#was going to post this under my retro tag. for things not actually aged but in the spirit of

[bye2k]

#something's wrong w/ this file lmao it says it's 1:52 long but it'ssss not #was going to post this under my retro tag. for things not actually aged but in the spirit of #then I realised the toon this came from is 10 years old already. fitting my blog's criteria. :( #10s #homestar runner #operating systems #windows #windows 98 #internet #flash animations #audio #voice acting

[barzzal]

between halls and thin walls → part four

summary: friends who fool around almost never works. almost.

↳ pairing: mathew barzal x you

↳ warnings: idiots, that’s all <3

↳ genre: fluff, angst, smut, roommates au, best friend’s best friend, friends with benefits, 18+

↳ length: series; part one, part two, part three, part four (6.7k), part five, part six

↳ masterlist: the barn

↳ track: my favorite part by mac miller, addicted by jorja smith, someone to spend time with by los retros

note: finally got myself to update this fic oml zzz quick psa tho, this will now be a six-part series! hope that’s okay and yenno as always, would love to hear what you think about this (validate me in the tags pls im lonely) happy reading babes! <3

“Yo, grandma. Haven’t you had too much tea to drink?” his voice echoes in the room as soon as he walks into it. You carefully set the cup down on the dining table and looked at him exasperatedly. 

“Haven’t you had too much care to give?” you snark back, earning yourself a disappointed look from him. 

“Really, y/n? That’s the best you’ve got?” he shakes his head at your appalling retort.  What a shame.

You were good at pissing him off to be fair. You just weren’t in the mood to throw teases back and forth especially now that you’re feeling particularly vulnerable.

The week has been far too dreadful for you and you know that you’re willing to grovel your way into the weekend to finally have the time to slack off, not worry about taking a bath, and just go crazy with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

However, just like always, Mathew seems to never run out of ways to get on your nerves. 

He carelessly puts his stuff on the table, causing a fairly loud thud on the surface. 

You let out a deep breath, massaging your temple. 

“Somebody’s cranky.” he grins. Not necessarily the kind you’d want to see from him. 

You try to ignore him for a few minutes but you can’t help noticing how his build easily took over much of the space you’ve already been occupying. You irkingly look up at him, closing the book you were reading. You meet Mat’s eyes who just innocently looked back into yours. Waiting. Possibly plotting on yet another sophisticated way to toy with you.

“You’re a child.” you roll your eyes and return to your reading. He says nothing and instead rests his chin atop his enclasped hands, continuing to bother you with his ridiculously beguiling eyes. He presses his lips together before sighing dramatically. 

“What?” you snap, finally shutting your book down as you look at him. 

“I wanna go out.” he looks up at you in an effort to make his huge physique smaller than it really was. 

“Then go out. You’re a big boy.” you breathe. 

“You just said that I’m a child.” he coos, mimicking a five-year-old’s voice. 

“Stop that.” you glare at him. Mat props himself back and laughs, “Come on. I’m bored.” 

You open your book again just as you reply in a tone that Mat’s getting used to hearing. “Boredom doesn’t give you the right to pester me, Barzal.” 

And as an exchange, he speaks in the same tone rather mockingly, “And so is that attitude, Y/L/N.” 

“Come on, y/n. Let’s go out.” he now pleads, looking up at you with what seems to be his worst impression of a ‘puppy eye’.

“Fine.” you finally concede and you see Mat’s beaming smile instantly. 

“Where’d you want to go?” you ask as you take your reading glasses off.

“Dunno.” He shrugs, obviously teasing. 

On the edge of being irritated, you say, “Are you kidding me?”

“Grandma.” he mumbles before saying, “Do you have anything you want to do? And please don’t say book hunt.”

You suppress a smile and maintain your composure. “I’m craving for pancakes right now but I also wanna drink. Go to a bar or something.”

He nods in agreement. Already stitching his game plan.

“We can do both.”  he bobs his all too fine brows.

He didn’t have a hard time getting you on board with his spontaneity. You actually haven’t gone out in a while and the thought of a possible night out doesn’t seem to be so bad of an idea.

You’ve been with Mat to parties and while the two of you don’t mingle as much as the other guys did, he does know his way around the club. The dance floor, however, he tries. He really does.

For about an hour Mathew waited patiently in the living room as he scrolled endlessly on instagram liking a few photos and laughing at posts the fans tag him occasionally. His eyes were peeled away from the screen when he heard the door to your room click. His irises trail onto your body even if he didn’t plan to originally. 

Mathew, albeit dressed simply in his black turtleneck sweater and a beige overcoat exudes just about the right ‘swag’ (as per how he puts it) to stop you in your stupor. Although what you didn’t know was how you weren’t any different in his eyes. You were dressed quite nicely in a black lace bodysuit with a pair of blackpants accentuated by the black boots you usually wear on a night out. Your coat was slung on your forearm whilst you held your clutch purse in your hand so you could close the door with the other. 

“What?” you blink just as you look down to eye yourself. Feeling a tad self-conscious under his gaze.

Mat immediately breaks it off. He clears his throat, pretending to wipe off the non-existent dust on the accent table. 

“What?” he mirrors with an arched brow.

You shrug off his demeanor, snatching your keys from the accent table before putting it in your purse. 

“Have you called a lyft already?” he nods, absentmindedly scratching his temple. 

“You ready? You look— decent.” He says, trying to act casual and distant when he gives you the compliment.

Not noticing the unfamiliar look his eyes had, you return the compliment and say,  “And so do you. Good job for not looking like you came straight out of an H&M catalogue.” you wink at him with a grin. A thing which was then reciprocated by a deadpan look on his end. 

Before he could even come up with yet another clever way to come at you, you start walking towards the door, looking at him once as you motion the way by curling your finger.

“Haul ass, buddy.”

𖥸

10:15 PM 

Mat decided to bring you to the usual place he goes to when he wants to be alone and just enjoy a couple of beers while he chats with River, the bartender he eventually befriends after years spent drinking in solitude. 

The bar had a rustic feel filled with wine barrels in the corner of the room. The seats were leather (mind you, it wasn’t the kind that gets easily worn out through time) and everything looked new to you regardless of all the vintage stuff displayed articulately on the brick wall. A turntable was set on the table stacked with vinyl records, most of which were from the 70s to 80s underneath.

It was obvious that it wasn’t the kind people would know about. Aside from it being located at such a secluded street leading to the suburbs, it wasn’t the type of bar kids would want to hang out in. It only had a few customers and most of them wore suits and came with company. No one really gave a hoot when you walked in with Mathew, aka, the face of the New York Islanders. Which is basically the reason why Mat kept coming back to the place. He felt comfortable and at peace. Almost in retrospect to being at home hanging with his father. 

“I can’t believe this place exists.” you say, mouthing your thanks to River as he hands you both of your drinks. The man that’s definitely aged like fine wine smiles, nodding his head over to Mat who was doing the same before he headed back to mix another set of drinks. 

“Me neither.” he grins, reminiscing about the time he’s found the small pub by accident. 

“This place looks expensive though.” you whisper, making Mathew laugh. 

“Well, it kinda is.” he sheepishly chuckles. “River’s filthy rich.”

“Is he really?” your mouth falls and you look back over the build of the old man. The way his salt and pepper hair was neatly slicked back makes quite a compelling case for what Mat had just said. 

Mat eventually explains who he was. Apparently, he was just another bored fancy man who happened to love making people drop dead and drunk with his over the top mixes. His dark deep set brown eyes are quite of a crowd favourite too. Case in point, the group of ladies seated from across you and Mathew.

“Hey.” you absentmindedly call on Mat who had just sipped on his drink. “I know what we should do.”

“All right.” he puts the glass down, “Lay it on me.”

“Let’s fix you up with one of the girls over there.” you suggest, leaning towards his body so you could get a better view upfront. Mat does not move and instead follows your finger subtly pointing at the other end of the room.

“What’s with the sudden fixation of getting me bagged tonight, huh?” he smirks, shaking his head at the idea of having to go home with some random girl. You give him a side eye as you move away from him. 

“Fixation is an overstatement. We’ll be here long enough for us to get sick of each other.” you explicitly told him. 

Mat eyes you intently. Searching if there was even the slightest doubt in your eyes. 

Long enough to get sick of each other. 

He clears his throat instead and looks across the room. “Which one?”

A gleeful cheer erupts from you just before you look over the girls in question. “What’s your type?” you ask him, not sparing a glance.

Mat looks down on you underneath the bar lights accentuating your features. Your eyes had a certain glint in them that Mat still can’t get a grasp on. Something that was just enough to spark something inside him. He didn’t want to overthink it nonetheless. It must have been just the lights. 

Once Mat sensed that you were about to look at him he immediately turned his gaze forward, squinting his eyes a little pretending to check out the women you’ve been eyeing for the last minute. 

“I don’t really have a type.” he shrugs, casually taking the fragile glass to his mouth. 

You dismiss what he said at once, “Do I look like a child to you? Just answer it.”

Mat shakes his head, “I told you. I don’t have one. If we vibe then we vibe. Simple as that.” 

You did not believe him but you decide to drop it off. Instead, you look back and return to your new found mission. Across the bar, seated were three girls busy talking to each other. 

“Got it.” you tell Mat, nodding your head towards the clueless girl sitting right across from where Mathew was. “The one in the center.” you add. “The one wearing a white bodycon.”

“She’s pretty.” he nods, validating your taste as his potential wingman. “Nice smile.”

Your hand met a firm slap on the table as you went on cheering for him. “Well? Go then!” you give him a nudge, taking it back quickly when you feel a slight hesitation on his part, “Don’t tell me you need me to introduce you?”

He takes the remainder of his glass and shaked off the kick it had in his throat. “You just sit and watch, babe.”

You do as you’re told and lean towards the bar, your elbow carrying all your weight whilst you sip on your half-full martini. 

Mathew’s stance and the way he carries himself immediately caused the girls to notice him coming. Of course, you weren’t really surprised. You watch him approach her,– reading along the words leaving his mouth. There was an exchange of proper ‘hello’s’ as Mat introduced himself to the girls. He reaches out his hand and the curly noirette in the center gives him a firm shake. 

Mat’s eyes momentarily locked with yours just as you see their hands linger in the air— tangled long enough for him to make a quick segway. He winks your way as he sees you grin from your seat, shaking your head just after you felt the need to take a deep breath. A thing you assumed to be because of the drink. So, while Mat leads the girl to one of the empty booths and sits across from her, you call on River and ask for another drink. 

Mathew must have lost track of time by the second drink he shared with Zoe. He learns that she’s from upstate and was just on the island to visit her friends. She’s still working on her major at NYU; coincidentally in the same field as Lianna so that was one of the things they’ve talked about first hand. She wasn’t really into sports so Mat steered clear of his job because he didn’t want to bore her. 

“So…” Zoe smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear. “What’s the deal with you and the girl you’re with?” 

By the time she asked about you, only then did Mat remember who he was originally with. 

“Oh! She’s—” he looks over to where you’re seated only to find you laughing— no giggling with a man that was obviously a few years older than you. He’s wearing a neat black suit and a button down shirt with a couple of its first buttons opened. Zoe sees him frown, evidently losing his train of thought. 

She calls him with her sweet voice, “Mat?” 

“Yeah?” he absentmindedly answers, not wanting to take his eyes off of your hand that was now gently pushing the man’s arm whilst the two of you continue to burst into laughter. 

“Are you okay?” she asks.

What’s so funny? 

Finally, Mat hears Zoe’s distant voice that eventually took him back to his seat.

“Oh. Y-Yeah.” he apologetically smiles. “Sorry. What were you saying again?” 

She hesitates to ask about you after taking a quick glance your way upon seeing the way Mathew looked at you. Nevertheless, she decides to go for it.

