#even though i still at the time though this was weirdly convoluted

[elexuscal]

obsessed with how in Danny Phantom

when the network (i presume) went to the show's writing staff and said, "love the show, but the kid's a superhero, give him a logo, we need a logo"

they clearly thought. but uhhh chief his super hero costume is the outfit he died in. we can't change it.

but they *had* to change it.

and instead of any half-dozen solutions i can think of off the top of my head (e.g. season 2 power up, take advantage of his already canonical light shapeshifting powers)

they went "okay so a ghost genie re-writes reality so he never met Sam and therefore neve rdied so Sam convinces him to die all over again but not before slapping her own home-made logo on his chest"

ridiculous. awful. love it.

[adultswim2021]

Moral Orel: “Abstinence” | January 18, 2009 | Unaired Special

Abstinence, “the nearly lost episode of Moral Orel”, or “episode 14 of 13” was an episode of the show that was left in an incomplete state thanks to Adult Swim cutting down the episode order. The audio for the episode was recorded, at least mostly (some characters might be scratch tracks, but I’m not certain), but the animation hadn’t been done. So, some people who worked on the show took it upon themselves to animate the radio play using “Orel’s Movie Premiere” style claymation. 

I’m glad they did it, because this is a worthy episode to have exist, even if it’s not 100% a “real” episode. This actually comes pretty damn close to being as satisfying as watching a normal episode. I wish we lived in the alternate universe where Dino manages to talk Adult Swim into letting him animate the show this cheaply in exchange for more episodes.  

This episode takes place during season two (with a post-Nature scene at the end). Doughy has long been neglected by his parents, who simply give Doughy a few bucks and ask him to stay out all day so they can neck with each other. They are now requesting Doughy stay out overnight. Not used to non-daytime activities, Orel encourages Doughy to just do what he does and walk around trying to help people. Doughy keeps encountering people trying to have sex with each other and manages to cockblock them all.

This leads to Doughy getting a job cockblocking actual roosters from impregnating the farmer’s chickens. He loses this job because Ms. Censordoll’s campaign to illegalize succeeds. Doughy winds up working for Ms. Censordoll as a masked superhero that goes around breaking up congress everywhere. 

This one has a very funny joke at the beginning, where Doughy and Orel are waving goodbye to a busload of gay men, and remarking how it was a big mistake bussing them into Moralton. Do you think the show was cleverly going to show the gay dudes in another episode to explain the beginning of this one? And, don’t you think it’s sad they left on the bus and we didn’t get to watch them walk away (hubba hubba). I also laughed at the farmer’s extremely dumb and convoluted reason for not caging his roosters (it’s basically so he can say a dumb thing when asked why he’s not caging his roosters). 

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Moral Orel: The Unproduced Scripts

A couple of scripts for episodes have been shared online. I remember Dino posting one on his Myspace page. The episodes are: 

Raped: This episode was going to be a late season three episode. The original arc for the season was meant to include Arthur Puppington, Clay’s father, moving into Orel’s bedroom while he waits to die of some painful life-ending disease.

Miss Sculptham finds that she is still pregnant post-abortion. That’s because she had twins, and only managed to kill one of them. So she arranges a visit to the prison to talk to Cecil Creepler’s (the guy what raped her) cell-mate to find out what his whole deal was (you know, being naturally curious about the father of her future child). This leads to her deciding to marry this man, even though he’s spending the rest of his life in prison. Orel is being a bitch about it, and celebrates when the guy backs down. The end of the episode is Sculptham falls in love with a woman and is denied for a marriage license, because “this is America”. She can get married to an actual convicted rapist, but not to another woman. 

I was about to comment on the time and place in which this episode was produced, but then realized: I have no idea how legal gay marriage actually is these days. Weird guys have been fighting over the stuff a lot lately. It took a weirdly long time for gay marriage to become any kind of legal here, and it’s still contentious. I just have a vague sense of reading it in 2009 and it feeling very pointed and topical. Pretty weird that it still sorta might be.

This episode was sorta billboarded in Alone, where we learn about Scultham’s rape and her abortion. There also a reference to this in “Abstinence”, where one of the encounters Doughy puts a stop to is one between Creepler and Scultham. 

Narcissism is the other “lost” episode. I never actually read this script before tonight, and I don’t know what the origin of this one’s leakage is or if it’s liberation was acrimonious or not. This one is another Putty-centric episode and is basically a follow-up on the events of Sundays. Putty becomes so obsessed with Florence and uninterested in other women that it makes him attractive. He unceremoniously beds all the hotties of Moralton and doesn’t feel a thing the entire time. His obsession with Florence is simply because she’s disappeared, and Putty doesn’t know where she went. When he finally finds her, she’s lost weight and is generally happier. It appears they get together by the end of the episode. 

I think Arthur is also in this episode, but I forget. I remember Oral mentioning him in a funny bit where he says he would do unto others with his Grandpa, who is currently dying in his bed. Orel says his Grandpa would probably let Orel die in his bed if things were the other way around. 

I found a thing on the Moral Orel wiki where Dino apparently posted the synopsis for the some of the unproduced scripts. I’d been looking for this to quote and kept coming up dry, so now that i found it, I’m just gonna paste it here in this post. The links link to pages on the wiki, and the scripts I described are available on their respective pages:

1. Easter: "Orel's Grampa (Clay's father) comes to Moralton to tie up loose ends before he dies. He ends up sharing Orel's bed as his death bed for the last ten episodes, giving Orel good advice. (happens during the Sacrifice episode)." 2. Nurture: "Shapey and Block nurture each other and grow emotionally." 3. Narcissism: After cutting it off with Florence, Putty becomes disillusioned with all women. This makes him incredibly attractive to all the females in Moralton and he becomes the most available bachelor in town, f***ing tons of *****. This makes him even more bored with every lady out there. He starts picturing Florence as he's f***ing everyone. When he finally runs into Florence, she is dating someone else and is really really thin. Putty's disappointed in her appearance. He's been picturing fat Florence, and even though she's prettier on a shallow level, longs for her previous look. She explains that she got so depressed when he stopped seeing her that she didn't feel like eating. He happily tells her now that he's back and she can get fat again. She is insulted by his self-centered attitude and tells him to go away. In the end, I think he probably wins her back though by showing he really cares. 4. Untitled: "Bloberta and Officer Papermouth accidentally bump into each other late at night, both reaching into the garbage can outside Nurse Bendy's apt. and simultaneously grabbing the "Sonny" Teddy bear. Papermouth chivalrously let's Bloberta keep it, and this starts off an affair between the two of them. It ends up being very good for the both of them. Not sure how Clay reacts. Didn't get very far on this one." 5. Untitled: "I wanted to write the continuing saga of Orel and Christina, but never got to it. No solid ideas on this." 6. Raped: A script for this episode was briefly put on Stamatopoulos's MySpace blog. It expanded on Miss Sculptham's trauma over being raped. She would take the kids on a field trip to prison to meet the man's cellmate and strike up a brief relationship with him. 7. Death: "Orel's Grampa finally dies. Orel doesn't find too much solace from anyone and becomes a Goth kid, getting heavily into the Christian Death Metal band: Multiple Godgasm. Don't want to say much more about this, on the remote chance that there will be a Moral Orel movie, I'd like to use a lot of this story."

And that’s it for Moral Orel. Unless you count the special. Unless you count the Frankenhole Bumper where he cameos. Unless you count Australian DVD releases. But you can COUNT on me… blogging about it!!!!

[inlocusmads]

I'm sure this opinion might be unpopular but I just think PB is trying to Lord of the Rings-ify Blades a lot, by introducing so many characters and relying on standard character archetypes to drive the story forth.

Of course, yes, you can only do so much with 18 chapters, but Blades is, like most Choices stories, memorable because of the characters and how they interact with their surroundings more than the larger overarching plot (though it comes a close second.)

Rant follows below, spoiler alert if you haven't read the latest chapters:

@choicesbookclub

I'd love to have Willow, Cherta and the Shadow Court members again for a chapter or two and maybe, y'know Kade?? Since he's our literal brother?? And he's constantly sidelined even though he is the reason why MC bothered with the whole Shadow realm thing in the first place??

I feel like a lot of times we could have had the characters react to certain things that aligned with their beliefs more. I loved the arc of Tyril questioning how convoluted magic can be and it isn't the one-dimensional thing he is used to or Nia standing up and taking risks against her sheltered upbringing. I feel like a lot of times all of the LIs had some really choppy writing given to them, besides the paywalled scenes because I personally believe if you have to paywall scenes to drive the characterisation forward, it lowkey sucks and very money-grabby. It comes with the writing! Paywalled options shouldn't gatekeep them!

Mal's apathy is never really addressed, even though the fandom lost their minds over it. Tyril has some golden moments here and there but it is glossed over completely and sometimes inconsistent at parts (where did the battle-mage Tyril go??). The only thing driving Nia's personality now is just her Shadow alter-ego being this wowie contrasty thing to her 'golden retriever' personality. Imtura's just the muscles and they gave her a semi-character arc-ish to take over from her mother, which completely skids through her complicated relationship with her (at least they could have given her some time to think if she wants to rule over or at least figure out the semantics of a ruling council until after the battle).

And Aerin and Valax have the forbidden-romance route to them. Let's not even like, talk about how Aerin's been missing for a chunk of chapters for reasons beyond why and Valax's route is also weirdly written where in she had no time to acknowledge MC's feelings?? Even when she's so new to romance, relationships and so on? Or like, even a friendship. For someone who doesn't trust easily, I can't really bank on the probability MC is just so alluring enough to rope them into a friendship within days to spare in Ironbreach.

Which comes to the problem, Blades stuffs a lot of characters in.

In Book 1, it felt a little balanced considering the overarching plot was for them to just get to the Shadow Realm to rescue Kade and the friends made along the way were instrumental in that success. Even if we don't know a lot about Adrina or Scholar Vash or Kaya or any of the side-characters, it made it very clear that this was the Party and we'll only be focusing on these people. And even then, taking an example, Adrina got a full story on her own. She helped Tyril with House Starfury's doings, taking over his shoes in the wake of his departure and ensuring things ran smoothly, Adrina helped the Party recoup and recover, even giving them drakes to get to Whitetower and she ended up being the next head(?) heir(?) of the House. Her efforts weren't wasted and it still felt like we got a promising story for her.

In the case of Cherta and Willow, they were "added" to our Party roster -a mechanic that previously wasn't used for the likes of other people, say Aerin, even (even though he did travel with us for a brief chapter and a half in Book 1) and we sort of expected they'd get a side-LI treatment or at least, a character arc like Adrina's, but their stories kind of fell.. flat in my opinion. We leave before Cherta is able to process her grandmother's passing. Willow and her story is just a one-off problem and she's now living her life in the Light Realm.

I don't know exactly why PB added the "__ added to party" game mechanic because it wasn't really necessary in my opinion because it is unlikely we'll see these characters again at least until the final battle (if the final battle involves literally everyone - light versus shadow cagefight and becomes a TC&TF Book 2 scenario) but it does feel weird to have bought their loyalty by doing them favours instead of actually getting to know them. I don't know, it's just my personal opinion.

I do know that 18 chapters is very little to work with, but it can be improved with pacing. PB has a bit of pacing issues going on with Book 2. The woods chapter and Zaradun didn't need to take like, 6 CHAPTERS to make a point! And that's covering the two rifts! If Cherta and Willow were supposed to be one-off characters, why not have one 15 or 17-minute chapter for each one of them and one for the journey from the woods to Zaradun?

I also think that PB doesn't really follow up with how the characters interact to the lore. A lot of times the lore is just wasted upon extra dialogue material or social quests, but if it had some impact on the Final Puzzle we solve to unlock Shadow secrets or whatever or at least a lore callback, it would have been so much fun. Like dwarven culture is so important they dedicated like ONE FULL CHAPTER to it (or at least half a chapter) and they never revisit it, besides Cherta's storyline.

And the lore tablets - ughhh my problem with the lore tablets being, they don't offer any ammunition to the storyline. They're just.. there as "additional info" to spare characters from doing infodumps. Apart from their collectible mechanism, they're just no fun from actually doing the exploration part. The Party's quest to look for Zaradun is a million times more interesting than slapping it on a lore tablet! Like why can't we have bonding sessions like that more often? Or the pit-stop at Riverbend (we'll ignore Kade wasn't even mentioned there).

I also think PB has a problem with the Chekhov's gun rule in writing. They set up these brilliant character arcs for characters and let them down later. I'd say Tyril's whole beef with magic could have gone to Nia, who has dedicated her life to magic and is under the whole 'Light heals, Shadow ruins' impression. Mal's apathy clashes with his whole motive for opening up an orphanage. If he cared so much about MC to open up something so thoughtful with his money in their favour, why does he act like MC's dead or something? Apathy could have gone to Imtura - the person who is the only one who actually expresses her emotions and it would be interesting to see her go all quiet and numb throughout the story, only for her to feel like herself and take on a new responsibility after her mother's passing.

And Aerin and Valax, godddd, way to half-ass romance routes PB. If it weren't for fandom digging into all the subtext and making up subtext, the story would be far less interesting. (this is just my opinion once again) Aerin had so much potential as the cat-on-the-wall character and him journeying with MC and the Party could have actually made him more perceptive and understanding. He could have even bonded with Tyril and Imtura even - them being 'heirs' to houses/kingdoms and coming from a different lifestyles and life obligations.

Valax's storyline felt so last-minute. I definitely feel like we could have added her to the Party long before Chapter 13 when she joins us in the flash flood. It could have made the Watcher character more fulfilling considering how MC would have to make a choice between being on the Light or Shadow side in the debate. Valax could have had her own reasons for closing rifts (or opening rifts) to get to the other side (maybe put in a collectible mechanic there) and not closing rifts/closing rifts could have had some long-term consequences.

I know, it is hard to program it, but this is the same company that brought you old books where your choices did matter and take you down different routes. I just wish they were more adventurous in their programming or at least, fixed their pacing issue because while I still enjoy Blades 2 for what it is, it is kind of a.. mild let down after waiting this to be 3 years in the making.

okay that's it lol.

[refriedrambles]

Manhwa time~

I Became the Chef of the Dragon King, The Greatest Estate Developer, and The Crown Prince That Sells Medicine are all written by the same dude and at least the first two have wonderful dynamics.

First one we get this Korean girl from a pre modern period being tossed into another world after her father sells her off as a sacrifice and like the whole isekai bit is incidental it's great, she super diligent and hard working and the dragon king she decides she serving now just wants to sleep but she keeps waking him up with food or getting into some sort of trouble. It's great. Amazing. Lovely little slice of life romance.

