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gffa · 3 years

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Last time I went about five months between doing a set of STAR WARS fic recs, this time it’s only been three months! Hurrah! It helps that, as always, this fandom puts out an incredible amount of excellent fic, so I feel like I’m never hurting for fics I want to yell about and shove at people, which is something I continue to appreciate as it often feels like so much of the world is such a huge tire fire. It helps to be able to find fics to retreat into, to have fun with, to express joy and creativity with, and so many of the authors in this fandom are just so good at this! To the point that these sets sometimes take awhile because there are always more fics I want to add, until the post starts threatening to be overly long instead of a decent length–in my defense, no seriously, you guys are just too good! Also, I forced myself to stop at 69 fic recs, because yes I do think it’s funny. (Nice.) STAR WARS FIC RECS: PREQUELS RECS: ✦ a comedy in four acts by jesuisdeux, obi-wan & dooku & yoda & qui-gon & cast, time travel, 4k This was what time-travel is: staring at the dark sockets of skulls everywhere your gaze lands on. Being haunted by ghosts long gone. The apprehension of the slow yet sure approach of the inevitable which is sending chills down your spine. ✦ No Rest for the Weary by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & jedi & ocs, 61k Needing a break from life at the Jedi Temple, Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, visit a Jedi AgriCorps settlement on the Midrim planet of Helia. There they encounter new friends, new enemies and have new adventures, all while attempting to navigate their sometimes turbulent relationship as Master and Padawan. ✦ Stars of Tatooine by Be_Right_Back, ahsoka & kanan & mace & rex & obi-wan & cast, 10.5k After the end of the world, Ahsoka more or less kidnaps a child, has to air some old grievances, and tries to find whatever peace the universe can still offer. All paths in the Force lead home, eventually. ✦ Festival of Light by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & rex & cast, 8.7k During his first year at the Jedi Temple, Anakin learns that even the Jedi celebrate holidays. ✦ the master, the padawan, the Force by skatzaa, depa & caleb, 1.4k Caleb expects things to be different after Master Depa takes him as her padawan, but really, it feels like nothing really changes. ✦ desecrate my lungs by loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme & cast, 16k wip Time-travel fix-it in which Mustafar haunts Anakin decades after it happened and years before it would. ✦ Grace by dismantlingsummer, obi-wan & anakin, 2.3k Shortly after Mustafar, Anakin realizes what he has done. He finds Obi-Wan to beg for death. ✦ Fifth Migration by wrennette, yoda & mace & obi-wan & ki-adi & yarael & coleman & plo & palpatine & cast, 2k How about an AU where the Sith’s Grand Plan accounted for everything -everything that is, except the fact that the Jedi temple is actually an very ancient spacecraft and the second word got to the Jedi about there being clones on Kamino, all Jedi are called back inside and they take off immediately? Just imagine the dear chancellor’s face… ✦ fill pages with scribbled ink by magneticwave, obi-wan/padme & sabe & mace & quinlan & cast, 9.8k A year after the Invasion of Naboo, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi is invited by Queen Amidala to return to Naboo and participate in a rite known as the Night of Fireflies. Things kind of snowball from there. ✦ Mind Your Words by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin, spanking, 7k Obi-Wan reminds Anakin that there are consequences for careless behavior for young Jedi on missions. ✦ (you taught me) the courage of stars by grumpyhedgehogs, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, 5.1k wip Ahsoka Tano flees after a warrant for her arrest is issued, but not before receiving aid from an unexpected ally. (Ahsoka proceeds to go on a road trip filled with a bunch of strangers who all say the same thing: Obi-Wan Kenobi is much more than he has ever appeared to be.) ✦ they faked it (guess everything’s complicated) by katierosefun, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, 4.5k Ahsoka temporarily loses memories of the events of Obi-Wan’s fake death. To help with the healing process, Anakin and Obi-Wan have to pretend that they’re okay. ✦ programed to dream by ghostwriterofthemachine, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, body horror, 1.3k The spaceship Comet-rider is the fastest, most efficient vessel in the galaxy, and is crewed by Separatist-funded pirates. Anakin Skywalker is missing. Unfortunately, these two things are connected. ✦ Unpleasant Truths by hellowkatey, obi-wan & anakin, 2.1k Obi-Wan and Anakin are stuck in a room with one another while waiting for truth serum to wear off. ✦ moment’s silence by skatzaa, obi-wan & owen & beru & luke & leia (pre-obi-wan/beru-owen), 2k Owen had long since resigned himself to trouble, whenever Beru got that particularly stubborn set to her jaw. ✦ hold gently and let go by shatou, obi-wan & anakin (pre-slash?), 1.7k A troubled Anakin comes to Obi-Wan to discuss attachments. ✦ sun child by Ro29, obi-wan & anakin, 2.1k (or; sometimes being so tied to the Force causes problems, Obi-Wan helps his Padawan as best he can) ✦ A Dinner Out by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & cast, 1.6k Obi-Wan can’t get his young Padawan to eat much, so he tries something new. But trying something different has unintended consequences. ✦ Shades in the Desert by loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin & luke & owen/beru, 10.8k Not even from a certain point of view did Darth Vader kill Anakin Skywalker. He wished he did, but the specter of the Jedi’s light escaped before he could finalize his fall to the dark. Meanwhile, Anakin is raising his son on Tatooine. ✦ somewhere along in the bitterness by CallToMuster, obi-wan & anakin, major character death, 3.8k It was probably the twelfth day floating alone in space that Obi-Wan and Anakin realized no one was coming for them. ✦ Songs for Little Jedi by soft_but_gremlin, mace & younglings, ~1k The initiates are having nightmares, so Mace sings a lullaby to comfort them. ✦ atmosphere level by softredscrunchie, obi-wan/satine & qui-gon, 1k As a joke, Satine tells Obi-Wan she thinks Mandalore is flat. He doesn’t take it well. ✦ on sith holocrons and misunderstandings by billowypants, obi-wan & anakin & mace & yoda & cast, de-aged!obi-wan, 7.2k or, de-aged!Obi-Wan has the same Force bonds as adult Obi-Wan, and he does not react well. ✦ Perseverance & Resilience by loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin, 1.1k In the aftermath of Naboo, Obi-Wan realizes he needs strength to protect his new Padawan. Growing up, Anakin needs peace. ✦ A Delicate Balance by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & yoda & jedi, spanking, 9.6k As Anakin��s skills grow, so too does his penchant for getting into trouble. After a training mishap, Obi-Wan struggles with his role as Anakin’s master. ✦ mirror, mirror by CallToMuster, obi-wan & anakin, 5.4k Obi-Wan has been rescued by Anakin after being rather embarrassingly kidnapped on the remote planet of Ilnuria during his investigation of rumored kyber crystals deep beneath the planet’s surface. …But is all as it seems? ✦ Mace Windu Appreciation Week by Redminibike1, mace & obi-wan & anakin & ponds & cody & jedi & cast, 12.5k Set of unconnected ficlets for Mace Windu Appreciation Week, because he deserves it :) ✦ begin again as a quiet thought by skatzaa, obi-wan/quinlan, d/s, ~1k Cool, smooth leather touched his jaw—gloves. Because of course Obi-Wan had thought of that as well. ✦ Drunken Lullabies by Siri_Kenobi12, obi-wan & anakin & siri & quinlan & aayla & garen & bant & ferus, 6.5k “Do I really have to go to this thing?” Fourteen year old Anakin Skywalker dramatically sighed. “It’s sooo boring!” ✦ heaven knows how I love you by the_13th_battalion, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, 1.2k Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka are stranded on an unfamiliar planet overnight. They spend their time exploring the community- and maybe they get a little closer to each other along the way. ✦ A Reckless Padawan by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, spanking, 3.9k When Ahsoka upsets Anakin with an act of reckless disobedience, it falls to her grandmaster to help her see the error of her ways. OBI-WAN/ANAKIN RECS: ✦ Too Hot by secretsolarsystem, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 4.8k Too Hot: A game where two players kiss without stopping and without touching each other. If one player touches the other, that player loses. The winner gets to do whatever they want to the loser. ✦ Nostos by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin & padme, NSFW, 17k Or, how Obi-Wan and Anakin discover that there are many ways to come home. ✦ to touch the light, darkest by treescape, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 1.9k Obi-Wan begins to fuck Vader back to the light ✦ encode by loosingletters, obi-wan/anakin & padme & handmaidens & cast, 26.3k wip Instead of being accepted into the Jedi Order at the age of 9, Anakin Skywalker became a ward of Naboo. ✦ Hunting the Homeward Light by GreenQueenofClubs, obi-wan/anakin & mace & ahsoka & shmi & padme & cast, 31.9k wip When Anakin Skywalker was nine, he left his whole life and mother behind to follow Qui-Gon Jinn to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple. When Anakin Skywalker was twelve, he left his whole life and Master behind to follow Mace Windu to the Outer Rim and away from the Jedi Order. When Anakin Skywalker was twenty… ✦ use my body to break your fall by tennessoui, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 44.7k wip Obi-Wan Kenobi is too good at being a Sith Lord general of the Separatist army. The Jedi Council approaches Anakin with an offer he can’t refuse. These things are, actually, related. ✦ Over and Over by obiwanobi, obi-wan/anakin, 1.4k “I love you,” he blurts out, loud and impossible to miss. Obi-Wan blinks once, twice. And freezes. The first time Anakin tells him is a mortifying experience. ✦ Exceptions by rinverse, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & mace & quinlan & cast, NSFW, modern au, 23.4k Young and brilliant, Anakin is the mind behind JEDI Tech’s latest innovation. Obi-Wan is the company’s perfectly composed Director of PR & Marketing. And last night, they were just two strangers at a bar, looking for something quick and easy. But life had other plans when it crossed their paths again the very next day. ✦ Here There Be Dragons by Ghost_Owl, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, 10.1k Anakin knows why he can’t shift into his animal form like every other Jedi. It’s because he doesn’t want to, it’s because he’s had a vision of what he would become, and he doesn’t want it. ✦ Waiting in a Sea of Stars by Peach_Bitters (peachybitters), obi-wan/anakin, ~1k Stranded in deep space, Obi-Wan and Anakin wait for rescue. ✦ Tristitia by JSwander, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 5k An alternate timeline where Palpatine focuses his attentions on Obi-Wan Kenobi instead of Anakin Skywalker after the attack on Naboo. ✦ Prompted - Chapter 11: Communication, What Communication? by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, modern au, mobster au, 7k a 7k obikin PWP that is somehow a prompt mashup of a mobster au, an accidental sugar daddy au, with a soupçon of an anakin never left tatooine au, and a pinch of qui-gon was anakin’s dad au ✦ who a person truly is cannot be seen with the eye by RexIsMyCopilot, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, d/s, spanking, 3.6k Anakin purposely avoids doing what Obi-Wan tells him to do. ✦ Prompted - Chapter 12: Potidaea, 432BC, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, historical au, 4.3k Here is a short smutty scene inspired by all those classics asks, Alcibiades praising Socrates in Plato’s Symposium, and this vase c.490-480 B.C. depicting standing, face-to-face intercrural intercourse between a bearded man and a youth, which as far as we can tell was the most common and accepted position for it in Ancient Greece. ✦ Prompted - Chapter 13: Minikin and Tiny-Wan by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 5.4k Happy May the Fourth! In honor of this happy day, I have written the fluffiest, crackiest, vanilla-flavored smut imaginable. Based on long discussions on discord with tomicaleto about her adorable Tiny AU. ✦ to hold until brightness by treescape, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 1.4k Obi-Wan feared that it drew out the darkest in him, to bring Vader to these flashes of light, but it was a trade he would make again and again without hesitation. ✦ May Be Found, If Sought by ghostwriterofthemachine, obi-wan/anakin & mace & quinlan, magical academy au, 2.3k In which Quinlan, Mace, and Obi-Wan teach Non-Traditional Magical Philosophy in an institution rampant with academic snobbery and discrimination, something dark is stirring in the nearby forest, and no one is ever prepared for Anakin Skywalker. A small story about first meetings in magical academia. ✦ infinitely varied by loosingletters, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, modern au, 2.2k Also known as Obi-Wan and Anakin teach a tiny program called A.H.S.O.K.A. how to be something more than lines of code via the power of linguistics. ✦ recipe for disaster by tennessoui, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, modern au, 9.8k When Ahsoka tells Anakin she doesn’t want to learn piano anymore, Anakin is heartbroken. He doesn’t care about the instrument, obviously, but he’s practically in love with her teacher. Obi-Wan offers up a solution to their impending separation, and it’s not dating like any normal person would suggest. Instead, he’s gonna teach Anakin how to cook. Except Anakin’s a pretty well-known chef, and Obi-Wan is absolutely awful in the kitchen. ✦ Pretty Kitty by GayCheerios, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 2.2k “Master, you always take such good care of me,” Anakin says, a little chirp coming after his sentence, as his thumb rests on Anakin’s plump bottom lip. ✦ As One, Into Eternity by Pseudonymoose, obi-wan/anakin, force ghosts, 3.1k Death comes, but the man who was, and is, and will be Anakin Skywalker is not gone. And in the Force, he will never be alone again. ✦ does he make you laugh? by y0u_idjits, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, fusion fic, 3.6k “Tell me it’s not about screwing the guy who’s screwing your husband.” ✦ Rotten Work by secretsolarsystem, obi-wan/anakin, 2.8k Obi-Wan: I’ll take care of you. Anakin, with bloodshot eyes and a broken back from hours of terrible posture: It’s rotten work. Obi-Wan, who needs to bathe this man for his own sanity and health: Not to me. Not if it’s you. ✦ afterimages by shatou, obi-wan/anakin, 1.3k Mustafar is nothing but a bad dream. ✦ understanding is honoring the truth beneath the surface by RexIsMyCopilot, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, d/s, 7.3k Anakin asks Obi-Wan to take control. ✦ The strongest stars… by Tomicaleto, obi-wan/anakin & beru & cast, NSFW, 7.4k The war’s end seems to be close, with everyone looking forward to it. And when Anakin is doubting himself the most, an unexpected visit arrives at the Temple. ✦ home has a heartbeat by izazov, obi-wan/anakin, 5.6k Or: Anakin and Obi-Wan are together, but there are still some things left unsaid between them. ✦ turn back now (i’m haunted) by tennessoui, obi-wan/anakin & padme & quinlan & ahsoka & cast, modern au, ghosts au, 25k wip Anakin Skywalker’s house is haunted. Luckily for him, Padmé knows a ghost hunter. Unluckily for him, it’s the hottest, most english-professor ghost hunter he’s ever seen. And extremely unluckily for him, he’s starting to get the feeling he understands maybe ten percent of what’s actually going on here, not to mention what’s at stake. ✦ game plan by treescape, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 11.2k Or, Vader keeps capturing Obi-Wan during the Wars. Obi-Wan keeps escaping. It’s kind of a thing. ✦ Provocation by ToolMusicLover, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 4.9k Or: Obi-Wan and Anakin attempt to navigate their complicated relationship with barbed words and wilful ignorance. It wasn’t going well. ✦ Languages by Crowgirl, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 6.5k So Anakin pulls out a map and makes a list. REBELS RECS: ✦ The Scent of You by ambiguously, kanan/hera & cast, a smidge of nsfw, 2.9k Everything changes after Malachor, and Kanan has trouble finding his balance. ✦ Heard It in a Love Song (Can’t Be Wrong) by ambiguously, zeb/kallus, 2.7k Kallus can’t quite figure out what makes Zeb tick, but he keeps trying. ORIGINAL TRILOGY/MANDALORIAN RECS: ✦ A Discussion of Choices by Peppermint_Shamrock, luke & mace, 2k Mace Windu has traveled the galaxy since the fall of the Republic, keeping out of the Empire’s sight and teaching where he can. Upon the request of a ghost of an old friend, Mace finds himself instructing Luke Skywalker, who is still reeling from the truth of Vader’s identity. ✦ staring down the barrel of the hot sun by magneticwave, luke/din & obi-wan & grogu & mace & cast, 25.7k “Gone to a Child of the Watch, the Darksaber has,” Grand Master Yoda announces in his creaky little voice. “Peace, there is not, and yet peace, there must be.” ✦ Released by Peppermint_Shamrock, cody & rex & luke & cast, 6k Nearly two and a half decades late, Cody’s chip is finally removed. Adjusting to having his mind returned to him after so long takes time, and Cody struggles with questions of his purpose of the past, present, and future. Fortunately, he does not have to struggle alone. ✦ A Tatooine Rainstorm by skatzaa, leia & luke & shmi, 1.7k Leia meets a ghost. ✦ Dealing with the Darksaber by Peppermint_Shamrock, din & bo-katan & cara, 1.3k After her recovery, Bo-Katan contacts Din to challenge him for the darksaber. Din is still very much not interested in the whole affair. FULL DETAILS + RECS HERE

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #mace windu #obikin #fic recs #star wars fic recs #long post

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4birds-of-a-feather · 3 years

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Chapter 27 - Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight (when it’s exactly twelve o’clock that night) [part 3]

Birds Of a Feather

(In the previous chapters: after a wild match of a new game called I Have a Ball, the gang can finally start the party; among the guests there are Chris and Matt of Soundgarden, Layne and his girlfriend Demri and a couple of Mudhoney guys; to avoid an embarrassing situation, Sara suggests a game of Never Have I Ever which, despite Stone’s objection, is endorsed by several guests: now they can finally get to the heart of the party)