“Aren’t you two together? I don’t want to come off strong here or anything. It’s just that I don’t want to get in between something if there ever is.” 

Mat looks at you one more time and as if you’ve felt his eyes all along you turn your way and meet his gaze. You shoot him a quiet smile, eyeing the guy sitting beside you, mouthing what he assumes to be an exaggerated “So hot!” on your end. He reciprocates your smile and gives you an approving nod.

Once you looked away, that’s the only time Mat finally answered the woman waiting patiently for his attention. 

“What?” Mat shakes his head wildly, blowing out air off his lips defensively. “No no no. We’re just friends. She’s my roommate actually.” he shrugs you off his mind and instead tries to put his entire focus on her. 

The remaining hours were spent with you and Mat getting along with your respective potential hook-ups. Not that it wasn’t the endgame either of you were hoping for at the back of your minds. 

He’s got to admit that Zoe was the kind of girl he’d be interested in. Another fact he’s kept a mental tab not to mention to you because he knows you’ll just get cocky. 

She was sweet and obviously eloquent. He knows she’s way smarter than he’ll ever be. But out of all those qualities, she was just as passionate at her craft as someone he likes to think he knows well enough. And that alone made a small smile creep on his lips. 

Nonetheless, despite all the aforementioned, Mathew found himself a bit more reserved than he usually is whenever he gets to meet and talk to his potential ‘lady friends’ as how you’ve put it countless times. He just wasn’t his exact self.  And he was beginning to question it. 

There were no fancy hockey plays thrown subtly into the conversation. Neither mentions of golfing nor over the top league events.  No butchered french pet names swiftly tucked in his sentences. And no endless questions that would eventually lead to something along the lines of ‘Do you want to get out of here?’

Well, not until Zoe’s friends got up their seats and she told him herself. 

“Hey. The girls and I are meeting up with some friends in Brooklyn. D’ya wanna come?” 

Mat’s eyes trail down to her hand now gently caressing his. He raises both his brows thinking of a possible ‘out’ because he wasn’t sure if it was a smart thing to leave you alone with a stranger. 

He hums, “Sure.” 

Zoe shows him a delighted smile before eventually sliding out of the booth to walk towards the bar she and her friends were formally seated. 

“I gotta use the restroom first. Please excuse me.” she gives him a nod before going back to chatting with her friends. 

You, on the other hand, see Mat leave the table aiming for an archway you presume to be where the loo was. 

“Hey,” you call the man whose name you’ve already forgotten. Your pause was long enough for him to acknowledge the chances that you actually did forget who he was. Obviously.

“Chris.” The man in his early 30s answers with a submitting grin. 

You shyly laugh, squeezing his forearm as you try to apologize for forgetting. 

“Would you mind if I use the restroom?” you politely ask. 

“No, not at all.” he replies and immediately stands to help you get on your feet. Gentleman. 

Once you are in front of the men’s room, you anxiously wait for your wingman. You hug your purse close to your chest. Not a whole minute after, the door finally opens and you meet Mat’s irises with quite a gleeful look. 

A look he wasn’t a fan of for he knew what’s about to come next. 

“Are you taking off?” you eagerly ask, almost hopping on your feet. 

Mat eyes you from head to toe, looking for signs that would stink from a drunk y/n. When he sees none, that’s when he decides to say that he was. 

“Mkay good. I’ll be on my way too. Chris is taking me to New Jersey.” you tell him, briefly looking through the archway to see if there were people listening.

Once you know you’re clear, you lean towards Mat, your lips dangerously close to the sensitive skin of his ear. Mat feels your heated breath sending a familiar tingle up his spine. “I’ll get to ride a yacht tonight.” you bite your lower lip and giddily smile as if you were a cheeky 16 year-old usually depicted in a coming of age movie. 

“Who’s Chris?” Mat, in spite of taking rounds observing you all night, finds the need to ask. “And why are you coming with him to NJ?” he further questions. 

“Uh– okay, dad.” you step back for a second. You let out a scoff, checking if he was being serious about it. “I thought we’re supposed to go get laid tonight? Weren’t you about to take off with that girl yourself?” 

Mat averts your gaze and starts to scratch the corner of his brow. “Well yeah. It’s just that— he looks sketchy.” he pauses, “plus… isn’t he a little too old for you?” 

You roll your eyes as you’ve already expected to hear the words from him. 

“He’s 31. He’s not that old.” you say rather defensively so you turn the ball back on his court. “And what if he was?  Didn’t you ask one of the moms out??”

Mat’s eyes widens and you try to bite back a laugh. He whispers with a biting tone, trying to save himself. “She didn’t look like one! I’m gonna kill Beau I swear to god.”

“Come on Barz. Don’t be such a killjoy. Text me if you need anything, okay? Wrap things up while you’re at it.” you say at once. Mat doesn’t get the chance to talk you out of such a stupid idea because before he even could, you’ve already planted a kiss on his cheek and started walking away. 

Mat waited for the sound of the heavy doors of the bar, signaling that you and your friend have gone, before stepping back to where Zoe was. She waves him near the coat closet. 

“Hi.” Mat greets her friends before eventually turning his attention on the unsuspecting lass. She meets her with a smile (just like what she’s been doing all night). The same smile, however, drops the second Mat opens his mouth. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” 

Zoe nods and willfully abides, letting Mat take her gently by the arm. 

“What’s up?” she innocently asks. 

“Something came up.” he says a little too fast than what he’d originally intended. He was going to let her down either way might as well get it over with and rip up the asshole band-aid. 

“Oh.” she says in a tone Mat knew that she completely understood. 

“No worries.” she looks at him with a knowing look in her eyes. “I’ll see you around then.” 

He gives her a kind smile and nods. “Take care.” 

Mathew walks towards the bar, catching River’s teasing grin whilst he cleans up after the bottles left on the center of the counter. 

“What?” Mat reacts defensively, taking a seat in front of the lone bartender. River faintly shakes his head to leave just enough curiosity in Mathew’s mind. 

“You’re such a tool, old man.” the kid says aiming for the cold beer River has put away for himself. River did not mind because he’s grown fond of the star player for the past years he’s spent going on late night drinks at his bar. Years that even justifies a proper amount of time for him to know the in’s and out’s of one Mathew Barzal. 

“I haven’t said a thing.” he shrugs amidst the already wide grin on his face. 

There’s wisdom in his eyes that Mathew has always admired. He wasn’t the guy who’d want to talk about what’s going on inside his head but with how River’s pub seems to be just the right place, he eventually concedes and takes a shot to pick on the old man’s brain.

“Come on, spill it out. I know you’re going to anyway.” Mat gives in, running his thumb on the moist label of the bottle. 

River wipes his hands before resting it atop the counter. “Well, it’s just that– I ain’t used to seeing you turn down ladies like that too often. And you’re definitely not one to stick around watching me clean up.”

Mat stays silent for a moment, as if to gather the exact reason as to why he chose to stay. He still has a long way to go before figuring that one out. He wasn’t exactly as sharp as he was on the ice.

“I don’t know, man.” he chuckles tirelessly, “I guess I wasn’t in the mood. That’s all.”

“You?” River shots a brow and dismisses him, shaking his head. When Mat doesn’t answer, he carefully picks on his choice of words and lays it down carefully for him. After all, Mathew should have known that River was old enough to not know what’s going on.

“Though I gotta be honest with you, hijo. Never imagined you’d bring someone here.” he starts. 

What must have been a shot in the dark for the old man was just enough to tear Mathew’s eyes away from staring at the water beads on the bottle.

“What?”

“The girl, Barz.” he says, banging on the head of the bottle to knock the cap off. “She a friend?” 

“What? Y/N?” Mat quirks his brows trailing off where River was exactly headed, “What about her?— Oh, her? Yeah, no. She’s just a friend.”

“She pretty.” he speaks in a sound accent, not wanting to let Mat know he’s growing to like catching the young lad off guard. Mathew nods casually despite the continuous blabbering. “She’s y/n. But yeah— I guess, she is pretty.” 

“Then what are you doing being just friends with a pretty girl?” River inquires, taking a sip of his beer. When he sees him trying to register what he’d just said he then adds, “Why not be with her? Date her?”

“Psh. What? Date y/n? That’s crazy.” Mat shakes his head furiously, “You’re crazy.” 

“What’s so crazy about that?” River takes offense, laughing at the child’s naivete. 

“I can’t date her. I mean— I won’t date her.” he takes the bottle to his mouth, taking a large gulp before continuing, “We’re in this weird relationship thing. A setup, actually, and it’s— it’s crazier than dating her. I swear, you of all people won’t get it.” 

“What makes you think I can’t?” he smirks, “I’ve had my fair share of crazy.” River points out despite the hesitation in Mat’s eyes. “I got all night, kid.” he adds, letting him have the floor to himself. 

“You really want in on this?” he second guesses, not wanting to bore the man with his personal life.

River leans against the brass counter just below the lit rack of vintage scotch displayed on the bar. He then gestures him to give a piece of his mind and Mat finally submits to his offer.

“We’ve been in a few… prior engagements,” he starts trying to find the appropriate word. “Well, sort of.”

River hums, not necessarily getting on the same page as him so he decides to be upfront about it.

“We’ve… slept together.” he confesses.

“So you used to date her?” the old man asks. 

“No.” he answers, “I told you we’re just friends.” 

With furrowed brows, River takes a minute. And once Mat hears an all too familiar “Oh.” he sees him break a chuckle, shaking his head at the thought of what Mat had just told him. “You kids have way too much fun these days.”

Mathew shrugs, “Hey, I warned you. Told you you wouldn’t get it.”

“Okay, make me understand something here. You two sleep together, fool around, do all that shit.” he says, “and you swear you’re not in a relationship?”

“Nope.” Mat answers with pride, popping out the word with a hard ‘p’.

“Huh.” River clicks his tongue, “How long have you two been… engaged?” 

He rolls his eyes when River uses his word, “About two months.” he answers shortly.

“Is she seeing anyone since you two started this thing? You know, casual dates, the ones I presume she’s been getting before you got her into this mess?” he asks him in a tone that only fathers would ever dare to use.

Mat thinks for a moment, trying to recall the last time he’s seen a guy pick you up for dinner besides the old man you’ve successfully bagged for the night. He firmly shakes his head no and simply says, “At least not in my recollection.”

River willfully nods, walking Mat right into the trap. “Well have you been seeing anyone lately?” he asks again, this time slipping a hint of assertion. He hears a crystal clear ‘no’ from the forward and that’s when he broke a goading grin. 

“And you’re telling me you two aren’t together?” he asks yet again, getting on Mat's nerves as he continues to flood him with biting queries, building up the final point he was about to break on Mathew.

“Rivs, for the hundredth time, no. We are not.” he clarifies. 

Mat watches River pour himself a glass of scotch, still wearing a smug grin. “Imma give you a piece of advice, yeah?” he smiles rather teasingly and doesn’t wait for Mat to rebut, “I’m a happily married man so I don’t know a single squat about dating nowadays, but if you’re telling me that you kids aren’t sleeping with anyone else but yourselves? Looks like a damn relationship to me.”

With his brows all quirked in confusion (and denial in the very least), Mathew gathers all his might just so he could refute whatever madness River was trying to inflict on him and screw him up in the head. But before he could even open his mouth, the sound of the heavy doors was all it took to tear up both River’s and Mat’s attention.

“Hi.” you say the moment you were welcomed by unsuspecting men talking by the bar. River acknowledges you by raising his drink, his gaze landing on Mat the moment yours did. 

“Hi.” Mathew mirrors you in an attempt to drown his already racing heart. A smile impending to break loose at any moment but he manages to suppress it. Instead of dealing with his adrenaline, he gestures for you to take a seat beside him. 

