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albino-whumpee · 3 years

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It was a sunny day

SO, I finally wrote the accident. God I had so so many doubts about this part. But hey, its ok. its just for fun. 778900´s POV first before we dip into Robert´s.

This is a series, here´s the Masterlist

Taglist: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @giggly-evil-puppy @cowboysrappin @haro-whumps @burtlederp @neuro-whump @comfortforthepain @whumps-the-word @whole-and-apart-and-between @broken-horn @ashintheairlikesnow @rosesareviolentlyread @crowned-avery @starnight-whump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @as-a-matter-of-whump @whumpasaurus101 @grizzlie70 @boxboysandotherwhump

TW// dehumanization, slavery, human trafficking, narcotics and syranges, death, child death, car accidents, dub-con, dub con touching (sexual), kind of spicy, blood, conditioning, defiant whumpee, curse words, This one is messed up, so please be careful when going through it.

It had been two years.

778900 had been waiting for two years for someone to take him. As the days passed, as he tried completing his training with as little “incidents” that ended up in him getting yet another set of fresh bruises, the hope of getting out was starting to die out.

He tried being good.

He tried to do everything the handlers ordered him to do. Did his positions, however humilliating they were, ate the flavorless nutrition meals, kept his head down and his attention sharp. But it was useless. One way or another, he would fail.

So he payed attention to even the tiniest detail.

How the handler´s watch would always mark 5 am when they were told it was night, how the blond handler´s hands always stayed a moment longer than necessary when he was on position training, how the cooking classroom was essentially the handler´s meal prep, the direction all handlers walked to when they talked about “going for some fresh air”; How the handlers would shift the camera in the hallway next to the handler´s room after taking a boy with them for whatever lame excuse they would put and finally, how the medic at the facility kept syringes with a powerful narcotic in her coat´s pocket just in case.

You signed up for this

A voice inside his head told him, before he stared at the handler´s clock and found the needle pointing at five, just as expected. As he went to the medic´s office to receive his daily dosis of vitamins. “Special treatment” was not quite the reason he had to take them. It was just them making sure the precious money and time spent training him, wasn´t wasted on a defective product.

He didn´t remember anymore, but he had come weighting half the acceptable for a boy his age and size. It was no surprise he fainted with just a stretching routine. It had gotten better with the vitamins, but the handlers were forced by the medic to not beat him if he fell to the ground.

He was deeply thankful for the woman to go that far for him even with the handler´s threats. So, so very thankful he got vitamins thanks to her kindness. Or so he made it seem, as she allowed him to give her a hug. Not sensing at all his hand taking out the syringe before responding to her “take care” with a bright smile on his face that distracted her from his hands.

You wanted to not make any decisions for yourself.

He heard deep inside his head as he added something to the sauce for the dish they cooked at class that day. The trainee sneaked glances at the blond handler coming to his table to watch him clean up after cooking, noticing the last boy went through the door with his handler, he knocked the sauce all over him. Loudly. So fashionably eye catching, the blond whipped his head to laugh at him.

“I-I´m sorry, I didn´t see it and…I´m so sorry” He stumbled on his words, acting as if he was cleaning himself up. Smirking to himself, the man pulled him up and started cleaning him.

“Jesus, what a waste. How can you be that clumsy?” he asked him, not exactly sounding annoyed to put his hand over his chest. Slowly, 778900 took the man´s hand and passed it down his torso.

“Thank you…” he said with a honey toned voice, making sure he pressed his hand right above his crutch, noticing the hungry look the man gave him, he rocked his hips on his hand, letting out a breathy moan. With his hand teasing the edge of his trainee shorts, the albino leaned to whisper on his ear, “…For helping me clean up” he finished with a little pop, “We have position training after this, but I will need a bath…” almost to emphasize, The boy pulled the man´s dripping hand and pressed it to his lips. 778900 gave him a kiss on the cheek as he pushed one glaced digit into the stunned man´s mouth. “Please. I wouldn´t like anyone but you to do it” he had said in that needy voice he would hear romantics talk in sometimes.

He took off his finger to let him speak, but he could still feel the warmth of his tongue licking him clean.

“Where did you learn to talk like that?” the man asked him wetting his lips, before the trainee gave him a bratty pout and leaned on slightly closer.

“Does it matter?”

The man had bitten the bait. Or more accurately, licked it. Directly or from his hands. The boy had even moaned to encourage him to continue. In his bliss, the man was completely taken by surprise when the albino put his hand over his mouth and felt something puncturing his skin and then warmth began spreading through his body. He felt his limbs growing so heavy suddenly, he slouched over the boy.

“Shh” the albino trainee whispered on his ear as he passed his fingers through his hair “Be a good boy and go to sleep for me” he said, putting away the empty syringe while staring at the turned off camera on the edge of the room the whole time.

A moment later he had crawled below the man and started undressing him after futilely trying to cut off the shock collar on his neck with a kitchen knife. The boy took his clothes and covered his hair with the little cap with “WRU” embroided in bright blue, making sure to cover his neck properly.

You signed up for this

His mind rocked back and forth as he kept his head down. Navigating the halls to the handler´s room in a quick, anxious pace that tried to avoid every suspicious eye. The trainee waited a second for the men to come out of the handler´s room to sneak inside. He couldn´t make up any letters as words without a migraine attacking him. So he guided himself with the drawings on the level map.

Silently, he came out of the room with the elevator on the far right on mind. He walked the same direction as them when they said they would “go get some fresh air” but found a handler and a few boys cleaning the halls. It was part of their training. He quickly noticed the handler´s eyes fixing on him. So, he took one boy and quietly directed him to clean over a spot on the other side. Far from them. The boy obediently followed his instructions and he patted his back before walking to the elevator.

I signed for this

He told himself as he extended the card over what he assumed was a card reader. There were no buttons but to open and close, so the only way to get out was only through the handler´s and executives cards, each designated to an specific floor. Of course, that was something the panicking, albino trainee didn´t know. He only had the Handler´s card by pure chance, but for his audacity, he was rewarded with the doors closing to feel the vertigo from going up.

And I fucking regret it.

There was a loud ring when the doors opened up again to a floor, and he prayed, it was the highest point. That there was a door conducting outside.

And it was.

He pushed it open and found above, the almost forgotten sky. The sun was already high up and just a few clouds spotted the vast blue.

It was a sunny day.

He stepped out without letting go. The view of trees, the sun on his skin and seeing how blue the sky was, drove him to tears quick enough that he didn´t notice there were other handlers smoking there.

“Hey, got some reds? I ran out” one of them asked, eyeing him for a second before a frown formed on his face, “Who are you? I have never seen you” He ignored him, heart throbbing on his ears as he tried walking past them, into the woods, “Hey!” one of them launched himself to grab his wrist, pulling on the uniform enough to find the barcode and numbers. “HOLY SH-” the man couldn´t finish before 778900 whipped his hand back and sprinted towards the forest. As quickly and as far away from their screams and their batons and the range from his collar as his feet could carry him.

Unknowingly, going straight into the highway.

He could hear their yelling getting lost behind him. Adrenaline helping him to outrun them. He jumped and knocked over a few bushes on his way. Tearing the clothes apart in his rush. Sweat made his forehead slippery enough for the cap to get lost somewhere on the way, but he couldn´t stop.

So he kept running until finally, he felt concrete under his oversized boots. He didn´t know how far he had run, but he knew he wanted to collapse right there and then as the haziness of hunger overcame him. He couldn´t stop now, but he allowed himself to catch his breath with his hands on his knees.

It was a second.

Just one second.

However, it was all it took to pass from breathing triumphantly that he was out to be in front of a van driving pass the limit.

It was one second when he curled into himself and the van turned to his right, avoiding him by mere centimeters and crashing violently into the other side of the highway. Turning and turning and turning.

The boy rose to his feet when he stopped hearing the metal crashing into the pavement. The world seemed to slow down then. As his chest heaved making his wayt to the turned around car, hoping there had only been one person aboard, his heart leaped. He had seen too many shadows, too many clothes scattered around.

Then, he heard the screams.

For a hot second he stayed still, considering he could simply turn his back on it. He would be in serious problems if they found him… but he had provoked it, hadn´t he? It would be his fault if something happened to the poor people inside the van. If they died… they would have died on a sunny day.

People shouldn´t die on sunny days.

A voice different from the usual, a voice that made him irrationally sad, told him.

So, he tried to rush to help, but felt the familiar bolt of pain on his neck. So much stronger than normal, he fell to the ground, his hands up on his neck before he could register he had screamed. There were a row of convulsing bolts that pinned him down. The electrifying pain took away his consciousness bit by bit.

He let out a whimper as someone grabbed him by the uniform´s shirt and started beating him. Reflexes too slow to put up his hands to defend his head or face. It took little more than two hits to draw out blood. To make his ears ring and his eyes to mud everything. But he didn´t need to see or hear to know it was the blond handler, pissed out of his mind.

He was barely awake when his head was pressed against the concrete, while he was roughly handcuffed on his back, before being pulled up. Only to be slapped when he couldn´t stand for himself, and then, thrown into the unforgiving cold of the van´s floor.

The car started so quickly, as he tried to pull himself up the ground, he couldn´t avoid slamming the back of his head against the door´s sharp edged lock.

From then on, it was black.

—-

“Yeah, yeah. I called an ambulance” the man shouted into his phone as he drove back to the facility. A pissed voice on the other side yelled at him loud enough to make him separate the phone from his ear, “Do you fucking think this was on the manual? They´re supposed to be fucking broken! How the hell did he get his hands on a narcotic? How the hell did no one notice? He´s white like a paper sheet for fucks sake!” he screamed back, hearing attentively to the voice “What? No, he´s fine. Just some scratches and- FUCK” The wheels burnt when he stopped the car to whip his head towards the blood pond on the back of the van. Fuming, he passed his hands through his hair, failing to hold a frustrated scream as he slammed open the doors and checked for a pulse.

He sighed in relief before he passed the barely breathing boy to the front, wrapping a discarded scarf around his head before fastening the seatbelt and driving back.

“Jesus, kid” he shook his head, eyeing the unconscious boy next to him “Couldn´t you have tried to escape in a less flashy way?”

When he got back, he begged the doctor he had stolen the narcotric from, to treat the boxie. To give him the strongest serum they had, because it wasn´t only him risking losing his job or worse.

She had no other choice than to agree. In the worst case, he would have brain damage. Putting aside the possible motor damage luckily they would be able to fix before anyone noticed, however, a colateral would be damage to his short term memory. Meaning, he would do things without being able to recall them later. In the optimistic side, it wouldn´t last forever. He would remember some things eventually. Hopefully much time after he was bought. When he wouldn´t be the company´s problem anymore.

Hoping it would be that way, she began treatment.

The man made his way to the handlers above, then. The men laughed at his incompetence, but he had made up his mind.

“I´m gonna quit”

“Right call” one of them said.

“None of you will talk about this. EVER. Nothing happened. I´ll even pay you, but none of this ever happened, understood?”

The men exchanged looks before smiling at their ex coworker “And what are you gonna do about the van?”

“Bad accident, four people died in situ. A four year old between them I heard”

“And the doctor too. The one that CEO´, was marrying on March. Heard CEO´s on the hospital as well” the blond handler gulped. “Guilty, Sanders? Want some serum to forget like the boxie?”

“Nothing. Happened” The men said through gritted teeth. The other two stared at him before pulling their hands up. What did they care anyways? If they had cared about humans pain, they wouldn´t be in that line of work. Well, beyond their own amusement.

When Sanders went away to write his resignation letter, both handlers stayed there for a while. Looking at the sun go higher and higher. No clouds on sight. It was the kind of day kids would use as an excuse to go outside. The perfect day to go on a picnic. To grab your partner and have a nice date. One of them wondered if they people on the van were going to do just that when the boxie jumped on the highway.

“What a pretty day to die though” he said, sipping on their cigarette looking up at the sky.

—

A few months later, “nothing happened” made the freckled twenty year old college student, the costume order box boy for a broken hearted CEO and two years later, a lonely, grieving woman take out 778900 out of his box.

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lifeonashelf · 3 years

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COLDPLAY

Let’s get this straight right off the bat: Coldplay is fucking terrible.

We all know this. Designating Coldplay as terrible isn’t a statement of personal opinion, it is an easily demonstrable fact. Just listen to them; Coldplay’s music proves the existence of Coldplay’s terribleness the same way that breathing proves the existence of oxygen. Surely, even the band’s staunchest supporters understand that their songs are pretentious, monotonous, and unimaginative—they’d kind of have to; I assume these people have listened to Coldplay, too. If you like music as superfluous as Coldplay’s, that’s totally fine. I’m not here to tell you that you shouldn’t, nor to convince you to stop listening to Coldplay (you can’t stop listening to them, anyway; no matter how hard you try to escape, wherever you go, Coldplay will find you). But they are unequivocally fucking awful, and I need to make that clear before we continue in case I end up saying anything courteous about them later. And, who knows? I may indeed find something positive to say about Coldplay—I mean, nothing comes to mind right now, but it’s going to take me a few hours to write this piece so it’s possible something will at some point.

Okay, so we’re all clear on Coldplay being fucking terrible, right? Great. But that isn’t the main reason I hate them. I appreciate plenty of terrible bands just as I appreciate plenty of terrible movies. Listening to a really shitty group is sort of like watching a cast of really shitty actors—though they clearly suck at what they do, there’s something oddly appealing about the charming naiveté they demonstrate by giving it the best go they can anyway.

For instance, since I was still filing most of my Warped Tour emo discs in my punk section when I began this venture, I never got around to writing about a band called Adair. If you’re not familiar with them, don’t worry about it; they only existed for a few years in the mid-aughts and their diminutive discography merely consists of a self-released EP and one full-length album, The Destruction Of Everything Is The Beginning Of Something New. Sonically, Adair were so amusingly prototypical of every baby t-shirt screamo band that was thriving at the time, they essentially sounded like they were parodying the style of music they played (although, to be fair, a lot of those squads did). But, Adair were absolutely serious, regardless of what stridently nasal heights the vocals reached, regardless of how faithfully their compositions adhered to their genre’s textbook page by page, and regardless of the sublimely ridiculous realms some of their allegorical angst lamentations ventured into (the line “lock me up in Guantanamo Bay and throw away the key” from the song “I Buried My Heart In Cosmo Park” may very well be the lyrical apex of their entire genus).

Adair’s music is so inane that it makes me laugh out loud when I sing along to it—but here’s the thing: I do sing along to it. I have probably played The Destruction Of Everything Is The Beginning Of Something New a hundred times from start to finish since my copy was sent to me to review for some website back in 2006, and I have cued up individual high(low?)points like “The Diamond Ring” and “Folding and Unfolding” even more times than that. As silly as they sound—and trust me, they sound very fucking silly—I still sincerely enjoy their tunes and have spent enough hours listening to TDOEITBOSN for it to possibly qualify as one of my favorite records ever. Shit, even writing about it right now makes me feel like hearing the disc, so I’ll probably end up blasting it in my truck tomorrow (ed. note: I actually did). If they ever decided to do a reunion tour, I would absolutely go see them, and if vocalist Rob Tweedie did that whole “hold the microphone out toward the crowd so they can finish the lyric” thing which every frontman in every band that sounds like Adair does at least a dozen times per show, I would totally be able to fill in each of those blanks and enthusiastically do so.

Sorry, we were talking about Coldplay. To recap, they’re fucking terrible.

Unlike a frivolous whimper-core ensemble like Adair, the most off-putting thing about Coldplay isn’t their music. They’ve actually managed to excrete a few tracks that I grudgingly enjoy over the years. However, sporadically releasing songs which don’t sound like they were specifically written for Gap commercials actually works against Coldplay in this instance. Sure, most of their output is noxious twaddle, but since they occasionally come across as a marginally decent band, their work isn’t awful enough to at least ironically appreciate it for being awful.

In fact, there’s absolutely nothing ironic about Coldplay—other than U2 and Radiohead (more on them in a minute), I can’t think of another band that seems to take itself as dreadfully seriously as Coldplay does. There isn’t a single lighthearted number in their entire catalog, and the demeanor of their music is so staid and cheerless that it’s hard to imagine the dudes ever cracking a smile while they’re making it. Their approach to songwriting is rigidly Pavlovian—when the music gets louder, ring ring ring, that signals the listener the *really* poignant part of the tune has arrived and cues them to emotionally salivate in kind—yet despite their calculated use of sonic dynamics to manufacture sentiment, the vapid and unspontaneous nature of the delivery saps their tunes of anything resembling genuine soul or passion. Even when thrusting through the more energetic tracks in their litany, the musicians in Coldplay always sound like they’re actively striving to not play their instruments too hard. The result is that they consistently deliver some of the safest and least edgy rock ever created, shaping their ethos around a formula so willfully tepid and cuddly that they barely qualify as a rock band at all. Coldplay aren’t quite the musical equivalent of plain yogurt (that would be Jack Johnson, an artist so comprehensively flavorless that even his name is fucking boring) but the granola in their mixture is always judiciously distributed so as not to agitate anyone’s tastebuds.

And at the center of this slow-motion kaleidoscope, you have Chris fucking Martin (I find it difficult to cite his name without including the “fucking” in there; he’s just one of those guys—like Jason fucking Mraz, Blake fucking Shelton, or fucking Bono). Coldplay’s music may be stagnant, but you’d never know it from beholding the practiced arsenal of slinky paroxysms their vocalist bursts into while that music is playing. In performance and in their videos, Martin’s appendages are incessantly in motion, his hands ever-swaying gently through the air like he’s waving a pair of invisible cigarette lighters or finger painting on the goddamn sky, ostensibly so deeply lost in his band’s reverie of sound that he simply can’t help himself from moving his body in a cadenced pantomime of the way their music is meant to superficially move your spirit.

For the three non-ballads the group has written in their career, Chris usually switches things up by crouching in an incongruous bobbing panther-stance like a battle rapper delivering a diss track about fucking his opponent’s mama in the mouth, until it’s time to freeze in the tried and true messiah-statue pose as the number’s final notes chime into the ether. But it is in the quiet moments when Martin truly shines—which makes perfect sense given that he’s the leader of a group so systematically anodyne they probably should have actually named themselves Quiet Moments. These are the obligatory interims where the frontman takes the stage on his own to sit down at the piano, resplendent in the spotlight, and perform an intimate solo rendition of one of his most tender hits to show everyone in the audience that Chris fucking Martin is a bonafide fucking musician who, if he really felt like it, could totally do the whole Coldplay thing without the other three dudes whose names no one knows. His soaring falsetto croon is custom-feigned for the arenas the band was destined to coldplay from the moment they dropped their breakthrough single “Yellow” and caused a nation of book-sensitive sociology majors eagerly anticipating the arrival of their generation’s U2 to cream their Dockers in unison. When Martin opens his pipes to summon those indelibly contrived choruses about birds and stars and other monosyllabic nouns, it hardly even matters what words he’s singing—the leitmotifs in most of the tunes are basically interchangeable anyway. What matters is that Chris sounds like he really, really, really means it when he says he will try to fix you.