At this point the guests had basically split in three groups: some of them were stuffing their faces in the kitchen, others were dancing and listening to the music and some were taking their seats in a circle in the middle of the living room to play the game. “I can’t believe I’m doing this!” whined Stone as he sat down on the carpet “What did you plan for midnight? Musical chairs or broom dance?” “Stop complaining Gossard, nobody forces you to play if you don’t want to!” Cornell retorted to him and then went on “And actually I planned something great for midnight… you’ll see” “Should we be scared?” Layla wondered aloud as she noticed the devilish grin on Chris’s face. “Not much more than usual” Mike shrugged as he sat on the couch between her and Lukin. “Anyway, there’s no children games or grown up games: a game is a game, then it depends on how you play it” the girl explained then turned around immediately when she heard someone beside her open his mouth. “Yeeeah, and it depends on how much play you get” Elias spoke like he came out of thin air. “Elias?? Where have you been?” “When you grow up, I’ll tell you all about it, my darling one” the guy gave her a blatant wink “Let’s just say that it involved physical activity with a blonde bombshell…” “I didn’t know that indoor plants could be blondes...” “What do you mean, Mr. Cameron?” “I mean that, apparently, you have a thing for ficus plants and you also find ‘em incredibly blonde; I saw you sprawled between them half an hour ago, but I never took you for a-fuck, what’s the name?” “... Dendrophiliac?” “Yes, exactly! Thanks, Layla, you’re an angel” the drummer flashed at Layla one of his sunny grins, while Elias began to whine. “Matt, what a low blow! I expected that from everybody in this room – except you and Ed, and look where my admiration for you has led me!” “... What kind of hippie freak are you, O’Reilly? Hell, going at it with a vegetable?! And it wasn’t even a carrot or a pickle, what is your damag-” Jeff had looked at him all perplexed, but he was fortunately interrupted by loud coughs made by Layla. “Soooo, everybody here knows the rules?” the girl asked, but was met by skeptical looks “Jeez, what kind of adolescence did y’all have?” “One that didn’t include fun, apparently” Elias shrugged, still licking his wounds after his previous skirmish with Matt. “Ok, I get it: first of all, grab the poison of your choice” and, as she said it, she filled herself a glass of tequila that had been previously hoarded in the middle of the circle with many other kinds of booze. Soon after Sara had shrugged and grabbed a bottle of beer, while Demri helped herself to a glass of sangria and then, one by one, everybody followed their example and was having something alcoholic clenched in their hands. “Very good” Layla cleared her throat “One by one, each one of us begins their sentence with ‘Never have I ever’ and then proceeds to say something they have never done; if you did the thing that has just been said, you have to take a sip of your drink” “Milady, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention” Lukin declared, a hand upon his heart. “Now, this is the most important rule, so pay attention: you have to remember that the winners are the ones who have their glasses at their fullest” “... Layla, are you telling us that having a life as interesting as a sloth’s is the key to success?” Cornell scratched his temple, glancing at her in a perplexed way. “I think she is” “Well, I have a question” Stone, unexpectedly, raised his hand “You talked about glasses, but many of us have chosen bottles, so it would take ‘em more time to empty that instead of a glass, right? Doesn’t that sound like a huge advantage to any of you?” “... he’s right, they have more booze to drink, that’s unfair!” Mike chimed in, pouting and waving his glass of whiskey in the face of everybody. “That’s not what I meant, Cready, lemm-” “But you can always grab another glass after you emptied the first, man! That’s what I’m gonna do” Lukin patted Mike on the shoulder, showing him his own glass of gin, and the guitarist returned to being his usual cheerful self. “Ok, so, who starts?” Layla asked, rolling her eyes. “Well, since you suggested the game in the first place, it’s only fair that you’re the one who goes first” Eddie answered gently. <The fact I’m also eager to know the things you did and didn’t do has got nothing to do with it, of course> “Oh, ok so ne-” the girl was answering but was immediately cut off by Stone. “Err-Ed, it was actually Sara who suggested it. Or the mysterious person she heard it from” “Huh? Oh yeah, you’re right, you go first, Sara” the singer admitted and mentally counted how many rounds were there before Layla’s turn. “Yeah, Sara, you can start” Layla winked at her friend and everybody else agreed but someone else chimed in again. “I have an idea. Why don’t we all drink a glass of something and the one who empties it faster starts?” McCready suggested. “That’s what I call starting with a boom, I’m in, man! So 3… 2… 1-” Lukin immediately went along with him and brought his glass close to his mouth. “Nuh-huh, we’re gonna take it slow, it’s less funny if we all get drunk before the start” Layla innocently explained. “Now that’s not exactly true, miss” Lukin addressed the girl in a contrived way. “Everybody shut up! Sara will begin, end of the story” Stone took over and everybody simply agreed without further questioning. <Haha, I got the power> “Well, well, well” Sara tapped the bottle of beer against her lips “Never have I ever…” she stopped and looked Jeff directly in the eye “... got a love letter” Layla promptly gulped a sip of tequila, leaving Ed lost in his thoughts: he couldn’t believe that the Boston piece of shit could be able to make such a significant gesture. “Mikey, what the fuck are you doin’?” “Taking a sip, obviously” “... who wrote you a love letter? When did that happen?!” “My love life isn’t any concern of yours, Stoney” and, that said, McCready finally drank a bit of his whiskey, then turned to a pouty Lukin “Dude, why that sad face??” “...” Lukin didn’t open his mouth because he was already near the stage of an alcohol-fueled coma, but Mike perceived his silence as a sign of possible discomfort and shame. “Don’t tell me that nobody ever wrote you a love letter!” he added, shocked “That is outrageous! But you don’t have to cry about it, if you want I’ll write you one” “... Elias, put that glass down; nobody’s gonna believe you” Stone changed his victim, who rolled his eyes but did as he had said. In the middle of all that noise, Demri and Layne shared a glance full of complicity and drank almost at the same time, while Chris and Matt clinked their glasses and unironically did the same. “Nobody specified if it had to be sincere or a bet would suffice as well, so…” Cornell smirked, then looked at Eddie, who hadn’t moved a muscle “Ed, you’re not drinking?” “Yeah, I-I’m usually the one who writes ‘em” the singer let out a nervous chuckle, then turned to the girl who was sitting next to him and that was muttering something under her breath “Everything ok, Sara?” The young woman’s gaze at Jeff was literal lava, ready to boil all over him. “That piece of shit… he doesn’t even have the balls to admit it, fuckin’ unbelievable” she snorted, then added in a loud voice “Somebody in this room is so full of shit it’s not even funny” When Jeff gave her a perplexed glance, she went on: “Yeah, I’m talking about you” “Man, what does she mean with that?” Elias went near the bassist in order to satisfy his curiosity, but the guy just shrugged. “She must have forgotten to take her medicine, you’ll get used to it” Jeff reassured him as he kept eye contact with Sara. <So what? Only because I’m lucky with girls, it doesn’t mean I gotta receive stupid love letters every day… And since when is this any of her business? Is she jealous? She fuckin’ hates me, how can she be jealous? And why does she fucking hate me anyway? Can’t we just have fun without problems for once?> Seeing the vein pulsing on her temple, Eddie put a hand on the girl’s arm: “Don’t mind him, you know how he is” he paused a second, then beamed with enthusiasm “Now it’s my turn!” “Who said that?” Stone asked after gazing from Sara to Jeff during their exchange like the spectator of a tennis match. “Well, we’re following the order…” Eddie explained pointing at Sara sitting next to him, then at himself, then towards Lukin and the other people sitting on the couch. “Who decided it’s counterclockwise?” Mike wondered. “How can you say cun- cou- caunt- county- oh fuck, how can you say that fuckin’ word when drunk?” Lukin tried to make a point. “Sadly not drunk enough, my friend” Mike wiped invisible tears from under his eyes while the bass player patted him on the leg. “Who cares if it’s clockwise or not, let’s go on!” Jeff huffed at Stone and flailed his arms, anxious to go on with the game, mostly to shift the attention on something else. “So – cough, cough! – can I?” Eddie hesitantly demanded. “Yeah, sure!” everybody prompted him to go on. “Ok so… uhm… never have I ever… got back with an ex” he said looking intently at the carpet beneath his feet. Some people drank, some people didn’t. Mike drank from his glass as Layla left hers untouched and gave him a puzzled look. “Really, Mike?” “What can I say? The soul is willing but the flesh is weak” Layla nodded embarrassed and when she looked at Eddie, he looked down again pretending not to be staring at her, now acting preoccupied with his fingernails. <So she didn’t. But she wanted to. Does she still? She would be back with him already if it wasn’t for the snow. It’s just a matter of time anyway… Shit, I should have asked ‘Never have I ever WANTED to get back with an ex’. I’ll wait for my next round... Will it be too obvious?> “Guess it’s my turn now” Lukin shrugged then stood up from the couch for no reason. “You don’t have to stand up to say the thing, Matt” McCready reminded him but he acted like he didn’t hear him. “Never have I ever… lied to a friend to avoid a greater evil” he stated then plopped back down on the couch with a burp. “Wait... this is a normal question” Jeff frowned as he, like everybody else, was expecting some senseless stuff. “Isn’t it alright?” Lukin asked and was about to stand up again, not without any effort, but Layla promptly pulled him down right away. “It’s alright, Matt, the question is perfect” she said and proceeded to drink from her glass. Steve, who hadn’t drunk in the first two rounds, did the same, just like Sara, Mike and literally everybody else. “Mikey, you basically did everything” Layne joked. <Yeah, finally something I actually did for real> the guitarist pondered and smiled. “Well, once I said I had troubles at home with my family and couldn’t make it to rehearsal. But I actually went to a party and got shitfaced” “YOU DID WHAT?” Stone and Jeff attacked him almost at the same time while the others just laughed. “You liar! And I was even worried about you” Stone shook his head. “You were worried only because you had paid to book the practising space in advance!” the other guitarist retorted, sticking his tongue out at him. “Do it again and I’ll bust your head wide open” Ament threatened pointing his finger at him. “You’re one to talk! Did you forget when you came late to soundcheck at the Off Ramp and said it was because of a jammed brake pad in your truck you had to check?” Mikey ironically asked “But what you actually had to check out was instead that girl from 7-Eleven?” “YOU WHAT? GUYS, I’M SERIOUSLY DISAPPOINTED” Stone folded his arms and gave them both a scolding look. “Well yeah, I can understand Mike, but I thought you were more focused on art, honestly” Eddie chimed in with a shitty grin on his face. “Huh, not you too, please!” “What does it mean you can understand me? I’m focused on my art too” the guitarist acted offended “Sometimes you just need a break, you know?” “Come on, give Jeff a break! And you’re right Mike, don’t listen to them! It’s your turn now” Layla tried to bring peace in the gang and asked him to go on with the game. “Thank you, Four Eyes! It’s your turn, Judas” Jeff looked up at the girl, then stared at Mike with narrowed eyes. “Ok, so… uhm… never have I ever flown on a dragon” he said as he brought up his glass as if he was making a toast. “Hahaha, shut up! That’s not valid, man” Elias blurted out laughing at the guitarist’s face, just like anybody else in the circle. “Why not? You shut up” “Err, Mikey, actually… I think Elias is right in this particular circumstance: you can’t make unreal statements” Layla scratched her head and tried to convince him without irritating him. “Oh sorry, Miss Boulais, I didn’t know this rule. I’ll come up with something else” McCready reassured her and Layla sighed with relief “Never have I ever… been to Mongolia” Everybody giggled and Layla facepalmed. Of course nobody drank. “Mike, the aim of the game is not drinking, you know that, right?” Layla whispered into his ear. “Don’t worry, I’ve got my strategy!” he winked at her and then asked the group before taking the umpteenth sip “So? Nobody? Ok, looks like I gotta drink then” “You seem to ignore other rules too though, did you know that?” Lukin broke the silence right when Layla was thinking about her statement. “Which rules?” “Once you said your Never have I ever, you can’t actually change it… unless you take a penalty” Matt went on to explain and for a moment Eddie detached from the situation and observed the scene as an external spectator. <Two drunk grown men debating about the rules of Never have I ever, and it’s not even midnight> “He had to change it because it wasn’t valid, not because he wanted to change it himself” Chris pointed out. “Right, Chris, thank you! I love you man, did I ever tell you? Oh, and what was this penalty supposed to be anyway?” “Easy. You had to drink all player’s cups. But since you didn’t want to change it yourself…” Lukin shrugged and Mike suddenly sat straight up on the couch. “OH, BUT I WANTED TO!” “Haha, but you just said-” Layne chuckled at him while Demri muttered to herself she was expecting this comeback. “FORGET WHAT I SAID” “But Chris just said-” Cameron wanted to join in the fun too. “FORGET WHAT HE SAID, FUCK CHRIS, OK??” “And he said he loved me!” Chris pretended to cry on his drummer’s shoulder and Matt patted his head. “Stop being an animal, Cready, and let Layla speak. It’s her turn” Gossard reproached him and Mike sulked like a child. “Ok so… mmm…” Layla collected her thoughts and then spoke in one single breath “Never have I ever led anyone to believe I liked them whereas I actually had a crush on their best friend and so was just leading this person on to get to their friend” “This is… very specific, El” Sara squinted at her, trying to understand what her friend was up to. “It’s just an average game question” Layla shrugged but didn’t convince the other girl. <She’s a worse liar than Mike> Only Stone and Jeff drank, therefore getting a reproach from Layla herself. Ed didn’t drink and this was a sort of answer to Layla’s little suspects about him and her roommate. She smiled at him but was almost more shocked about someone else not drinking. “... Mike?” “Yes, babe?” “You didn’t drink” “Sure I didn’t. I’d never be such a jerk to a woman!” he replied with a disgusted face making everybody laugh, whereas Layla beamed and kissed him on the cheek. “Your kindness is stronger than your thirst, I’m impressed” “My turn now!” Elias yelled and everyone focused on him “Never have I ever… thought a friend’s mom, ehm, a friend’s parent was hot” “Wow, a dirty question, who would have thought!” Sara rolled her eyes but also drank soon after. “What??” her roommate was sincerely surprised. “Well, that was really unexpected… color me impressed!” Steve grinned at her, raising his glass high in her honor. “Some dads are really something else, you can’t deny that” Sara justified herself and high fived Demri, who had just taken a sip as well “Let’s just say that this particular man made me re-evaluate the role of hideous Speedo swimsuits in society” “Amen, sister” Demri let out a loud cheer and patted her on the shoulder. “Are you really drinking?” Cameron gave Cornell a weird look. “Don’t you remember the story about Kevin’s mom?” the singer clarified. “Haha right, I forgot” Mike drank but nobody was surprised. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Jeffrey!” Stone reacted sadly at Ament drinking from his cup. “You’re such a bigot” the bass player grinned broadly. “I’ll never let you anywhere near my house and my mother again” “It’s not your mom that I find hot, don’t worry” Jeff tried to reassure him but got an unexpected reaction. “Why? What’s wrong with my mom?” “N-nothing, it’s just-” “So you think my mom is ugly?” “Not at all, Mary Carolyn is such a nice woman” “Oh, so now you’re on a first name basis! Do you think you have a connection or something?” “No, you just said that-” “Keep your dirty hands off my mother!” “You’re all making it up. I only meant that-” “Jeff, you’re stuck in a vicious circle. The only way out is to drop the subject and make your Never have I ever statement, since it’s your turn. Trust me” Steve gave precious advice to Jeff, who nodded and focused on what to say. “Never have I ever burnt bridges with somebody without any reason and without giving them the chance to explain themselves” “... Damn, Ames, you take no prisoners” Chris let out a low whistle, and the bassist shrugged, waiting for the inevitable glasses raised, but they never came. “Fancini, you ain’t thirsty?” he raised an eyebrow and received a middle finger as a reply. <Yeah, there was absolutely no fuckin’ need to hear ya explaining why the fuck you acted like an utter piece of shit – the reasons were all there, so you can put this bottle up your ass!> the girl thought, trying to ignore him. “Seems like nobody’s gonna drink this round, so… BOTTOMS UP!” Layne clapped his hands while Jeff stood up and emptied his cup. “I swear I wanted to say the exact same thing, I had it on the tip of my tongue!” Mike whined – he hadn’t taken a sip because he hadn’t totally understood what the hell his bandmate had said, but if that question had allowed him to gulp down his drink, then he was sure that it had to be something brilliant. “Well… seems like it’s your turn, Stoney!” Layla chirped, a bit in high spirits but with her hands steady, now intent on refilling Ament’s glass. “Never have I ever avoided to face something important until the problems became bigger and uglier, so I regretted not doing anything about it before” Stone laid it out as simple as that without losing the smirk on his face, looking left and right at the bunch of friends. <That was pretty easy…> Gossard thought <This is not a New Year’s party, it’s a reunion of the Unfinished Business Club... Well, am I the one to talk?> When Stone and Layla made eye contact, the girl thought the question was directed right at her. Everybody knew about her ex boyfriend by now. What they didn’t know was that their relationship was over before the “Eddiegate” and way before she put an actual end to that. She’d always been aware that things weren’t good, that she was just too attached and insecure to let him go. <I chose an allegedly perfect boyfriend who was never actually there over dealing with actual people and the whole process of getting to know each other. I was so scared, and still am, that I’d rather not risk it and preferred a relationship that didn’t make sense anymore> At the same time Layla instinctively looked at her left towards Eddie and stole a quick glance of him knitting his eyebrows as if he was pondering something. He didn’t seem someone who would avoid obstacles to her, she couldn’t imagine him running away from problems, she liked him for being honest and straightforward. <Yeah, I do like him> she said as she figured out she had two reasons to drink and took a sip from her cup. As Stone spoke, for some reason Eddie’s mind immediately went to the mixtape he had sent over to them a few months earlier. All his feelings about his family, his mom, his dad, his stepdad, everything he had kept bottled up for so long and suddenly came out all at once. At times he thought it was too bad or too late, some other times he even believed there was still hope for him. It was always either black or white for him, nothing in between. And he started to think that maybe if he had addressed his issues before, his life wouldn’t be the rollercoaster of emotions it was. <Thinking about roller coasters…> he said to himself as he looked towards the right and saw Layla drinking. Eddie saw the situation very clear for a minute. How could he blame her for trying to get in touch with her boyfriend again, when he did absolutely nothing about her in the meantime? He had never told her anything or asked her out, except for the failed attempt to go to the movies with her alone. Was it too late for that too or was there any hope left? In doubt, he drank from his glass too. Next to Stone, Jeff had let out a huge sigh and rolled his eyes: leave it to his best friend to pour some lemon and salt over the wound, then worsen the situation by twisting a rusted knife inside of it and letting it fester. He suddenly felt a great wave of fatigue washing all over him, and pinched the bridge of his nose because he had the feeling that a headache was behind the corner; it didn’t matter how many miles he had tried to put between himself and the first half of that particular year they were about to say goodbye to: the past had its ways to come back and bite you in the ass, and his nights spent by mulling over years and years of regrets and lost chances could prove it. Just thinking about Andy was still able to give him nausea, because his mind inevitably drifted to the last time he had seen him – hooked up to the machines, an unrecognizable empty shell where once had stood a bright young man, full of hopes and dreams bigger than his own life. Andy’s addiction had always been the notorious elephant in the room: everybody knew it was there, but nobody acknowledged its existence. They had tried to make him understand how serious his situation was – how jeopardizing it would have been for their careers – and, for a while, it had seemed to work: he had been sober for a few months and was positive about their future, confident about their imminent success. In the morning of that goddamn day he was supposed to go to the gym with him, but instead had called him to say that he didn’t feel good; his voice had been kinda scratchy, but Jeff had thought nothing of it – he was sick and didn’t need a nanny around, the day after he would have been good as new, that’s what he had told himself… that’s also what he had repeated to himself when he had stepped inside the hospital that same evening, cursing himself because he should have understood that something was wrong in his voice and it hadn’t been the sickness talking, but the heroin. He had also cursed Andy for throwing their jobs out the window, then cursed again himself for being a shitty human being who in that moment could only think of financial stability and not the fact that his friend wasn’t there anymore and that the lifeless corpse lying on the bed was a reminder of how nobody – not even the brightest fellows – in the end can save themselves. Now his thoughts drifted to the last New Year’s Eve party he had attended, where Andy had been gushing nonstop over The Miracle by Queen: he had been sober for a while and his eyes were literally sparkling while he talked about the English band’s latest single and eponymous album. Nobody could compete with the level of enthusiasm that Andy always showed when he talked about Queen – nobody, except maybe one person. Jeff raised his head and looked in front of him, where a pale-faced Sara was sitting with her legs crossed: even from his place he could see how in this moment her dark lipstick and metallic eyeshadow stood out on her face. <Avoided to face something important until the problems became bigger and uglier… regretted not doing anything about it before…> Stone had been a direct witness of how messed up he had become five years before, when he had spent a whole week being dead worried and then it had only taken Sara a few minutes to make his world crumble around him, but he didn’t think his friend would be capable of using that piece of information to gain some advantage in a stupid game… right? Unless Stone had suddenly developed some serious telepathic skills, it would have been simply impossible: after all, it was a conclusion he had come to just in the last few weeks, so the deliberate jab at him had to be ruled out. After more than five years, Jeff had finally convinced himself that yes, that infamous day he could have indeed done something more; he could have persisted, insisted to talk to her and demanded some explanations after she had told him to leave her alone forever because, apparently, he had ruined her life and there was nothing he could do to fix it. She had clearly been in distress and he had obviously noticed it but, foolish as he was, he had preferred to indulge her instead of pushing the subject further on and trying to understand how he could help her. Sara had always been a reserved person – one could say that she resembled a vault – but maybe, with the right words and intentions, he would have been able to breach her notorious armor of stubbornness and pride, and she wouldn’t have disappeared for so many years, or at least they wouldn’t have been in those horrible terms. Maybe. He let out a sigh and drank from his glass and, in that exact moment, the girl fixed her gaze on him and noticed that he was already staring at her; she wrinkled her nose and turned her face away, as to avoid his inquisitive gaze: the last thing she needed was someone trying to understand what was going on in her mind. <Fuckin’ Gossrad and his disturbed competitiveness…> He was referring to that goddamn July of 1985, she was sure of it; he hadn’t been there when the outburst had taken place but he surely had comforted Jeff after it: that’s how those two rolled, talking shit about each other but always rushing to the aid of the other one whenever something – someone – terrible had happened to him. And that’s what she had been for Jeff: something terrible – something terribly weird, irritating, plain stupid like only a teenager can be; something to laugh about with his friends, to parade around like a shitty trophy, to forget as soon as the game had ceased to be funny, along with his old fake-ass personality and behavior, and never again to be talked about. It didn’t matter if her heart clenched whenever he laughed because he still got wrinkles around the corners of his eyes, like he used to do… she had to bury that annoying buzz deeper, alongside their old selves – fake or not – that they had so meticulously killed. No laughter or smile could carry the same meaning of five years before. She couldn’t be fooled: she was the first one whose eyes couldn’t smile anymore, no matter how broad the grins she displayed were. She also couldn’t care less if anybody – her aunt Liliana, Leo, even Eddie – told her that she needed help, that she couldn’t go on like this, always internalizing, always stifling what she really felt, always thinking she had to face everything on her own… they could keep on babbling, she was still the one who in the end got to make the decisions. <Ok, my whole life has been a perpetual avoidance of every fuckin’ problem until it has all become a majestic mess, and there isn’t a single day that passes without me thinking I could have done something better with my life… so what? Does this give everybody the right to tell me how I should or should not live? Don’t think so> The girl finally ended her internal monologue with a scoff and emptied her glass, without the slightest intention of making eye contact with anybody.

