#I’ll probably find something cheesier | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

izukus-sugar-baby · 3 years

Text

Checked out!

WARNINGS: fluff-ish, eventually will be smut, mentions of getting sick twice

word count: 2k

Heres my first writing for tumblr! Hope you all like it!

Part Two, Part Three.

"Hey Miss!!" You peered down at the smaller voice, simultaneously feeling a book slip from your hand and onto the ground. The bookshelf was at least 5 rows high, and you had been standing as far as you needed to reach the top. You were dusting off and replacing the books on the shelf, which... hadn’t been so pleasant with children running around before their daily read. Regardless, you had a job to do. It wasn't gonna stop for a ton of kids. You had been rearranging the books in alphabetical order before the kid startled you. Thank god it didn’t fall on their head.

"Are you gonna read to us today? Or is Miss Maggie?" The kid didn't look over six years old, blue eyes and long brown hair with freckles littering her face in a wonderful way. She wore a small dress full of sunflowers with bright pink shoes on her feet. She had been here before... Although, her name wasn’t ringing a bell.

"I wanted to read one of those pigeon stories you read us last time!" You let out a sigh of relief that the book didn't smack the kid on top of her head prior to climbing down to the ground and leaning down be eye-level with her.

"Pigeon stories?" You've read dozens of books about dozens of creatures and characters. What on earth would relate to a.. pigeon? Leaning down a bit farther to snatch up the book you had dropped, she pushed another book into your arms. The title read The Pigeon Needs A Bath!

"This book is pretty thin, You sure you want me to read just this one book, sweetheart?" You stood up straight, handing the girl the book back before cocking your hip to the side and placing your hand onto it.

"Me and Emmie can go find some more!" She hurried off to find her.. friend? Knowing it had been a child, it could be a stuffed animal! But she sure did leave too quickly to ask any questions about it. You sighed, climbing back up to finish your organizing. Thank goodness I’m already close to being done. You thought to yourself, dusting top to bottom and moving onto the 4th row. Their reading wasn't for another.. what? 20 minutes? You had time to knock out another shelf. Time flew by as you finished the 4th row. It was already time to read.

"I have to stop by Goodwill and get some more books. I also gotta stop at the post office and some.. other errands? You got this reading?" The owner of the store, Maggie, looked over to make sure she had gotten your attention before naming off a few things that needed done in the shop before you closed up shop.

"Yeah! What time will you be back?" You climbed down the last step of the ladder, patting off the dust from the bookcase that had gotten on your apron. It was some cutesy hello kitty apron you wore so the dust wouldn't ruin your clothing but it really just made it look like it was some mini cafe. None the less, you wore it.

"I'll be back in time for that uh, Pro hero guy. I don't know- my wife wrote him in. Ask and she'll tell you!" You weren't too involved with all that hero bullshit, the whole who can save more lives?! You get the most money AND an award. The system in itself was ass and it wouldn't make a difference in your everyday life for one of those snobby people to stop by. You walked around the shelves, watching Maggie leave as you sat down on a small rounded couch. A small chime rang through the shop as it called the children over for their reading, a few already sitting and ready to hear you.

It wasn't a big library, it seemed like a corner store had gotten torn down and then completely renovated into a library for children. The second floor had been where the owner and her wife stayed. It was a cozy little place where about 8-12 kiddos would visit for a read. There were bookshelves in the walls for more book space and 5 separate shelves more towards the middle of the place. They held less books than the ones on the wall. Only two of the five reached over 3ft. Parents would come in just to rent a few books. But more often than not, the owner would go out hunting for new books for everyone to enjoy. Along with cute little toys and those foam floor mats to sit on. All of the children in the shop had sat right in front of you, including the girl from earlier who held 4 books in her hands. A few other kids held thin picture books in their hands as well, but only having 15 minutes to read to them, it might be hard to get around to all of them.

“Alright, Who's first?" You asked, smiling down at them. Every single child raised their hand, some even raising both so your attention was on them. Of course this wasn't going to be easy. You thought to yourself as you put a hand over your eyes, pointing to some random kid. He held a small book, standing up slowly and handing it to you.

"My mom reads me this sometimes.." Poor boy was only about 5, and seemed pretty shy. You gave him a reassuring smile before he went back to his seat. You began to read and in no time at all you finished reading the few books children selected. Thank god it was a Friday, Most children would be picked up right after the reading for afternoon preschool etc. But it seemed like no one wanted to leave. Was it that hero Maggie had mentioned? You sighed, hopping up and heading to the check out desk where you saw a few children wanting to check out their books you previously read to them. You leaned down over the desk to reach for the book, scanning it and doing so for each person. The store bell jingled, as if the creak of the door didn't give away someone walking in.

"Welcome to 'Children's Magical Bookshop,' You paid the person no mind as you spoke, handing the last child their book and letting your gaze fall upon the... very tall man in front of you. Noise filled the small shop, children running up to him screaming-

"Deku!" As loud as their little lungs could. He gave a flashy smile, leaning down to hug the children that ran straight for his legs. He laughed and lifted a few of them in his.. very strong arms. Was it hot in the bookshop? Was the AC fucked up? You force your eyes from the tall man.. Was he looking at you too? Your mind screamed at you to introduce yourself, Quickly walking towards a shelf to do something. Anything bust stand there and gawk at him.

"Are you Maggie?" There were hopping children behind him, playing with his gloves and such as you turned to him.

"No- I'm y/n. Are you that.. pro? She had been talking about.?" You huffed through your nose, turning to him. He extended a hand, nodding with a cheesy grin on his face as soon as you had taken his hand into yours. It wasn’t like you never saw him on the news, but you sure did skip the channel as soon as it was some bullshit hero chart over who had been number one. He was so much hotter in person..

"Yes! I'm sorry I'm a bit early, I finished patrol sooner than I thought! I hope I'm not interrupting anything? The woman on the phone said before six, I told her I was sure I could make it around five!" His eyes traveled to your lips for a moment, listening to you speak back to him.

“You’re fine, There’s plenty of time for you to hang out and sign all of their t-shirts and such. Make yourself at home big man. You can sit in the reading area,” The kids dragged him to where you were just moments ago.. But he couldn't get you to leave his mind. You were beautiful. He needed to make you his.

The poor hero stayed until about six o’clock to talk to you, since all of the kids finally left to go do their summer homework or whatever they had to do. Deku had been leaning over the counter for almost an extra hour to make some conversation with you, he just couldn’t help himself. You cant blame him either! You had this smile that he couldn’t resist. And quite frankly, he wasn’t used to this feeling of butterflies in his stomach. He fought some shit villain every day! What's a few butterflies? Especially as pretty as you. Why wouldn't he want to stick around?

“I really didn’t think it would be so chill this week! It feels like I've done nothing but catch up on papers!” Izuku scratched his neck with his index finger, shaking his head lightly. “I guess I really am doing a good job!- Of course other pros are doing their jobs as well!” He let out a relieved chuckle, looking at you with a big, sincere, smile on his face. “How has work here been? It must be so nice working with so many children!”

You feel your eyes involuntarily roll, shaking your head and leaning against the wall behind you. “It’s nice until some kid gets sick on themselves and their mother isn’t here to help. We have extra clothing in the back because it’s happened more than once.” You groaned as your eyes trailed to the door leading to lost n found, clothes, and other things. You had an unamused look on your face talking about it. He noticed and let his eyes follow yours until feeling your eyes rest upon him once more. Maybe texting would let you come around to him a bit more? Were you bored?

“Yikes- I’ve seen adults get sick after villains show up. But I probably should head back to my agency.” He looked out of the store window before right back to those beautiful e/c eyes of yours. “Do you have a number I can text? I would love to talk to you more y/n..!” He was already prepared for rejection. It was kinda weird to be hitting on you after dealing with kids wasn’t it? Maybe he should take it back. Was he coming off as some sleazy ass hero?

Your eyes widened in the slightest- Enough for him to notice. “Sure, Let me see your phone,” You stepped closer to the counter, seeing him fumble on the pouch of his belt before unlocking and giving you his phone. You went to his contacts, making yourself one of them and handing it right back to him. He had an even bigger, cheesier, grin on his face after he took it back.

“Thank you, y/n!” He bowed his head before quickly leaving out to his agency. Finally, you could go home as well. Not that he was a problem, but that man sure could talk. It was endearing. Maybe I can put enough of those stutters in mind tonight. You joked to yourself, grabbing your keys and walking out to lock up the small bookshop. There was no doubt that you were attracted to him. Every woman in America and Japan was attracted to him in some way.

You let out a small sigh, driving home and turning your radio up until hearing your phone ding. You glanced over at the screen to see an unknown number texting. Assuming it was Deku, you waited until you were home to answer him. By the time you had texted him back, he was quick to reply. You two made plans to hang out soon and have dinner together. You talked for hours until one of you had fallen asleep. He was ecstatic. You really enjoyed his company.

taglist: @tenyaiidasslut @hi-rubi @devilsbooksworld @flamingpastapotatoes @arleneeene @blacklotussai @akam4recs @prinvilmain

a/n: I fucking hate tumblr KWJCHDH ive had to re-write this more than once because they changed the layout if the save and post. Its not my best work and was mostly edited on here instead of Google docs. Learn to edit the first version first i guess 💀 The second part will be much better!

Please Reblog!!!!

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my-mt-heart · 2 years

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Minisode ask: One day towards the end of season 11, Daryl returns from a supply run with a ring for Carol.

Daryl pulls up to the garage on his motorcycle. He dismounts, walking up to Carol who greets him with a peck on the lips.

Carol: Find anything good out there?

Daryl: Look for yourself.

He hands her his backpack without making eye contact, then starts to fidget nervously. Carol narrows her eyes, suspicious, before starting to dig through the loot.

Carol: Canned food. I’ll put that in the pantry. More seeds, that’s good. I know Negan’s just dying to do some more gardening today. Clothes for Coco. Just a heads up she’s probably grown two sizes since this morning.

She feels around some more and suddenly her expression falters. She pulls out a small velvet box.

Carol: What’s this?

Daryl raises his gaze to her slowly. When he doesn’t say anything, Carol decides to open the box, revealing a simple ring.

Carol: Did someone ask you to bring this back for them?

Daryl still can’t find his voice. The suspense makes Carol emotional. Her eyes turn glossy. Her lip quivers.

Carol: Daryl?

Daryl: Nah, I, uh, found it and I thought maybe I’d ask you—I mean, I wanted to ask for a real long time. Just wasn’t sure if it was something you’d want or—you don’t gotta wear it or nothin’—

Carol: You idiot.

Daryl: I know.

Carol: No, I mean, stop talking.

She ropes her arms around him, kissing him long and slow. Then…

Carol: Yes.

Daryl: Yeah?

Carol nods. Daryl takes the ring from her and slips it on her finger. They kiss again. Daryl can’t contain his grin.

Daryl: You’re my wife.

Carol: If you make this moment any cheesier, I’m going to have to kill you.

Daryl: Deal.

#caryl #caryl minisodes #caryl scenes #carol x daryl #twd

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kekoma · 3 years

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— hanamaki as your boyfriend.

hands belong in pockets, not in your pants unless you’re him. hope you enjoy.

hanamaki hours has now entered the chambers.

such an amazing man. would do many things for him, but you didn’t come here to know that.

you came here to see how life is like dating hiro, yeah? so let’s get into.

how you two ended up dating isn’t munch of a mystery.

makki had s personality that attracts all kind of people without even trying so it wasn’t a surprise when he had been able to lure you in as well.

as for when he realized that he actually liked you was when mattsun had pointed out how much he spoke you to him.

and he also picked up the fact that he started flirting with you more than before too yet it no longer had that playful feel around it— hiro was serious about wooing you over.

pretty sure he was the one to make the move on you. he isn’t someone that is shy so when he asked you if you would go to the amusement park with him— that’s when he became a bolder.

“how are you enjoying our date so far?”

“it’s actually amazing~ can we... huh? wait... our date?”

“well yeah. this is our first official date. heh i suppose this is my chance to confess to you now.”

everything went smoothly. he was quite confident that you’ll say yes since makki made time to learn everything about you and paid close attention to any and every small behavior along side gestures you revealed.

not much to really go on about so i’ll hop right into the actual stuff.

i’ve mentioned it before with issei so it’s only right i’ll mention it here too since takahiro gives off the same energy.

you two are DEFINITELY the kind of couple who jokes around about breaking up over the strangest things and it’ll be at random times too.

“my guy... who cuts your hair?”

“huh? what are you talking about cutie?”

“i can’t help but realize that your hair reminds me of an upside skate ramp. who are you paying because baby...”

“so i see you woke up and choose violence today... you know, i didn’t come to get roasted. i came here to love you y/n and this is what i get?”

“hold up! stay right there. i’m gonna go find my tech deck and do a few tricks.”

“i- yeah let’s break up. my lawyers will call yours and i’m taking the kids too. can’t believe i’m bullied right now.”

vv dramatic but it doesn’t bother you since you go along with his ways.

being serious? is considered rare within the relationship.

however, when it does occur then hiro can be deapan.

which i will take the time to discuss arguments with him briefly.

again, it’s something rare since the relationship is mainly playful and uplifting each other.

yet when you two get pretty heated, it can go two (2) ways.

a) he’ll opt for the silent treatment since he could say some really foul things that could possibly hurt you to the max and he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. may even go as far to put a little more distance between you two so he can calm down and approach you in a better manner.

b) actually voices how he feels about towards the situation at hand and will probably sound extremely venomous when doing so. his main goal when speaking is getting his point across if you dismissed it and/or made it seem like he’s in the wrong.

up to you on how you would like to view his way of approaching arguments though.

but if you want to make it up to him then give makki space for a while before apologizing. also make sure the apology is honest because HE WILL know if you’re lying and if he catches you then it’s back to square one...

with that out the way, let’s return.

DEFINITELY is an supportive boyfriend that likes helping you grow as a person and reach your goals. since you do the same for him, it’s only fair plus he likes seeing the smile on your face once something is accomplished.

although he already has you— makki will still flirt with you. it’s just more cheesier.

“damn babe. is your father a priest because i’m feeling blessed when i’m with you.”

“shut up before i eat your food.”

“ooh~ that’s hot. guess your dad isn’t one. perhaps i’m dancing with the devil because you’re hot as hell.”

“... takahiro. sir please. stop.”

“okay okay but i think you should see this.” proceeds to shove his phone in your face, the front camera on to reveal you on the screen, “this is the prettiest person i’ve ever met.”

“you’re lucky you’re cute and that i love you.”

definitely does the hand in his pants thing in your house and in his (ofc).

even if they have pockets or you call him out for it, it’s just an automatic for him so you gotta accept it.

besides that, if you’re someone that LOVES to bake or occasionally bakes— best believe he’s the first to taste it all.

extra points to you if you make cream puffs.

is most definitely the kind of boyfriend who invest in matching items. clothing, jewelry, phone case, and etc. he finds the concept cute to be honest.

if you’re lucky enough, he’ll let you buy matching hair clips (something cute like Sanrio, fruits, animals or etc.) and lets you put them in his hair.

won’t compain if it seems extremely girly/cutesy. instead makki will take a bunch of pictures and post a few on his sns about how you two are matching.

also loves to make it known he has the most divine girlfriend in the world. dude is proud to be your boyfriend so ofc he’s gonna show off.

nicknames? yeah yeah nicknames real quick.

top ones for you are 🥁🥁 babe/baby, beautiful, cutie and lover girl occasionally makes it’s way around.

something a little extra: hiro will even call you his doll sometimes but its only brought up at random times.

moving onto pda since it’ll also be a bit brief.

in love with PDA when it comes to you.

although he tones it down when you two are in public so of course you get the basics, but something he’ll always do is wrap his arm around you or constantly interlock his fingers with both combined hands on his thigh.

as for private, it’s not as filtered. would say he’s a bit more touchy but i must advise... don’t keep your back turned to him for long because makki will use the opportunity to either smack or grab your ass while saying “i like your cut g.”

... can’t convince me he doesn’t do that. rip y/n’s ass.

last but not least— dates!

don’t think hanamaki is picky about what kind of dates you two go on.

but most dates are chaotic in a way. will deadass text you in the middle of the night or show up to your place be like “wanna film dance vids in a parking lot? or like walk around and eat good street food.” and you just gotta go with it.

however, when they aren’t that way or involving outside then some dates consist of staying indoors. probably baking together, watching a bunch of movies, doing his makeup and etc.

overall: 10/10

best relationship with constant fun <3 we love it here.

and that’s where i end this bc makki do be breaking my brain.

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seanfalco · 3 years

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To Hurt | Nathan Young x Reader

Wrote this sometime last year when I was having a bad night, but then talked myself out of posting it. Went back to it tonight bc I’m back in the same place and finished it. Figured maybe it might help someone else feel better too.