That analysis probably makes it seem like I hate Chris fucking Martin as much as I hate his band. I actually don’t—he’s too benign a character to elicit such a fervid response; hating Chris Martin is like hating turtleneck sweaters, or actual turtles. In fact, I suspect he’s probably a really nice dude. At least, I’ve never heard any creepy stories about him showing his penis to under-aged fans on Skype or anything like that.

Regardless, while I don’t specifically despise either Martin, Dude Who Plays Guitar, or the other two anonymous members of Coldplay, I do gauge their collective as the fourth or fifth worst band of all time. And the reason I loathe them more than any of their neighbors on that list is because they aren’t the kind of prodigiously abysmal group you can just ignore until their moment in the spotlight inevitably passes—which is how I dealt with Five For Fighting from September 2001 through February 2002 and how I’ve been dealing with Twenty-One Pilots for the last four years (seriously, are you fuckers done yet?). Coldplay is a far cagier nuisance because they are massively popular and have been for a ludicrously long time. I’ve been patiently waiting for them to go away for two decades now, yet they continue to pop up every third summer or so to drop a new album and remind us that, yes, they’re still here assiduously mining the middle of the road for new ways to write more tunes about clouds being pretty.

Even worse, I can’t disregard their music because it’s everywhere. I hear “The Scientist” while I’m shopping for cereal at the grocery store, I hear “Talk” when I sit down to eat at any chain restaurant, and I imagine I’ll be viewing that idiotic video for “Adventure of a Lifetime” with the posse of animated dancing monkeys on an infinite Clockwork-Orange-eyes-gaping loop for the rest of eternity when my mortal essence exits this world and I am cast into the fiery pits of Hell. I can’t even watch football without encountering Coldplay, as I discovered with horror in 2016 when they took part in the most fatuous jumbled fucking mess of a Super Bowl halftime show the NFL had ever presented (a zenith of suckery which seemed impossible to eclipse until this past February, when Adam Levine showed up covered with prison tattoos and said, “hold my beer”).

The pervasive level of esteem Coldplay has reached dumbfounds me. This is a group that has sold millions and millions of albums worldwide, even though I have never once heard a single person utter the phrase, “man, that new Coldplay song kicks ass.” I’m sure their most dedicated fans have favorite hits, tracks that are significant to them in some way, etc. But their remarkable success is patently disproportionate to how patently unremarkable the work which garnered that success really is. Nobody ever describes the band’s music as “awesome”, just as nobody ever describes a glass of pinot gris as awesome—the term simply does not apply to their province; actually, in this case, describing the mouthfeel of Coldplay tunes and recommending cheeses they best pair with is probably more relevant than discussing how they sound. Coldplay is as universally popular as they are precisely because they aren’t awesome. They’re not beloved because they’re extraordinary; most people love them because they’re innocuous, functional, and suitable for almost any occasion—Coldplay is akin to a pair of cargo shorts, and no one thinks cargo shorts kick ass. Coldplay isn’t an alternative band (on the contrary, almost every good band is an alternative to Coldplay); they are a lowest common denominator band, undemanding and ubiquitous and safe to like because everyone else likes them. Their work is specifically geared toward people who think appreciating music demonstrates sophistication, but don’t ultimately give enough of a shit about the artform to put any effort into finding music that is actually sophisticated or appreciable. You may assume Coldplay is erudite because they’re British and they cite books you’ve never read when discussing the lyrical themes in their work, but they’re merely recycling the same emotional territory as every other pop act that writes tunes about finding love, losing love, missing love, and the 18th Century French peasantry.

The best thing about being a Coldplay fan is that it’s easy. You don’t have to buy their records, go see them live, or make any concerted effort at all to receive their music. If you listen to the radio for any extended period of time (or eat at an Applebee’s), you will eventually hear one of their songs; all you have to do is not hate it and, voila, you’re officially a Coldplay fan. There, don’t you just love the security of venerating a critically and commercially acclaimed band that will never challenge you or be unpopular?

Okay, I do strive to be fair—even in this arena where I can say whatever I want and no one can argue with me. I gave this a lot of thought, so here are four things about Coldplay that are not terrible:

1) “Clocks”: I resisted it for many years, but I finally had to concede that it’s kind of a pretty song. Notes of red currant and blackberries, and it goes superbly with a nice aged brie.

2) “God Put A Smile On Your Face”: It doesn’t put a smile on mine, but that’s why I enjoy it. Most Coldplay songs sound like they’re aiming to evoke what being hugged by a koala bear feels like, so I appreciate Chris fucking Martin delivering a darker number that seems intent on making me feel depressed instead. Well played, sir.

3) Viva La Vida, Or Death And All His Friends: I sincerely respect their effort to broaden their palate a bit by working with Brian Eno and making Dude Who Plays Guitar buy a distortion pedal to use on one song. This is still an archetypal shitty Coldplay record, but at least it sounds a little different than all of the other archetypal shitty Coldplay records.

4) Nah. They’re still fucking terrible; they were lucky to get three things.

There is one additional facet of the group’s career which has fascinated me over these past several years, even though it relates more to bands that are not Coldplay rather than the band that is Coldplay. Earlier I dubbed them the U2 of their generation, and recent events in particular have coalesced to underscore that comparison. See, when Coldplay came out, the tributes to their Irish brethren in choreographed affectation were far from subtle. Chris fucking Martin’s warbling was plainly modeled after fucking Bono’s, Dude Who Plays Guitar served up an endless cycle of repetitive but hooky high-register licks that were striking similar to the distinctive methodology of The Edge, and both bands’ workmanlike rhythm sections held things down with competent yet discreet backing tracks which militantly fulfilled each song’s basic requirements rather than showcasing the musicians’ dexterity. I don’t think anyone ever disputed the collective homage in Coldplay’s dogma, and no one was terribly bothered by it either; at the time there were a lot of people craving a band that sounded just like U2, because U2 didn’t sound like U2 anymore.

When Coldplay’s debut album Parachutes was released in July 2000, fucking Bono and company’s career was on a downward arc after they largely vacated their signature approach to instead craft a couple poorly-received discs dominated by insipid rave-lite tunes that not even the members of U2 listen to anymore. Though they would temporarily rebound later that year with “Beautiful Day”, the last honestly excellent song they would ever record, U2 had left a gap that needed filling. And the most obvious inheritors of their kingdom, Radiohead, had grown tired of anthemic guitar rock; they were hunkered down creating their demanding but exceptional opus Kid A, which sounded nothing like U2, nothing like Radiohead, and indeed nothing like any other music being made on planet Earth. Kid A still had some anthems, still had some guitar, and still had a little rock, but its oblique delivery clearly demonstrated that Radiohead was chasing a far different muse and had little interest in claiming the crown (of course, this would be abundantly clarified in hindsight when they subsequently slid further down their rabbit-hole, gradually abandoning the anthems and guitars and rock altogether, until finally settling upon their current songwriting formula, which seems to mostly involve Thom Yorke masturbating on his laptop, naming ten of his climaxes, and calling it an album).

So while U2 were busy trying to figure out why they weren’t relevant anymore and Radiohead were busy doing whatever the fuck they were doing, the lads in Coldplay stepped up and said, hey, why not us? They seized the ersatz-earnest arena rock mantle with A Rush Of Blood To The Head and never looked back. Now, 17 years and seven multi-platinum albums later, they can ruin the Super Bowl, collaborate with the Chainsmokers, and even make the same kind of lameass dance music that essentially buried U2’s career with impunity. Even more significant, they have come full circle. A group that started out playing second-rate U2 facsimiles under the moniker Pectoralz (this is absolutely true, by the way) is now one of the hugest pop institutions in the universe, beloved by millions of music and wine connoisseurs across the globe. And the student has eclipsed the teacher; U2’s desperate efforts to play catchup have made their modern work sound unmistakably like second-rate Coldplay facsimiles. Chris fucking Martin and those other three guys are no longer pretenders to the throne—they are Coldplay, and this is their empire now, bitches.

These days, U2 has to reprise their old records in their entirety on nostalgia tours to get anyone to come to their concerts, and Radiohead continues to release unlistenable albums which their fans claim to love while sheepishly casting them aside to listen to OK Computer for the thousandth time instead. But Coldplay has strategically situated themselves for an eternity as the undisputed emperors of rock mediocrity. I think they’ve got another two decades in them, too; I have no doubt that long after Twenty-One Pilots is (finally) relegated to the county fair circuit where they belong, Chris fucking Martin will still be promising sold-out crowds that lights will lead them home and having a series of polite, gently-articulated seizures while he sings “Speed Of Sound”.

It seems I respect Coldplay a little more than I suspected. You know what? I’m going to amend my original valuation right here and now. As of this moment, I am formally designating Coldplay the sixth worst band of all time.

Your move, Godsmack.

May 15, 2019

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happymetalgirl · 4 years

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The 15 Worst Metal Albums of 2020

This list might have been shorter if not for my running into a few awful albums at the end of the year that I had been avoiding wisely up until that point. My morbid curiosity got the best of me, and what’s done is done. I’m paying the price for it by going back over the worst albums I heard all year. Let’s get this over with.

15. Ghøstkid - Ghøstkid

This was the debut solo album from the former singer of Eskimo Callboy, who had a pretty decent backing of hype heading into this release under the Ghøstkid moniker, but with the namesake frontman putting in no more than the standard performance on a bunch of poorly assembled tracks in an unappealing and dated poppy metalcore style, ultimately the eponymous album wound up disappointing me pretty substantially.

14. Powerman 5000 - The Noble Rot

Powerman 5000 are just such a low-rate band that even one of their more okay albums makes it here. While not as astoundingly, mind-numbingly basic as their worst material, The Noble Rot is still some of the most unevolved, underwritten, and forgettable electro rock and industrial metal I’ve heard from a big name artist. This is some eighth grade level songwriting here, and that’s a fuckin’ feat for a band that’s been around longer than any eighth grader has.

13. Corey Taylor - CMFT

There was a lot of hype around Corey Taylor finally coming out with a solo project, and it was pretty damn disappointing to hear a bunch of uninteresting classic rock too tacky for Stone Sour. CMFT focuses on the fun side that has made its creator such an enigmatic figurehead in the metal press, but its one-note approach does little more than highlight Corey Taylor’s songwriting deficiencies. I really could have seen this album turning out better too, with just some more time and care put into it, if a fun time of an album is what Taylor was going for. Unfortunately Taylor tried to make a party album and a grand ceremonial tribute to his greatness at the same time, and ego-petting and partying don’t really go hand in hand.

12. Evildead - United States of Anarchy

It has some good bones underneath it, but Evildead’s long overdue (if anyone was asking for it) third album wears out its welcome so quickly with some of the most adolescent thrash I’ve heard in a while. The band gets some good rhythms going and the vocals aren’t terrible either, fitting the older thrash style pretty well. But the band’s predictable formula tires out very quickly, and the political commentary of the lyrics is too cheesy and cringeworthy to ignore. It seems every year we get a handful of these kinds of albums that try to get into the simmering thrash revival with some ultra retro approach, and a good portion of those albums are from long-defunct bands who figure their primitive old-school approach might be a selling point despite their sounds often being even more juvenile against the backdrop of today’s metal landscape. So it’s not a huge surprise or anything to hear an album as ham-fisted and corny as United States of Anarchy; this year it just happened to be Evildead.

11. Five Finger Death Punch - F8

They may not always place highest in this list, but they always manage to make it here, and this was actually an improvement on the last album, not that that’s saying all that much. In fact, I’d say this is the only time in the band’s history that they actually shifted their trajectory upwards. But while the band’s ugly continual creative decay has been a hard thing to watch and made them the five finger punching bag of the metal world, there seems to be a large enough swath of mouthbreathing chuds who love their incoherent derivative shit and flock to their shows enough to put them in lucrative headlining slots and on top of the metal world. Goddamn that sure sounds a lot like someone else we all know doesn’t it. I’ve criticized them plenty in the past, and while indeed an improvement, F8 only mildly remedies the numerous problems with Five Finger Death Punch. Still septic to the system are the predictably formulaic and tiresome songwriting, the stale production, the corny butt rock choruses, the shitty bootlicking worldview that bleeds into Ivan Moody’s douchey and faux-deep lyrics, the contrived ballads and country-dabbling. Even with an improvement in the flow of the track listing and a few more bangers that somewhat hearken back to their first album, F8 is still an over-thought and overly calculated batch of Sirius XM fodder that’s trying to please everyone in some superficial way. I’ll grant that it seems as though the band realized they had been giving the more metal-immersed side of their fanbase that has been with them the longest smaller and smaller crumbs with each new album. I’m not gonna hold my breath for this being anything more than placating for the time being; I’m sure the next album will find the band back on whatever bullshit they feel (or their execs feel) they need to be on to pull enough streams from inattentive radio metal bros. I always end with the disclaimer that I still steadfastly stand by the band’s first two albums, and even American Capitalist to a degree, and that I totally acknowledge the immense potential for greatness this band could seemingly at any time decide to fulfill. Ivan Moody is a talented vocalist with a lot of star power and they really could have been the second coming of Pantera or singlehandedly ignited a new wave of American groove metal and metalcore or carried it on their own. But instead the band have followed the money on the path of least resistance to fast-track their way to the top of festival tickets, which I’m sure affords them quite enough luxury and comfort in life, more than most bands these days get, but it doesn’t exempt them from criticism, and unfortunately I think their legacy will show that they were a lowest common denominator kind of band at the end of the day when they could have been, again, like a second Pantera or something.

10. Anvil - Legal at Last

Another year, another album of Anvil unable to evolve past their prototypic thrash of their forty-year-old origins. Though as tacky as ever, Anvil actually also managed to make a mild improvement on their last album on the musical front at least. The songs are a little more energetic and easier to get through, if not for the lyricism though. Anvil lyrics are never anything beyond a fourth-grader’s poetry assignment for their English class, but some of the Facebook boomer lyrics here are fucking cringy dude. A quick look at the track listing will let you know exactly where you’re gonna find the juiciest cringe, but honestly, even as far as cringe goes it’s nothing comedically special and cringe culture in general is played out anyway. So do yourself a favor and just ignore Anvil the way they deserve to be ignored.

9. Halestorm - Reimagined

It feels a little harsh to place an EP here, especially for a band whose album back in 2018 was one of the best things I have heard to come out of hard rock in a long time. But these stripped back covers and revisions of songs from the band’s catalog just suck all the oomph out of them, perhaps making the case by contrast for the importance of the role the rest of the band behind the indeed charismatic powerhouse frontwoman Lzzy Hale play in making their sound what it is. It’s unlikely this points to any kind of new direction for them, so I’m not particularly worried about them running into this problem again. Plus, I don’t think Halestorm and Lzzy Hale are like fundamentally incompatible with more ballad-y rock music, this forced balladization of older songs just did not work, and it makes perfect sense as to why.

8. Gama Bomb - Sea Savage

The fact that this album is only number 8 on this list is just depressing for its reminder of just how much shittier it got this year. The fact that there are seven albums from this yet worse than Sea Savage, goddamn. With one exception, this was maybe the stupidest album I heard all year, at least in the thrash department it was. God this thing is a sugar high mess. I feel like a toddler on an entire bag of Halloween candy or an elementary schooler on a 2-liter of Mountain Dew sat at a computer to program a thrash album would’ve probably come up with something like this. The erratic operatic highs and dumbass lyrics, it all just embodies everything that ever made thrash look bad. It’s like that drunk guy at a party who’s hyper as shit and doing a bunch of crazy stunts for attention because he thinks it’ll make the people there like him more, but really he’s just embarrassing himself. Yeah, definitely the worst thrash metal album I heard all year, and one I wish I could unhear.

7. Amaranthe - Manifest

One of the albums I was avoiding but reviewed late out of my own weird sense of obligation that I wasn’t surprised to find only validated my reasons for avoiding it in the first place. The weird combo of dancy pop music and power metal isn’t as crazy of an idea as it might seem at first thought. In fact, that’s basically in part what Babymetal are doing, and actually getting better and better at. But Amaranthe get the worst of both worlds with Manifest, unsavory pop melodies and utterly generic symphonic metal to make for something I’m not at all surprised I was so repulsed by.

6. Trapt - Shadow Work

Yep, I listened to it. God, no wonder this band is flailing in irrelevance with aggressive MAGA nonsense being their only audible desperate plea for attention. The album, thank fuck, isn’t steeped in the same bitch boy tantrum that the band’s singer has engaged in all year to the point of getting his band’s Facebook page banned for hate speech, and the music isn’t like offensively poorly made or anything like that either. There’s clearly a conscious meeting of the baseline requirements for the type of music they make, but holy fuck it’s so damn flavorless and predictable. It’d be one thing if this was the trendy thing to be doing, but this diet hard rock for people who think Three Days Grace is too wild has been out of fashion for over a decade. And Trapt are just recycling the same dumb formula that overstayed it’s welcome in the early 2000’s. Yeah, I’m not surprised at all, but god, it’s the kind of thing that has to be apparent to the band themselves too unless they’re lacking of any and all self-awareness. Trapt have thrown themselves to the forefront of the online metal world’s discourse by being an annoying, toxic, and childish presence all year; the silver lining being the unity among metalheads in roasting their laughable posturing about their Pandora numbers and the juicy memes about their one hit “Headstrong” that rile the snowflake singer up without fail. And this shit album is just another reason to laugh at them and more fuel to roast their crybaby Trumper frontman with. Go back into your hole, Trapt. 3/10

5. Unleash the Archers - Abyss

I talked about it in my review, but there really is only one simple thing that sinks this album so low. And that is just how incredibly low-effort and lifeless it is with a genre that’s supposed to be so life-affirming. Power metal isn’t the most highly revered genre in metal, but that’s just for its cheesiness. I love it; when it’s at its best, it’s some of the most inspiring metal music out there and I genuinely wish there was a bigger demand across the board for it. But Unleash the Archers just sound so flat and unenthusiastic in this album, and, sorry, in power metal, unabashed enthusiasm is just nonnegotiable. The guitar parts are phoned in and lacking in imagination, and the vocals especially are so narrow-range, it’s all so antithetical to the ethos of power metal and it doesn’t make a strong case for itself. I’ll leave it there; this album is lazy and lifeless so I feel no need to waste any of my time and work on it.