“Where’s the sugar daddy?” he laughs the moment you drag yourself from across the room, mocking every word he said. 

“His wife called when I got into his car.” you cringe.

“Oof. Lovely.” Mat makes the distinct expression on his face just before the two of you share a laugh.

“He’s not very smooth with adultery. He needs more practice.” you casually state sarcastically, clicking your tongue. 

As you find the narrative funny, you take a sip on Mathew’s beer. “How are you not drunk? You’ve been drinking way too much the entire night.”

“Well. I’ve got some things to think about—” he cuts himself off upon seeing your mouth ajar, “And no, you’re not allowed to ask because none of it concerns you.” 

“I wasn’t going to.” you dismiss him, excusing yourself to River which he gladly took as his cue to leave.

When he disappeared into the kitchen, you turned your gaze on your friend wearing another one of your mischievous grins, “Hey, wanna get pancakes?” 

“Y/N, it’s almost 3 AM.” Mat sighs, the tiring night starting to creep up to him. 

“So?” you question, swatting his hand away when you catch him checking on his watch. 

“Come on. Stop drinking that.” you insist and take the bottle from his hand before putting it over to the side. 

The two of you said your goodbyes to the lone bartender who was just starting to clean up again. River gives the two of you a nod of acknowledgement before landing a knowing look on Mathew. One that he’s thankful enough not to be discerned by you. 

As you walk alongside Mathew, he unconsciously places a hand on the small of your back— feeling it graze on the fabric of your coat as if to guide you towards the door in an almost romantic type of way. Perhaps, a way someone would behave if they were actually in a relationship. 

Mat notices your body tense but he doesn’t move an inch. Instead, his hand travels to the curve of your waist just as he leads you through the brass doors.

Once you’re out on the streets, he lets go.

𖥸

After almost half an hour of fighting over which diner is better to eat and get sober at, you and Mat decide to just try the new diner three blocks from your apartment. Being that it was an ungodly hour, the diner was good as closed when you got in. There were a few people inside and besides the student studying alone in the corner booth, the people lounging in the vacant seats were mostly just staff. Too bad they had to work the grave shift.

Mathew, who was rather preoccupied digging in his breakfast platter, gets interrupted when you call his attention. 

“So tell me,” you ask as you take a forkful of syrupy pancake into your mouth. Finally satisfying your cravings. You put the food modestly in the insides of your cheeks when you ask him a question, “What are you like on dates?” 

Mat disgustingly looks at you. You easily get what such a look meant and you immediately roll your eyes. You let your hand fall in mid-air amidst still holding a fork in it to prove a point. “I’m not trying to ask you out, dumbass. Don’t be so delusional.”

He puts his silverware down and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Why the sudden interest?” 

“Just curious.” you simply say.

He hums, thinking about how he pulls off a first date. He then clears his throat as he takes you down that road. “First, I’m not bringing her to a 24/7 Diner.” you nearly gag. “She deserves a formal one just in case there won’t be a second date.” he explains. 

You sit there, nodding your head every now and then as he further goes on the details of how he’s like on a date. “Of course, I’d put my best foot forward all the time. Talk about her stuff more than mine and make sure she has a good time.” 

“Have you ever had a bad first date?” you curiously ask. To which he only answers with a stubborn look on his face, the one only Mat Barzal could pull off. “What? me? I don’t do bad first dates.”

“Oh, fuck off.” you flick his forehead as you laugh. The sound of his laughter echoing in your ears, drowning all the existing noise inside the lone diner.

But as the laughter dies down, Mat catches your eyes as soon as it falls on his. And just like that, there it was again, the exact same glint it had back in the bar. This time, illuminated by the pink shaded light lining up the wall accents of the diner. 

When he realizes that he’s been staring for too long, he settles on turning the tables on you. 

“How about you?” he props in his seat, “What are you like on dates?”

“You know, apart from the fact that you’re obviously into old men.” he snickers and you throw a curly fry on his forehead.

“Excuse me, I don’t.” you say sticking up for yourself.

Mat takes the curly fry that has fallen on his plate and proceeds to eat it. “Sure you do.” 

You roll your eyes, finding it hard to suppress the fact that you might actually do. “There’s a reason why women like old men, chico.”

He leans back and answers with a level headed and quite teasing reply, “And why’s that?”

“Because they’re men.” you look at him with a jerky grin as you continue, “And men, especially of River’s kind, definitely knows how to eat his french fry.”

Mat’s mouth falls wide in disbelief, appalled that you’ve actually found a way to pick up a stone and throw it straight to his face just to rub more salt on the fact that you had to teach a 23-year-old grown man how to eat cunt.

 “You’re an ass.” he says, rolling his eyes. You let out a laugh and shake your head. You were proud of yourself, sure; but showing just that is far too much for a boy’s already hurting ego. Who would have known humbling this man was such a task. 

“I’m playing! You know how to now.” you tell him, “Thanks to me, of course.”

He scoffs and takes a bite off his pancakes, “Cocky.”

“But you still haven’t answered my question.” he reminds you whilst he wipes off his lips with a napkin. 

“There’s not much to tell. You know I’m not high maintenance.” you tell him, ignoring the fact that you haven’t been on an actual date for so long you’re almost sure you’ve forgotten how to be in one. 

“I know it’s cheesy and corny but I do think it’s still in the littlest things, you know?” you sigh. Trying to remember the last relationship (date even) you had wherein those little things, the ones that are merely the bare minimum, were actually given to you. 

“You know, it’s not much, really. Maybe just a good talk without having to watch him watch me talk all night when he’s really thinking about how I’d look naked, you know what I mean?” you laugh it off, “I know, it’s stupid.”

The arrogant man sitting before you was silent for once, profusely wanting to wash the pool of melancholy he sees in your eyes. There must have been a shit ton of guys who overlooked how great of a woman you actually are just because they couldn’t stop thinking with the head in between their legs even just for a second. 

Mathew knows. And he hates that he’s been ‘that’ guy at some point. Probably until now considering him thinking with his balls on was the very thing that got the two of you here in the first place.

You take a deep breath, smiling. “Anyway, that’s better than almost getting with a married man. Right?”

“Right.” Mat laughs, his gray eyes bright under all the lights as he plays with his silverware,— devoid of how much he looked like as if he was utterly and undeniably in awe of not just the energy of the woman sitting in front of him alone nor the fact that she was by far the most unbelievable woman he’s known, but most importantly, he’s yet to realize how much in deep he’s beginning to be for the woman she actually were. 

Just as she is. 

𖥸

You left the diner a good hour before the sunrise and what must have been a quick five minute drive if you had only taken a cab, became a twenty minute foot race between you and Mathew.

You knew that walking was a bad idea but somehow, Mat’s charm and persuasive antics had a better hold than you thought you had on your very capable cognition. 

As you drag your feet into the confines of the elevator in your complex, you hear Mathew chuckling behind you with a firm hand securely placed on your waist supporting your balance. 

“You know— and not just ‘cause I’m an athlete, can I just say that you’re in a very bad shape?” he says almost a whisper in your ear, his voice low and deep.

You roll your eyes, leaning on the steel cold mirror once he pulls away, “You do it in heels then tell me who’s in a bad shape.” 

“Fair point.” he chuckles yet again, shying away. He presses the number for your floor before resting across from you. As Mat watches you catch your breath, he jokes in the hopes of breaking the ice between the two of you. 

“So…” he clicks his tongue, playful eyes looking at you, “Wanna tap?”

Disgusted to your very core, you let out a scoff just as you shake your head. “You’re fucking sick.” you laugh upon meeting his dumb grinning face. Seconds into laughter, Mat’s silence kills off the humor. The two of you exchange glances, the smiles on your faces receding into quietude. 

Mathew didn’t want to end the night letting you in the apartment not knowing what he’s been feeling the moment you’ve let him drag you out for an impromptu night out. And stupid as it was, the only thing he could think of was to slide his foot across the enclosed space embracing the two of you, nudging on your boot. You on the one hand were rather puzzled as to what caused such language. You send him a mental query by arching a brow. He lets his head fall back on the cold metal surrounding the elevator finally deciding to speak his truth.

 “I’m glad we get to hang out now. You know, just like friends do.” he genuinely says. 

“Me too.” you say, smiling. “I really had fun tonight. Thank you.”

As you meet his eyes, you see a glimmer of softness in his gaze. 

“Good thing I got bored, eh?” he says with a smirk. 

“Good thing I came back for you.” you reply.

A quiet smile parts from his lips.

“Yeah. I’m glad you did.”

It was a few seconds when you and Barzy parted from your respective walls to meet the sliding doors as it opened on your designated floor. You were pulling him closer by the tie of his coat whilst his hand was instinctively placed on your hips letting him press his body on you. Your faces were inches from each other’s, evident of not wanting to prolong the totally unplanned foreplay that’s about to go down in a communal lift. 

But just like every film you’ve watched your whole life, the inevitable cliché befalls the two of you when the next words that filled the enclosed walls you’re currently caged in came from the man who has yet to miss a morning jog. 

“What the hell is going on here?”

#mat barzal #mat barzal imagine #mat barzal fanfiction #mat barzal fic #mat barzal x reader #mat barzal smut #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #hockey fic #nhl fic #hockey smut #letters to barzy #barzzal imagines

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-Yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 1

It’s been a while since I visited the many times Yugi should have gone to jail, AKA season Zero, and I’m excited to visit it again.

If you just got here, this is Season Zero, which is very different vibe and a different direction plotwise than the other seasons and you can read the season zero recaps from the start in chrono order here: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi%20muto/chrono

So be warned, this is a 90′s anime, and it will do 90′s anime things, and I expect y’all reading this aren’t like 12.

Like I said in an earlier post, I wrote this out fully when I was going through the symptoms from my second dose--which PS, is worth it--but those symptoms knocked me out for 10 days. I was kind of a space cadet, and yo, I made some mistakes. Including writing this post out in full and then not clicking “save” on this post and then not realizing I had done that until several days later.

So long story short, I don’t remember what I originally wrote here, but lets all assume it was weird, and didn’t make sense and wasn’t funny. We’ll just assume this was for the best that it was deleted forever.

So this episode is about 2 things: Yo-yos and Jounouchi. Both get used as a tool for violence, and both need to get just a little bit cursed by Yugi to scale it the hell back. So, understandably, we start off this episode with Jounouchi, who has eagerly identified with this off brand yo-yo he apparently got out of a dumpster for being just a huge ass defect.

(more Yo-Yo crimes under the cut)

I see you dodging copyright infringement, Yugioh. Eireboy.

Also whenever I read “Eireboy” I do it in my mind in the same pacing and vocal tones that Pegasus uses to say “Kaiba boy.” Something about it’s conjunction to Yugioh, I see anything with “boy” at the end of it, and it’s voiced by a weird guy with one eye.

So I wrote these caps under the influence of my second dose, just assuming y’all understand the life I lived, but I realized writing this episode...traveling bands of yo-yo performers that go to your school and shill yo-yos with yo-yo shows in the hopes that it will get you so obsessed with yo-yos that you will not join a gang and do drugs and have sex may be just an American thing.

So when I saw a yo-yo episode I was like “Tight! Clearly, the yo-yo clowns have come to town!” and I assumed everyone in this class would be draped in yo-yos, because I just assumed that at some point at School you will get MAD OBSESSED with yo-yos for about 2 weeks.

But in this episode, everyone was like “Jounouchi, why are you playing with a random yo-yo?” and it didn’t occur to me until typing this out just now: only Jounouchi is doing this. He did this unprompted, without the encouragement of a bunch of middle aged performers doing tricks to techno music.

So instead, I have to think of Jounouchi as Ralphie in this scenario, and he just got a official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time for Christmas, but he’s gonna shoot his eye out.