A vent piece in a similar vein as Comfort.

word count: 1.1k

warning(s): language, depictions of self harm

You wanted to hurt.

You wanted to hurt as badly on the outside as you did inside. That thought hadn’t surfaced in a long while, not since you’d left your stepmum’s, so the fact that it did now scared you.

It scared you a lot.

But It would be so easy. Hurting yourself. You’d done it before, many times, in so many different ways.

Jumping up, you balled your hand into a fist as you faced the bedroom wall and punched as hard as you could.

It only took a moment of anger, a moment of frustration and it was over... but the pain that traveled up your arm seemed to shock you awake.

Oh, it hurt worse than you’d thought.

Already your hand was beginning to swell, throbbing hard enough to bring fresh tears to your eyes and you shook your hand, a choked sob escaping your lips. Shit, did you break it? You couldn’t move your fingers.

“[y/n]? Th’fuck was that noise?” Nathan’s voice called from the other room and you just stood there, pressing your back to the wall and sliding to the ground. The apartment was small, you knew he’d find you soon.

How were you supposed to explain this?

Raising your eyes you stared at the crack in the wall where your fist had just made contact. You were probably gunna lose your safety deposit for that.

“[y/n]? Oh, Jesus!” Nathan exclaimed as his eyes went from the hole in the wall to the steadily darkening black and purple bruises covering your knuckles. Crouching in front of you he winced as he took your hand to get a closer look before his eyes flicked back to your tear stained face, your makeup no doubt a mess.

“What happened?” he asked, though it was pretty clear what happened.

With a sniffle, you shrugged halfheartedly, unable to quite make your voice work. When you didn’t answer, merely averting your eyes ashamedly, Nathan let out a long breath.

“I’ll get some ice,” he muttered, leaving you with your guilt, the empty pit inside you threatening to swallow you whole. He was only gone a minute, back with a baggie of ice and a towel and you couldn’t stomach the worry lurking behind his green eyes as he wrapped the towel round your hand, to hold the ice bag in place.

Pressing his back against the wall next to you, he drew his knees up to his chest and you felt his hand brush your non injured one. Letting him thread his fingers with yours you felt another wave of self loathing coming and you almost wrenched your hand away, instead squeezing his fingers hard, desperately holding onto him.

“Why’d you do that?” Nathan asked, watching you from the corner of his eye, his head pressed back against the wall as he worried his lip with his teeth.

“I wanted to hurt,” you murmured softly. “We don’t all get blackout drunk when we hate ourselves.”

At your words, Nathan grimaced and you felt shame wash through you, a stray tear falling down your cheek. “I’m sorry…” you muttered, shaking your head, sniffling thickly. “Are y’mad about the wall?”

Nathan turned to gape at you incredulously. “No! God, no! Fuck th’wall, who cares bout that? We’ll hang a poster or somethin’ over it. I’m worried bout you. I’ve never seen yeh like this before,” he exclaimed, shakily.

“Don’t you ever just feel like you’re not good enough?” you whispered, your voice cracking.

Silence stretched and Nathan nodded, leaning against you. “Are y’kiddin’? I always feel that way.” He swallowed and turned to face you. “But you… you’re the best damn thing t’ever happen t’me, and I think you’re better than good enough. I wouldn’t trade you for all the money or--or booze, or blowjobs in th’world! I’m serious!” he exclaimed, picking up speed. “An, y’know how much I love all those things.”

For a moment you nearly cracked a smile, but Nathan caught it.

“Next time you feel like this, tell me an’ I’ll distract you. Or we’ll go out an’ break something or vandalize something instead. Fuck, we could even steal your stepsister’s car again and crash it, just for th’hell of it. But yeh don’t hafta do this alone. That’s why I’m here, yeah?”

Oh no, you thought, here come the fuckin’ waterworks, but Nathan was quick to pull you into his lap, and he didn’t care if you got his shirt wet from crying against his chest. He merely began to murmur all his favourite things about you into your ear, each thing cheesier than the last til he got you to finally laugh, even if it was a watery one.

“There, see,” he murmured looking rather proud of himself, “I’ll earn my keep yet.”

“Thank you,” you managed to sniffle and Nathan wiped the last few stray tears from your cheeks before pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“‘Course, like I said, that’s what I’m here for, love.”

Flexing your hand, you grimaced at the sting, pulling the ice bag from it. At least you could move it; it seemed less likely that it was broken now.

“What am I s’posed t’tell people bout this? It’s not exactly… subtle,” you sighed, already regretting your actions and Nathan grinned slightly.

“We’ll tell em… you got in a fistfight with a mugger and that you won.”

Though you looked skeptical you felt somewhat lighter, buoyed by Nathan’s easy grin and his jokes.

“C’mon, I think its time for a proper snuggle,” he exclaimed and you didn’t argue, letting him carry you to the bed before folding you into his arms.

“I meant it when I said you’re th’best thing t’ever happen t’me, y’know?” he murmured, taking your face between his hands. “I don’t wanna lose you... you know what I mean?” he asked, giving you a pointed look, as if saying it aloud might make it happen and once more white hot shame washed through you.

“I know, I’m sorry,” you whispered, clutching at his shirt with your good hand.

“Please don’t do that again?” he insisted, his eyes seeking yours, all trace of amusement gone, and you nodded.

“I won’t, I promise.”

Hearing the sincerity in your voice, Nathan seemed to relax, pressing his lips to your forehead before tilting your chin up to kiss your lips.

“Good, cause I don’t think the wall’ll hold up if you hit it again. You’re too strong,” he teased. “It’s be like kapow! and then turn into rubble or somethin’, and then we’d hafta share one big open flat with th’neighbors, and I don’t know about you [y/n], but I don’t think I’d like that. There goes all our privacy!”

When he got you to laugh, really laugh, a proud smile stole across his face, his expression lighting up hopefully as he watched you.

“Hey Nathan,” you murmured, as your giggles finally died down.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

#misfits #nathan young #nathan young x reader #self harm tw #my writing

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themurphyzone · 3 years

Text

PatB Oneshot: Every Rose Has Thorns and Petals

Summary: Brain’s plan is simple: create a Valentine card with a message that the world should adore him as their new ruler. But he needs extra help in coming up with a catchy message to rein in the consumers for the outer cover. And who better to help than the expert of all things amour?

AN: I decided to see if I could write a good Suavo. Enjoy! Warning for terribly cheesy flirting. I don’t typically write this genre XD

This borrows from the HC that Pinky can still do the Suavo persona.

Written for Valentine's Day/Suavo Sunday. I regret everything.

AO3 Link

At last, a new plan came to fruition! With Valentine’s Day looming upon them with its chocolate-coated fangs and sickly sweet aroma, people would be flocking to grocery stores everywhere to purchase giant teddy bears they could barely carry around and heart-shaped boxes of gourmet chocolate. But most lucrative of all, they would buy Valentine cards with the most obnoxious lovestruck messages that were far cheesier than Pinky’s cheesecake.

Everything clicked into place. The slightly larger than average dimensions of a Valentine’s card. Various red and pink hues for the envelopes. Colorful images with hearts, roses, and Pinky on the front cover (for Pinky met all of the scientific criteria that triggered one’s protective instincts). And on the inside, an image of Brain standing on the world in royal regalia with a message declaring that all the world shall adore him as their new leader.

But there was a single, glaring flaw to his otherwise brilliant plan.

He could not come up with a ridiculous phrase for the outside cover. It had to be eye-catching, humorous, or corny enough to grab a customer’s attention. He stared at the smiling picture of Pinky for several minutes, then gave in.

Pinky was the expert in all things ridiculous after all.

“Life is the road I wanna keep going! Love is a river and I wanna keep going ooonnnn!” Pinky sang along to his playlist, leading a Barbie doll in a tender waltz.

And it was best to interrupt before Pinky’s playlist reached My Heart Will Go On. That sappy 90s love ballad was on there. He was not striking the King of the World pose until he was actually king of the world, but that assertion hadn’t gotten through Pinky’s cotton-stuffed head yet.

Brain grabbed the prototype card and pencil, marching up to the windowsill where Pinky and Barbie danced under the evening sky. The sun lowered, the moon rose, and the first twinkling stars poked out, signifying the beginning of another night.

The phone was propped against a wall, and Brain smacked the image of Anastasia and Dmitri dancing to stop the song as he passed by. Pinky continued to hum, dipping Barbie low enough that her blonde hair touched the windowsill. His eyes were half-lidded, tail swishing to an invisible beat. Though there was no music, his rhythm was steady and his feet never missed a step.

It was mesmerizing. Pinky danced with all the grace of a professional ballerina.

He pricked his finger on a sharp point of the prototype card, and the poke brought Brain back to reality. Right. No distractions.

“Hiya, Brain! Zort!”

Dear Archimedes there were otherworldly blue eyes right in front of his face.

Startled, Brain leapt back and swung his pencil defensively. There was a muffled narf as the eraser end went into Pinky’s mouth. Once the initial shock passed, Pinky giggled and nibbled on the eraser, several rubbery shavings poking out between his teeth.

Brain took a deep breath, trying to calm his too-fast heartbeat.

“Quit slobbering on my erasers, Pinky,” Brain snapped. He removed his pencil from Pinky’s mouth, wrinkling his nose at the saliva-coated eraser. He tossed it aside, and the pencil skittered across the counter and onto the floor.

“But they taste so good!” Pinky licked his lips. “Especially with a pinch of dryer lint. That way you get fluff and chewiness in one single fantastic bite!”

Sometimes he truly worried for the state of Pinky’s digestive tract. For now, it was best to change the topic entirely. “As much as I’d love to debate the intricacies of your exotic cuisine, I require some of your eccentric expertise for my latest plan,” Brain said, setting the prototype card on the counter.

Pinky’s tail and ears perked up. A predictable reaction, but reliable all the same.

While Pinky put Barbie away, Brain retrieved a new pencil. There were few writing utensils that weren’t chewed up by a bored employee or Pinky for fun, and it wouldn’t be long before Brain would have to acquire more.

“I gotta help Brain now, Barbie. Thanks for sharing a dance with me! Those ballroom dance classes are really paying off!” Pinky chirped, waving to the inanimate Barbie, who now sat in a pink plastic convertible next to a shirtless Ken doll. He peeked inside the card and clasped his hands together, holding them against his cheek dreamily. “Awww, Brain! This is gonna be so romantic!”

“The very atmosphere I intend to create with these mass-produced cards, Pinky,” Brain replied. “However, while I have all the elements of your typical Valentine card alongside an additional message that will aid us in our conquest, I haven’t worked out one essential component yet.”

He closed the card and tapped the empty speech bubble next to Pinky’s image.

Pinky tilted his head. “You haven’t figured out how to make single people buy your cards yet?”

Drat. He hadn’t considered those outliers.

“Then we’ll just have to infiltrate the postal service,” Brain said, mentally congratulating himself on correcting that error quickly. “But before we implement the plan, I need a Valentine phrase for this speech bubble. A saying that will entice the average infatuated consumer and hook them into purchasing my cards alone. And since you lean heavily toward the sentimental and saccharine…well, this is where I require your assistance.”

“The sentimental and the saccharine?” Pinky echoed. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that soap opera, Brain. What channel is it on?”

Brain opened his notebook and found an empty page, poised to jot down Pinky’s suggestions. “The real life channel. Don’t be concerned about missing it, Pinky. It’s on 24/7 all year long. But I digress. The sooner I find a phrase, the sooner we’ll have the world!”

Pinky tapped his foot in thought, the tip of his tongue poking out like he truly believed protruding tongues had the power to magically grant ideas. For all Brain knew, Pinky probably believed that.

Then Pinky snapped his fingers. “I got it! How ‘bout ‘be mine, valentine’?”

“Too cliché,” Brain muttered. A million Valentine cards would already have similar phrasing. They didn’t have time to seize control of a greeting card factory. “Not unique enough.”

Although the valentine bit wasn’t particularly directed toward him, his grip on the pencil slackened, the tip leaving a graphite smudge along the margins. He quickly turned the pencil around and erased it, hoping Pinky didn’t catch onto his brief moment of inattention.

Fortunately, Pinky didn’t notice. “Alrighty then. Hmmm…you’re the sour cream to my cheese-slathered potato?”

“…I’ll save it for a last resort.”

Well, he asked for unique. But sour cream didn’t particularly invoke strong Valentine feelings. Idioms that involved sweet foods with enough sugar to induce diabetes in an elephant would be better, and he made a quick note to the side.

“I turtle-y adore you?” Pinky suggested, his blue eyes sparkling accordingly.

Brain felt a light blush settling over his cheeks, and he rubbed his fur to rid himself of the mortifying feeling. “Doesn’t match your picture. And no animal puns unless they involve mice.”

Pinky rubbed his chin, not one to be easily deterred. “There’s gotta be some good ones on the Internet.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Pinky,” Brain sighed. He sat cross-legged on the counter, massaging his forehead to intercept any headaches before they began. “Figured we should’ve gone with the photobooth plan. It’s your fault for influencing my subconscious with your caterwauling over The Princess Bride’s movie adaptation.”

“Troz! I’ll have you know Princess Buttercup and Westley have great chemistry!” Pinky pouted.

Brain rolled his eyes. “Please. They’re about as compatible as two noble gases.”

Pinky went quiet after that. Whether he’d gone off into the imaginary world of talking cheeses or taken unusually great offense on the lead couple’s behalf, Brain wasn’t sure. But the silence obliged, and Brain took the opportunity to ponder their next course of action.

Take a risk and use one of Pinky’s earlier suggestions? Scrap the plan entirely and pull one from storage? Seek a second opinion?

Then Pinky gasped, his tail pointing high in the air like an inverted exclamation point.

“Brain, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” Pinky asked, gripping Brain’s shoulders in excitement.

Brain leaned back, supporting himself on the palms of his hands. “We break out the Feldman disguises and ask Mr. Sultana for his opinion on what a hypothetical Valentine card should say?”

“I’m sure he’s got a bunch of good ones, but that’s not it,” Pinky said. “Actually, I oughta slip into something more…in-character. I’ll be right back!”

Pinky skipped away, humming as he went over to his dress-up box in the corner of their cage. He pulled a divider around himself so that all Brain could see was a shadowy silhouette rummaging through clothing and accessories.

Brain continued to ponder, though no feasible ideas were coming to him. He closed his eyes, shutting out all visual forms of distraction. He listened to Pinky dressing in the cage, but it was more white noise than a true hindrance.

Five minutes later, he still had nothing. But there was something…different.

A tantalizing scent. Not overly sharp, though just light enough that he couldn’t identify it with confidence. And he wanted to know more.

It wasn’t fruit or soap. Nor was it vanilla, like the scented candles Pinky loved so much.

Something smooth snaked its way under his nose, brushing the fur above his lips. The scent was closer now. His nose twitched.

“ACHOO!”

Startled by the force of his sudden sneeze, Brain’s eyes flew open. He rubbed his nose to wipe off the lingering sensation, staring down at Pinky’s long tail, which sat unassumingly in his lap. The tip was wrapped around the stem of a small red rose.

The tail lifted, rubbing against the fur under Brain’s chin. Brain felt his cheeks heat up again, and he quickly batted the offending appendage away.

“Pinky, you’re not helping my state of-“ Brain began, ready to launch into a verbal tirade on how he needed to think and if Pinky wasn’t going to help then he could make like a mitotic cell and split…and then he saw a very familiar, perhaps all too-familiar, lavender tuxedo with an overstuffed dark purple…something underneath.

He couldn’t tell if it was a shirt, vest, or pincushion. A gold button glinted in the middle of Pinky’s chest.

Gulping, Brain knew the mysterious article of clothing was the least of his concerns. He forced himself to look up, gaze raking past the slender neck and toward half-lidded, coy blue eyes. A sophisticated mustache poked out from each side of Pinky’s muzzle. And he was genteel, charismatic…

Suave.

Pinky’s ability to play a character to perfection never ceased to astound him. He still remembered? Brain had long destroyed the Personalitron and its blueprints, deeming them unnecessary and cumbersome.

“Pardonnez-moi, you with the giant head and marshmallow body are seeking the passionate advice of I, the great Pinky…Suavvvo-“ he drawled every syllable with that odd French accent, r’s rolling off his tongue like smooth butter “-for your…ah, Saint Valentine card, no?”

Fu—choose your words wisely—I mean, dear name of a historical contributor to the scientific or mathematical field who I can’t identify properly at this time.

“I fail to see how playing dress-up is going to help with this conundrum, Pinky Suavo.” Brain stood up and crossed his arms. He wasn’t about to let the Suavo persona sway him. He was the Brain, and he bowed to no one.

Exert control over the situation. Yes. That’s what he needed.