Then we get to Lloyd and Javier. Best bromance in comics you can't convince me otherwise. Like probably my otp just in the fact it's the only thing I read where I stopped while actively reading and went 'oh man these two should fuck', and I mean they're not gonna, it's strictly platonic and that's honestly probably for the best in this particular case but still. Lloyd is a lazy, money grubbing, insanely competent lunatic with a system basically demanding he save as many people as possible. He's like Cale from Trash of the Count's House (if I fucked up the name of my fav light novel Imma be pissed) but he's not cool and no one thinks he is, the faces don't help that fact nor does the groveling or bootlicking but they are certainly part of his charm. Between his unhinged one man performances you get glimpses of genuine depth from the man only for him to start howling or cackling in greed moments later. Javier on the other hand was supposed to be the main character of the novel, he's a bodyguard who detested his charge cause the original Lloyd was a fucking mess. He is a swords master or at least very close to becoming one with a strong sense of duty and justice. He's got Cale's cool and collected demeanor which only breaks to show disgust for Lloyd and his antics, but his loyalty only grows as the plot goes on. He's so completely done with Lloyd's shit though. And beyond that they grow this bond. This undeniable chemistry, so strong it makes them gag when it's in the air. Yeah, it's fantastic

Side note Cale is probably my favorite character of all time. The red hair and eye bags on top of this characterization is just so perfect to me. The constant struggle between 'I just wanna do nothing' and 'I need to fix this' is perfect. He's a workaholic with the only goal to relax. Also we get world building for both worlds he resides in that really deepens his character, I reiterate it's perfect. But this is irrelevant. The Trash of the Count's House is a totally different property by a completely different author.

I don't have much to say about The Crown Prince Who Sells Medicine yet. Like Mc was a doctor who possesses the Crown Prince who's kinda dying and a huge piece of shit, pretty standard isekai nonsense at this point seen it a thousand times typically with noble ladies but quite a few have princes as MCs too. Like it's one of the generic backgrounds for an MC dies and possessed the body of whatever character in a novel, other variants being the socially isolated office lady overworked to point exhaustion, the betrayed lover, the abused orphan and chef. It's a weird little bag but it's what we got for the vast majority of story with the isekai possession trope that actually decide to even slightly touch on backgrounds. (Then there's the common 'your modern past life was actually your second life and your first was another iteration of your current one! There wasn't actually any possession cause it was you to begin with!' tropet which is convoluted but weirdly common.) His doctor/servant is left terrified and balking when the prince stabbing himself with pins and needles (questionable acupuncture) and starts requesting poisons only to down them in front of him (it's supposed to for medicine but the system aspect of this one isn't really helping it in this case) but I get the feeling he'd not gonna be a big part of the main dynamic. I'll have to keep an idea on it

[samobservessonic]

We have the same creative team going into the next part of this story, as we pick up from just after where we left off last time, with Omni-Viewer helping Sonic and friends escape back home. It seems that even though Omni-Viewer is being forced to work for Robotnik, it managed to find a loophole in his orders to “get rid of” Sonic and the others by literally taking them home, thus not disobeying Robotnik at all. That’s what a cool non-cop dimension-travelling buddy does for their bros, after all

But Omin-Viewer can’t stick around any longer than this and just getting home hasn’t solved Sonic’s problems, as it looks like the badniks have gotten a serious upgrade since the last time we saw them. Now we’re looking at StC-exclusive badniks as opposed to the ones from the early Sonic games. It’s funny, because I did admittedly quite like how weirdly ruthless the average badniks were at the beginning of the comic, but there was something silly about your average Aquis being able to send the entire Oil Ocean Zone up in flames to torch Sonic alive, so I can see why they might’ve chosen to switch them out for something that looks a bit more sinister

Tails remarks that he hasn’t seen badniks like these before and it takes Sonic a few pages worth of fighting to destroy them to release the little animals inside. And to answer the question of “How did the badniks become so strong so quickly”, we learn that Sonic hasn’t been seen for six months!

Johnny’s the one to figure out what Omni-Viewer couldn’t stick around to explain. It seems that for some reason, Robotnik thought it was a good idea to send Sonic to the future to avoid him getting in the way of his plans, but didn’t specify how long and the Omni-Viewer decided that six months was enough time for the damage to not be too bad without making Robotnik suspicious. This all seems a bit convoluted, but one thing the news sections of the comics have been talking about a lot lately is (the then upcoming) Sonic CD, so I do wonder if this plotline was perhaps inspired by the time travelling in that game

Looks like six months was more than enough time for Robotnik to take over, however. And yes, literally a few pages after I said “I think they wanted to move away from the game badniks to up the stakes because it was getting a bit silly”, we get surveillance camera eggs flying about, which is one of the silliest things I’ve seen from this comic so far. But I’m not changing my earlier statement to pretend I have a bigger brain, because that’s not how I roll

There’s a lot going on in these three panels of a trooper badnik threatening a squirrel. At this stage, every time I see a random squirrel, I have a moment of “Is it Sally?” but this one isn’t wearing a bow and mentions having a wife. So, here are four potential options: 1) Random squirrel person (boring!) 2) Sally & Tufftee’s parent 3) It’s Shorty the Squirrel and he just doesn’t mention to the Freedom Fighters that he is/was married when he later joins them 4) It is Sally Acorn, she’s just not wearing her bow today and her wife, Nicole, is never shown on-screen Pick whichever one you like best Both more than that! In the last panel, this badnik refers to Robotnik with they/them pronouns. I believe this was possibly a mistake, but even so - diversity win! The tyrant who destroyed your home is non-binary!

At first Sonic is hesitant to destroy the badniks and risk hurting anyone trapped inside them, but mysterious squirrel person confirms that these troopers have no animal batteries, so Sonic doesn’t hold back on destroying them.

We end this issue on what I think is more establishing the on-going struggle than a direct cliffhanger, so I’m still going to count this story as a two-parter, unless the next issue contradicts me. Sonic swears to wipe Robotnik off Mobius and then we switch to Robotnik confirming at he’s taken over the whole planet, not just the Emerald Hill Zone

…And we’re here! We’re at the point where one of the main struggles of StC is setup! Now, I’ll say up-front that Robotnik’s rule in StC doesn’t last for the comic’s entire run. We will reach a point where the Freedom Fighters take him down and over struggles present themselves in his absence, just like when he was taken down in Archie. But for quite a long time, the Freedom Fighters vs Robotnik is the conflict we’ll be dealing with in StC and I’m looking forward to seeing that play out. We already have Johnny and Porker having travelled through time with Sonic, but I honestly don’t know if the Freedom Fighters form off-screen or if we’ll be seeing that happen in the coming issues. Personally, I’m hoping for the latter, but this comic hasn’t disappointed me so far, so I’m excited to see where they’ll go from here

[narrativestringtheory]

On Comics: Growing Old with the X-Men

by Noah Berlatsky

[ed. note: a prior iteration of this article appeared as “Growing Old With the X-Men” on Patreon in 2022]

A friend lent me The Uncanny X-Men #160 (Marvel, August 1982) when I was at summer camp in the early 1980s. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly haunted me ever since. But it disturbed me at the time, and it stuck with me as a confusingly nightmarish story—a gratuitous exercise in disempowerment and decay.

Reading it again some forty years later through the power of digitization, I’m more aware of its weaknesses. Writer Chris Claremont’s endless exposition eats up text bubble after text bubble. Penciller Brent Anderson struggles with pacing the convoluted script—moments of grotesque horror (like Kitty Pride’s skeleton literally being removed from her body) are weirdly shrunken into a series of smaller panels so you can barely see them. I’d thought some of my fuzzy memories of the comic were a result of time and distance. But it turns out that a lot of scenes just aren’t drawn in a way designed to stick in memory. 

At the same time, it’s, clearer to me now why I found the comic so unsettling then, and why, as an adult, it still retains some power. Claremont, in his clumsy, gauche way wrote a comic about the clumsy, gauche process of getting old. The innocuously named “Chutes and Ladders” turns out to be a story about decay, death, and failure. When I read it as a twelve-year-old, I was looking through a dimensional portal to the more jaded, (somewhat) hideously transformed me reading it now.

The plot starts out on the X-Men’s new island base. Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Kitty, and Colossus are participating in one of those Danger Room training battles with which Claremont was endlessly fascinated. Illyana, Colossus’ six-year-old sister is fascinated too; she’s watching eagerly, which positions her as a stand in for the audience. At the same time, she herself is being watched through a kind of interdimensional television by a mysterious figure with ominously long fingernails. 

That obscured figure is a Satanic stand-in named Belasco, and his realm is Limbo.  He’s a devilish demiurge for Claremont himself, setting the story in motion and summoning the reader deeper. He reaches into Illyana’s mind, whispering, “Tell no one, Illyana. Just follow my voice…to paradise.” The creepy child abduction connotations foreshadow the story’s obsessions with corruption, as Ilyana wanders off (clutching a Fozzie Bear doll). Kitty—the youngest member of the X-Men—notices Illyana’s gone and heads after her.

Illyana seems to vanish, and then Kitty is also zapped away. This sequence is presented as unpleasant in a way that is far out of proportion to what we see or what actually seems to be happening. Kitty is frozen in a circle of light and completely panics: “What’s happening?! I feel—No! Oh no!” She doesn’t sound like a superhero, but like a child facing her worst fear. 

The older heroes figure out the kids are gone eventually; they follow and inevitably vanish. They all find themselves, or lose themselves, in an ill-defined gothic cavern-like realm—again, called Limbo, though it looks more like Hell.

The real horror here isn’t the décor, nor even the monstrous Sy’m, who talks incongruously like a 1920s gangland thug. (“So tell me boss—who do you want killed?”) The real horror is age.

The X-Men aren’t just visiting a different realm, but their future selves. Thanks to time displacement and cosmic comic book woo, our heroes learn that they were already in Belasco’s realm years or decades past, when they had been easily and gruesomely defeated. Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton lies in Belasco’s throne-room. Colossus apparently lived for some time, but he too was eventually killed; his aged corpse hangs on a wall. Or at least, Claremont says Colossus was an old man when he died. Anderson’s art doesn’t really show it, which is no doubt in part simply technical insufficiency, but which also suggests that age can’t be imagined; it’s a horror beyond visualization, even when it’s hanging there in front of you. 

Worst of all is Nightcrawler. Our gallant, high-spirited Kurt didn’t die. He was instead turned into a corrupted parody of himself, a lecherous giggling monster matching his demonic appearance. When Kitty meets old, gross Kurt he gropes her, in an extremely unpleasant sequence. (Anderson’s pencils again don’t let you see clearly what’s going on, though this time it’s obviously intentional; Kurt’s hands when he gropes Kitty are off panel.) The sexual implications echo Belasco’s quasi-seduction of Ilyana at the comic’s opening; growing up here is shadowed with violence. 

Elder Ororo’s fate is less grim than death or corruption. But time has still taken her on. After watching her friends die horribly, she reached some sort of détente with Belasco.  As she aged, she lost her elemental powers, but studied sorcery instead. She uses her latter-day magic and her knowledge of the workings of the teleport circles to help the younger X-Men avoid the mistakes of the dead by urging them to run away.

They do so, but Belasco manages to grab Illyana’s hand. Kitty loses her grip on the girl for a second, but then gets hold of her again and pulls her back to our world—only to discover that in that blink of an eye when their hands were separated, Ilyana aged seven years, and is now thirteen. 

That lost moment, in which a whole life happens between panels, is the part of the comic I remembered best. I’d sometimes over the years wonder what happened to Illyana, that same impenetrable gap fixed there as I got older, doing whatever I was doing. Time passed for me around that panel as it passed for Illyana inside it. You’re always getting older in that white gutter between then (further and further ago) and an ever more decrepit now.

The jump disturbed Colossus too. “How can I face our parents?” he wonders, and in a further internal monologue he muses on his sister’s tragic fate. “Childhood should be the happiest of times—and in a stroke, Illyana has lost that forever. Worse she has now spent half her life in Limbo […] should I welcome her, comfort her, love her…or fear her?” Belasco, though, gets the last word, cackling about Illyana’s glorious destiny while clutching her Fozzie Bear doll, a symbol of youthful innocence lost. 

Contra Colossus, childhood isn’t always a happy time, as “Chutes and Ladders” is aware. Kitty’s outsized fear upon being transported into limbo, coupled with Nightcrawler’s advances, suggest that the comic is in part about sexual abuse. Belasco is grooming Illyana for his own purposes (further explicated in a Magik mini-series, which I still haven’t read). He’s an evil father, with elder Ororo, who dabbles in dark magic, as a compromised, also-abused mother figure. Colossus is grappling with the fact that aging can be imposed by adults in ugly ways; the comic is in part about how children like Kitty may be forced to contemplate their own skulls before they should have to.

The comic isn’t just about children though, which is part of what made it memorable for me when I was a child. To some degree, Claremont was writing for twelve-year-olds. But he was writing for those twelve-year-olds about what it’s like to grow up. Part of the superhero empowerment fantasy is that the characters never grow old; Colossus is still in his prime now, in 2023, just as he was in 1982. But also somehow in 1982, in that one comic, he was vaguely old, in a way difficult to visualize, and defeated and dead.

Belasco is evil, but he’s also age personified, and evil and age, intertwined, beat the X-Men, not once, but twice. They grow weak, they die. They are frozen and terrified. They betray themselves in grotesque ways and in smaller ones. They harm their friends (Sy’m uses Wolverines severed claw to pierce Colossus’ armor.) They fail to protect their loved ones. They run away. But wherever they run, time comes after them.

I vaguely understood when I was a kid that—through Anderson’s vague outlines and Claremont’s endless text—the comic was speaking to me about my own future. It was teleporting me forward in time to an older, tireder, heavier, more defeated me. And here I am, looking back. I could tell my 12-year-old self to run, I suppose, but it wouldn’t do much good. Back there, somewhere, I put the comic down and went off to swim more efficaciously than I can now. When, like Kitty recapturing Illyana’s hand, I picked the book up again, I liked it less, and, alas, understood it better.

[valleyfthdolls]

come to think of it, it may as well be impossible for me to find suitable slasher / gore horror lmao

why? it's because of the screaming. my SPD is very audio-focused, so it can induce pain and headaches, possibly even migranes. the uh. occasional auditory hallucinations i get of women screaming also don't help.

however, if you have any recs for stuff like found footage or EAS scenarios ( especially SCP ones ), i have found a fondness for them while experimenting with what types of horror i enjoy ^-^

( sorry if i word things weirdly oiyfdxchigfc )

You get occasional auditory hallucinations of women screaming too wtf-

Here are some things you could watch. I'm really, really sorry in advance if any of these have triggering content for your sensory issues. I tried my best to make sure they were all accessible, hopefully I did alright.