#Eddie Vedder #Jeff Ament #Pearl Jam #eddie vedder fanfiction #pearl jam fanfiction #grunge fanfiction #jeff ament fanfiction #Birds of a Feather #chapters

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anistarrose · 4 years

Text

Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually (TAZ Balance AU)

AO3

Summary: In the aftermath of the catastrophe at the Miller Lab, Kravitz strikes a deal with his bounties. Their crimes against death will be forgiven if they can bring in two specific liches for arrest…

But unfortunately, those liches are named Lup and Barry J. Bluejeans.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, misc. BoB cameos

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz

I posted the second of three scenes in this chapter on Tumblr in January, not really expecting to continue it at the time, but it was well-received there, and I realized that I actually have a lot more ideas for this AU than I expected! This fic has been in the works for months, and I’m simultaneously so excited, nervous, and relieved to get it out of my mind and into the world.

That said, there is one other person who’s read this fic before, and that’s @fexiled! They’ve been an awesome (and patient) beta reader, and I’m incredibly grateful to them for all their advice, typo-catching, and encouragement!

***

Kravitz couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of sinister agenda would possibly bring a lich to a train station, but he’d intercepted Barry J. Bluejeans in stranger places than Rockport. If he was after any other bounty, he’d be worried about the nearby masses of civilians on holiday getting caught in the crossfire, or worse, being used as hostages — but with Barry, he never knew what to worry about.

Barry, for his part, didn’t seem fazed by the prospect of facing down the Grim Reaper in a transportation hub staffed entirely by identical clones of Tom Bodett, and he addressed Kravitz calmly and amiably:

“Ah, there you are. Hope you didn’t have a ticket for the Rockport Limited, ‘cause it left a couple minutes ago.”

“I have a magical sapphire scythe that lets me teleport anywhere on the Material or Astral Planes,” Kravitz replied. “Why would I need train tickets?”

Barry chuckled — nervously? Awkwardly? Without a visible face beneath his hood, he was difficult to read. “I dunno, leisure? In case I got on a train and you wanted to follow me, but legally?”

Kravitz narrowed his eyes. Barry was normally talkative for a lich, but today, he seemed especially affable… not to mention unsurprised by Kravitz’s appearance. “Were you expecting me to follow you here?”

“You’ve followed me stranger places,” Barry reminded him. “Graveyards for dragons, necromancy conventions, the actual moon that isn’t just a secret society’s headquarters… point is, I kinda figured the ticket counter at a train station wouldn’t stop you.”

Kravitz adjusted his grip on his scythe, channelling a spark of the Raven Queen’s power to scan the area for magical traps. There were none.

“I don’t have any tricks this time,” Barry promised him, his hooded void of a face still frustratingly impossible to read. “No sabotage, no moon ogres. I just want to talk.”

A pigeon landed on the ground between them, pecking at a dropped sandwich without any acknowledgement of the two undead entities that could each obliterate it in a second.

“Let’s say I humor you, in the interest of not catching an innocent bird in the crossfire,” Kravitz replied. “What would you want to talk about?”

“I’m realizing this isn’t gonna sound that sincere, but… an apology. And a warning.”

“What world do you come from, where it’s appropriate to follow an apology with a threat? Are you going to, I don’t know, imprison my soul if I don’t forgive you?”

“The world I come from has nothing to do with it.” The lights beneath Barry’s hood flickered erratically, but he kept his composure. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time. You could be out there stopping evil necromancers, but I’ve been leading you on a wild goose chase for a decade, and I’m genuinely sorry about that. I’m sorry that I can’t do the things I need to do or save the things I need to save without being undead, and making what I can only assume is a gigantic bureaucratic mess for the Astral Plane.”

Kravitz sighed. “Are you hinting that I should just give up forever on chasing you, because you’re not evil? Do you really expect me to believe that, coming from a lich?”

“Well, I wasn’t counting on it, but that would be nice,” Barry admitted. “The thing is, whether you believe me isn’t going to matter a whole lot in… let’s see, at the rate we’re going, I doubt it’ll take much more than a year. You’re gonna have a bigger problem on your hands — and if you want even a slim chance of surviving it, you and your goddess and every plane in this system will need to be prepared.”

Kravitz eyed a clock on the station wall. “Keep making threats like that, and you’ll have thirty seconds to explain yourself before I end this conversation.”

Barry held up his hands. “Wait, wait, let me clarify — that wasn’t me threatening you! That’s me knowing what’s coming, and not wanting to see it obliterate this entire universe! I — I see, now, how that could get misinterpreted — but I promise, I’m not making this up just to mess with you! You have the ability to warn the Astral Plane, to warn the Raven Queen and by extension all the gods in the Celestial Plane, so that they can prepare for this and stand a fighting chance —”

“Excuse me, gentlemen? Is there anything I can help you with?”

A Tom Bodett approached them, completely unfazed by the lich and the reaper staring each other down of the Rockport Limited boarding platform, and Kravitz couldn’t help but wonder how frequently the humble employees of the train station had to deal with the undead making a scene.

“Stay back, mortal!” he shouted, twirling his scythe and jumping between the Barry and the poor, almost certainly underpaid Tom. “This is an arrest of one of the most dangerous death criminals in Faerun —”

But Barry had already vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the faintest wisp of red smoke, and Kravitz held back a curse.

This always happened one way or another, every damn time Kravitz had encountered Barry in the past decade. Barry had been right about one thing — he’d wasted an astronomical amount of Kravitz’s time over the years.

“Well, I guess that takes care of that,” Tom declared brightly, as if he caused distractions that allowed ultrapowerful death criminals to escape justice every day. “He was making quite a scene — any idea what his deal was?”

Kravitz shook his head. “Just a lich playing mind games. As liches are wont to do, you know.”

At least, I hope that’s all Barry is, he thought with a shiver. But if he wants to give me a reason to believe him, then… well, he can do it from a cell in the Eternal Stockade.

***

“Hey, Reaper Man! I’ve got an idea for you!” Taako called out. Something about the gleam in his eye piqued Kravitz’s curiosity, even though hearing out ideas from death criminals was an objectively unwise idea.

“Do tell, then,” Kravitz replied, and the mischievous smile on Taako’s face expanded into a toothy grin.

“You hunt down a lot of different bounties, right? And Lucas and Maureen and Noelle, they can’t possibly be the worst criminals on your naughty list, can they?”

“Naughty list? What is he, Santa?” Magnus snickered. “I guess it is technically still Candlenights…”

“Today has been a Day with a capital D,” Kravitz warned Taako, “and I’m not in the mood to hear an argument about why I should let them go because morality is relative —”

“Cool your collarbones, Skeletor, I may have come here to get the Philosopher’s Stone, but I’m no philosopher. I was just thinking: what if we tracked down one of your bigger bounties for you? You let some harmless death criminals go, we bring you a really evil one in return, you collect a big old bounty and also get to see my charming face again! Doesn’t that deal sound like a winner?”

“In practice, it just sounds like a good way to get double-crossed — but in theory, it would be quite a bargain, I’ll grant you that.” Kravitz mentally ran through his list of bounties, almost immediately focusing on one particular lich that had vexed him for years. “And I have to admit, I’d love nothing more than seeing you three take a crack at bringing in Barry J. Bluejeans —”

The second Barry’s name was uttered, Taako let out a wheezy laugh like a congested elephant, and Magnus and Merle weren’t far behind, guffawing so heartily that they fogged up the insides of their null suit helmets.

“I laughed at that name once just like you, but when you’ve been hunting him for years to no avail, it won’t seem so funny anymore!” Kravitz warned them. “He’s easily in the top five most dangerous liches in Faerun, not to mention the number one most elusive!”

“Barry’s a LICH?!” Magnus chortled, as Merle doubled over clutching his stomach and Taako rolled around on the floor in hysterics.

“All that time in Phandalin, we were at the mercy of an evil undead overlord and we didn’t even know it!” Taako cackled, evidently not too troubled by the revelation. “Fuck, we’re lucky to even be alive!”

That caught Kravitz off guard. “Wait, you’ve met Barry Bluejeans?”

“And lived to tell the tale!” Merle boasted. “We could totally do it again, by the way!”

“Hang on, Merle,” Noelle interrupted. “Was this what you meant earlier? When you said you were friends with a couple of liches?”

Merle blinked. “When did I say that?”

“Never mind.” Noelle sighed, then turned to Kravitz. “There’s gotta be some mistake. Some kinda identity confusion. The Bluejeans I met in Phandalin, he — he was a good man. He tried to keep us hidden while he fought off that awful dwarf, that dwarf that was setting everything on fire as far as the eye could see. Mister Bluejeans was so reassuring, and so brave — if anything, I’d call him a hero, not some horrible undead monster.”

“That doesn’t really sound like our Barry,” Merle said. “He was kind of an ass. Told me to stab myself with a rusty fork.”

As his bounties squabbled among themselves over the true nature of Barry Bluejeans, Kravitz took the opportunity to pray to the Raven Queen.

Your Majesty, if these criminals think they can really track down such a dangerous lich… would taking their offer be the right choice? Or am I about to be scammed?

The reply was immediate, as if the Raven Queen had already been observing the Miller Lab intently and contemplating the situation for herself. I cannot make this decision for you, Kravitz. But I trust your judgement.

Thank you, milady. Kravitz collected himself, and announced his terms.

“I’ll tell you what. One lich isn’t quite enough to sell me on this deal… but two liches would be, especially if the latter of the two hasn’t been detected in over a decade. If you bring me the both of them in the next two months, everyone involved in this whole Miller debacle goes free — but if you fail, I come to collect all your souls. You still up for this deal?”

Magnus looked like he wants to ask for clarification, but before he could get a word out, Taako casually declared:

“Sure, dude, we’re up for it. Who’s the second lich, other than Barry?”

“Her name is Lup, and she was last sensed in the general vicinity of Wave Echo Cave ten years ago,” Kravitz replied with a smile. “That’s all I know about her, so that’s all the information you get, too. Good luck!”

***

“You’ve got two months to capture a couple of liches? And if you don’t, the Grim Reaper will take your souls?!”

“Shh, not so loud!” Magnus hissed, pressing a finger to Angus’s mouth. “Do you want everyone on the moon to hear?”

Angus glanced around the cafeteria. Exempting him and the three Reclaimers, it was completely empty aside from a few discarded, tattered Candlenights decorations. “Have you at least told the Director about this?”

Magnus smiled sheepishly. “Uh, it never seemed like the right time to bring it up.”

“Carey knew because she was there, but she didn’t seem too keen on being the one to break the news,” Taako elaborated. “Can’t say I blame her.”

Angus sighed. “And your new robot friend, Noelle. Is her soul a part of this bargain, too?”

Magnus nodded. “Yeah. We promised her we’d take care of it, so she’s hanging with the Regulators now —”

“And I bet Lucas Miller isn’t even dead after all, is he?”

“Perceptive as ever, Agnes,” Taako confirmed. “Maureen really did die, though. She went back to the Astral Plane.”

Angus took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, a gesture that made him look far older than ten. “No offense, sirs, but why didn’t just gamble with the Grim Reaper for your souls like normal people? You might’ve actually had a chance at succeeding, that way!”

“Huh,” muttered Magnus. “Good question…”

“Yeah, Taako, why didn’t we just gamble for our souls like normal people?” Merle echoed.

Taako shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I just thought that Kravitz guy sounded pretty okay, like he’d give us a reasonable bargain…”

“Reasonable? He made Magnus chop my damn arm off!”

“Arguing isn't going to get us anywhere, sirs,” Angus spoke up. He hoped he was putting on a calm facade, even though his feet were trembling in his shoes. “Did Kravitz tell you anything about these liches? Names? Locations of recent sightings?”

“Already jotted down all the details for you, my little man,” Taako answered, handing Angus a single sheet of paper. “Didn’t want to forget anything that would help you work your boy detective magic.”

“As if you could ever forget Barry Bluejeans!” Magnus scoffed.

“A lich named Barry Bluejeans? That can’t be right…” Angus took a look at the sheet, titled “Case File” in loopy cursive letters and broken up into two subsections:

Lich #1

Name: Barry Bluejeans

Last seen: The circular glass mistake formerly known as Phandalin, a couple months ago

Weaknesses: Gerblins (unless that was a cunning play so we’d let our guard down), pants that aren’t made of denim, the temptation to party and drink while other people do his job for him

Other information: Used to be Gundren’s bodyguard, and didn’t do a very good job — but who could blame him? That dwarf was an even bigger asshole than he was.

Lich #2

Name: Lup

Last seen: Wave Echo Cave, 10 years ago

Weaknesses: I don’t know, probably holy water or something

Other information: Zilch

Each section was accompanied by an illustration. Barry’s was a cartoonish drawing of a skeleton with jeans, glasses, and a mullet, while Lup’s was simply a series of question marks. At the bottom of the page, Taako had written: Now have at it, Caleb Cleveland Junior!

“…You really have a lot of faith in me, don’t you, sirs?” Angus asked quietly.

Taako shrugged awkwardly, as Magnus replied:

“Well, we know you’re way better at this than us. And you know that’s not exactly a high bar to clear, but you’re obviously our best shot.”

Angus took a deep breath. “Do you remember the reaper’s exact terms? Were there any loopholes we could exploit?”

“Were there?” Magnus mused, tugging at one of his sideburns. “Does anyone remember what he said?”

“Why are you looking at me?” Merle asked, prompting a laugh from Taako.

“Well, in that case…” Angus took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll interview Carey and Noelle to make sure we’re not missing anything, but we shouldn’t count on being able to cheat the deal. Do you think we could book a transport sphere down to Wave Echo Cave tomorrow morning, to go search for leads?”

“Should be no problem,” Taako told him. “Back to our old stomping grounds! I can hardly wait!”

“Reliving our old mistakes! Hooray!” Merle cheered sarcastically, and with that, the Reclaimers all sauntered back to their dorms with easygoing attitudes that Angus could hardly believe.

How are you all so cavalier about dying? he thought. How can you bear to joke about this situation?

And what will I do, if I can’t help you find these liches?

***

Notes:

I really appreciate people commenting on/reblogging this fic, especially for this first chapter! There's absolutely no obligation to do so, of course, but it would mean a lot <3

For what might be the first time in my life, I already have a surplus of chapters written, so the update schedule should remain consistent for at least a month or two (fingers crossed). Since this chapter was on the shorter side and included a scene I posted months ago, I think I’ll post Chapter 2 in a week, then switch to updating every other week from Chapter 3 onwards. (Probably still on Tuesday evenings, plus or minus 24 hours.)

Also, I’d just like to give a shoutout to Angus McDonald for always, always ending up with a bigger role in my fics than I expect when I start writing! But I’m glad he managed to sneak his way into this one, because there’s a bunch more Angus scenes coming up that I can’t imagine this fic without!

#taz #taz balance #taakitz #taako taaco #kravitz taz #barry bluejeans #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #no-3113 #lup taaco #the raven queen #taz balance spoilers #rosalia writes fic #fic: FTRALA

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hippychick006 · 4 years

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15.11: The Gamblers - Episode Review/Recap

This ep follows directly on from last week. The episode was very mixed, there were 2 distinct storylines that merged at the end. I had a few issues with the Castiel/Jack side of the story, which I’ll cover later, but the Sam and Dean scenes, for the most part, I was able to enjoy. I even caught myself smiling… fucking smiling at several moments, because this? This was a glimpse of what my show once was. This also explains to the “Just stop watching” brigade why I’m still watching. The brother scenes were a nugget of gold amongst the dross and worth watching for.

Thank you, Davey Perez, Meredith Glynn and Director Charles Beeson for reminding me, albeit briefly, why I fell in love with this show, and at the same time, why I dislike much of Dabb’s run, which in my humble opinion hasn’t just veered the ship slightly off course; it crashed into an iceberg in 11.21 and has been slowly sinking since then. I think last week’s episode brought us to the point where half the ship is now vertical, ready to plunge into the depths of the icy ocean...

