#nothing prettier than a nerd in their element

[damniteggs]

when you miss machining so hard that you go and draw a whole ass lathe, then decide you need to have an engineering nerd in front of it.

drew @pinetreevillain ‘s child Timothy in the most pinetreevillainish art style I could muster to do him justice.

[fimflamfilosophy]

Characters: Tearing Each Other Together

After the world-sweeping success of my previous article (forty notes on Tumblr, wow!) and being driven out of my house due to mold for the second time in two months, I think the time is right to add another essay to the subject of character design and writing. But what’s left to say after having definitely solved the entire process of character writing the last time?

Well, suppose you can figure out the emotional state of one person. That’s well and good, and oddly harder for people than you might imagine. And I think the reason it’s so hard is because in virtually any show you’re not going to be given a character in a vacuum to learn that process from. They have some story, something they’re trying to overcome, and other characters they’re bouncing off of, and the actual process of conflict is more complicated than knowing who your characters are.

Hate, Love, or Indifference, It’s All A Struggle

So what’s the essence of a story? There’s some motive that’s trying to be achieved. A conflict. And I can’t stress this enough. Conflict. Because it’s one thing if you say your main character is a kid who wants to be the best Poke’mon trainer and completely another to have that be a concrete objective with a satisfying story and conclusion. Wanting to be the “best” isn’t actually conflict. It’s a dream. Being forced to travel the known world to acquire eight gaudy pins that probably cost twenty-five cents each to manufacture? That’s conflict.

And not only do you have to travel the world, you do so with a shrill red-head who explicitly hates you because you trashed her bike, and a sex-starved pervert whose life dream is to make Poke’mon mate with each other for a living. And that’s important. Without Misty and Brock, Ash’s journey is a lot less interesting for a lot of reasons. Misty calls Ash out every time he messes up, and aside from being on a watch list, Brock is a helpful older character who tells Ash, and therefore the audience, what’s what.

But let’s back up, because people understand the benefit of Brock and Misty at a basic level, but when you’re starting off, how do you know who those people should be? Well, every show, from sitcom, to comedy to drama, does its best to balance personalities against each other so there’s always some sort of conflict possible between them.

Now, “conflict” doesn’t mean they’re trying to kill each other. It could mean they’re falling in love with each other. Maybe it means they don’t have much in common but have to work together over long hours in isolation. The idea is simply that there’s something to overcome between these people. Misty thinks Ash is stupid - that’s a conflict which is often leveraged to push Ash forward. Brock, however, has a reactive role in the show, only functioning in conflict when a womanizer who grovels at the feet of ladies Ash is already helping anyway.

It’s odd because if Misty were older she would be set up very well as kind of an “opposites” romantic torture device with Brock. They’re even depicted as professional equals, which would have made their levels of expertise and experience more balanced. Had they been closer in apparent age, a “will they won’t they” romance would have fit adequately, with Brock’s constant hitting on other women serving as a major, hopeless, long-lasting roadblock to a serious relationship between them; it would work especially well because Misty is established to have an inferiority complex to her prettier sisters. It also might help explain why Brock hung around so long. But as it was, Brock’s main contribution to the inner dynamic was to act as a mediator, caretaker, and mentor.

But circling back to Brock’s dream of Poke’mon husbandry. Well, on the meta level that’s why he doesn’t leave. Because it’s not a motive, he’s not taking steps towards it, and it’s not going to happen, it’s just a dream. Until it does happen, anyway, and then they wrote him out of the show - but we’ll dig more into this later.

Balancing Imbalance

The best place to look to see good conflict set ups between characters are popular sitcoms. Consider the show “Frasier”: it ran for eleven seasons and revolved mainly around the personal spats of Frasier, his brother Niles, their dad, and the dad’s caretaker, Daphne. Frasier was arrogant, Niles was insecure, Dad was an earnest roughneck, and Daphne was well-meaning. Frasier and Niles were also elitist pricks at times so they couldn’t even always agree where to eat together, much less with their father who was happier having a burger with ketchup.