For found footage horror films, immediately The Blair Witch Project comes to mind, but I gave that a 4/10 lmao. Good to watch for the experience of having watched it though. Not much screaming, but I do distinctly remember once scene of one of the characters screaming "PLEASE HELP US" and the main character (who is a woman) screaming for another character near the end. No straight screaming as I recall, but scream-yelling.

I've heard great things about Lake Mungo, which apparently has no jumpscares, and is a found footage-style psychological horror mockumentary that I really need to watch.

Ringu- the original Japanese version of The Ring- doesn't really have the screams or as many jumpscares as the American adaptation, but it's pretty tense regardless. If you like horses, I would prefer this version over the American one. Also if you have sensory processing disorder. It doesn't really rely on a lot of the hella discomforting sound design of the American adaptation, which is def scarier, but god, Sadako is like 10x more nightmare fuel than Samara, even if I ultimately like the execution of Samara's character a lot more. Just watching the original Ringu, Sadako is still a good character, I just think her story got convoluted later on. The TV scene in the og too is horrific. I love it

Candyman is widely considered pretty good, but I've heard people say its themes of racism are tone deaf at times. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm familiar with it. Lacks jumpscares, should be good on sensory problems, bc it's my understanding there's not much meant to elicit abject fear, but you may have to be careful.

I love The Walten Files, but given your sensory issues, I wouldn't recommend it unless you truly believed you could handle a lot of bad sensory input. If that ever happens, check it out. If not, avoid it.

However, a similar but much lighter seeming ARG called Welcome Home may be up your alley, currently it lacks any jumpscares or similar shocking noises. It's like Poppy Playtime but actually good.

Serial Experiments Lain is a good, ominous slow-burn psychological horror anime that lacks any potentially harmful sounds. Another is more gory and dark, but doesn't have a lot of loud noises or screaming either.

Local 58 is a well known analog horror that kind of checks the EAS scenario box, and lacks any jumpscares, but is very eerie and dark. Gemini Home Entertainment is much more so, but also has jumpscares as I've heard, so while I'm not familiar with that one I suggest you exercise caution. Local 58 I have seen and it's pretty good and should be safe for you and your SPD.

UrbanSpook has no audio jumpscares, but a lot of visual ones. Pretty good body horror stuff too.

I also tentatively recommend Petscop. Tentatively because it has absolutely zero SPD triggers, but its themes heavily revolve around child abuse, childhood trauma, esp parental abuse, and some readings even involve transphobia and ableism. Darker interpretations can also gather themes of CSA. That one is all up to how you read it (aside from the very explicit child abuse themes) so be careful for mental health reasons.

(I also very tentatively recommend it because I don't like recommending Petscop to people. It's a very personal comfort for me and I don't like giving it out to just anyone as a recommendation.)

[mishervellous]

tagged by my beloveds @energievie @celestialmickey @whatwouldmickeydo @thisdivorce to do this Fic Writer Interview ✍️

How many works do you have on A03?

15

What's your total A03 word count?

179,622

What are your top five fics by kudos?

Nobody makes me crazy like you (ambivalent)

Ian Gallagher and The Long, Convoluted Title (prom fic)

Mick’s Sunshine

Back on Track (Off The Rails)

The Road Not Taken

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try my best but i get anxious and stressed about it 😭 but i read them all and appreciate them a lot! and i’m trying to get back to everyone 💙

Fic with the angstiest ending?

probably Fix You? it’s hopeful but unresolved if that makes sense

Fic with the happiest ending?

probably The Road Not Taken

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i used to! but i’m not in enough fandoms simultaneously to do that anymore lmao

Received hate on a fic?

every single one </3 fuck ‘em

Write smut? If so, what kind?

yesss!! all kinds, within my comfort zone ofc

Ever had a fic stolen?

nope

Had a fic translated?

not that i know of

Co-written a fic with someone?

yes! a still unpublished gem with my bff

All time favorite ship?

it’s a tie between gallavich and destiel, you can’t and won’t make me choose grrr

WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

i think Inner City Blues, i don’t even really know why i posted that first chapter tbh lmao although i truly love that story, probably the one i have planned out in the most details, but it is what it is

What are your writing strengths?

probably humor and dialogues

What are your writing weaknesses?

long ass paragraphs lmao and sometimes the fact that english isn’t my first language

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i’m doing it for Vacanze Romane and i love it! as long as there’s a translation somewhere, it’s a-okay in my book

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

probably Dragon Ball back in 2008 lol

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

weirdly enough? Destiel!! which is criminal if you ask me

What's your favorite fic you've written?

it’s a work in progress still, but I Am The Walls of My Home is my favorite so far <3

i feel like i’m late to this one too fjdkdndj i know half the thing is tagging other people but you gotta cut me some slack today [sweats] do tag me if you do this though!

[pridepages]

eARC Review: City of Vicious Night

A HUGE thank you to Netgalley and North Star Editions for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:  

RELEASE DATE: 5/23/2023

See my full review under the cut!

This book is a sequel to City of Shattered Light, which I previously wrote about here.

I don’t want to repeat myself too much, so here’s what you need to know about my expectations coming in to follow-up City of Vicious Night.

1. Slow Down the Pacing I described the pacing of Shattered Light as a video game or an action movie. The plot lurched from side quest to side quest. Each one unlocked lore like an achievement. But with that much lore flying at you that fast, you don’t have time as a reader to process it all. After a while, I found the best way to enjoy was to stop trying to it make sense, accept that we’re doing Stuff because of Reasons, and just enjoy the banter and the girls falling in love. Yay!

2. Character Development Unlike Winn’s world, which is highly developed to the point of overload, every one of Winn’s characters is a walking talking trope. To be fair, all writers start their characters that way to some extent. But the expectation is that those characters will be fleshed out through the drafting and editing process to make their inner journeys unique and realistic. We want characters to feel like people instead of constructs. But if characters never break the mold, and they just go around Doing Things in response to Plot Twists, then the whole thing starts to read like a fanfic where writers don’t have an obligation to do any of that pesky character development because readers already got it in the source material. So--weirdly--this original novel reads like a fic even though, to my knowledge, it didn’t start as one.

Still, I saw SO much potential, particularly for the inner journeys of Asa and Ty. Asa is still nominally heiress to a Big Bad Corporation that is violating bioethics! Questions of morality, of being forced to choose who to save between equally victimized people, were never addressed in the first book but could have been explored in the sequel! Similarly, readers were set up for a Fall-From-Innocence journey for Ty, who was abandoned in a dangerous place at the end of Shattered Light.

Unfortunately, my hopes on all fronts were disappointed.

To be clear, Vicious Night isn’t worse than the first book. It’s just...more of the same. The plot rocketed around between Events. Backstory and lore got even more convoluted. To be honest, I found myself skimming the last pages. It just felt like when I want to check out of a Marvel movie in the last 45 minutes because I know they’re gonna win the Big Battle and I just want to tune back in for the Happily Ever After.

And those character arcs? Pretty much non-existent. Asa never gets any less self-involved. For her, it’s always about setting HERSELF free, trying to save the people SHE loves...ironically making her just as selfish as the father she claims to revile, just in a different way. Ty? He’s able to rationalize any disappointments in love, any conflicts of his moral compass, and any trauma he underwent as a lab rat. Nothing to see here, folks!

So would I recommend City of Vicious Night? Sure. I would have wanted to read it because I like to know how things end and I’m glad to have left the Boomslang crew in more of a satisfying place. I would also recommend it to people who just want something that reads with lots of action but doesn’t ever slow down for things like character arcs. If you like video game or film novelizations, this one’s for you.

But if you’re looking for thought-provoking, beautiful queer science fiction? Give this one a miss. There’s more out there for you.

[sentinelpri]

Dreaming Of You

Rough, grey lips on his, large servos resting on his hips, and ruby red optics trained on his sky blue ones seemed to haunt Optimus’s dreams more and more.

Maybe it was some weird manifestation of the new stress that had come to his life since Megatron had been rebuilt, or maybe it was just the deep, dark desires he had for the affection he’d been craving for so many light years finally taking over his processor and giving themselves away to him in the form of Megatron of all mechs.

Either way, he hated it; the dreams. They were too risque and too much about a Decepticon he should’ve absolutely despised for him to confide in any of his teammates about it, but they were too incessant to get rid of, so he was simply... Stuck.

Optimus was sure that he was dying inside when he jolted awake on the living room couch, sitting straight up as his optics shot open. This dream had been particularly bad; something blurry about him and Megatron sharing a berth, him tangled up in the warlord’s arms and falling asleep against his chest.

Weirdly enough, he found himself craving that.

Due to the sheer everything happening on planet earth, he had been so stressed that he hadn’t been able to recharge properly, and all he wanted was another bot to lull him to sleep, maybe cuddle with him a bit and sing to him or tell him a story, but he didn’t have anyone like that, humans were too small and hard to socialize with, and his team was off limits since they were technically subordinates.

He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep on the couch until he woke up there, clearly panicked until his optics landed on Bumblebee, who was staring at him with a concerned look etched into his face plates.

Optimus knew that, considering the dream he just had, he probably looked like he’d seen a ghost- though that probably would’ve been better than what actually happened. Falling asleep on the couch had most definitely been a result of his exhaustion, because all he remembered was that one second, he was sitting on the couch to calm down, and the next, he was asleep.

”Optimus? Bossbot? Prime? You good?” Bumblebee asked, getting up and in Optimus’s face. The red and blue bot could only stand up and shake his head.

”Uh... Yeah. Definitely... Just don’t think I’ll be recharging for a while-” After realizing what he said, he quickly cut himself off with a sharp sigh before continuing again. “Never mind. I’m going on a walk.”

With that, Optimus left, ignoring any of the stares he got from his teammates as he walked outside the base, and walked, and walked. He didn’t even think about where he was going, simply listening to his instincts and allowing them to guide him. 

The walk had been intended to clear his head, but as he reached a weirdly familiar looking forest, he realized that his thoughts were only growing more and more convoluted, spark pounding against his chest plates.

Oh, shit. He was right by the Decepticon base.

Why would his processor- no, his spark, he could feel it- lead him here of all places? What the hell was wrong with him? He was almost certain that his exhaustion was making him go crazy.

Right when he thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, he heard a deep, smooth, baritone voice in his audials that made them twitch.

“Autobot... How did you find me?” When Optimus turned around, Megatron was just... There. Sitting on the grass, back against a tree, arms crossed over his chest and one leg crossed over the other in front of him. “Why are you not fighting me?”

That was a good question. Megatron was just staring at him, too, clearly waiting, ruby burning into sky blue, almost as if the Decepticon was challenging him with his optics, a smirk on his kissable lips. Optimus knew he should’ve either ran or tried to apprehend Megatron right there, but he found that he couldn’t even move.

Their relationship was weird. Even though they were sworn enemies, all Optimus could do during battle was stare at him, and Megatron did the same in return- it was almost as if there was some sort of draw that they had to each other, but as hard as he tried to resist it, it wouldn’t go away, and he was sick of resisting it.

“Megatron.”

“I feel as if I should be concerned,” Megatron mumbled, sitting up again and quirking an optical ridge. “You aren’t fighting me, but I also don’t feel inclined to attack you, and you seem exhausted... Do you need to recharge? I’ll be surprised if you don’t drop to the ground any nanoklik now.”

“Mhm,” Was all Optimus could give in response, able to feel himself grow increasingly drowsy with each second that passed. Megatron’s voice only made it worse, and before he even realized what he was doing, Optimus found himself laying on the ground next to Megatron and laying his head over the warlord’s warm thighs, optics fluttering shut.

It was wrong, and he was sure it would come to bite him in the ass, but it was also exactly what he needed. 

“What the hell... Alright. This is fine, I suppose, we can do this and then pretend it never happened... Just for a little while,” Megatron sighed and rested a servo on Optimus’s helm, gently petting one of the Autobot’s audials, and though it was a touch far more intimate than it should’ve been, he couldn’t help how his engines purred at the affection he’d been craving from another since he arrived on earth. “I could even tell you a story. Once upon a time, on a planet far away, there was a strong, powerful warlord with a cold spark, but that all changes when...”

And, as Optimus fell into recharge, he found that the last thing he heard was Megatron’s voice in his audials, lulling him to sleep- just like he needed.

When Optimus Prime woke up, he was no longer laying on the ground of the forest with his head rested across the expanse of Megatron’s thick thighs, but on the berth in Ratchet’s med bay, the team medic hovering around him, optics raking up and down his chassis.

All he could remember was sleeping on Megatron, but if he was in the med bay-

Optics wide, the Prime looked at himself up and down. No bandages, no wounds, no pain anywhere... Actually, he felt perfectly fine minus the lingering sleepiness, so why was he here?

“Prime, what happened?” Ratchet demanded, sitting down at the stool next to the med berth and scrutinizing Optimus carefully.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You stormed off base and everyone was concerned when you didn’t come back after a few hours, so we split into teams and came looking for you. I found you in that forest near the Decepticon base a day later, sleeping on Megatron of all mechs,” A day. He’d slept for an entire day, and his teammates had caught him... He could only hope and pray that they didn’t realize exactly what was going on with him. “So what happened? Did he incapacitate you or did you do it... Willingly? You were out for a while.”

“I uh... I don’t know how to describe it,” Optimus murmured, not wanting to admit that it was fully optional and that he’d given in to his newfound desire to have Megatron, if only for a little bit. “I was just so tired when I left. I don’t know... Don’t remember anything too clearly, I probably stayed in recharge for so long because I was exhausted. Actually, I still feel pretty tired, but is everyone okay? Did anything else happen?”

“Yeah, they’re fine. Megatron left as soon as he saw us, the cowardly dolt... It was weird though, that he didn’t kidnap you or try to attack any of us- you were asleep, and it was just me and Sari, so he could’ve overpowered us if he played his cards right. Maybe he was in a rush to get somewhere else.”

“Makes sense.”

And no, it didn’t make sense- nothing Megatron had done during the course of that made sense; not him being so kind to Optimus, letting him sleep on his lap, telling him a berthtime story, and sparing his teammates- all of it was weird and fucked up, and he found that he almost missed when things were simpler, when Megatron was nothing but a blown up body and a half-working helm in Isaac Sumdac’s basement-lab.

