and even HaplessSerpent!Jughead. I like him best when he’s writing and when he’s making literary references in regular conversation. I love how sarcastic he could be and how his transition from loner weird kid in Riverdale High to popular serpent prince in Southside High tugs at my heartstrings and makes me mad, too. Like Betty, he cares fiercely for the people he loves. His need to belong becomes real to him, after he tried to deny it for so long. As much as we all have our issues with Season 2 Jughead, it added certain dimensions to Jughead that I love to write about in fanfic.

Favourite moments from S1 & S2?: I think I loved most of season 1, but the moments that stood out to me most were these: When Betty was dancing happily in her Cheerleading uniform, when Betty and Jughead were searching Jason’s room and got caught, when Jughead and Betty went to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy together, when Betty rushed to SSH to save Jughead only to find him laughing at the lunch tables with his newfound friends, when Veronica stood up for Betty at the tryouts, when Veronica showed Cheryl compassion, when the girls all banded together to make Chuck suffer the consequences of his misogyny (again, I have words for this, but mostly — why only him? His wasn’t the only name on that playbook), when Cheryl calls people names, when Jughead protected Betty from her vandalized locker, and of course, when Jughead climbed Betty’s bedroom window. While I can’t get enough of Jughead throwing Betty against the kitchen counter, I have to admit I still loved those other scenes a whole lot more. That said, I will still hope for what I mention in question #7.

Season 2 — ah, my goodness. I don’t need to explain how S2 broke my heart in so many good and bad ways. While there were some golden moments, I think most of us are in agreement that there were so many things that could’ve been done better. However, I STILL do have favorite scenes in this Hell Season: Jughead running the gauntlet was amazing, Betty working on Reggie’s car, the entire street race sequence, every time Betty uses a household object to save people (a shovel, a rolling pin, a poker), Jughead and Betty disposing of the car--from her house to the swamp, that entire episode of “The Wicked and the Divine”, Cheryl and Toni finding one another, and the hunger strike scenes.

What are your hopes for S3?:

Bughead summer sex montage.

MOAR Bughead Detective Agency.

A slammin’ Riverdale Parents Flashback episode.

Joaquin stays and Kevin gets better with love and BDE.

Kevin and Josie becoming step-siblings.

Reggie and Sweetpea being half-brothers.

Veronica being the Speakeasy Queen.

Cheryl stirring trouble (even if I know I’ll hate her for it).

Archie getting a clue.

Other fandoms you’re into?: My thing is that I don’t usually fan hard on more than one thing. My past fandoms were Harry Potter, Teen Titans, Anime (many of them at once), Cowboy Bebop, X-Files, Star Trek Voyager, and Firefly. At present, I love Star Wars (all of them — eh, except maybe for Episodes 1, 2, and 3), Wonder Woman, and all the Marvel movies.

What are some of your favourite movies/TV?: Classics: Galaxy Quest, Tropic Thunder, Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, Forest Gump, The Matrix, Constantine, Clueless, The Breakfast Club, Transformers: The Animated Movie, Snatch, Firefly, Veronica Mars, Supernatural (Seasons 1 - 5), X-Files;

Most Recent: Pacific Rim, Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Rogue One, Ready Player One, Anne with an E, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Anthony Bourdaine’s old and new series.

Favourite books?: There are so many, fam, but here are the ones that first come to mind:

Harry Potter 1 - 6 (yeah, sorry, not a huge fan of the 7th)

Emma by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

All of Louisa May Alcott’s books

All of Sharon Shinn

All of L.M. Montgomery

Anne Marston’s Rune Blade Trilogy

Barb and J.C. Hendee’s Noble Dead Saga

The Infernal Devices Trilogy (Cassandra Clare)

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

All of Zilpha Keatley Snyder books

All of Paula Danziger books

Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Misery by Stephen King

Favourite bands/musicians?: I shall date myself, thanks:

Queen

Guns & Roses

Metallica

Nikki Minaj

Cardi B

Imagine Dragons

One Republic

The Killers

Lily Allen

Cake

Eminem

Amy Winehouse

Sting

If you could live in any fictional world which one would you choose and why?: Harry Potter, no doubt. I would like to live in a world that relies on magic. I would like to go to a magical school like Hogwarts. I would love to fight in a resistance to overthrow an evil sorcerer. Plus, I would really, really love to meet Hermione.

Favourite food?:

Ramen (the real stuff, not the dried instant ones)

Banh Mi

Bun bo Hue

Sushi

Filipino Food — particularly Adobo

Tacos

Mangos and strawberries

Favourite season?: Summer.

Favourite plant?: This is an odd question to me as I don’t have a favorite plant. They are just there and sometimes they give me grief when I have to tend to the outside of my house because they’ve gotten unruly on some level (like — Fall, why do you have to discard your leaves all over my grounds?)

Favourite scent?: Baby’s breath, food, and freshly changed bed sheets.

Favourite colour?: Victorian pink.

Favourite animal?: Cats and Owls (I am definitely a witch by heart).

Are you a night owl, an early bird, or a vampire?: I sleep late and wake up early. I am an old person who can go on 5 hours of sleep.

Place you want to visit?: Portugal or Prague is next on my list.

Do you have pets? If you do, tell us a little about them: I have two pets. Pootie is a cat. He is a gray tuxedo. He loves me best, but he also hangs around my eldest child a lot. Every once in a while, he bothers my husband. Bob is a hermit crab. Bob bores the hell out of me and I am equal parts terrified that I will find him dead in his cage and tired that I am still taking care of him. His previous companions, Larry and Curly, have perished. When I found them dead, I screamed. Hermit crabs are creepy as fuck when they leave their shells, like I can’t stand them that way. I don’t know why I am stuck taking care of Bob, but he’s here, he is under my care, and God help me, he’s a stubborn bastard.