4. Burzum - Thûlean Mysteries

Ol’ Varg must’ve needed a new wizard hat or camouflage pants or whatever goofy shit he’s been doing since retiring the Burzum name to focus on his racism and LARPing because I thought Burzum was supposed to be finished. I thought you were done with Burzum, Varg. Apparently not too done to not dump an hour and a half of embarrassingly half-baked ambient dungeon synth song fragments that sound, so many of them, quite obviously unfinished. Varg Vikernes has been a washed-up shell of the musical god the various weirdos who idolize him make him out to be for a long time now, and it has shown in the gradually degrading work he had put out after his release from prison. Yet after clearly not caring about creating music in any meaningful way for a long time, Varg drops this heap of shit in his fans’ laps. I suppose they deserve it, but I’m sure some of them are delusional enough to lap it up with a smile on their face while still believing their white nationalist idol to be a musical genius. Again, it’s entirely dull ambient music, not metal at all, but it deserves to be shit upon for its astounding laziness and purposelessness.

3. Asking Alexandria - Like a House on Fire

Doubling down on exactly the unflattering crossover of pop music with their significantly sanitized butt rock in their apparent quest for arena glory that started with their self-titled album back in 2017, Asking Alexandria’s bid for the big spotlight that Imagine Dragons occupies didn’t get any stronger this year with Like a House on Fire. After three or four years of aiming for this style, the band still aren’t even all that competent with the basics of fucking pop rock, which is pretty downright laughable. Honestly, for an album so high up here on my shit list, my feelings on it are more or less just that of unsurprised disappointment; as soon as I got a feel for what the band were doing with the album, I knew it was going to be a mess of predictable results. And lo and behold. This was just such a wholly inexcusably floppy paper towel of an album, and one more Asking Alexandria release I know I won’t be returning to ever again.

2. Hollywood Undead - New Empire, Vol. 2

Coming on at the last minute to get on the scoreboard, reliably, is Hollywood Undead. When I reviewed both volumes of this project earlier, I referred to them as “corporate Linkin Park”, and I stand by that 100%. This album especially showcases nothing but what an incoherent, vapid, clout-chasing act they are, with such a corny, focus-grouped sound that sounds like it was made in a lab by a bunch of out-of-touch boomers. God, they could’ve been safe too if they had left it with the more tolerable first volume back in January, but this follow-up sequel from just this month was exactly why I had avoided listening to the first installment in the first place. And I should’ve never played this second one either. The album opener, “Medicate”, is probably the worst song I sat through in my own volition this year, and the rest of the album doesn’t get much better. It’s nothing new for Hollywood Undead after I gave their 2017 album my award for least favorite album of that year: more unfitting interplay between machismo posturing Eminem-cosplay and the sappiest, wimpiest radio rock and pop choruses; more cringy tough-guy struggle bars; more forgettable-at-best instrumentals. Congrats again, Hollywood Undead, you made one of the worst albums of the year once again.

But even worse than Hollywood Undead is an album that I feel like is already so legendarily bad, that there is no other album that could’ve been sat here. It had to be this one.

1. Six Feet Under - Nightmares of the Decomposed

Shitty metal bands everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief any year Six Feet Under decide to put out new music because any album they release is just about bound to end up as everyone’s #1 worst album of the year, and boy is that guarantee becoming more and more airtight with each successive release. It’s truly astounding too how Six Feet Under manages to outdo themselves every time. I don’t even want to think about what could possibly come after Nightmares of the Decomposed; we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But for now, holy fermented shit, this thing is not just bad, it’s like the holy grail of terrible TERRIBLE albums and I don’t want to know what kind of apocalyptically despicable album Chris Barnes and company could possibly conjure to outdo this one. And make no mistake, it’s still Chris Barnes dragging this band down. I gave this album a 1/10 instead of a 0/10 because there was at least a sliver of salvageable instrumentation on it, as thin of a sliver as it was, a few halfway decent musical ideas of you squinted hard enough. The instrumentalists are checked out and clearly just participating for the paycheck, but I can’t even imagine what kind of professional instrumental performance could possibly overshadow the embarrassment that Chris Barnes put to tape in the studio here. Maybe that says it, because it honestly sounds utterly unprofessional. It’s baffling how this got through management and sound engineering to be released to the public because I don’t think I’ve ever even heard any amateur high school band’s vocalist sound this bad. Vocal ingenuity is generally something to be applauded in the metal world, and pioneers like Randy Blythe, Dani Filth, and Travis Ryan deserve all the praise they get for their innovation with dirty metal vocals, yet what Chris Barnes has “invented” here on Nightmares of the Decomposed to compensate for his continually-deteriorating vocals is just sad. The man simply cannot perform highs anymore, clearly, and the alternative is this fucking comical, cartoonish squealing that sounds more like a bratty toddler gargling their own snot than it does anything fitting for a death metal record, even a death metal record at stupid and cheesy as Nightmares of the Decomposed. Chris Barnes should be thankful that metal is not a sport and that there’s not nearly as much of an abundance of performance statistics to point to and analyze to see what kind of records are broken in a legendarily awful performance. I feel like if there were any kind of performance stats to pull up, this album would have to break some kinds of records. Like this is worse than that 7-1 Germany-Brazil World Cup game, this would be like if the Brazilian team all got unholy levels of blazed and repeatedly scored on themselves because they kept going the wrong way and kicking the ball into their own net, and then pissing their fucking shorts. Even in 7-1 defeat, Brazil had more dignity than Chris Barnes here. Six Feet Under and their label have to know they are a laughing stock and that people will listen to them at this point for the sheer entertainment value of how mind-blowingly awful they sound. It’s not an illegitimate marketing tactic, and it’s the only explanation I can come up with for how this passed inspection. If that’s their mission, to be a spectacle and instill cringe in death metal fans in a regular ritual of comically stupid performances across every successive album, they’re sure doing it, and I guess this baffling headache-trophy is their well-earned prize. Congratulations Six Feet Under, you did it again! Worst metal album of the year.

#metal #heavy metal #worst albums of 2020 #hard rock #thrash metal #groove metal #alternative metal #butt rock #acoustic rock #power metal #dungeon synth #ambient #ambient music #metalcore #arena rock #pop rock #alternative rock #death metal

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vanderlindeandco · 5 years

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Hey I was wondering if i could get a one shot of Marcus x reader, where the reader is super shy and really likes Marcus but is too scared too tell him and the guys (cole, Baird, and dom) end up telling Marcus how the reader feels and ends up getting mad at them but thanks them because magic feels the same.

HELL yeah brother

“All right, then you’re going to slide this piece right here.“ Marcus’s fingers, fast for their size, pressed the last piece of the transmitter into place. “Got it?”

You nodded, taking the device from his hands when he handed it to you. “Thank you.”

“Get to work, Private.” He walked away, and you felt the floor quake just a little under his steady steps.

You really liked your new squad. Dom was kind and welcoming and you already saw him as something of a big brother, even though it had only been a couple months since you’d been transferred to Delta. Cole was fearless and never failed to put a smile on your face, whether by words or conduct. Baird could be cantankerous, and it had taken you awhile to figure out his sense of humor, but once you had, you came to value his ingenuity and edginess, and even to tolerate his whining. Sam was brave and funny and snarky, and you admired her confidence and how she flourished and excelled even in such a testosterone-filled environment.

But Marcus, well… Marcus was distracting. And for being the least talkative of the lot, that made no sense, you knew. But it wasn’t intentional on his part. It was in the gravel of his voice, a sound that sent goosebumps down your spine when he whispered an order in your ear on a covert operation. It was in his confidence, how he took charge in whatever situation cropped up, and even in the way he barked orders. It was the way he looked out for his squad, protecting them and doing everything he could to ensure their well-being. It was his devotion to his cause, the idealism that you could see even through years of mistakes, loss, and wear and tear. His fierce blue eyes helped too, and you appreciated the way his armor hugged his tank-like body, and the strong arms that emerged from under the metal.

You had it bad, and you knew it would be best to forget it. Even if something were to come of it, it would essentially lock you in your current rank of private since any promotions you received would automatically be suspect - the gap between your ranks was just too big. And you hated the way you got awkward around him, how your fingers fumbled on simple tasks, and your words seemed to trip over themselves. You didn’t quite feel like yourself around him.

You were patrolling one night with Dom and Cole, making rounds of the borders of the remote base Delta had temporarily been stationed at, when Dom asked, “So. When are you going to tell him?”

“Tell who?” you said.

“You’re supposed to ask what too, if you really don’t know,” Cole said, tapping the side of his nose confidentially.

“It’s that obvious?” you said sheepishly.

“A little,” Dom said.

“Well, you go from a very competent soldier to a schoolgirl around him” Cole said.

“So this is where you tell me it’s not going to work and not to get my hopes up,” you said. “I know, believe me.”

“Actually,” Dom said, “I think we were going to tell you to go for it.” You looked at him incredulously. “Back me up, Cole.”

“Marcus knows what you’re all about,” Cole said. “You might not be the highest-ranking, but you got a rep. Trustworthy, adventurous, funny - and I know you’re a hell of a good shot.”

“So what are you saying?” you asked, not wanting to risk drawing conclusions they weren’t trying to make.

“You’re his type, genius,” Baird’s voice crackled through Cole’s radio.

“That’s on?!” you asked, your cheeks immediately growing hot.

“Oops,” Cole said.

“Hey, I’m good at girl talk too,” Baird said.

You shot a resentful glance at Cole, who shrugged apologetically. Baird was friend, but he would not have been your top pick of who to confide your feelings in. “What’s happening?” Baird asked. “Can you still hear me? Come in, Delta.” He began to sing, his voice painfully out of tune. “If you fell in love with Marcus, clap your hands,” clap clap, “If you-”

“Okay, I hear you!” you said. You had wanted to say something considerably different - something that involved quite a few more four-letter words, but you hadn’t known Baird long enough to justify cussing out someone who outranked you by that much.

“Look, I’m just saying, say he does feel the same way - that probably means it’ll be twice as hard for me to get a promotion because everyone will think it’s just because I’m involved with him,” you said.

“You think Marcus would let that stand?” Cole said. “Hell no. He’d bang heads together until it worked.”

“I guess.” His words raised your hopes, but you knew it was smartest not to get too optimistic.

“Just nut up and tell him!” Baird said. There came some muffled noise through the radio, and a faint but familiar voice, and then Baird saying “Oh, hey, Sarge. Been here long?”

“Shit,” you muttered, and the radio cut out.

“He’s, uh… not the best about keeping secrets,” Dom said.

“Yeah,” you said, a little bitterly.

“It’ll be fine,” Cole said.

“Yep.” You scanned the quiet desert.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dom said. “Baird puts his foot in his mouth all the time. He’ll take care of it.”

“Good,” you said.

It was nearly midnight, the end of the guard shift, and you took a last circuit with Dom and Cole around the base before entering again through the gates. The base was quiet at night, so you were surprised to see two soldiers crossing the open courtyard toward you, and your heart sunk when even in the dim moonlight you spotted the familiar bandana on the head of the taller of the two.

“Private,” he said, his voice resounding in the courtyard even though he wasn’t speaking loudly.

“Uh, yes sir?” your voice had come out weak. Fuck, why was it so hard to talk around him?

“Baird tells me you have something to say.”

There was no way he had told him… was there? Your tongue felt heavy and clumsy as you tried to shape words. “I, uh-” your panicked eyes darted to Baird, who had a confident smirk on his face. “I-I wanted to thank you for…” for what? You groped around your mind for something to say. “-for teaching me, uh, earlier.”

“No problem,” Marcus said. “That’s it?”

“Yes, sir.” You knew your cheeks were bright red and you were grateful for the cover of night.

Baird looked a little let down, and you scowled at him as soon as Marcus’s attention shifted to Dom. “Everything clear on the patrol?” Marcus asked.

“All good,” Dom said.

“Good,” Marcus said. “Get some rest, all of you. Good work.”

As soon as you were out of earshot of Marcus and Baird, the words you’d been holding back burst from your lips. “That son of a bitch! I sounded like a total idiot.” You mocked your own voice, “‘Thanks for teaching me.’ Fuck!”

“Yeah, he overstepped a little there,” Dom said. “But I think he just wanted to help you make a move.”

“Yeah well, that should be up to me,” you said.

“Do try and do it before you get old and die an old widow,” Cole teased.

You sighed. Maybe he had a point. “I’ll think about it.”

*****

The next morning when you came into the mess hall, you found the men of Delta huddled around the isolated end of one long table. Dom was saying something, an earnest expression on his face, but you couldn’t hear the words. You grabbed a tray, accepting the normal morning rations before approaching the squad. The conversation stopped as you neared, all four soldiers suddenly seeming a little too interested in the mostly flavorless powdered eggs that comprised the main part of the meal. “Morning,” you said as you sat down next to Dom.

“Morning!” Cole said with a sunny smile.

“Marcus?” Baird asked, but when Marcus didn’t speak, he shook his head, lamenting toward the ceiling, “Do I have to do every-fucking-thing for you two?” You didn’t have time to figure out the implication of his words before he turned to you, asking, “You got a dress or something here?”

“No, why?” you asked.

“Cause you got a date tonight.”

“A… date? What did you say?” This seemed like it was probably about to go terribly wrong. There was Baird, out of line, again, but it wasn’t just him this time. You’d give them all a talking-to later. Your eyes darted to Marcus, whose gaze was still trained on his breakfast. You couldn’t read his expression at first - it seemed closed, tense, before you realized with a shock of tenderness that he was in fact bashful.

“Damn, is it hard to breathe in here or is it just all the sexual tension?” Baird asked.

Marcus scowled at him but then he turned to you and his face softened.“You know there’s not much to do around here. I, uh, thought we could go for a drive and maybe eat off-base.”

“I don’t think the word ‘picnic’ is in his vocabulary, but that’s what he’s getting at,” Baird said. “My idea, of course. He thought you should go to the range together. Cause there’s nothing as romantic as shooting paper to shit on your first date.”

“I…” Marcus looked up at the start of your sentence, and the intensity of his gaze made you pause. “Yes.”

There was silence for a moment and then Cole cheered as Baird clapped Marcus on the back. “There we go,” Dom said.

“You can thank me later,” Baird said. “We’re out of here.” The other three members of the squad rose, leaving you alone sitting across from Marcus.

You cleared your throat. “I like your idea better.”

He chuckled, his weathered face relaxing. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He stuffed the last bite of toast in his mouth, chewing it thoroughly before rising, tray in hand. “I’ll meet you at the range at 1900 hours.”

You smiled, and for once that funny feeling you got in the pit of your stomach when you were around him wasn’t a bad one. “Yes, sir.”

***

You had martial arts training with Dom that afternoon, and when you walked into the training room with a smile on your face, he asked, “Still mad at us?”

“No,” you said, a little grudgingly.

“Anything else you want to say?” he asked, a playful smile in his eyes.

“Yeah... Thank you.”

He nodded. “He likes you. Have fun tonight. Use protection!”

You rolled your eyes, fastening the velcro on your gloves. “Get your guard up.”

#gears of war #marcus fenix #marcus fenix x reader #request #fluffy #matchmaker baird lol

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maangoes · 5 years

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girl drop those brown tony fics

ok limited release 4 the desis……………..

Anthony Edward Stark. It’s his name — legally, it’s his name, his father made sure of that, but his mother— Maria, they called her, but her name was Mythili. And Anthony was what they called him, but she whispered the name Ajay in his ear every night before bed, and she used to sing to him in a high, lilting voice, clutching him close to her chest and running a gentle hand through his hair. She smelled like jasmine flowers. His father didn’t deserve her. He loved her, but he didn’t deserve her.When she died, he shoved away everything that reminded him of her. He buried himself in work and designed 1001 ways to kill someone for the company. He stuck by Rhodey— who always got the same funny looks Tony did, when staring down a room of Pale Stale Males. He kept his head down. He settled into the name Anthony. The name Tony.And then, right at the peak of his forgetting, he got stranded and left for dead in the desert.

His captors spoke in Urdu and if he closed his eyes and listened hard, he could pick apart what they were saying. None of it was particularly helpful, but the edge made him smug, gave him that patented Tony Stark Edge of Confidence.“S’the closest I’ve ever been to India,” he admitted to Yinsen, in the damp darkness of the cave.Yinsen lifted an eyebrow, swallowing a mouthful of cold, flavorless dal. “Really?”“Yeah.” Tony glanced down, tugged a hand through his perpetually unruly hair. “Mom always meant to take me, but never got around to it.”“I’ve been. A few times. Once to Delhi, once to Kerala.”Yinsen made Tony promise he’d go when he got out. Tony, who had no intention of getting out, easily conceded.When he touched down in California several weeks later, he told Pepper he wanted an American cheeseburger. He ate three, held a press conference that would change the course of history, and talked to Obie in a voice that trembled a little, maybe.“I saw people dying.” Tony doesn’t say: people that looked like me, but Obie hears it trailing off the end of his sentence anyways.“Jesus, Tony, don’t turn this into— into one of those—““I have to go to bed,” Tony cuts in, because it’ll be hard to still be friends with Obie if he lets him finish that sentence. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”Obie hesitates, expression slowly collapsing into a small smile. He claps one huge palm on Tony’s shoulder. “Of course. Get your rest.”Tony falls asleep that night with his mother’s favorite sari pillowed beneath his head. He used to think it looked like swathes of the night sky, stitched together with gold thread that glinted like stars.He doesn’t go to India. At least not yet.-“Tony?” Steve’s voice comes from somewhere deep in the recesses of the closet, “is this you?”Tony, fighting against the urge to throw away every suit he owns and cursing the schmuck who invented spring cleaning, sticks his head up from where he’s spread-eagled on the floor. Steve has appeared in the entryway of the closet, and is holding up a photo Tony had hoped to never see again.He flops his head back down on the floor and squeezes his eyes shut. “No?”He hears Steve padding over to him, feels him settle next to Tony on the floor, run an idle, possessive hand along the inside of Tony’s thigh.Tony opens one eye to find Steve smiling, smug little bastard.