Every episode had some central motivator; an ice fishing trip, a joint investment, an awards ceremony - but these things were just catalysts to the main conflict, which was almost always something between characters. We’d seen it time and again, that Frasier and his Dad would come to blows over differences in taste. Niles would try to court Daphne while torn by his commitment to his failing marriage, over and over. But the pithy banter and the way they resolved it would always be new, so people watched this show, episode after episode, for over a decade.

And the simple beauty of it all was that each of the characters had something to do with each other. Whether it be filial obligation, lust, sibling rivalry, friction between introversion and extroversion, or taste in food, they always had some source of conflict to make a show out of. Niles and Frasier were both psychiatrists, but from different schools of thought and different working environments, so they even had chances to butt heads academically and professionally. It was rich with writing opportunities and it’s not any wonder it lasted so long.

Another sitcom, “New Girl”, which was about a group of roommates, had a good dynamic set-up between two characters, Schmidt and Nick. Nick is a messy slob and Schmidt’s a type A neat freak, creating a really obvious source of conflict to work with. But then they had a third character, Winston, who they lampshade as the token black guy. 

Now, the joke that Winston is the “black friend” has pretty much no legs, so in the early seasons you see him acting as kind of a third party mediator, or maybe a wild card, and it winds up being funnier when Winston is unhelpful. So as the seasons went on, Winston gradually lost his damn mind. He becomes a cop and meets a woman so that he’d have some character growth and dynamic, but also develops into a man who would burn a building down as a prank. The writers had no idea what they were doing with him and he gradually flew further and further off the handle.

Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Winston as a character. Aside from being funny in the show, watching the writers gradually unglue him from sanity was its own meta comedy above that. I knew they were doing it on accident, but having such a good time with it that it was just going to keep getting worse. In fact a major component of the finale for the whole show is an insane thing Winston does. They wrap the show on the note, “Winston is crazy”. And it all happened because they didn’t figure out what Winston’s conflict was at the start. He didn’t have a source of conflict with anyone, so the man became a living breathing embodiment of conflict in general.

Your Story Ends With the Conflict

Now, the catch is, in any type of fiction, whether a video game, a roleplaying session, or a sitcom, the story ends when the conflict does, because if the conflict is over there’s nothing more to tell! It used to frustrate me to no end back when “My Little Pony” was popular and the other nerds on the internet used to ask, “How many times must Fluttershy learn not to be shy, or that being shy is okay? When will she overcome all that she is and eliminate the core element that creates conflict for her?”

The answer should always be that the character will learn their damn lesson when the show ends or when they’re written off it. If you are sick of seeing a character and don’t want to see them any more, the best thing to do is close out their issues, because once they have no conflicts, they have no story, and there’s no point in doing a show about them. Asking Fluttershy to stop being shy is asking to say goodbye to her, because she's a cartoon and her job is to entertain kids by being neurotic and yellow.

People think they’re so smart when they say they’d solve all a character’s problems if it were them. In the finale to the first season of Poke’mon, for example, Ash decides to gamble his whole championship run on Charizard, who’s a self-absorbed bitch of a creature that ultimately throws the match and leaves it an open question whether Ash might have won if he’d left the team primadonna sitting on the bench.

Some viewers see that and complain it’s the dumbest possible thing Ash could have done, but it’s probably one of the single most brilliant things the Poke’mon writers did in the grand scheme, because think about where it left us. Ash didn’t achieve his goal of proving he’s “the best”, but it feels like a fluke and if he got another shot, he might make it all the way. This gave the show a gateway to more episodes with Ash still having something to prove and a dumb mistake indicating he still had a lot to learn. Because he didn’t win, his story hadn’t ended.

In some cases shows can end characters just by addressing some dream goal they’ve been expressing since the first season. In the case of Brock, they intentionally removed him from the show by introducing him to some girl who was willing to work with Brock in the animal husbandry business. He’d been traveling all this time, his dream opportunity fell into his lap, and he was gone. What reason would he have to refuse, and why would anyone stop him? And of course, Brock’s dream job was incompatible with the central plot elements of the rest of the show, so that was it!