Because yo-yos in this episode are basically guns.

...Kind of like a duel deck was also just a gun...

...or the wands in Harry Potter...

...which honestly...I’ve probably said this before but where I’m from, we just use straight up guns in these elaborate analogies because we freakin have to make the point crystal clear. The moment Ralphie finally got his hands on a bb-gun, he very nearly shot his eye out and broke his glasses. And that scene will haunt me until my dying day...

...but fine, we can use yo-yos, I guess it works, although to me, yo-yo’s are just teachers hoping you’ll become such a dork that no gang will accept you (and then in this universe, it does the opposite? So freakin weird).

The beginning of this episode is Jounouchi trying do his best to impress with his skills, but in actuality, getting very close to clubbing Anzu with a yo-yo. And, while Anzu is the strongest person in Yugioh in the later seasons, I feel like Season Zero Anzu is another level. It’s a serious tempt of fate that Jounouchi is doing, so Honda wisely cuts him off from doing any more of that so she won’t end up strangling yet another person in broad daylight in the middle of school.

Remember your yo-yo safety, children.

Straight up, Honda’s version of yo-yo safety is to just Never Use a Yo-Yo and that’s the most gun safety thing ever that they’ve slipped into this Yugioh Episode. I almost expected Yuugi to pull a “well, actually, I use a hunting yo-yo to get enough venison to feed my family.” But youknow, he lives in a city, so while Yugioh is pretty weird and Yuugi has to worry about a lot of things--he doesn’t have to worry about that.

This is actually foreshadowing, which I only realized in hind sight, mostly because I just can’t associate a Yo-yo with crime. Joey knowing how to use a yo-yo was foreshadowing that he was absolutely part of this gang in a past life.

Yeah that one went completely over my head the first time and the second time and it really wasn’t until just now that I finally caught it. Hoo boy, sometimes I wonder why y’all let me analyze this show.

Jounouchi decides to confront the yo-yo bandits and everyone else is like “Silly Jounouchi, he’s not gonna do that. That would be stupid.” And...in S0, they don’t know him well enough yet to know that he really is that much of a well meaning dumbass.

I think a S1-5 Yugi would have been sprinting out the door to keep Joey from killing himself (again), but Season Zero Yuugi had hope that Jounouchi would just naturally tucker out and fall asleep or something.

And he was so wrong.

Anzu’s “New Tricks” line was from the dub itself and man that’s a good line. I love Anzu’s sass in Zero.

So, Honda decides to help them find Jounouchi so all of them together could give Jounouchi an intervention for skipping school. This is the same Honda that once skipped school to babysit a tomagachi and said it was because of “Maternity leave,” but don’t worry about the hypocrisy, because from this episode we learned that Jounouchi needs a very short leash.

So this episode is a great Jounouchi episode to explain stuff that still hasn’t been explained in 5 seasons of Yugioh. In S1-5, we don’t get much about his home life other than his Mom left and his Sister lives far away and is like sickly as hell. We know nothing else. But this is the episode where we finally get to find out why Yuugi and his Grandfather decided to basically adopt him from S1 onward.

Yugioh is tackling some pretty heavy territory, but I respect the show for not trying to magically change Jounouchi’s parents like they did to Dartz. Instead, the crew decide to reach out and try to find their friend who clearly didn’t go home last night (and won’t be going back for a while), by checking every alleyway in Domino.

Fun fact Yuugi drops this episode, Domino is one of the biggest cities on Earth. This makes the Battle City Tournament even more crazy when you realize Kaiba shut down several blocks but, it also makes a tiny bit more sense how we have so many Millennium items in one place. (Yet...it still doesn’t explain Bakura and Joey’s accent.) And, I guess if your city is just extra large, you get an extra large warehouse district, too.

Speaking of, they eventually find Jounouchi at his new (but also old) crime antics mugging some random stranger next to this Game store that I just realized was cropped so it looks like it says “GANG.”

Say hello to our crime clown. He’s sort of like a discount joker, and that beanie is...man it is green.

I forget this green exists sometimes, but Season Zero has it as one of their prime colors. Good ol’ Retro Kaiba green.

I’m a little tempted to swatch Season Zero a bit and figure out their full color scheme--it’s really saturated, which is interesting when you compare it to the later seasons which are a lot more muted since...the 00′s were like that, they greyed a lot of colors out. But I’ll do it later if I do, maybe another post for another day.

Jounouchi and Honda, before they moved to the school with Yuugi in it, used to go to the same school and up until now I just assumed they were close friends. But apparently they were a lot more distant than that. I’m sure they met up several times as Jounouchi destroyed stuff and Honda came along in his volunteer janitor outfit to put the stuff the hell back, and maybe that’s how they got to know eachother better?

But basically, Jounouchi was the freakin worst, and Jounouchi’s best friend was Hirotani--this 45 year old 15 year old with the blue pony and turquoise fade--and Honda has SO MUCH hot goss to say about it.

I really get the gist that Honda may not have liked anyone else at his old school, like at all. Like maybe Honda likes cleaning up trash so much because his school was just trash top to bottom.

As is tradition, Yuugi got his tar beat in by Hirotani. Another concussion to add to his list of issues to tell his future therapist that lives in that puzzle he wears around his neck.

I still expect him to do a double cross, but it seems they wanted to keep it a relatable and more realistic fall-out, where Jounouchi has just bounced on them without even a goodbye. He and his Dad had a bad fight, and Jounouchi was like “well so long to all of this and everyone that has anything to do with it.”

In later seasons, Joey is the one trying to save other people. He’s saving his Sister, he’s saving Mai, he’s saving Yugi, but in this season Jounouchi’s friends had to save Jounouchi from himself a few times now.

I like this depth to his character, I’ll be honest. I can understand why S1-5 don’t touch on it, and I don’t think it’s because they didn’t want to have an abusive Dad storyline, because they did that several times over with Seto Kaiba (man the Dad situation in Yugioh is DIRE.) Instead they probably just felt like Season Zero already did it, so why do it again?

It’s just a shame that it wasn’t talked about in the other seasons. Joey makes a lot more sense to me now because we get to see why Jounouchi is so hard set on saving people. S4 Mai Valentine, who ditched everyone and joined a gang? That’s basically a Joey move, and that was why Joey Wheeler was all over that.

Really would have added a lot to that particular arc if the show...actually talked about Joey’s history at all rather than assume I would have watched something that was never released in the States. Instead...it just looked a lot like he had only romantic motivations, which may not have been what they were going for.

Speaking of romantic, check out this sunset. Like the sun is exploding for some reason--just a wild sunset you only see for a still frame before a commercial break.

As Joey, youknow, takes on an entire rival gang single-handedly.

Hey guys, I lived near a pretty big city most of my life and I have been on a roof...once. Just the one time when I was doing an internship in SF with a painter and we needed to take a reference photo of his painting for a gallery (and it was hella sketch, and we weren’t exactly allowed up there). Who are all these people giving teens Roof Access? It’s so hard to get! Even if you live in an apartment of a tall building, I can count on zero of my fingers the amount of times I was allowed on that roof. But TV shows and movies--they freakin love roof gardens and roof hangouts and roof fights.

Am I missing out?? How did y’all get on the ROOF? I know I’m on S5 of Yugioh now and I have seen a lot of roof stuff, but like...is this normal for everyone else? I know there’s schools that have roof sport--that’s common in the city everywhere--but that’s like...specialized roofs with 30 ft chainlink fencing and really good supports to your body doesn’t fall straight through it when you jump too much. The hell is using their normal ass roof?

This gang should have their legs swinging halfway into the floor below them, is all I’m saying, if my roof couldn’t handle our solar heating, then a normal ass roof cannot support a gang fight.

But it does look really, really cool.

Anyway, Anzu does some offscreen snooping and finds out where the crime hangs out, and suggests that we step right into crime zone and just yank Jounouchi out of there. Which is something you would only do and say if you were Anzu and cannot fear death.

If it were Jay’s it would be with an ‘s. That’s how you do a plural Jay. But it’s the 90′s, so we put a “z” on the end of everything that should have been an “s” and that’s how you get the...

I mean, thank you, dubbers, for not saying “Jizz” but for reals...that be Jizz.

Please don’t flag me, Tumblr. (which, PS, I think they turned off the flagbot, Tumblr hasn’t flagged me in forever and I’m so thankful. Mods are asleep, we can talk about anime again)

So even though Honda decided that he was fed up with Jounouchi and didn’t want to save his ass, he decided to give it another go but complete with some new sash. He also did this without telling any of the others, who just kinda spectated him for a little while.

Honestly, if they weren’t laughing at him, I wouldn’t have known that this sash was any weirder than any of his other sashes. I don’t know really know what a school uniform should look like. It’s a shame, I feel like this series has a lot of jokes and puns probably soaring right over my head.

A little bit embarrased he was caught being vulnerable, Honda decides to give us a little more context to why he ever decided to give Jounouchi the time of day in the first place.

They had PE class once, and Honda apparently loves the hell out of PE. Jounouchi ran really fast in a straight line that one time, and that is why he’s trustworthy friend material. He just needs to stop joining gangs, and he’ll be solid.

I have no idea if the fandub put that in there or if that was native to the show, but Miho legit stans Honda/Jounouchi and acts as if she’s off to write some fanfiction about it. Honestly if she did, it would make her so much more interesting of a character.

And so, until next time, we shall have to wait and see exactly what Yami Yuugi is going to do with a freakin Yo-yo and I’m sure it’s all sorts of real effed up. Excited to get there, honestly. A shame it had to happen on the part that isn’t dubbed yet, but I’ve done these subbed before, it’ll be fine!

#Season Zero #Yuugi Muto #Jounouchi #Honda #Anzu #yo-yo #Jounouchi joins a gang #Gotta go save Jounouchi's ass I guess #Miho #she was here too I guess #Just a great Jounouchi episode for the Jounouchi stans out there

[nicad13]

Fic Writer Interview

Tagged by: @retro-jupiter Aw, thanks!

Name: NiCad. She’s an unabashed self-insert Transformers character I wrote like, 25 years ago. Unlike most self-inserts, she’s clumsy, nerdy, non-charismatic, and had no romantic relationship in the story she appeared in.

Fandoms: Currently Mandalorian, but I started writing fanfic with Transformers back in 1996! I have a huge re-write of my old stuff I’ve been working on for years but haven’t touched since Mando grabbed me. I’ll circle back to it eventually.

Two-shot: I think my only one is Turning the Corner – an exploration of Din’s younger years, his not-so-enjoyable time with Xi’an, and the possible reasons he was able to get out of that situation.

Most popular multi-chapter: Crossroads. Post-season 1, Din runs in to a Jedi survivor of Order 66. The kid takes a liking to her. Din learns that armor isn’t the only thing that can protect them. Angst, adventure, intrigue, and found family shenanigans ensue.

Actual worst part of writing: I used to think it was the demons in my head that wouldn’t shut up about the stories they want to tell. Usually it was exhilarating, but sometimes it was annoying when I’d get distracted from work & other real-life things that needed my attention. Now I realize it’s when the demons get half-way through the story and then go silent. WHERE DID YOU GO WE HAVE UNFINISHED BUSINESS. I can coax them back out when I have long, uninterrupted stretches of time, but I don’t seem to get those very often.

How you choose your titles: I usually go for a few words that I think will grab the most attention and are still descriptive of the story. For the Crossroads chapter titles, I stuck with the format of that Mandalorian had for the episode titles: “The [Noun].” The exception was the last episode, which was simply “Redemption,” so I did the same with the last chapter: “Home.”