“Do you want to try that again, Anthony?” he asks, holding up the photo.Tony sighs and sits up, extracting it from Steve’s grip. “It was a hard day.”“They shaved your head.”“They did. It was for mundana - first haircut ceremony.”Steve repeats the word, syllables tripping clumsily off his tongue. Tony grins, climbs into his lap, and cards a hand through his hair.“You look awful cute.”“Shut up,” Tony rolls his eyes, ducking forward for a quick kiss. Steve squeezes his hip, the gesture intimate and affectionate in a way that takes Tony’s breath right out of his lungs.“I’m not letting you throw any of the photos away.”“Waste of space.”“They’re memories. And you look so beautiful in all of them.”“Even without my hair?”“Even without your hair,” Steve says, unbearably earnest. He supplies another photograph from his pocket and Tony scowls. Thief.“I love this one.”Tony glances at the photo. He’s fourteen, hovered over a lit oil lamp for Diwali. He has two gulab jamuns shoved in his cheeks and he’s smiling like an absolute idiot.“You love the worst ones,” Tony grouses, pinching the soft skin of Steve’s neck.Steve smiles and gingerly sets the photo on the window sill. Tony let’s out an oof of surprise when he secures a hand under Tony’s thigh and unceremoniously flips them over, settling neatly between Tony’s legs.“We can talk about these things you know,” Steve places a large, dry palm on Tony’s cheek. Tony leans into the touch. “I want to know you. Every part of you.”“You will,” Tony says immediately, then stops to think about it. Steve eating oily prasad with his fingers, grinning at Tony over a carefully sectioned aluminum plate. Steve sporting reddened skin and a sweaty upper lip, his super-soldier immunity useless under the beating southern sun. Steve meeting his mother, her rose-scented lips brushing his hairline.

That one hurts, a sharp prick of loss for something he never even had to begin with.“You will,” Tony says again, sincere. Maybe not all of me. All at once. But you will.“Okay,” Steve agrees easily, ducking down to press a kiss on Tony’s collar. -“What smells so good?”Steve stands in the doorway of their bedroom, a towel slung low on his hips. He’s still damp from his shower, and there are cuts and bruises peppered along his skin. He’s been away on assignment for three days, and Tony has missed him like a physical ache.“Come here,” he says, the tenderness in his own voice surprising him. “Come here, sit between my legs.”Steve doesn’t hesitate, quickly making his way across the bedroom and settling in front of Tony, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. Tony loves the slide of the silk sheets on his bare legs.“Tip your head back.”“Are you going to stick a wet finger in my ear or something?”“You do one thing one time—““It was gross—““Tip your head back,” Tony interrupts, tugging lightly on the hair at the back of Steve’s head. Steve complies, resting his hands on Tony’s knees. Tony dips his fingers in the tub of coconut oil on his bedside table and cards his hands through Steve’s hair, rubbing at his scalp. Steve makes a noise Tony has thus far only associated with sex.“That feels so good,” Steve says, voice full of wonder. God, Steve should always sound like that. “Is it—““Coconut,” Tony finishes, sliding his thumbs down to the base of Steve’s scalp. “My super soldier serum. I’m gonna have a full head of hair at ninety.”“I’ve gotta say, the transmission process is a lot more pleasant.”“Dork,” Tony says affectionately. He leans away for a second, reaching on the bedside table and swiping through two fingers in a dish of turmeric paste. “Turn back around.”Steve can’t do anything delicately in this body, really, so he jostles the bed a lot over the span of his awkward maneuvering. Tony leans against the headboard and games for a peek at the curve of his ass.“Should I be doing this for you, too?” Steve asks, hooking his hands behind Tony’s knees and pulling him forward. Tony curls his legs around Steve’s waist. “I’m not hurt like you,” he says, scowling pointedly.Steve smiles, swipes his thumb along Tony’s lower lip. Tony bats his hand away.“Hold still,” he directs.Tony rubs the turmeric into the cuts along his collar, up the side of his neck. Steve stays obediently motionless, though his eyes track Tony diligently, dark in the low lighting of their room. “I know you have accelerated healing,” Tony says, wiping his hands on a cotton cloth. “I’m just covering all our bases.”“Makes sense,” Steve hums, tipping his forehead against Tony’s. “Love you.”“And will you love me when you have to ride a horse for our wedding?”Steve blinks. “Oh—““And learn very complicated dance choreography for our Sangeet?”“Well, I—““And eat an entire deep fried chili?”“That one’s made up.”“How do you know that?” Tony challenges, sliding his hands up Steve’s biceps.“Because I’ve researched it and I’ve heard of the other two,” Steve says, easy as anything. “But no deep fried chilis, you absolute menace.”“You did research?” Tony presses, his grip on Steve tightening minutely.Steve blushes, lashes sweeping as he glances at the little space between them. “Well— I like to be prepared.” He looks back up at Tony. “Don’t freak out.”“Whatever,” Tony says, voice breaking a little. “—Lame.”Steve grins and pushes Tony back against the bed, tucking his face in the crook of his neck. Tony sighs (hopefully not as dreamily as it sounds to his own ears) and wraps his arms around Steve’s neck.“You know one of us has to turn off the light.”“Whatever,” Steve says, voice all funny and high pitched, like he’s impersonating Tony. Tony pinches his shoulder and laughs, and it feels like sunshine spreading from the center of his chest.-That night, he dreams about his mother threading jasmine flowers in his hair. For the first time in his life, it doesn’t hurt to think about the next morning.

#desi tony stark #stevetony #mayawritesstuff #Anonymous #me? constantly fantasizing about making over marvel movies with positive social emssages? its more likely than u think

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twitchesandstitches · 5 years

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The Destroyer had been fighting in the arena for a long, long time. She didn’t know how long, and she didn’t care.

She cared about the applause, the glory and the fame. She cared about the joy of proving her worth, time and time again; the sweet thrill of her blows landing home, the perfect control of her finishing moves never killing another contender. And she cared, so very much, for the roar of the audience as she delighted them, the thrill pulsing from them as dear to her as her own heartbeat, and just as vital to herself, and there and then she always felt alive.

Somewhere, perhaps, her ancestors on planet Terradino, at some unspecified point prior to the destructive events that put the multiverse into such a complicated state, had fought in such a way. The Destroyer had grown up not knowing a whole lot about where her family had come from. She knew that she was a vaxasaurian, the dinosaur-like people renowned for their size and strength. She knew that her family had served a minor lord of this feudal world she called home for at least five generations. And she knew that she had won a lot of freedom and fame fighting in the gladiator arenas, a true show-woman to her core. She liked to think that, perhaps, she was doing her ancestors proud in some obscure way.

She did not much care for the strangely penetrating look the small human woman was giving her.

‘Title, not name.’ She stopped, halting a charge that would surely have seen them crushed beneath her tread.

Ahsoka readied the gladiator spear she’d been given, since you don’t get to take your own weapons into the fighting pit. She was a tall and imposingly powerful woman of the twi’lek people; broadly humanoid, two long and thick tendrils extending from the back of her head over her shoulders, and it was difficult to say, from her coloration, if she was red with orange paint, or orange with red paint. It was certainly a complex design, shifting subtly with the immensely powerful energies emanating from her clear mastery over the mystical arts.

Ahsoka looked up at the vaxasaurian gladiator; the Destroyer. She and her group were not small; they were enormously powerful, their abilities enhanced by the strange practices of the Task Force and vastly empowered by all kinds of esoteric things: unique technologies, forgotten mystical mantras, divine techniques, and so forth. They were also a subtle group, so they were not quite as big or buxom as their power normally would have made them, though they were still incredibly large; the average audience member could have fit into their hands.

The shadow of the Destroyer fell over them all; the statuesque and extremely curvaceous form of the reptilian juggernaut could not entirely be downplayed by the showy armor she wore, not at her levels of busty. It was a bit of a surprise she didn’t topple over with every step, really. Breasts bigger than her upper body, the visible scales painted in attractive designs, hips that shook like buildings moving in an earthquake; she seemed calculatedly appealing, fearsome.

Arri picked up on Ahsoka’s mood. She coughed; a turian like her, with their distinctively rumbling voices, could really make a cough sound dramatic. Tall, her curves extreme on an hourglass-shaped body, her lightweight robes (perfect for someone with an evasion-heavy style) revealed a lot of serrated and metallic carapace, like someone had tried to build a bipedal velociraptor and make it armored. That look, her mandibled snout, and the long talons were typical of her people. The scorpion tail was not; neither was the way one arm twisted into a huge pincer, blazing with magical flame and generating all the fire magic she required. “Perhaps we shouldn’t antagonize the terrifying gladiator, Quinn…?”

She said this without much hope. Harley had an Idea. This rarely worked out for them.

Harley placed down her hammer, a great and oversized thing seemingly too unwieldy for someone to even pick up, let alone swing with one hand as she did. She sat down on a hammer-head larger than she was, her enormous backside making it sink into the ground. The haft made an acceptable rest for her back as she plopped against it, seemingly unconcerned, and she clapped her hands together.

Normally, she looked like an unstable mass of dynamic energy too intense to be constrained within the form of a giantess, even one so powerful that her power levels had produced a body type not dissimilar to the average violin; big up top, big below, and with very little in between. Even sitting down, her visible body appeared to be a mass of boob on crossed legs, monstrously wide thighs, inexplicably pale skin, and all of that wrapped up in a battlesuit of alternated red and black patterns.

That energy cooled, and she instead radiated competence, reassurance, and a soothing attitude.

The Destroyer raised a weapon irritably at her. “Get up, little thing. Fight me! Stop wasting my time, I..” She faltered, eyes blinking furiously inside her glamorous helmet. “I…”

She shook her head. She banged her weapon against a showman shield. “I have no time for this!”

“Okay,” Harley said, blinking slowly. “It’s your show, lady. This whole place is your performance, ain’t it?”

The Destroyer found herself nodding before she forced herself to stop, narrowing her eyes down at the (relatively) little fighter. Her elephantine foot landed a dangerously short distance from Harley, trying to get her to move… to run, do SOMETHING. “What trickery is this?” the Destroyer asked.

“No tricks, hun.” Harley held her hands up. “My girls back there, they won’t attack until I give up on our little talk here, okay? No ambushes or sneak attacks to take your title.”

The Destroyer blinked at them. Ahsoka and Arri nodded nervously, taking many steps back. Ahsoka fought back the urge to summon her powers anyway, just as a precaution… just in case Harley’s plan, whatever it was, didn’t pan out.

The enormous vaxasaurian stared at them a while longer, doubt coloring her every movement, Eventually she sat down, her armor still wobbling in various places. Her armor had probably been jointed specifically for that; a good amount of wobble drew a certain sort of audience.

She glowered down at Harley, who met her gaze politely with a vague smile. It was amazing Harley didn’t cower, with those massive talons before here; the tyrant lizard jawline, the spiky plates jutting through armor, and the mighty tail spikes lashing around in what, a layman probably, might mistake as impatience to finish the fight.

Harley knew anxiety and someone who needed to get something out when she saw it.

“If you want me to go first,” Harley said in a drawl. “My real name is actually-”

She said ‘Harleen Quinzel’. What actually came out of her mouth was an entirely different set of syllables, modified to make sense in this part of space, in this universe, in that culture, for her current operational persona. It was carved into the universe around here; whatever she said or did, it would be perceived as something fitting her role. They didn’t hear the name Harley Quinn when she fought, they heard what they needed to. Just as surely as, if by some means they did learn the truth, they would eventually just… forget. The knowledge dripping out of their heads.

And if that didn’t work, Gabriel Reyes would visit them. Or rather, the Ghost Rider would. Holy fire would burn away everything they didn’t need to know, and leave behind calm ashes, bothering them never again.

Nevertheless, though the Destroyer didn’t hear what Harley truly said, she did hear the sincerity.

“I don’t know my own name,” she admitted. “That’s strange, isn’t it? I don’t know why. Huh. That’s, that’s odd.” She frowned. “Isn’t it?”

Around the arena, there was a chorus of voices, a vast crowd complaining and bickering and wondering just what was going on here. Referees tried to angle for silence, and a few shadowy visitors were looking very anxious indeed.

“Look into your memories,” Harley suggested.

The Destroyer tried to remember something; anything, really, and found, now that she had brought it up, that her recollections felt… odd.

Further than a few years, and they were hollow. Not empty, just… insufficient. Off, flavorless, shapes of memory.

“Huh,” she said, and it felt inadequate. “That doesn’t seem right…”

And as the conversation continued, Eddie Brock, in his persona as a wannabe gladiator (with his married partner/symbiote lover as a subtle edge in his favor, with going full Venom as a back up plan if things went bad) held up a small oblong thing that looked like a religious relic. “Hrm,” he said, voice tinged with the harmonics of the symbiote bound to him as well as his own voice.

Ranamon, presently wearing the robotic shell of a walking tank, scuttled over. “Something up?” she asked, risking that she might be breaking character.

Eddie nodded at her. “We’re done here.” It wasn’t Eddie that spoke, but the symbiote; they seemed glad of it, and Eddie’s teeth grew longer when they spoke, tendrils of black shimmering just a bit over his eyes.

Ranamon blinked. “I thought our job was to beat up the head gladiator, get close enough to the big ruler-type guy and…” she made a sharp gesture with half-a-dozen arms that indicated a very violent and final sort of political shift. “Y’know.”

“Yep,” Eddie, this time, said. “That was one of the options, anyway, and I got word from high up. Seems the direct option isn’t needed. It’ll happen without us. We’re done here.”

“Oh. Uh.” Ranamon shrugged, which was an interesting thing to see in a machine body that was what you got if you tried to make a tank out of an arachnid shape. “Yay, I guess!”

They left, to join up with the rest of the Task Force, and leave things to sort themselves out.

They often operated, in a way, through ripples. The tasks they were assigned, as random and minor as they seemed at the time, sent out ripples. Echoes and consequences, moving onward and growing larger… much larger, over time.

Today, a gladiator would go home, unfulfilled and perplexed, and have to ask herself why she couldn’t remember her name, and why her memories didn’t feel real.

In a week, she would gather up the other fighters she was friendly with, the ones that always stuck by her because she was a professional that never went for a killing blow, and ask them a few awkward questions. Everyone would leave feeling baffled that their own memories felt wrong, too.

And there… well, who knew? Maybe in a few months time, a local cloning factory would answer some very pointed questions from gladiators that had secretly been born there only a few years previous despite their memories saying otherwise.

But from there, a hint of a whole rotten, sorry system of casually churning out people for entertainment would lead all the way to the top, and it would be the Destroyer aiming herself squarely at the king of the world, making her name very literal indeed.

One way or another, a corrupt empire would fall.

The Task Force would have helped make this part of the multiverse a little brighter.

#/#//#///#////#/////#my writing #fics #crossthicc AU #crosthicc!harley quinn #crossthicc!ahsoka #crossthicc!arri #crossthicc!DC #crossthicc!star wars

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nongbabe · 6 years

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Watermelon - Roomate Mark Lee

this scenario is entirely based off of this gif not going to lie

Scenario: Mark Lee just really likes watermelon and also you

okay so you’ve been roommates with make lee since the beginning of sophomore year

you wanted to live off campus to save some money

and mark was sick of living with a swarm of guys who never seemed to do dishes

and hey less people less mess

also you’re pretty tidy yourself so it was extra good

anyway you guys had a few mutual friends and they ended setting you two up not actually but also kinda actaully lmao they ship it roommate wise

your both juniors now, it nearing the end of first semester so you guys have gotten pretty comfortable with each

like really comfortable you tell each other everything

everything excluding one maybe significant factor in your guys relationship...

and somewhere down the time line of living in such a small apartment together that factor became more and more signifigant

maybe it was from him constantly walking around the apartment with just a towel on after a shower or him not wearing a shirt during the early fall and late spring because your ac doesn’t work right

maybe it was the time he made you breakfast when you were sick in bed

and by made i mean he attempted to fry and egg and it didn’t work

so he put a bagel in the toaster bc even he cant mess that up he almost did though good thing you don’t mind extra crispy

maybe it was simply his smile or his sense of humor or his laugh

ah but no matter what or when it was

you had fallen for him. hard. and probably more quickly than you cared to admit

and hed done the same just neither of you were sure enough of each others feeling or confident enough to let the other know

but it doesn’t matter not that much any way

you were happy enough just spending lazy days in with him watching movies or just chatting sometimes when it was raining sometimes when it was perfectly sunny out

you were happy just having him drag you out of the apartment to go on adventures kayaking, squirrel chasing, trying out fencing club even if you both really suck

or sometimes he’d even bring his own adventures home like board games or a random diy project

never let him convince you to paint the ceiling again ever he looked hella cute with paint all over his face tho

or sometimes he would just bring home random things from the store?

like one day he brought home a watermelon and youre not really sure why bc its the middle of winter and watermelons aren’t in season?? he fckn love watermelon thats why look at his smile in the watermelon gif i wish i was a watermelon

“It was on sale y/n I had to get it. There were only 5 left. What if someone else bought all of them”

“Someone must really love watermelon to buy 5 at once, crazy man”

“…..”

“hey remember when you bought 7 and couldn’t figure out how to get them home because you rode your bike to the mart an-” and he deadass covered your mouth with his hand boi

“shhhhhh, we don’t need to talk abt that right now y/n just help me cut it up okay”

You guys, with a lot of difficulty and some very dull knives finally cut the watermelon into slices

hes a full slice kind of lad not a cube dude

if it was already pre-cubed like at a party though he would sill eat it

its watermelon

and then you would cut up the watermelon

and mark would be so !!! so excited

be really love watermelon

its just so sweet!! and watery!! and melony!!!!

and you and him would bite into it and...

ehhhhhh

and it would kinda be flavorless

like not sweet at all

“it’s not that bad, Mark.. okay? you did your best picking one out”

and Mark would do that thing

that sad Mark thing

the :c the sad pouty disappointed look

Nobody wants a sad :c mark

so you kinda run your fingers through his hair and push a few loose strands

Its starting to get long. You like it though. It gives you more of an excuse to run your fingers through it

You pulled him into a tight hug, one of those really really squeezing the air out of your lungs tight warm ones, one of those hugs that you could easily play off as friendly, silly even

But wow was your heart beating fast and your palms shaking

Mark would freeze at first out of surprise but the pout would go away!!

He would just be a bit caught off guard. That’s why he’d go a bit stiff initially. You weren’t really the type to hug him so out of the blue You were more of a cuddle when sleepy, or intoxicated, kind of human, a lot lett straight forward

He really liked it though really really

So much that he would relax and rest his hands on the small of your back rather than just stand there like a statue. Which is what he ‘claims’ he usually does when people hug him just like he ‘claims’ he doesn’t like skinship bloody liar

but the whole time his heart is going crazy and hes so concerned youre gonna notice but also he really likes hugging you

your skin feel cool and nice against him especially because he feels like hes on fire but

wow are you pretty and wow does he like you

but you don’t need to know that bc that would make living together awkward but it wouldnt be bc u like him too otherwise we wouldn’t be reading this now would we jc

And finally concerned mark would take over and he would suddenly pull away and ‘cough’

“??”