...Anyway, enough about sinking ships, the key thing I struggled with going into this episode is the obvious fuck up from the previous week; the entire premise of the Winchester’s losing their “luck” and being reduced to “normal” people, and I want to talk rant about that for a few more minutes before we get onto this episode. If you want to skip that, I’ll put start and end of rant, so you can skip forward.

Start of rant

In order to enjoy this episode, you pretty much have to ignore much of the previous episode and… that doesn’t sit well with me. Last week wasn’t just a single scene you can forget ever existed (e.g. the trench-coat scene or Dean’s apology to Cass). What Dabb did fucked with the entire concept of the show; that the Winchesters are ordinary people who do extraordinary things. So, it’s really difficult to shake that epic fuck up off and just move on.

I just can’t ever buy in to the concept that the Winchesters were “favoured” or have more luck than “normal” people. I mean look at Sam’s life for starters; he didn’t know his mom, he was fed demon blood as a baby, was dragged up in a life he hated, constantly moving, being brought up in crappy motels and forced to train to become a hunter. The love of his life is murdered, and he becomes an orphan at 22. He died at 23 (for the first time) and then he loses the last remaining member of his family at 24. The Winchesters are far from “lucky” and if I could be bothered, I’d go looking for mentions of “with the Winchester luck” that have been peppered throughout the series. Chuck has not “favoured” the Winchesters at all and they haven’t had Charmed lives because of Chuck’s interference.

I also can’t buy into the concept that the Winchesters are anything other than “normal” in the first place. Sadly, they showed last weeks “fight” scenes during the recap and it did nothing, other than enrage me again. Sam and Dean are excellent fighters and hunters because they trained from a young age to be as good as they are. They weren’t “given” anything and certainty not a free ride and fuck Dabb once again for writing that bullshit. It was nothing less than petty because we rejected his instant Hunter!Barbie fiasco that wasted too much of season 13.

So, how do I move forward from that and manage to enjoy this episode? The answer in my opinion, is you can’t, because even with a few good brother moments, the entire premise of this week’s episode fails to make sense, because the previous episode fails to make sense. I’ll cover why that is when we get to the pool game.

End Rant

The episode opens on a recap, and I ask myself why they are using all the bad bits from the previous few episodes, before I remember there weren’t many good bits to select from. That clip of Jensen with the teeth is still funny. 😂

I love the intro again this week. The setting was good, the guest actors, the camerawork, the music choice – North to Alaska - which complimented the scene, rather than felt like nails being dragged down a chalkboard. All classic spn so far, so it has my attention.

Two men (Joey and Leonard) are playing a game of pool and you can tell this is a high stakes game from the get go. What the stakes are, we don’t yet know, but when the game ends, we see 2 coins being held in a contraption above the pool table; one glows green then dulls with the coin head disappearing, the other glows green and gets brighter with the coin head gaining in definition. I don’t think this looks good for the loser. He agrees and tries to attack the winner with his pool cue. He’s stopped from doing so by a bouncer who turfs him outside. 👋 cutie tall bouncer. There’s an absolutely great shot of the loser tossing his coin in the air and the music gets loud again (Hey, I’m here as much for the settings, lighting, music and camerawork as I’m here for the Winchesters – sue me) and then…. Splat. He’s hit by a truck. Poor Leonard, red shirt of the episode. RIP my friend.

As an aside, I like how you guys announce which pocket the 8 ball is going into, we don’t do that.

This was a great into, interesting premise that immediately sucked me in, wanting to find out more. This is my show. Great job so far.

The next scene though shows once again how useless, at least for me, the writing is around Castiel. They wrote an entire scene with him walking into the bunker, seeing a note that has been left, going down to read it “Cass, we’ve gone to Alaska, Sam”. I’m not going to rant about the twats that insist on saying Sam has spelt it wrong, I’ve already done a post about the arrogance of fans trying to tell the show that created the character that they are wrong with the spelling of that character, so I’ll save you by moving on.

This entire scene, while I liked the shots of the otherwise empty bunker, was just wasting time for me. I’ve seen people say Sam left a note because Castiel was in heaven and wouldn’t get a text message and how clever of Sam to resort to paper. I don’t know about anyone else, but I dip in and out of WiFi zones all the time and the moment I dip back in, my phone pings with multiple notifications, so I personally thought this scene was dumb. It would have been better to see Castiel appear back at the sandpit and get a text notification from Sam with the same message.

Even better, you could take this scene away and it changes nothing that happens so why include it? *Whispers* J2 wanted time off and the writers are incompetent of filling that space with something more interesting so use “filler”.

Interestingly, my computer froze on Castiel’s face for 5 minutes so fuck you Norton or Windows 10 Update for your bad timing in running something in the “background”

BROMENT ALERT

We’re finally with what I’m watching the show for. Dean and Sam are in baby and driving towards Alaska. Sam’s phone is lighting up with messages and we find out through Dean that it’s Eileen. 🙄. Oh, Eileen’s being shoved into the narrative now? Sorry Eileen, the third wheel position on the show has already been filled since Season 7. And fuck you again Dabb because I loved Eileen as a friend of Sam and it’s just yet another thing your reverse Midas fingers have screwed over this season.

Dean: Silent mode is always an option

Me: I love you, have my babies… wait, that came out wrong

Eileen thinks the plan is a little too good to be true. Sam thinks she might be right. He’s not convinced the place even exists or that it can fix their problem. Dean thinks it couldn’t hurt and he’s done with normal, including the constant heartburn.

Sam: You know if you changed your diet…. Dean’s frown 😂

Sam insists that no one other than Garth has heard of it and it isn’t in the lore. Dean believes it’s got to be there. He believes Chuck isn’t messing with them,

Dean: He [Chuck] wants us off our game, he wants us weak, ‘cos he’s coming for us Sammy, and when he does, and we haven’t figured this out, we’re DOA.

Mostly a great brother scene, apart from the forced insertion of Eileen – are we incapable of getting a broment in the final chuck damn season, without the completely unnecessary forced inclusion of a third party???! The scene ends with a great shot of baby.

Back at the bunker and Castiel hears a phone ringing, and… I’m trying not to nitpick, but the way this case comes about just annoys me. There are better ways of bringing this about, than how they did it. But moving on, Castiel answers a random phone that was ringing in Sam’s room, and it’s a sheriff (Jeb Evans) looking for FBI agent, Watts. Castiel tells the sheriff that Agent Watts is working a case in Alaska, and that he is Agent… Lizzo. I can only assume Dean gave him that alias as I don’t think Castiel would know any musicians on his own. I like Jeb, who tells Agent Lizzo, they have a homicide and the suspect is someone Agent Watts flagged into the system… and guys… Sam is back to hacking into police systems and I just… I need a moment here as they’ve remembered Sam can hack into systems!

The agent tells Castiel that the suspect is Jack Kline.

Ummm… Castiel, are you... okay? Do you… do you maybe need to use the bathroom? Oh, you’re emoting? Okay dokay then. I can’t with this. I got more out of Leo in the less than 2 minutes he was on screen than I got out of Castiel since his return in season 7.

Back with the impala, which rolls into a diner stop. Sam is asleep, and Dean whacks him to wake him up. Sam wonders why they’ve stopped at “Round up café”. Dean says it’s the last stop for food for a few hundred miles.

Sam (frowns): Grab something out of the cooler

Dean: Yeah, no, I polished off the last of the sandwiches while you were out

Sam (annoyed): We’re on a budget!

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Last weeks puppy dog eyes fiasco aside, Dean’s still wrapped round Sam’s fingers, they enter the diner, slap some coins on the counter and ask what they can get for $4.60. Apparently, it’s a slice of pie and a coffee, and I’m moving to Alaska when they secede from the US because that would barely get you just the coffee here.

Dean asks for two forks for the pie

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Long story short on this scene, they get out of the waitress there’s a local urban legend about a magic poolhall in the middle of nowhere, that if you win, you come back lucky. She says though that no one ever comes back. Turns out she knew Leonard from the intro, and he went up there because the bank was going to take his house and he met with an accident.

Sam says at least they know now what the downside is. Dean doesn’t agree, he thinks it could be great, pool is the game of champions, kings, his game, our game, and they have great memories of hustling pool

Sam: yes, because we had to… to eat!

Still not seeing the “luck” Dabb wrote about. Imagine thinking they were remotely lucky; running scams or hustling pool to put a roof over their head or food in their stomach. And this is where I disconnect with this week’s episode, because of last week’s writing. How are they going to even be good at pool, a game that takes practice and skill? The things taken away seem to be random and plot devices; lock picking, fighting, hot metal burns, while it appears Dean can still drive okay, fix baby and I’m guessing their pool is going to be okay too, otherwise what’s the point of this episode? There’s no believable rules to this “bad luck/normal” and I’m left completely drifting and because of it. It's just badly thought out and executed.

Dean: if pool is the way we get our mojo back then maybe we ain’t as screwed as we thought

Waitress: Hey, you guys drive an impala?... I think you guys have a flat.

😂

Back with Cass and sheriff Jeb, Cass has managed to set up the laptop and access a video the sheriff has sent him. The video is of Jack killing a doctor and eating his heart. 😷 Jack, no! I’ll come back to the heart eating later.

Back with the boys, another shot of baby as they pull into “Lurlenes”. Baby isn’t sounding too good and I think I missed that earlier, but it did somewhat register that she was sounding louder than normal. Good touch.

Dean walks over one of the coins as they head for the entrance which I guess might be Leonard’s from earlier. I like little details like this. Once inside, Sam points out they don’t have beer money, much less what it costs to buy into a game. Dean says they’ll figure something out and goes to the bar and orders two waters. I’m guessing that’s going to hit Dean more than health conscious Sam. Dean asks the bar person, Evie, how they get into a game. She calls Pax over and it’s the tall, cutie bouncer from earlier. Sam asks Evie if she saw Leonard and she says no, but you can tell she’s lying.

Pax takes them to his office and explains the rules of the game, that they don’t bet with money, they bet with luck. He gets Dean to touch a coin he puts down and it turns green. Pax looks at the coin and says “not great”

Dean: And that means?

Pax explains that everyone walks in with a certain amount of luck, that the green glow was Dean’s and it was “about average.” Dean thinks that sounds about right. I’m going to head-canon that Dean’s luck is about average of the people that find the pool hall, but below average in general, due to Chuck screwing around with them.

Pax says if Dean wins a game, he might see his fortunes improve.

Sam: And if he loses?

Pax says he can keep playing, but if the coin goes blank, that means you’re out of luck, and you’ve got to leave. He asks if they’ve got any questions.

Sam (a bit pissy): What is this place? Who owns it?

Pax says he doesn’t know, but if they don’t like it, they are free to leave.

Dean: When I win, can I split it (indicates Sam)… the luck?

Pax (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍 Oh, wait, sorry, that was me

Pax: it’s yours, you can do what you want

Sam asks for a second to talk to his husband brother.

Sam: no, no, no, no, no way (complete with shaking finger)

Dean: man, I’ve been slinging pool cues since before you were born

Snarky!Sam: when you were four, really? In between snack time and nap? 😂

Dean (internally): damn, I forgot you were my brother for a second and I can’t bullshit you

Dean tells Sam that they need to do this, and that Sam is pretty much better than him, at everything, he’s not mad about it, he’s proud… but he can wipe the floor with Sam at pool. Dean takes Sam’s epic eyeroll as silent permission he can play.

Back with Castiel, he investigates the doctor’s office and finds a weird case which has a sword inside. We flashback to a previous episode with Sam tied to a chair (🙄 it must have been a Thursday). Anyway, the flashback tells us the doctor was one of the Grigori, a brotherhood of perfect beings. I’d forgotten about them and might have to look them up before I touch the heart eating thing. Note: I did look them up and it was a Claire episode, so never mind, that’s why I forgot about them.

We transition from Cas to Jack and he seems to be following someone with the same case as the doctor, so another Grigori. He follows the Grigori into an abandoned building.

Back at the pool hall and no one is biting to play with the noob. Okay, I’m ashamed to say I laughed at this next bit, Dean deliberately breaks badly and loudly proclaims that he’s rusty at this. Oh Dean. No one’s going to fall for… Surprisingly he actually gets a taker and asks Dean to rack up. Sam goes back to the bar to speak to Evie. She asks if he plays and he says not really. Sam asks Evie what the woman’s deal is that’s playing Dean (Moira). Evie says she’s been here a while and her sister is in a coma.

Sam goes into awkward question mode, and I have flashbacks to the earlier seasons. He asks about rotten eggs. Evie responds: Just Charlie… We pan over to Charlie and he’s playing pool badly. Sam then asks if she’s seen “little bundles” laying around. She says no, but she gets that he’s trying to figure the place out. Sam says places like this don’t exist for no reason, she answers that most people think it’s a godsend. She gives him information on a couple of people playing, they won at first, could have walked away winners, but kept playing until their luck ran sour. She repeats they should have walked away which is a clear warning for Sam who looks over at his brother who wins the game.

Back with Jack, he’s got an angel blade and is still after the Grigori. Unfortunately, the Grigori twigged he was being followed and now has Jack at blade point.

Back at the pool hall and Sam is trying to convince Dean they need to leave, and I’m trying not to be distracted by the picture in the scene behind them.

Dean (brandishing his coin at Sam): Come on man, I’m on a roll

Snarky!Sam: Dean, you won one game!

Sam thinks the place sucks you in and that if Dean keeps playing, he’ll lose and end up like Leonard. Dean convinces Sam who reluctantly allows him to have one more game.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Dean finds his mark, which is Joey from the intro. We see Dean playing well and Joey asks what his name was again.

Dean: my name is Dean Winchester and I am going to kick your ass.

Sam: 😍 that’s my platonic soulmate husband brother

Joey smiles.

They talk as Dean clears the table. Turns out Joey used to work the bull riding circuit.

Dean (cocky smile): tell me, how was that?… corner pocket. He misses the shot

Joey (grinning): good times (he pots and all he can do is hide the cue ball behind another ball, giving Dean a very tricky shot on the 8 ball)… and some not so good.

Dean goes to take the shot and Joey challenges double or nothing if Dean misses. Sam doesn’t like it. Dean asks if Joey is trying to hustle him.

Joey: I thought you were going to kick my ass

Dean smiles and agrees to the deal, does a trick shot with the cue ball jumping over the other ball and potting the 8 ball.

Joey closes his eyes. Sam looks happy, then Joey says: a hell of a shot.

Dean watches as the coins glow green and Joey’s coin is now dull, and this is sad because even if Sam and Dean haven’t realised the implication yet, Joey is not long for this world. Joey leaves, and Sam and Dean follow. Joey congratulates Dean on the game yet again and says, “I guess you can’t hustle a hustler.” Sam’s concerned when Joey starts coughing. Turns out Joey is dying, he has cancer, he came to the pool hall to beat it, and Sam and Dean have finally caught up with me that this game sucks. This is the first time in a long time, I’ve felt anything for a character on this show that we only meet for a limited time in a single episode, so I’m going to kudos the writing and the guest star for this one. This is what happens when you actually put some characterisation into your writing.

Sam and Dean go back inside. Dean said the plan worked so they should hit the road.

Sam: What about everybody else?

Sam wants to stay and figure out how they can help them. Dean reminds him they are in a fight with God and they just got their mojo back. Sam challenges whether there’s even enough luck in the coin for them. Dean says they’ll give it a try by him going for a drive and if baby’s okay, they are leaving. End of.

Back with Castiel and he meets sheriff Jeb at the abandoned building Jack was captured in. A transient spotted Jack going into the building so called the police. Castiel asks Jeb if there are any other abandoned places around. Jeb tells him about a church.

Back with Sam and he’s talking to Charlie, who is apparently playing so his team can win the Super Bowl and part of me is 😂 and part of me is, I feel you my friend, because Canucks and the Stanley Cup, and desperate measures at this stage.

Sam: that’s great, it is, but is it really worth your life?

Me (picturing the Stanley cup being paraded through the streets of Vancouver): …Yes?!

The puppy dog eyes fail again, Charlie says “just one more game.” And goes back to playing

Evie says at least Sam tried but no one will listen. She says none of “us” are going anywhere. Sam asks if they are trapped here, if Evie was trapped here. She leaves rapidly.

Dean arrives back, baby’s dead again, he didn’t even make it out of the parking lot. Sam takes a look at the coin Dean slams down. He believes Dean should have won more luck than he did, given how many people Joey likely beat before Dean played him and all that accumulated luck should have gone to Dean when he won, but it doesn’t seem to. Sam thinks someone is stealing the luck, skimming off the top.

Dean: You mean like the house?

Sam (lifts coin showing head): her… I think

Dean takes the coin and reads: Atrox Fortvnta

Sam says she’s the Roman goddess of luck. So, Sam’s allowed to be smart as a plot contrivance this week? *cough* hot metal burns *cough*.

They go speak to Evie about who runs the place. She says she can’t help them. Sam asks why she warned him in the first place. Evie says so he would take his brother and go. Dean asks why Evie is there, does the god have something over her. Evie says she played and lost and is only alive because she lets her stay as long as she keeps working. Sam asks if the god is here, but Evie doesn’t know, she only talks to Pax and drops the revelation that Pax is the god’s son.

Back with Jack and the Grigori has injured him and holding him captive. He knows what Jack is and that he’s powerful. The Grigori wants to know why Jack killed his kind. The Grigori have their own frequency of angel radio. Me, 🙄 of course you do because easy plot device. Before his brother died, he called to the Grigori. He asks Jack if he did that to draw him out, to kill him too.

Back with Sam and Dean, Sam approaches Pax wanting to ask a question. While Pax is focused on Sam, Dean grabs him and holds him at knifepoint.

Sam (niceness gone): Where’s your mom?

Loved that bit

Pax doesn’t answer so Sam shouts “Fortuna.” Dean follows with, “We have your son”

Moira walks through the pool hall and we know she is now Fortuna.

Sam says they know she’s skimming luck and they want it back. Dean threatens to kill Pax if she doesn’t

Fortuna: well, you probably could, his daddy was human, but no

Pax (shocked pikachu face): Mom!

Fortuna: I’m sorry baby, I can always make more sons

Sam and Dean (shocked pikachu faces).

Uh oh, leverage gone. Dean releases Pax, but not before the blade cuts his throat a little.

Dean demands Fortuna to play him for it. She says she’s already played him and got a read on him. He’s just a “beach read”. Sexy, but skimmable.

Dean (how dare you face): beach read? lady, I’m Tolstoy

Fortuna laughs and says, “That’s very funny” and approaches Sam: this one here, now he could be interesting

Dean (Protective big brother mode activated): Wait, no, no, that’s…. Uh uh

Sam (I’m 36 years old Dean, not a kid anymore mode activated): Fine… Yeah, okay, but not for our luck. I’ll play for the lives of everybody in here.

Fortuna doesn’t agree, she says the deal is only for their luck and if they lose, she wants their lives. She wants to make an example of them.