Suavo plucked the rose from his tail between two practiced fingers, inhaling its scent deeply. Where did he even get that rose from? The lab wasn’t growing flora for any reason, nor did any scientist have the green thumb to care for anything so fragile.

“Oh, but love is always…how did you say, a conundrum, is it not?” he purred, and Brain scowled. But Suavo was unperturbed. “One may pluck the petals from a pretty flower and ask if one loves or loves not, yet how will one know if they ask the flower and not the lover? Oh, I do not know.”

His voice dipped into a lower, softer register, and a strange sensation traveled up Brain’s spine. Though the riddle seemed directed at him, he wasn’t in the mood to unravel any cryptic meanings.

Just like before, Suavo’s magnetism was…hypnotizing. Like he had no choice but to do what Pinky Suavo said. And wasn’t that ironic? He, the Brain, as the hapless follower instead of the commanding leader.

Suavo appeared oblivious to Brain’s internal dilemma. He simply set the rose back into his tail and twirled one curled end of the mustache around his finger, humming a dreamy, sentimental song to himself. He was waiting on Brain in the most irritating fashion possible.

But if he wanted this plan to work, he’d just have to tolerate Pinky’s attempt at resolving his predicament.

“Pinky Suavo,” Brain sighed, forcing all his pride back. Suavo turned to him, his eyes still in that odd half-lidded position. “Is that overstuffed pincushion actually giving you ideas for the card?”

“Of course, mon ami.” Suavo slicked his ears and fur tuft back with a smooth, graceful stroke of his hand. “For it is he, who is I, who is the connoisseur of…ammooooouuuur.”

Brain grabbed his notepad and pencil, his stomach doing odd backflips like butterflies had somehow burrowed their way into his flesh and laid eggs there. He was not paying attention to Suavo’s hand movements. No, the eye was just naturally drawn to movement. That’s how it worked.

Besides, he was looking at the same being who once managed to get all his fingers and tail tangled up in a complicated cat’s cradle.

Suavo clicked his tongue, deftly plucking the items out of Brain’s grip. “No, no, you silly mouse. You cannot experience amour through pen and paper alone. You must feel it, see it, hear it. For it is everywhere and anywhere you search…if only you would use those big ears of yours.”

Brain gritted his teeth and jumped for his supplies, but Suavo simply held them out of reach with one long arm. All Brain could manage was a tiny hop. It wasn’t getting him anywhere.

So he took a deep breath and forced himself to relax.

“I’m listening, Pinky Suavo,” Brain said, hoping he sounded at least a little cordial. “I believe the colloquial is, I’m all ears?”

A pleased smile flitted across Suavo’s face, his arm lowering.

Perfect.

Then Brain threw himself forward, digging his hands and feet into Suavo’s clothing and hauling himself towards the notepad and pencil. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to grip. Suavo stumbled a bit, but he refused to yield. Brain grabbed a fabric fold on Suavo’s right shoulder. He was so close-

-and a red nose pushed into his own. Warm, mint-scented breath tickled the fur on his face.

“You know, it is more, ah, polite to take a mouse to dinner before you begin climbing him, is it not?” Suavo crooned.

Brain’s ears flopped against his back, a warm sensation sweeping through his body. His clammy paws lost their grip on Suavo’s clothing, and he would’ve fallen entirely if Suavo’s free arm hadn’t wrapped around his waist and secured him with a strong yet gentle grip.

In hindsight, perhaps his attempt at reclaiming his belongings was ill-thought out.

Perhaps it was for the best that the arm was covered by fabric, but at the same time, some irrational thought of wanting Pinky’s fur against his own wormed its way into his mind.

Suavo set the notepad and pen down with care, dipping Brain in the process. Brain clutched the fabric tightly, but it was unnecessary. Suavo’s embrace was strong enough to prevent him from landing on his head. Then Suavo straightened up, once again plucking the rose from his tail and holding it next to Brain.

“Oh, now this is…magnifique,” Suavo murmured, his eyes darting from the rose to Brain’s face. Though Brain tried to maintain eye contact to make his displeasure known, his resolve was quickly crumbling away. Surely it was the close proximity, the thumb stroking his fur, that was picking apart all rational thought and leaving some hormone-driven creature behind?

“What?” Brain asked, and he inwardly cringed. His voice wasn’t working properly. He’d meant to sound more demanding than that pathetic excuse of a question.

“Your eyes, mon ami, are just a few shades lighter this rose,” Suavo said. Brain stared at him in disbelief. Comparing eyes to flowers, or worse, gemstones, was just ridiculous.

And your comparison of Pinky’s aesthetically pleasing eyes to the wild blue yonder above isn’t?

Brain ignored the contemptuous voice. That was completely different. The sky was neither a flower nor a gemstone, and therefore it wasn’t off-limits. Besides, it was a thought for him and him alone. It’s not like anyone else was going to hear it.

“You are but a deer mouse in the headlights. Yet there is no need to hide under a thorny layer,” Suavo hummed, tilting his head curiously. Deliberately. How strange. Even the slightest movement was mesmerizing. His fingers traveled up the flower stem, until his hand rested underneath the petals, supporting the tiny rose in the palm of his hand. “A rosebush may scratch and prick, yet the great Pinky Suavo cannot be swayed. For there’s a pretty bloom hidden in the darkness, and he is who moi shall…shall…NARF!”

Shocked by the return of the nonsensical exclamation, Brain lost his hold on Pinky Suavo’s clothing. He fell onto the counter surface with a pained groan. The hard material wasn’t doing wonders for the bends in his tail.

Something fluttered against his nose, causing Brain to sneeze again. He removed the offending object, and found himself staring down at the rose he’d been teased with. If he ignored the heavy-handed rose imagery Suavo kept spouting, it was rather adequate for a specimen.

“Narf! Zort! Poit! Egad!” Pinky laughed uncontrollably between his usual tics, uttering them at such a fast rate that they started to blend together like a tongue twister. “Ooh, I haven’t—troz! Haven’t said narf in a long time! But it’s poit—it’s okay cause you needed my help!”

Idiot.

Brain sighed and pushed himself to a standing position, then placed the rose on his notepad so Pinky could reclaim it later.

Now that he thought about it, Pinky hadn’t said any of his favorite syllables in his Suavo persona. Of course, they’d been replaced by stupid love poetry and gratuitous French, but the narfs and poits and zorts were rather refreshing.

Odd. He never thought he’d actually miss Pinky’s…unique diction.

“Pinky, were you actively suppressing your usual speech patterns in your strange form of assistance?” Brain asked. He couldn’t help his curiosity.

“Zort! Oh Brain, I’m not nearly as good as suppressing things like you are!” Pinky’s chortles continued as Brain grabbed his wrist and led him straight to the water bottle in their cage. “Besides—narf! Besides, I had to stay in character!”

“Remind me to never have you play a villain for any future plans revolving around cinema,” Brain grumbled.

Pinky’s tail happily flicked against Brain’s own. Though the imbecile was just swishing it around mindlessly, the brief physical contact suddenly brought back that very odd, warm sensation.

Curse this heightened sensitivity! It’s only a principle of thermodynamics and heat transfer!

“Brain, are you okay? Poit,” Pinky asked as Brain made him sit down in front of the water bottle. “You’re all woozy and whirlywindy. And white and red all over like a newspaper!”

“I’m f-fine,” Brain said. He was absolutely not relying on Pinky for balance. “Just drink, Pinky. And take off those silly clothes when you’re done.”

Pinky stared, not comprehending anything Brain said, but that was normal for him. Then he started to laugh, and only then did Brain realize he needed to watch his word choice, especially around a certain someone, because of course his fluff-filled mind would misconstrue it.

“Not like that!” Brain spat.

Pinky tipped onto his back, legs kicking upwards as his high-pitched laughter continued to assault Brain’s ears.

For the sake of his own sanity, he left Pinky to his own devices and stormed over to the nearest sink. He pushed on the tap for cold water until he’d created his own miniature waterfall, then hopped right in. He welcomed the cascade over his body.

As long as it pushed his homeostasis in the opposite direction, he was fine with resembling a drowned rat for now.

o-o-o-o-o

The plan failed before it ever took off. Brain had been so distracted that he’d failed to notice the lab was completely out of colored ink, rendering the copy machines completely useless.

He’d gone with the ‘you’re the sour cream to my potatoes’ message for the front cover, formatting it into the speech bubble in an elegant cursive font. Though it wasn’t conventional by any means, he simply considered it again since no other suggestions were forthcoming.

But at the same time, part of him wasn’t keen on allowing the masses to lay eyes on the Valentine card.

It seemed special. Unexplainably so.

“Brain?” Pinky called. His verbal tics had long gone back to their normal frequency. “Aren’t we taking over the world tonight?”

Brain shook his head, relieved that he finally had control over his body again. “Not tonight, Pinky. I’m afraid I’ve been prematurely thwarted by the lack of inventory in this lab.”

“Oh, you don’t have to be afraid, Brain,” Pinky said. Gone were Suavo’s clothing and mustache, and Pinky’s lean, muscular arms were on full display as he folded them across his chest. “I’ll protect you from Tory.”

It was an unnecessary gesture, but Brain couldn’t help but be touched by the admission all the same. Brain made a show of carefully placing the card into storage, just so he could distract himself momentarily.

When he finished his task, he found Pinky holding an elegant paper rose, crafted meticulously with purple tissue paper. A light blush settled over Brain’s cheeks as he accepted the gift from Pinky, whose blue eyes shone brightly as Brain ran his fingers over the soft petals.

“Thank you, Pinky,” Brain said gratefully, and he resisted the urge to rush off immediately and place the paper rose with his globe keychain, another gift from his dearest friend.

“You’re welcome!” Pinky smiled, and Brain’s heart beat faster. Then Pinky’s gaze flicked to the TV screen, and Brain figured he was about to be roped into watching a cheesy love story unfold. “Brain, can we watch Beauty and the Beast please? With those special Valentine M&M’s and chocolate-coated popcorn? I saw a whole bunch in the kitchen! Narf!”

Well…he could’ve suggested worse. At least this one was tolerable.

And it’s been a while since they’d watched a movie together.

“Get everything set up, Pinky,” Brain ordered. “I’ll join you when I’m finished with my own tasks.”

Pinky saluted and scampered into the kitchen, grabbing the rose he’d held in his Suavo persona along the way. He sang at the top of his lungs, though he’d forgotten most of the actual words and replaced them with a series of narfs and portmanteaus. Once Pinky was sufficiently distracted, Brain moved his notepad and pen over to the TV, then laid the paper rose over it.

He heard the crinkle of a bag followed by the sound of M&M’s being poured into a bowl. Pinky would be back any minute.

Brain knocked his head against the side of a wall.

Calm yourself. Pinky believes pebbles are precious gifts. You’ll be fine. Probably.

Slowly, he approached the drawer where he’d kept his hidden present. Sifting through several sheets of paper covered with complex formulas he’d deliberately placed in there to ward off Pinky, he found the sunflower pen he’d carefully hidden towards the back.

It wasn’t exactly…traditional for a Valentine’s gift. Simple blue ink with a green body and tipped with a bright yellow sunflower.

But it was bright. And colorful. Like Pinky.

More importantly, it was practical.

Brain’s ears twitched, and he heard the whirring of the VCR as Pinky popped in the movie. Brain debated leaving the pen and presenting it after the movie, but he didn’t want to procrastinate either. Otherwise it would be impossible to enjoy their activity.

Well, he could just drop it in Pinky’s lap. And snatch up some popcorn so his actions wouldn’t be too conspicuous. He climbed out of the drawer, holding the pen behind his back.

A preview for The Little Mermaid began to play. Pinky was enraptured by the animated marine animals. He seemed so happy.

Maybe he should reconsider. Valentine items would be discounted next week. He could just hold off and give a belated…what was he thinking? Valentine’s was just another day to turn profit!

The paper rose was sitting right there. No…Valentine’s meant something to Pinky. Like Christmas.

“Goody, you’re back, Brain!” Pinky cheered, stuffing two pink M&M’s into his mouth. The large bowl beside him was overflowing with chocolate. “It’s not raining inside, but I love your parasol! Where’d you buy it?”

A parasol?

He glanced up at the sunflower. Oh. So there was a resemblance to a parasol, he supposed. If one viewed it at a certain angle, that is.

“It’s a pen. Not a parasol. Take it,” Brain said, holding out the sunflower pen.

Pinky didn’t take it.

Instead, he made a joyful noise and crushed Brain with a flying embrace. Brain dropped the pen in surprise as Pinky’s entire body curled around him, feet off the ground. Brain had to support all his weight, Pinky’s warm fur brushing against his own.

“I love it! Loveitloveitloveit! Thanks, Brain!” Pinky squealed, happy tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“You’re welcome, Pinky,” Brain murmured as Pinky nuzzled his cheek. “Now get off. I require my lungs. And heart. And my digestive system.”

Pinky didn’t get off until the Disney fanfare to herald the beginning of the movie began to play. Then he quieted down immediately, rolling the sunflower pen so that it rested across his lap.

“…happy Valentine’s Day,” Brain whispered, nibbling on a red M&M.

Pinky smiled back, teeth flecked with bits of chocolate. He shushed Brain, not wanting him to interrupt the opening narration.

As the enchanted rose appeared onscreen, Brain stroked the soft tissue paper of Pinky’s beautiful creation. Then he set it aside and reached for some popcorn.

His world was here. And there was nothing more he wanted.

Fun fact: the original name for this fic was going to be Suavo Valentino, but the current title was a last minute change cause somehow I just wrote a lot about roses.

Another change: The Princess Bride bit was originally a dig at High School Musical and how Disney Channel has bad romance in general, but since that was mid 2000s I changed it so this story could reasonably fit in the 90s.

Suavo’s lines...were interesting. I couldn’t stop laughing at how dumb some of them were though.

Brain’s got it bad here. Save him.

Are the roses corny? Yes. Do I care? Not really. Maybe. Possibly.

#pinky and the brain #patb fanfiction #pinky suavo #suavo sunday

59 notes · View notes

aondaneedles · 3 years

Note

Ripp Grunt - All (pls)

❤️: OTP

I don't know... he strikes me as someone who might have trouble settling down due to his family issues... My knee-jerk reaction was to say Lilith Pleasant, but that's probably a very bad idea. He needs someone patient, similarily romance-minded and I'm not sure I have anyone in mind for that.

💔: No OTP

Any of his brother's ex-girlfriends!

🌈: Sexuality

Bisexual and proud!

😊: Friends

Johnny and Ophelia. They're almost his surrogate parents and put up with a lot of his antics.

💀: Enemies or Rival

Tank. Maybe someday in the future, they won't hate each other, but I'll see them striking up a tentative truce at best...

🐶: Pet or favorite Animal

Foxtrot, the silly guard dog, duh. He's also into rats.

🌷: Flowers or plants they like

Roses. He doesn't quite know why, but he's always had a soft spot for them.

☀️: Favourite Season

Autumn. The desert is slightly colder than in the summer, but the weather's still sunny and nice. And it's back to school, which means less of his dad, which is always a good thing.

🌧️: Favourite Weather

Slightly cloudy. He lives in the desert, he doesn't have a death wish.

🕯️: Favourite Aromatic candle

He's just not into them. His room smells terrible.

🥘: Favourite Food

Mr Smith's hot dogs.

☕: Favourite Drink

Energy drinks.

🍦: Ice-cream Flavour

Whatever Johnny and Ophelia feel like. He doesn't get money for frilly things like ice cream, so they always share theirs with him.

🍕: Pizza Topping

The Smiths always order different toppings because PT promised Jill that they'd try to find the best combi. Ripp loves all of them.

🍟: Snack

He hates those nut mixes at home with a fiery passion and always begs Ophelia for her chips at school. She doesn't mind sharing.

🍿: Movies they like to watch

The simlish equivalent of James Bond. Precisely because of the girls.

📺: TV Show they like to watch

Family sitcoms. The cheesier, the better.

🎵: Music they listen to

Rock. At full volume, just to annoy the General.

⚽: Sport they like or play

He sucks at a lot of sports, much to the chagrin of his dad. He's actually very good at cross country running, but he refuses to compete in it.

📚: Books they like to read

Comics.

🕹️: Video Games they like or Play

Anything at the local arcade.

🎻: Musical instrument

He once found a kazoo in the high school's bathroom. That was fun until his brother threw it out of the window. He's also pretty good at playing the guitar.

🎨: Favourite Colour

Pink.

👠: Shoes they like

Anything BUT military boots. He'd rather walk a mile in stiletto heels.

👕: Clothing style

Comfy. And whatever looks a bit emo but is still deemed acceptable by the General. He gets away with a lot of weird clothes, surprisingly.

👜: What’s always on their bag

His music player.

📰: Section of the Newspaper they read

He doesn't read the newspaper.

💻: Website they visit the most

SimTube. He watches a lot of fail videos.