The Format Informs the Conflict

If you want to write something but you aren’t sure when it’s going to end, you need a concrete, long-term conflict that’s not just going to go away. For example, in “Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts”, there were thirteen ghosts. By design, that show should have ended after Scooby Doo found all thirteen ghosts. It actually ended earlier than that because it was cancelled, but you get the idea. When you have a finite goal, your run time is going to be finite as well.

At least in theory. In “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” they establish at the beginning of one season that everyone’s magic powers were based on the Tarot. Now, I don’t know the Tarot off hand, but as the show went on I knew that sooner or later they’d run out of Tarot cards, and in my mind I assumed the season would be over when the Tarot ended. But then I got a good chuckle when a guy showed up and his powers were based on a totally different theme, because I knew the writer had realized he’d stumbled into something good and wasn’t ready to end it. He invented a cheap excuse to keep going! And I think if “Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts” had been successful they’d have managed to unleash a whole lot more than thirteen ghosts because Hannah Barbera was not exactly a studio with a lot of shame.

Character conflicts like those in sitcoms are a great way to have conflict perpetually, because people don’t really change that much and there’s no reason why most of the fundamental friction shouldn’t be there indefinitely. But of course, character-driven conflict is going to be secondary in an event-driven show. “Jojo” actually does have a lot of character conflict, but the plot is primarily about the battles and the journey - if all the fighting ended Jojo’s characters probably couldn’t carry a sitcom, at least not without some serious hard work, a little genius, and a touch of elbow grease.

For event-driven conflict, you’ll want to establish a target - a moving target if you don't know when the story ends, and that can be pretty difficult. Old action shows and comics used to do it by having a rotating cast of villains, so that after one was defeated another would show up tomorrow, and it was assumed these guys regularly broke out of prison, or they escaped in rocket pods, or whatever, and they’d be back later with a new goofy scheme. In these cases you tend to find reactive heroes; they patrol the streets until a lunatic in tights and a garden-themed hat shows up and transforms everyone into people-shaped topiaries somehow.

For active heroes, you need to establish something that requires a lot of structure, like Ash’s journey to win the Poke’mon League. In every country he visits, they all have this asinine rule that you have to go to eight unique locations and kick the ass of someone who disadvantages themselves with an easily-countered mono team that all have the same exact weakness. You can’t be accepted into the League if you haven’t proven you own a water Poke’mon to utterly flatten the fire gym! Let’s be real, this nonsense is probably designed intentionally as a money gate - most people run out of cash before they qualify. Either way, it ends when Ash wins the league, and he lost the league so the show could keep going.

For roleplaying games, the same rules apply. With your players, you’re either going to establish a reactive goal - an adventuring guild hires a bunch of colorful salarymen with silly accents to go to a dungeon as part of their nine to five job - or you need players to set an active goal for themselves and keep the realization of that goal beyond their reach until you’re ready to end the game.

The Active Hero Acts

In my younger years, I learned to roleplay in almost exclusively player-driven games where we were expected to come up with our own goals and pursue them ourselves, but I’ve discovered that is stunningly rare in most roleplaying circles. Your typical D&D player likes to play the salaryman with a funny accent who doesn’t have to worry about the venturous part of adventure. His boss told him to go to the Cave of Everlasting Wonders and Torturous Screams, recover the Sword of Bad Portent, and then hand it over to the department of magic items where they’ll file the paperwork to get it delivered to the patron that wanted the sword for some reason. No need to have your own motives.

But what if you want to play a crime fighter who actually, you know, busts up all the crime? Clearly you can’t just wait for crime to happen passively - you’ve got to go after people. Act instead of being reactive. Purse snatchers are small time and in a more grounded setting the guys you’ll catch by being passive are just grunts being hired out by someone - usually kids in a lot of cases. You have to seek out the bosses.