“I doubt that it’s anything serious, but I have a couple questions for you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Go ahead,” Optimus tried to act calm, but his face plates were burning red and his vents were producing nervous crackles that were loud enough for both he and Ratchet to hear.

“Have you had any odd dreams recently during your recharges? Since Megatron got his body rebuilt, I mean.”

“Uh... Yeah,” The blue and red bot trailed off, gulping.

How did Ratchet know? Was he that obvious?

“Tell me about them.”

“I’d rather not-”

“Trust me, it’s important that I know these things. Medic’s honor, I won’t disclose what you’re about to tell me to anyone.”

“I have a lot of dreams about Megatron,” Optimus confessed with a sigh. Surprisingly, Ratchet looked like he was almost expecting that answer, nodding. “Mostly just meeting him in that forest or a berth, sleeping... Sometimes we talk and do other more unmentionable things.”

“I wonder...” The medic paused with a hum and tapped his digits against the med berth.

“Just what are you thinking, Ratchet?”

“It’s incredibly rare, but occasionally, when two Cybertronians who have a lot of chemistry encounter each other, they develop what’s known as a spark pull. It’s nothing like a spark bond- not even close, but it just means that the two are uniquely bound to each other in a way until they either bond or have a falling out that kills their chemistry. It’s like the soulmate concept that Sari and some of the other humans talk about in their romantic stories.”

“So... What does that mean? Am I going to be okay? Is there anything I can do to get rid of it?” Optimus asked, tilting his head. He was a bit panicked, as this was a whole new thing that he didn’t know how to handle, but at least there was a somewhat scientific explanation for his feelings instead of them just existing. 

“There’s no need to worry about it, Prime, you’re perfectly healthy minus the lack of rest you get- which you need to work on, by the way- but you’ll be fine. Unless you bond with Megatron- you better not- there’s no getting rid of it, considering that the two of you should already hate each other.”

“I, um... Symptoms? Are there any aside from what I already know?”

“There hasn’t been a lot of research done on it since bonding is generally looked down upon in Autobot City where all of our medical studies get funded on Cybertron, but from what I’ve seen and heard... You’ll intuitively be able to ‘feel’ where Megatron is when he’s in close proximity, have a desire to go near and look at him whenever possible, have dreams about him like you’ve already been experiencing, and going through a sort of physical and mental ‘weakness’ when he’s around- from what you’ve described, your weakness is just allowing yourself to be vulnerable and relaxed around him, which is actually quite common... Shame you can’t allow yourself to do that with who he is, but it is what it is.”

It was a lot to take in all at once, but Optimus found that he handled it surprisingly well as he stood up from the med berth and stretched his joints.

“Anything else I should know?” 

There was something new lighting his spark; a pounding, circuit-wrenching want that began to consume him. Now that he knew where his feelings were stemming from, he couldn’t help but want to interact with Megatron again, just to see if the older mech was feeling what he was feeling, and to see if he knew what was going on between the two of them as well.

His instinct was telling him to go back to the forest.

“No, that about covers it, so you’re free to go whenever... But Prime?”

“Yeah?” The blue and red bot looked at Ratchet, who was staring right into his spark, it seemed.

“Don’t go after him when you leave. I know you want to.”

“...Okay.”

Only, that’s exactly what Optimus did. The second he was out of the med bay, he was sneaking out through one of the hallway windows and running as if his life depended on it, passing through the busy city scenery of Detroit until he reached the more rural area that the forest was located in. He was staring at the ground as he ran so fast that his engines were revving with the force it took to keep him going, but he got so consumed in where his spark was telling him to go that  he bumped into someone-

“Be more careful, you insolent f-...” Megatron’s voice flooded his audials the second that the older mech’s arms were wrapped around his small body to catch him, pulling him against a hard, broad chest. Optimus looked up at the warlord, optics going wide and face burning bright red. Oh, it’s just you, little Autobot... How did you find me again?”

Megatron’s question was filled with confusion, those ruby red optics slightly squinted and full of uncertainty.

“I, uh... Do you know what spark pulls are?” Optimus stammered and earned a groan from the Decepticon in return.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were, but no one else is here and that nap last time was the best recharge I’ve had in lightyears. Do you mind?”

“...I suppose not,” Megatron sighed and let go of Optimus, then moved to lay down on the grass and stare up at the clouds. Optimus, albeit a bit awkwardly, laid down next to the mech, resting his helm on his chest- right over the purple, glaring Decepticon symbol that he should’ve detested, but instead found himself cuddling into.

“Why don’t you finish that story you started the other day?”

“A-Alright, but only because I’m feeling quite generous today. As I’d been saying last time, once upon a time, on a planet far away, there was a strong, powerful warlord with a cold spark, but that all changes when he meets a kind, passionate warrior from an opposing faction. At first, the two are against each other, but the warlord quickly realizes that something about the warrior has caught his interest, and before he knows it, he’s falling in love...”

Before Optimus could pipe up and ask any questions, he was falling into a peaceful recharge yet again, dreams of Megatron already plaguing his processor.

[otome-on-the-side]

Obey Me! Language HCs

uhhh I was talking to some friends over on discord about angels and thought “Oh I have angel and demon head canons I wanna post!” but then as I wrote them down, it was entirely about angelic and infernal language and how the characters of OM would relate to that so uh. more under the cut 

starting out strong with the idea that MC had some spell work cast on them to better survive and be able to do school work at R.A.D., as well as being able to communicate with everyone involved in the program; thus anything they read or hear is translated into their native language.  

Lucifer is the one that crafted and casted this spell on MC.   

Both Angels and Demons have their own languages, but both are convoluted as hell and would take multiple human lifetimes to learn 

This means that the brothers aren’t monolingual, as most of them were originally angels*. I couldn’t tell you how many human languages they’ve bothered to learn- (Leviathan is deeply interested in translations due to being a self proclaimed otaku, Satan loves dramas & mysteries ((which are genres that can pop up in any language)), Mammon seems like the type to pop up ANYWHERE and be down to gamble, i could go on)  But I can say with confidence they Definitely Know Some**.  *Satan is the obvious exception to this rule, but I feel like he would either learn it from his brothers, or, as an angstier option: the trauma of fall would cause the brothers to never teach satan, though when his siblings slip into celestial (something very rare, and only done when tempers are high and they’re flinging war trauma at each other), which leads him to feel even more hollow and an outsider within his own family  ** I can say with 100% confidence Belphie and Beel Do Not speak english and just use magic to understand most human language post fall. Belphie was probably really interested in the idea pre-fall, but those feelings soured quickly post the fact. Neither of the twins really have much business in the human realm other than to cause havoc. or

Hell (I like to think of the Devildom as the capital of the entire realm, rather than the whole) and all of its levels technically have one language but uhhh. man does it have a large amount of regional variants. It’s like that Italian map of variants of the word pussy down there

you can throw a couple of demons together and they can shoot the breeze (argue) about language semantics for aaaages 

It’s for the best that the majority of the demons MC speaks to are: - the brothers (infernal is their second language ((aside from satan, but i feel like he learned along with his brothers))) or - Diavolo (Who probably had Proper Grammar pressed onto him & a speech tutor growing up) and - Barbatos (Who unnervingly always sounds unaccented, neutral, and polite no matter who he speaks to)  It makes it easier on the translation spell MC has and keeps any confusion over slang minimal. 

The brothers first language is definitely celestial 

Mammon’s the one, out of all the brothers, that spends the most time with “lesser” demons due to his vice of gambling- this means that he’s picked up the most ““improper”” infernal out of anyone in the main cast. Thus, due to MC’s translation spell, he has the most discernable accent. There is no one “demonic accent” but his use of slang is clear even though a spell filtering his speech. It still clings to him even when he speaks human languages, but when he’s serious or upset his angelic accent creeps in [i.e. becoming notably more Proper TM as a result of caster bias: aka Lucifer]  

since they’ve fallen, the language has drifted a little; it’s hardly noticeable to the angels, but it gets a little comical when Luke talks in celestial to Simeone and the brothers are like “[squinting] What are you even Talking About??” 

Luke initially wasn’t even remotely interested in learning infernal when he first joined the exchange program. He’s slowly warming to the idea as time goes on, however. 

Simeon knew a smattering of infernal- you can only pick up so much when you’re only able to visit here and there and actively reside in the celestial realm- but as the exchange program goes on, he gets the hang of it faster and faster. Phone menus where especially hard for him at first though :< 

Out of the purgatory hall, Solomon knows infernal best, thanks to his long standing pacts with multiple demons, and the fact that he enjoys spending time in the devildom, and with both Asmodeus and Barbatos. Though, occasionally he’ll say something that Sounds right to MC and their translation spell, but in infernal, its weirdly phrased enough to make Asmodeus snort with laughter. 

[therenlover]

Would The Danny Bunch Survive A Holiday With My Family?

A/n: In the wake of recent life garbage, I have neglected to write a whole fic, and I’m sorry. In the interim, please enjoy this writing exercise I have put together in the hopes of nailing some characters I haven’t written for in the past in time for a larger project I’m working on! Cheers!

Characters: Laszlo Kreizler, Alex Kerner, Niki Lauda, Andrea Marowski, Ernst Schmidt, and Helmut Zemo

Rating: T

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Mild Misogyny, Mentions of Alcohol/Alcoholism, Mentions of Mental Illness, Non-Graphic Mentions of Death, Minor Spoilers for The Alienist Season One, Minor Spoilers for Goodbye, Lenin!, Spoilers for Rush (2013), Minor Spoilers for The Cloverfield Paradox maybe??? I haven’t actually seen the whole movie, blame Wikipedia if things are wrong. 

Laszlo Kreizler

NO

As the first of all of the Dannys to be put through the ringer, Laszlo Kreizler unfortunately would not survive a holiday with my family.

First of all, this man does not like massive huggy kissy crowds, so he’d already be off his game the second he walked into the packed house. That’s not why he’d die though, surprisingly.  

His downfall would be his status as an Alienist. 

There is simply so much mental illness and childhood trauma present at my family holidays that he would combust within 15 minutes of sitting in a room with all of my relatives.

Even if he were to somehow make it past the introductory phase, my family is nosey as hell, so they’d be grilling him about his arm and his own childhood trauma within the first hour. 

Laszlo, for all of his strength, simply wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

His death wouldn’t come from the initial combustion though. No, it’s not that simple. 

Knowing Laszlo, once he had combusted and entirely lost his composure the first time, he would become extremely intrigued about the interconnected nature of everyones issues with each other and he would start asking questions. 

That’s where the problems would begin. 

Because it’s one thing if my drunk great aunt starts badmouthing her sister at the table for abandoning her 90 year old mother for a lake house with her new boyfriend. That’s fine. 

But when Laszlo hops in and starts picking apart the mommy issues and underlying reasons for their decades long sibling rivalry? 

Oh it would be over for him. 

The yelling would never end. 

And, I have no doubt that Laszlo would start to psychoanalyze whoever started to yell at him, which would only lead to more yelling. 

In the end, someone would throw a probably full and probably fresh out of the oven casserole dish at his head and he’d be unable to defend himself because of his weak arm. 

We’d have to cart him out in a wheelchair and even if he were to technically survive, he’d never come back. 

Therefor, Laszlo Kreizler would fall victim to my family and die before we even got to dessert. 

Alex Kerner

YES

Ah, little baby Alex! A great contender here for holiday survival.

He seems relatively young in comparison to most of the Dannys on this list, though I don’t actually know how old he’s supposed to be. 

Based on his relative youth, he would automatically get points with the fam for not seeming like a creep or sugar daddy. Instead, he could be just about any dude I brought home from college. 

His skillset as a semi-skilled laborer would also earn him some points, seeing as several members of the family are in similar professions.

Alex might get lost in some of the more complex conversations about the local organic scene or the fine details of running a fine art gallery, but he would fit right in with the majority of the younger members of the family, smiling and nodding his way through the conversation. 

His enthusiasm and optimism would brighten the room and leave everyone excited to see him around again. 

There’s also the semi-small detail of him caring for his mother, which would earn sympathy from the older members of the family as they are in charge of caring for my deaf, blind great grandmother. 

Now, all of these aspects have already set Alex up for a successful survival of a holiday dinner with my family, but the real secret weapon he has up his sleeve is what really cements him in place as a survivor. 

What is his secret weapon, you may ask?

Lies.

Alex Kerner is really, really good at lying, and is even better at figuring out increasingly convoluted ways to keep his lies straight. 

If he managed to hide to fuckin’ Berlin Wall coming down from his mother for as long as he did, he could keep a couple of white lies up for appearances if he was asked any potentially embarrassing or weird questions that would make him look bad. 

He could also lie about enjoying my great aunt’s cooking, which is a vital skill for holiday survival in my family. 

Therefor, at the end of the day, Alex Kerner would not only survive a holiday with my family, but he’d probably enjoy it and get invited back for every subsequent holiday he could possibly attend. 

Niki Lauda

NO

Niki is another Danny that falls very firmly into the category of characters that would absolutely not survive a holiday with my family, for many, many reasons. 

First of all, just like Laszlo, Niki is not huge on going to big huggy kissy parties. 

Both adults and children would be all over him the second he walked in the door, which would probably make Niki get very uncomfortable and cagey. 

Little does he know at that point that people aren’t just all over you when you get in the door. 

No, no, no; from the moment you show up to the moment you leave, if you’re at a holiday with my family you are being basically accosted with questions and hugs and conversations that get weirdly personal. 

It doesn’t help that the whole entire house is packed and there are eyes on you at every moment, so he wouldn’t even be able to sneak in a break for air or a cigarette. 

If my own mother can’t sneak out for a smoke when she’s been going to these events her whole life, the new guy who’s still being vetted by the family sure as hell won’t be able to either.

Needless to say, Niki would start to get really, really tired of it all in an hour tops. I’ll give him until dinner at most. 

That’s where things would start getting really sticky.

See, a lovely little fact about the Niki Lauda that lives in my brain, as portrayed by Daniel Bruhl in Rush (2013), is that he’s just a little bit misogynistic. No more than would be period typical, but a little misogynistic.

Another fun little important thing to note is that my family is entirely matriarchal in nature. 

There are only 4 reoccurring male guests at family holidays out of about 20 to 25 guests at each event; My great aunt’s husband of many, many years, the two male siblings my mother has that live in the area, and the young son of one of those siblings. 

Men, specifically boyfriends, simply do not last in my family. They are considered pretty disposable and easily banned from family events after breakups or small mishaps. 

So, not only would Niki not have any other manly men there to chat about sports with over a scotch and a cigarette, he would be surrounded by so much estrogen that he would definitely struggle with his inner asshole even more than usual. 