Do you outline: Not usually. My one-shots usually come in one short, intense burst, downloaded directly from the brain demons, so they don’t require one. For long, multi-chapter ones where I’m jumping around and not writing linearly, I’ll set up a timeline after a while so I have something quick to refer to and remind myself of what happens when. This (hopefully) keeps me from referring to things that haven’t happened yet by mistake, and also keeps things like X happened a few weeks ago during chapter 1, a few months ago during chapter 2, six months ago in chapter 3, etc. One thing I do try to be good about is getting to the computer as soon as I can when a snippet hits me so I can write it down. I don’t worry about where exactly in the story it should go – I just stick it in a file called “scraps” to start with just to preserve the idea. Sometimes it’ll live there for a while before I pluck it out and transplant it to its home in the story, sometimes it gets re-homed almost immediately. A few sit there and never find their way in, but maybe inspire different versions of themselves.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: I have some dim visions of Grogu as Mand’alore, leading the planet through centuries of peace and prosperity.

Callouts @ me: I’m not sure what this is asking, but a couple other answers I’ve seen seem to be philosophy about fanfic. So uh… write for yourself, primarily. Write to satisfy the voice in your head that won’t shut up until you record its words. If you want to write well, seek out advice from those who also write well, and be ready to learn from them. If you’re writing only to gain popularity, you’re writing for the wrong reason and will only be disappointed.

Best writing traits: I’d say I’m best at angst and other emotional darkness. I grew up consuming Stephen King at an inappropriately young age, and I think it shows. His memoir, On Writing, also has nice bits of writing advice. The two bits that struck me the most are 1 – write the first draft with the door closed (don’t think about what others will think about it), and 2 – adverbs are not your friend (i.e., “He placed the Darksaber on the table with great care” instead of “He carefully placed the Darksaber on the table”).

Spicy tangential opinion: I have some… complex opinions about reader-insert fics that I’m not sure I’m able to outline without pissing people off. Like, I have no moral objection to them and they make lots of folks happy and that’s fine. Some of them work reallywell when they focus on the reader’s emotions and experiences. In the context of Mandalorian fanfic, that can serve to make Din even more mysterious – using a restricted POV is a great tool to get us in on the challenge of figuring out such a walled-off and inaccessible character. The ones that violate that and go second-person omniscient POV – that somehow the reader knows everything that others think of them and everything that’s going on just… confuse me. I can kinda forgive it in the current era of a deadly airborne infectious disease pandemic when dating IRL has come to a screeching halt, so I understand the need to substitute for that. Otherwise, go third-person POV and develop the original character.

The one social objection I have to reader-insert fics is when they come at the cost of strong female characters, particularly characters of color, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, people with disabilities, or otherwise under-represented folks. Reader-inserts are designed to be as generic as possible so that anyone can slip their skins on and off, and they read like a lot of lost opportunities when it comes to representation. And forget about passing the Bechdel test if you don’t even have a name for your own character. We need to challenge ourselves and (gasp) have two women characters who have names and who talk to each other about something other than men and babies. I can count the number of Mandalorian fanfic authors I’ve read that pass this on one hand. (I know there are more, but y’all can take a decent guess about the ratio.) We can do better.

No pressure tagging: Oh, I'm so bad at this and I have no idea who's already done it. Here goes nothing. @hauntedfalcon @bethagain @fanfoolishness

#fanfic #the mandolorian #din djarin

[jooyeone]

firstly, MOM I MADE IT I HAVE MY OWN TAG

omg i sent you three asks today? oh no, i'm sorry for spamming you, but i really do enjoy talking to you ☺ you're very velvety, i can't explain it i'm so sorry orz

yay, as long as you're happy, alice 🥰 i'm glad i made you smile 🥰

oh i miss winx club, they are adorable and the colors are very ":D" it's vivid and perky and very retro

yes, i have been warm and safe and hydrated~ thank you ☺

crazy because you once said that i made very playful and very strong butterflies appear and to sum it up, the first thing i thought of is crazy uwu 🦋 thank you for saying that i have calming vibe, that's very nice to hear, thank you 🥰

oh, it's kind of a new age thing? when i have certain worries or when i feel lonely, i usually see blue butterflies and it's a delight ☺ i consider them my spirit animal because i see them even when there are no flowers or gardens around~ it reminds me of my uncle who's already passed, because he always gave me things with blue butterflies! i like to think that the blue butterflies i see are him or from him 🦋

i shall try to answer everything in one ask uwu we can try the answer all asks in one post another time 😊

i do think he purrs back, have you seen him with cats, my heart bursts every single time 🥲 he is very good at making people (and animals apparently!!) feel at home and relaxed 🥰

yay thank you for the well wishes alice i will treasure them in my heart for when i feel discouraged 💕

i am happy that he's taking a break, and i wish he's actually spending time to rest because sometimes he doesn't understand that he is pushing himself too hard, so it's really nice but yes we do miss him, please come back home occasionally jimin 😔

i have yet to watch the spot, actually, but i feel like i did because it's all over my dash uwu

have a great day alice and look at more jimin photos when you're on a winx break ☺

you’re so cute 🥺🥺🥺 alright keeping the reply under wraps here to make it cleaner for the dash, here we go <3

also i can’t believe the timing because i caught your second message right now so i’m just gonna shoot two birds with one stone here

oh yay, that's great i was worried

and alice, remember that there's no rush okay, you can take all the time in the world to answer i will wait forever 🥰 it's just my nerves were getting to me, i'm sorry ☹

gosh i feel like high schooler with a crush 😢

please don't be pressured at all okay, that's the last thing i want 😔 oh and you don't need to reply to this one!!!

have fun with the winter package alice, i shall take my leave and get proper rest 🥰

oh i meant to say before but if you get criticism again it helps to meditate before getting to it! 🥰 just in case it happens again~ we don't want you feeling down 💕🦋

awww thank you for saying that! sometimes i do take some time before i can reply because of work, and i usually leave my messages either for early morning/late evening, and until then it’s mostly reblogs from me. so if i ever take some time to respond, this is why! 😊 and thank you, ah that’s a lovely idea!! it’s been a while since i’ve tried meditating so thank you for suggesting it!

“you’re very velvety” so cute 😭 i don’t mind it don’t worry omg, it’s lovely to talk to you too!

right?? i used to watch winx club a lot as a kid, even had some of the comics and i was so afraid of this adaptation because it looked so wrong, but i’m pleasantly surprised that it’s pretty fun so far. can recommend it if you ever need some mindless fun <3

awh i get it now 🥺 i’m so sorry to hear about your uncle, but i find it so pure and wholesome to hear about your connection with him and blue butterflies! i love that you can treasure that and find some comfort in such a lovely symbol!

he does have this gentle, calming aura around him! it definitely makes him feel like a very safe and warm presence to be around. and oh god how i agree with you on that one! really hoping he can pace himself and not put too much pressure on himself because he does have a tendency to do that. so whenever he feels comfortable to visit us again... we’re gonna be here 😔

aah i hope you’re having a great day as well and hopefully you can watch the teaser soon too!! it’s so comforting, you need to experience it 💖

#answered #🦋 anon #anon

[the-fiction-witch]

Crushes Tag!

Tag game of your celeb Crushes, rules are:

 it had to be a crush/ obsession

they have to be real

3 current

5 past crushes

and why

Amber’s Current crushes:

Awww really? the current ones? well in acceding order! 

Isaac Hempstead Wright

Thomas Brodie Sangster 

(Hes a you tuber so you may not know him) Pyrocynical  

and why...well 

1. I assume obviously from GOT, he has been my Fave for like four seasons now well my fave boy anyway, but I think my crush on him kinda peaked when I found out we are literally like...the same age that really spooked me. but i think he’s so cute especially when you see him with his glasses on! awwww!

2. Well TBS has been around for a very long time in the crush realm, pretty much since nanny mcphee I have had a thing for thomas, well nanny Mcphee and Doctor who too. Still family of blood is my fave episode, but TBS is starting to drop down the list but it is impressive how long he has been a crush of mine, but yeah he I going down slowly, he hasn’t been number 1 in like years now.

3. I find him really funny, and I think he’s kinda cute too. I have no other excuse.

they are the top three but I will inform you the top ten shuffles places like daily... 

Past ones? really? well this is really going to put me in a funny place isnt it...well lets dive into my past I literally had to look up old pictures of me in my old room to find who I used to have crushes on.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Martin Freeman 

Daivd Tennent 

Charile Simpson

Marilyn Monroe 

and why? Ohh well here we go!

1. It has been established if you guys know me or well have read tags and stuff that I got awoken by a little movie called Nowhere boy and yeah him and Tbs kinda shared my heart for a while

2. I LOVED! The hobbit! I really really did I still do I love LOTR but as the hobbit was the first of the movies I saw in cinema I fell in love with him.

3. I had a Doctor who phase, as every British kid does and tennent was my doctor growing up, I had alot of pictures of him on my walls when I was a kid, On my bright yellow walls with animal wallpaper just pages ripped out of Doctor who magazine 

4. Again a deep look into my childhood I liked busted and he was my fave so... yep, and yes I did cry when they broke up! and was very happy when they got back together years later

5. yes! before you ask! yes she was my Bisexual awakening, I had alot of old style retro art of motorbikes and Miss Monroe, I’m honestly surprised it took me so long to work out I was into girls too, looking back I had walls covered with Miss Monroe and Betty boop, are we surprised I was Bi?!

Right! now I have embarrassed myself, Tommy darling it’s your turn!

Thank you Honeybug, I shall now embarrassed myself 

Tommy’s current crushes:

alright here we go

saoire ronan

sharon rooney

nathalie emmanuel 

why? well uhhh its complex

1. I really like her pretty much since city of ember, I think shes an amazing actress

2. so so so funny in MMFD I love how well she plays in MMFD, I just again really like her

3. Okay! both from TMR series and from GOT, I love her in GOT she is properly both me and amber’s fave character, that is still alive (as of us writing this literally the day before the battle of winterfell airs in the Uk) if she dies I will cry! 

and ones of the past? really? well okay!

helena bonnon carter

cat blancet

billie pipper

emma blackery

carrie fisher

I will admit some of these are still kinda current, but I don’t kill off my crushes when I am not to bothered about them anymore naming no names Honeybug.

when do i do that!

when don’t you! you axe them as soon as your interest drops I remember you when you got sick of doctor who, you literaly like ripped your posters off the wall. need I remind you little honeybug, when your interest in tbs began to drop, that huge fabric poster you had of him on your wall got taken down.

i did that for you! because we where moving in together and you don’t like how he watches you!

good point, its one of those posters that like follows you around the room, and I didn’t like it being across from our bed when we where cuddling or having sex, its off putting to be having sex and just have tbs death glareing you from across the room!

but anyway,

1. I really liked her when i was younger I loved how burton always made her into this Gothic princess, I loved it. it was around my time of being I wouldn’t say in the middle of a emo phase but a Gothic phase sure.

2. like amber i love LOTR, and I ust thought she was really pretty and really kinda mysterious

3. again doctor who! I had a thing for her for so so so long, to the extent amber was actually subscribed to the doctorwho magazine she got it in the post all the time, and any posters or pages with rose on I uhh...took. I didn’t put them on my way they went uhh.... under my bed. I was a young horny boy leave me alone!

4. I liked her a few years ago not so much now, but I did really use to. 

5. star wars. need I say more I was a little nerdy boy starwars was my life, carrie fisher was my angel for a very very long time replaced by billie pipper a couple years down the line, but i did I really liked her for a very long time, I think she was kinda my first celeb crush. and its funny because like 90% of these celebs I had crushes on either look kinda like amber does or act kinda like she does, just merge all these ladies together you pretty much have amber, would that work with yours honey?

uhhhhh.... no tommy. I honestly think shove TBS and Isaac hempstead wright together we pretty much have you with maybe a little bit of David tennet .

awwww! thats like the nicest thing you’ve said about me!

don’t get used to it tommy.