Making an active character to fit into any setting can be challenging, and I’ve seen quite a few pitfalls. I think one of the funniest motives is always “the guy who wants to go home” due to its obvious failure condition. A lot of stories are about everymen who just want to get out of trouble, but those stories end when they get out of trouble! In many books, movies, shows, or roleplaying games, you’re almost always going to find opportunities to send that guy home, and you’ll have to either conveniently ignore it, switch motives and decide not to go home, or end the whole story with going home. These characters only work where the story is happening to them and it's all out of their control.

I’ve also seen my share of the “quirky genius inventor/scientist”. When someone designs a character mistaking a dream for a motive. They dream of building a better mouse trap, you see. That’s their inner conflict. And while this is a real world conflict, it’s difficult to make it a good story because actual science and invention involves a lengthy quantity of controlled experiments. You breed hundreds of fruit flies, expose them to nicotine, and try to isolate the gene that causes nicotine resistance. It can be fascinating work at its level but sometimes the most exciting part of your day is when you give yourself a steam burn cooking the fly food. The “quirky scientist” in fiction is usually more of a mentor, and if he insists on staying in his lab doing his work then he’s not even a main character - he’s a guy who explains fruit flies to the audience and then is never heard from again. Other times he’s the asshole who invented the story’s whole problem.

I once played in a game with “the quirky scientist who wants to go home”, and man was that a frustrating ride. The game itself was about occult magic and demons, and for most of the game the scientist was experimenting with teleportation magic to go home and was focused on that above the goal of finding and eradicating demons (the game’s premise). And when he finally met a boss demon that could teleport him home to his lab, he went! We wound up retiring a character who, to be honest, was barely even interested in the main subject of the story. Had he been in a film or a show, they’d have cut the character after the first draft because he served no purpose and wasted screen time.

So how do you make sure your character has a working, proactive goal, in a nutshell? Establish a goal that can be achieved by the character within the framework of your story through action by leaving his house (or after burning his house down so he can’t go home), and then make sure the goal is big enough that it will take many broad steps to get there - those steps need to be concrete and visible, not things that would happen off-screen. Most importantly, tie that goal into the main premise of the story, so that reaching the end of the story generally may achieve what the character wants.

If You Aren’t Trying, It’s Not A Trial

Okay, I understand that last bit probably requires more unpacking. But think of it this way. There’s a writing structure referred to as the “Hero’s Journey”. Basically it goes like this: the hero is forced into adventure, he meets friends and goes through trials, he hits his lowest point, he is reborn into a better man, he ends the conflict, story over.

What I’m talking about specifically right now are the trials. The “wacky inventor” is usually presumed to do all his research off screen because most media likes to focus on the results of the invention and the conflict. But if you were to focus on the trials of a scientist, it’d actually be about procuring research grants and potentially materials. You wouldn’t watch a show about a man who checks gene A-235 for nicotine resistance in flies, then goes on to A-236, then A-237.

If I were to write a story about a researcher, here’s one thing I might do: the researcher fails to find what he’s looking for in gene A-235, and when he goes to seek a grant to look at A-236, he finds one of his colleagues has convinced the university that the protagonist’s research is a dead end. Hearing this, the researcher realizes he’s about to lose his lab, so he writes a bit of a lie into his report on A-235. He says it may prevent cancer.

Now, the protagonist is, deep down, a good man. He thinks this will generate some buzz at the university and get him more funding, but he’ll do a follow-up and show the data doesn’t hold up. After that he’ll ask for money for A-236 and everything goes back to normal. But disaster strikes. His article, which was only supposed to show up in an obscure research journal, gets picked up by a major news network and winds up being spread all over. Suddenly he’s “the man who cured cancer”.

And as he’s trying to figure out how to navigate the issue, another researcher comes out and says that under peer review, he was able to replicate the results. He too shows that A-235 cures cancer! Now the hero isn’t sure. He becomes a celebrity and simply lies about his research because he has no real data, but try desperately as he might, in private he just can’t get the results the peer review insisted were there.