In fact, we never have sports on, even on Thanksgiving. Poor Niki would be stuck hearing conversations about artisanal candlemakers and how to hand felt a woodland elf puppet.

Back to his downfall, the second he made a slightly sketchy joke about women in the kitchen at the dinner table to my great uncle, his fate would be sealed.

If you thought the yelling at Laszlo would have been bad, this yelling would be ten times worse, because he would be surrounded by like 20 very angry, very defensive, and very strong women waiting to beat the shit out of him and I would not be any help. 

He dug the hole, so he can climb out of it. 

In the end, his death would come when he tried to light a cigarette and calm himself down at the dinner table while trying to rescind his earlier statement, because smoking inside around all the precious textile art? Thats a big no no. 

My great aunt would grab the lighter right out of his hand, light up whatever cocktail she had at the moment, and throw it all directly into Niki’s face.

It would be like crashing his car all over again, only this time he would be surrounded by people who would rather he burn than try to get him out of the situation. 

Moral of the story, Niki would die within the first few hours of a holiday with my family because he made an asshole comment to a room full of women who don’t put up with that shit. Don’t be like Niki, even if you think you won’t get killed for it. 

Andrea Marowski

YES

Andrea is pretty much the polar opposite of Niki here, and I love him for it. 

He is very soft, very kind, very pure, and would never dare to say something rude at the dinner table like a certain racer we all know.

He couldn’t even say something rude if he tried to, because he probably wouldn’t have the English in his vocabulary to say the things he wanted to say even if he intended to say them out loud. 

But let’s be honest here, Andrea would never. 

Even with his limited English, Andrea would appreciate being surrounded by a whole bunch of people who think he’s the sweetest little thing since the invention of cake. 

My great grandmother, despite being almost entirely blind and deaf, would say he looked darling and he would immediately be a member of the family from the moment he stuttered out his thanks. 

Andrea, like Alex, is also relatively young, so he would get points for not being old enough to be my father. 

I feel like, because Andrea was shown living happily in a tiny village by the ocean with two old ladies, he would have an appreciation for craft, so he wouldn’t mind sitting quietly as my great aunt pawns off a handmade blanket from my great grandmother to him. 

He would also happily sit with the younger children and do whatever craft or simple game one of my aunts brought for them that time. 

The cherry on top with Andrea is his skill with the violin. 

My family is one that appreciates fine art a lot, but more than anything we appreciate music. 

I wouldn’t say that any of us are anywhere close to Andrea’s proficiency, but we definitely aren’t terrible, and we all can appreciate the effort, practice, and talent that goes into getting truly good on an instrument like Andrea is on his violin. 

He would be encouraged to play, of course, and he would happily oblige. 

If he felt comfortable enough, I could even see my great uncle grabbing his guitar, my cousin sitting at the piano, and my sister bringing out her own violin to do a little quartet with some simple song they knew as everybody else sang along. 

By the end of the holiday evening, once dinner was served and people were heading to the cars, Andrea would definitely be considered a member of the family. 

Needless to say, he’d survive and pass their tests with better than flying colors, even despite the language barrier. 

Ernst Schmidt

NO

Now, Ernst was probably the most difficult one on this entire list to put into the living or dying category. In the end, though, there were a few things that couldn’t be overlooked that send him into bad territory. 

To be fair, though, he would last the longest out of everyone who would die tragically at one of my family’s holiday gatherings. 

He, like the past two victims, would not be exactly suited for the mushy crowding that’s inevitable when it comes to my family. 

That being said, I think he would deal with it a little bit better than the other two did and would make polite conversation with the family when he could. 

The fact that he was trapped in a packed house filled with drunk people who have several generations worth of beef with each other, though, would start to get him eventually. 

If we consider all of the shit that happened while he was in space to be canonical minus, you know, the earth getting really fucked up, he would probably start to go a little bit nuts while packed together with that many passive aggressive people.

The second someone burst into tears on the way to the bathroom he would start to lose his shit. 

Still, I think Schmidt would probably be fine-ish until dessert was served, because that’s about the time where all the adults are absurdly drunk, so insanity ensues. 

They would start poking at him about his credentials and experiences as a physicist. 

He would answer their questions at first, but, unfortunately for him, the questions would turn more and more personal and uncomfortable as time went on. 

Did he ever still think about what happened up in space? Did he blame himself for not getting things to work correctly? How much did he miss his old world and old life? Did he ever have nightmares about what he saw? How much did it hurt to get shot?

They’d poke and poke and poke in their drunken state until poor Schmidt would snap at them, flying into a slight rage at their insistent probing. 

From there, he would be swiftly asked to leave and then “accidentally” run over while calling an Uber to take him to wherever he’s staying as my drunk great aunt tries to back out of the driveway to drive down the block to her house. 

In the end, Schmidt and his wit would be really close to surviving a holiday with my family , but he would, unfortunately, let his anger get the best of him, and it would be the last thing he ever did. Literally. 

Helmut Zemo

YES, BUT ONLY BARELY

Okay, so my earlier comment about Ernst being the most difficult out of everyone was incorrect. Zemo was, by far, the hardest to put into one category or the other. 

His wit and charm won out in the end, though, and I determined that he would survive one single holiday with my family. 

If he ever came back for a second he definitely wouldn’t make it, but he would succeed in living past the first one. 

Helmut’s problems start, surprisingly, not with the fact that he is a criminal. In fact that doesn’t even cause any problems for him. 

No, instead they start with the fact that he is 43.

I am 99% sure that my mother is 43, and I know for a definite fact that he’s older than one of my uncles who would be present. I, at the time of writing this, am 18. 

Needless to say, literally everyone would be massively suspicious of him and his intentions the second he walked through the door. The amount of money in his bank account definitely wouldn’t help in this situation either. 

The family would warm up to him eventually, though, because if there’s one thing Helmut is good at besides killing people, it’s making people like him even if they absolutely shouldn’t. 

With his expansive knowledge of what feels like literally everything rich and niche, he would slowly win over the older members of the family. Who knew the strange old man Jac brought home was so well versed in the American pottery scene, or that he could name specific jewelry artists from across the world that my family had done business with for years?

My family definitely wouldn’t. At least, not at first. 

Oh how they’d learn, though. 

Another nice thing about Zemo that would allow him to survive is his aggressive politeness.

No matter how many weird glances or dirty looks he got over the course of dinner, he would simply continue to be the best version of himself in the hopes of impressing everyone. 

He would even pretend to enjoy my great aunt’s cooking and get himself seconds, because I’m sure it would be easier to scarf down than whatever he and his EKO Scorpion squad had to eat while serving in the Sokovian special forces. 

On the tail end of reasons he would be accepted, Helmut Zemo drinks alcohol like it’s water, so he would fit right in drinking white wine and cocktails through the night with the rest of the adults. 

((I think he’d totally tease me about not being able to drink with him, but that’s a story for another time. Anyways...))

His slight downfall would come from something entirely uncontrollable by him or anybody else. 

And that something would be my flirty aunt. 

I love my aunt. She’s wonderful in her own special way. 

That being said, I know if a hot Sokovian baron with a nice smile and a fat pocketbook showed up to one of out holidays, even if he was introduced as my partner, she would be going for the kill all night long. 

This would make Helmut more and more uncomfortable as she got more and more drunk, because lets face it, he’s probably not very comfortable with being touched by near-strangers anyways, and being touched by a drunk member of his partners family who is very obviously coming on to him? 

That’s even more difficult to deal with. 

That being said, Helmut is a man who has been shown to be extremely in control of his emotions. 

He would swallow down whatever awkwardness he felt, make it to the end of the night, and, once he had escaped her clutches, he would politely say that he was never going back to another holiday function with my family again, though he would be happy to facilitate me still attending them. 

So, in the end, Helmut Zemo would survive one holiday with his sheer stubborn politeness alone. 

I will say that his patience would absolutely wear thin if he attended a couple more holidays and he would eventually die of a stress induced heart attack after being unable to politely decline my aunt’s advances. 

For now, though, he’s safe.

[derangedhyena-zoids]

You mentioned that Organoids don’t physiologically suffer from severing a bond, but would they psychologically? (I mean I guess not if they outlive their partners…) How would bonding to someone who has chemical imbalances (depression/anxiety/etc) work? Do they work like the anti-depression/anxiety medicine? And how do they choose their partner? Is it like humans going “aww look at this kitty” or more like car shopping, “I want one that has cruise control,” or is it harmonic like the neural waves of the human and organoid align?

Should I shut up? Sorry but not sorry, I love this.

QUESTIONS? ABOUT THE THINGS?? ANSWERS! LONG POSTS!  Re: psychological suffering... overwhelmingly the answer would be "yes, they'd suffer a lot", because that'd basically only happen if the Zoidian partner died. Organoids can easily outlive a partner (and the partner could also die early of injury or disease) - and the Organoid usually doesn't bond again. What they do though, is stay with the family/clan unit. So between the constant presence of their nearby colony and the presence of the other family members/their Organoids, that individual would be okay, relatively speaking. (a brief tl;dr aside: the extended lifespans of Zoidians, in an extremely roundabout way, are related to the longevity of Zoids/Organoids. it's... a convoluted thing that's too much to go into here, but yhea.) One is the main perpetrator of remorseless severing of bonds ... One basically just used people to think with. (the whole trinity setup and the very real benefits it brings  are part-and-parcel of the bond mechanic. which is another Convoluted Thing. tl;dr Minds Are Powerful Things)  One establishing then angrily severing bonds is a large part of why so many people (in the past, and in K&G) just straight-up died trying to pilot the Berserk Fury. Him “using them” was the problem, but him leaving harshly (out of either disgust/annoyance or lost control) was often the final blow. Really, any situation that'd prompt a bond being withdrawn mainly would have come up post-Zoidian-apocalypse. It just didn't have any reason to happen before. Because the organoid/zoidian relationship was far more like this:

(daemons, "you're an integral part of me") than any sort of "this is my best friend but we could potentially disagree" thing.

Which I guess is to say if it ever happened in Zoidian times, it would’ve been an entire story/groundshattering event in its own right. (This is one of very few areas I come into actual conflict with the anime canon. Because the Organoid/Zoidian relationship is presented as a really fucking illogical spectrum. So I just... made a decision and went hard with it. Works for the majority of actual canon.) Zeke and Zero are the only two other instances of an intentional withdrawal of a bond even coming up. Like a chapter or so ago in Echo, Zero temporarily did it to Bit and felt very bad about it. And Zeke liked having two bondmates so much he couldn't bear the thought of unbonding with Van. And in doing so, killed Fiona well before her time.  re: chemical imbalances:   I’m not entirely sure it’d be accurate to assume that the specifics of our human disorders would still be in effect for Zoidians and their weirdly shifted physiological baseline. they may well have issues we’d find difficult to contemplate, and *not* have some of ours.   that said, speaking in generic ‘imbalance’ terms - an Organoid’s going to go a long way to shore up behaviorally-deleterious deficiencies. The pair more-or-less shares a destiny once bonded: though an Organoid obviously isn’t aware of neurotransmitters and all related (they’re not Serenity,) them being caring, encouraging, empathetic, a permanent second opinion/shoulder to cry on/sounding board ... they’re essentially perpetual cognitive-behavioral therapy? Which has absolutely been shown to help correct chemical imbalance issues? So... yes, they would act as medication, in that sense? man wouldn’t that be nice. that said, it’s pretty likely Organoids have their own neuro issues to contend with, so it could easily go both ways...  re: CHOOSING THEIR PARTNER... it’s more of the latter, a harmonic thing.  assuming you mean “the way it worked in Zoidian times when everything wasn’t an entire mess”, it was actually a very structured process that’d developed over the ages. Happens young, young, young... The tl;dr is there’d be some ritualistic indication when a baby reaches a key development milestone for ‘sense of self.’  (I do not have details fully fleshed out for it, sorry. but I know it varied by clan) They’re then taken to their nearby Organoid colony, in which there’s always tons of Organoids of all ages. Then both the Zoidian baby and young Organoids would be encouraged by their respective parents to interact, until they found a good match.  and I know folks are gonna be like “are you telling me Zoidians put literal toddlers in amongst the goddamn chaos of an Organoid colony so said toddler could amble around in the literal mire and find a buddy” YEP, YEP THAT IS EXACTLY IT then you bring your merry little set of hellions home  pls no sorry, I’m glad people like my nonsense I guess. haha. have a baby Ambient.

[sesamie]

Morning Routine

  The library was bluer than usual that morning. Nick craned her neck from his place under the computer desks, trying to assess the weather through the library’s high windows without leaving her bubble of warmth (thanks in part to his sweater, but mostly to the computer whirring overhead, giving off unhealthy amounts of heat due to being left on overnight). It looked like it was going to be a sunny, cloudless day, one of the ones where everything was hot and sticky and Nick couldn’t help but wish for rain. The worst kind of day, in his opinion. 

  Already working to put this out of his mind, she sighed and cracked her knuckles, making a sound that echoed through the dim library. A sudden light from above told him that Chess had definitely heard that, and was now booting up its monitor to no doubt say something- NICK? ARE YOU AWAKE?   The stilted syllables came from the computer speakers above, and even though she knew it was coming, Nick still flinched at the noise. Chess had never sounded the most pleasant, no matter how weirdly advanced it became.    “Hi Chess, I'm here. How are you?” I’M DOING WELL.    “That’s good! I’m glad to hear-” WELL AS I CAN, AFTER AN ENTIRE NIGHT OF RUNNING.    “Oh, jeez, sorry Chess. I know it’s-” NO BIG DEAL THAT YOU GET TO SLEEP WHILE I KEEP YOU WARM?   “You don’t even need to sleep, though! Quit complaining and tell me where I hid my backpack last night.” IT SHOULD BE IN THE 700’S IF MEMORY SERVES. AND MINE DOES.    “And yours does. Thanks, CD.”

  As Nick got up and out of “ear”-shot, presumably to find his bag, Chess took a moment to think, something it tended to avoid on principle during nighttime. It knew today would be just like the last, wake up early, get the hell out of the library before anyone else gets here, find a place to stay the night, find a different place to settle down, and then play. Chess, of course, but checkers too. In recent weeks Nick had been pushing to try something called “tic-tac-toe”, eager to see what Chess Direct’s newfound advancements could do, but Chess wasn’t interested.    Not only was it becoming more difficult to casually downplay its sheer power, but the game itself sounded so...boring. No strategy like chess, no comebacks like checkers, no cheating, but also no winning. What’s the point of a game where nobody can win? You could play tic-tac-toe as many times as you want, adopt some semblance of a convoluted strategy, practice for hours on end, and still you’d find yourself crushed by a cleverly placed X or O. No real winners, no matter what you did, only the two losers dumb enough to trap themselves in a never-ending game of pure futility. No thanks. 