“Ahh I just remembered I have to finish that chem lab report is all”

“we finished that together a week ago Mark?”

“…i meant essay”

“but didn’t yo-”

but he would already be running away and locking himself in his room

well as best he could bc he still doesn’t have a door

he broke it off of its hinge they day you guys moved in mark you cute disaster

but you still try and not bother him if he goes in his room

privacy and such

and you’d be confused but also freaking out

oh my god what did you just do what if you pushed the bounds what if things are weird now what if mark doesnt talk to you anymore and stressssssssssss

A few minutes later you would hear his shower turn on

like this kid

i thought you said you had an essay lying hoe

anyways hed come out of the shower like 15 minutes later

hes not fast at showering bc boi needs time to shampoo after all those wackado hair syles he gotta keep from getting bald ya know

also he needs time to think bc wow do you make him crazy

and hed walk out into your little ‘living room’ and sits on the floor because you guys still havent gotten a couch even though its over a year since the two of you have lived together

and you finally threw away that makeshift cardboard furniture from removing in earlier this semester because mark didn’t just fall through them one he kEPT breaking and getting stuck in them

so to save the boy anymore embarrassment you threw them out together

anyway so he sat on the floor looking all cute mark like in typical mark attire

“hey y/n can you come here. I gotta talk to you for a sec”

but youre already talking??

but you wouldn’t question it

mark’s tone of voice was pretty serious tone to his voice which didn’t happen frequently

so you walked over by him and briefly sat on the floor before laying your head on his thigh

bc he in much more comfortable than the carpet and you werent really a criss cross apple sauce kind of gal at least not when mark was around bc as;doije;dfihw;erio

hed reach down and stoke your hair and close your eyes and hum slightly

“y/n” You’d hum again keeping your eyes closed and enjoying his close proximity

and youd kinda lay like that for a few minutes

and just as you were about to drift off to sleep he stopped playing with your hair

youre eyes open slowly, confused

and then Mark leaned down and before you could process what was happening he was kissing you

and you would have to fight to not break into a giant smile

because finally you were starting to think that maybe you were just a friend to him

but nope bc now ur making out lol not really tho its just a sweet kiss and not super long or agressive

he pulled away, scratching the back of his neck while give you that side smile of his almost sheepish one, but more flirty than sheepish

he kinda mumbled almost what sounded like an apology, but he really didn’t look that sorry and he certainly didn’t feel it i mean neither did you cute boy mark lee just kissed you

“you taste like watermelon” you roll your eyes

his smile spread into a full blown grin and his lil nose scrunched up. he kissed your nose.

he chuckled and semi-jokingly licked his lips “but tastier than the one we just had” You cupped his cheeks and pull his face towards yours.

!!!!!

#can you tell i love him???#love of my life #mark lee #mark #roommate!mark #nct #this actually took me a really long time to write #i had to keep stopping bc feels #s;djvwe;iofkj #mark friggn lee #nct dream #nct 127 #nct u #nct 2018 #imagine #fluff #scenario

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mrnerdteacher · 6 years

Text

Every Street Fighter Series Ranked by the Quality of the Backgrounds

Ever since I was a kid I have been enamored with the backgrounds of the Street Fighter series. I giddily recall pointing out the drunk man in Zangief’s stage or wishing that Dhalsim's elephants would shut the heck up. It is therefore my goal to objectively rank the quality of the stages in each main series as best I can. This list will not penalize entries for being released on dated hardware, and will not rank the VS series, as I consider those only half Street Fighter (based on the rosters). If you disagree with my list, you are entitled to your wrong opinion. :-P

#6) Street Fighter

Has there ever been an uglier lawn?

While the backgrounds in the inaugural entry of this series deserve a lot of credit for being much more detailed than their contemporaries, they unfortunately do not hold a candle to any of the Street Fighter games that followed. Ugly color palettes, an awkward sense of scale/depth of field, and a complete lack of motion provide not an ounce of extra excitement. PS: I really want to know where the fighters are standing in Mike’s stage to get that close to Mt Rushmore….

#5) Street Fighter 3 Series

Ken and Sean are truly a couple of dicks for continuing the fight.

This one stings, especially since Third Strike is, in my opinion, the greatest fighting game of all time. That being said, the series makes some odd choices that place it low on this list. But first, the pros. “New Generation” and “Giant Attack” both feature colorful and detailed stages that pop with personality and fun soundtracks. There are also some fun background interactions such as the collapsing bridge in Elena’s stage, and my personal favorite is featured above (I love the implication that your literal Street Fight is what caused this accident). However, for the third entry, they went with all new backgrounds that were far less “busy”. I assume the focus was to make the game more competitive by doing away with potential distraction, but the result are levels that feel empty, bordering on dull. Additionally, about 1/5th of the roster lacks stages of their own, and while this does tie into the story of those characters, it still feels disappointing.

#4) Street Fighter 4 Series

Seth's stage looks like Steampunk threw up.

While there is technically nothing “wrong” with these stages, they lose major points for playing things too safe. Many of the venues are just empty rooms/landscapes, and many feature very generic details like a nondescript doomsday device in Seth’s stage and a volcano that doesn’t erupt for some reason. A handful of stages feature some imagination, like the Metro City battle atop a construction girder, and I LOVED the first moment I ever Shoryuken’ed the wing of an airplane clean off, but those highlights are too few and far between. Finally, since a large number of this admittedly huge cast lack a character-specific stage, the whole affair feels kinda flavorless, despite being technically sound.

#3) Street Fighter V Series

At least it's not a giant wiener...

In the first draft of this list, Street Fighter V placed near the top, but on further review, I find the backgrounds to be much like the rest of the game’s art direction: graphically superior but ultimately garish and tacky. Capcom seemed to pack in as much detail as possible, and the result are overly shadowy stages that often feel cluttered and sometimes even hinder gameplay, such as projectile obscuring ocean waves or an infuriating bowl of noodles flopping around on your head. The callbacks to Final Fight and Street Fighter 2 are a nice dose of nostalgia, but in my opinion that only proves why those entries belong higher on this list. But extra credit for taking risks, for sure.

#2) Street Fighter Alpha Series

Is that Pre-Death Lord Raptor on the far left?!?

When the Alpha series debuted, it injected a comic book art style that would be recycled for years to come, and for good reason. The SF Alpha series feature stages that are colorful, cartoonish, and chock full of fun easter eggs, like the Capcom guest characters attending Eliza’s (not Ken’s) birthday or the new angles on the Ayutthaya Ruins (Sagat’s giant lady statue). Stages also feature just the right amount of movement and neat visual tricks like the endless cyclist herd in China or the rumbling skull-shaped storm clouds overlooking your final duel with Bison. While the gameplay in the Alpha series fails to grab me, the same can not be said for its backgrounds.

#1) Street Fighter 2 Series

Goes with everything...

I may be a little drunk on nostalgia, but there’s just something iconic about these stages. The layout is well-balanced, the spectators have a fun sense of personality (even if they are a little stereotypical), and the music is timeless. I think there’s a good reason these backgrounds have been imitated time and time again, and I personally loved the little things that set each stage apart, like the fact that Vega could climb on his chain link barricade or the fact that you could break the barrels in Ken’s harbor level. Add in little details like the dripping water in Honda’s bathhouse or the way inanimate objects come alive to celebrate your victory, and you have a set of stages that will go down as some of the greatest of all time.

What do you think? Which games should have placed higher or lower? Which of my reasonings upset you the most? I can’t wait to be proven wrong. :-)

#street fighter #video games #street fighter v #third strike #capcom #evo #fighting games #anime

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orlandri-tl · 6 years

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[Sukamoka Vol. 1] Chapter 3 Part 1: Disposable Weapons

It was the Utica, a tactical airship boasting the greatest energy output and loading capacity of all the ships owned by the Winged Guard.

Before now it had never been in actual combat, in large part due to its invisible costs. Not only did it reputedly have an overly large heavy-cyclical enchanted furnace that, by itself, was insufficiently powerful to feed the ship’s outrageous fuel consumption, it also had no less than four pairs of auxiliary wings built at – of all places – the bottom of its base! The hull was roughly hewn from red steel so that it might not deform from the ship’s monstrous bulk, aided by sixteen rotors that were each four times larger than they would have been on a regular airship. Its main gun, as suited a ship of this magnitude, was of the highest physical power imaginable. Even then, the engineers had at one point tried to install the “Mountain Thrower” urban-defense weapon into the ship.

To sum it up, the Utica was the ultimate airship. A crystallization of arrogance built with the most powerful of the most powerful mechanical gadgets, constructed while ignoring all concerns of fuel consumption, maintenance costs, spell burn injuries, and so on, it could be called the greatest piece of artwork ever created.

“Hey, you,” the Division Chief asked Feodor, “what do you think of that airship?”

Feodor contemplated his question, then replied honestly. “...The people who designed it probably had a lot of fun.”

It was nothing more than a toy that had been designed, manufactured, and somehow made operational. He thought that everyone involved with the project would probably say, “How badly drunk was I when I made this piece of junk?!”

“This thing’s supposed to be our ace in the hole for the next strike. We were handed down the order from the General.”

“Is that right.” Feodor reexamined the airship. By his reckoning, it was capable of destroying everyone equally, whether they were friend or foe. One shot of the main gun could blow away a small city - and would likely cost enough to starve out another small city. It was an utterly ridiculous weapon, even without taking into account the matter of having to transport it to the battlefield.

There was only one thing he could say about such a monstrosity.

“Sounds like it’s gonna be a pain.”

“It is a pain.”

To begin with, it was common knowledge that conventional weaponry that weren’t infused with Venom were weak against the Beasts. It wasn’t that they were completely invulnerable to those weapons, but at the same time they simply didn’t have enough decisive power to deal a finishing blow. In the battles against the Teimerre and the Aurora, records of which the Winged Guard had plenty left over, conventional artillery had only been used to keep them in check and to buy time.

Any normal person would have thought to search for some other method. And perhaps, just perhaps, an abnormal person would have thought along these lines:

“Since it’s not effective, let’s put aside the simple problem of firepower for later. If our artillery only produces so much results, wouldn’t it be better for us to strike with an item that has a hundred times that power?”

Needless to say, the kind of factory floor where such things might have been discussed concerned Feodor a hundredfold.

In many ways, Venom was something akin to fire. One reason for that was that it couldn’t maintain itself. If one desired to use their Venom, it had to be ignited on the spot at a specific time. Furthermore, Venom ignited within the body could only exert its effects on outside forces if they made contact with that body.

In other words, it couldn’t be used for risky stunts such as charging and then releasing it like an arrow or shell. If one wanted to unleash a Venom-infused attack on an Beast in any kind of circumstance, it had to be in direct close-quarter combat.

“...Ah, wait. I see… there is just one other method we can use.”

At present, Feodor too knew about the existence of that method.

If a spirit with the ability to ignite their Venom was used, rather than an artillery, shell, then effective attacks without approaching the Beasts were possible.

I don’t know who thought of it, but it’s a logical method. As far as anti-Beast combat goes, it would be a shining ray of hope through the clouds of unreasonable demands.

“First Officer,” Feodor said abruptly. “I wish to ask you an unrelated question.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s about those First-class equivalent officers, sir. I believe you should’ve received three signatures from ranked officers who are higher than First Officer, correct? May I ask who those three might have been?”

The Division Chief paused momentarily. “First Officer Limeskin of the Second Division. First Officer Baroni Makish of the Military Police Division. Myself of the Fifth Division. What of it?”

At the least, those three should be aware of them. Of the people who, though they might live in this base and be treated as equivalent soldiers, could never become soldiers. The reason for their existence, and their true identities.

“Well then, First Officer, perhaps–”

Feodor snapped his mouth shut. It wasn’t something he could ask about. He hadn’t yet been informed about their identities. I mustn’t ask questions based on knowledge which I shouldn’t know about. “No, it’s nothing. Thank you.”

“Is that so?” The Division Chief tilted his head, his eyes narrowing slightly, but he didn’t pursue the issue. “...All right.”

* * *

Tiat was there atop the abandoned theatre again, sitting with her arms around her knees.

Feodor had thought that she would’ve learned her lesson after two falls. At the very least, she was keeping her distance from the steam ventilation port. She seemed to have recognized him by the sound of the door opening, as she was giving him fleeting sidelong glances as he walked closer.

“Donuts,” he said in greeting. She nodded, beckoning him closer with little gimmie, gimmie gestures. “...Just what do you think I am?”

“Someone who’s somehow always eating delicious food.”

Gah. It stung, but he couldn’t really deny it.

“Oh, I know!” Tiat smiled. “Why don’t you tell me where you get them?”

“What are you going to do if I tell you that?”

“I thought I should buy something good for Collon and the others, but there’s only lots and lots of flavorless food on this island…” she paused. “Wait, is it bad for me to always think about delicious things?”

“That’s why you left the base without permission?” Feodor tsked. “You know by now that’s against regulations, don’t you?”

“Yep,” Tiat replied brightly. “Our superior officers are way too serious to ask about this stuff.”

“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow. “So really, just what do you think I am?”

“My not-so-serious superior officer.”

...Oh, damn it. He wasn’t going to admit it, but he couldn’t beat her in smack talk. Feodor sighed. “Since you’ve gone on walks so much already, why don’t you try using your feet some more and find it yourself?”

“Hmm… oh, but I don’t have enough pocket money to use for tasting and comparing food at random...”

It wasn’t like soldiers in the Winged Guard weren’t paid cheaply. Ranked officers could provide for a large family with a bit left over to indulge themselves. With that kind of money, they could easily walk around the city spending, unlike university students pinching coins.

She only had to be considered a soldier to be granted that much.

“You’re always here, but why’re you so interested in this place?” Feodor eventually asked. “It’s not all that different than other places you could find around town.”

“Hmm, I don’t know if I’m interested, but…” He tilted his head as Tiat started mumbling to herself. “...No, wait, am I really?”

He waited, and eventually she volunteered another sentence. “I think this one probably feels the saddest. The wind’s strong, but quiet, and there’s no one here – except for when a certain someone drops by.”

Her logic made sense. “It’s the best place to be when there’s something on your mind,” Feodor agreed, sitting on a spot of the roof near Tiat. From his vantage point, Lyell City spread out below him as it always did.

“I wonder…” Unbidden, the words left his lips. “Is there any meaning in protecting this world?”

“Huh?” Tiat sidled up to him, her outstretched hands not matching her expression. “What kind of question is that? If you’re a Winged Guard officer, shouldn’t you already know the answer?”

“It’s not about me, but rather you.” He dropped another donut into her hands. “Not you as in the First-class equivalent soldier you claim to be, either. I heard about how you’re a Spirit, tuned to some kind of Dug Weapon thing.”

Tiat popped the donut into her mouth. One bite, two bites, and then three bites came before she answered. “How’d you know about that? It’s supposed to be super classified.”

“Well…” It’s because I secretly investigated you using an information broker! Like hell could he say that. No, wait, it was illegal to begin with, so why did I just tell her I know everything?!

What in the world am I doing?

“It’s because I’m your supervisor, and even if it’s just for now, also your superior officer,” Feodor said, feeding her a fake reason. “I need to know what I can do for you, that’s all.”

Tiat snorted, then burst into laughter.

“Why’re you laughing?”

“Ah, sorry, I just got a bit nostalgic.” Tiat patted her chest, small tears welling up in her eyes. He wondered if perhaps some donut pieces had gotten caught in her throat. “You see, someone told us something like that once before. He was a big show-off, but clumsy at heart. Acting so cool really didn’t suit him.”

A name floated to the forefront of Feodor’s mind. The name Tiat had given him before while making the same face he saw now, belonging to the person Lakish and Collon spoke of, the one who had been their previous caretaker. “Is it…. that Willem guy? The one you mentioned?”

“Yep, that’s right.” Tiat giggled fondly. “Our no-good father.”

He couldn’t tell if she respected him or not, but… at the least, that man seemed to have been both a close friend and someone she loved dearly. I don’t know whether it’s because of our ranks or because we might have been similar in age, but it’s honestly unpleasant to be compared to someone I don’t know a thing about.

“I’d protect it,” Tiat said abruptly. Feodor gave her a questioning glance, and she went on. “What you said before, about if this world is worth protecting? There’s no way I’d know something like that. It’s not like I’ve seen enough to think about it for myself, and I don’t have many people I know either. So I don’t think about complicated stuff like that.”

She took a breath. “But I decided that I’d protect my friends, the world, and a bunch of other stuff. I don’t need to wonder about if it has meaning or not. It’s what I’ve decided to do, so I can’t afford to back down. That’s all there is to it.”

“That...” Feodor searched for the right words. “That sounds almost like you want to be a hero.”

“Hmm, I think it’s a bit different from that, but maybe that’s close enough. It’s cool to fight and throw away your life, right?” Tiat chuckled a little. “Any boy or girl my age would worship people who did that.”

“I–”

“There must be a person more precious than your own life, right?”

“That’s why the one who discovers that person is so very happy, and so very fortunate.”

“...I disagree.” Feodor shook his head. “My own life’s more important than some stranger’s.”

“Whaaaat? Geez, boys like you have no sense of romance…”

“It’s exactly because I think that way and only try to satisfy myself that I’m alive now.” He put down the bag of donuts besides him and looked out across the town again.

It might have been because of his perspective or because of the distribution of districts, but in the part of Lyell he could see, there were almost no visible people living or even just moving around. It was impossible to tell if that was because the number of citizens here had shrunken so much, or because they were already gone. The line between a world that had ended and a world still ending grew vague here.

“That might be true for you,” Tiat said in a quiet voice, the last pieces of her donut swallowed. “But, you know, we aren’t exactly alive.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means what I mean. Um, how much do you know? About us?”

“Not much.” He crossed his arms. “You’re naturally occuring spirits that become assets to us by being tuned with dug weapons, and you’re gonna be disposed of after performing this Fairy Gate thing.”

Tiat scratched her head. “Oh, that’s all? Alright, then I’ll just have to fire up my wonderful memory to tell you the rest! Now let’s see, should I give you the rough explanation first...?”

After counting details off her fingers, she began, “Well, first of all, we’re a natural phenomenon called Leprechauns. We can move, talk, and think, but we’re not technically living beings…”

* * *

Tiat told him everything.

According to her, Leprechauns were a variety of ghosts and, strictly speaking, couldn’t be considered truly living.

Fairies were originally nothing more than whispered self-assertions, psychic phenomena whose existence were fragile at best. Chuckling laughs heard from within the forest; milk that decreased a tiny bit overnight; flying around and teasing cattle, and all of it invisible to the naked eye.