The Grigori is torturing Jack, cutting his skin. Jack says he can’t kill him. There’s then expose on the Grigori feeding off souls, and this one feeds off children. I think I’m supposed to not feel sorry for the Grigori when Jack eats his heart, but I do have a few issues which I’ll come onto later. Jack looks to the side and it’s clear he catches something. The Grigori reaches for his sword and points it at Jack’s throat. He asks who told Jack that. He answers Death.

The Grigori senses someone behind him. Now given the Grigori are supposed to be elite and much more powerful than ordinary angels, I’m embarrassed for this one and have no idea how on Earth this Grigori managed to survive to being last of his kind as even Castiel despatched him fairly easily, without too much of a fight, but “new canon” I guess. 🤷‍♀️

With no tests whatsoever, Castiel releases Jack from his bonds. I’m presuming one of Castiel random powers of the week is being able to automatically tell it’s Jack. We get a Cass and Jack hug and I … don’t really care to be honest. I can’t watch Cass without viewing that awful scene in Purgatory so I’m over him.

Back at the pool hall, Sam breaks, potting 2 balls immediately. I love, love, love this next bit: as Sam lines up his next shot, we see Dean nodding in agreement, because yep, that’s the shot he would have went for too. Sam proceeds to knock down a couple more, Fortuna has said a couple of things, but Sam is focusing on the game. She asks why they need the luck so bad, girlfriend problems? Liver failure? (She looks at Dean here). Sam answers: “a curse by god” and misses the next shot.

Fortuna: Life’s a bitch and then you die

Me: Hey! That’s my philosophy!

Dean: THE god literally cursed us

Fortuna (sarcastic disbelief): You’ve met

Dean: Yeah, Little guy, squirrelly as hell

Fortuna: Yeah, that’s him… well, welcome to the club

Dean: the club?

Fortuna answers with exposition while winning the game. God created the world, but humans created the gods, kind of, which led to God creating the other gods. Dean asks why, which makes her angry and she misses the next shot. She says they were created to take the blame for anything that went wrong. That only worked for a while before his ego got the better of him, now he hides behind whatever religion pays the biggest syndication deals. She keeps talking about how pissed she is and that she’s holding a grudge. Sam meanwhile is quietly potting balls and winning the game. She realises this and shakes off her mood, “oh well, what can you do?”

Dean: we’re going to fight him

Fortuna: are you now? And when you lose?

Sam’s voice from off screen: we lose swinging

He then appears in shot and says “8 ball, corner pocket” and she realises the game is nearly over.

Sam lines up for the shot, looks at Dean briefly, then… he wins. I wasn’t expecting that, and Dean is happy too.

Fortuna (to Sam): you little minx, you got me talking!

Sam smirks

Fortuna: you’re good

Sam: I learned from my brother

Dean approaches: all right, you know the deal, even up

Fortuna offers to make it interesting, if they are going to fight God, that’s the stuff of heroes and they are going to need the luck of heroes. Hercules, some other people, she helped them all. Sam asks what the catch is. She says another game, double or nothing.

Dean: Double? That’s how the cowboy died.

Sam agrees to play, “but not for more luck,” he indicates the room, “for them. If I win, you have to let them go.”

Fortuna: I’m not stopping them

Sam: Okay, when I win, you have to give back the luck you stole, close up shop

Fortuna: What is with you and these losers? They’re nothing, they don’t matter

Sam: they matter to me

Dean: they matter to us

Everyone in the poolhall (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Fortuna agrees. She breaks, and it all goes downhill from there. Sam doesn’t even get to play a shot.

They lost. There’s silence

Fortuna: you challenged the goddess of luck in her own joint, what did you think was going to happen?

Me: pretty much this tbh, I’m actually surprised Sam won the first game

Dean: well, we had to try

Fortuna: well, that was stupid

My poor boys. They leave the poolhall.

Dean: I thought she was going to kill us

Sam: well she doesn’t have to, our luck will do that on its own … Dean, we can’t just…

Dean:… leave ‘em? Yeah, I know.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Dean: all right, well let’s go get WiFi and see what kills Lady Luck, we’ll circle back

Sam’s agreeing when Evie comes out, followed by the other players. They ask her what happened. She says Fortuna shut it down. They ask why

Evie: Because of you, she said she thought your kind had gone extinct

Sam: Our kind?

Evie: Heroes, like the old days

Fortuna also gave her a message to pass on, “Don’t play Chucks game, make him play yours.

She hands Sam a coin which he somewhat reluctantly takes. He holds it in his closed fist as she walks away. He opens his hand and we see the coin glow green on his skin. Dean “grabby hands” Winchester snatches the coin, getting a glare from Sam and the coin glows green in his hand too.

They get into the car and Dean fires up the engine. “We’re back baby!”

Aww, Dean called Sam baby.

Me (sighing): platonic soulmate Husbands! 😍

Also me: You can take your “Castiel is a lamp” sub zero text and whack yourself over the head with it.

They drive away. And I’m left behind wondering if they’ve got their “normal” luck back or the supercharged hero luck that Sam said he didn’t want and that’s why he was reluctant to take the coin.

They arrive back at the bunker. Dean’s scratching lottery cards and doesn’t win. So much for the superhero luck.

Sam consoles his husband brother that they might not have won the lottery, but they have no car trouble, the credit cards work again, and Dean was able to eat back to back bacon double cheeseburgers, that didn’t kill him. So…

Dean: that was beautiful by the way… I’m just saying, would it have killed her to give us a little extra?

Sam: well, she thinks we’re really heroes, maybe they don’t get all the answers

Well hopefully that conversation answered my concern from earlier.

Cass appears, looking shifty (when doesn’t he tbh). They know something is wrong and Sam asks him. He steps aside and Jack appears. Jack dorky waves hello and we all melt and immediately forget he killed their mom and did some other really naughty stuff that at the very least should get him a time out. Apparently, Dean and Sam forget too. This scene is shot with Jack and Cass at one side of the reading room and Sam and Dean on the other.

Sam: Jack?

Castiel (to Sam): it’s really him

Sam walks over to Jack first and gets quicker as he reaches him and we get a Sam and Jack hug, and since I didn’t get one in season 14, I’ll ignore the mom killing, heart eating etc. for a few minutes and enjoy the hell out of this one. Yes, I’m fickle! But I loved this nougat eating baby before Dabb ruined him.

Dean walks across more slowly, reaches and grasps Jack behind his neck, staring into his face as if checking it’s really him. I think he’s struggling to see past the burnt-out eyes which was their last view of him. He looks briefly at Cass once. To me it’s a silent thank you (headcanon for bringing Jack back for Sam in particular), and an equally silent, you’re welcome. Jack looks a little apprehensive as obviously the last time he was alive, Dean was going to shoot him, stopped only by Sam.

They all have a beer at the map table, Sam asks Jack about eating hearts, so it’s good that hasn’t been hidden. Jack said he had to.

Dean (to Castiel): and you let him?

Castiel nods (likely waiting for the anger for doing the wrong thing)

Dean (shrugs): hmmm

And… that is not my Dean. They’ve turned him into a neutered house cat and idiots are calling it “growth”. And all I can hope is that his natural instincts fight their way through, I believe it’s wrong to trust Jack is okay eating hearts, even of ones that eat children’s souls and I hope we see that develop as we progress.

Sam: you could have called us

Jack: every day I wanted to come home, but I couldn’t

Dean: why not?

Jack: because if I don’t stay hidden, if I use my powers, my grandfather, he’ll know I’m back, and try and kill me… again… he’s afraid of me, and that’s why we had to wait.

Castiel: Billy kept him hidden in the empty, until Chuck went off world

Jack: she let me out when it was safe

Dean: safe to what? Eat a bunch of angel hearts?

Jack: safe to do what I have to.

Turns out the hearts were just the beginning, they made Jack strong, but not strong enough. If Jack follows her plan, he’ll get stronger and he’ll be able to kill god.

Sam and Dean (in winsync): bitch please, this is our show!

Not really, that was just me and we end on that note. I could wish we had ended on “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, but season 15 music budget. Sigh.

So, I have a few other issues with this episode, particularly with the Jack side of the storyline, off the top of my head;

1) I’m hoping we aren’t sweeping what he did in season 14 under a rug, a la Castiel.

2) I’m hoping we aren’t just going to support him eating hearts (even of bad angels) without fully investigating what this supposed plan is.

3) I’m struggling with the heart thing anyway. I don’t believe an angel has a heart to eat, only the human vessel does so I’m going to need an explanation on why eating human hearts is supposedly goring to make jack stronger, and why we don’t care about the human vessel

4) I’m struggling with how a lesser god can give back what God took away, even if that lesser god is the goddess of luck, God still trumps her.

Other than that, I think Death is bad now, or at least Billy’s version of death is. I think they changed course on wanting to kill the Winchesters a couple of seasons ago when they realised they could play a part in them reaping God. Possible reason, just being tired after all this time, and wanting it all to end. And it can’t end before Chuck dies. Possible power play.

I still think Chuck will die. I still think the Winchesters will become firewalls, not sure what Jack is, other than a toddler whose power needs to be bound until he can wield it responsibly, and Castiel is going to sacrifice himself at some point. And the less we say about Eileen, the better.

Next episode is up after Hellatus the welcome break from the caricature this show has become

#spn spoilers #15.11 #The Gamblers #episode review #episode recap #anti castiel #spn critical #anti saileen #anti eileen

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keelywolfe · 5 years

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FIC: Playing to Win (baon)

Summary: Some people play games to have fun. Some people play to win.Stretch is pretty sure he knows what category he falls in.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Original Undertale Characters, Fluff, Domestic, Flirting

Notes: This story is for @stoffelees who gave me the idea!

To quote:

"Each person gets $20 and has to buy their outfit for the date at a visit to the thrift store immediately before starting the date (so no washing or altering)."

Way too fun of an idea to let go!

part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

“You’re all taking forever,” Stretch whined from where he was sprawled across a couple of chairs outside the dressing rooms. If anyone else had been there, he would have behaved and sat up, but it was Wednesday night and they were at the thrift store. Not exactly lining up to get in.

If there were any adventures to be had tonight, then they were definitely going to have to venture out to find them. Which was the damn plan, if all the slowpokes would hurry the hell up.

“Keep your hair on, I’m almost done,” Jeff called. Whatever he was changing into seemed to involve some effort, there was a lot of shuffling around going on in there. If he hadn’t actually seen Antwan going into another dressing room, Stretch would have peeked under the door to count feet.

Stretch leaned back until his head was hanging off the side of the chair, “if that’s supposed to be a pun of some sort, andy, i’m deducting two points for lack of originality.”

“Hey, it could be foreshadowing,” Jeff complained amicably. “For all I know, you’re wearing a wig. Isn’t that the point of this?”

Huh…well, he made a good argument.

“true,” Stretch agreed, “i’ll allow it, full credit.”

“Thank you,” Jeff said primly. It was ruined by Antwan’s interrupting with a fresh round of exasperation, only a little muffled by the door.

“If you two are done, would you let me finish getting this on?”

“yeah, yeah, hurry up in there!” Stretch twisted so he was straddling the seat, eyeing the trio of closed doors. Edge was being suspiciously quiet, but then, he was counting himself lucky just for getting him through the door. His baby had a sense of humor, but this was a little more prop-oriented than he usually went for.

It had been Stretch’s idea from the beginning, borrowed from a link someone had sent him on Twitter. Every week he posted a list of his thrift store finds and last time someone had sent a reply suggesting that since he loved thrifting so much, maybe he’d like to try a game.

Once he’d read up on it, well, of course he fucking had. This was 14-karat comedy gold and all he needed was a few willing victims players.

The rules were simple; each of them had twenty bucks to spend at the thrift store on an outfit for the night. There was no washing, no adjusting, straight up as it came and that, friends and neighbors, had sounded like an excellent time.

If he were honest, Stretch hadn’t really believed they’d be able to talk Antwan or Edge into it. Sometimes they were a little…eh…stodgy might be a good word.

Tear-inducingly boring might be better. It was Wednesday, the most mind-numbingly crap day of the week. If Stretch had to guess, he’d say even Wednesday’s mom didn’t like it. Had to step it up on Wednesdays to feel alive, that was a fact.

Although to be fair Stretch really thought not being able to wash the clothes beforehand was what would put Edge off more than anything.

It had been an unexpected, and delightful, surprise when Edge readily agreed. Stretch wasn’t sure why, but he also knew you didn’t look gift horses up the ass, not if you wanted to keep the gifts coming.

He didn’t know how Jeff had convinced Antwan and wasn’t gonna ask. Not until they had a few drinks in them, anyway. An exchange of goods and/or services was maybe involved, and Jeff did like to chatter after a few shots.

However they’d gotten their two lovable ‘A’ personalities to unpucker their assholes, real and implied, enough to get through the doors didn’t matter. The point was they were here, and it had been an abso-fucking-delight to see the way those two had gotten into it.

They’d kept a suspicious distance from each other, hiding their best finds under a pile of cheap coats in their cart. Stretch had to give them both credit; when Edge and Antwan did anything, they did it with furious intent. They were playing to win, and it was gonna get heated.

Stretch really hoped it got heated, in many, many ways.

Course, he did have a slight advantage, not that Stretch would ever admit to it. He knew most of the people who worked here, and they tended to save anything they thought might tickle his funny bone. He might have accidentally let it slip to them about the game when he’d stopped in last week and they’d acted like he issued them a personal challenge.

It wasn’t cheating, thank you, it was taking advantage of an available resource. And he didn’t think Edge was going to mind once he got a good look.

Not long after they’d gotten here, one of the floor workers had snuck him an armful of secret clothing goodies and Stretch could have kissed them all for their hard work, with generous use of tongue.

Somehow, they’d wrangled him an actual zoot suit, a rich striped brown with a burnt orange shirt and a matching tie. They’d even found him a fedora and so long as he was dressed like this, he felt not a single hipster vibe. Every time he glanced in one of the mirrors, Stretch grinned. He looked like he was about to break into a jazz riff at any moment and considering how gleeful he felt, he just might. This was a winner, for sure.

But it was his Twitter followers who would be the ultimate judges.

“I’m ready,” Antwan called. Before Stretch could even grumble that it was about time, the flimsy door creaked open and so did Stretch’s jaw. He was starting to suspect he wasn’t the only person with an insider because Antwan was in a full tuxedo with tails, complete with gloves and an actual damn top hat. It was maybe a little big on him but hell, he was owning it. If he busted out with a Broadway rendition of ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ Stretch couldn’t say he’d be surprised.

“you look great,” Stretch said, flabbergasted to honesty.

“I know,” Antwan preened. Even his shoes were polished to a mirror shine and Stretch had a nasty feeling there had been some judicious backstabbing here in the form of Thrift Store Employees who wanted a fun night even more than he did.

He was retracting his mental offer of tongue, et tu, Macklemore.

“Okay, my turn!” Jeff all but skipped out of his dressing room, posing like a cheerleader and Stretch couldn’t help a laugh.

Jeff pretty much looked like he’d stepped out of a Tiger Beat magazine. In a denim miniskirt and sneakers with scrunched socks, topped with a t-shirt emblazoned with glittery letters that proclaimed “I ‘heart’ the 80’s”.

He gave Stretch a teasing wink and blew a large pink bubble, snapping his gum. Stretch caught a whiff of Hubba Bubba.

“extra points for realism,” Stretch grinned. “looking good, debbie gibson,”

“Hell, yeah, I do,” Jeff neatly settled a pink plastic visor on his head. “I shaved my legs the second you told me about this. Shame you can’t wear your own clothes, I have an awesome bedazzled denim jacket that would go great.”

“You look great even without it,” Antwan assured him. He tugged Jeff in for a kiss and Stretch watched shamelessly, his chin propped on one hand. If he bothered to glance in the mirror, his eye lights would probably be little hearts, but there was no time for confirmation. They were still one shy from a trip down the runway.

Stretch rolled to his feet and tapped lightly on the closed door, “you joining us tonight, babe?”

“I’m almost ready,” Edge said, a touch curtly, and Stretch stepped back with a mental shrug. Maybe Edge wasn’t as cool with this as he’d thought he would be?

Stretch couldn’t even guess what Edge had found or even what the local traitors had helped him find. Maybe he’d gone for simple, a plain button-up and jeans, or a sweater? Maybe even a suit, they had a pretty nice selection available for people looking to pick up a cheap outfit for a job interview. It was possible he was even feeling playful and might be wearing a t-shirt with a silly slogan, but that was probably asking too much.

Didn’t matter, whatever he was wearing was going to be awesome, because Edge had agreed to play along even if he probably thought it was stupid. He’d agreed because he knew it would make Stretch happy and that meant more to him than any t-shirt or funny shoes. It meant the world.

He plopped back into his chair as the doorknob started to turn. The first thing Stretch heard right before the door opened was a jangle, what the hell—

“uh…” Stretch said, blankly. Every thought in his skull came to a screeching halt, melted like warm butter on a stovetop, and left nothing behind but two words on repeat, an alarm klaxon of oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck—

The jangle was from his boots, full-on motorhuckle ones with crisscrossed buckles and chains that went halfway up his calves. Edge was wearing a plain black T-shirt that outlined his ribs enticingly, a red bandanna tied around his neck, and a leather vest hanging open overtop. His jeans were criminally tight, riding low on his pelvis and whenever he moved, Stretch caught a tantalizing glimpse of his iliac crests.

The whole package was topped off with a wide leather belt, the metal buckle an actual skull and crossbones, what the fuck, abort, abort, Stretch needed a full damn reboot, this did not compute. This little game was supposed to be funny not…not…this!

His crotch was giving a pretty firm alert that funny was not the correct adjective of the night.

Edge gave him a smirk, cocking his hip in a way that dragged his T-shirt up another bare inch. “Problem, love?” he asked, silkily.

“that did not cost twenty bucks,” Stretch said flatly.

“Hm, you’re right,” Edge mused. He propped one foot up on the seat right next to Stretch, the smooth leather brushing against his hip, and what that did to his jeans had to be illegal by state and federal law. “The boots are mine. The rest, however, is well within the rules.”

He leaned in, catching Stretch’s tie between two leather-clad fingers, letting the silk fabric hiss through his grip. “You look good.”

“thanks,” Stretch swallowed hard, trying to ease the embarrassing squeak in his voice. Useless, probably, it was a little surprising that he had enough magic left in the upper half of his body to even allow speech. “that outfit is better suited for your motorcycle than the car.”

Edge smirked and the crimson of his eye lights was a banked fire. “So it is. I think I’ll keep it. You never know, it might come in handy someday.”

The low, growling purr in his voice was definitely cheating and as soon as a thought managed to rattle to life in Stretch’s empty skull, he was going to call him out for it. Any time now..

“Okay, enough with the eye sex,” Antwan sighed, breaking the spell, and Stretch thought he deserved an extra point or two for the rescue. “I’m starving, the movie starts in two hours, and the clerks look like they are half a step from a riot over there.”

True enough, every worker in the store was crowded by the registers, phones in hand. Stretch made a mental note to remind them all to keep their head shots off the internet, clothes-only for the voting. Cheating could only go so far.