  Nick stood in the shelves, absentmindedly reading the spines of books as he searched for his bag. Finding it in the 700’s, just like Chess had said, she slung it over her shoulder and made his way to the library bathrooms, scrolling through his phone as she did so. Not much. Alder hadn’t been talking to him lately, and even though Nick knew it was only because she and her girlfriend had been so busy in real life, it still stung a little. Then again, it’s not like he had been making much of an effort to keep in touch either.    While he brushed his teeth, Nick mentally ran through everything she’d need to do today. First of all, he could NOT keep sleeping in the library, at least for the coming week or two. He could tell that the folks who worked here were starting to get suspicious, which was why she had started hiding her bag more cleverly, trying to pass it off as either a series of coincidences or entirely unrelated events. He knew it wouldn’t keep working forever, though, so she had asked a few friends if he could stay the night at their house. No responses yet, but Nick could hold out hope. It was early in the morning, after all.    When it came down to it, Nick would stay anywhere, provided there was a computer available powerful enough to run Chess Direct. It’s not like she had much else to do with her life. And it’s not like she would NEED to do much else after Chess was complete, because with any luck, by then Nick would be a well-respected face of computer science! He’d never have to worry about having a place to stay the night, never have to rush to disconnect his best friend when a thunderstorm came, never be so lonely that a computer program was who she called her best friend. Nick knew that what he was doing was incredible by today’s AI standards, it’s just that she was the only one who knew it. Chess was getting more advanced every day, though, and even though Nick admittedly didn’t really know what was causing such rapid and clean advancement, that wouldn’t stop him from being proud of all the work she’d put into it. Chess didn’t seem too keen on telling her what was going on, either, so he assumed it just also didn’t know how it was happening.    Packing up his toothpaste and towel, Nick reached for her hairbrush and began to part her hair down the middle the best she could. There were no mirrors in the library’s bathroom, but Nick had been doing his hair the same way every day for at least a year now - two low pigtails, leaving out the shorter parts near the front that almost functioned like bangs if you didn’t look at it too hard. It was not only useful for stupidly hot days like this one, but she also found it looked put-together even during those weeks where it was hard to score a shower.    After his hair was up, he splashed some water in his face, took a deep breath, and headed back into the library’s computer lab. Chess was still waiting there, a patient hum and whir from the computer telling Nick that it was thinking. She wondered what it could be thinking about. Something nice, he hoped.    Nick packed up his backpack, with a quick goodbye to and shutdown of Chess Direct. Putting the hard drive in her jeans pocket, she snuck through the front doors of the library and out into the already-too-warm-for-comfort air. Once she was a block or two away from the place, she stopped to look around at the world. It was getting warmer every day, and while Nick liked the snow, she couldn’t help but appreciate the way the trees smelled when they were starting to bloom. The grass was turning from straw-yellow to something resembling green, and once he turned the corner onto the elementary school’s block he saw the flowers planted there beginning to open, bright flashes of red and yellow that neatly lined up by the sidewalk. She considered picking one, just to keep it with her, but opted to wait until they had had a little more time to grow. It’s not like Nick lived an easy life, but the way the world continued to open up all the time made her hopeful for something more.    Finally, walking down the elementary school’s path, he found what he was looking for tucked away in the stands near the playground. Unlocking and straddling her bike, she took a last look around before sighing, “Well, Chess, where should we go today?”

[phoenixyfriend]

Madara and Obito... In SPACE

So the preface to this mess: I don’t know jackshit about Star Wars, so a lot of this went through friends who do know Star Wars (the primary of which does not have a tumblr).

(I have watched Episodes 7&8, and Rogue One. Of the first six movies, I remember watching maybe an hour total. I have not seen more than snatches of Clone Wars. Beyond that, nothing but fic.)

Anyway! Let’s go:

As y’all probably know by now, my favorite form of crossover is what I call “intrusive,” so... I'm enjoying the mental concept of "dump Madara on Coruscant and watch him go." (Prequels, probably.)

Does Madara know what's going on? No. Can he understand a word that's being said? No! Is he going to fight the first person to aim a weapon at him, and every person after that? Yes.

Is Madara fighting fit?

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnno, not really, he’s old as balls. This is "I was on cave life support but I'm getting back up to kick ass out of pure spite" Madara.

[Image description: A screenshot of a panel of the Naruto Manga. Uchiha Madara is old and visibly ‘decrepit,’ with spiky white hair and an amorphous black robe. He is sitting on a pale throne, and there is a scythe visible to the side. He has a speech bubble saying “I am... a ghost of the Uchiha.” End Description]

Two wrinkly old guys, staring each other down: There ain't enough room in this universe for the two of us. [Palpatine and Madara start fighting to the death]

Congrats, Palpatine! Your ass is getting kicked by a geriatric malcontent who doesn't speak any language you've ever heard or feel like literally anything in the Force. You may have Sith lightning, but do you have decades of frontline experiences and over half a century of cave-dwelling bitterness?

Both of them, simultaneously, in completely different languages: Get off my lawn, whipper-snapper.

Palpatine: Behold my mastery of the Dark Side, Foolish old man! Palpatine: [shoots lightning] Madara: Oh hey, you're like the seventeenth most dangerous person who can shoot lightning I've fought. Telekinesis? Fought that. Combat precognition? Fought that, have that, and let me tell you hwat, it doesn't help if you're opponent is just that much faster than you.

Now, I’ll take a step back and acknowledge that several people advised me that Palpatine would stand a chance against Madara, likely even win, if Madara just got hacked off of his life support and is down to one eye.

But. I want a shitpost, and also to clown on Palpatine, so Madara wins easily.

Madara also deserves to be clowned on, but the entire situation is clowning on him because he’s not in his cave anymore, and he really wants to go back to his Gedou Mazou statue.

Maybe Madara and Palpatine go Old Man Fight and then Obito just pulls a Ninja Move and kills Palpatine that way. Madara was ranting and Obito just. Ninjas behind Palpatine and slits his throat like “okay, you’re obviously evil so like... bye.”

(I just love causing "Wait what" reactions in characters that are used to having total control. Like. Have you read "Unexpected Guests"? The Bleach fic? Everything that happens in Hueco Mundo and after. That energy. I want that energy.)

Madara waves his scythe around like a cane. Obito just trails after like “Gramps, no” because it’s still pre-Sanbi, so he’s Mostly Innocent (you know, on the scale of how fucked up Obito is as a person), and just wants Madara to like. Stop.

Palpatine dies but nobody's sure what to charge Madara with since he did kind of expose a Sith? And Palpatine attacked first for [handwave] reasons?

Jedi: Well sir, in lieu of charging you with assassination of the emperor, we have decided to ask you politely to return to the elderly person's retirement home from whence you came. Please leave immediately. You are frightening the senate. Madara: [incomprehensible raving] Jedi: Yes yes, very interesting. Jedi, whispering: Does anyone know his caretaker???

Obito looks increasingly put-upon as events progress. You need Obito there to... well, not translate. Nobody can translate. But to at least poke Madara into being Slightly Less Homicidal.

Anakin seems sad about his friend dying and being evil so Obito challenges him to a spar. Madara and Obito get pulled into the Jedi Temple to help train Padawans? My first thought was "they wouldn't trust someone so obviously Weird, Crazy, and Incomprehensible around the younglings" and my second thought was "well they let Yoda do it and he's all those things so I mean? YEAH."

What if they put Madara in the bacta tank and he just freshened up like a daisy because of hand-wave Hashirama cell reasons (Blame Sir Tiddyface).

From “Decrepit and Reliant on Cave Tube Life Support” to “Will Call Down Meteors With Ease”

How many eyes does he have? Whatever’s funniest. Let’s say one Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan and one Rinnegan, for maximum chaos.

Would "half my body is missing" Obito freak out if Bacta regrew his eye? Can bacta regrow something like that? When characters lose limbs they usually just get cybernetic replacements, but  the person I spoke with said that apparently they saw somewhere that that kind of thing can grow back it just takes a really long time.

I want to imagine bacta would help Obito with the Zetsu integration.

Anyway! Yes. Have Madara help train people despite being... Madara about it. You know... kind of a dick.

(I’d put example gifs but I don’t feel up to it. Y’all know what Madara’s “weakness disgusts me” ass is like.)

Obito had to get his "these fools could never make me sweat" sass from somewhere, after all.

Do you think Obito could fight the baby Jedi that are around his age while recovering? I have no idea what their skill level is at fourteen, but I want to imagine Obito sparring the Padawans.

Obito + Zetsu + Bacta = he still needs physical therapy but he can spar again!

Madara is delighted to have a baby ninja to bully. He's too old to not bully baby ninjas, and Obito is the only baby ninja. TBH Madara just makes Obito his assistant teacher.

Obito: What are we even doing here and how do we get home? Madara: I'm still working on that. Obito: But I want to go home and see Rin and Kakashi! Madara, who was like two days away from triggering the Sanbi plan: I'm working on it.

Something sticking in my mind rn is Ahsoka&Obito, since Obito is still Baby.

I think Obito would be excited to have someone his age that thought he was Cool and Talented for being able to do Chakra Things instead of writing him off as "the dead-last." Like, Rin is friends with him, but she doesn't look up to him as someone more/differently talented.  He'd be excited to get to be "The Mysterious Cool Big Bro" for once.

I feel I also just like the idea of Anakin not knowing what to do with someone Several Years Younger that is also. Ninja Skill.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

Madara is a grouchy old man even AFTER he gets effectively de-aged via bacta dunk, for the record. He's back in his prime and the Jedi have no idea how. They're all concerned about tiddyface*. (When are people not concerned about Sir Tiddyface, really.) The mokuton is a problem.

*Sir Tiddyface is that random Hashirama face that Madara had growing out of his pecs for like... convoluted bullshit reasons.

(Madara doesn't have mokuton, but he has enough Hashirama cells that it interacted very, VERY weirdly with the bacta.)

Obito spends the intervening weeks trying to learn the local language. He's very eager. Not particularly fast. Still doing it though!

I want Obito juggling kunai as physical therapy while he's waiting for Mads to get out of the bacta tank and just gains himself the adoration of a gaggle of small baby Jedi children.

Madara comes out of the bacta tank looking like he did in his prime (which I mentioned earlier but whatever), and it absolutely incites a yelling match of an argument that draws way too much attention.

Someone tries to teach Obito how to access the Force, just to see what happens. He almost turns into a statue because the philosophy behind Force meditation is only a few steps away from Sage Mode Meditation.

Anyway, Madara smacks him with a stick like Fukasaku to make sure Obito doesn't turn into stone.

Madara grumps about the lack of paper and brushes and ink. Bitches about it until someone hits up an antique store or something to get them for him. The day before he and Obito are dispatched on a mission with someone, probably Anakin for plot reasons, Madara very publicly seals things into a scroll and then tells them that no, they can't learn it, because the Force isn't chakra so fuuinjutsu won't work for them, so There.

Obito practices some Teen Rebellion (tm) and like, tries to teach the Padawan friends he's made how to do Chakra Things... but he's so bad at explaining things that nobody can get it to work even if it were possible.

In Obito's defense, language barriers. Not in Obito's defense, he's just really bad at words sometimes.

[tigerdrop]

dogboy gordon rutting against benreys leg in the same way that benrey did it in the reverse. benrey encouraging him and also making fun of him in the same breath. yummy brain thoughts. i am rotating this

jesus christ i started thinking about dogboy gordon and have not stopped thinking. theres 7k words of dogboy stuff under here im going insane

how in the. help. Help. dog boy. how does he become dogboy. i cant keep giving these idiots potions but i guess thats what ive been reduced to

gman turns him into a dog boy. walks thru a portal and comes out in nintendogs but hes the dog and when he comes back out again hes still a little bit dogy. this is fucking stupid

THE TAIL WAGGING im going to pass away

> i think he would have such fucking issues with the fact that his tail and ears are expressing his emotions so much

trying to act angry towards benrey but hes given away by his tail wagging like crazy......and he never even knows its happening until somebody points it out

it would be cool if. um. he got a little more into roughhousing and rough play afterward. you know. like a . hes already really handsy......physical. . .. .

> okay like the anger turning into somewhat-serious jostling and pushing which turns into roughhousing

its not even horny at first it just gives him the weirdest fucking endorphins. like. its fucking fun man

> and by the time theyre roughhousing his tail is wagging furiously and like thumping on the floor when he gets pinned haha

> YES its about the exhilaration ......he gets this rush from flipping benrey over after he's pinning him, baring his teeth triumphantly

benrey pinning him by his wrists and half-laughing at him like "what the fuck is wrong with you??" and the rest of the science team chimes in like YEAH WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS WHAT WAS THAT

> gordon comes back to himself and turns red immediately and splutters like "i dont know! what - im just - benrey started it!” so like he refuses to do it again but then benrey pushes his buttons and he gets in his face, ears pinned back a bit and shoves him and benreys like oh...so its this again huh...

GOD......PUSHING HIS BUTTONS.......its sooo much fun now that gordons so physically reactive too

> what if he manages to get an honest to god growl out of gordon at one point and it makes something ugly twist in benrey's gut and he wants to make it happen again

and its probably really gratifying for him to see just how often gordons tail wags when gordon looks at him or snorts at one of his jokes

TWO SIDES

> the duality of their relationship....gordons tail wagging just a bit when hes looking at benrey though im

> im thinking about the growling though like...benrey gets fixated on how he fucking sounds, all deep and rumbly and this intensity just focused on benrey only....makes him think about how that would look in other contexts....

> benrey riling him up while their roughousing so he can feel that growl travel through his chest and like...getting gordon to that point makes him SO determined to win the "fight" over benrey hes almost a bit out of his mind with it......pins benrey and subconsciously ruts against him a bit as a sign of dominance....please stop me now goodbye....