📱: Social media they use the most

SimTube.

📗: Favourite School Subject

Music.

📕: Less Favourite School Subject

Natural Science. It's just so boring and the Curious brothers are terrible teachers.

🎓: University they attended (or not)

SSU is supposed to have a great music programme, but to be real, he'll probably follow Johnny and Ophelia to LFT.

🎒: University Major

Philosophy, just to piss off his dad one last time.

🔮: Something Random

He once snuck a cicada into the General's bedroom. He couldn't sleep for days due to the noise but never found out it was Ripp who put it there.

#sims #sims 2 #ask #anon #meme

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rawliverandcigarettes · 3 years

Text

Mass Effect Retribution, a review

Mass Effect Retribution is the third book in the official Mass Effect trilogy by author Drew Karpyshyn, who happens to also be Lead Writer for Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.

I didn’t expect to pick it up, because to be very honest I didn’t expect to like it. 9 years ago I borrowed Mass Effect Revelations, and I still recall the experience as underwhelming. But this fateful fall of 2020 I had money (yay) and I saw the novel on the shelf of a swedish nerd store. I guess guilt motivated me to give the author another try: guilt, because I’ve been writing a Mass Effect fanfiction for an ungodly amount of years and I’ve been deathly afraid of lore that might contradict my decisions ever since I started -but I knew this book covered elements that are core to plot elements of my story, and I was willing to let my anxiety to the door and see what was up.

Disclaimer: I didn’t reread Mass Effect Revelation before plunging into this read, and entirely skipped Ascension. So anything in relation to character introduction and continuity will have to be skipped.

Back-cover pitch (the official, unbiased, long one)

Humanity has reached the stars, joining the vast galactic community of alien species. But beyond the fringes of explored space lurk the Reapers, a race of sentient starships bent on “harvesting” the galaxy’s organic species for their own dark purpose. The Illusive Man, leader of the pro-human black ops group Cerberus, is one of the few who know the truth about the Reapers. To ensure humanity’s survival, he launches a desperate plan to uncover the enemy’s strengths—and weaknesses—by studying someone implanted with modified Reaper technology. He knows the perfect subject for his horrific experiments: former Cerberus operative Paul Grayson, who wrested his daughter from the cabal’s control with the help of Ascension project director Kahlee Sanders. But when Kahlee learns that Grayson is missing, she turns to the only person she can trust: Alliance war hero Captain David Anderson. Together they set out to find the secret Cerberus facility where Grayson is being held. But they aren’t the only ones after him. And time is running out. As the experiments continue, the sinister Reaper technology twists Grayson’s mind. The insidious whispers grow ever stronger in his head, threatening to take over his very identity and unleash the Reapers on an unsuspecting galaxy. This novel is based on a Mature-rated video game.

Global opinion (TL;DR)

I came in hoping to be positively surprised and learn a thing or two about Reapers, about Cerberus and about Aria T’loak. I wasn’t, and I didn’t learn much. What I did learn was how cool ideas can get wasted by the very nature of game novelization, as the defects are not singular to this novel but quite widespread in this genre, and how annoyed I can get at an overuse of dialogue tags. The pacing is good and the narrative structure alright: everything else poked me in the wrong spots and rubbed how the series have always handled violence on my face with cruder examples. If I was on Good Reads, I’d probably give it something like 2 stars, for the pacing, some of the ideas, and my general sympathy for the IP novel struggle.

The indepth review continue past this point, just know there will be spoilers for the series, the Omega DLC which is often relevant, and the book itself!

What I enjoyed

Drew Karpyshyn is competent in narrative structure, and that does a lot for the pacing. Things rarely drag, and we get from one event to the next seamlessly. I’m not surprised this is one of the book’s qualities, as it comes from the craft of a game writer: pacing and efficiency are mandatory skills in this field. I would have preferred a clearer breaking point perhaps, but otherwise it’s a nice little ride that doesn’t ask a lot of effort from you (I was never tempted to DNF the book because it was so easy to read).

This book is packed with intringuing ideas -from venturing in the mind of the Illusive Man to assist, from the point of view of the victim, to Grayson’s biological transformation and assimilation into the Reaper hivemind, we get plenty to be excited for. I was personally intrigued about Liselle, Aria T’loak’s secret daughter, and eager to get a glimpse at the mind of the Queen Herself -also about how her collaboration with Cerberus came to be. Too bad none of these ideas go anywhere nor are being dealt with in an interesting way!!! But the concepts themselves were very good, so props for setting up interesting premices.

Pain is generally well described. It gets the job done.

I liked Sanak, the batarian that works as a second to Aria. He’s not very well characterized and everyone thinks he’s dumb (rise up for our national himbo), even though he reads almost smarter than her on multiple occasions, but I was happy whenever he was on the page, so yay for Sanak. But it might just be me having a bias for batarians.

Cool to have Kai Leng as a point of view character. I wasn’t enthralled by what was done with it, as he remains incredibly basic and as basically hateable and ungrounded than in Mass Effect 3 (I think he’s very underwhelming as a villain and he should have been built up in Mass Effect 2 to be effective). But there were some neat moments, such as the description of the Afterlife by Grayson who considers it as tugging at his base instincts, compared to Leng’s description of it where everything is deemed disgusting. The execution is not the best, but the concept was fun.

Pre-Reaperification Paul Grayson wasn’t the worst point of view to follow. I wasn’t super involved in his journey and didn’t care when he died one way or the other, but I empathized with his problems and hoped he would find a way out of the cycle of violence. The setup of his character arc was interesting, it’s just sad that any resolution -even negative- was dropped to focus on Reapers and his relationship with Kahlee Sanders, as I think the latter was the least interesting part.

The cover is cool and intringuing. Very soapy. It’s my favorite out of all the official novels, as it owns the cheesier aspect of the series, has nice contrasts and immediately asks questions. Very 90s/2000s. It’s great.

You may notice every thing I enjoyed was coated in complaints, because it’s a reflection of my frustration at this book for setting up interesting ideas and then completely missing the mark in their execution. So without further due, let’s talk about what I think the book didn’t do right.

1. Dumb complaints that don’t matter much

After reading the entire book, I am still a bit confused at to why Tim (the Illusive Man’s acronym is TIM in fandom, but I find immense joy in reffering to him as just Tim) wants his experimentation to be carried out on Grayson specifically, especially when getting to him is harder than pretty much anyone else (also wouldn’t pushing the very first experiments on alien captives make more sense given it’s Cerberus we’re talking about?). It seem to be done out of petty revenge, which is fine, but it still feels like quite the overlook to mess with a competent fighter, enhance him, and then expect things to stay under control (which Tim kind of doesn’t expect to, and that’s even weirder -why waste your components on something you plan to terminate almost immediately). At the same time, the pettiness is the only characterization we get out of Tim so good I guess? But if so, I wished it would have been accentuated to seem even more deliberate (and not have Tim regret to see it in himself, which flattens him and doesn’t inform the way he views the world and himself -but we’ll get to that).

I really disliked the way space travel is characterized. And that might be entirely just me, and perhaps it doesn’t contradict the rest of the lore, but space travel is so fast. People pop up left and right in a matter of hours. At some point we even get a mention of someone being able to jump 3 different Mass Relays and then arrive somewhere in 4 hours. I thought you first had to discharge your ship around a stellar object before being able to engage in the next jump (and that imply finding said object, which would have to take more than an hour). It’s not that big of a deal, but it completely crammed this giant world to a single boulevard for me and my hard-science-loving tastes. Not a big deal, but not a fan at all of this choice.

You wouldn’t believe how often people find themselves in a fight naked or in their underwear. It happens at least 3 times (and everyone naked survives -except one, we’ll get to her later).

Why did I need to know about this fifteen year’s old boner for his older teacher. Surely there were other ways to have his crush come across without this detail, or then have it be an actual point of tension in their relationship and not just a “teehee” moment. Weird choice imo.

I’m not a fan of the Talons. I don’t find them interesting or compelling. There is nothing about them that informs us on the world they live in. The fact they’re turian-ruled don’t tell us anything about turian culture that, say, the Blue Suns don’t tell us already. It’s a generic gang that is powerful because it is. I think they’re very boring, in this book and in the Omega DLC alike (a liiittle less in the DLC because of Nyreen, barely). Not a real criticism, I just don’t care for them at all.

I might just be very ace, but I didn’t find Anderson and Kahlee Sanders to have much chemistry. Same for Kahlee and Grayson (yes we do have some sort of love-triangle-but-not-really, but it’s not very important and it didn’t bother me much). Their relationships were all underwhelming to me, and I’ll explain why in part 4.

The red sand highs are barely described, and very safely -probably not from a place of intimate knowledge with drugs nor from intense research. Addiction is a delicate topic, and I feel like it could have been dealt with better, or not be included at all.

There are more of these, but I don’t want to turn this into a list of minor complaints for things that are more a matter of taste than craft quality or thematic relevance. So let’s move on.

2. Who cares about aliens in a Mass Effect novel

Now we’re getting into actual problems, and this one is kind of endemic to the Mass Effect novels (I thought the same when I read Revelation 9 years ago, though maybe less so as Saren in a PoV character -but I might have forgotten so there’s that). The aliens are described and characterized in the most uncurious, uninspired manner. Krogans are intimidating brutes. Turians are rigid. Asaris are sexy. Elcors are boring. Batarians are thugs (there is something to be said with how Aria’s second in command is literally the same batarian respawned with a different name in Mass Effect 2, this book, then the Omega DLC). Salarians are weak nerds. (if you allow me this little parenthesis because of course I have to complain about salarian characterization: the only salarian that speaks in the book talks in a cheap ripoff of Mordin’s speech pattern, which sucks because it’s specific to Mordin and not salarians as a whole, and is there to be afraid of a threat as a joke. This is SUCH a trope in the original trilogy -especially past Mass Effect 1 when they kind of give up on salarians except for a few chosen ones-, that salarians’ fear is not to be taken seriously and the only salarians who are to be considered don’t express fear at all -see Mordin and Kirrahe. It happens at least once per game, often more. This is one of the reasons why the genophage subplot is allowed to be so morally simple in ME3 and remove salarians from the equation. I get why they did that, but it’s still somewhat of a copeout. On this front, I have to give props to Andromeda for actually engaging with violence on salarians in a serious manner. It’s a refreshing change) I didn’t learn a single thing about any of these species, how they work, what they care about in the course of these 79750 words. I also didn’t learn much about their relationships to other species, including humans. I’ll mention xenophobia in more details later, but this entire aspect of the story takes a huge hit because of this lack of investment of who these species are.

I’ve always find Mass Effect, despite its sprawling universe full of vivid ideas and unique perspectives, to be strangely enamoured with humans, and it has never been so apparent than here. Only humans get to have layers, deserving of empathy and actual engagement. Only their pain is real and important. Only their death deserve mourning (we’ll come back to that). I’d speculate this comes from the same place that was terrified to have Liara as a love interest in ME1 in case she alienated the audience, and then later was surprised when half the fanbase was more interested in banging the dinosaur-bird than their fellow humans: Mass Effect often seem afraid of losing us and breaking our capacity for self-projection. It’s a very weird concern, in my opinion, that reveals the most immature, uncertain and soapy parts of the franchise. Here it’s punched to eleven, and I find it disappointing. It also have a surprising effect on the narrative: again, we’ll come back to that.

3. The squandered potential of Liselle and Aria

Okay. This one hurts. Let’s talk about Liselle: she’s introduced in the story as a teammate to Grayson, who at the time works as a merc for Aria T’loak on Omega, and also sleeps with him on the regular. She likes hitting the Afterlife’s dancefloor: she’s very admired there, as she’s described as extremely attractive. One night after receiving a call from Grayson, she rejoins him in his apartment. They have sex, then Kai Leng and other Cerberus agents barge in to capture Grayson -a fight break out (the first in a long tradition of naked/underwear fights), and both of them are stunned with tranquilizers. Grayson is to be taken to the Illusive Man. Kai Leng decides to slit Liselle’s throat as she lays unconscious to cover their tracks. When Aria T’loak and her team find her naked on a bed, throat gaping and covered in blood, Liselle is revealed, through her internal monologue, to be Aria’s secret daughter -that she kept secret for both of their safety. So Liselle is a sexpot who dies immediately in a very brutal and disempowered manner. This is a sad way to handle Aria T’loak’s daughter I think, but I assume it was done to give a strong motivation to the mother, who thinks Grayson did it. And also, it’s a cool setup to explore her psyche: how does she feel about business catching up with her in such a personal manner, how does she feel about the fact she couldn’t protect her own offspring despite all her power, what’s her relationship with loss and death, how does she slip when under high emotional stress, how does she deal with such a vulnerable position of having to cope without being able to show any sign of weakness... But the book does nothing with that. The most interesting we get is her complete absence of outward reaction when she sees her daughter as the centerpiece of a crime scene. Otherwise we have mentions that she’s not used to lose relatives, vague discomfort when someone mentions Liselle might have been raped, and vague discomfort at her body in display for everyone to gawk at. It’s not exactly revelatory behavior, and the missed potential is borderline criminal. It also doesn’t even justify itself as a strong motivation, as Aria vaguely tries to find Grayson again and then gives up until we give her intel on a silver platter. Then it almost feels as if she forgot her motivation for killing Grayson, and is as motivated by money than she is by her daughter’s murder (and that could be interesting too, but it’s not done in a deliberate way and therefore it seems more like a lack of characterization than anything else).

Now, to Aria. Because this book made me realize something I strongly dislike: the framing might constantly posture her as intelligent, but Aria T’loak is... kind of dumb, actually? In this book alone she’s misled, misinformed or tricked three different times. We’re constantly ensured she’s an amazing people reader but never once do we see this ability work in her favor -everyone fools her all the time. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes and jump from Cerberus trap to Cerberus trap, and her loosing Omega to them later is laughably stupid after the bullshit Tim put her through in this book alone. I’m not joking when I say the book has to pull out an entire paragraph on how it’s easier to lie to smart people to justify her complete dumbassery during her first negotiation with Tim. She doesn’t seem to know anything about how people work that could justify her power. She’s not politically savvy. She’s not good at manipulation. She’s just already established and very, very good at kicking ass. And I wouldn’t mind if Aria was just a brutish thug who maintains her power through violence and nothing else, that could also be interesting to have an asari act that way. But the narrative will not bow to the reality they have created for her, and keep pretending her flaw is in extreme pride only. This makes me think of the treatment of Sansa Stark in the latest seasons of Game of Thrones -the story and everyone in it is persuaded she’s a political mastermind, and in the exact same way I would adore for it to be true, but it’s just... not. It’s even worse for Aria, because Sansa does have victories by virtue of everyone being magically dumber than her whenever convenient. Aria just fails, again and again, and nobody seem to ever acknowledge it. Sadly her writing here completely justifies her writing in the Omega DLC and the comics, which I completely loathe; but turns out Aria isn’t smart or savvy, not even in posture or as a façade. She’s just violent, entitled, easily fooled, and throws public tantrums when things don’t go her way. And again, I guess that would be fine if only the narrative would recognize what she is. Me, I will gently ignore most of this (in her presentation at least, because I think it’s interesting to have something pitiful when you dig a little) and try to write her with a bit more elevation. But this was a very disappointing realization to have.

4. The squandered potential of Grayson and the Reapers

The waste of a subplot with Aria and Liselle might have hurt me more in a personal way, but what went down between Grayson and the Reapers hurts the entire series in a startling manner. And it’s so infuriating because the potential was there. Every setpiece was available to create something truly unique and disturbing by simply following the series’ own established lore. But this is not what happens. See, when The Illusive Man, our dearest Tim, captures Grayson for a betrayal that happened last book (something about his biotic autistic daughter -what’s the deal with autistic biotics being traumatized by Cerberus btw), he decides to use him as the key part of an experiment to understand how Reapers operate. So he forcefully implants the guy with Reaper technology (what they do exactly is unclear) to study his change into a husk and be prepared when Reapers come for humanity -it’s also compared to what happened with Saren when he “agreed” to be augmented by Sovereign. From there on, Grayson slowly turns into a husk. Doesn’t it sound fascinating, to be stuck in the mind of someone losing themselves to unknowable monsters? If you agree with me then I’m sorry because the execution is certainly... not that. The way the author chooses to describe the event is to use the trope of mind control used in media like Get Out: Grayson taking the backseat of his own mind and body. And I haaaaate it. I hate it so much. I don’t hate the trope itself (it can be interesting in other media, like Get Out!), but I loathe that it’s used here in a way that totally contradicts both the lore and basic biology. Grayson doesn’t find himself manipulated. He doesn’t find himself justifying increasingly jarring actions the way Saren has. He just... loses control of himself, disagreeing with what’s being done with him but not able to change much about it. He also can fight back and regain control sometimes -but his thoughts are almost untainted by Reaper influence. The technology is supposed to literally replace and reorganize the cells of his body; is this implying that body and mind are separated, that there maybe exists a soul that transcends indoctrination? I don’t know but I hate it. This also implies that every victim of the Reaper is secretely aware of what they’re doing and pained and disagreeing with their own actions. And I’m sorry but if it’s true, I think this sucks ass and removes one of the creepiest ideas of the Mass Effect universe -that identity can and will be lost, and that Reapers do not care about devouring individuality and reshaping it to the whims of their inexorable march. Keeping a clear stream of consciousness in the victim’s body makes it feel like a curse and not like a disease. None of the victims are truly gone that way, and it removes so much of the tragic powerlessness of organics in their fight against the machines. Imagine if Saren watched himself be a meanie and being like “nooo” from within until he had a chance to kill himself in a near-victorious battle, compared to him being completely persuaded he’s acting for the good of organic life until, for a split second, he comes to realize he doesn’t make any sense and is loosing his mind like someone with dementia would, and needs to grasp to this instant to make the last possible thing he could do to save others and his own mind from domination. I feel so little things for Saren in the former case, and so much for the latter. But it might just be me: I’m deeply touched by the exploration of how environment and things like medication can change someone’s behavior, it’s such a painfully human subject while forceful mind control is... just kind of cheap.