“We can’t have eye sex,” Edge pointed out. “Technically we don’t have eyes.”

“Uh huh,” Antwan looked like he was biting off an argument, which, hell, two points for suppression of Lawyery Instincts in the face of expediency. “Whatever it is, it belongs in the bedroom, not the thrift store. Let’s hit it.”

He gave Jeff a light pat on the ass, earning an indignant yelp but not an actual protest, the two of them making their way up front.

Stretch hesitated and gave Edge a narrow look even as he tried not to fall under that gorgeous denim spell again.

“you lost, you know,” Stretch told him, loftily. “the boots disqualify you. everything was supposed to be from the thrift store.”

“Did I?” Edge asked, unconcernedly. Stretch had to stifle a moan that definitely didn’t belong in the vicinity of a thrift store as Edge crowded up behind him, denim and leather scraping roughly against his suit. His breath was hot against Stretch’s skull as he whispered, “I think you’ll find I may have lost your game, but I’m definitely winning mine.”

“uh huh,” Stretch mumbled inanely. He stood wobbling on his feet as Edge drew away and went to join the others. The sway of his hips in those jeans did absolutely nothing for rebooting Stretch’s flagging IQ.

It did plenty for other parts of him.

Stretch closed his eyes and gave himself a mental shake. If that was the way Edge wanted to play, well, maybe it was time for him to rack up some of his own points. He cleared his throat, testing his voice, “ready for my close up, mr demille.”

Smooth as the silk of his tie, Stretch decided with a smirk of his own and spun his hat on one finger as he made his way up front.

Time to play.

-finis-

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underswap papyrus #underfell papyrus #by any other name

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hoogiehowser · 5 years

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MEDIA DIARY JANUARY

:::::::::: MOVIES ::::::::::

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) I liked this so much I ended up seeing it twice. The animation is on a whole different level from everything else in theaters I just can’t believe it. Nothing has immediately endeared me to a character more that when Miles gets to the place where he’s going to put up graffiti and yells “BROOKLYN!” to get the echo. Absolutely perfect.

Happy Death Day (2017) The trailer looked good but the trailer for the sequel looked even better. Good time repeating movie. Way better than Blood Punch. I’m excited to see more of this.

Alien: Covenant (2017) Had no clue what to expect going in but I actually dug it. It’s just Alien again like every Alien movie but what they do with David from Prometheus makes it really interesting. There’s also some straight up slasher movie sleaze that definitely appeals to me.

MacGruber (2010) It’s just a bunch of dick jokes while a bad action movie happens. There’s no clever spin to it.

Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) Wanted to watch this due to the Fast & Furious connection. It’s a great movie about overachievers and getting away with shit. I think Justin Lin is a great director and his unique voice benefits every movie he does.

Collateral (2004) I didn’t realize until the credits that this was a Michael Mann movie but it was so obvious in hindsight. The premise is simple, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are great, and everything comes together in a genuinely cool film.

Wilson (2017) Based on a comic I don’t particularly like from Dan Clowes’ grumpy old man phase. The cool thing about the comic is that each page works on its own and has a different art style. The movie can’t do that. But it’s still faithful to the book which means it feels like a series of one page gags strung together until it finishes. Woody and Laura Dern are great though and it is pretty funny at times.

Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare (2018) There was another truth or dare based horror movie a year before that was a Syfy original. The Syfy one is better. The problem with them both is the supernatural contrivances that make people play truth or dare against their will. It’s such a strained premise.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) Guy Ritchie made a King Arthur movie and it feels exactly like you’d expect.

Thoroughbreds (2017) Girl who can’t feel emotions befriends girl who is very politely hiding her extreme emotions. Things get bad when they start to think about murder. Anton Yelchin plays a druggie scumbag loser. It’s such a good movie. 100% my kind of thing.

:::::::::: TV ::::::::::

The Great British Baking Show (Beginnings, Collections 1-4) Got addicted to this one. I love cooking competitions shows and pleasant ones are usually the best. I like seeing competitors that like each other. I like Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry not trying to tear people down. I love Mel and Sue. It’s just a nice show for the nice people.

Toei Spider-Man (Episodes 1-5) I’m not a big toku guy but Spider-Verse got me curious about various Spider-Men. Takuya Yamashiro wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, he was injected with blood from the last survivor of Planet Spider and carries out a mission against Professor Monster’s Iron Cross Army to avenge Planet Spider and his own father. Next to nothing present from the classic Lee/Ditko Spider-Man and that’s totally alright. I’m going to try to watch more because the episode where Spider-Man has to donate his blood to hurt child has some serious heart.

The Prisoner (Episodes 7-17) I started watching this a while ago but only now got around to finishing. Mostly super clever plots and the atmosphere is always great. Patrick McGoohan sells it every single time. Some of the later episodes go really off the rails though. There’s an entire wild west episode. Nothing in this stretch tops my favorite episode, The Schizoid Man, where Number Two brainwashes Number Six to act differently and then forces Number Six to pretend to be Number Six while a different man is already pretending to be Number Six. The ending is solid though and carries a really good tv series to a confusing, surreal end.

Cutthroat Kitchen (Season 7, Episodes 1-7) Polar opposite of The Great British Baking Show. It’s the Mario Kart of cooking competition shows. Everyone tries to fuck each other over and Alton laughs at them the entire time. It’s brilliant.

:::::::::: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING ::::::::::

TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ‘19 (January 4) I don’t follow TJPW and don’t know any of their wrestlers besides Meiko Satomura but I watched this because it was on before Wrestle Kingdom. Meiko vs Reika Saiki definitely made the show worth watching and the rest was pretty alright. Lots of fun, new personalities that I like.

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13 (January 4) Probably the most I’ve looked forward to a show and it absolutely delivered. For the past few years I’d watch WK and recommended matches but in in July I started following everything NJPW. That added investment made this WK special. Ibushi/Ospreay tore it up and I really hope Ibushi recovers soon. Jay White/Okada shocked me. Naito/Jericho was fucking brutal. And Kenny Omega vs Hiroshi Tanahashi was a match I was so invested in that I thought I was going to cry. If you haven’t checked out New Japan yet this show would make an excellent start. GO ACE!

Impact Homecoming (January 6) Impact has gotten pretty good. I’ve only seen a few of their most recent ppvs but it’s obvious that they have a wealth of talent and they’re willing to tell the kind of dumb stories that I really like. Since Homecoming was in Nashville I went and it was one of the best shows I’ve been to. The energy was insane all night and LAX vs Lucha Bros has to be the best match I’ve seen live. Now that they air on Twitch I’ve been following the weekly show and enjoying it quite a bit.

WWE Royal Rumble (January 27) I always love the rumble but the rumble was weird. Both rumble matches were okay but filled with dumb stuff and way too many recovery spots that were immediately deflated by the person getting eliminated. I like the winners. AJ/Daniel didn’t deliver like I wanted. Sasha and Ronda had a good match. I loved how Finn Balor worked Brock Lesnar’s diverticulitis. Fun show.

NXT UK Takeover Blackpool (January 12) NXT UK doesn’t really grip me aside from the women’s division. I liked this well enough but nothing really changed my mind. Finn Balor made a surprise appearance and he looked like such a star compared to everyone else. Excited to see what WALTER can do here though.

GCW 400 Degreez (January 12) GCW’s brand of hardcore indie nonsense is my absolute favorite. 400 Degreez isn’t the best they’ve done but it was full of disgusting beautiful deathmatch bullshit. Markus Crane vs Nate Webb especially.

NXT Takeover Phoenix (January 26) Takeover always delivers. Johnny Gargano vs Ricochet was definitely the match of the night. I don’t dig the War Raiders schtick but their match was great. Bianca Belair and Shayna Baszler also killed it.

:::::::::: COMICS ::::::::::

One Piece by Eiichiro Oda (Volumes 1-10) I wanted something long to start reading so why not One Piece? Enjoying it so far. I like getting the crew together and Usopp’s story in particular is great. Oda is a master cartoonist. I love every time we get reaction faces.

Spider-Man: Fever by Brendan McCarthy Spider-Man fever got me wanting to revisit Spider-Man: Fever because I remember liking it. I still like it. Doctor Strange accidentally opens a doorway into a spider dimension and Spider-Man gets caught in Doctor Strange’s bathtub and the alternate dimension spiders take him. All this and McCarthy’s art make Fever pretty far out.

Spider-Man 2099 by Peter David, Kelley Jones, and Rick Leonardi (1-15) Miguel O’Hara wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, he had Peter Parker’s DNA put into him by weird future DNA machine and he wages war against the gigantic corporations that control everything. I like Spider-Man 2099. Miguel is so different from the Peter Parker archetype and he’s got claws and fangs. He’s brutal. It’s got a neat post-hero future kind of like Batman Beyond. I stopped reading because the next part is a crossover with Punisher 2099, Ravage 2099, Doom 2099, and X-Men 2099. I’ll hopefully pick it back up because I want to know what happens with the hologram that’s in love with Miguel.

Spider-Man by Kazumasa Hirai & Ryoichi Ikegami Yu Komori was bitten by a radioactive spider and he definitely wishes he wasn’t. It starts off a lot like our usual Spider-Man but the villains are so much more tragic and Yu deals with some heavy shit. Ikegami’s art evolves from cartoony to serious as the tone of the book changes. He’s a really incredible artist who is consistently pulling neat tricks and trying new things. I really liked this and it may top my favorite Spider-Man comics. It’s just so bleak and unforgiving to poor Yu. By the way, the final plotline is exactly the same as the Sonny Chiba movie Wolf Guy. Turns out the comic that movie was based on was written by the same guy that write Spider-Man. An odd find.

:::::::::: VIDEOGAMES ::::::::::

Axiom Verge Had my eye on this for a long time and finally picked it up on sale on my Switch. It’s okay. There are a lot of clever ideas here that I don’t think work for me. But I do like the decorrupter and the teleport. Some of the movement feels great but some stuff like the grappling hook feels awful. I hate the story. Completely incoherent sci-fi nonsense. But it’s a fun game and I enjoyed my time with it.

Hollow Knight I’ve spent about 30 hours on this game and I feel like I’m close to the end of the story. I absolutely love it. The movement, the combat, and the exploration all feel excellent. I’ve played over ten metroidvanias in the past year (I really like them) and this might be the best. My favorite part about them is how you’re almost never wasting time because there are new secrets to discover all across the map and Hollow Knight does such a good job with that.

#media diary

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readyplayerhobi · 6 years

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Life Is A Whisk

; Jin x Reader

; Genre: Fluff, Crack

; Word Count: 3.2k

; Synopsis: You have no problem with Kim Seokjin most of the time, in fact you even consider him to be handsome and funny and he feels the same about you. Until you are both placed into a kitchen, and then it becomes the battlegrounds for World War Three, the Bake-off edition.

; A/N: Lol honestly what even is this. I just got an idea in my head and this happened and it’s not even good so I’m sorry! I’M SORRY OKAY? Its probably got the wrong label genres too so idek.

Baking to you was an art form. While the Mona Lisa is truly a beautiful piece of artwork, it could only be experienced in its natural habit if you happened to be in the vicinity of Paris.

Only the most talented with a paintbrush, pen or pencil would be able to even attempt to reproduce the masterpiece that Leonardo da Vinci created over 500 years ago. But anyone could bake in your opinion; all you needed was some flour, eggs, butter, sugar and a little bit of time.

And just like art, the end result could vary drastically. A cake could look dubious, as if a 2 year old had created it out of Play-Doh, yet it could taste like an angel had blessed your tongue itself.

Alternatively, a cake could look so delicious it could seem like it had been created to grace the very halls of Buckingham Palace. But it could taste like the ashes of yesterdays regrets.

Yes, baking was an art form and in your ever so humble opinion, you were the best baker you knew. If only it weren’t for the annoying, and aggravatingly handsome, Kim Seokjin arguing that no, actually he was the best baker.

“Seokjin, you wouldn’t know what filo pastry is if it jumped up from the table and slapped you in the face.” You hiss at him from across the living room. He’s glaring at you, arms crossed over his broad chest as he scoffs and rolls his eyes.

Hoseok, sat next to him, lets out a long, suffering sigh and sinks lower into the cream coloured sofa in the hopes that he can sink away to his own house somehow. Namjoon catches Hoseok’s eye from his place next to you and grimaces, wishing desperately that no one had decided to turn on The Great British Bake Off in the first damn place.

Everyone knew that anything related to the world of baking and kitchens was to be treated like the shadow land in The Lion King. That’s dangerous land Jungkook; we don’t go there if we want peace amongst friends.

You’d been more than happy to watch your British counterparts baking and more than enjoyed the amusing puns that they constantly quipped. “It’s just not the same without Mel and Sue you know.” Jimin had whined at one point, which had you nodding in commiseration.

It had all been civil even, neither you nor Jin engaging in any arguments or back handed compliments. Honestly you were fine with each other when baking or cooking wasn’t involved, you would even say that he was a great friend to you – who you were also unreasonably attracted to.

But then Taehyung had made the dumb decision to ask who would win if they ever went on the show. And of course you’d decided to boldly proclaim that the winner would obviously be you because you were evidently the best baker in the room. Which had resulted in the current argument between you and Jin.

“I remember the last time you tried to make choux pastry Y/N. It’s so simply and yet I’ve never witnessed anything as disappointing and limp since I saw-“ Hoseok slaps a hand over Jin’s mouth at that, fully aware that some insult to one of the guys was incoming. It was one thing to watch you both argue, it was another to get everyone else involved.

You scowl furiously, rising up slightly out of your seat as you move to defend yourself and your amazing baking skills. A hand on your shoulder yanking you back down distracts you and you can’t help but glare at Yoongi’s hand.

“Why don’t you both have a bake off then? We’ll judge who’s the best.” Jungkook mutters quietly and you swear that if the intensity of the glares he’s getting from the others could be turned into a power source, you’d be able to power Seoul for a year.

Jin stares at him with wide eyes before a thoughtful look takes over his face. He sucks his lush, lower lip into his teeth as he simply watches you for a moment. His intense stare causes you to squirm slightly, he may be your mortal enemy in the kitchen but you were more than happy to say that he was quite possibly the most handsome man in the world.

“What would be the point? We’d just get angry at you all for whoever lost.” He mutters and you nod your head. The embarrassment and fury at losing would be far too much for you to handle and Jin was a hothead too.

“Oh come on, I’m sure we all knead to know who’s truly the best. Besides, you both like baking and we get to eat delicious sweet treats, so it’s a win-win for all of us. Why? Are you both too wimpy to rise to the occasion?” Taehyung smirks; completely nonplussed when everyone groans at his puns though Jin gives him a subtle nod of approval.

“Okay, I’m game for it. What about you Y/N? I think it’s the yeast you can do after bragging for so long. You and I with one kitchen and one winner. Batter the devil you know right?” Jin sits forward, leaning his elbows on his knees and the fact that he took Tae’s lead on the puns makes you want to roll your eyes. But instead you’re far too focused on how sinful his position makes his shoulders look. Particularly in that damn black turtleneck. It’s enough to make your mouth water.

You pause for a moment, taking in everyone’s faces as they look on in intrigue. While no one wants to witness World War Three: The Bake Off Edition, they’d all be willing to endure it for some good food you’re sure.

“Alright Jin, you’re on. We’ll see who’s the best.” Standing, you both shake hands and you try your best to ignore how damn good his hand feels. As you do so, the guys immediately drop into planning mode.

The competition was arranged for the following week on the Saturday. It gave you both plenty of time to prepare what you were going to create under the rules that the rest of your group had given you, which was mainly to be fair and don’t cheat. Or be an ass.

You’d both decided to let your friends make the challenges, which had resulted in frantic texts between them all as they tried to decide on what they wanted to eat for the first two days. The end result was three challenges.

1. A salted caramel cheesecake (Jungkook had begged for a cheesecake)

2. Black forest brownies (Namjoon demanded that at least something had to have fruit to be a little healthy)

3. Triple chocolate cookies (That had been the one everyone agreed on quickest)

Surprisingly, both Jin and you had complained that the challenges weren’t hard enough to test your skills. But the group had been firm, wanting to have food that was both quick enough to make but also wouldn’t result in you both strangling each other. That meant no filo pastry this time.

It actually surprised you how into the competition everyone was as they had all agreed to buy the ingredients themselves to prevent any ‘cheating’ from the two of you. You could still hear the ringing in your ears from Jin’s rant about that and honestly you agreed, how were you going to cheat exactly?

It had been decided that the competition was going to take place in the restaurant that Namjoon and Jin owned together before it opened up for the day, as none of you owned a kitchen with two ovens. Which was how you were stood in the middle of a high tech looking kitchen while you wrapped the cords of your cute Pokémon themed apron around your front.

“Ready to lose Y/N?” Jin teased lightly, his tone more playful than mean as his hand fluttering along your back lightly as he passed by behind you. Shivers erupted from the slight touch and you nodded, not entirely positive that you trusted your voice to speak for you.

The guys had had way too much fun setting up this whole competition, even going to the extent of decorating the kitchen to add some ‘ambience’ as Taehyung called it. Personally you just thought he wanted an excuse to decorate but whatever, it wasn’t something that you needed to focus on.

Both of you stood in front of your relevant work stations, surrounded by the baking bounties that would mix together to produce the most delicious food possible.

“Okay you argumentative fucks. Hopefully this will resolve any more arguments you have in the future. Remember…its mind over batter. Three, two, one…go!” Yoongi called out, a hand coming down like he was directing a drag race or something.

Hoseok glared at him and muttered out in disgust at the fact Yoongi had even got involved in the puns, but the blonde man simply gave a delighted gummy smile. They’d all agreed that they didn’t even care who won; they were just going to reap the yummy baked benefits and so the excitement was palpable amongst them.

“I hope you’re ready to lose.” Jin comments casually as he begins to measure out his ingredients. You sneer, though the striking figure he makes momentarily distracts you from making a comment back to him.

You immediately moved to grab the ingredients to start the cheesecake, deciding to tackle that first, as it had to wait the longest to cool down. This had been mentioned to Jungkook many times but he’d been adamant that he wanted a cheesecake and what Jungkook wanted, Jungkook got.

Out of the corner of your eye you notice Jin obviously deciding to do the same as he began to pour plain digestive biscuits into a bag and began to hammer it with a rolling pin to create the base of the cake.

As you both work, you find that there’s an almost comfortable silence between you two. It surprises you, as you’d have thought that there’d be more shit talking between the two. Not to say that there wasn’t shit talking every now and then.

“You beat your eggs really oddly, you know that?” Jin commented as he placed his almost finished cheesecake in the oven to bake for the final time. You frowned at the fact he’d worked so fast and cursed those delicious looking biceps of his for allowing him to work faster.

“Being a woman I’m not as acquainted with beating things as you are Jin.” There’s a snort of laughter from the peanut gallery and you eye Jimin making a jerking motion to the others with a smile. Jin scowls over at you, as he quickly cleans his dishes and begins to prepare for the brownies.