Leprechauns, a subspecies of fairies, couldn’t change their nature. They appeared near Emnetwyte habitats and disappeared without being noticed by anyone. But if they happened to be found prior to vanishing, then they would settle into the existence of a single markless child and begin as a counterfeit living being.

Joy, laughter, pain, sorrow, longing, grief…

Until they died, they would act as if they were truly alive.

* * *

“...Well, to put it another way, it’s like playing the leading role in a ghost story,” Tiat concluded. “We’re like ghosts who don’t know they’re dead, or something like that. Although we don’t have regular physical bodies, our high-density souls organize pseudo-matter into a form that imitates them…. or something like that.”

“You don’t have... physical bodies?” Narrowing his eyes into something like a glare, Feodor scrutinized the girl next to him. Short bright green hair swaying in the breeze. The hem of her skirt fluttering majestically in the wind blowing in from the direction of the town. Donut crumbs clinging to her mouth.

No matter how I look at her, she only seems like an energetic, slightly underdeveloped, teenage girl.

“Don’t stare at me. Pervert.”

Feodor rolled his eyes. “I don’t want a markless kid for a partner. Anyway–”

“Hey, don’t call me a kid! Just so that you know, even these–” Tiat made a few gestures, “–have gotten a bit bigger recently!”

“I don’t care.”

“Huh? That’s no good, you know.”

“Oh, give me a break,” he shook his head. “Anyway, I can’t understand what you mean about having no physical body.”

“Hmph…” Tiat pouted. “Just so that you’re aware, we Leprechauns have an unbelievable amount of energy packed inside of us. That’s one of the reasons we’re so highly classified. If we sever our souls from our physical bodies, we can make a massive explosion!” She opened her clenched fists with a “Kaboom!” sound. “Of course, we can’t do that so easily. If that was possible, it probably wouldn’t be so good if you were right next to us.”

Letting her arms fall back to her lap, Tiat continued, “It’s because we can unleash those big explosions that the Winged Guard calls us their final secret weapon. Since it’s naturally connected to our Venom, our results even against a Beast are exceptional. And because it’s something that they kept using in battles against the Teimerre, its practicality has been fully demonstrated by the great fairies that came before us!”

She gave Feodor a snappy thumbs-up, grinning a radiant smile. “We don’t know for sure if it’ll work on the Croyance, but...”

“The strike operation scheduled three months from now,” Feodor replied flatly. “You know, we have an information-gathering unit that can find out just how much of a threat the Croyance is by attacking it to a certain degree, withdrawing, and revising strategies with our newly obtained information. So even if you’re that kind of superweapon, there’s no reason to go about using that power in a hurry.”

“That’s wrong, isn’t it?” Tiat asked him. “You won’t know for certain until we hit it once just how well us bombs can match up against the Croyance. It would be more helpful to you all if we moved first.”

Feodor could feel frustration boiling up inside of him. “How have you guys protected this world from the Sixth Beast’s attacks up to now? You should be getting praise heaped on you! To accept this disposable-weapon treatment… don’t tell me you actually agree with it?!”

“Oh well, I guess it can’t be helped.”

“Don’t you ever think ‘I don’t want to die’!?”

Tiat smiled.

It was a chilling, unfeeling mask of a honest and cheery smile.

“There’s no way I’d think that. After all, from the beginning, we were never alive.”

“...Are you telling me it’s hard for you to be afraid?”

“Even if I feel scared, the facts about us won’t change.” Tiat grew quiet, mumbling to herself, until her eyes widened as if she’d just come up with something, and she punched her fist into a nearby metal wall.

That wall was part of a large-scale mechanism that formed part of the city itself, and as such had many moving parts and edges just below surface level. Specifically, the area Tiat punched had a narrow slit carved into it for heat exhaust ventilation with an eave hanging on its upper edge. Depending on how one touched it, it could act as a sort of dull knife.

The skin on her knuckles tore, red blood spraying onto the wall and floor.

“Wha–” Feodor froze, not understanding any possible reason for her self-harming action. “What the – what the hell are you doing?!”

“Proving what I said before,” Tiat said calmly, blood still seeping from her fist. “As you can see, I’m not afraid of getting hurt or dying.”

“D-doesn’t it… hurt?”

“Oh, yes, it hurts. I can definitely feel pain. But it’s just that.”

Living beings were afraid of getting hurt because it moved them closer to death, but if a being didn’t fear death, they would be unable to avoid harming themselves. Here that logic was at play.

“I’m not afraid of artillery shells,” Tiat said pleasantly. “As a weapon who’s used for do-or-die fights, doesn’t this ability come in handy?”

Feodor felt cold sweat running down his forehead. According to what she’d said before, she must have felt at least some pain. Yet she still smiled, even while saying so many outrageous things.

I can’t bear to see this any longer. “...Okay, I get it.” Feodor looked away from her as he stood. “I’ve decided that I don’t know anything about this. So you’ll have to do your duty. If you want to save Regul Aire so badly that you’re going to throw away your life, then do as you please. I won’t get in your way anymore.”

He opened the collar of his uniform as if to rip it off, tore out a simple first-aid kit that had been sewn into its inside section, and tossed it towards Tiat. “If you’re going to call yourself a weapon, you should know that it’s bad if you don’t maintain your own performance ‘til you’re on the battlefield. And as your superior, I order you: meaningless acts of self-harm are forbidden from now on. Understood?”

“‘Kaaay!” Tiat replied flippantly, opening the kit and taking out some gauze soaked in liquid medicine.

#fan translation #shuumatsu nani shitemasu ka isogashii desu ka sukutte moratte ii desu ka #shuumatsu nani shitemasu ka mou ichido dake aemasu ka #sukamoka

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sarahw-world · 7 years

Text

“Yellow Roses” - 03 Just This Once

Hi guys! Here's the next chapter!

I'm really sorry I've taken so long, but this chapter turned out to be much longer than I anticipated, since there's a lot going on, and it's probably one of the hardest things I've had to write so far, I guess you'll see why when you read it.

Anyway, I hope I made it work somehow.

Author's note: By the way, a friend from the fandom asked me privately on my Tumblr about the book Bulma was reading in the last chapter, in case anyone else is interested, it's a short novel (novella) by Tolstoi called "The Death Of Ivan Ilyich". I admit it, I'm a tiny bit obsessed with Russian writers, particularly Tolstoi and Nabokov...

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Summary:

As Vegeta visits Bulma once more, he reminisces on the few encounters they've both shared already...

You can read it uncensored on AO3:

You can read it censored on FF:

Or you can keep reading under the break:

Vegeta walked hurriedly through the crowded streets, packed with faceless, uninteresting warriors who seemed to be getting ready for a well-deserved night of drinking and fucking after returning from whatever meaningless mission they’d been assigned to.

He was late already, mad at himself for having been stupid enough to agree to have a drink with Nappa for a couple of hours, not even knowing what exactly had made him relent and accept his subordinate’s insignificant invitation to begin with. The only explanation he could find was that he’d simply chosen to indulge the old man, who was getting unusually sentimental lately, particularly so ever since Raditz had died mere weeks earlier. Their last purging mission had been filled with Nappa’s annoying chatter about their extinct race and long-gone home planet. Insipidly dull nights spent sitting by the fire, surrounded by the sickening odor of the dead bodies both Saiyans had left piled up all over the place. Repetitive legends of mythological heroes and courageous, formidable warriors floating tediously in his mind as he chewed on the rubbery, tasteless meat of the revolting dead alien a little harder than he should.

The Prince had finally come to the realization that he didn’t care much for his people’s legends anymore, certainly not as much as he used to back in the good old days. As a child, Vegeta had worshiped those men, memorizing such tales word by word, and even begging his caretaker to narrate them repeatedly before going to bed, falling into a deep sleep invaded by buoyant dreams featuring idolized conquerors and epic battles.

But things were different now…

The child had become a man, and those bright, hopeful dreams had slowly, but implacably, morphed into the darkest of nightmares. As he’d grown older, bitter cynicism had taken over, and the list of matters that Vegeta genuinely cared about had been basically distilled to two very simple principles: survival and revenge. Gone were the days of naïve, optimistic foolishness, after all, no one in their right mind would give credit to such tall tales after having been exposed to the chaos and torture the Saiyan Prince had been raised amongst.

In his life, there was no room for any more fantasies, other than the only one that truly mattered, that of him surpassing himself, crossing the barriers of his own strength and ascending to the Legendary status which was meant to be his birthright.

Super Saiyan.

Everything else was superfluous, and absolutely nothing else mattered. There was no past and no future, no whims or illusions except for that which was tangible, real, and nothing would ever be more real than the sound of Frieza’s cold, slimy neck cracking triumphantly beneath his lethal hand when he ultimately became strong enough to end his Master’s repugnant life. Frieza’s death was now the sole purpose of his existence, the golden goal that motivated him to keep going whenever things got hard and the whole world crumbled around him, burying him underneath its crippling weight and making him feel as if he could barely breathe anymore.

That is, of course, until she’d walked right into his life…

Bulma.

The ravishing woman who was supposed to be a meaningless one-night stand and, in the end, had turned his bleak, monotonous world upside down. All he’d wanted to do ever since he’d first laid eyes on her was to conquer her, to possess her, to take as much pleasure as he could from that flawless, supple body and then leave her behind evermore once he’d had his fill of her.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Surely, Vegeta’d had the unnerving suspicion, right from the start, that this unique creature was unlike any other female who’d ever crossed his path. But his oversized Saiyan ego had taken charge, as usual, lying to him, slyly tricking him into believing that he had matters under control and that, even if he ended up enjoying the exotic little earthling too much for his own good, he’d be strong-willed enough to turn around and walk away before trouble ensued and he irreparably lost himself in her.

But one night had turned into two, and two nights had become three and, before he knew it, he’d seen Bulma on five occasions; every single time he’d been off-duty ever since their first intimate encounter had taken place.

She’d developed into an addiction…

A shameful, uncontrollable addiction he’d gladly succumbed to without even bothering to put up a real fight, like a nectarous, poisonous drug coursing wildly through his veins and hopelessly pervading his senses.

The erotic dreams he’d fantasized about, before he’d had his first chance to take her, had now been replaced by the dangerously vivid memories of the enthralling way in which the woman had instinctively responded to his wicked touch. While Nappa spent his nights nostalgically reminiscing about some ancient tales no one even cared about anymore, Vegeta had become frighteningly good at mastering the art of disengaging from reality, evoking every impurely explicit detail of the nights he’d shared with Bulma.

The magnetic siren had come to be his most cherished distraction, a blazing spark of blue erupting into his consistently grey world. Discovering the comforting warmth of her body had made his lonely nights seem a little colder, and everything felt flavorless after having run his depraved tongue across every delectable curve of her anatomy, her distinctive, honeyed taste forever imprinted in his mouth.

All he’d ever looked for in a woman was release, just a single night of wild, mindless sex, with no names, no explanations and no promises; a few mind-numbing hours where he could unleash his pent-up rage and forget about the outside world and the cosmic joke of a life he’d been forced to endure.

But this time, things were different.

It’d always been exceedingly easy for him to let go of a woman, often forgetting their humdrum names before he was even done getting dressed in the morning. But, when it came to Bulma, the more he took, the more he wanted, and nothing seemed to ever appease his gluttonous Saiyan appetites. His life was now a bizarre routine of death, destruction and the almost masochistic obsession of recalling those ardent, unbelievable nights of pleasure, with agonizing wealth of detail, over and over again.

*** Please visit AO3 or FF for more of this chapter! ***

#vegebul #vegeta #bulma #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #sarahw-world #romance #dbz #dragon ball z #au #yellow roses

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zgtiger · 4 years

Photo

As time ticks the day away, the sun would continue its path back towards the horizon. It was a few hours before setting that school would let out. The doors would open to allow for the students to come pouring out. Perhaps one of the first to leave the building was Preston, though he does not set out for home like the others. He would not follow that flock just yet. Instead, he would find a place adjacent to the front doors to lean up against the chiseled stone foundation. Many of those that sought to leave the stone shelter, Preston could identify. Although, he doesn’t bother to acknowledge any of them despite the many glances in his direction. No matter what, Preston always felt like an outsider here. He couldn’t seem to make any friends but that was alright by him. He’d rather stick to what he had anyway. He removes the lightweight backpack from his shoulders and carelessly drops it onto the ground. Though not before fishing out a pack of cigarettes along with some matches. Taking one of the matches, he strikes it across the stone building to set it aflame. The opposite hand pulls a cigarette from its packaging to settle in his plaqued teeth. There he would light up his flavorless cigarette to inhale long and deep, before a billow of smoke is sharply exhaled through both nostrils. He wished then that he had Peacebloom herbs rather than tobacco. At some point, he would come to discover the same flock of boys that tended to bother him. Being amongst those that were the last to leave the school building, it wasn’t hard to make them out of a crowd. Preston looks up and offers a glare as sharp as daggers in their direction, complete with a smile. Each boy would take notice of him and appeared to have some vague intention to confront him but they end up walking off down the stone path. Keeping their backs on Preston for now, even if they glanced back more often than not. Seemed they’d still feared Preston after the last time they confronted him. Knowing he was in the clear, Preston would settle more comfortably against the building and takes the occasional puff of his cigarette. For now, he could smoke in peace with no disturbances. Nothing would pull him from this. Not until he spots a familiar man in the corner of his eye. The very sight would prompt Preston to pause in his cigarette smoking. His eyes widen partially and he pushes from his lean. Suddenly put off, he reaches his free hand for an invisible sheath. No longer bringing weapons to school after the last few times, he was completely unarmed and almost completely defenseless. But then again, the one in question hopefully did not have any bad intentions. At the corner of the building, the blind fortune teller would stand. Donning purple leathers, wearing a black blindfold and wielding a cane to help him feel his way around. “What are you doing here?” The first thing Preston could even think to say. At first, he had to assume he was seeing things but the man in question would respond. “Simply taking a stroll.” Cato’s head lifts up, the sound having minimally startled him. “Trying to make my fortune by selling others.” As vague as those words seemed, Preston could understand what he meant. “Now I must find a place to rest for a while. Mind if I set beside you? My legs ache.” Preston glances about with a growing uncertainty but ends up obliging. “Sure. Do you smoke at all?” Upon asking, he slides himself back to a lean against the building. Cato, as if compelled by some unseen force, would gradually move towards Preston without any sign of struggle. Like he was being led in the right direction, almost deliberately avoiding the obstacles beneath him. When he finds a comfortable place beside the boy, Cato laughs. “Smoking has done no favors to anyone I’ve ever known. Well, the ones that were filled with the unhealthy herbs, anyway.” The man lowers himself to sit beside Preston, back pressed against the wall. With so few words to say, Preston can only nod his head. The man could not see it but his eyes were glued upon him. There was tension there but none he addresses quite yet. One thought would stand out from the others, however. “How did you know to come here?” Another laugh from the man is manifested. “Perhaps it was our fates tethered within one another. Or perhaps it was by mere chance. Who can know for certain? This universe holds a lot of questionable philosophies but perhaps it is only best we embrace them.” Preston’s gaze would narrow upon hearing that, not quite understanding. “If anyone were to know, it would be you. You’re a fortune teller, aren’t you?” Yet again, Cato laughs dryly. “The messenger of the universe, boy. Sometimes, messages can be mixed or incorrect when passed along enough times. I tell fortunes but only through cards. I can make sense of many things as can you but only through books and stories. Does that mean the stories are always true? That the cards are always truthful?” As if by habit, Cato would produce the similar deck of cards as he normally held within a pocket. “I have stated before these all were mere guesses. Though the universe is never wrong, the messages it sends can be depending on how they are being sent.” Such a notion would confused Preston, hopelessly so. He finds his head spinning at all of that, not particularly fond of grasping such a concept. One he has never even heard of before. “I’ve never actually heard of something like that before.” “Do you believe that things happen for a reason?” Cato was quick to respond, shuffling the card deck. “That the stars can align to create magnificent prophecies beyond our own comprehension?” There was a pause in between, one to get Preston to think. “The things you do, the places you see, the people you meet, were all experienced according to the star’s alignments.” He gazes up skywards as if to point out that possibility. Following his gaze, Preston almost begins to assume the man was simply crazy so everything following that point was taken with a grain of salt. Still, he listens. If only out of curiosity. “That’s what fate is. Destiny. The things that are meant to be, all written in the stars. I might not be able to see, but that was the universe’s plan for me. As is its plan for you, boy. And everyone around us.” Cato’s blind gaze would raise to Preston. Somehow he knew he still lingered beside him. “What is your name?” “Preston Blackwater.” He spoke the name quickly and with little hesitation. Other than that, he says nothing else as he was much too busy engaged with his cigarette. “By chance, we have found each other again, Preston. We shall meet again if the universe allows it.” Upon saying that, Cato would make a slow rise from the ground. He settles the card deck back into his pocket and using the cane, he finds his way around the building once more. Preston would be left at his back, a mess of thoughts and curiosity.

#moonguard #rp

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stereostevie · 4 years

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By Danny Echevarria | 10/12/2020

I’ve often thought that if I hadn’t decided to pursue music production as a career, the only other thing I might approach with the same level of passion is cooking. Even in my life as a music maker, preparing food is an important part of my day, and something I get a lot of satisfaction from.

I’ve talked to quite a few similar-minded music producers/amateur chefs who not only share those twin passions but agree with me that the two disciplines have a lot in common. Both could be called a fusion of art and science. Both involve bringing together various elements and combining them in a way that showcases their individual strengths, while also creating a whole that is greater than the sum of those parts. Both require a discerning palette, or ear, to make snap decisions on the fly in a process that can be extremely time-sensitive.

Though I could make comparisons like “EQ is like salt,” or “butter and oil are like reverb,” I don’t think those sorts of analogies hold up in all cases. Rather, the similarities between music and cuisine have to do with the spirit with which we approach these crafts. Will this article help producers be better cooks or vice versa? Probably not! Even so, I take inspiration from the time I spend in the kitchen (and at the grill) into the studio, and my hope is that you can find some inspiration there too.

Ingredients Matter

There’s no substitute for working with high-quality ingredients – whether that’s a thick, fatty piece of salmon or a killer vocal take. But that doesn’t mean we need to work with top-shelf ingredients in every instance! In fact, sometimes cheaper ingredients are really what you want: chances are your favorite pizza place is using canned tomatoes, not fresh ones, to make their sauce.

The important thing here is to understand the role each ingredient plays in the recipe. Top-tier ingredients typically need less seasoning and usually deserve to be showcased. Lower-quality ingredients — and instruments, performances, and processing — still have a place in the kitchen, but will require different sorts of treatment, and will often be featured less centrally.