NO LITERALLY THATS WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT THE MOMENT I STARTED TYPING

prodding gordon further and further and riling him up until gordon pins him to the floor, hard, an arm jammed behind his back and his HEV suit jammed up against benreys ass and rutting subconsciously as gordon. h. gordon. clamps down on the back of his neck and growls

benrey sucks in a rattling gasp and is like "what? ow" in a weirdly shocked yet distanced way

he cant feel where gordons hard b/c of the HEV suit but he can feel the metal awkwardly bumping against his ass Like That. and inwardly benreys on a loop of "what the fuck what the fuck" but not in a bad way in the slightest. just utterly cannot believe this is whats happening, right now, gordon freeman dry humping his ass behind a bunch of crates, not 100 feet from the rest of the science team

> gordon snapping out of it and being like...what the fuck am i doing... or....maybe the gasp makes gordon bite down harder in response...not sure

> gordon not even realizing hes doing it until that moment is so great....i dont know but....maybe he lets go and pushes off benrey, panting and wild eyed, and the image of benrey on his stomach, his bite mark in his neck, is burned into his brain

> he just doesnt say fucking anything and just dips to get jacked off by the suit maybe.... cant stop thinking about how it felt to see benrey with his teeth marks....hates himself for feeling that sick satisfaction in his chest

benrey......touching the back of his neck afterwrds, kind of dream-like, both consciously and subconsciously.......

i like making gordon freeman suffer so i want him to just angrily try to rut against his arm in private later trying desperately to get off thru this stupid busted HEV suit that he cant get out of. pathetic. gordon freeman humping his own fucking arm in a bathroom stall. like a dog

and he thinks about how benrey smelled when he had his teeth clamped on the back of benreys neck, his nose buried right against benreys jaw and neck, smelling the sweat and the hormones and feeling benreys rapid heartbeat, and his whole fucking head throbs with how bad he wants to get off

> and he just cant get off....has to deal with going back the team tense and a bit sweaty and just move on when they ask what happened. benrey doesnt say anything just stares at him and gordon cant meet his eyes. gordon tries not to fucking let benrey get under his skin cause i think hes probably mad upset and embarassed that he reverted to his like,,,more base instincts because of BENREY of all people.....

> but he still thinks about it sometimes and....he tries to distance himself from him but hes still a pretty touchy guy and he find himself around benrey still....laughing at his jokes and getting in his space once in a while. always pulls himself away when he notices but not before he takes in a deep breath of benrey's scent...

> meanwhile benreys trying to think of how to make gordon do that shit again LOL

ohmy god. oh my god.....before this.....before he tries to stop getting in benreys business and before he even recognizes what hes doing.......he like.....hes so touchy feely that he subconsciously tries to mark benrey a lot. like just doing everything in his power to rub the inside of his wrists somewhere on him. even if its barely gonna do anything b/c of the suit. its just instinct

> NOW HE ...now he realizes that he was doing that the whole time..jesus,...

> AUGH....in the buildup before this he didnt realize that he was doing it........but now he realizes he fucking misses doing that shit and kind of berates himself for doing it in the first place....like what the fuck....be Normal gordon...you cant want to fuck him....do you..?

i want him to. grrgohg i dont even know how or why this would happen but i want gordon freeman to lie supine on the ground with his hands up like paws like hes a big pupy looking for tummy rubs OKAY! BYE. I HAVE TO GO. im going to fucking sob why am i like this why is this the cutest possible thing for a man to do. i cant even think of a fucking reason why he would do this so im so fucking embarrassed

i want to fucking. i want to rub his fucking tumy and make him pop a boner from it im literally so sick of this earth

> i was literally Just typing: i just think it would be cool . To pet his tummy and keep telling him "good boy" in a Certain kind of Tone that just totally fucks him up about it . maybe flushed and tongue starting to wanna hang out of his mouth as he goes from laying flat on his back to kinda twisted to one side, breathing heavy, tail thumping hard against the floor cause hes a big dog so that thing is like a lethal weapon

> petting the fuzzy lower belly while hes already hard & needy just to make him whine Very high pitched and desperate-sounding bc its so close to what he wants but that just makes it worse 8)

> What if. Benrey pinning Gordon, maybe scritches behind his ear, as a "joke", he's a dog haha good boy wants ear scritches?? And Gordon immediately squirming and whining. Maybe even kicking his leg just a little bit

> i think it would be cool for a post-black mesa puby gordon pinned benrey to the floor with his whole body weight and humped the life out of benrey's leg while panting and drooling in benrey's ear. a total lack of regard for benrey, (of course he's into it tho) just using him like an object that's conveniently there for him to furiously get off on

> i'm thinking.... this happening after a period of prolonged teasing, like you said. rubbing his tummy and ignoring his dick

> Man ok combined with the suit edging huh? I love that, but i also kinda want gordon to sneak off to get off and discover his uh. k. kn. knot

> he sneaks off and if in this situation he can.  idk. get at his dick in a bathroom or whatever. and well, he gets caught up so easily in his 'head empty' instincts mode that when he cums he's kneading that thang for like 2 minutes before he even becomes cognizant enough to notice. and then immediately panic. so idk maybe he cant get at himself for a while, right, so he didnt notice this

> i just think gordon being in the suit would not let him get at his dick and he would only be able to get off in really convoluted ways so like...he wouldnt fucking Know he had a knot he would just feel a weird pressure at the base that he doesnt know what its about. but he starts getting these fantasies of holding benrey down and staying in him when he comes and he doesnt know where the hell thats coming from.....yet. until after everything is over and he can get out of it, and the first time he jacks off again he realizes HOLY FUCK? like what the hell....but it makes sense in retrospect where those fantasies came from. but hes just super embarassed about those fantasies and pushes them down until benrey comes back into his life and activates him again

> in addition to embarassment i think he has a lot of complicated feelings about benrey and definitely feels a guilty about wanting to fuck him into the ground and fill him with cum....but GOD if benrey doesnt get to him just as much as he did in black mesa

> i think that something like this would be so unplanned and shit but like......theyve probably hung out a few times before this or more like maybe benrey has dropped into his house just to annoy him and gordon finds his ears pricking when he hears heavy footsteps around his house cause he recognizes them as benrey's...

> little rush of exhilaration maybe. cause it means they'll spend some time together and he has just all these emotions under his skin when they do. i dont know how this would happen but maybe gordon forgets to keep himself in check when benrey makes him laugh so hard he's snorting and his tail is wagging furiously.benrey tries to touch/catch his tail cause he's kinda curious about it and it never got to mess with it in black mesa. but it turns into roughhousing as gordon shoves him away a little bit but benrey keeps trying to get at it and then get at his ears

> "cmon man just let me touch them whats the big deal-" "NO!" but like hes still laughing a bit until they start really getting into it and he gets breathless and a little irritated at having to roll around and try to pin benrey's hands to the floor

hell on earth......the way his tails wagging and hes grinning and drooling a little once he gets benrey pinned.......

> little triumphant smile when he finally does.....got benrey on his stomach and he's subconsciously rutting against benrey's ass like in black mesa but hes just not noticing while he's berating benrey for losing

> talking right into his ear, and benrey lets out a little gasp when he does a particularly hard thrust and then hes like oh. fuck. he takes in a deep breath and can smell benrey's sweat and realizes hes just as horny about this as he is. cant help but bury his face in the back of his neck and lick. and benrey starts pushing back into him and talking the worst dirty talk and it makes him growl right against his neck and put his teeth there again as a warning not to move but benrey doesnt still, he just keeps talking. so gordon bites down, hard, cutting him off mid sentence with a yelp

f. fucking. benrey......arching his back into it.......pressing his hips up as high as theyll go......the angles bro.....the angles

> also: gordon popping boners more easily, even when he's just platonically excited w/ benrey..... yeah... :)

> like the thing about this is just that he got so excited from the wrasslin that he popped a boner....wasnt even thinking of horny.....

> not until benrey started gasping and arching back into him. then hes immediately aware of how this looks...like hes already basically in the position in his fantasies hes just rutting against him in the imitation of fucking

> gordon getting more frenzied by the little sounds benrey is making as he clamps down on his neck, drool dripping down his chin. benrey braces himself with one hand and gets the other to pull his pants down and then tug on the leg of gordon's down a bit because gordon is kind of. not thinking straight right now. gordon gets the message and fumbles with the buttons to get it down and like. haha i thinnk it would be fun if benrey prepped himself before this and gordon notices like. you really managed to prep urself this time? god, you really wanted this to happen. but maybe benrey had been doing it the last few times cause gordon would get in his space again sometimes and things were tense

NO GOD THIS IS GOOD. LIKE. oh my god gordon just like bitching at him and getting up in his face and Growling a couple times before while his pants are all tented from the inadvertent excitement boners that he doesnt even realize hes having.....and benrey might not be smart but hes not stupid

theres like a 50% chance theyre gonna fuck at any given time he realizes so like. why not......

even if it doesnt work out in the moment benrey still spends the whole time hopped up on the knowledge that they could have, that he was the little fucking pervert who got himself all prepped just in case gordon decided todays the day hes just gonna mount him, and honestly the way he beats his meat and fucks himself afterwards might be nearly as good as the real deal, just from that little bit of self-inflicted degradation

like u said...........he really wanted it to happen

> hhh.... maybe gordon ruts a bit against his ass and benrey guides him in and. he makes a deep growling rumble when he bottoms out. benrey feels it through his chest and gets a full body shiver as he's filled. i dont think hes fully developed his knot yet but its a tight fit. he starts fucking hard and fast into him while open mouthed panting, he cant keep his face away from the benrey's neck, licking up the sweat and burying his face there to breathe in his scent

the fucking . the desperation......every instinct in his body has been telling him to fuck benrey - yes, that benrey, fucking benrey - into the ground for......weeks now? months??

dudes probably tried everything he can think of to overcome it and to think about literally anything else when he gets off but nobody he fucks even comes close to smelling as good as benrey did when gordon had him pinned and gasping and sweating and he could smell the want rolling off him in waves.....and it sucks massive dick and he hates it

> hes been driven crazy by this thought for so long.....cant fucking control himself. wh. what if gordon managed to get a hold of a piece of benrey's clothes that he left and held it up to his face when he let himself jack off to this particular thought so he could get the scent but it jsut wasnt the same without his warm, panting body below him . he always nuts the hardest when he has it though

huffing benreys undershirt and desperately rutting into a pillow on his hands and knees with his ass fully up and hes just utterly debased right now

sad and pathetic gordon freeman humping his pillow like a dog and whining thinking about fucking benrey. if his past self could see himself like this right now he would be disgusted

> !!!!!!!!1 HIM GETTING INTO THE MOUNTING POSITION ON INSTINCT WHEN HE DOES IT...YOUR BRAIN ! i think that gordon would definitely give everything hes got to benrey when he finally gets to fuck him.

> now that hes actually doing it he's just out of his goddamn mind. benrey already being ready for him, slick and hot, just letting him push in .....i think he would definitely go insane

dudes never fucked so hard or so mindlessly in his life......for once all the neuroses just fly out the window. overcome by instinct

> letting out all these whines and moans, not even caring for how loud hes being... benrey's wanted this so fucking bad hes just eating it up, pushing back on him like an animal and getting a power trip that he made gordon this unhinged

thinking about him just being utterly shocked when benrey guides him in and he can just bury himself all the way to the hilt so easily and it makes something in his brain snap

> gordon doesnt even tell benrey when hes close, benrey can just start to feel his knot swell inside him and how it stretches him a bit past what he prepared for...but he wants it in him so fucking bad, he just lets gordon keep fucking into him

like. oh my god. does benrey even know about the knot or is this a brand new and fun surprise for him

> I DONT KNOW......I JUST REALLY LIKE THE THOUGHT OF HIM BEING A BIT CAUGHT OFF GUARD BY IT....

> being caught off guard by it but being so turned on by the feeling of it filling him that he lets out this really high, needy sound. which goes straight to gordon's dick and he just pushes into him harder and jolts his whole body with it. maybe he h....he bites down on the other side of his neck again and thrusts in one more time before coming deep in him. just shuddering from it, eyes squeezed shut and jaw locked around benrey

benrey just fuckin. face down ass up and arching his back as high as he can

(mumbling very quietly) it might be cool also if. gordon maybe.....started growling some things as he got close. a certain something. a word

you know......just......bent over benreys back......arms wrapped around benreys chest and fingers digging into the soft flesh (maybe even his titties, if youre feeling spicy).......pistoning his hips in staccato bursts while he growls.........u bh hhhhh......"mine". over and over not even realizing hes doing it b/c his brain is so fogged out on the sheer delight of rawing benrey after having thought about it non-stop

(mumbling so quietly im speaking at a pitch below the human hearing threshold) benrey hoarsely saying "'m yours, 'm yours" while hes got one hand jammed underneath himself to tug at his dick is the thing that sets gordon off and makes him come, perhaps. perhaps

and gordon just.....slumps over him, leaning his full body weight on him, panting weakly into his ear while his hips subconsciously rut just a little bit, arms still wrapped around benrey but otherwise as useless as a bump on a log while benreys jerking himself off to the wild new feeling of having that knot stretch him open and tug at him every time gordon shifts his hips

gordon nuts and becomes utterly useless but at least his knots still fat as hell so benreys still got something to work with

(sobbing) i just want to see men acting like animals leave me olone..... its about the submission to instinct......the degradation and dehumanization......and also the scent kink its all about the fucking scent kink. its about wanting to huff a guy you pretend you hate like hes a fucking magic marker and its about wanting to make him smell like u

> for scent kink, Gordon's boners due to sweaty benrey hehehehe. this is narsty -> Benrey is like "yeesh that was a lot of exertion" after their first almost-sex wrasslin match, and gets embarassed, so next time he like, wears a bunch of old spice.... but gordon doesn't get as excited. like yeah he can feel him against his back and yeah he's not soft but.. he's not panting or as hard. benrey thinks real hard when he gets home

> CLEAN SWEAT OK ITS A COMBATIBILITY THING OK. IT IS. LOOK UP THE SCIENCE OK I ...walks away. clown shoez

YOU ARE SO FUCKING CORRECT THANK U

> Maybe next time He doesn't bother with the old spice at all, and he gets real into the wrasslin... hell maybe he even uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gets gordon's head under his arm im just saying

I DIDNT WANNA BE THE ONE TO SAY IT BUT NO YEAH THATS COOL. ITS A VERY COOL THOUGHT

think about......dogboy gordon roughhousing and getting pinned down himself and snapping his teeth up at benrey like joking but not joking. you know

they both start just getting really into roughhousing b/c sometimes gordons brain gets Stressed The Fuck Out by all the added stimulation to the senses of being pupy......theres too many sounds and smells sometimes and it makes him even more neurotic and makes him start acting up and getting irritable and trying to start shit until he exerts himself enough to tire his brain out and make it shut up

maybe even like.....in the interim after black mesa but before he runs into benrey again, gordon becomes a fucking hot mess b/c he doesnt know how to deal with it all and the only way he got thru black mesa without his brainstem snapping in half was b/c he and benrey would start shit and start fighting and wrestling and the rest of the science team eventually shrugged and accepted this as a (very weird) part of their life now. he looks like hes one minor inconvenience away from a panic attack and its so sad

any kind of physical exercise would help (he takes up jogging when hes feeling stressed out, which is a lot, and hes gotten some really nice legs by this point) but theres just something different about the roughhousing. its a mental exercise as well as a physical one, so it exhausts his brain more, and unbeknownst to him, he just gets fucking endorphins from the way benrey smells and from being able to mark him with all the up-close physical contact theyre getting. so. hence the wrestling and roughhousing and gordons occasional tendency to just pounce the guy in public and start fighting him with his tail wagging and thumping like crazy

it might be even better if gordon attempts to roughhouse with just about the whole science crew at some point, just for a point of comparison

like.....its usually good, its satisfying, and it wears him out and lets him function like a human being......but theres just something about roughhousing with benrey thats really satisfying and he doesnt have the emotional intelligence to figure out what it is

gordon freeman is an idiot, is what im saying

> tommy indulges him and probably lets him win a few times, coomer soundly wins out every time and bubby probably...loses some before getting pissy LOL. i think that its fun for him to get the most Good Feelings out of roughhousing with benrey.....