[peonymoss]

skin care

daily routine? favorite products? make-up essentials?

Tagged by @thiscaringlark , who first wrote, “I’m obsessed with hearing other people’s skincare routines/products they use” and then posted about her routine here. (includes a rec for a goat’s milk soap that sounds interesting.)

Under the cut because I’m just ridiculous, but first two tips for anyone over the age of 14 from someone who’s heading into that *ahem* “mature skin” zone:

1. SUNSCREEN. NOW. EVERY DAY. 2. EYE CREAM. NOW. EVERY DAY.

I started a rather big glow-up project in May after noticing how pretty and glowy a co-worker looked (and how very haggard and tired I was looking.) I asked my co-worker for tips and started researching; when I found out about the Korean ten-step routine I started from there. (I found this site very helpful too. )  

My skin is fairly normal. I have PCOS but between metformin, aggressive skin care (including retinol, exfoliation, and Vitamin C), getting older, and swearing off breakfast cereal and pasta, I haven’t had problems with hormonal acne in a while. The skin care/ makeup concerns I’m concentrating on right now are dark circles under the eyes, sunspots/ age spots/ uneven skin tone, and slowing down the wrinkles.

Morning: Cleanse, toner sometimes, essence. Vitamin C serum; Trader Joe’s antioxidant serum if I’m in the mood; Pond’s Anti-Dark Spot Correcting Cream. Eye cream. Moisturizer if I’m in the mood. CC cream. Makeup.

Evening: Double cleanse. Exfoliate sometimes. Toner, essence; Vitamin C serum, Neutrogena Deep Wrinkle stuff, the Pond’s correcting cream, eye cream; moisturizer if I’m in the mood; night cream.

Products:

Cleanser - In the evening I do the K-beauty inspired double cleanse with an oil and then with a water-based cleanser. For the oil based cleanser I’m using cold cream (in part because it’s retro and it’s fun to slather the stuff on, but also because it really gets the makeup off.) For the water-based cleanser (PM and AM) I’m using Boots No7 Beautiful Skin Melting Gel Cleanser, which actually isn’t water-based I think, but it smells nice and is pleasant to use. I got it at Target. When my tube runs out I’m going to try Cetaphil Hydrating Cleanser.

Exfoliator: Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant. I do this around 3x/ week.

Mask: I’ve tried some of those K-beauty sheet masks but I don’t feel like they do much for me (when I use them I do them between Essence and Treatments.) I’ve been having fun with Bliss Mighty Marshmallow Mask, which seems to be doing what it claims to do but also smells pleasant and is fun to apply and wear.

Toner: Almost done with my bottle of eB5 Anti-Aging Toner. Can’t speak to the Anti-Aging properties - didn’t exactly do a controlled experiment - but it works to help finish cleaning my face and isn’t harsh. Next up I’m going to try Thayer’s witch hazel with rosewater.

Essence: This is a K-beauty thing, like a very light, watery serum that’s supposed to be quickly absorbed and help your skin absorb the treatments coming in the next step. Right now I’m using MISSHA Time Revolution The First Intensive Moist Treatment Essence (which I found on sale at Target back in May.) It’s very light and it feels nice, and I’ve been using it twice a day for four months and am barely halfway through the bottle.

Treatments: Working on dark spots, dry spots, and wrinkles. Vitamin C serum: LilyAna Naturals (I got it at Amazon.) Neutrogena Deep Wrinkle Repair serum or Trader Joe’s Antioxidant serum (feels very pleasant once it’s on). Pond’s Anti-Dark Spot Correcting Cream (in the pink jar.) 

Eye cream: LilyAna Naturals again. I like it, and I think I’m definitely seeing improvement in the texture of the skin under my eye.

Moisturizers: some stuff from Trader Joe’s as needed. At night: Burt’s Bees Renewal Night Cream (when this is used up I’m going to try Cerave Cetaphil). In the daytime: CC cream.

Makeup: I’m really focused on concealing my dark circles and some age spots/ sun spots/ melasma spots/ whatever that are high on my cheekbones. I’m really liking It Cosmetics CC+ cream - it’s moisturizer, retinol treatment, suncreen, primer, and makeup all in one, and gives a decent amount of coverage. Next up is covering up the spots and circles; I’m still experimenting to see what works best, First comes a color corrector, either It Cosmetics Bye Bye Undereye or Maybelline Age Intensives concealer in the Brightener shade (or maybe both?). A touch of concealer and then some loose powder to set it, and then on to the other stuff (blush, light eyeshadow, a bit of brow pencil and gel, mascara, lipstick.) Finally a squirt of setting spray. Ta-da.

When I first started this I thought I’d gone nuts. I wrote down all the steps; I shopped sales and used coupons. Four months later I get through all this fairly quickly, and I’ve been getting compliments on the improvement in my skin.

Favorites and essentials: Cold cream; Bliss Marshmallow Mask; LilyAna eye cream; CC cream; brightener; Besame lipstick.

#about peony #thiscaringlark

[velmaemyers88]

Knights and Bikes is a quirky take on 1980s coming-of-age stories

With Netflix’s Stranger Things back in the pop culture zeitgeist, 1980s nostalgia is surging again. At first, it seems like Knights and Bikes — where children stumble upon a supernatural phenomenon — is riding that trend as well. But indie developer Foam Sword has a different take on the usual pre-Internet coming-of-age story.

Heading to PlayStation 4 and PC later this summer under the Double Fine Presents publishing label, Knights and Bikes is an action-adventure game about two young girls named Demelza and Nessa. The year is 1987, and Nessa has just arrived in Demelza’s home of Penfurzy, a fictional English island. After becoming fast friends, the children decide to investigate an old Penfurzy legend about finding long lost treasure.

You can play as the girls either by yourself (swapping between them while an AI takes over for the other kid) or with a friend in local and online co-op. Each character has specific abilities that’ll help you fight enemies and solve puzzles, such as Nessa’s disc-throwing attacks and Demelza’s wellies (boots she can use to kick through puddles and stomp on bad guys).

And as implied in the title, both girls find bicycles that help them get around Penfurzy.

“We’re trying to have that sort of adventure you get as a kid, where you go on vacation and you meet a new friend and you instantly go on an adventure together and get up to all kinds of mischief,” said artist and designer Rex Crowle in an interview with GamesBeat.

From a kid’s POV

While you’ll find some references to ’80s pop culture in Knights and Bikes (such as retro gaming consoles, laser tag, and a knock-off version of He-Man), Foam Sword deliberately avoided using well-worn tropes like neon lights or brightly colored spandex. The island is a mostly rural and somewhat rundown place with scrapyards, a mini-golf course, and a sleepy harbor town.

Much of this comes from Crowle’s early childhood experiences in the county of Cornwall, which is on the southern tip of the U.K. Penfurzy is a stylized re-creation of his hometown.

“I felt that because this is a very natural, very rural, slightly cutoff location, it shouldn’t go super strong on the eighties influence,” said Crowle. “So it’s a little bit more nuanced. … If you live somewhere that’s not right in the center of pop culture, it takes like 10 years for things to filter through. I think a lot of my childhood in the ’80s was actually more like the ’70s.”

Above: Demelza (left) and Nessa riding on their bikes.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

The other half of Foam Sword, programmer Moo Yu, grew up on the other side of the world in Anaheim, California — under “the shadow of Disneyland,” as Crowle put it. That’s why Penfurzy is also the home of what was once a bustling theme park. It’s one of a few small attractions that suffered as tourism on the island declined over the years. The local economy is so dire that some residents (including Demelza and her dad) are being evicted from their homes.

Add to that the recent passing of Demelza’s mother, and it’s quite a dark time for the young orange-haired girl, who turns to games and comic books for comfort. But things start to change when she meets Nessa. The excitement of having a new friend finally pulls Demelza out of her room, giving her a reason to go on a real-life adventure.

Though Penfurzy isn’t as busy as it used to be, the kids find ways to make their own fun. You’ll hear Demelza make cute engine noises whenever she breaks into a run. If one of them is defeated in battle, they just have to high-five each other to get back up. From time to time, they’ll challenge each other to races. And since they’re too young to have cash or credit cards, Demelza and Nessa just collect whatever they find (like shells, stones, and bugs) as currency for upgrading their bikes.

Even the hand-painted art style is a reflection of that childhood curiosity.

“[Knights and Bikes] is drawn with the kind of materials that kids would have, like crayons and chalk. I mean, I don’t want it to just look like they just drew it. But it’s got that kind of atmosphere, that element,” said Crowle. “And that really helps to add things onto the landscape that they’re actually imagining. We can quite easily draw extra details.”

Above: The girls explore the other side of town.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

The children’s overactive imaginations play a big part in the story, especially as they dig deeper into the old legend. At one point in the demo, Demelza was bored of knocking over practice targets in the golf course, so naturally, the red targets sprouted hands and legs and started to run away from her. But the most surprising thing for Demelza was that Nessa can see all this happening, too.

Penfurzy only becomes more fanciful when the girls unwittingly trigger an ancient curse that spreads across the island. Suddenly, you’re not fighting ordinary objects anymore. One enemy type that appears later in the game is a possessed metal gauntlet; but when you defeat it, it just turns into a pile of tin cans. Part of the fun of Knights and Bikes is figuring which of these elements are real and come from the curse, and which are just manifestations of the girls’ imaginations.

“We play a lot with what’s actually here in the environment and what’s being augmented and added onto it by the kids’ own imaginations,” said Crowle.

Back to the drawing board

For Crowle, Knights and Bikes came out of a desire to get his hands “really dirty” again. Before co-founding Foam Sword with Yu, he was at the Sony-owned Media Molecule, where he worked on the LittleBigPlanet franchise, Tearaway (as the lead creator), and Dreams. While he enjoyed his time at the studio, he said it’d been too long since he could just sit down and doodle.

“I hadn’t been necessarily drawing that much for the previous five years, and I felt that it would be nice to have a hobby project,” said Crowle. “[Knights and Bikes] was very much about, ‘Can you just hand-paint a whole world? And what would that look like?’ That was the starting point, really.”

With ‘80s classic The Goonies on their minds, Crowle and Yu (also a former Media Molecule employee) initially wanted to create a role-playing game that’d follow a group of kids. But they scrapped that idea because the cast felt too stereotypical. The developers changed the style and genre of the game, choosing to focus on just two characters instead.

Above: The curse unleashes new types of enemies.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

They worked slowly on Knights and Bikes at first, with Crowle chipping away at it while still working a few days a week at Media Molecule. After a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in 2016, he realized that he needed to turn his hobby project into a full-time gig, so he left the studio later that year.

Yet it’s hard to deny the influence that his time at Media Molecule has had on his work. Both LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway used ordinary items like buttons, fabrics, and slivers of paper to tell extraordinary adventures — much like the everyday objects Demelza and Nessa collect on their journey. Knights and Bikes seems to represent another branch of that imaginative family tree.

But after years of making colorful games that exude positivity and friendship, Crowle is thinking of heading in a different direction with his next project.

“I’m really desperate to make a really gritty, violent game. I feel like I’ve done too much whimsy now,” he said jokingly.

Credit: Source link

The post Knights and Bikes is a quirky take on 1980s coming-of-age stories appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/knights-and-bikes-is-a-quirky-take-on-1980s-coming-of-age-stories/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=knights-and-bikes-is-a-quirky-take-on-1980s-coming-of-age-stories from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186578111592

[reneeacaseyfl]

Knights and Bikes is a quirky take on 1980s coming-of-age stories

With Netflix’s Stranger Things back in the pop culture zeitgeist, 1980s nostalgia is surging again. At first, it seems like Knights and Bikes — where children stumble upon a supernatural phenomenon — is riding that trend as well. But indie developer Foam Sword has a different take on the usual pre-Internet coming-of-age story.