“Hilarious.” He whispers into your ear, causing you to shiver, as he moves past you to grab a fresh and clean whisk, evidently deciding not to bother cleaning his. As you pour in the cheese mixture on top of your cake, you can’t help but bite your lip as you admire his figure yet again before shaking your head and concentrating again.

The only noise for the next few minutes as you begin to focus on making the brownie batter, folding in the sour cherries with care, is the low murmuring from the guys. They’re already whining at the smell of cheesecake in the air and even you have to admit that it’s making you hungry.

“Hey Y/N, why did the chocolate cake go to the doctors?” Jin suddenly speaks up. You pause in the middle of pouring the batter into the baking tray and look up at him suspiciously.

“I don’t know, do I want to know?” Murmuring suspiciously, you look back at your task and wait for his response. Why he’s suddenly decided to make a joke is beyond you but this was Jin, he did things like this. Yoongi is already groaning at the punch line and he’s not even heard it.

“Because it was feeling crumby!” Almost immediately Jin is laughing while everyone groans, with the exception of Jimin who falls of his chair in laughter. You can’t help the corners of your lips rising and you let out a soft exhale of a laugh.

Having found an audience for his jokes who obviously couldn’t leave, Jin continues with both jokes and puns as you both begin the process of baking your cookies. You’re not sure if he’s being serious and simply wanting to make people laugh, or if he’s trying to distract you so that your stuff tastes bad but either way, you can’t help but giggle at him.

He also seems to keep finding reasons to invade your personal space, claiming that he needs a certain ingredient or utensil and leaning over you. If he thinks that he can spy on how you’re baking or distract you then he’s dead wrong.

Well, kind of wrong. He smells phenomenal and your nose would be as long as the equator if you said he didn’t make your stomach flip when he got close. Maybe that was his game.

With a tray of brownies and a rather delicious looking cheesecake cooling, you’re simply waiting on the two trays of cookies that you had made to finish baking. Everyone moves forward to help you both clean up and they all compliment you both on not tearing each other’s throats out.

“Honestly, I was expecting like some actual blood to fly. Whether it’s because you cut yourself or murdered each other. Congratulations on acting like grown adults and not 2 years olds.” Hoseok grins, patting you both on the shoulders proudly, despite the fact that Jin is older than him.

You glare at him and stick your tongue out, causing him to immediately revoke his previous comment for you. “We’re not that bad.” You grunt out. Jin laughs next to you, high pitched and loud.

“We kind of are Y/N.” He muses, staring at you deeply. You’re about to ask if there’s something on your face when he suddenly reaches out and wipes away some flour on your cheek with his thumb. Dumbstruck, you’re not entirely sure what to do and turn away to busy yourself with cleaning the bowls, cheeks flaming red.

It’s only been around an hour since the cheesecake finished baking and both Jin and you complain at the fact the guys won’t let them rest properly. They promptly ignore you and begin to cut into your masterpieces eagerly.

“They’re not going to taste as good as it would if you leave it! You’re not doing it right – dammit Jungkook!” You curse the younger man as he stuffs his mouth with a large piece. He simply grins at you, causing you to pull a face as his teeth are stained with chocolate.

A groan leaves him as his eyes flutter shut and Jimin makes the same noise next to him. On the other side of the table, Taehyung and Hoseok are also apparently having a sexual awakening as they try Jin’s.

Yoongi and Namjoon are too busy trying to stuff their face full of brownies, alternating between the two bakers. Both Jin and you stand there, antsy and impatiently awaiting their results before you both decide to try each other’s food as well.

You begrudgingly congratulate Jin, noting that his food tastes as delicious as he boasts. In fact it takes everything inside you to stop yourself your moaning at the burst of flavours on your tongue and you curse the fact that the man is not only wildly attractive but also unbelievably talented in the kitchen.

It takes a few more minutes of moaning, to which you ask them if they could wait until you leave the room for them to reach completion, before they finally discuss their opinions quietly on the other side of the room before giving their verdict.

Standing in front of you, they all look just a little blissed out from the food they’d just inhaled, and Jungkook looks like he might vibrate through the floor from his sugar overdose.

“Honestly, you both win. How are we supposed to choose between perfection?” Namjoon states, grinning as he grabs what must be his fourth cookie. Taehyung nods his head in agreement as he reaches for another brownie. Everything is almost gone already.

Both Jin and you stand in shock before you both begin to complain loudly at the unfairness of it all. “Why bother making us compete if you weren’t going to give the winner to one of us?” You glare at Jimin, causing an impish grin to spread across his face.

“Honestly, we just wanted some damn good food and we did say that we don’t care who wins. Besides! You both worked pretty well together, there was far less arguing than we thought so…everyone’s a winner right?” You grumble as you shove one of the remaining brownies into your own mouth, mentally cursing out everyone in the kitchen.

Jin chuckles suddenly and you glare at him. “Why are you laughing? You didn’t win either! We just basically made these empty pits food! All that effort wasted.” You gesture towards the boys, noting that none of them seem that bothered by your irritated words.

“I don’t know why you expected any different from them.” He states the obvious, raising his eyebrow at you. “Besides, it means I got to spend some time with you.”

You’re choking on your brownie then as the guys all ooh softly in the background, grins plastered on all their faces. With wide eyes, you look back at him and wonder if you’d just heard him right. Jin had always flirted with you, but you’d always thought it was just him being funny like always.

As you go to open your mouth to question him, he suddenly leans forward and seals his lips to yours. Shock renders you still as Jin’s soft, pliant lips move over your own, causing your eyes to flutter shut while Taehyung screams out “Finally!” in the background.

Jin pulls away slowly and gives you a grin, his eyes flickering down before a finger coming up to wipe away something from your bottom lip. He lifts it up to show you the chocolate now on his finger before sucking it into his mouth.

“Do you want to go on a date with me? I think we could bake each other really happy.” He murmurs softly, a grin spreading over his face as you go from swooning to frowning at his pun. Instead of responding to him verbally, you give him your answer by simply pulling him back down.

#bts fic #jin fic #jin scenario #jin fluff #jin crack #bts fluff #bts crack #seokjin fluff #seokjin crack #jin fanfic #bts fanfic

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ny-watcher · 3 years

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Another Season of Big Brother Brasil came to an End on May 4, 2021 with Juliette taking home the BBB Crown with 90,15% of the Public Vote!

This Edition broke several BB Records and made New Ones - It was the Longest Edition at 101 Days which I actually Prefer since we got to see more Big Brother Drama and Competitions and also got to see the Housemates evolve as Players. Nothing worse that seeing a Short season were you can't invest time in getting to know the Players before even attempting to pick a Favorite. For me it was Easy this time around - After my Initial Analysis of the Housemates Juliette became #1 on my Top 3 Favorite List in the first week - Not because she is Attractive but instead it had to do with her Powerful Charisma and Entertaining Fun persona which stood out immediately - This caused problems for her in the 1st couple of weeks with the other Housemates since they thought she was Wacky - Crazy and too Blunt with her opinions and talked a lot - she wasn't shy about giving her opinions and calling people out and usually did it in a Funny way which was entertaining. I knew then she was destined to have a Great Time in the BBB House and would entertain the Public if she didn't manage to get herself evicted early - something the other Housemates tried to do to her early but failed.

After the 1st couple of rough weeks she faced having most of the Housemates turn on her she managed to use her Unique yet powerful Personality and Social Skills to get through the game which made her beloved by the Majority of the Public including me. She revealed having a Big Heart which she demonstrated by not only caring about her friends but also those who were her Rivals in the House - She managed to get the Haters in the House to like her in the end by winning them over with Humor which kept her off the Chopping Block - Her Empathy and Sympathy for others revealed how unique she was in this game and also is in the real world. Others doubted a person like her could exist - However she stood her ground and played the Cleanest Game Possible on any Big Brother Show without having to alter her Gameplay and Fun Personality - She remained consistent from beginning to end keeping her dignity intact without having to intentionally hurt or slander anyone in the House - something a lot of Housemates did to her. She rolled with the punches and didn't sway from her path to Victory. A girl who entered the BBB House with 3-4K Followers and left the House with 24,7 Million Followers - Not Bad at all - As I write this Post she has already reached 28 Million. So Congrats to Juliette for taking home the Crown as Winner of BBB21 not only did she earn it she also deserved it. It's been awhile since we saw a Housemate give more of herself to the game while earning the Win on her own True Merits. She became a phenomenon inside and outside of the House. The Most Unique and Loved Housemate we have seen in awhile. Congrats Juliette!

Grand Finale Stats:

WINNER -> Juliette Freire - AGE 31 <- Took Home the BBB Crown and Grand Prize of R$1.5 million

2nd Place -> Camilla de Lucas - AGE 26 <- Took home the runner up Spot and R$150,000 Prize Money

3rd Place -> Fiuk - AGE 30 <- Took the 3rd spot on podium and also took home the R$50,000 Prize Money

Numbers of Votes to pick the Winner in the Grand Finale --> 633,284,707 <-- So do the Math to find out by how much Juliette Won her Victory.

It was a Great Season and Although I personally enjoy Longer Seasons we already heard the Host Complaining about it being too long and prefers editions with fewer days - He mentioned around 75 Days which for me is Ridiculous since 90 Days should be the Minimum and anything below that isn't enough time to invest in the Players or the Game. So Looks like the Next Edition will be Shorter and that's a Shame. However there are Rumors they might do 2 Editions during the same year so we will have to wait and see if that's true - until then I see you in next Edition ;-)

#BBB #BBB21 #Big Brother Brasil #Big Brother Brasil 21 #JULIETTE #JulietteBBB21

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junker-town · 4 years

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See you soon, Hannah Roberts

How one of Team USA’s potential breakout Olympic stars is handling the wait.

Luscious green trees surround the outdoor skatepark and grandstands at the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships in Chengdu, China. Freestyle BMX star Hannah Roberts — atop her pink bike, rocking a black full-face helmet — drops in and pedals hard toward a spine ramp. As she launches off the ramp, Roberts begins a 360-degree spin. In the middle of her rotation, she uses the handlebars to whip the bike around separate from her body, becoming the first woman to land a 360 tailwhip in competition.

The historic trick, thrown down on her sport’s biggest stage, epitomized Roberts’ young career. She has never stopped building to bigger and better things.

Rather than give the crowd a fist pump, or take a breather to soak in the momentous occasion, Roberts immediately hits a vert ramp and busts a flair — a backflip with a simultaneous 180-degree turn.

The year before, she took a disappointing third in the event, behind fellow Americans Perris Benegas and Angie Marino. On Nov. 10, 2019, Roberts avenged the loss, winning her second world championship at just 18 years old with a score of 90.0 out of 100.

After wiping away tears, she stood above the rest on the podium, smiling as she accepted a gold medal and a stuffed panda with a leaf in its mouth. She wore UCI’s iconic rainbow jersey, bestowed upon world champions of every cycling discipline since the 1920s.

Just one week earlier, she had won her fourth straight FISE World Cups Series, which also held its final event in Chengdu. Roberts left no question whether she was the best women’s freestyle BMXer in the world.

youtube

“I wanted to have the rainbow jersey going into the Olympic year,” Roberts says. “It was more for myself. I put so much work in, and I was so focused on showing that I wasn’t going to take second or third again. I wanted that year to be all about me, so I threw down some of my bigger tricks.”

Her mother Betty made the trip to Chengdu to watch, after she and Roberts had spent half a year apart. In order to train for the world championships, Roberts effectively emancipated herself from her mother and father in June 2019 while she was still 17.

She moved in with long-time medical trainer Trish Bare Grounds and Trish’s 18-year-old daughter, Olivia, 750 miles away in Holly Springs, North Carolina. As she moved, she changed her diet. More importantly, she strictly budgeted her modest income. Being a teenage action sports prodigy with international acclaim isn’t as lucrative as one might think.

There was no giant check waiting at the podium in Chengdu to signify the €10,000 in prize money she earned, but the win was huge for Roberts. Just four months prior, she wasn’t sure she could sustain her freestyle BMX career into her mid-twenties unless the sport became more financially stable.

The World Championships are one of the few annual competitions to award equal prizes to men and women. By comparison, when she won the final contest of the world series, the Men’s Elite winner took home €8,000 while Roberts received €1,500.

And though Roberts’ accomplishments show how far women’s freestyle BMX has come in recent years in terms of talent and viability, they are also a reminder of the wage and sponsorship gap that persists between male and female athletes. As impressive as Roberts and her peers have been, the most famous annual extreme sports event, the X Games, still won’t let them compete.

The now-postponed summer Olympics were supposed to be a launch pad for the sport and for Roberts. The games drew an estimated 3.6 billion viewers for the Rio Games in 2016. Freestyle BMX will be an event for the first time ever in Tokyo, and Roberts is the clear favorite to take home gold.

“Women are the future of our sport,” says Nina Buitrago, a pioneer of women’s BMX who continues to be one of the sports biggest advocates. “They’re very marketable, and it’s a big thing that BMX has needed for a long time. It’s just incredible that with something like the Olympics, it’s catapulted all of us in to try to progress more and just own our journey.”

Roberts is ready to lead the charge; unfortunately, there’s only so much she can control. She did everything right heading into the 2020 games — kept herself afloat financially, trained relentlessly, won everything she needed to and then some.

But she couldn’t predict the coronavirus pandemic that has put her Olympic dreams, and those of countless others, on hold until 2021 at the earliest. Roberts is used to addressing her problems through sheer willpower. Being forced to wait, a budding star without a showcase, has been an entirely different challenge.

In South Bend, Indiana, around the back of an old brick chocolate factory, past a chain-link gate and barbed-wire fence, and at the other end of a parking lot with cracked concrete, sits an old mattress factory-turned-world-class skatepark. The indoor park known as “The Kitchen” is closed most weekdays, but on an unusually warm Monday afternoon in February, the front door is unlocked. Roberts is home for the first time in more than six months to enjoy her formative skatepark.

That evening, she will ride with three boys between the ages of 11 and 14 who she has mentored for years. Roberts was invited to the park for a private session for them and their parents. She practically had no choice — she happened to be in town, and they were blowing up her phone all day begging to celebrate.

The official Team USA Instagram account posted a photo of Roberts earlier that afternoon announcing she was the first American to ever qualify for the Olympics in freestyle BMX.

View this post on Instagram

WATCH OUT, 18-year-old @hannah_roberts_bmx is the first American to qualify for the Olympics in BMX freestyle ‼️

A post shared by Team USA (@teamusa) on Feb 3, 2020 at 9:33am PST

“They’re supposed to be in school,” Roberts says, “but they were on their phones during the day and took screenshots, sent it to me and asked, ‘Did you see this?’ The first three times I told them ‘no,’ but finally, I just responded, ‘Do you want to ride tonight?’”

For hours, Roberts and her young pupils film each other on their phones while they attempt high-flying tricks into a large yellow foam pit and eat slices of greasy pizza. She’s proud of how they have improved under her tutelage. Their parents comment on how much she has inspired them. Roberts also expects this will be one of her last carefree runs before she transitions to a training regimen suitable for an Olympic athlete. She sits and soaks in nostalgia from her surroundings instead of sending her own tricks into the foam pit.

“The last four years of me living here, I rode with every one of these kids almost every day,” Roberts says. “I’d pick them up from their house if they needed a ride or I’d take them to a skatepark. If I wanted to make a day trip to Ohio just to ride something different, they were always in my car going with me.”

According to her mother, Roberts is at her happiest when she’s working with kids, though she still fits within a broad definition of “adolescent” herself.

“[Hannah] was the first girl I saw do a tailwhip. Once she has a trick, she can just do it. It’s not like it’s luck.” - Nina Buitrago, freestyle BMX pioneer

Roberts grew up in the 4,000-person town of Buchanan, Michigan, a few miles north of the Indiana state border and a 20-minute drive from South Bend. Decades ago, Buchanan’s rolling terrain gave birth to RedBud MX, one of America’s signature motocross tracks and now an annual stop for the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. In the fall of 2018, the track even hosted Motocross of Nations, which is billed as the “Olympics of motocross,” drawing riders from all over the world.

The fact Buchanan produced a world-renowned extreme sports athlete like Roberts isn’t a surprise. But Roberts is unique because her success never came on a dirt bike. If not for her father’s disapproval, Roberts might have given motocross a real shot, but the closest she ever came was working a taco stand at RedBud MX during her summers.

Her passion for BMX was passed on from her older cousin, Brett “Mad Dog” Banasiewicz, once an up-and-comer on the Dew Tour. In 2012, as a shaggy black-haired 17-year-old, he won his first Dew Tour park event in Ocean City, Maryland. The following week, his professional career came to a devastating end. During a practice session, he landed on his head while attempting a 720° and wearing an uncertified helmet. He temporarily lost the use of his left arm, and his motor and speech skills will never fully recover.

“It was horrible. To me, he was gonna be the next Dave Mirra,” says Daniel Dhers, one of the most decorated BMX riders of all-time. “He just learned how to compete. He had all these tricks that he’d worked on for years. He had the looks, and he could talk, and was funny. If he were riding today? He’d be the guy in the Olympics, for sure. That would be crazy because then it would be him and Hannah.”

Via Hannah Roberts

Roberts herself has suffered numerous broken bones, but fear of suffering an injury like Banasiewicz doesn’t hold her back.

“You can take all the safety precautions in the world, but it still could happen,” Roberts says. “Brett fell on a trick that he’d mastered, that he’d been doing forever. It was five seconds and everything changed.”

Before the injury, a 16-year-old Banasiewicz self-funded and, with the help of his friend Glenn Salyers, designed The Kitchen. They equipped it with enormous ramps, foam pits, and “resi” ramps, which are covered in foam and a thick sheet of black rubber. By the time she was riding at nine years old, Roberts had access to one of the nation’s premier skateparks.

Swiss-American freestyle rider Nikita Ducarroz, five years Roberts’ senior and a likely qualifier for the 2020 Olympics for Switzerland, remembers trekking to The Kitchen from her Southern California home for a competition as a teenager. She almost froze at the magnitude of its jumps.

“The ramps at The Kitchen are huge,” Ducarroz says. “I remember going there, and I couldn’t even cruise the boxes and [Hannah’s] doing tricks over them.”

By middle school, Roberts was already performing tricks that seasoned veterans with sponsorships had never seen.

“She was the first girl I saw do a tailwhip,” Buitrago says. “Once she has a trick, she can just do it. It’s not like it’s luck.”

But as much as The Kitchen spurred Roberts’ BMX education, she eventually realized she had to leave it behind.

For years, Roberts believed members of her inner circle credited The Kitchen for too much of her success, disregarding her work ethic and determination. And she could only spend so much time mentoring other young BMXers without sacrificing her own progress.

“I love riding with the locals,” Roberts says. “I love helping them, but it comes to a point where, in every session, if you’re focusing on other people riding, which I love to do, your riding starts to fall.”

Roberts gave up her passion for mentoring, at least temporarily, to better her career. She had felt the pain of losing the 2018 World Championships and the rainbow jersey. She never wants to let that happen again.