He struggles and struggles, coming to blows with his colleague who’s scrutinizing his research notes. Throw in a love interest who’s impressed with what this guy did, and actually I think I’ve just described the plot of some movie I saw a long time ago about faking cold fusion. I think Albert Einstein was a supporting character in it. In my version the twist would be the peer reviewer was also trying to get a grant by lying. Point is, the central conflict of the film certainly isn’t the scientific process, it’s all the crazy crap that happened on the way from point A to point B.

The story is in the trials. If nothing changes, if the character doesn’t have to change their way of life or go through anything special, it’s either not a story or it’s not your typical story. There are plenty of experimental films or well-regarded books that can make a certain banality become interesting. Stories that explain the simple struggles of day to day living for people on hard times. But the trials, the palpable challenges, that’s really the meat of it all. When you think of what your character should be doing throughout the story, he should be going through these efforts, these steps, these trials, all in the name of whatever his broader goal is.

Where You Start Affects Where You End

It also matters quite a lot when and where characters are introduced. A lot of tales follow some basic notes, and one of the more common elements is “crossing the threshold”, which prevents your characters from going back to their life before the adventure. It’s used because it compels the characters forward, as they have no other direction they can go. It can be anything: the character’s home town is destroyed, the character commits a crime, he accepts a contract, his mother dies - so long as it prevents him from going back. It’s especially useful in roleplaying games where you really need everyone to be driving forward.

In one such roleplaying game, I got in a spat with the guy who wanted to run the game because I was trying to make a leader character, but the game master wanted to base his game around a movie he’d seen with a single main character. He’d elected another player to be that main character, and explained to me he’d be starting the game after that character had already crossed the threshold and had begun his journey. This meant that everyone else were supporting cast and could go back to their normal lives at any time, because they were coming willingly from where they were and not really facing any drastic changes to their personal status quo.

I eventually resolved not to play in that game at all, because none of the character dynamics I wanted were going to work. It was supposed to be a “wannabe” superhero game, with the premise that everyone wanted to be heroes, except one player had already started the journey and it turned out another had already reached the end of that arc and was going to play a character that had been a hero going on years before the story began. There was no plan to really reconcile the narrative clashes.

If that game were to work as it was, without me being present, then the person playing the pre-established hero would have needed to take the mentor role. The other players besides the main character would have needed to be comfortable in auxiliary roles, and the group would have to play as though they were part-way into the story. Still learning to be a team but well past the initial stages of a plot, and they’d all need to think up reasons to be in this group individually on their own, because the threshold had already been crossed and they didn’t cross it together.

The friend running the game was actually dismissive of my advice here, arguing that I was overcomplicating everything with a meta analysis of narrative and structure when all we need is a basic drive to play, and I don’t think he realized he’d set himself up with a much more complicated game and less cohesive premise by going about things as he had.

The already established hero couldn’t be the mentor because a mentor character had already been created as an NPC. The auxiliary players weren’t really informed at the outset they’d be auxiliaries - especially not me who’d wanted to play the team leader. The player who’d been designated as the central protagonist didn’t want to lead or be the central protagonist. It could have worked, but it would have taken a lot more planning and many more concessions than a typical game.

In a more recent game, I’ve got another bit of an issue with the start misleading the general goals of the players. It’s a sci-fi game, and first, one player is doing “the quirky inventor scientist”; his current stated dream is vaguely to create transhumanist technology. He also wants to play the leader, so he established himself as the most important man nobody has ever heard of. He has spies in every major institution in the known galaxy and is a genius beyond comparison. He’s currently based in a rusting pirate ship in the middle of the space boonies doing nothing with his life save being the most important man.

Meanwhile, I set up a disgraced military officer with a revenge quest against his own nation. But the pirate crew my character joined turned out to not believe in structure nor leadership and they killed their last commander to have a system of “democracy”. My structure-minded character has tried to take the lead and drive us forward, but he runs into general deconstructive resistance and the “quirky scientist” wants to be the leader, but hasn’t yet expressed self-motivated goals.