SPEAKING OF THE REAPERS. Did you know “The Reapers” as an entity is an actual character in this book? Because it is. And “The Reapers” is not a good character. During the introduction of Grayson and explaining his troubles, we get presented with the mean little voice in his head. It’s his thoughts in italics, nothing crazy, in fact it’s a little bit of a copeout from actually implementing his insecurities into the prose. But I gave the author the benefit of the doubt, as I knew Grayson would be indoctrinated later, and I fully expected the little voice to slowly start twisting into what the Reapers suggested to him. This doesn’t happen, or at least not in that slowburn sort of way. Instead the little voice is dropped almost immediately, and the Reapers are described, as a presence. And as the infection progresses, what Grayson do become what the Reapers do. The Reapers have emotions, it turns out. They’re disgusted at organic discharges. They’re pleased when Grayson accomplish what they want, and it’s told as such. They foment little plans to get their puppet to point A to point B, and we are privy to their calculations. And I’m sorry but the best way to ruin your lovecraftian concept is to try and explain its motivations and how it thinks. Because by definition the unknown is scarier, smarter, and colder than whatever a human author could come up with. I couldn’t take the Reapers’ dumb infiltration plans seriously, and now I think they are dumb all the time, and I didn’t want to!! The only cases in which the Reapers influence Grayson, we are told in very explicit details how so. For example, they won’t let Grayson commit suicide by flooding his brain with hope and determination when he tries, or they will change the words he types when he tries to send a message to Kahlee Sanders. And we are told exactly what they do every time. There was a glorious occasion to flex as a writer by diving deep into an unreliable narrator and write incredibly creepy prose, but I guess we could have been confused, and apparently that’s not allowed. And all of this is handled that poorly becauuuuuse...

5. Subtext is dead and Drew killed it

Now we need to talk about the prose. The style of the author is... let’s be generous and call it functional. It’s about clarity. The writing is so involved in its quest for clarity that it basically ruins the book, and most of the previous issues are direct consequences of the prose and adjacent decisions.The direct prose issues are puzzling, as they are known as rookie technical flaws and not something I would expect from the series’ Lead Writer for Mass Effect 1 and 2, but in this book we find problems such as:

The reliance on adverbs. Example: "Breathing heavily from the exertion, he stood up slowly”. I have nothing about a well-placed adverb that gives a verb a revelatory twist, but these could be replaced by stronger verbs, or cut altogether.

Filtering. Example: “Anderson knew that the fact they were getting no response was a bad sign”. This example is particularly egregious, but characters know things, feel things, realize things (boy do they realize things)... And this pulls us away from their internal world instead of making us live what they live, expliciting what should be implicit. For example, consider the alternative: “They were getting no reponse, which was a bad sign in Anderson’s experience.” We don’t really need the “in Anderson’s experience” either, but that already brings us significantly closer to his world, his lived experience as a soldier.

The goddamn dialogue tags. This one is the worst offender of the bunch. Nobody is allowed to talk without a dialogue tag in this book, and wow do people imply, admit, inform, remark and every other verb under the sun. Consider this example, which made me lose my mind a little: “What are you talking about? Kahlee wanted to know.” I couldn’t find it again, but I’m fairly certain I read a “What is it?” Anderson wanted to know. as well. Not only is it very distracting, it’s also yet another way to remove reader interpretation from the equation (also sometimes there will be a paragraph break inside a monologue -not even a long one-, and that doesn’t seem to be justified by anything? It’s not as big of a problem than the aversion to subtext, but it still confused me more than once)

Another writing choice that hurts the book in disproportionate ways is the reliance on point of view switches. In Retribution, we get the point of view of: Tim, Paul Grayson, Kai Leng, Kahlee Sanders, David Anderson, Aria T’loak, and Nick (a biotic teenager, the one with the boner). Maybe Sanak had a very small section too, but I couldn’t find it again so don’t take my word for it. That’s too many point of views for a plot-heavy 80k book in my opinion, but even besides that: the point of view switch several times in one single chapter. This is done in the most harmful way possible for tension: characters involved in the same scene take turns on the page explaining their perspective about the events, in a way that leaves the reader entirely aware of every stake to every character and every information that would be relevant in a scene. Take for example the first negotiation between Aria and Tim. The second Aria needs to ponder what her best move could possibly be, we get thrown back into Tim’s perspective explaining the exact ways in which he’s trying to deceive her -removing our agency to be either convinced or fooled alongside her. This results in a book that goes out of his way to keep us from engaging with its ideas and do any mental work on our own. Everything is laid out, bare and as overexplained as humanly possible. The format is also very repetitive: characters talk or do an action, and then we spend a paragraph explaining the exact mental reasoning for why they did what they did. There is nothing to interpret. No subtext at all whatsoever; and this contributes in casting a harsh light on the Mass Effect universe, cheapening it and overtly expliciting some of its worst ideas instead of leaving them politely blurred and for us to dress up in our minds. There is only one theme that remains subtextual in my opinion. And it’s not a pretty one.

6. Violence

So here’s the thing when you adapt a third person shooter into a novel: you created a violent world and now you will have to deal with death en-masse too (get it get it I’m so sorry). But while in videogames you can get away with thoughtless murder because it’s a gameplay mechanic and you’re not expected to philosophize on every splatter of blood, novels are all about internalization. Violent murder is by definition more uncomfortable in books, because we’re out of gamer conventions and now every death is actual when in games we just spawned more guys because we wanted that level to be a bit harder and on a subconscious level we know this and it makes it somewhat okay. I felt, in this book, a strange disconnect between the horrendous violence and the fact we’re expected to care about it like we would in a game: not much, or as a spectacle. Like in a game, we are expected to root for the safety of named characters the story indicated us we should be invested in. And because we’re in a book, this doesn’t feel like the objective truth of the universe spelled at us through user interface and quest logs, but the subjective worldview of the characters we’re following. And that makes them.... somewhat disturbing to follow.

I haven’t touched on Anderson and Kahlee Sanders much yet, but now I guess I have too, as they are the worst offenders of what is mentioned above. Kahlee cares about Grayson. She only cares about Grayson -and her students like the forementioned Nick, but mostly Grayson. Grayson is out there murdering people like it’s nobody’s business, but still, keeping Grayson alive is more important that people dying like flies around him. This is vaguely touched on, but not with the gravitas that I think was warranted. Also, Anderson goes with it. Because he cares about Kahlee. Anderson organizes a major political scandal between humans and turians because of Kahlee, because of Grayson. He convinces turians to risk a lot to bring Cerberus down, and I guess that could be understandable, but it’s mostly manipulation for the sake of Grayson’s survival: and a lot of turians die as a result. But not only turians: I was not comfortable with how casually the course of action to deal a huge blow to Cerberus and try to bring the organization down was to launch assault on stations and cover-ups for their organization. Not mass arrests: military assault. They came to arrest high operatives, maybe, but the grunts were okay to slaughter. This universe has a problem with systemic violence by the supposedly good guys in charge -and it’s always held up as the righteous and efficient way compared to these UGH boring politicians and these treaties and peace and such (amirite Anderson). And as the cadavers pile up, it starts to make our loveable protagonists... kind of self-centered assholes. Also: I think we might want to touch on who these cadavers tend to be, and get to my biggest point of discomfort with this novel.

Xenophobia is hard to write well, and I super sympathize with the attempts made and their inherent difficulty. This novel tries to evoke this theme in multiple ways: by virtue of having Cerberus’ heart and blade as point of view characters, we get a window into Tim and Kai Leng’s bigotry against aliens, and how this belief informs their actions. I wasn’t ever sold in their bigotry as it was shown to us. Tim evokes his scorn for whatever aliens do and how it’s inferior to humanity’s resilience -but it’s surface-level, not informed by deep and specific entranched beliefs on aliens motives and bodies, and how they are a threat on humanity according to them. The history of Mass Effect is rich with conflict and baggage between species, yet every expression of hatred is relegated to a vague “eww aliens” that doesn’t feed off systemically enforced beliefs but personal feelings of mistrust and disgust. I’ll take this example of Kai Leng, and his supposedly revulsion at the Afterlife as a peak example of alien decadence: he sees an asari in skimpy clothing, and deems her “whorish”. And this feels... off. Not because I don’t think Kai Leng would consider asaris whorish, but because this is supposed to represent Cerberus’ core beliefs: yet both him and Tim go on and on about how their goal is to uplift humanity, how no human is an enemy. But if that’s the case, then what makes Kai Leng call an Afterlife asari whorish and mean it in a way that’s meaningfully different from how he would consider a human sex worker in similar dispositions? Not that I don’t buy that Cerberus would have a very specific idea of what humans need to be to be considered worth preserving as good little ur-fascists, but this internal bias is never expressed in any way, and it makes the whole act feel hollow. Cerberus is not the only offender, though. Every time an alien expresses bias against humans in a way we’re meant to recognize as xenophobic, it reads the same way: as personal dislike and suspicion. As bullying. Which is such a small part of what bigotry encompasses. It’s so unspecific and divorced from their common history that it just never truly works in my opinion. You know what I thought worked, though? The golden trio of non-Cerberus human characters, and their attitude towards aliens. Grayson’s slight fetishism and suspicion of his attraction to Liselle, how bestial (in a cool, sexy way) he perceives the Afterlife to be. The way Anderson and Kahlee use turians for their own ends and do not spare a single thought towards those who died directly trying to protect them or Grayson immediately after the fact (they are more interested in Kahlee’s broken fingers and in kissing each other). How they feel disgust watching turians looting Cerberus soldiers, not because it’s disrespectful in general and the deaths are a inherent tragedy but because they are turians and the dead are humans. But it's not even really on them: the narration itself is engrossed by the suffering of humans, but aliens are relegated to setpieces in gore spectacles. Not even Grayson truly cares about the aliens the Reapers make him kill. Nobody does. Not even the aliens among each other: see, once again, Aria and Liselle, or Aria and Sanak. Nobody cares. At the very end of the story, Anderson comes to Kahlee and asks if she gives him permission to have Grayson’s body studied, the same way Cerberus planned to. It’s source of discomfort, but Kahlee gives in as it’s important, and probably what Grayson would have wanted, maybe? So yeah. In the end the only subtextual theme to find here (probably as an accident) is how the Alliance’s good guys are not that different from Cerberus it turns out. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

7. Lore-approved books, or the art of shrinking an expanding universe

I’d like to open the conversation on a bigger topic: the very practice of game novelization, or IP-books. Because as much as I think Drew Karpyshyn’s final draft should not have ended up reading that amateur given the credits to his name, I really want to acknowledge the realities of this industry, and why the whole endeavor was perhaps doomed from the start regardless of Karpyshyn’s talent or wishes as an author.

The most jarring thing about this reading experience is as follows: I spent almost 80k words exploring this universe with new characters and side characters, all of them supposedly cool and interesting, and I learned nothing. I learned nothing new about the world, nothing new about the characters. Now that it’s over, I’m left wondering how I could chew on so much and gain so little. Maybe it’s just me, but more likely it’s by design. Not on poor Drew. Now that I did IP work myself, I have developed an acute sympathy for anyone who has to deal with the maddening contradictions of this type of business. Let me explain.

IP-adjacent media (in the West at least) sure has for goal to expand the universe: but expand as in bloat, not as in deepen. The target for this book is nerds like me, who liked the games and want more of this thing we liked. But then we’re confronted by two major competitors: the actual original media (in ME’s case, the games) whose this product is a marketing tool for, and fandom. IP books are not allowed to compete with the main media: the good ideas are for the main media, and any meaningful development has to be made in the main media (see: what happened with Kai Leng, or how everyone including me complains about the worldbuilding to the Disney Star Swars trilogy being hidden in the novelization). And when it comes to authorship (as in: taking an actual risk with the media and give it a personal spin), then we risk introducing ideas that complicate the main media even though a ridiculously small percent of the public will be attached to it, or ideas that fans despise. Of course we can’t have the latter. And once the fandom is huge enough, digging into anything the fans have strong headcanons for already risks creating a lot of emotions once some of these are made canon and some are disregarded. As much as I joke about how in Mass Effect you can learn about any gun in excrutiating details but we still don’t know if asaris have a concept for marriage... would we really want to know how/if asaris marry, or aren’t we glad we get to be creative and put our own spin on things? The dance between fandom and canon is a delicate one that can and will go wrong. And IP books are generally not worth the drama for the stakeholders.

Add this to insane deadlines, numerous parties all involved in some way and the usual struggles of book writing, and we get a situation where creating anything of value is pretty much a herculean task.

But then I ask... why do IP books *have* to be considered canon? I know this is part of the appeal, and that removing the “licenced” part only leaves us with published fanfiction, but... yeah. Yeah. I think it could be a fascinating model. Can you imagine having your IP and hiring X amount of distinctive authors to give it their own spin, not as definitive additions to the world but as creative endeavours and authorial deepdives? It would allow for these novels to be comparative and companion to the main media instead of being weird appendages that can never compare, and the structure would allow for these stories to be polished and edited to a higher level than most fanfictions. Of course I’m biased because I have a deep belief in the power of fanfiction as commentary and conversational piece. But I would really love to see companies’ approach to creative risk and canon to change. We might get Disney stuff until we die now, so the least we can ask for is for this content to be a little weird, personal and human.

That’s it. That’s the whole review. Thank you for reading, it was very long and weirdly passionate, have a nice dayyyyy.

#Mass Effect #mass effect retribution #me critical #writing #mass effect novels #anderson #kahlee sanders #Aria T'loak #paul grayson #liselle #salarians #IP conversation #omega #mass effect lore #reapers #book review

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soda-drabbles · 4 years

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Highway Drive | Dan x (Genderless) Reader

Request by @demonicxiconic : i usually don’t like x reader things but if you write this i’ll make an exception: picking dan up from a party or from a grumps recording session at like four in the morning and driving him home, him falling asleep on your shoulder and mumbling sappy things as the sun rises.

Type : Fluff

Pairing : Dan Avidan x Genderless!Reader

It was probably about four in the morning when you felt a vibration against your skin. Bundled up generously in the mountain of your comforter, it felt like hell to get out of the warm comfortable tunnel you dug yourself. You pulled up with a groggy groan, sleepy eyes awakening. The phone had been under you while you slept and the light was cascading off of the room when you raised up. A message notification from Dan was staring you back in the face. It was texted a bit sloppily, you noticed.

‘We finally gpt done recorbding. Can you come pick me ul?’

Another message appears right under it.

‘or I’ll getm a uner.’

That’s right, you remind yourself, Dan did mention something about getting home later than normal. You didn’t really question it though. You trusted him and besides that, you assumed they had to record overtime. Looking at the typos, you chuckle to yourself and it’s easy to assume that he was nearing the threshold of falling asleep. Wide awake now, you unlock your phone and quickly respond with a, “I’ll be there soon.”

You were just heading down there to pick him up so you didn’t actually spend much time when it came to deciding what to wear. Some sloppily worn sweatpants and one of Dan’s shirts would do. You didn’t give your hair much thought either and simply sauntered to the car with your keys in your hand. It was in the deep of the night, technically early morning. The weather was a little chilly but thankfully, the car provided enough heat for you.

The ride there itself was cozy, thanks to the heat vents inside of the car. It was funny, as you and Dan had little quarrels where you’d change up the AC. He was like a polar bear, loving the cold while you rather be cozy and warm. You were sure that Dan wouldn’t mind the heat tonight though.