Heading to PlayStation 4 and PC later this summer under the Double Fine Presents publishing label, Knights and Bikes is an action-adventure game about two young girls named Demelza and Nessa. The year is 1987, and Nessa has just arrived in Demelza’s home of Penfurzy, a fictional English island. After becoming fast friends, the children decide to investigate an old Penfurzy legend about finding long lost treasure.

You can play as the girls either by yourself (swapping between them while an AI takes over for the other kid) or with a friend in local and online co-op. Each character has specific abilities that’ll help you fight enemies and solve puzzles, such as Nessa’s disc-throwing attacks and Demelza’s wellies (boots she can use to kick through puddles and stomp on bad guys).

And as implied in the title, both girls find bicycles that help them get around Penfurzy.

“We’re trying to have that sort of adventure you get as a kid, where you go on vacation and you meet a new friend and you instantly go on an adventure together and get up to all kinds of mischief,” said artist and designer Rex Crowle in an interview with GamesBeat.

From a kid’s POV

While you’ll find some references to ’80s pop culture in Knights and Bikes (such as retro gaming consoles, laser tag, and a knock-off version of He-Man), Foam Sword deliberately avoided using well-worn tropes like neon lights or brightly colored spandex. The island is a mostly rural and somewhat rundown place with scrapyards, a mini-golf course, and a sleepy harbor town.

Much of this comes from Crowle’s early childhood experiences in the county of Cornwall, which is on the southern tip of the U.K. Penfurzy is a stylized re-creation of his hometown.

“I felt that because this is a very natural, very rural, slightly cutoff location, it shouldn’t go super strong on the eighties influence,” said Crowle. “So it’s a little bit more nuanced. … If you live somewhere that’s not right in the center of pop culture, it takes like 10 years for things to filter through. I think a lot of my childhood in the ’80s was actually more like the ’70s.”

Above: Demelza (left) and Nessa riding on their bikes.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

The other half of Foam Sword, programmer Moo Yu, grew up on the other side of the world in Anaheim, California — under “the shadow of Disneyland,” as Crowle put it. That’s why Penfurzy is also the home of what was once a bustling theme park. It’s one of a few small attractions that suffered as tourism on the island declined over the years. The local economy is so dire that some residents (including Demelza and her dad) are being evicted from their homes.

Add to that the recent passing of Demelza’s mother, and it’s quite a dark time for the young orange-haired girl, who turns to games and comic books for comfort. But things start to change when she meets Nessa. The excitement of having a new friend finally pulls Demelza out of her room, giving her a reason to go on a real-life adventure.

Though Penfurzy isn’t as busy as it used to be, the kids find ways to make their own fun. You’ll hear Demelza make cute engine noises whenever she breaks into a run. If one of them is defeated in battle, they just have to high-five each other to get back up. From time to time, they’ll challenge each other to races. And since they’re too young to have cash or credit cards, Demelza and Nessa just collect whatever they find (like shells, stones, and bugs) as currency for upgrading their bikes.

Even the hand-painted art style is a reflection of that childhood curiosity.

“[Knights and Bikes] is drawn with the kind of materials that kids would have, like crayons and chalk. I mean, I don’t want it to just look like they just drew it. But it’s got that kind of atmosphere, that element,” said Crowle. “And that really helps to add things onto the landscape that they’re actually imagining. We can quite easily draw extra details.”

Above: The girls explore the other side of town.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

The children’s overactive imaginations play a big part in the story, especially as they dig deeper into the old legend. At one point in the demo, Demelza was bored of knocking over practice targets in the golf course, so naturally, the red targets sprouted hands and legs and started to run away from her. But the most surprising thing for Demelza was that Nessa can see all this happening, too.

Penfurzy only becomes more fanciful when the girls unwittingly trigger an ancient curse that spreads across the island. Suddenly, you’re not fighting ordinary objects anymore. One enemy type that appears later in the game is a possessed metal gauntlet; but when you defeat it, it just turns into a pile of tin cans. Part of the fun of Knights and Bikes is figuring which of these elements are real and come from the curse, and which are just manifestations of the girls’ imaginations.

“We play a lot with what’s actually here in the environment and what’s being augmented and added onto it by the kids’ own imaginations,” said Crowle.

Back to the drawing board

For Crowle, Knights and Bikes came out of a desire to get his hands “really dirty” again. Before co-founding Foam Sword with Yu, he was at the Sony-owned Media Molecule, where he worked on the LittleBigPlanet franchise, Tearaway (as the lead creator), and Dreams. While he enjoyed his time at the studio, he said it’d been too long since he could just sit down and doodle.

“I hadn’t been necessarily drawing that much for the previous five years, and I felt that it would be nice to have a hobby project,” said Crowle. “[Knights and Bikes] was very much about, ‘Can you just hand-paint a whole world? And what would that look like?’ That was the starting point, really.”

With ‘80s classic The Goonies on their minds, Crowle and Yu (also a former Media Molecule employee) initially wanted to create a role-playing game that’d follow a group of kids. But they scrapped that idea because the cast felt too stereotypical. The developers changed the style and genre of the game, choosing to focus on just two characters instead.

Above: The curse unleashes new types of enemies.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

They worked slowly on Knights and Bikes at first, with Crowle chipping away at it while still working a few days a week at Media Molecule. After a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in 2016, he realized that he needed to turn his hobby project into a full-time gig, so he left the studio later that year.

Yet it’s hard to deny the influence that his time at Media Molecule has had on his work. Both LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway used ordinary items like buttons, fabrics, and slivers of paper to tell extraordinary adventures — much like the everyday objects Demelza and Nessa collect on their journey. Knights and Bikes seems to represent another branch of that imaginative family tree.

But after years of making colorful games that exude positivity and friendship, Crowle is thinking of heading in a different direction with his next project.

“I’m really desperate to make a really gritty, violent game. I feel like I’ve done too much whimsy now,” he said jokingly.

Credit: Source link

The post Knights and Bikes is a quirky take on 1980s coming-of-age stories appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/knights-and-bikes-is-a-quirky-take-on-1980s-coming-of-age-stories/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=knights-and-bikes-is-a-quirky-take-on-1980s-coming-of-age-stories from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186578111592

[weeklyreviewer]

Knights and Bikes is a quirky take on 1980s coming-of-age stories

With Netflix’s Stranger Things back in the pop culture zeitgeist, 1980s nostalgia is surging again. At first, it seems like Knights and Bikes — where children stumble upon a supernatural phenomenon — is riding that trend as well. But indie developer Foam Sword has a different take on the usual pre-Internet coming-of-age story.

Heading to PlayStation 4 and PC later this summer under the Double Fine Presents publishing label, Knights and Bikes is an action-adventure game about two young girls named Demelza and Nessa. The year is 1987, and Nessa has just arrived in Demelza’s home of Penfurzy, a fictional English island. After becoming fast friends, the children decide to investigate an old Penfurzy legend about finding long lost treasure.

You can play as the girls either by yourself (swapping between them while an AI takes over for the other kid) or with a friend in local and online co-op. Each character has specific abilities that’ll help you fight enemies and solve puzzles, such as Nessa’s disc-throwing attacks and Demelza’s wellies (boots she can use to kick through puddles and stomp on bad guys).

And as implied in the title, both girls find bicycles that help them get around Penfurzy.

“We’re trying to have that sort of adventure you get as a kid, where you go on vacation and you meet a new friend and you instantly go on an adventure together and get up to all kinds of mischief,” said artist and designer Rex Crowle in an interview with GamesBeat.

From a kid’s POV

While you’ll find some references to ’80s pop culture in Knights and Bikes (such as retro gaming consoles, laser tag, and a knock-off version of He-Man), Foam Sword deliberately avoided using well-worn tropes like neon lights or brightly colored spandex. The island is a mostly rural and somewhat rundown place with scrapyards, a mini-golf course, and a sleepy harbor town.

Much of this comes from Crowle’s early childhood experiences in the county of Cornwall, which is on the southern tip of the U.K. Penfurzy is a stylized re-creation of his hometown.

“I felt that because this is a very natural, very rural, slightly cutoff location, it shouldn’t go super strong on the eighties influence,” said Crowle. “So it’s a little bit more nuanced. … If you live somewhere that’s not right in the center of pop culture, it takes like 10 years for things to filter through. I think a lot of my childhood in the ’80s was actually more like the ’70s.”

Above: Demelza (left) and Nessa riding on their bikes.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

The other half of Foam Sword, programmer Moo Yu, grew up on the other side of the world in Anaheim, California — under “the shadow of Disneyland,” as Crowle put it. That’s why Penfurzy is also the home of what was once a bustling theme park. It’s one of a few small attractions that suffered as tourism on the island declined over the years. The local economy is so dire that some residents (including Demelza and her dad) are being evicted from their homes.

Add to that the recent passing of Demelza’s mother, and it’s quite a dark time for the young orange-haired girl, who turns to games and comic books for comfort. But things start to change when she meets Nessa. The excitement of having a new friend finally pulls Demelza out of her room, giving her a reason to go on a real-life adventure.

Though Penfurzy isn’t as busy as it used to be, the kids find ways to make their own fun. You’ll hear Demelza make cute engine noises whenever she breaks into a run. If one of them is defeated in battle, they just have to high-five each other to get back up. From time to time, they’ll challenge each other to races. And since they’re too young to have cash or credit cards, Demelza and Nessa just collect whatever they find (like shells, stones, and bugs) as currency for upgrading their bikes.

Even the hand-painted art style is a reflection of that childhood curiosity.

“[Knights and Bikes] is drawn with the kind of materials that kids would have, like crayons and chalk. I mean, I don’t want it to just look like they just drew it. But it’s got that kind of atmosphere, that element,” said Crowle. “And that really helps to add things onto the landscape that they’re actually imagining. We can quite easily draw extra details.”

Above: The girls explore the other side of town.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

The children’s overactive imaginations play a big part in the story, especially as they dig deeper into the old legend. At one point in the demo, Demelza was bored of knocking over practice targets in the golf course, so naturally, the red targets sprouted hands and legs and started to run away from her. But the most surprising thing for Demelza was that Nessa can see all this happening, too.

Penfurzy only becomes more fanciful when the girls unwittingly trigger an ancient curse that spreads across the island. Suddenly, you’re not fighting ordinary objects anymore. One enemy type that appears later in the game is a possessed metal gauntlet; but when you defeat it, it just turns into a pile of tin cans. Part of the fun of Knights and Bikes is figuring which of these elements are real and come from the curse, and which are just manifestations of the girls’ imaginations.

“We play a lot with what’s actually here in the environment and what’s being augmented and added onto it by the kids’ own imaginations,” said Crowle.

Back to the drawing board

For Crowle, Knights and Bikes came out of a desire to get his hands “really dirty” again. Before co-founding Foam Sword with Yu, he was at the Sony-owned Media Molecule, where he worked on the LittleBigPlanet franchise, Tearaway (as the lead creator), and Dreams. While he enjoyed his time at the studio, he said it’d been too long since he could just sit down and doodle.

“I hadn’t been necessarily drawing that much for the previous five years, and I felt that it would be nice to have a hobby project,” said Crowle. “[Knights and Bikes] was very much about, ‘Can you just hand-paint a whole world? And what would that look like?’ That was the starting point, really.”

With ‘80s classic The Goonies on their minds, Crowle and Yu (also a former Media Molecule employee) initially wanted to create a role-playing game that’d follow a group of kids. But they scrapped that idea because the cast felt too stereotypical. The developers changed the style and genre of the game, choosing to focus on just two characters instead.

Above: The curse unleashes new types of enemies.