It’s not exactly my most harmonious game and there’s quite a lot going wrong here, but here’s how it could have worked: first, establishing that the crew of the pirates respects no leadership places the entire crew in the precarious position of being “chickenshit” at the outset. That kind of incohesiveness is why a band of rogues gets easily defeated; it’s not the behavior of scrappy men of action, but hopeless men of inaction. A corrupted “democracy” collectivises failure while awarding success to whoever actually has the most power in the group structure - it protects the weak leaders from responsibility and disincentivizes good work by allowing those same men to reap rewards while offloading the burdens to those lower on the ladder. In essence, “If things are screwed up, blame the democracy. If things are good, I did it.”

What should have happened was the “quirky scientist” should have been in charge to start with, because otherwise he has no reason to be on board the ship. He’s the most powerful man in the galaxy, after all. If it were because he was financing the pirates to go on raiding and salvage missions relevant to his research, then it would make sense. He’d have a purpose and a position of leadership just as the player wanted. It would also establish the pirates have some command structure and a level of respect for it that allows them to function.

And the power struggle between the disgraced officer and the scientist? Perfectly reasonable character conflict that would drive actual, meaningful roleplaying and story. The scientist may bankroll the operation but the officer is the tactical talent and the two pull in opposite directions, as power-hungry men often do.

However, the opportunity to start with a sensible and meaningful social dynamic has passed, and on top of that the “quirky scientist” keeps his galaxy-wide power a secret, so it’s all kind of messy and “badly written” in the sense that most audiences would be generally rooting for the crew to fail, and they’d find the grand reveal of the scientist’s galactic power to be frustrating and unrewarding because it’s more of a plot hole than anything. So close on so many counts and yet so very far, and the opportunity to pull it together eventually is present but a more challenging and uphill battle than getting it right at the outset.

In The End, Did We Even Learn Anything?

Creating a character is easy, in my opinion. Creating a working story with a group of self-driven characters can be a lot harder. This is especially true of roleplaying games or of cooperation with multiple writers, where you need to be on the same general page with a committee. It can help a lot to establish the exact conflicts at the beginning, but as can be seen with Winston from “New Girl” or the later seasons of “My Little Pony”, what you have can morph beyond your control as things go on.

Sometimes you never had control in the first place. Sometimes you lose control because you conclude the original conflict of your story and struggle to find a new one - the brand is too successful to let go. Maybe an executive comes in and injects an idea that throws the entire balance of everything totally out of whack and now nothing works. Sometimes your friend thinks story structure is overrated. It’s a difficult juggling act.

So at the end of this essay did we even learn anything? It depends a lot on what you’re trying to do and what you wanted to learn. If you’re the more typical Dungeons and Dragons group, you don’t need to think much about this. Just make your characters and passively react to activities handed out by Dungeons, Dungeons & Co - your conflict is event-driven. Are you writing a sitcom? Well, balance a tangled web of conflicting character habits and write the ensuing disaster. Want to make a complex film about a group of highly motivated, proactive people with sophisticated individual goals that ultimately converge while still respecting their rich, conflicting, inner politics, and do all that writing as part of a team? Well, good goddamn luck, but with the right start and enough care you can make it happen.

[pinkykitten]

I’ll walk you home

Marvel

Peter Parker x female! reader

Warning: none 

Specifics: fluff, comedy, romance, one-shot, race neutral reader, pictures, aesthetic

People: peter parker, mj, nick furry 

Words: 2,395

Summary: Based on Emily’s 5k writing challenge, @collecting-stories. During the trip in Venice the first Elemental pops up making peter terrified not for only himself but for your safety. he will do anything in his power to keep you safe even if it means revealing his secret. 