AUUUUGHHH WHAT IF HE LICKED BENREYS FACE THO

g gbfbhhh god im obsessed with the way benrey laughs at him and asks "what the fuck is wrong  with you?" in the act 3 commentary and thats the exact kind of vibe im feeling from him about like. everything gordon does in pupymode

> Okay, before I go to bed, I shall leave you with a Dog Thought™. Gordon probably wouldn’t be the “best trained” dog in the world because, well, he doesn’t have anyone to make him listen or obey. Heck, given his need to be in control, he probably thinks he’s the leader of the proverbial pack and nobody can tell him what to do. He’d probably slip and do quite a few “rude” and obnoxious dog things, including but not limited to being all over Benrey.

> Trying to goad him into roughhousing. Licking his face. Being in his space to the point that it even starts to make Benrey raise an eyebrow. Inappropriate marking and whatnot. [cough] And what if Benrey--in a weird reversal of the roles we usually give--is stuck with the task of… training Gordon… to behave…

> YOU KNOOOOW. Because pitting alpha dog Gordon against Benrey, who is trying to get him to be “good”...

> … Well, that could be interesting.

> Imagine if you will: Benrey realizing he needs to get Gordon under control. As much as he likes the attention, it's becoming too much. Relentless. Tables have been turned and now he's the one that's a little overwhelmed by the situation because, well, Gordon is running on pure instinct half the time. Making it hard to do things. Making it hard to live his life. Always in his bubble which was, like, fine at first but now he can't do anything without feeling a wet tongue on his face or having Gordon trying to goad him into rough housing.

> He needs so much attention. Has so much energy. It's too much.

> So, he decides he's going to try to "train" Gordon to not... do that. Benrey trying to assert dominance over Gordon, as if he were just a normal dog. Gordon, who has already marked Benrey and decided that Benrey belongs to him does not take to this very well. This is not how the chain of command works. This isn't how the chain of command works at all.

> Benrey, struggling to curb him through praise and admonitions--"good boy," "bad boy," tossing him ~treats~ if he does something right--is now facing off with Gordon, who is both enamored with the attention he's getting but utterly pissed off by the fact Benrey is trying to stop him from doing what he wants.

losing it at the tables being turned and now gordons the annoying fucker getting up in benreys business all the time and never leaving him alone. he deserves this

> They're basically both unmovable objects and unstoppable forces. Benrey is stubborn and isn't going to give up all his sweet PS3 time because Gordon won't stop humping his leg, and Gordon is not going to give up his God given right to make Benrey his property. But Benrey isn't completely averse to the idea of being Gordon's bitch. He just wants to be his bitch on his own terms.

> So, in a surprising show of... well, intelligence on Benrey's behalf, he starts redirecting Gordon's energy towards what HE wants Gordon to do.

> That's how you handle misbehaving dogs anyway. You redirect their energy. That's what all the books on dog training says anyway, and Benrey's inclined to believe it because he's read it in all two books on the subject he casually flipped through.

> So, when Gordon starts getting in his space, he starts redirecting him to touch where he wants touched. "Good boy." When Gordon starts getting a little rough, he purposefully positions himself so he gets the most out of it. "Good boy." When Gordon's licking his face, he starts trying to guide that tongue down to his neck. Feels better there. "Good boy."

> Because he's not a complete idiot. Him and Gordon both know this is sexually charged at this point. And Gordon... Gordon can bend his behaviors a little bit as he's being directed if he still gets to do what he wants (in a way), and Benrey still gets to be fondled by the nerd.

> "But part of the problem is that he is in Benrey's space all the time!" Yeah, but Benrey figured that out, too. You know what shuts up Gordon real fast? Pushing him back down on the other end of the couch and telling him to stay. And if he listens, he slowly, carefully hand feeds Gordon a treat as a reward. Pushing it into his mouth, making sure it goes all the way in. Letting Gordon lick the last bits of taste off of his fingers. He usually sits still after that. "Good boy."

i have a thought thats almost unrelated but im so desperate to give this scenario the proper context

thinking about......gordon getting out of black mesa and hes still dogboy.....and hes attempting to go back to life as normal now that benreys out of his hair for ever but one day his pupy nose catches That Fucking Smell on the air and he realizes that benreys not fucking dead. he thought benrey was fucking dead, b/c he killed him

gordon freeman losing his mind for a solid week or two trying to hunt that smell down (why?? to prove a point?? to try to kill benrey again??? uh huh.) and then when he does hunt benrey down, its like.....well, what was the plan, bud? you found him, and now youre having a staredown outside a 7/11 while benreys frozen halfway through his big gulp

i literally forgot what i was typing b/c dogy gordon tum y rub b gtfhgbb ggfabgbbg

and.....well......he doesnt know exactly what his game plan was, but he does know that benrey cant be trusted as far as u can throw him, and hes not about to let benrey wreak havoc on new mexico if he can help it, so now his new hobby is......tracking benrey across the city to keep an eye on him

and thats how they keep ending up in close proximity

and thats how u start looping in the whole role reversal thing.....suddenly gordons the one that benrey cant shake......hes a bloodhound and hes got the scent

SORRY im SORRY i crave context with the same ferocity that i crave, like, air

and then they start roughhousing when gordon tackles him to the ground one day to stop him from doing.....something......and gordon snaps being to being a normal person so quickly afterwards that its dizzying. turns out a solid 80% of what he really wanted was a sparring buddy

> good afternoon everyone this is not horny in the slightest but i just wanted to say- you know that thing dogs do where they get REALLY excited and playful when you come home from a long day at work? well i’m just thinking about. y’know how benrey has a tendency to just, vanish for a while and come back like nothing happened? think it’d be cute if he were gone for a particularly long stretch of time b4 catching up with the science team again and gordon RESPONDS in his typical annoyed, bratty fashion while his body language is saying something completely different (he still hasn’t mastered the art of puby)

> like, u know, tail wagging a hundred miles a minute, ears perked up and attentive, subconsciously getting all up in benrey’s space

Im going to Cry thats so fucking cute wtf wtf  wt ff

still going insane thinking about the “good boy” thing......like...... its all fun and games until hes grappling his best friend benrey and hes got benrey in a headlock and hes plastered against benreys back from head to toe and his tails thumping excitedly against the floor and hes panting hot and harsh right against benreys ear and benrey takes that moment, right there, to choke out "good boy"

its half outright horny and half power play b/c benreys banking that either theyre gonna fuck or gordons gonna let go and be like "what the fuck, man" and then benrey can get the drop on him again

the way gordon just goes stiff after he says it.....breath getting shaky.....dick twitching once against benreys ass and the guy can fucking feel it clear as day......Augh

his tail slows.....and then fires right back up again when he tentatively rocks his hips against benreys ass and feels the sound benrey makes more than he hears it......and like for fucks sake theyve been dancing around how horny their roughhousing sessions are for weeks, this guy deserves to finally get his rocks off by dry humping benreys ass while benreys getting spots in his vision from how tightly gordons got his arm wrapped around his neck. he deserves this

gordons free hand slowly opening up and pressing flat against benreys shirt, then crawling under it so that he can feel the bare skin of his stomach......rocking his hips against the dip between benreys cheeks and whimpering when benrey says it again, breathless and hoarse. "good boy." his tongue poking out to lick a broad, wet stripe up the side of benreys neck to taste the salt and sweat and the hormones, jesus christ, hes never been able to taste if somebodys horny before but its rolling off of him in waves.......and gordons breath comes out so loud and harsh and desperate when benreys leg lifts up a little bit for him to slot his own between them more easily

just mumbling stupid horny shit like "fuck benrey, you taste so good" while his tongue lolls out of his mouth and he licks the curve of benreys ear and rolls benrey onto his stomach b/c something in the back of his brain is whispering to him that it would be a really, really good idea, and hes originally got benrey just crushed flat against the floor with his full body weight but benrey takes a rattling breath and tells him to ease up, get up offa him.....

and gordons confused at this point b/c he was pretty sure this was where this was going, he was being a good boy, but that thought doesnt last very long b/c benreys shuffling into position under him, raising his hips and pushing gordons up with him while his face and torso are flat against the floor, and, Oh. hes. hes doing that. this is what theyre fucking doing now

> gordon taking the collar of benrey’s shirt in his mouth in an crude imitation of scruffing him

every fucking bone in gordons body is telling him to move his hips, fuck benrey stupid, bury himself to the hilt, but he cant do that when theyre both still clothed so he does the next best thing and ruts against benrey like he fucking means it and like if he just tries hard enough, gets enough friction, itll be just like fucking him for real......

hes so dizzied by looping thoughts of he wants this, he wants you to mount him, like youre a filthy fucking animal, arent you? you sick fuck, you wanna mark him and breed him and hed let you, hed beg you for it, look, hes doing it right now and when he comes back down to earth, yeah, benrey is begging right now, isnt he. while hes palming at the front of his sweatpants and whimpering and calling gordon a good boy, attempting to tug his pants down to his knees so gordon can rut against bare flesh, and gordon slows down just enough to let him do it and to fumble open his own zipper to ease some of the agonizing pressure

gordon fumbling his dick out of his underwear to line it up between benreys fat cheeks and god, the feeling of skin against skin is so much fucking better than chafing against his jeans that it makes him growl against benreys neck and benrey cant pump his fucking dick fast enough. hes so encouraging, what with all those little sounds hes making and the way hes arching his back and pressing his hips up as high as theyll go, groaning into the crook of his arm "fuckin, fuck me, bro, j-just like that"

> thinking...... they both get so lost in it, they both can’t hold back long enough to fuck for real. this is too hot, benrey feels something hot and wet on his ass and gordon is curling into him. benrey’s never felt so simultaneous turned on and frustrated that he’s still empty, he’s still gonna have to wait, snd ironically that denial pushes him over too

GOD yes fuckin. coming on his ass b/c gordons so frantic and desperate that he cant wait...... but seeing his cum all over benreys ass is deeply satisfying in its own way. he smears it deep into benreys skin to mark him like that

> oh hey imma be nasty sorry but Gordon all cum-high just sort of manouvering Benrey until he can start licking his cock clean bc he likes to uh. i mean benrey's all wet and you know. he likes it. and benrey comes from that, before he can even think about sucking him off properly

> he doesnt have a thought left in his head at the moment... and can u blame him? so he just uh follows he nose.......  and benrey's brain is deleted except for "GORDON FREEMAN ON MY DICK????????" bouncing around like a screensaver yes

> yeah he's not even trying to suck him off really, hes not gotten that far yet cuz hes so cumbrained, gone stupid, etc

im gonna be gross here too okay......and like. fucking. huffing and burying his nose into the crook of benreys thighs b/c he smells so intensely like sex and sweat and it makes gordon lightheaded

> YEAAH maybe he starts licking there before he gets up to his dick. it's not like he's dragging it out really so it's not long but benrey's gaping like a fish. he's trying to say something sorta but he can't get any words out and isn't even sure what he himself is trying to say

maybe he cant help himself and he just starts licking and biting on impulse b/c its your resident fuckin thigh guy here and i think benrey deserves to get em chomped like a drumstick

> and then that's gordon's tongue on his dick, bro and this neurotic mf looking so pleased and blissed out as he sloppily licks him all over is a sight he couldn't have even cooked up in his imagination before now

> benrey not coherently enough to warn him he’s like right there, his babbling incoherently at the tease of gordon’s nose and lips is gonna make him- and then his Tounge darts out and it’s over, the start of the end and he’s spurting all over gordon’s completely surprised face without even being jerked or licked through it

> maybe since gordon's been so stressed and keyed up for so long that benrey coming is a surprise but still doesn't shock him enough to clear the cumbrain, so he licks ben clean after that too, while he's twitching and whimpering etc

> think that benrey massive meat being useless and barely even touched is hip and rad even in the context of him technically being in the higher position of power

> then rests his head on beny's belly for a while, feeling very accomplished and tired. he'll panic later, don't worry

god im still thinking about. pillow humping/voyeurism

gordon freemans a bad fucking dog and sometimes he cant help himself and just starts rutting into a pillow with his ass up and his face buried in one of benreys undershirts while hes just panting and mumbling shit the whole time about benrey, benrey, benrey, why is he so fucking obsessed with benrey and with thinking about mounting him just like hes doing to his poor abused pillow every week

and. you know. maybe one day......benrey kind of.....catches him in the act. i think that would be cool. just coming home one day and cracking open his bedroom door and seeing gordon freeman on all fours, his teeth sunk deep into one pillow and another pillow between his thighs, desperately fucking it while hes groaning benreys name b/c he sure as shit was not expecting him back that early, which is why his cumbrain made him feel confident enough to crawl into benreys bed and roll around in it and mainline benreys scent from his clothes and nut on his pillow (and then feel fucking bad about it and frantically try to clean it off)

and benrey just slooowly steps back with his heart pounding out of his chest for possibly the first time in his whole life b/c he did not think gordon freeman ever wanted to fuck him, but here he is, using benreys pillow as an imitation of the real thing and jerking off in his bed

just turns right the fuck back around and goes into the bathroom and splashes some water on his face and stares down at his sudden boner

THANKS FOR READING ALL OF THIS B/C THIS ISNT EVEN GETTING INTO THE PISS STUFF THAT WEVE OBVIOUSLY BEEN THINKING ABOUT. SORRY FOR BEING LIKE THIS