The chilly air tickles your nose and pricks at your skin once again when you got out. Shivering, you nearly forgotten how chilly it actually was early in the morning. The office on the inside was more generous with the air though. It wasn’t too hot but not so cold neither. Inside, it was empty and vacant which you assumed was because it was literally nearly five in the morning.

Just as you approached the recording room, a tired Arin seemed to be leaving as well. His droopy tired eyes slightly lit up when he saw you and he smiled, “Hey, (Y/N).”

You snorted a little at how tired he looked. It kind of reminded you of a bloodhound. “Mornin’, Hanson. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. Dan’s on the couch, by the way.”

“Thanks. Have a safe ride home and say hi to Suzy for me.” You smile and pat his shoulder.

“Will do.” Arin chuckles and walks off.

You turn a heel and walk into the recording room to find a sleepy Dan, blanket cuddling his body. His mane of curls were a nappy mess, which you assumed was from falling asleep a couple of times. If his eyes were open, you could barely tell. He looked so tired out, as if he could sleep for forever. You approached him and he smiled when you did.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” You say in a soft sweet voice, one that makes Dan groan and smile more. “Ready to go?”

“Hmm..” He groans, slowly but surely sitting up. The blanket is still draped over his shoulders. “Yeah.”

You pull back and he slowly but surely fully stands, the blanket falling back on the couch behind him. He leans over to take your hand into his. They were warm from the heat in the blankets while yours were still cool. It seemed to not bother him though and the two of you walked out together. He was still sleepy by the time the two of you got to the car and was buckled in.

“(Y/N)?” His voice comes to you in a tired whisper. With your hands on the wheel, you respond. “Yeah?”

His eyes were tiredly gazing out the window at the passing trees that illuminated the slowly raising sun. “Mm..” His voice was a little gravelly but certainly sleepy and soft spoken. “I missed you.”

A soft smile fell on your face and you chuckled. “I missed you too.”

“Like, I love working on the show and all but man..I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He admitted, a yawn cutting him off.

Heat flushed your cheeks. It wasn’t unlike Dan to be a little cheesy sometimes, most times it was because it flustered you so much and he loved to get a reaction out of you. This time, you knew this was some sleepy genuine Dan babbling.

“That’s some cheesy shit, Avidan.” You reply with a joke to hide your cheesiness and he quietly laughed.

“I could get a lot cheesier y’know?” Dan warned, chuckling softly. A part of that interested you, mostly because you secretly loved the idea of a cheesy Dan and imagined it plenty of times before. “Liiikkee, I could say that you are the most amazing partner in the world and that I love you with all my heart~”

At this point, you knew you had to be burning red right now. You could practically feel it reverberating off your cheeks. It made it even worse that he was practically against your ear, his voice was invading them. It only confirmed how much of a fool you were for this man.

“Danny.” You simply said, as if you were scolding him. It didn’t work though, as it only made him laugh. His laugh always made impressions on you though and you couldn’t help but break into a smile either.

Moments like these are the ones you know you’ll miss. The warmth of the car, the trees moving by the windows with the early sunlight beaming through, Dan’s head on your shoulder, his kind soft teasing words.

In that moment, you were thankful that he was yours.

#dan avidan x reader #x reader insert #dan x reader #x reader #x male reader #x nb reader #x nonbinary reader #male reader #game grumps x reader

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calamity-bean · 4 years

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16 new horror films i’ve watched at random lately just cause i’ve been in the mood for horror

Been thinking about horror today, and fun fact, I’ve actually been fairly DEVOURING horror films of late! Sixteen new ones in the past couple weeks, in fact, according to the little list I’ve been keeping! New to me, that is, though they do all happen to be very recent releases (2016 at earliest). Horror is a genre with which I often like to pull up Netflix or Hulu and just pick at random some film I’ve never heard of and don’t know the first thing about; I feel like it’s a genre that depends so much on personal taste and that encompasses such a wide variety of tropes and approaches that I never entirely know whether I’ll like a particular film until I try it. It’s a gamble, sure, and sometimes it’s a dull or infuriating couple hours... But I love horror in general, and I feel like it’s a genre in which even terrible films often stir my imagination with the potential of their premise if not the brilliance of their execution. And you do find those hidden gems.

Anyway, since I love to hear myself talk, I thought I’d share my quick impressions of the ones I’ve watched lately, in case any of you are also in the mood to stream something new! These are (almost) all currently on Netflix or Hulu, so have at it. No specific spoilers; mostly just whether I liked it or not and why. I added a few content warnings where I remembered any elements that, to me, went beyond genre-standard levels of content or involved specific common triggers, but, I mean, they’re all horror films, so do your due diligence if necessary and do expect some level of violent or disturbing content in all of them.

The sixteen films in question are: Sweetheart (2019); The Lodge (2019); Mercy Black (2019); What Keeps You Alive (2018); Cold Skin (2017); The Golem (2018); Rattlesnake (2019); We Summon the Darkness (2019); The Wretched (2019); They Come Knocking (2019); Pyewacket (2017); The Other Lamb (2019); The Silence (2019); Body at Brighton Rock (2019); Under the Shadow (2016); and Seven in Heaven (2018).

Brief descriptions and impressions and such under the cut!

Sweetheart: Survival/monster horror about a young woman who, after the boat she and her friends were on goes down in a storm, washes up alone on an uninhabited island… and then realizes she’s not entirely alone. Quite liked this one! Like almost any horror movie, it suffers from the fact that monsters are almost ALWAYS far scarier (and far less cheesy) before you actually see their CGI rendering chasing the protag, but that’s typical, we’re used to that. The protagonist is smart and capable, and the actress (Kiersey Clemons) has to carry so much of the film solo and often with very sparse dialogue. Warning for mutilated and decomposing corpses.

The Lodge: A woman who as a child was the only survivor of a cult winds up stranded with her new fiance’s two children in a remote, snowbound lodge. This one was pretty dark! I love themes of cold, isolation, and losing connection with reality, and I think the whole cast does a great job; the acting and production are overall high quality. Not sure it captured my imagination enough for a rewatch, but I did enjoy watching it. My fellow Barkskins fans will notice a few glimpses of our own Renardette. Warnings for onscreen suicide, pet death, and psychiatric/medical manipulation.

Mercy Black: A young woman returns home fifteen years after, in her childhood, being involved in a disturbing act of violence inspired by an urban legend called Mercy Black. I like the concept behind this one, in terms of the urban legend, the protagonist’s relationship with it; I liked the overall film okay, but I found certain aspects a bit cliche or thinly sketched. Standard supernatural horror levels of violence and spookiness, imo.

What Keeps You Alive: For their one-year anniversary, a young couple vacation to a remote house in the woods, where the protagonist begins to learn some strange things about her wife. I really enjoyed this one. It might be my favorite on this list, and certainly one of the ones I’m more likely to watch again. It’s well structured, well made, with a strong, compact cast, and it’s gotten the song “Bloodlet” stuck in my head for weeks. However, you will probably not enjoy this one if, as I know is the case for some people, you would rather not consume content that depicts LGBT relationships that are unhealthy or LGBT characters who are villainous. I get where you’re coming from, but it means this one probably isn’t for you. It also isn’t for you if you would rather not see some quite brutal injuries.

Cold Skin: Okay, this is the only one that wasn’t actually on streaming, I checked this out from my local library. Set in 1914, a young man takes a post as a meteorologist on a remote island in the South Atlantic, inhabited only by the unfriendly lighthouse keeper… and the creatures that crawl onto shore at night. Gosh… How do I feel about this one? There are aspects that are cheesy, effects that don’t entirely hold up. But I liked it. I like the idea of it, and I like the themes of isolation and connection, and I like the protagonist and overall I think it’s a solid and interesting narrative. Sort of… The Terror meets Lovecraft. Warning for offscreen (but audible, and almost visible) sexual assault.

The Golem: Set in the late 17th century in a rural Lithuanian shtetl, a woman creates a golem to protect her community from the threats of Christians who blame her people for the plague. Thematically, this one centers largely around motherhood, which I think makes sense with how it’s done here, and I always like the supernatural elements of a horror film to have a very strong, personal thematic link with the protagonist’s emotional character arc. Stars Maman Brigitte from American Gods! Warning for mentions of miscarriage and themes of child death.

Rattlesnake: After a mishap on a remote highway, a woman unknowingly makes a deal with the devil in order to save her young daughter’s life. I liked this one as well; I found the protagonist enjoyable, the overall concept straightforward but engaging, and the hot, arid, rural setting — I think it’s supposed to be around Palo Duro? — an effective backdrop. Not spooky-scary, but nice tension throughout.

We Summon the Darkness: Set in the 80s, three girls travel to a heavy metal concert despite the string of recent killings apparently committed by a Satanic cult. This one is basically a slasher flick — with a twist, yeah, but essentially the slasher model of teens plus extensive violence — and I think it’s a pretty decent one. And I liked the hair and costumes, ahaha.

The Wretched: A teenage boy becomes convinced that his new neighbor has been possessed by something evil. I like the narrative and the characters in this one okay, but where I really have to give it props is in the overall visual presentation of the supernatural threats; it’s able to lean into uncanniness and human body horror that work well on film rather than presenting a creature created wholecloth (which, as I mentioned earlier, often doesn’t work super well).

They Come Knocking: On a drive into the middle of nowhere, a father and his two daughters hear something knocking on their caravan at night, asking to be let in. Okay, so… this one is a black-eyed children story (with a setup reminiscent of ye olde Anansi’s Goatman, too, in a way), and I have to admit that black-eyed children are one of those tropes that doesn’t work for me even as a creepypasta, it just strikes me as lame and dumb. And I did find the actual children in this film to be, well, cheesy and dumb-looking. But the human side of the narrative — the characters and their relationships and emotional aspects — is actually pretty well done! So I found it engaging enough in that regard.

Pyewacket: A teenage girl who has a difficult relationship with her mother lashes out by trying to summon a demon to kill her, only to regret the ritual right away. I think this one was well done, too, pretty dark, with a spooky forest setting and some genuinely creepy glimpses of the supernatural threat. I am also delighted to discover that Pyewacket is actually the name of a familiar spirit according to the confession of an accused witch in the 17th century. (Not delighted by the fact that this poor 17th century woman was tortured for being an alleged witch, but delighted that there’s a little historical inspo here.) Warning for a fairly graphic death by burning.

The Other Lamb: This one is not horror as in “scary” but horror as in thematically disturbing and a little eerie. A young girl who’s been raised in a cult — all female except for their leader, to whom all the members are either wives or daughters — begins to question her faith. Slow, quiet, and a bit surreal, with some slightly feral-woman themes that are up my alley; I think I enjoyed it? The cast is quite good, especially the protagonist (Raffey Cassidy) and cult leader (Michiel Huisman with, I gotta say, some truly lovely hair). Warning for onscreen but nongraphic (as in, clothed and not showing anything below the neck) sexual assault of a minor.

The Silence: A deaf teenager and her family struggle to survive amidst an apocalypse of deadly monsters that attack based on sound. No, I’m not talking about A Quiet Place. I do feel a bit sorry for this film, because I know that it was conceived of and began production well before A Quiet Place came out, only to essentially be doomed by its striking similarity to such a successful film… And honestly, it’s not as good as A Quiet Place; it’s cheesier, there are more plot and character holes, the ultimate main threat feels disconnected from the premise, and the core theme/character arcs aren’t as cohesive. But it’s not TERRIBLE. It’s more of a B-movie-esque monster/disaster flick, is all. And I like Stanley Tucci, so at least he’s always fun to watch.

Body at Brighton Rock: An inexperienced parks employee gets lost in the backcountry and has to spend the night watching over a (possibly murdered) body she stumbles across while awaiting rescue. This one… hm. It’s like, I didn’t hate it? But it was frustrating. It reused the same scares / fake-outs multiple times, and even by horror movie standards the protagonist was maddeningly careless. I think it was all the more disappointing because I do like the setting and premise but felt it could’ve been better.

Under the Shadow: In 1980s Tehran, during the air raids and missile strikes of the War of the Cities, a woman begins to fear something evil is stalking her young daughter through their emptying apartment building. This is another top fave, and I think overall the most well constructed film on this list in an objective sense. Strong narrative, strong characters and acting, a really great atmosphere of claustrophobia and tension and dread, and an interesting and effective setting. Would absolutely watch again.

Seven in Heaven: At a house party, two teenagers enter a closet as part of a kissing game, and they exit into a parallel universe that is similar but different in striking ways. This one was, hm… okay? I felt like it could’ve gone so much farther with the potential of alternate universes, in terms of really making them weird and interesting, and although I don’t expect a film to spell out everything for me, I just thought that the whole underlying mechanism of what was happening was left too unexplained. Also, the background characters looked like they were played by actual high school-age teens while the main characters looked like your standard Hollywood 20-something “teens,” which created kind of a weird dissonance lmao. But it was okay.

Overall, I didn’t HAAATE any of these; most were fine, some I found less engaging or more frustrating than others, and some I really enjoyed. I did start and then not finish a few more as well... I watched about 20 minutes of Black Rock (2012) before deciding I wasn’t in the mood for where it was going, and I just barely started We Are What We Are (2010) but realized I was too tired and distracted by other things to pay enough attention to subtitles at the moment. On a not strictly horror note, but it’s still thriller so we’ll toss it in, I got a ways into The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) because that’s a helluva title and I wanted to see Barry Keoghan’s work outside Dunkirk (the only film I’d seen him in), but man, that’s a weird one huh, very slow, very odd style of dialogue. I’ll still likely finish some or all of those at some point, but I just wasn’t in the right headspace when I first tried.

Anyway, this has been me telling you what movies I’ve been watching! I’m sure you’re enthralled. And please always feel free to talk horror movies to me or send me recs!

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sunshine-in-a-bottle · 3 years

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I'm watching Beast Wars again for no reason and so you all have to hear me talk about it.

If I was personally given Rights I would first use them to erase Cheetors weird crush on Blackarachnia because it literally adds nothing to the plot or the characters. Instead I'd take full advantage of my personal headcanon and make Cheetor desperately want a big sister because I am always a slut for Found Family. Like, that scene with Una ?"Aw, she wants to be you!" Like c'mon viewing him reaching out to Blackarachnia because he desperately wants some semblance of a relationship is a lot more wholesome when it isn't romantically coded. Cheetor is Lonely, so horribly lonely, and so young seeming in comparison to the rest of the cast. He hasn't lost that love for the stars or spiraled into cynicism just yet, and I would much rather explore the ways he tries to reach out to his bitter, jaded teammates. And maybe he's left wanting, maybe he gets tired of being lonely, and maybe he fucks up trying to be like them because "he tried to prove himself." And maybe that scene where Optimus, Silverbolt, and Rattrap reach out to him has a little more weight because it isn’t just Cheetor trying to be an adult, but a Cheetor that tried to be them and post Feral Cheetor has real fucking consequences and isn't just a cool upgrade.

I want that episode where Rattrap finds out they spat on Dinobot’s memory by making him into a "dishonorable" clone and goes ballistic. I want him to find the memories Dinobot stowed away and be conflicted. Is it Dinobot without the spark? Could he live with only a shade? Would Dinobot even want that? I want him to try and fail and be utterly distraught over the whole damn thing. I want him to be angry every time he sees Dinobot 2. I want Rhinox to try and fail to comfort him. I want Cheetor to sit with him, neither speaking but both knowing they're in this fucked up mess together now. CONSEQUENCES. WHERE ARE THEY. GIVE THEM TO ME.