Holly Springs — a pine tree- and strip mall-filled landscape similar to every other suburb in the Raleigh, N.C., metropolitan area — has quickly become the new mecca of freestyle BMX. That’s largely thanks to Dhers, who owns the massive indoor-outdoor skatepark known as the Daniel Dhers Action Sports Complex. Dhers, 35, is a five-time X Games gold medalist originally from Venezuela.

From the front, the DDASC looks like an office building or outlet store, industrial gray brick and dark windows covering the outside. The inside doesn’t look like what a typical sports fan might expect from an Olympic training facility. Plywood and two-by-fours are the predominant decor. But the 37,000-square-foot complex is considered one of the largest and best family-oriented, year-round skating and biking facilities in the world.

After spending her entire life in the Midwest, Roberts moved to Holly Springs to train at the DDASC because, unlike most other Olympic athletes, the best BMX riders like to train side-by-side, pushing each other.

The park officially opens to the public every weekday from 3 to 8 p.m. Dhers and the other pros do most of their riding in the morning to avoid crowds of young kids on scooters, but they often make exceptions on Tuesday evenings.

Recently, Roberts was joined by two other women riders: Ducarroz and Benegas, the winner of the 2018 World Championships. Roberts and Benegas are teammates and rivals. Their tug-of-war relationship only intensified after both became near-locks to qualify for the Olympics.

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“It’s very competitive now,” Roberts says. “We call it winning practice, which makes no sense because it’s practice, but everybody wants to win.”

The male riders include Dhers, Marin Ranteš of Croatia, American Justin Dowell and Australian Brand Loupos. All have finished on the podium at major UCI and FISE BMX events over the last two years.

During training sessions at the DDASC, each rider takes turns dropping in from the deck and riding for 30 to 40 seconds at a time, watching each other and offering criticism and encouragement. On one run, Roberts lands a tailwhip onto resi with relative ease. She then rides around the skatepark to pick up speed and hits the same ramp, performing a 360° tuck no-hander in which, while letting go of the bike, she leans her stomach against the handlebars before grabbing them again and landing.

Much of her competition would be thrilled with this short run, but Roberts is just getting started.

“Backflip bar spins over spines is her warm-up trick in sessions,” Ducarroz says.

Unfortunately, the sport of freestyle BMX hasn’t progressed as quickly as its athletes.

Freestyle BMX has been around since the mid-1970s, but didn’t achieve international prominence until the late 90s and early 2000s, after the X Games were started. Yet, to this day, women BMXers aren’t allowed to vie for a medal in the competition.

Instead, the most that X Games organizers have been willing to give them is an unpaid demonstration, the first of which occurred in 2014. For 10 years before that, X Games offered a girls BMX clinic. The riders hope that, one day, women’s freestyle BMX will have its own competition, similar to what women’s skateboarding and snowboarding have enjoyed for years.

It’s a big risk, especially the year before the Olympics, to ride at an event where you won’t make money ... [The X Games] are just a big slap in the face” - Hannah Roberts

“We’ve been working on this relationship with X Games for so long,” Buitrago says. “I feel like we’re so close, but they just were like, ‘Well, we’re just going to offer you another demo again.’ The deal that we made was [that] women are down to do the demo, so long as every year we’re working towards having an actual contest.”

But everyone has their limits. In 2018, when she was16, Roberts became the first prominent female rider to bail on the X Games, deciding her skills were worth more than a free hotel room and limited exposure. Some of the other professional riders protested her decision, saying it wasn’t best for the sport, but her mind was made up.

The following year, the entire women’s class agreed to boycott the event.

“It’s a big risk, especially the year before the Olympics, to ride at an event where you won’t make money,” Roberts says. “We barely get a crowd. They have it at like 9 or 10 a.m., so nobody’s really there. No events are going on. It’s just a big slap in the face.

“People should really open their eyes and realize that the class [of women] is growing. That people are getting better and it will take time for us to be on the same level as the men just because of the support. It’s hard to make [BMX] a career.”

Roberts learned from a young age that practice, more than exposure, would propel her career.

At the DDASC, Dhers is the unofficial coach of the group. He periodically pulls riders aside for extra one-on-one attention while they train. When Roberts first moved to Holly Springs, her day-to-day riding was inconsistent. One day, she might push herself beyond her limits, risking injury and wearing herself out. The next, she’d spend too much time on her phone or drinking an energy drink. Dhers and the other pros helped her change her mentality by pushing her to take a more mindful, calculated approach to practicing new tricks.

Now she’s deliberate about how much time she spends sending a trick to the foam pit, only moving to resi once she feels she’s ready, then moving to a wooden ramp when the trick is nearly perfect.

“I used to just send things [on a wooden ramp] and then go back on resi and then go back in the foam and work on them, which was a terrible idea,” Roberts says.

Her new mentality has paid real dividends. For instance, on a six-week training trip she took to Australia after her victory at the World Championships, Roberts learned more than two dozen new tricks, including what she called five or six “big tricks.” During that time, she traveled throughout the country, staying with Australian rider Natalya Diehm.

Roberts knew she had to evolve. She noticed other women catching up to her, and the number of competitors increasing exponentially. She’s stubborn according to those who know her well. She got to the top of her profession as a teenager, after all, even before she got to Holly Springs.

According to Dhers, Roberts’ persistent ‘send-it mentality’ came from her Kitchen days, riding massive ramps with no one to tell her she shouldn’t. On ramps that size, riders must possess a certain degree of fearlessness to commit to a trick. It was there she learned a fundamental lesson of the sport.

“If you baby it, you die,” Dhers says. “You don’t make it.”

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The Covid-19 pandemic first hit the freestyle BMX world Feb. 22 when FISE and the UCI canceled the World Cup event scheduled for May in Pu Yang, China. A few weeks later, a second World Cup event in Hiroshima was postponed indefinitely. After a period of insisting the games would be held as scheduled, the International Olympic Committee finally announced on March 24 the postponement of the Tokyo Games until 2021.

In the days following the news, Roberts spent more time in her bedroom than at the DDASC, moving back and forth from her bed, to playing video games, to her desk to email Team USA and other sponsors.

Focusing on a few companies at a time, she figured out which of her sponsorships were most impacted. The Milk Processor Education Program, the group behind the “Got Milk?” campaign, adjusted their contract with Roberts, but her contracted sponsorships within the BMX industry — Tioga, Alienation, Hyper Bike and Snafu — were still intact.

“It’s still just a little frustrating going through all the emails and making sure that we’re all on the same page and we all know what’s happening, who’s getting paid when and what is expected of me,” Roberts says.

Perhaps the biggest frustration was the notion that all the hard work she’d been putting in towards the Olympics — the stringent riding schedule, changes to her diet, dedication to the gym — wouldn’t pay off like she had planned.

“I was happy that the committee put in the consideration for athletes’ health,” Roberts says, “but it’s also disappointing and nerve-wracking because you have to keep the Olympic mindset for the next year and deal with all the same stuff over again.”

Thankfully, Roberts will not have to requalify. She will represent Team USA at the Olympics in 2021. And she’s still training.

Because of the pandemic, skateparks all across the country are closed to the public, including the DDASC. But all the pros agreed that if they only saw each other, and had all groceries and food delivered, that they could continue to practice together. Dhers turned the upper deck of the skatepark into a mini gym, equipped with dumbbells, a pull-up bar and two plastic trash cans attached at opposite ends of a workout bar.

Roberts still rides for three to four hours a day with the group, but she works out at home in the afternoons using exercise bands. She also tries to get up at 6 a.m. every morning for cardio and stretching. The UCI rainbow jersey hanging in her bedroom closet helps keep her focused.

“When I don’t feel like riding in the morning or when I don’t feel like getting up and going to the session or the workout, I look at it and it gives me that extra motivation,” Roberts says. “It’s like, ‘I don’t want to lose this again.’”

This should have been the year when Roberts’ profile skyrocketed. Through no fault of her own, 2020 feels like a step back, a disheartening tumble after a redemptive 2019. Still, it’s difficult to know how much an Olympic gold medal would elevate her career.

“CNN could pick it up and then boom, she’s a famous superstar, or no one could pick it up and then nothing ever happens,” Dhers says. “How many Olympic gold medalists are there for the women in other sports and no one knows they exist?”

Roberts doesn’t seem to be banking on superstardom, at least. For now, she’s being frugal, saving almost every dime from her contest winnings.

Certainly, the more visible Roberts is, the more popular she and the sport can become. For years, Roberts has been considered a leader in freestyle BMX because of her strong example. That ‘send-it mentality,’ again.

“One thing I’ve learned is that when you see a woman do something, you’re like, ‘oh, my gosh, it’s possible,’” Buitrago says. “For whatever reason, you see guys do the same trick but when you see a woman do [a trick] that you haven’t ever seen them do before, you’re like, ‘Oh, my God. Yes.’”

But Roberts doesn’t focus much on the stakes, only on how she’s pushing herself at any point in time. Others may see unlimited potential, and an opportunity for fame and possibly fortune, but her goals are intrinsic.

“I don’t necessarily want to be the best woman BMX rider,” Roberts says. “I would rather just be a good or great BMX rider, in general, rather than having the woman or the man label on it.

“I just do whatever I think is possible and if it works out, it works out. And if not, try it again.”

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rivalstv · 7 years

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Episode Four Summary

Episode Three aired on July 29th, 2017 on MNet

Episode Four also begins on the Unpretty Set. The competitors sit with their teams while they are told what will happen in the next episode; They were to be divided into pairs (and one team of three) and compete in a live 1:1 mission that will be broadcast on the MNet webpage. The fans watching will decide who is best, and the ones who lost the matchup will be up for the season’s first elimination.

When a rapper asks how the teams are being decided, the host explains that they will pick who they want to go up against. He says that Kannon will go first, and she almost immediately picks Haebi, stating that Haebi is one of the few rappers good enough to be in her league. Haein was picked next, and she chose Yitta-- in the confessionals, Kannon criticized that as a weak move and that Haein was just picking someone she knew she could beat. A lesser-known underground rapper picks Eos, saying something about wanting to expose Harmony’s talentless leader. BB picks another underground rapper that she’s apparently had problems with in the past. Riko picks Roxy, which everyone sees as a pretty ballsy move, as so far in the competition, Roxy has been strong and Riko has been average. Seyeon chooses Yein, and many comment on how unfair that matchup really looks. And Melody ends up picking Cyrah-- while they were two of the only rappers left, many competitors seem to feel very bad for Melody, and hope Cyrah doesn’t dig into her too badly. That leaves one rapper, and she is given the option to join any pairing-- she ends up picking BB’s group, turning that group into a group of three.

The groups divide so they can pick beats and put together their performances-- they’re given a day to do this. Some pairings work better than others; Seyeon seems overly nervous, so she lets Yein pick the track. Roxy and Riko have a similar style, so they work well together. Cyrah takes command to pick a track, but Melody goes along with it. Kannon lets Haebi pick the track, saying that she could rap anything. BB and her partners have a lot of trouble picking the track, though.

The next day, it is time for the performances. Many of the rappers reveal to have not slept very well the night before, choosing to stay up and trying to get their verses down. Kannon and Haebi go first-- Kannon seems very much off her game, and in the confessionals, Yitta calls her a hypocrite, saying she talks a big game but doesn’t follow through. Yein, in the confessionals, says that it isn’t fair of her to tear everyone down every week and then not perform. Haebi ends up winning the vote.

Haein and Yitta are next to perform, and Haein pulls of an incredibly performance-- many praise it as her best performance so far. Yitta does less well, though, and in the confessional, Riko wonders if maybe Yitta was trying too hard to mimic Haein’s writing style. Cyrah criticizes Yitta’s lack of writing ability. The vote is very close (Heirs fans came out in full force to help Yitta out), but when all is said and done, Haein ends up winning.

Eos and her partner are, in Seyeon’s wording, ‘a cringe fest’. The underground rapper is just plain bad, but Eos’ only saving grace is that she’s entertaining and funny. Roxy and Yein-- both native English speakers-- both add that it’s less entertaining in English, and makes a lot less sense. Eos wins the match. BB wins her match too-- both of her partners are rather lackluster, while she ends up being pretty solid.

Roxy and Riko were both very solid and the competition was fierce, but Riko ended up winning the matchup in the end. Kannon mentions that she’s sure part of that was just fandom, because Roxy is a better rapper overall, but Haebi (in her confessional) points out that Roxy wasn’t really on her game and Riko did exceptionally well, making it even out a little better.

Yein and Seyeon pull off easily the best and most entertaining performance of the show-- they both sound good and perform well, and even have a good hook to go with it. Some of the producers mention that it sounded like an actual song, and not just a 1:1 mission. Many of the rappers show excitement for Seyeon, as it’s the best she’s done in the show so far and she really seems to be getting more comfortable. Yein wins the matchup, but Haein says they both really one-- no one can come out a loser in a stage like that.

Melody and Cyrah are the last two to go. Cyrah ends up winning, but it is a disappointing stage. The track didn’t suit Melody very well at all, and while the stage was better than some of the others, it didn’t add up to previous performers both rappers have already put on. Kannon wonders if maybe the two have gotten complacent based on how well they’ve been doing so far.

As per the results of the 1:1′s, Yein, Haebi, Cyrah, Riko, Haein, Eos and BB are safe. That means Baby J, Kannon, Melody, Roxy, Yitta, and the three underground rappers are up for elimination. The host says the four worst performers of the week will have two hours to put together a stage, and only one will survive, meaning three will be eliminated.

Based on the votes, the producers deem Seyeon safe-- while she lost to Yein in votes, she also got more votes than a lot of the other winners, so she is not up for elimination. Based on how Melody, Roxy and Kannon have done in past episodes, the producers deem them safe too, meaning Yitta and the three underground performers are up for elimination.

When all is said and done and the stages are performed, the producers decide that Yitta has the most potential out of the four, and she is safe. The other three are elminated.

#rivalsuprs #rivalstask #unpretty rapstar season 3 #unpretty rapstar season 3 ep #unpretty rapstar season 3 episode 4

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gtasanaandreas-blog · 5 years

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Best 9 PUBG Tricks & Hacks to Play like a PRO

PUBG Tips & Cheats PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, in short PUBG, the most popular Battle Royale game that took the internet by storm has shattered many records and has quickly emerged as the most popular game in its domain.

The unique Battle Royale game has quickly caught the attention of Millions of gamers and everyone is really enjoying and are testing their mettle by challenging unknown players in the battlegrounds and taking them down with modern weapons.

The survival game features a very unique game theme. Not everyone becomes a winner. You need to survive in order to be the winner. If you love tasting the Chicken Dinners in PUBG then you need to master the art of playing PUBG.

If your victories happened by luck then make them permanent by following some useful PUBG Tricks that will turn you to be a professional PUBG player.

In this article, we will be revealing some Best and most handy PUBG Tricks & Hacks to Play like a PRO. So keep your eyes on these tricks and be the best survivor.

Also Read – 6 Best Game Hacking Apps For Android 2018 (Best Game Hackers)

PUBG Tricks & Hacks: One of the Best thing about PUBG is that it inherits the real world game dynamics perfectly and the combats will be with the real world players. So one has to have a clear understanding of the real world combats in order be a good PUBG player. You need to think and act like real world soldier and has to use your mind power as well.

So here we have listed some PUBG tips that will instantly turn a beginner into an expert PUBG player instantly.

#1 Hit the Right spot – pubg tricks

You need to be wise while choosing the right spot to land safely and continue your race against survival. In PUBG if you land at the wrong spot at right then you may end up the game in just a few minutes or at times just as soon as you land.

The best tip is to land at a spot where you find decent loot with less number of players.

While you were in the air before landing keep an eye on the map to identify which spot is heavily crowded with players and it is better to avoid them initially.

#2 Early Bird Catches Worm! pubg tricks

The first thing you need to do as soon as you land is to collect the loot. Don’t focus on shooting immediately, Instead just collect the loot.

Once you are dead in PUBG you are done for the game. You don’t have multiple chances. To increase your win chances collect weapons, ammo and armory. You’ll find decent loot scattered around in buildings and supply crate drops.

You will end up looting the most in PUBG loot maps like Military Base, Pochinki, School, Hospital on Erangel & Hacienda del Patrón, Pecado, Los Leones, Campo Militar, EL Pozo on Miramar.

Also Read – How To Play PSP Games On Android : Without Root (Exclusive)

#3 Hunt Like Cheetah – pubg tricks Credits – BeanTheGoalie Re-emphasizing the fact that PUBG has some pretty good real-world game motions and dynamics. You need to be able to judge the right time to shoot at the target. Don’t just shoot immediately as soon as you see the target.

Only shoot when you’re in range, else you will end up dying. To reduce this learn the art of attacking in silence. Hunt like Cheetah, get a close shot, lock, load and fire!

#4 Keep an Eye on Map – Always keep an eye on the map. PUBG maps are very important for keeping an edge over the game. Keep checking the area for every now and then. It will take time to get familiarize with the map, but is totally worth getting habituated to check the map. You might be aware that in PUBG the map shrinks. Keeping an eye on the map will help you to reach to a safe zone at the earliest.

Also Read – Top Best 10 Games Under 10 MB For Android 2018 (Low MB Games)

#5 Stay Calm and Keep Moving! You need to be very quiet while moving across the Battle Grounds. Again this is because, just like in the real world, in PUBG, even a small sound will get noticed and draws the attention of the other players.

So better stay calm. It is suggested to move on barefoot as it will help you be unnoticed by other players in some environments. Don’t worry your speed won’t get affected when you move on barefoot. Staying calm is the key PUBG strategy to make presence felt.

#6 The Bait Trick – The best thing about the PUBG is its principle, “Survival of the fittest”. You win more, you need to kill more. If you wish to kill more people without shedding your blood we will share a clever trick that actually works. Just find a safe place and hide so that no one sees you.

Now drop any of the best weapon or Armour you own on the floor in such a way that other players notice it. Now kill the players who come for it.

#7 The PUBG frying PAN – pubg tricks

PUBG features countless modern combat weapons, but there is a weird weapon that actually sounds a bit funny as well when you hear it. The Ultimate PUBG frying PAN.

Yes, you heard it right. The extremely popular game features a frying pan as a weapon and it comes very handy. It helps you dodge bullets. You can wave it accurately and escape from incoming bullets. So next time you see a frying pan just equip it. No bullet can penetrate the frying pan.

#8 Use Silencers (Suppressors) – Now, this is one of the PUBG cheats which most people don’t know. Your opponents can easily detect your location by your firing sound. But you can decrease the gunfire sound by attaching a suppressor in your gun. All major guns can be attached by Suppressors in PUBG Mobile. It doesn’t lower the bullet damage.

#9 Use headphones – Well, many PUBG experts suggest that the game can be enjoyed to fullest with headphones. The game has a 3D surround sound. One advantage of playing with headphones is that it helps you to take notice of the incoming players by listening to their footsteps. Also, it helps you communicate and listen to calls of your squad mates and act wisely. So enjoy the game with sound.

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