Prompts:

“I’ll walk you home”

Authors Note: i entered into a writing challenge, yay my first one and im so excited for u guys to read this. i love how this came out it was so much fun to write i totally recommend you guys to do this challenge. im sorry that its a little long but when i get to writing about my bby there aint nothing stopping me! i rlly do hope u guys like this and have an amazing day

Venice, Italy. You were beyond excited to have a trip where you could just relax and spend time with your overly nerdy, smart friends. The most you were ecstatic to be with though was Peter Parker. He was so different from the other boys. He was smart yet he never bragged about it. He was humble, shy, silly and just so kind. He was everything to you. You were ready to say something. Ready to confess but you felt Peter was hiding something away from you. You couldn’t risk or put your friendship with him at jeopardy, it was just too risky.

You took your seat in the airplane beside your friend MJ. She was an odd girl but you loved odd and being different was way better than being normal. 

“Hey you okay?” She asked as she stopped reading, having her full attention on you. You sat all your belongings beside you and shrugged, “oh me? I’m just...afraid of pooping on an airplane.” You tried to come up with something. 

“Bull. Tell me the truth.”

You bit your lip. Why was MJ so good at reading you? “MJ I’m okay really.”

“You like Peter Parker don’t you?”

You almost chocked as you placed a hand over her mouth. Looking at Peter to make sure he didn’t notice his name being called. 

“I would like to breathe you know,” MJ licked your hand. You backed away disgusted and shocked. “How in the world did you know?”

“First of all its obvious and second I just can tell. Like the way you talk to him, by the way you suck at that-”

“MJ!”

“Sorry, its the truth. You talk to him like he’s god or something,” She laughs. “Like if you speak any louder you or him or both might explode!”

You looked down and sighed. It was no use, MJ was right, you were terrible at this. “There’s nothing I can do though. I don’t even think he likes me one bit.”

“Y/n, he’s a nerd like you! All you have to do is talk to him. Talk about what you like, hobbies, what you don’t like, stuff like that so you two get to know each other better.”

You turned your head to look at him. He was seated between the teachers, looking miserable. 

“Y/n, you’re a smart, beautiful young lady, maybe weird but for real he would be crazy not to want to be with you. Those are facts.”

“Oh look he’s going to use the bathroom right now, I’m gonna go.” You embraced MJ and shook her like crazy. “Thats why I love you and you’re my best friend and and and yeah, you’re the best MJ.”

MJ smirked as she whispered under her breath, “they grow up so fast.”

Running to the bathroom you looked in the mirror to make sure you looked presentable. You ran so fast there in order to make sure Peter and you would have time to converse. “Hey Peter,” you waved at him as he was about to go into the bathroom. Was this weird?

As you motioned to him you almost fell due to the turbulence. Peter kept his hands steady on you to make sure you didn’t fall. “Woah, are you okay y/n?”

You held onto his shoulders. “Man for a teenager you have pretty nice shoulders...” You realized you said that out loud and your whole confidence and demeanor changed. You became bashful, so embarrassed. “Oh my god did I just say that out loud?” You covered your mouth and felt your whole body heat up. 

Peter chuckled, “ye-yeah thanks y-y/n, thats, yeah, I do a lot of weights.” He stuttered making your heart beat faster. Was he also nervous with you? Peter noticed he made himself sound like a buff, bully of a jock and changed his sentence, “well I don’t work out everyday. I’m not like that junky, workout guy. I like barely, wo-workout out I mean but I do so...”

“I like it,” you gave almost a peep as you two stood there awkwardly by the bathrooms. 

“Are you excited for Venice?”

You nodded rapidly, a bit too much. “Oh yes. I’ve been looking forward to this trip since well since forever.”

Peter tried to be suave and lean against the bathroom door, “what are you most excited for?”

“Food...definitely the food.” You wanted a better answer, “Oh and the clothes too.”

“Oh yeah, I- I’m super excited for the food as well. I’m sorry I’m kinda realizing how many times I’ve said excited already and its a lot so I’m not gonna say excited anymore. I would like to see the different historical buildings and things like that.”