I also just really want Blackarachnia to have closer bonds with the team??? Idk, I'm vibin well enough with her and Silverbolt but tbh I'd really just like her to have an episode where she's hanging out with someone else and Isn’t A Complete Rude Person. I think that's something I actually really vibed with in Beast Machines (although my memory there is still pretty fuzzy, I'll probably have to rewatch that to say for sure) Blackarachnia could actually work with the team in a friendly and occasionally sweet way. She was capable of a blunt and angry sort of kindness. Should that happen right away? Nah of course not, she needs to get comfy with her shiny new Dumbfuck Teammates. But there’s no real Solid Connections there other than Silverbolt, which is purely romantic. (Once again I emphasize Cheetor and Found Family)

Rhinox just needs more in general. If I had to guess the reason he was made a villain in beast machines was because he is only Meh as a Developed character after Blackarachnia shows up and takes over tech wise, not to mention rattrap is also pretty damn techy when he wants to be.(it was also probably to increase tension since his whole deal is being diplomatic but that's a separate thing) Sort of an issue when you make them scientists but don't have them specialize in anything and, more importantly, have a weakness in anything. If your character is simply the backup scientist when the other one is out of commission u gotta problem. Rhinox is stagnant personality wise, I can’t honestly say anything about him changes in the whole series. He has functionally gained nothing from this perilous journey, no real trauma, no bonds he didn't already have with the team, not even an upgrade in form. Isn’t rattrap supposed to be his best friend???? SHOW ME MORE THEN. Seriously if this show had let me have Rights I’m not saying I wouldn’t have loved if we had actually Really Dug In to a character arc or something about Rattrap and the concept of Honor vs Loyalty but that’s exactly what I’m saying lets talk about that. Season One Rattrap they played with this a little (After the whole early on “I would not send someone to do something I would not do myself” and “double agent rattrap” WHICH NO ONE WOULD EVER BELIEVE IF THAT HAPPENED ANY LATER THAN IT DID SINCE RATTRAP IS SO ANTIPRED) and the whole Dinobot thing really wedged it in (”But at least you know where he stands”) AND THEN FROM MY SHODDY MEMORIES OF BEAST MACHINES ITS PLAYED WITH EVEN MORE WHEN HE FUCKING GOES TO MEGATRON BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS BEING A LITTLE BITCH TO HIM

Where was I going with this? uhhhhhhhhhhhhh oh yeah LISTEN Rattrap and his morals are Very Fascinating and I really wished there was more about that. Like, he gives no shits about Doing What’s Right or Being A Good Person, but he rewards friendship and loyalty and not getting him killed by miles. And despite his Hatefest Dinobot he was actually really... shocked? Offended??? about Dinobot handing over the disc because you’re an asshole but you’re also our asshole what fuckery is this did all our arguments mean nothing to you. And then attempting to join Megatron in BM because he might be Evil and it might be Bad Moral Conduct but fuck morals his teammates were being shitty friends. Is that petty of him? Maybe, but if the maximals had been evil but still genuinely kind and caring towards Rattrap I don’t believe he would ever leave for a second, not for all the Morals or Its The Right Thing To Do in the world. And that’s why darkfics that still use Found Family are the best! The End.

All the characters would actually be the size of their animals because goddamit I want a tiny Rattrap that has to be carried around by the others while he screeches indignantly. Or at the very least make him just a little smaller. Just a bit. And maybe they all have a big Sleep Pile. I like physical affection and cuddling and things no I don't care if they're robots no I don’t take criticism. Dinobot would have feathers fight me.

Optimus has died, been tortured, and painfully grew to like 3 times his size why doesn’t he have ptsd someone give him a hug.

Could we have waited for Airrazor and Tigatron to get kidnapped???? We should have gotten more for them. Let me see them more often. LISTEN THEY’RE VERY CUTE I LOVE THEM SHUT UP.

WHICH LMAO BRINGS ME RIGHT BACK TO CHEETOR BECAUSE HE CONSIDERED AIRRAZOR AND TIGATRON HIS BROTHER AND SISTER AND HE THINKS THEYRE GONE FOREVER AND THEN ITS NEVER REALLY BROUGHT UP AGAIN LIKE CHEETOR AND FOUND FAMILY REALLY SHOULD BE EXPLORED HERE

Silverbolt is fun, but suffers from the same problem as Blackarachnia where all you really remember about them Relationship wise is the one they have with each other. Who does Silverbolt like best among the maximals, who does he like the least? And if I'm erasing that weird Cheetor crush thing then their interactions probably have a lot less tension so... what else do they have.

Depth Charge is an unrepentant asshole and I love him. He is so hostile but it doesn’t stop him from begrudgingly helping out on occasion. He also gave Optimus some backstory??? Like not as much as my greedy Character Loving hands would have wanted but GIVE ME.

Other Stuff:

Nothing will ever be as funny as Optimus being like “Evacuate the base you’re all gonna die” and Rhinox grabbing his fucking plant

Blackarachnia Craves Power

Cheetor suffer from Bad Bondage multiple times throughout the series, but specifically during the web I remember Tarantulas leaning over him and thinking “wow this is kind of... date gone wrong vibes??? What the fuck”

Rattrap and Dinobot: *Spot each other from any distance* Miracle Hatemance has entered the chat

Why is Megatron wearing roller skates. Who did this. Why.

“Spider/Bird dog is hetero nonsense” - everyone who has to bear witness to them ever, including me the viewer

Tarantulas is completely done with any attempts to seduce him. Ever.

Airrazor tries so hard to be cool and hip oh my god she is a complete dork i love her

“FOR THE ROYALTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY”

please be nice to Waspinator he’s trying his best

Rhinox: exists

Me: hello yes sir I love u wise mentor sir

Holy shit Dinobot’s death scene is a gut punch. Rattrap honestly is what makes this scene perfect. I have never seen him so respectful or emotional is a way that wasn’t meant for comedic relief.

That scene, man

Tigatron’s speech about bringing beast mode and robot mode together is like foreshadowing to beast machines. Or it isn’t. Idk. Would have been really nice if they, yknow,

bothered to bring up literally anything from the previous series to beast machines

(yes its been awhile since I’ve seen Beast Machines, but I do remember that being my primary complaint.)

This series is so cheesy but Thundercats is still cheesier so its fine

Rattrap was canonically a miner at some point apparently.

He’s also super prejudiced and honestly that’s interesting. HONESTLY SOMETHING I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO SEE DISCUSSED IN BEAST MACHINES IS THE SUPER MEGA DIVIDE IN PREDS AND MAXIMALS BUT I GUESS WE WEREN’T GETTING THAT OH WELL

The ‘Everyone is blind’ episode was always one of my favorites and it never gets old

Upon rewatching the series I have concluded Cheetor is Babey. Which is weird because I didn’t think much of him from what I remember. Shift in perspective I suppose. They really made Rhinox farting the thing that saves the day, huh. What even was season one.

BITCH THAT IS A TERRIBLE WAY TO TRANSPORT MEGATRON NO WONDER HE FUCKING CONQUERED CYBERTRON Y’ALL DESERVED THIS HONESTLY

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh in conclusion:

Rattrap is my new religion apparently

#Beast Wars #listen listen listen #i have a lot of feelings #honestly I doubt this will be my actual conclusion im sure ill post this and instantly remembered something else to talk about #Look I have seen very little of the transformers honestly #I watched gen1 as a kid and beast wars and beast machine #and thats it #if you dont count a couple comics I have stashed in a drawer somewhere #i do not count them #I tried to read this over again #realized i dont know how formatting works #and have decided to just post it anyway so have fun with that

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karasuno-writings · 4 years

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Important to me

Hello!! So here is the other work of angst I promised!! I have to thank haikyuu!! season 4 episode 1 for showing me that canonically Tsukishima is prone to loose his cool if pushed so that was fun! I hope you all enjoy it!! I felt to bad for my tall boy, I do love him so much.

Also sorry for being so unresponsive today, I just felt so hopelessly depressed most of the weekend and I tend to shut everything down when that happens like yeah...it kinda sucks.... so I apologize for that. Tomorrow college starts once more so I hope I can get stuff out at the same rate but that probably is not happening so I’ll try! Thank you all so much regardless!!

Character: Tsukishima Kei

Warnings: None??? Angst?? IDK if that counts as warning

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In few places did Tsukishima feel truly comfortable, he hardly let himself properly relax despite his chill demeanor. Yet, there he was, arm moving slowly up and down as he gently caressed yours, lying next to you as both watched a movie. His expression was soft, something reserved only for those who he truly loved, and lucky for both, he really did hold you dear to his heart.

He pressed a gentle kiss on the top of your head as the credits rolled in and shifted to sit on the side of the bed, almost reluctantly letting go of your warmth. Looking back at him you smiled apologetically and sat down, pressing a kiss on his cheek. Closing his eyes, he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath in order to get used to the sudden change of position.

“I’ll get going now dear” He stood up and pressed a small kiss on your forehead, you knew he meant to volleyball practice, but he was never one to state the obvious. You giggled at the sound of the nickname he just called you, he usually kept it old fashioned, you loved it when his cheesier side was shown, it was just the right amount of lovely.

“I’ll see you at seven then!” You smiled as he stopped in the doorway. Right, today was your debut at school, you had been working on it for months now and you asked him to come and see you. He looked back at you and nodded slightly, a hint of a smile on his face before closing the door behind him.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Dino babe: Y/N I will not be able to make it on time.

Dino babe: Daichi-senpai asked me to tutor Hinata and Kageyama.

Dino babe: I’ll make it up to you.

Your phone buzzed, the recognizable ringtone the only thing discerning it from the bunch piled up in the table. You bit your lip, there was no way of getting to it now, the debut had just started and the teachers made sure none of you could get distracted by such a thing.

As you looked to where the visitors sat and noticed your boyfriend was nowhere to be found you could only swallow the thought that something bad had just happened to him, he was not one for ditching you without further notice.

As the lights dimmed you could only close your eyes, shutting off the noise in your head.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Tsukishima arrived at the venue, you never told him how long would it all last but apparently by 7:30 everything was wrapped up. He felt a tug on his heart, annoying him with a feeling of worry, as the people attending the event rushed past him on the opposite direction.

When he reached the front, he saw you picking up your phone, eyebrows furrowed and a deep apprehension in your eyes, your forehead wrinkled up like it only did when you thought something was wrong. You stared a few seconds at the screen before clutching your chest, right above your heart, you were not sure how to feel.

You sighed in relief as you saw the messages, the tension in jaw that you never really noticed until now disappearing at the thought of your boyfriend being fine. However when you did a second take on the words written by him a wave of anger washed over you, so rather he decided not to show up. You let out a puff of air, gritting your teeth at the mere thought that he postponed your hard work, ignored what you had put your all into, all for something he could have suspended for a day at most. Your eyes began welling up, a lump in your throat became hard to ignore as all you wanted was to get home.

You turned, ready leave, and there he was. His expression would be unreadable for most, he managed to hide his emotions impeccably, however, you were not most people, it is your boyfriend of two years you are talking about. Behind the stoic facade you knew he just noticed how much he had just fucked up.

Taking a deep breath you held your head high, swallowing your pride and tears as you walked past him. There was so much you needed to tell him, he could see that in your eyes, but not here, not now. He bit his lip, thankful for you knowing not to make a fuss in public, but he was all too aware that he should not say a word until you both were alone.

“I can’t believe you Tsukishima! I was worried out of my mind! Only for you to do this to me?” You closed the door a little too forcefully for his liking. Your voice broke, you were not yelling but the harshness in your words was impossible to ignore. You never called him that, as much as he hated the stupid pet names this was much worse.

“Sorry...Sawamura-san said it was necessary” He would never apologize if he didn’t thought he did something wrong. He had underestimated the time it would all last.

“You could have done it tomorrow, you knew how much this meant to me” Your eyes watered down once more, digging your nails on the palm of your hand as you balled them into a fist.

“There will always be a next time Y/N...besides, I already apologized.” He was starting to get irritated himself, couldn’t you see that he had already acknowledged his mistake?

“You really don’t get it right! I’ve been waiting for this for who knows how long!” Now you were raising your voice slowly but firmly.

“Please calm down...it is just a hobby after all”

That did it

“Calm down?! You really are incredible!” You couldn’t help but yell. And in that moment everything crumbled down, and you were about the experience what you had deemed impossible, Kei loosing his cool.

“ Incredible?! I am not the one starting arguments about something so idiotic!” He was scary when he shouted, you never knew. Your feet paralizad on the ground, he seemed to tower over you higher than usual, you fought against the fear to find your voice.

“I am trying to get you see! Don’t you understand how scared I was! And how you traded me for something that could have waited!!” Channeling the initial fear over this side of him into anger, you carried on, the distance between the two of you slowly closing.

“They are my friends too you know!”

“I am your partner! I thought something bad had happened, only to find out you ditched me!”

“Well it is not my fault you are a moron! Maybe we should just stop trying so hard to hold this vida bed relationship together!”

He flinched as said words left his mouth, so uncharacteristical of him to let his anger out in such a way. By holding down his emotions most of the time he could not avoid letting such a feeling consume him completely as a shadow of looking darkness, clouding his perfect judgement.

However this time you did not back down, biting your lip as your vision blurred out by the tears staining your cheeks. You loved him, but there was so much you could stand, he was not near perfect, but it was not your position to stand by being treated like this. You forgave him everything, loved him despite his flaws, and he couldn’t even try for you. You choked back a sob, his words hurt like knives, your heart audibly breaking right then and there.

Almost mechanically you gathered your stuff up, sniffling and wiping your tears with your sleeve every now and then. Taking everything that belonged to you into your backpack with a sorrow so big that all you could feel was a numbing sensation that accompanied the white noise that rung in your ears.

Tsukishima was paralyzed, staring down on you as you shuffled back and forth with clear intent of leaving nothing behind. A knot in his throat stopped him from saying anything, he had never felt so broken, so stupid, he had let his anger get the best of him and the words he could not take back echoed in his mind, every syllable as painful as the one before. He would not apologize this time, he would not let you see him cry, he looked as angry and as intimidating as he did some seconds ago. His eyes following you, tearing holes on your skin as you walked out the door.

The second it slammed shut he fell to his knees, he had never once in his life sobbed, but the lack of air and the guilt were enough to break down on him, tears unstoppable as he realized he had fucked up the single best thing that had ever happened to him.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Kei hopped off the train, changing the song that currently played on his headphones as he looked around at the well known road. His feet walked almost on their own as he headed home. Today’s match was the highlight of his month and even he hated acknowledging the lack of inspiration that he was facing.

However not even his grim mood could make him ignore how nice the day was, the light was warm and the breeze was light, he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to give in into the peace of atmosphere.

He opened them slowly, and as soon as he did his stomach dropped. He stopped walking, the sight of you enough to agitate his mind and leave him at loss of what to do next.

He had completely blocked everything regarding your relationship. After sulking down like a useless bastard for about a month he was able to stomach the guilt and shut down his emotions even worse than before. He never wanted to be as helpless as he was after the incident, so any feeling that began to stir in him was promptly ignored and hidden.

Kei didn’t want to call your attention, he would hate having to talk to you, it would be more than he could handle. So he reserved to watching from the sideline.

You were with a group of friends he had never seen before, probably met them in the span of two years that had gone by, they all seemed awfully annoying.

His first instinct was to remove his headphones, so he could see if it was possible to catch anything of the conversation. He was not one to pry but he couldn’t help himself.

Talking a good look at you his heart shrank, wilting as he was able to see your features once more. You looked beautiful as ever, your smile was brighter than he had ever seen it, only once had he been the reason for something as pure as the sheer happiness that radiated from you, the day the two of you started dating. To see you glowing as much as you did, with such ease as if it was an everyday thing hit him hard.

Your laugh reached his ears as he saw you bend over, he had not realized how much he missed that, how much he missed your arms, the way you two bantered before he promptly shut you down with a kiss.

And as he saw a friend of yours twirl you around he could only grit his teeth, unable to stop his eyes from watering down as he remembered all the times he turned you down when all you wanted was to dance.

He fled from the scene, his hands balled up as he stomped his way down the road hoping no one would notice how broken he truly was. He hated the fact that after all this time he still missed you, that you were truly the only one that had made him so truly happy, the best thing that had ever happened, but what he truly despised the most was that he knew you were better off without him, and what he witnessed today had finally proved him right.

#Kei Tsukishima #haikyuu tsukishima #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #tsukishima x reader #tsukki #haikyuu!!

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fanfiction4thesoul · 4 years

Text

You & I

Pairing: Roger Taylor x Reader

Word Count: ~1.1

Warnings: Fluff!

Summary/Request: May I request a fic where Rog and reader are roommates and he hears her whimpering in her sleep cause she’s having a nightmare and he comforts her with cuddles?

A/N: Thank you @rogahs-drowse for this fluffy request. It turned out way cheesier than expected, but I think it’s a good amount of cheese! Hope you like it, and thank you to anyone that likes/comments/reblogs!

When Roger got home from his last class of the day, he expected to find (Y/N) there like normal. His class was in the evening so she was typically home long before him, sometimes even cooking a dinner they could share. Most nights they got take out, though, with actual food being too time consuming.

Roger had to admit, he was pretty skeptical when he put up an ad for a roommate and (Y/N) was the one to show up. While she was quite bubbly that matched Roger’s enthusiasm in life, she was also very studious and neat. He was afraid that they would clash over his general untidiness and oftentimes loud behaviors.

But none of those things happened. Roger and (Y/N) meshed so well she became one of his closest friends. Because that’s all she seems to want to be.

Which is fine. Cool. Roger can be a friend.

To a girl.

That he may or may not be extremely attracted to.

But it’s all good.

So while he wanted to come home from a rather shit day of classes to see her smiling face, he was rather disappointed to find their flat empty. There was no note anywhere (definitely not looking avidly for one).

Maybe she went out?

Nah, (Y/N) would have said something or even invited him along.

While he was still puzzling over where she could be, he opened the fridge and stopped short. His favorite take out was on the top shelf with a sticky note attached.