From the Kitchen to the Studio:

Don’t drown a great vocal in ketchup-y reverb

If your session includes the equivalent of a prime ribeye, make it the centerpiece! Use processing to accentuate its character, rather than trying to transform it — like a subtle rub of salt and pepper before it hits the grill.

If your centerpiece needs to be made from lower grade ingredients – like when a singer struggles to deliver good takes on the mic — seasoning (processing) will play a bigger role, maybe even transforming the part entirely.

Other times, lower quality ingredients don’t need to be masked but will serve a more supporting role. Are you working with pitchy backup vocals? Maybe each track doesn’t need to be tuned and polished — instead, treat the part as a garnish. Let it stay rough and “rustic” to add character.

A Great Recipe Helps … But Only So Much

You could look at websites like this one as being similar to your favorite sites to find recipes – a place where pros share tips and tricks they use in their own kitchens and studios. Learning from people who have honed their craft can absolutely help us make more informed choices, but in reality, it’s hard to replicate the conditions of a recipe writer’s kitchen: maybe you’re missing spices, or the recipe calls for a bone-in cut of meat, but all you have is boneless.

You can’t expect to follow a recipe to the letter if your ingredients or kitchen don’t match the chef’s intention. Great cooks and great producers alike know how to work with the tools and ingredients that they have. Adapting to changing conditions is a must if you expect to get a great result every time.

From the Kitchen to the Studio:

The most important tool in your kitchen and your studio is you! Pro tips and best practices will take you far, but you have to be able to discern when things are working as planned, and when they require a different approach.

Developing the ability to know when and how to adapt to shifting circumstances takes practice, but it’s a crucial difference between a master and an amateur. Don’t expect to call up a plugin preset or slap on some settings you saw in a tutorial video and be done. Use your ears to make sure your mix moves are working as intended, and be brave enough to admit it when they aren’t.

Don’t Overdo It; Don’t Underdo It

Always there for you when you need it

In cooking, this principle applies to cooking temperatures and times as well as seasoning: overcooking a piece of meat until it’s dry, or undercooking it and leaving bits raw; forgetting to add salt to make other flavors pop; drenching a stir fry in soy sauce, and then hoping that smothering it in sriracha will fix things (don’t act like you haven’t been there).

In the studio, you could apply this concept to everything from doing too many or too few takes, to leaving in ugly, muddy resonances, or dialing in too much compression. Just like you can’t “unbake” a burnt loaf of bread, you can’t “uncompress” a track that got slammed during tracking; similarly, adding salt when serving a dish is not the same as salting properly while preparing it.

From the Kitchen to the Studio:

Stop me if you’ve heard this one (from me), but the only thing that can guarantee you don’t go too far or not far enough is your judgment as a producer. To that end, approaching production with a clear sense of intention can go a very long way.

Know how many takes you need to get a solid comp — and stop there. Continuing to do unnecessary takes can be the sonic equivalent of leaving something in the oven after it’s done, each take getting dryer and more flavorless. Know when processing (like seasoning) needs to be overt and when it needs to be subtle, and learn how to tell when enough is enough.

Context Is Huge

If you’ve never had this, there’s still time

Remember my point earlier about how your favorite pizza place probably doesn’t use fresh tomatoes? That’s not laziness — the pizza we’re used to is supposed to have the flavor of canned tomatoes. On the other hand, can you imagine ordering a caprese salad and getting a canned tomato slopped onto some mozzarella?

The point here is that there is no absolute “right” or “wrong,” in cooking or production. Sometimes cheap ingredients are crucial, and nicer ingredients might be wasted in the same application. Other times, cheap, low-quality ingredients just taste … cheap, and low-quality.

From the Kitchen to the Studio:

Your favorite plugins, pieces of gear, and mix tricks will never be guaranteed to work equally well in all applications. There’s a reason a vintage U-47 might go for $15k — it’s a great mic — but that doesn’t mean it will sound great on every voice. It will simply be too dark and wooly for some, even if it is a coveted high-end piece of gear. Some voices are going to be better suited to other mics, even substantially less expensive, less “nice” ones. The mark of a good recording isn’t the value of the gear you used, it’s the sound coming out of the speakers.

It Pays To Experiment … But Don’t Ignore Fundamentals

Wild, previously unthinkable stylistic fusions and flavor pairings have become something of a standard in cuisine in recent years. Some of those unlikely combinations may seem to come totally out of the blue, but the ones that really work often follow tried-and-true formulas, even if they are executed in an unconventional way. Pay attention to the root flavors — or sonic elements — being combined, and you can see how fundamental principles are being observed.

Free your mind and the rest will follow

LA’s Kogi Korean BBQ offers a great example of this idea in action. On the surface, the fusion of culinary styles from different ends of the globe (Korean BBQ and tacos) may seem kind of wild, but consider the fundamental flavors at work.

Tacos: marinated meat, often fire-grilled, served with salsas that add a mixture of sweetness, acidity, and spice.

Korean BBQ: marinated meat, fire-grilled, served with kimchi and sauces that add a mixture of sweetness, acidity, and spice.

The specific ingredients and nuances are different, for sure, but the root flavors at work share important similarities.

From the Kitchen to the Studio:

Every piece of music succeeds or fails on the terms of the genre or tradition it belongs to. If you’re pulling together ideas from opposite ends of the record store, consider what sonic qualities you like most in those influences, and which ones might work together well.

Are you bringing together sounds from one genre that is driving and loud with another that is subtle and dynamic? Or one that is abrasive and noisy with another that is catchy and danceable? Combinations like the ones I just described have surely been done millions of times. The thing the good ones will have in common is a clear sense of what will be rewarding to the intended listener.

Over the course of this article, I’ve mentioned a handful of times that great chefs and producers alike rely on their judgment daily to make decisions that will get the best result out of the ingredients in front of them. Though talent and good taste are certain factors that influence someone’s ability to work at a high level, none of the greats started great on day one.

The ability to know when something is working and when it isn’t, and then to know what to do to fix it, is something that can really only be honed over time, after repeated failures and successes. Even someone else’s proven recipe will have serious limitations in the hands of a chef who isn’t prepared to make those sorts of calls.

The takeaway from this is that real practice in the studio, and finishing projects, are extremely important for any producer or engineer looking to sharpen their skills. There’s no way to tell if your recipe worked if you don’t take a bite (or listen) when it’s done … and you can’t take that bite if you don’t get to “done” in the first place.

Danny Echevarria is a producer and audio engineer born, raised, and based in Los Angeles. When he isn't tightening his mixes or sawing a fiddle on the honky tonk stages of the greater LA area, he can be found chasing ever-elusive fresh mountain air. Get in touch at dandestiny.com.

#cooking #food #kitchen #music #music production #studio #style #taste #transferrable skills

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/04/21/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-42117/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 4/21/17

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Star Wars Celebration (I can’t say that without thinking of Dave Chappelle’s Rick James yelling “It’s a celebration, bitches!”) happened in Florida last weekend, and we got our first teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Folks seemed to like it alright. I’ve never claimed to be the biggest Star Wars fan, but nothing about this really gave me a Force Boner or anything. That’s probably because Rogue One left such a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll see it, but it’s not really on my radar.

In other movie “news”, we got the track listing for Awesome Mix Vol 2 from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2., which comes out today. Is it just me, or is it weird that Mama Quill gave Peter mixtapes of all the songs that played while she was banging dudes in Camaros? Come on – she was totally that chick! Anyway, there are no real surprises here, as it seems to be in-line thematically with the first volume. Personally, I’m ecstatic that “Come A Little Bit Closer” will be introduced to a new generation, as I’m a huge fan of Jay and the Americans (check out “Cara Mia” if you’ve never heard it).

This rumor came out a few weeks ago, but it kinda floated under my radar: apparently Warner Bros wants to release 4 Batman-centered films in 2019 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Detective Comics. This slate would include Nightwing, Gotham City Sirens, the Joss Whedon Batgirl, and the oft-delayed The Batman. Nice idea, but there’s no way this happens. DC just doesn’t have its shit together enough to pull this off. Marvel could do it, but they would’ve been planning it since 2012. It’s already 2017 and they expect to crank out 4 movies in 2 years? Shit ain’t happening.

Bring on the teen angst train, as we’ve got two more comic-based series just dripping with it! First up is Cloak and Dagger on Freeform, which looks like the Freeformiest show that ever Freeformed. It’ll be right at home between the show about the deaf girl and the show about the foster kids. I’ve never been a huge Cloak and Dagger fan, but the series follows teen runaways Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson, who were kidnapped and injected with an experimental drug. The drug left Tandy (Dagger) with “light daggers”, while Tyrone (Cloak) has a mystical cloak that transports people and things to a dark dimension. Oh, and there’s that sweet, sweet interracial love/Jungle Fever aspect to things. Based on the trailer, it’s gonna focus more on the love thing than the power thing, which is understandable since powers are expensive on a weekly TV budget. I haven’t heard if this is actually considered part of the MCU, but it’s nice to see the Roxxon sign at the end, so there are clear ties to the universe itself.

The angst doesn’t end there, though, kids! We also got a trailer for Syfy’s Krypton series (which has since been yanked down) – ya know, the one that nobody asked for. It’s hard for me to get excited about Krypton when very little about that planet has ever seemed appealing. It’s most recently been painted as a cold, stoic, science-based society. And since they don’t have our sun, it means they’re powerless. Here’s what I don’t get about the trailer: the show takes place approximately 200 years prior to Man of Steel (I guess making it the first series to be an official part of the DCEU), but the monologue is of Kal El’s grandfather leaving a message for him. Um, how does he KNOW his grandson’s name is Kal El if he hasn’t been born yet? Anyway, it’s about Grandpa El, who happens to be a sexy, CW-ish twenty something, trying to restore honor to the disgraced House of El. The effects look nice (AKA expensive), but nothing about this show makes me want to see it.

There’s some laughter coming from a different comic-based series, however, in the form of Freeform’s New Warriors. I mentioned it a few weeks ago, but it’s been confirmed that Kevin Biegel of Enlisted/Cougar Town will be the showrunner, and we got a confirmation of the roster. Led by Squirrel Girl (who has never been a New Warrior in the comics, but I won’t harp on that), the team is comprised of Speedball, Night Thrasher, Microbe, Mister Immortal, and Debrii. I’m familiar with career Warriors Speedball and Night Thrasher, but I don’t know anything about the others. Considering Mr. Immortal and Squirrel Girl are Great Lakes Avengers characters, this is something of a hybrid team.

I’m the furthest thing from a foodie, but I love a good dairy-based gimmick drink, and this week featured TWO of them! First up, I’d read online that Burger King had been testing a Froot Loops Shake at certain East Coast locations, with plans to roll it out nationally today. Well, I traveled around until I found one that had it early (well, I didn’t travel too far – it was down the street from my apartment), as I had to see what the fuss was all about. I had heard it described as made from vanilla soft serve, with Froot Loops pieces, topped off with a sweet, syrupy drizzle. Sounds exotic, right? WRONG. Whoever thought of this probably got a bonus for the idea, but it lacks in the execution. It’s basically a vanilla shake with edible confetti in it. From Loops don’t really have a strong fruity flavor to them, so it’s not like it’s rubbing off into the soft serve. And when you do get some Froot Loop chunks through the straw, they just taste like flavorless corn cereal. I didn’t taste any kind of drizzle, and I kept waiting for the WOW to kick in. It never did. I drank this so that you don’t have to and, trust me, you really don’t have to.

Next up was the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino. I hadn’t even heard of the thing until Wednesday morning, when everyone and their mom was talking about it. Looking at it, I was reminded of the Birthday Cake Frappuccino that comes out in March (I remember this because it was out at the time Evie was born). I LIVED on those things for the two weeks or so that they were in stores, so I was expecting this to be more of the same. I wasn’t sure what flavor this one was supposed to be, but there were certainly visual similarities. Anyway, after dinner Wednesday night, I snuck off to the corner Starbucks to try it out. You’ve heard of a Butterface, right? Well, this is a Buttertaste. It looks cool and everything, but the taste…THE TASTE! Its marketing emphasizes that it magically changes flavors while you drink it, but I could never really nail down what those flavors were supposed to be. There was a pervasive muskiness to it, making me feel like I’d basically sucked off a real unicorn. Of course, that would be silly – everyone knows you’ve got to buy a unicorn dinner before it lets you do that! Then, near the end, the muskiness gives way to a hyper berry taste, reminiscent of the Blue Raspberry that candy scientists seemed to have discovered in 1992. At no point in the drink was it what I would call “enjoyable”, and even the whipped cream on top was disappointing. As far as I’m concerned, this drink can fuck off back to Narnia where it came from.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Bill O’Reilly was fired from Fox News following sexual harassment allegations. See, if he’d told Billy Bush he only grabbed ‘em by the pussy, he’d be President by now!

Nintendo officially ended production on the NES Classic, followed by rumors that an SNES Classic is coming later this year

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck were announced as the directors for Captain Marvel. I’ve never seen anything they’ve done (Half Nelson, episodes of Billions, and The Affair), so I’ve got no real opinion right now

Speaking of Marvel films, Black Panther wrapped production this week, as Hollywood braces for the return of every living Black actor

Will Smith is in talks to take on the classic Robin Williams role of The Genie in Guy Ritchie’s live action Aladdin adaptation. Obviously, Jaden Smith will probably get the role of Aladdin.

Stranger Things co-star Shannon Purser came out as bisexual on Twitter. Well, she’s bisexual in real life. She just used Twitter to announce it.

Director James Gunn announced that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 would be the final iteration of this lineup of the team

Black-ish was sold into off-network syndication, launching in Fall 2018

Jane The Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez will voice Carmen Sandiego in a new animated series coming to Netflix

Steve Harvey will host a revival of Showtime At the Apollo for Fox

Fate of the Furious debuted to $532 million internationally, beating the record-setting $529 million earned by Star Wars: The Force Awakens

With its original pilot rejected by Fox a few years ago, Joe Hill’s comic Locke & Key will have a new pilot filmed for Hulu

The X-Files has been renewed for a 10-episode 11th season. I couldn’t even make it through the last 6-episode batch they gave us, so I think this is a pass for me.

For the past 6 seasons, I have pretty much hate-watched HBO’s Girls. I hated Lena Dunham’s dumpy, Play-Doh body which was constantly on nude display. I hated all of her character Hannah’s “problems”. I hated her boyfriend Adam. I had convinced myself that I was really just watching, hoping that the characters would eventually be hit by a truck or something. Then, this season came along. Even through all my hate, I had to admit that this was a pretty strong season. From Hannah’s odd interaction with a bestselling author to Marnie finally realizing she sucks at life, there were some great episodes of television to be found in this season of the show. I was also forced to admit things about myself.

First off, I always knew I liked Shoshana because she had enough sense to know that she deserved better than the friends with which she’d found herself. And I definitely missed her once she decided to finally distance herself from them. I also realized there was much more to the Ray character and, while they didn’t exactly put a bow on it, I’m glad they led us to believe that he had found a happy ending. Even a character as originally unlikable as Elijah had some strong development this season, and he was truly missed in the finale, even though this chapter of his story had come to a close. As I already admitted in my Get Out review, I had to come to terms with my crush on Allison Williams and, by extension, Marnie Michaels. Yeah, she sucked at life, but she seemed like the one out of the four who had Tony Starked her way into that situation; she was the cause of her own problems. Once she began to realize that, the character held more promise. And I realized I hated Jessa because she reminded me too much of girls I’d hooked up with in college: damaged, tattooed, pseudo-junkies who are lucky to still be alive. And I guess Hannah reminded me of girls I’d hooked up with post college. Yeah, I hated a lot about Girls because, I guess, I hated a lot about myself.

This Sunday saw the series finale of the show, and I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for it. After a season that had given us a pregnant Hannah, but also showcased the dissolution of the group’s friendship, I didn’t really know how they could “end” the story. I was further distraught when I read an article last week saying that Jessa and Shosh’s final appearances had been in the penultimate episode that had just aired. While I would miss them in the final half hour, I had to admit that their chapters had also come to a close.

When we get to the finale, there’s a five-month time jump, where Marnie and Hannah are living in a remote house upstate, raising Hannah’s baby, Grover. Yes, that’s what she named him. Anyway, it was 30 minutes about what it means to be happy, but also what it means to be an adult and a parent. I like to think that Hannah finally grew up once she realized that Grover wasn’t another problem that she could simply run away from. The entire episode, she’s freaking out because Grover won’t breastfeed, but in the final seconds he finally takes to her breast. The look on her face is a mix of relief and maturity. It was then that I realized the show had to end at that point, as Hannah was no longer a girl. The entire series had been about millennial drama, as they skirted adulthood, but those times were over. The title Girls no longer applied to Hannah because she was now a Woman, with all the responsibilities that entailed. I used to worry about Hannah, and I sure as Hell worried about Grover when we learned she was pregnant. After Sunday’s finale, though, I think they’re gonna be OK. It was a finale that I had to give some thought to, but it didn’t leave me unfulfilled like Don Draper creating a Coke jingle only to end up hocking tax prep software six months later. For this reason, Girls had the West Week Ever.

#Batman #Comics #DC #Indie #Marvel #Movies #Music #Politics #Race #Relationships #Star Wars #Syndication #Television #Video Games #West Week Ever

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hprarepairnet · 8 years

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silverskin

pairing: cormac mclaggen x pansy parkinson

setting: modern, non-magical, the cutting edge au; also, a spiritual continuation of the ice, ice, baby series

word count: 3,749

alternate link: ao3

get to know our members challenge: favorite rare-pairs | (3/5) - andrea

Goalies have a short shelf life, is the thing.

Everyone’s always surprised when they find out that Cormac went to college.

Six semesters at Minnesota, two trips to the Frozen Four, and a solid enough GPA that he hadn’t even been that embarrassed when he was the only dude in his poetry seminar to nut up and declare for English Lit. But then he’d been drafted into the actual motherfucking NHL on a steady diet of Jane Eyre and Madame Bovary, and he’d barely had to make a choice. School was school, and he was okay at it, of course he was, he knew how to focus and he knew how to get shit done and he knew how to parse out the overarching narrative themes of a good gothic romance.

But hockey—hockey was everything.

And he fucking hates calling himself a drop-out, because that makes it sound like he’d quit, or something, and it wasn’t…he isn’t a quitter. He’s not. He commits to shit. That’s his trademark. He’d picked up a hockey stick when he was four years old, and he’d basically never put it down again. His loud roar of triumph after stopping the final puck in a championship shootout had resulted in a sick as hell nickname and an even sicker tattoo permanently inked across most of his upper body. He’d fallen in love with the smartest girl in the world when he was nineteen and too dumb to see all the ways she wasn’t going to love him back, and he’d been carrying around the admittedly pitiful remnants of that particular torch ever fucking since. He’s stubborn. He’s determined. He doesn’t fucking quit.