Image Credit: Foam Sword Games

They worked slowly on Knights and Bikes at first, with Crowle chipping away at it while still working a few days a week at Media Molecule. After a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in 2016, he realized that he needed to turn his hobby project into a full-time gig, so he left the studio later that year.

Yet it’s hard to deny the influence that his time at Media Molecule has had on his work. Both LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway used ordinary items like buttons, fabrics, and slivers of paper to tell extraordinary adventures — much like the everyday objects Demelza and Nessa collect on their journey. Knights and Bikes seems to represent another branch of that imaginative family tree.

But after years of making colorful games that exude positivity and friendship, Crowle is thinking of heading in a different direction with his next project.

“I’m really desperate to make a really gritty, violent game. I feel like I’ve done too much whimsy now,” he said jokingly.

Credit: Source link

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[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #360

Top Ten Favourite Things About the Xbox 360

Well wouldja lookit that. Three hundred and sixty of these silly top tens (tops ten?). I actually had a whole other list lined up, one that chimed with some relatively-recent news, but I've decided to bump it as I feel the synchronicity of 360 cannot go unnoticed. Sadly because the next two weeks are earmarked for other date-relevant lists, this means my once-contemporary tenner will be old news by the time all of you (both of you) get to read it.

But wait! What is this synchronicity of which I speak, that means “three sixty” must be secured for a specific ten of tops? Could it be erstwhile ITV post production facility, threesixty media, whose services I utilised for a decade whilst at CITV?

No, it’s the Xbox. It even says so at the top of the page.

Yes, the Xbox 360. In many ways probably my favourite console. Sure, it had its faults - I went through three of them due to red-ring meltdowns, and the beast was noisier than a rhino in a blender – but it was gorgeous, and for a little while there totally represented gaming for me.

Yeah, there was lots to love, and the protracted nature of the last console generation meant that it saw a lot of evolution in its lifetime. And, really, gaming in general changed quite a bit in the noughties, and the Xbox 360 was at the forefront of that in a lot of ways. Resurgent indie gaming, online, casual, micropayments, DLC, achievements, annual release schedules for triple-A franchises... the list goes on. Microsoft didn’t lead the way in all of those areas, but for most of the last generation they were light on their feet and quick to exploit shifting trends, and the 360 strongly benefited as a result (also Sony faceplanted pre-launch with the tone and price of the PlayStation 3, which also benefited Xbox hugely; how weird that the tables turned so utterly come the launches of PS4 and Xbox One). It felt like a landmark generation and the 360 was a landmark console and I loved it.

Anyway, here are my favourite things about it. Ten of then, not three hundred and sixty. That’d be daft.

The Look: at a time when the prevailing trend for consoles seemed to be fairly inoffensive black or grey lumps (the delightfully purple GameCube notwithstanding), Xbox 360 bucked the trend with a sleek and sexy white design, complete with subtle curves that echoed throughout the interface, and a natty chrome trim to the disc tray. It was different, it felt new, it felt simultaneously cool and friendly. It was more of a piece with Apple’s then-recent iMac redesign than anything you’d expect from as utilitarian a company as Microsoft. It made the 360 stand out from the crowd, and also helped differentiate it from the huge black number that was (eventually) the PS3.

The Controller: Halo: Combat Evolved was the original Xbox launch game, and it sold a lot of Xboxes. It was really the first game that made first-person shooters really work on console. Part of this was down to the beautifully handled sticks and triggers of the original Xbox pad. The controller was subsequently redesigned and evolved into what became the 360 pad: better trigger placement; shoulder buttons; even nicer sticks; a much-improved d-pad; and the famous Guide button, that with a press brought up a nifty UI overlay that allowed for chatting, achievement checking, and all manner of things, across all games. It was probably the best game controller of all time, and although it’s been refined and, I’d argue, improved by the Xbox One controller, there’s something revolutionary about the 360 design that always makes it feel stand-out.

Achievements: ah, yes. I mentioned them in passing just now, but really, the concept of cross-title points and awards might not necessarily have been Microsoft’s (I’m hazy on the details) but their implementation was a game-changer. Suddenly people were clamouring to find secrets, to beat the top scores, to better themselves in the games, because there was now a tangible reward, an icon, bragging rights associated with it. It fostered competition and – in the best cases – encouraged repeated playthroughs. I know that, for me, I set myself goals in certain games based on the achievements. It’s something to work towards beyond “just” playing the game, and it’s something I still do to this day, even after the lustre of Gamerscore glory has faded somewhat with time.

Gamertags: of course, Achievements would be nothing without your associated Gamertag. Obviously the idea of having a “handle” online was not new, but I know that when I played Quake III Arena or Counter-Strike on PC, I didn’t always keep to the same tag (I usually did, mind, as “britesparc” had been my default online identity for a while). But a persistent username, across all titles, with an associated score, rewards, settings (I’m still baffled as to how and why the Xbox One lost the ability to set a default controller preference for all games across your profile – now I have to invert look on each individual title, and it’s a massive pain!). This would be a strategy eventually adopted across the whole industry, and although I guess it’s fair to say that Steam had already sort-of got there, and even Microsoft themselves (as Gamertags were necessary in the early, OG Xbox-days of Xbox Live), your profile’s implementation on Xbox 360 was a massive step-up.

Xbox Live: what is an Xbox without Xbox Live? Again, it’s something that premiered on the original Xbox (although I never took advantage of it; I don’t think I had a broadband connection back then, to be honest) but it really came to fruition with the 360. A fully-integrated online environment with matchmaking and voice-chat built into the console itself, it offered the best of PC gaming in a convenient form-factor that slid under the telly. I played online much more on my 360 than on the PC, simply because it was a lot easier and more user-friendly. And that’s before we begin to factor in the creative decisions made when you knew your audience was always online: downloading patches, DLC, online-only games, a digital storefront… the fact that you automatically got access to all of that with the free “Silver” subscription was like a gateway drug to the actual “Gold” multiplayer bonus. The decision to charge for multiplayer access, whereas it was free on PS3, was a touch controversial, but the money was funnelled into better, faster matchmaking services, meaning the 360 became the go-to console for online gaming. Eventually Sony, and even Nintendo, followed suit.

Xbox Live Arcade: speaking of downloading… the idea of small, indie downloadable games – games that weren’t the usual full-3D physics-fests filled with explosions coloured lights and deformable terrain – was quietly revolutionary. Sure, the indie movement was already in full swing on PC, but here it was delivered, curated, advertised, cheap to purchase and ready to enjoy in bite-size chunks, on your telly-box. At the time I just wasn’t really aware of the scale of indie, retro, and homebrew gaming efforts, and it totally blew me away. It gave new developers a fantastic opportunity to showcase their wares, and – eventually – it offered a new lease of life to older games. Braid probably remains the big XBLA success story – both critically adored and financially hugely successful – but from ‘Splosion Man to Trials HD to Limbo to Castle Crashers, it was a jumping-off point for a bevvy of new franchises and developers. The fact that Hexic HD came pre-installed was a masterstroke: a brilliant game, of course, but also a terrific proof-of-concept for just what XBLA was.

Keeping it Casual: Microsoft, as usual, had its eye on Sony, and in many ways the 360 stole the PlayStation 2’s crown. What Microsoft didn’t bank on, however, was a resurgent Nintendo, who had one of their biggest successes ever with the Wii. It brought new audiences into the gaming fold (I’m still overjoyed at the memory of how angry my brother got when our dad totally trounced him at Bowling in Wii Sports; “But he doesn’t even like games!”). Microsoft leant into this, and whilst it’s arguable that they went too far and began to take their core audience for granted, they did a great job in making the Xbox 360 family-friendly. From some genuinely very good and user-friendly content settings to the raft of all-ages XBLA titles, right from the start the 360 was a good all-round console for the whole family. Games like Scene It? and Lips attempted to do for Xbox what Buzz! and SingStar did for PlayStation. But it was when they went full-tilt after the Wii market that they scored their biggest success and sowed the seeds for their biggest failure: Kinect. Billed as revolutionary, in truth it was mostly a very fun gimmick that struggled to fit inside mainstream gaming (nowhere near as comprehensively as Nintendo’s motion control did, at least); but all the same it was impressive tech for what it was, and some Kinect games – notably Rare’s Kinect Sports, but also Dance Central and the child-focused Sesame Street TV – did great things with the camera and were fun to play. I’d say that Microsoft’s commitment to casual and family gaming continues, but to be honest I feel like it’s become entrenched industry-wide now, and that remains a very good thing.

The Games: I guess this should be the top reason, shouldn’t it? But all consoles have good games. However, the 360 had some absolute belters. Halo 3 is probably, on balance, the best Halo. Fable II is one of my favourite games of all time. Crackdown is a delightful and wildly original blast. From solid blockbusters like the Gears of War trilogy to delightful curios like Viva Pinata, the depth of the Xbox 360’s library is phenomenal. And that’s before we get to the multi-format games like the Mass Effect trilogy, BioShock, the first two Batman: Arkham games, Red Dead Redemption, and many more… most of which performed better or felt otherwise “definitive” on Microsoft’s machine. The last generation was just incredible in terms of solid-gold masterpieces, and that’s before we mention the exclusives on other platforms (hello, Super Mario Galaxy). Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, there were some great games on the Xbox 360.

The Apps: as the 360 aged, more and more non-game applications became available for it. there were flirtations with things like Twitter, but really it was the media apps – Netflix, Amazon Video, Sky Go – that established the machine as a viable home entertainment hub. During its lifespan, the 360 went from “games machine” to “centre of the living room” as we evolved from consumers of scheduled entertainment to people who could pick and choose their media. As broadband speeds increased (during the time I had a 360 we went from a 1mb connection to 20mb) streaming became commonplace, and I seem to recall that by the time of the Xbox One’s release more people were using the 360 to watch Netflix than to play games. Amazing, really, when you think how noisy the bloody thing was. All the same, the non-game content on the 360 was a harbinger of things to come and a flower in Microsoft’s cap. Too bad that, like with Kinect, they misread the tea leaves and bet the farm on a gesture-controlled multimedia future.

The Evolution: the Xbox 360 in 2005 was markedly different from the Xbox 360 in 2013, when its successor console was released. Not just physically, although two hardware revisions meant it looked very different too; but software-wise, operationally, it was practically a new machine. The beloved “blades” interface – the UI mirroring the curves of the machine – had been replaced by the so-called “New Xbox Experience”, which brought friend management and multimedia apps to the foreground, as well as showcasing the new Xbox Avatars. These Avatars were somewhat controversial, but gave the 360 a refreshing and friendly kick up the bum, adding a degree of spice to games where you could now play “as you” (A Kingdom for Keflings, Joyride Turbo, etc), as well as offering new unlockable rewards or purchasable items in the form of Avatar clothes or accessories. The interface would then be further refined one more time before the console’s retirement, but this evolution was representative of Microsoft’s philosophy with Xbox at the time. they entered the generation as an also-ran; the OG Xbox was certainly powerful, and surprised many with the quality of its games, but it was almost a proof-of-concept console. They wanted the 360 to win, and although the broadside of the Wii meant it never managed to be market leader, it still – just about – beat PS3 into second place. They did this by changing with the times, nimbly adapting to an evolving market; offering increased casual focus, new control methods, peripherals, multimedia functionality… Microsoft did a great job of continuing to make the 360 feel relevant, to feel like an essential console, despite the technical superiority of the PS3 or the absolute juggernaut that was the Wii. Again, it’s true that their ability to divine the market abandoned them come the design and release of the Xbox One, but throughout its life the Xbox 360 remained a fantastic, ever-changing yet thoroughly constant console.

So there we go. Ten reasons why, to this day, I adore the Xbox 360. My relationship with console gaming came of age, and really it’s that generation where I moved from being a PC gamer to a console gamer (apart from Civilization, pretty much). So bravo, 360; we may never see your like again.

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