Tell us a little about yourself?:

For work, I’m a web producer/web developer, and I maintain about 20 sites for my company.

I used to work in publishing.

I went to law school and quit.

I eventually married my high school sweetheart and now we have 3 children.

I was always attracted to women, too, but growing up, I was too afraid to come out as bi. It still intimidates me, coming out to new people now. Most times, I just let them draw their own conclusions.

Fun or weird fact about you?: There’s nothing weird about me that you don’t already know. Fun fact: I kickbox in the nearby UFC gym, and one time, I was practicing with Tai pads with a dude who kicked me in the leg by accident — he just “grazed” me, really. I TRIED VERY HARD to pretend that I was alright. That night, my leg was swollen, and three months later, I saw that same dude fighting in the octagon on TV.

Asks for fanfic authors:

How long have you been writing?: 20 years.

Which is your favourite of the fics you’ve written?: That is impossible to answer. Truly. So I’m going to close my eyes over a list of my stories and where my finger lands, that’s my fave. It’s Drive.

Favourite fic/chapter/plot-point/character you’ve ever written?: This is even harder.

Polly’s character arc in Wicked. I really love how I fleshed her out in that story

The development of Kevin and Jughead’s friendship in Harvest to Home

Jughead’s relationship with Archie and Jellybean in Drive.

Betty’s story arc in Drive.

The twists and turns of Wicked.

The rich ambience of Harvest to Home.

Betty and Cheryl’s friendship in Harvest to Home.

The text conversation in Drive.

Sweet Pea’s background character in Drive.

Cheryl’s character in Wicked.

The car chase scene in Drive.

The hotel scene in Cowboy Jones.

The Peitho kitchen scene in Cowboy Jones.

Which was the hardest to write, and why?: Wicked was hard to write. I had set out to write this story with the twists and turns in mind, and those twists were interlaced. I had to set stuff up all throughout the beginning and middle so that the end would make sense. It was also harder because of Season 2. The background of those episodes in contrast with what I had in mind tended to make me nervous about reader expectations. Like when Hal was suddenly the Black Hood on Riverdale, it felt odd to not make him so terrible in Wicked.

One of the hardest chapters I had to write was a chapter written in Cheryl’s POV. Delving into her psyche was a difficult switch to turn on and at some point, I was doubting whether I can do it, but I did it and there it was. And I don’t regret it at all.

How do you come up with the ideas for you fic(s)? (examples: Do you draw inspiration from real life? Listen to music? Get inspired by TV/movies?) Do you have an process to your writing?: Inspiration is different every time.

For Harvest to Home, I wanted to write a fic about a very domestic Betty who made beautiful things. While I was writing that fic, I was deeply into the show Fixer Upper because we had just moved into our own new home. I was absolutely inspired by the designs I saw on TV and our need to decorate our home. I wanted Betty to be so good at it that she wrote a blog about home making. I had a lot of inspiration for that as well, since in the publishing company I used to work for, I worked with a lot of chefs and homemakers who published books.

For Drive, I was inspired by images of Mechanic!Betty at the start of Season 2. I think I may have seen a couple of fics inspired by the movie Baby Driver, where Jughead drove the getaway cars, and honestly, I got a little mad that Betty was never the driver. So I wrote the damn thing, and suddenly, Jughead was drag racing in Season 2. I wrote that fic with a lot of alternative music in the background. I usually started my chapters with the lyrics of those songs that inspired me.

For Wicked, I started writing it for Halloween and it basically grew too large of an idea to make it to Halloween of that year. I was also hesitant about how the fandom would receive a fic where Betty was a witch. Then there came that article about how Alice was possibly a Spellman. WELL THEN.

Cowboy Jones was absolutely inspired by the Camp Bughead prompts. I figured since I hadn’t been driven out of the fandom by torches and pitchforks because of Wicked, I’d try for some sci-fi, a genre I really love. I aimed to misbehave with Cowboy Jones, so I told myself that this was going to be my smuttiest work yet. I had also put out an X-Files inspired bughead short called The Truth is Here for that same prompt.

I answered the question about my writing process here and some more about character development here.

Idea that you always wanted to write?: Kitchen Confidential type story, where Jughead is an asshole chef who is determined to make his restaurant succeed. Betty becomes his sous chef and shows him a thing or two about cooking and about life.

Favourite character to write?: Betty and Jughead, no doubt.

Best comment/review you’ve ever received?: Well, there are so many commenters who have been so fantastic, but my favorite comments come from those who want to have a discussion with me, mostly because I like to reply to all commenters to express my gratitude and it’s easier to reply when I can pick up a conversation.

Best and worst parts of being a writer?: Best part is finishing a chapter and posting it. Worst part is getting flamed. I have been fortunate enough to have a welcoming group of readers here, but I’ve had my share of flames in other fandoms. I always try to dig deep for something constructive in them — there always is something that can be so useful to my writing, but man, those are TOUGH to handle sometimes.

Do you have any advice to offer?: Few things:

Don’t let fear rule your life. Embrace that fear and get to know it. Find out what makes it frightening, then overcome it.

Practice. That is the only thing that will make you better at anything.

Learn from failure. It’s a bitch of a teacher but it’s the best lesson you’ll ever have.

Find work that you love. It always pays.

This is the eleventh installment of Bughead Family’s Member Spotlight series. Each week, a member’s url is selected through a randomizer and they will be featured in a spotlight post. In order to participate, please join the Bughead Discord (more information found here). Thank you.

#bughead #riverdale #bughead fanfiction #bughead family discord #bugheadfamily #member spotlight

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