Which is why hockey—

Hockey was everything.

Hockey was forever.

Forever, it turns out, is approximately three and a half years.

Malfoy solemnly squints as he snaps his fingers next to Cormac’s ear.

“My peripheral vision’s gone, not my hearing,” Cormac says darkly, draining his pint of weak-ass Canadian beer. “You unbelievable fucking dick.”

Across the table, Potter winces, and then waves at the bartender for another round of drinks. “Nothing they can do about it?” he asks, because Potter’s a pretty solid dude, even if his taste in boyfriends is fucking horrifying. “There’s no, like, surgery, or anything?”

“Nah,” Cormac replies, directing a sleazy, mostly automatic grin at the waitress who delivers their tray of Jäger bombs. “Puck hit me at—uh, at a bad angle. One in a million, the doctor said. I’m done, man.”

Malfoy hiccups. “Okay, but, like, can you still skate? Or are you. Y’know. Broken. Permanently.”

Cormac drops his shot glass, watches the Jäger splash out and the Red Bull gently fizz, and he doesn’t really know how to respond. A fuck-ton of guys have it way worse than him, have ruptured Achilles and splintered orbital sockets and totally debilitating concussion symptoms that’ll never quite go away. But he’s only twenty-four. He’d wanted to keep hockey. He’d wanted to hold hockey’s hand and buy it a dozen red roses and take it home to meet his fucking mom during the off-season. Hockey just hadn’t wanted to stick around. Hockey hadn’t wanted him back.

“Yeah, I can still skate,” he says, wiping his hand over his mouth. “Why?”

Blaise Zabini is a retired ex-figure skater with two gold medals and the blankest, most dead-eyed serial killer shark stare that Cormac’s ever seen.

He sizes Cormac up like he’s a particularly questionable side of beef—and somehow, it makes sense to think of Zabini as a butcher with, like, unlimited access to a lot of sharp knives and bloody meat hooks and industrial cleaning supplies—but it only takes Zabini three or four minutes to finally crack a microscopic smile and turn his attention back to his Arnold Palmer.

“Good shoulders,” Zabini says, apropos of fucking nothing. “You’ll do.”

Cormac doesn’t go after girls like Hermione Granger anymore.

Girls with edges.

He picks up girls who are stacked and blonde and uncomplicated. Girls who laugh at his jokes and who smile at the appletinis he buys them and who don’t mind being fucked from behind because stacked and blonde and uncomplicated is actually really, really, really not his type, but the alternative isn’t an option, seriously, he’s not cut out for that level of self-flagellating masochistic bullshit.

And then he’s stepping inside the enormous private rink Zabini brings him to, gaping at the gorgeously polished cedar beams crisscrossing the ceiling, and he sees—he sees—

Pansy Parkinson is her name.

She swishes across the ice with the kind of grace that can only be taught—can only be bought—swift and serpentine and so, so sure, and Cormac’s hockey gear abruptly feels cumbersome and oddly heavy as he watches her move. Watches her glide.

He notices the rest of her in fragments.

Slight, small build. Slender arms, long legs, narrow waist. Glossy black hair, blunt-cut bangs and a sparkly purple headband. High cheekbones and ivory skin and scarlet lips. Emerald green leotard with a keyhole cutout between the wings of her collarbones, shimmery beige tights and boring white skates.

She comes to a halt next to where he’s standing with Zabini, icing them both pretty thoroughly, and, god, she barely even looks at Cormac, just props her hands on her hips and frowns at Zabini and jerks her chin towards Cormac before asking, in a tone that’s flat with derision—

“Who the fuck is he?”

She’s not even pleasant, Cormac thinks, helplessly dismayed by how much he already knows he doesn’t give a shit.

His palms are sweaty.

His mouth is dry.

His stomach is sinking.

He’s been here before.

Pansy Parkinson is not the smartest girl in the world.

She’s arrogant and she’s whiny and she’s entitled and she’s focused. She’s militant about being up before the sun rises, and she’s scathingly critical of everything from the calluses on his fingers to the lingering traces of middle-class Boston in his accent, and she’s unfailingly strict in her interpretation of her nutrition plan. She eats steel-cut oats steeped in flavorless raw almond milk for breakfast, piles leafy greens and grilled chicken and soft-boiled eggs onto her plate for lunch, and carefully weighs out her portion of whole-wheat pasta every night after they’ve studied the film Zabini seems to arbitrarily fucking choose for them.

She’s determined.

She’s competitive.

She’s carefully composed and hilariously self-absorbed and intensely, frustratingly enigmatic.

She listens to shitty pop music during their morning runs, and she flips through dog-eared back-issues of Vogue when they take their water breaks, and she carries herself like she’s simultaneously afraid of her own shadow and confident in her ability to take both him and Zabini in a fucking fist fight. She’s fascinating, and she’s clever, and she’s honestly kind of mean. She spends their first week together speaking very, very slowly, almost exclusively in monosyllables, and asking him if he’s absolutely certain he doesn’t need to keep wearing his hockey helmet.

“You’re lucky I’m not that sensitive,” Cormac tells her, twisting the cap off a bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade. He’s lying. He’s really fucking sensitive. He still cries every time he reads Emma. “Could give a guy a complex.”

“I doubt you need any help with that,” Pansy retorts sweetly.

She’s not wrong.

Skating to music is harder than Cormac thought it would be.

He’s been doing yoga and ballet and, like, jazzercise with Pansy every day, training his muscles to twitch and flex and stretch in ways they never really have before—but finding rhythm on the ice, in sleek black skates with unreliable laces and rickety little blades; it’s fucking rough.

“Jesus Christ,” Pansy hisses, shoving him backwards after he’s messed up some needlessly complicated footwork sequence for the fifth time in one day. “Count out loud if you have to, but get your shit together before you break your fucking ankle.”

“I’m a hockey player,” Cormac argues, annoyed by the defensive slant of his own posture. “There’s a learning curve, princess, we didn’t all grow up doing—whatever the fuck this—tap dancing Charlie Chaplin on ice bullshit is.”

“Yeah, well, there isn’t a learning curve at the Olympics,” she replies, coolly. “Which is where we’re going. Maybe. If you stop skating like a drunk toddler with an eye patch on.”

Cormac grits his teeth, unable to come up with a response that isn’t dumb and petulant and embarrassing, and the smirk that Pansy levels him with is as unimpressed as it is a challenge.

It’s then, though, that he registers a low-simmering onslaught of something—excitement and adrenaline and energy, cratering in his veins and punching at his sternum and reminding him, with vivid, vicious clarity, of suiting up before a game and reading the angle of a puck just right and winning. Being tackled into the boards by his team, by his brothers, after he’s managed another shutout. He’s fucking missed it. Missed this. And he doesn’t have a team anymore, but he does have Pansy. A partner. His partner.

“Again,” Cormac eventually says, holding Pansy’s gaze for a second too long. “Let’s do it again.”

A month into training, Cormac’s dick gets involved.

Zabini’s there, ostensibly to teach Cormac how to propel Pansy into some kind of spinning twirling death-defying lift that, yeah, okay, looks hella fucking rad on grainy Soviet-era film, but—gravity? Gravity’s a thing. Cormac went to college. He knows his shit.

“How,” Cormac starts, scratching at the back of neck.

Zabini gestures absently to Pansy’s thighs, not even bothering to look up from his phone. “Just pick her up.”

Cormac tilts his head to the side. “Uh. Just—where, exactly, am I touching her?” He clears his throat. Adds, again, deliberately plaintive, “Exactly?”

Pansy huffs, and then sighs, and then reaches for Cormac’s wrists, dragging his hands to the space between her thighs. And he just—

He freezes, thumbs and forefingers framing the cradle of her…pelvis? He doesn’t think it’s her pelvis. He’s, like, eighty percent sure, actually, that it isn’t.

But his brain’s not quite firing on all cylinders, and his chest is rippling tight and tense and hot like he’s been crosschecked into a fucking bonfire, and his hands look so fucking big like this, fingers long and thick, palms broad and callused, and she’s tiny, of course she’s tiny, he’s been aware of that—painfully, viscerally aware—since that very first day, that very first moment, except the way his gut is clenching and his skin is tingling and his pulse is racing—it’s new, and it’s familiar, and he aches with how badly he wants to move his hands. A little farther up. A little farther in. He wants to trace the center seam of her leggings with his fingernail, wants to tease her, get her wet, make her gasp, wants to flick his tongue out and swipe his fingers down and press an open-mouthed kiss to the mound of her cunt, grip her hips and hold her—

“—hold her up, man,” Zabini is drawling, sounding bored. “Gotta get used to her sense of balance.”

Cormac blinks.

He’s half-hard in his Under Armour, and it’s as jarring as it is mortifying to realize that touching Pansy like this—learning her body, memorizing the shape of it and the bend of it and the strength of it—this is his fucking job now. He’s here to win. To skate. To take ballet lessons and pack on a lot of unnecessary muscle and grope Pansy fucking Parkinson in exchange for an Olympic gold medal. Nothing else.

Still.

He glances up.

He meets Pansy’s eyes.

He doesn’t think he’s imagining the faint hint of pink that’s blossoming across her cheeks.

It gets worse, after that.

They suck at Worlds.

They suck hard.

Cormac trips over the fucking snaggletooth murder traps on the fronts of his skates, skids into the boards while the crescendo of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony echoes around the rafters of the rink, and he hasn’t eaten ice like that since he was twelve, training with Zabini notwithstanding, and he’s taken aback, almost, by how fucking infuriating it is.

To work and sweat and bleed and still not be good enough.

Somewhere, Hermione Granger is writing her fucking dissertation on emotional manipulation and fucking laughing at him.

Again.

But Pansy’s a professional, of course, and so she skates on, footwork beautiful and timing impeccable, but there’s a rigidity to her movements, a stiffness in her spine and a wariness clouding her jumps, that doesn’t translate well. And Cormac heaves himself up, hurries to join her, tries to get the counts right in his head, but he’s not used to this, still doesn’t hear the nuances of the music quite like he should, and he’s a visible half-beat behind her for the rest of their long program.

Pansy doesn’t look at him afterwards.

She lifts her chin, clutches his hand, pastes a smile on her face, graciously accepts the scattered flowers and the slightly subdued applause; but her lower lip is trembling, and her eyes are suspiciously glassy underneath the false lashes and the metric fuck-ton of glitter, and Cormac feels guilt, gross and thick and vaguely acidic, begin to eat at his insides. It’s shitty. He’s shitty.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out when they get back to their dressing room.

Pansy yanks at the laces of her skates. “For what?”

Cormac hesitates. “For, uh, fucking that up? Like, the whole thing?”

She shrugs. Fiddles with the zipper on her Team USA jacket. Still doesn’t look at him. “It happens,” she says, shortly.

“Well, yeah,” he replies, tugging at the over-starched cuffs of his shirt. It’s an ugly fucking shirt, interlocking shades of grey superimposed by a ragged slash of purposely illegible graffiti. “But, like. I’m still—I’m sorry, I guess, that you’ll have to. You know. Find someone else to skate with.”

Pansy goes dangerously still, a travel pack of cucumber-scented exfoliating wipes crinkling between her fingertips. “Excuse me?”

“Uh,” he hedges, licking his lips, “I’m sorry? I just—this shit was a lot easier during practice, you know, and I’m really…there’s still a few months left before San Jose, you could probably find another dude to—”

“What the fuck?” she interrupts. “What are you talking about?”

“I—I’m just—isn’t that how this goes?” Cormac asks, cracking his knuckles. His forehead is itchy where his sweat’s dried, caking the thin layer of bronze powder the makeup artist had dusted all over his face. “You got rid of…your other partners, the ones before me, and I don’t really expect—I mean—I’m not even a figure skater, you know? You don’t have to. Keep me around, or whatever. It’s okay.”

“Right,” she exhales, and that’s—that’s anger, he can hear it now. Anger and consternation and just the tiniest bit of fear. She’s finally looking at him. “I’m only going to say this once.”

“Uh.”

“You are not expendable,” Pansy snaps, enunciating each word so, so clearly, so crisply, like she’s convinced that if she doesn’t—convinced that if she slurs, or if she stumbles, or if she stutters—he might not get it. It makes her sound frantic. It makes her sound fierce. And he wonders at that, at her, just for a second; has to, absolutely, because she’s the most rigidly self-contained person he’s ever met, and this is unprecedented. This is. This is. “One subpar performance isn’t—it happens, you know that, but you—you’re not going anywhere, you’re not—you’re not temporary. Okay?”

Cormac swallows. He feels a little wrung out, like his skin’s stretched too thin and his bones are too spongey. Like—he’s exposed. Nerves raw, tonsils scratchy. It isn’t bad. Not really. He thinks he could get used to it, actually, if she needed him to. Asked him to.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay.”

On New Year’s Eve, they’re sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, three iPods and Zabini’s laptop and a wine-stained yellow legal pad spread out between them. Cormac’s never really had strong opinions about classical music before, but they’ve been arguing about this shit for three and a half hours, and he has a fucking headache. He deserves a drink. He deserves a Stanley Cup.

“I’ve got it,” he says, popping the cork on a bottle of Bollinger. “Def Leppard.”

Pansy chews on the inside of her mouth. “I know you think you’re joking, but that’s actually—that might not be a bad idea.”

Cormac skips the crystal stemware and grabs two custom black beer steins emblazoned with his old jersey number. “What, asking the Olympic Committee to install a stripper pole on the ice?”

“No, I meant—going rogue, with the music and the costumes and the—the routine, maybe, your technique is garbage, but—wait, what are you doing? What is that?”

“Champagne,” he says, holding out a mug for her.

She doesn’t take it. “I don’t drink.”

He rears back. “What? How do you live?”

“With excellent liver function and a spotless criminal record,” she simpers.

He pauses. “You read my Wikipedia page,” he says, kind of accusingly.

“You punched a math major.”

Cormac makes sure to gulp down most of his champagne before he deigns to answer.

Midnight comes and goes.

They give up on making a decision about the music for their short program, and Cormac turns on a holiday marathon of Love It or List It. Pansy scrunches her toes into the carpet, toys with the hem of her tank top, gradually shifts closer and closer and closer; and the minutes seem to grind to a slick, syrupy halt as the weight of this—the expectation—suddenly becomes realer. More tangible.

It’s not a surprise when their lips finally brush.

It is a surprise, though, that Pansy’s so tentative about it.

So uncertain.

She has her eyes squeezed shut, and her hands bunched into fists around the fabric of his henley, and the movement of her mouth against his is mechanical, slow and soft and wet, yeah, but almost like those are things that she’s mentally checking off a list. Commonly Accepted Attributes of a First Kiss. Lean in. Arch up. Meld. Melt. Tease. Her tongue flicks out, just once, and she tastes cold and tart, like lemon water and peppermint, and Cormac groans, threading his fingers through the ends of her hair, cupping the nape of her neck and tilting her head a little farther back and—she relaxes, slightly.

“Yeah?” he breathes.

Her nails scrape against his skin. “Yeah.”

Twenty minutes later, they’re upstairs.

Pansy’s naked, sitting on the end of his bed with her knees pressed together and her face flushed a seriously satisfying shade of pink. And Cormac’s trying to get his own clothes off, really, he is, but she’s leaning back on her elbows, right, and her tits are small, obviously, she’s small, but they’re round and firm and perfect and the movement sort of thrusts them forward, drawing his attention to the tight peachy-beige buds of her nipples, and they’re—she’s—distracting. He’s distracted.

“Jesus Christ, are you going to fuck me or not?” she demands.

Cormac yanks his boxers off so fast that his cock slaps against his lower abdomen. “Don’t worry,” he assures her when her eyebrows fly up, “it’ll fit.”

Pansy’s jaw goes slack, and then she’s snorting out a laugh that’s deep and throaty and remarkably genuine, actually, nothing at all like the audibly artificial giggling she’d done at their last presser. And Cormac—he doesn’t care, he decides, that this laugh had come at his expense. He doesn’t. He’d say awful, humiliating, utterly moronic shit for the rest of his life, probably, if it would get her to laugh like that again. Which is a problem. Definitely. That he’ll totally address. At some point. Definitely. In the far, far, far off future.

“Who have you been sleeping with?” she asks, sounding mystified.

“No one, lately,” he replies, maybe a little too honestly, before pushing her backwards, dragging his hands from her shoulders to her waist to her hips.

Her lashes flutter as she clamps her bottom lip between her teeth. “Oh,” she says, but then she’s flashing him a smile, small and subtle and pleased, and her knees are falling open, and she’s repeating, much more quietly, much more intimately—

“Oh.”

They’re waiting to board their charter to South Korea when she grabs his wrist.

“Cormac.”

“Hmm?” he answers, scowling at an email from Malfoy that contains an inexplicably snide lol and absolutely nothing else. “What?”

Pansy glances over at him, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She’s wearing leggings and an oversized cashmere sweater and fluffy brown Uggs with the tops folded down. She looks fucking ridiculous.

“So…are you…are we…?” she asks, sounding—not indifferent, exactly, but maybe like she’s trying incredibly hard to pretend that she is. “All in?”

And Cormac—

Cormac forgets, sometimes, that other people have feelings, too. Feelings like he does. He shies away from words like “inadequate” and “unremarkable”, hasn’t ever let himself go there, even in his own head, because that’s a slippery fucking slope and he’s a big believer in faking shit until he doesn’t have to anymore. Until he’s tricked himself into thinking that it’s real.

He’s never had to do that with Pansy.

Not once.

And he doesn’t want her to have to do that, either. Second-guess herself, or him, or his place in her life. She’d told him he wasn’t temporary, wasn’t expendable, and she’d meant it, she’d made sure that he knew she meant it, and all he’d done in return was give her orgasms. He could do better. He would do better. He’d get her a gold medal and he’d curate her fucking library and he’d teach her how to play hockey. He’d love her, eventually. He would.

For now, though, he just twists his wrist around, slides his hand up, presses the flat of his palm to the flat of Pansy’s, and he—he marvels for a second. At how tiny she is compared to him. How fragile, and how not fragile, and how much of a fundamental fucking contradiction she’s been all along.

He then laces their fingers together, and he feels her brief tremor of surprise. Feels how she stills, and how she steadies, and how she settles.

“All in,” he promises.

#pansy x cormac #cormac x pansy #cormac mclaggen #pansy parkinson #hprarepairnet #gtk #andrea #drabble #slytherdornet

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