Roger,

Had to go out and comfort a heartbroken Maggie. She got dumped. Hard. :( Sorry I won’t be home for dinner. I’ll probably be back late so don’t wait up!

Love, (Y/N).

Roger let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. She was alright. She wasn’t out without him. That’s all that really mattered.

He smiled a little to himself as he reread the note. She was such a good friend. He remembered Maggie, vaguely. Drab, boring, but nice enough. (Y/N) probably pulled out all the stops to make her feel better.

Despite the rather dull evening in store for him, Roger still felt lighthearted, revealing in the fact that (Y/N) took the time to think about him. He ate the take out she bought, making sure to save enough for her should she want some.

He flipped through the stations a couple times before giving up and bringing out his books to study. Brian was sure to yell at him again if he heard he wasn’t doing his homework. So really he was just trying to save himself the headache that was sure to follow.

When he couldn’t take anymore biology, or anatomy, Roger looked at the clock and deemed it late enough to go to bed. Even if he would normally be awake far later if you were there, goofing off for who knows how long. You still weren’t back yet, but your note did say that you’d be back late.

Pouting a bit now, Roger went through the motions of getting ready for bed and fell asleep thinking that he’d at least have you to himself tomorrow.

It felt like a blink of a second and he was opening his eyes again. Roger groaned, flopping over on his bed to look at the alarm clock and seeing it was far far too early to be awake. He’s not sure what woke him up, maybe himself, but just as he closed his eyes to go back to sleep, he heard it.

It was faint, not terribly loud but incredibly distressing.

A whimper came from the other side of the wall where (Y/N)’s room was.

Roger was wide awake in an instant, jumping out of bed and hurrying into the hall. When he reached for (Y/N)’s door handle, he heard the noise again, this time louder and more persistent. Throwing the door open, Roger peered through the room to find (Y/N) in the center of her bed crying out. Her face was scrunched and she was thrashing around a bit, obviously in the middle of some unpleasant dream.

In all the time they lived together, something like this had never happened to them. Roger wasn’t sure exactly what to do, but he thought waking up would probably be best. Leaning over the bed, he said her name, trying to get her to wake up.

“(Y/N),” he said a little louder, “(Y/N) wake up, love. It’s just a bad dream. (Y/N).” Grabbing her hand that was clenched tight in the sheet, he squeezed it and tried again.

Her eyes flew open with a gasp, out of focus and unseeing. She tried to pull away from him, but he held on tight. “Shh, love. It’s just me. You were having a nightmare.”

Slowly, Roger watched her eyes focus on the present and turn to him. They were shining with such fright that Roger felt his heart clench.

“Rog… Roger?” She sat up putting her head in her hand. “Shit. I-I’m sorry I woke you up. Didn’t mean to. Y-you can go back to bed, I’ll be f-fine.” She closed her eyes, tugging her hand from his.

Surprised, Roger let it go and watched as she turned over and away from him. “Sorry,” she whispered so softly he almost didn’t hear her. Roger stared at her back at a loss.

He was kind of out of his depth here. His longtime crush and roommate just had an obviously distressing dream but insisted on being left alone, even though she was not alright. If it was him, he’d probably cling to the person closest to him and not let go til morning.

Well shit.

Not thinking twice about it, Roger lifted the covers and crawled into bed behind (Y/N), reaching out to pull her flush against his chest.

She jumped at his movement, muscles tensed. “Wha-what are you doing, Rog?’

Unperturbed, he snuggled into her more, nuzzling his face into her hair and tangling his legs with hers. “Giving you cuddles,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Because, really, it obviously was.

“Why?”

“Because cuddles make everything better, love.” He kissed her shoulder, a bit bold but he was already in her bed, so he was just going to do whatever he damn well wanted at this point. “Now go to sleep. I’ll keep the bad dreams away. Promise.”

It took a few moments until he finally felt her relax in his arms. He heard her sigh before feeling her hand interlace with his across the mattress and bringing them close to her chest. She squeezed them, hugging then close. “Alright… thanks Rog. I… don’t really know what I’d do without you.”

“Me neither, love,” he mumbled, already falling back asleep. He may be a little lost when she’s gone, but he’ll always be there when she needs him.

Taglist: @jennyggggrrr

#roger taylor fanfic #roger taylor imagine #roger taylor x you #roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor x Y/N #Queen #fanfiction #queen fanfiction

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ohblackdiamond · 4 years

Text

little t&a (paul/gene, nc-17) (part 6 of 29)

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13 part 14 part 15 part 16 part 17 part 18 part 19 part 20 part 21 part 22 part 23 part 24 part 25 part 26 part 27 part 28 part 29

Four weeks before KISS gets back on tour, Gene discovers that Paul’s been cursed by a groupie. For the sake of KISS’ finances, Paul’s comfort levels, and Gene’s libido, this crisis must be resolved. Sexswap fic. In this chapter: Gene and Paul go to the legendary punk dump CBGB in search of the groupie.

Paul and Gene didn’t talk much for a long time after Peter left. Just sat in the living room half-watching T.V. Gene ordered a pizza about three or four hours later. Paul ate a single piece, drank two Tabs, then tried to head back to his room like a forlorn kid.

“Hey,” Gene said, taking his arm as he got up to leave.

“Gene, he didn’t know me. I’ve known him for five years and he didn’t have a clue.”

“You couldn’t have expected him to.” Gene swallowed. “He was trying to stick up for you.”

“I didn’t think he cared that much.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious.”

“Paul…” Gene stared, shaking his head. “Paul, you two used to talk every damn night. It was obnoxious. You were like teenage girls.”

Paul snorted.

“Yeah, and I was the frontman of KISS, too, but look how that turned out.”

“You’re still the frontman,” Gene rattled out, irritably. “What’s with you? Did you really think Peter didn’t give a shit about you?”

“Right now, I wish he didn’t. He’s gonna be looking for me all over town.” Paul took a deep breath. “I blew it. I dunno why I even tried to tell him.”

“If we can get this reversed quickly enough, it won’t matter.”

“It will. Peter’ll be all hacked off and telling me about how my girlfriend was cheating, then I’ll have to figure out some lie—blow him off—”

“Don’t worry about that right now.”

“I’m tired of blowing Peter off. I can’t keep this up. If I run into anybody else I know while I’m like this, I’m gonna screw up.”

“Paul—”

“I won’t do it on purpose. But I’ll do it. And maybe nobody’ll figure out who I am, but they’ll know something’s wrong. And—”

“We’ll get you fixed before that’s an issue. I’ll—shit, I don’t know. I’ll make up an excuse for Peter.” What he could possibly tell him, well, Gene had no idea. With any luck in the world, Peter would get a few lines in him and forget all about this afternoon. With any luck. Right. “We might as well get ready for the club. You still want to go, right?”

Despite himself, Gene didn’t think Paul looked like he was in the shape to go. He had that steeled-up look about him that Gene had seen before, after phone conversations with newly-minted exes and conniving execs and, sometimes, after talking to his parents. He’d keep going, after, but it’d be bitterly. And bitterly was not how he wanted Paul approaching the nightclub. Especially not in the form he was in right now.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been like this for six days. I don’t want it to be seven.”

“Paul, are you—”

“I’m sure. I’m positive. Aren’t you?” Paul’s mouth twitched, as though he were about to say something else, then his lips pursed and he turned on his heel. He didn’t slam the door into his bedroom, but Gene could hear the sound of him locking it. It stung.

Gene changed clothes in the guest bedroom. He hadn’t tried too hard at the punk bit himself, and he knew he wasn’t convincing in just a leather jacket and a black tee, and a pair of plaid pants. Nearly half his purchases. Hopefully, the rest wouldn’t see the light of day. Paul’s guest bedroom was furnished with a weird scattering of Paul’s stuff—on the nightstand were a few notepads filled with his standard dick drawings and caricatures, and the mirrored dresser was loaded with tour knickknacks. Gene picked up a small rag doll some fan had made of Paul in full Starchild regalia, finding tubes of mascara and eyeliner underneath where the doll had lain.

Punk had started from glam, right? Might as well put on the eyeliner, at least. Paul could keep the mascara. Once Gene was satisfied, he stepped out and headed back to the living room, turning on the T.V. again while he waited. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes, and then Paul finally came out of the bedroom.

He’d teased his curls mercilessly, to the point they probably added back some of the height he’d lost, and the stiff smell of Aquanet emanated off of him. Red lipstick, eyeliner, faint patters of blush, just enough to make his high cheekbones stand out. The jean shorts and fishnets showed off his long legs to much greater effect than the dresses from earlier. He was finally wearing a bra, the shirt was tight against his chest, the fabric straining. Shit. Shit. If Paul didn’t still have a bit of that tense look from earlier, Gene would’ve complimented him. Would’ve teased him. Might have even been tempted to say he was beautiful. Instead, he just stared.

“Are you ready?” Paul asked tersely.

“Yeah.”

Once they got in the car, Paul turned on the radio, which surprised Gene. He hoped nothing of theirs would come on. Manfred Mann started up as Paul turned up the volume—that guy was like a groundhog, poking back in with another hit nearly ten years after his last—and Paul was tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. He’d painted his nails, too, Gene noticed, the black lacquer reminding him suddenly of vinyl. Paul was half-humming, half-singing along under his breath, getting half the rhymes wrong. There’d always been a certain unevenness to his voice that hadn’t helped him, especially as the songs he wrote relied more and more heavily on screamingly high notes. But right now, Gene could tell Paul could hit those notes easily, if he’d let himself.

He wanted to tell him, stupidly, that he could still sing. He could still play guitar. But Gene stopped himself. Telling him that would be crappy. It would be like telling Paul to give up, that it wasn’t worth it to try to find the girl at all. And it would be selfish, too—selfish to Paul, to Peter, to Ace—everybody connected to KISS, even himself. And for what, so he could indulge himself like a teenage boy on a handful of glimpses? Stare at his best friend’s tits? Have a pretty little thing in bed he wasn’t even sleeping with, when he had hundreds of girls willing to give it up for him every night? It was a lousy trade-off. Anyway, he’d never have to consider it again after tonight. Paul would get the curse reversed and it would be done with.

Gene looked over, and realized Paul had gone quiet again, after the Chopsticks solo. Half the song was still left.

“Hey, keep going.”

“What for?”

“I like hearing you.”

“C’mon, Gene, you’ve been hearing me for years, you can’t really—it doesn’t even sound right, like this—”

“You sound just fine.”

“I’d be better singing along to Olivia Newton-John at this point,” Paul mumbled, turning down the volume. “‘Maybe I hang around here a little more than I should…’ God, could you get any cheesier?”

“Face of an angel, heart of a degenerate.”

“Me or her?”

In response, Gene poked a finger against one of Paul’s fishnet-clad thighs. Paul surprised him by not shifting his leg immediately. Just took his right hand off the steering wheel, letting it rest on Gene’s for a few seconds. Then he reached over to change the radio station and the moment dissolved.

It wasn’t long before Paul pulled into a dingy lot not far from CBGB. A drizzle was starting up, the rain droplets like fat stars against the windshield. Paul didn’t bother to turn on the wipers.

“You might wanna park the car somewhere else,” Gene said finally.

The car’s interior was dim, but he could still catch Paul’s fragile grin.

“Is a Spanish Harlem schoolteacher telling me I’m in a bad part of town?”

“I don’t think punks like fancy cars.”

Paul laughed just a little, tossing Gene his own Aviator sunglasses before turning off the engine and getting out. Gene put them on, grabbing Paul by the arm almost as soon as he’d locked up the car. Paul threw him a questioning look, but didn’t argue.

They lined up around the block by the entrance, something Gene wasn’t used to doing. The rain was getting worse, Paul’s frothy curls giving way to pure frizz with every minute they stood out there. Gene’s wasn’t looking any better. The streetlamps and passing cars and buildings were all that lit up the line, but they didn’t seem to have been as far off-base with their outfits as Gene had figured. That, or latecomers like them were wannabes.

“I thought you said this place wasn’t as crowded as Studio 54.”

“It’s not. But I never had to wait outside to get in before. I just told Hilly and the bouncer I was—” Paul stopped short. The guy behind them was listening with interest. Paul leaned in against Gene’s arm abruptly. “Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Wait, she got into Studio 54?” The guy snorted. “Who’d you have to flash your tits to, huh?”

Paul flinched but didn’t say anything.

“I think you owe my girlfriend an apology,” Gene snapped. He didn’t even think about it; the words splattered out like all the lousy come-ons he’d ever bothered with, forthright and obvious as ever. Beside him, Paul let out a nervous breath.

“Gene, c’mon, it’s fine.”

“It isn’t fine.”

“You’re not getting into a fight over this—”

The guy just rolled his eyes and started to laugh. He was around Gene’s height, but not build. More wiry. Probably drunk.

“You’re right, I’m not,” Gene said, and took off Paul’s sunglasses. The guy was still chuckling for a few seconds, before his eyes widened in hesitant recognition.

“H…hey, you can’t be… you can’t be that Gene…”

As a tight, frozen smile spread its way across Paul’s face, he sunk his elbow square into Gene’s ribcage, just as Gene had been about to demonstrate his tongue. The sharp ache radiated through his side, and he barely managed to keep from doubling over, his slightly-strangled hiss of “what the hell was that for” probably going unheard by Paul. The damage had already been done, anyway. The guy backed off—practically shrunk off, honestly, forfeiting his place in line, but not before screaming—

“It’s Gene Simmons! He’s here!”

It was like Moses had parted the Red Sea, if the Red Sea were comprised of scrubby-looking punks and hangers-on. Every eye was on them. Gene put the sunglasses on, more for the sake of disappointing anyone with a camera than really trying to slip back into hiding. No point now. The crowd shifted, crowded toward them, everyone forgetting their places in line as they craned and crammed in for a better view, tried to run up to him, the words scattering like glitter.

“Is it really you?”

“It’s him, it has to be Gene! Gene, Gene, oh my God, I love you! I love you!”

“Can I have your autograph? I have a pen! I have a napkin, please, I—”

The turmoil lasted five minutes or more, easily. People kept trying to push past Paul, who eventually ended up leaning against Gene, with Gene wrapping an arm around his waist, just to keep from getting trampled. The heel of one of Paul’s boots was on top of his own—digging in unnecessarily hard, Gene thought—for the duration of impromptu autographs and stammered-out praise, occasional begs for a kiss. For once, Gene didn’t go for it. Maybe it was just hard to get in the mood to fool around with Paul grinding his heel into his toes. Maybe it just would’ve been lousy publicity, flirting while he already had a girl he’d brought with him. A couple lousy one-armed hugs were all any of the chicks got. He didn’t have time to really think on it for long, as the crowd started to disperse again, like reluctant scattershot, in the face of someone of higher status. At least, to the club patrons. Hilly Kristal, the owner himself, had come out onto the sidewalk to meet them, with an umbrella and two bouncers in tow.

“I haven’t heard this much noise out here since Paul Simon checked us out.” He stuck out his hand. Gene shook it. Hilly paused for a second, tilting his head, then offered his hand to Paul, too, who took it without a word. “Sorry I didn’t catch you sooner. C’mon back.”

They followed Hilly and the bodyguards to the front entrance of the club. Paul was still simmering.

“You asshole! That was so embarrassing!”

“We skipped the line, didn’t we?”

“I didn’t care about the line! They’ll be all over you now! How could you do that?”

“He hurt you. You’ve had enough of that today.” Gene swallowed, realizing suddenly that despite Paul’s complaining, Paul hadn’t dropped his arm from his waist yet. It was a little unwieldy, but Gene appreciated the brief brushes of Paul’s chest against his side as they walked. He wouldn’t be getting that if Paul was just holding his hand. “And your hair was getting destroyed.”

Paul’s free hand went to his scalp on irritated automatic. Hilly’s umbrella had come too late for him to resemble anything more punk than a waterlogged poodle.

“You don’t look like a Prell commercial yourself,” he retorted. Gene just laughed. One of the bouncers held the door open, and they walked in, instantly encased in the deafening sound of electric guitars and raspy, screaming vocals. Whoever CBGB had headlining tonight had clearly dragged in more than enough amps. The clubgoers, whose attention had probably turned to the front entrance as soon as Hilly and the bodyguards had first walked out, were staring and talking to each other against the din, not approaching them yet. They would soon. Gene was sure of that. Paul must have sensed it, too, from the way his grip on Gene’s waist tightened. “C’mon, Gene, you only let yourself get recognized ’cause you wanted to get laid, right?”

Gene didn’t answer. He didn’t know why he didn’t answer, any more than he knew why Paul kept pulling him in closer while yanking him away verbally. Maybe that wasn’t exclusive to Paul, either. Maybe.

“I don’t think anyone else is going to bother you now,” he sidestepped instead. “Let’s find that groupie.”

#kiss the band #kiss fanfiction #gene simmons #paul stanley #gene simmons x paul stanley

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