You started giggling and then full on laughing. Peter gulped and became as red as his suit. He was about to ask as to why you are laughing but you wiped your tears and walked closer to Peter, “Peter, you and I are very shy and very nervous, but lets stop that. Lets be ourselves, I’ll show you the real me, 100 percent me, I’ll show you who I am if you show me you.”

Peter looked side to side and whispered, “you want me to take my clothes off?”

“What? No! I’m saying Peter you are an amazing person just the way you are. I’m not gonna judge you because you work out everyday or because you use excited in 50 percent of your sentences. I’m not like that. So lets just lay it down and start over so we can be like we’ve been friends for years.” You lifted your hand out and said, “Hello there kid, I’m y/n l/n. I think you’re awesome and yeah, now your turn.” Peter smiled. This was so incredibly different. You were different. You were odd, strange, weird and Peter was loving it. Every second. Peter shook your hand, “hey y/n, my names Peter Parker and,” he closed his eyes and swallowed the fear, “a-and I- I would like to know if-if you would like to go out and see the streets of Venice tonight, with just me-me and yo-you?” Peter feared rejection and feared if you would say no. 

Before he could even finish you shouted a loud, “yes!” 

Peter kept a close eye on you. Later that day an Elemental was seen and the first person he wanted safe was you. You needed to be okay. 

Peter ran to your room after the fight. Drenched as can be he came to your room. When you saw him you finally felt as ease and peace. “Peter!” You brought him into a hug, not caring if he was soaked. “Peter I was so worried. I thought, I thought that something happened to you,” tears swelled up in your eyes. Peter placed his cold, wet hands on your cheek and looked in your e/c orbs, he was not worried for himself, he was worried for you. “Hey, hey, hey its okay. Look I’m okay, y/n. Hey, look at me,” you did and your tears fell down your cheek. Your eyes were so innocent as they looked into his puppy ones. Peter so badly wanted to kiss you. He wanted you to be alright, to know nothing was going to happen to him. “I’m here. I’m okay, I’m fine and I’m happy to be here with you. I remember though that a certain someone was supposed to go out with another certain someone, today in Venice.”

“As if I would forget. Pick me up at my room at 7, got it?”

Peter liked when you were bossy, it was cute. Peter saluted and went to his room to freshen up. 

Peter again arrived at your room. You came out in a galaxy two piece outfit. It was unique, just like you.

You were scared to wear it. Afraid Peter would joke about it, make you look like a fool. Instead Peter was in awe. You looked like a space princess. So beautiful and breathtaking. “Wow y/n you look,” his mouth was opened in an o. “so beautiful.”

You played with your fingers as he complimented you. That was something that rarely ever happened. “Thank you Peter. I think my name for today though will be Allura.”

“Voltron is the best,” Peter chuckled as you two walked together. “You’d make a good Allura...space princess.”

You curtsied, “why thank you my Paladin.” You two looked at each other and it was as if you two were made for one another. 

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we could go to space?”

Peter nervously gave a chuckle. Unknown to you he did go to space, fighting Thanos and well dying. Thats how the blip became. “Yeah it would be really cool.”

You guys made it into museums, restaurants, shops. Him buying you a blue bracelet with a heart on it and you buying him a key chain that said, “the best person in the world” in big dark letters on Earth. 

“I have a surprise for you y/n,” Peter smiled as he grabbed onto your hand and ran with you. 

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see!” Peter ran like child. He was so happy to show you the surprise. He’s been waiting all afternoon to show you. 

“Here it is,” Peter opened out his arms to show you-

“A Ferris wheel!” Your eyes widened at all the neon colors. It was gigantic. “Peter this is so pretty.”

“Its much more prettier up there,” Peter took your arm again. Paid the gentleman and you two went in. Your heart was pounding that you could hear it. You were afraid of heights. Afraid of the misfortune. You didn’t notice but you were holding onto Peter’s arm tightly through out the whole thing. Peter stiffened at the contact. You two made it all to the top and then it paused. Below you could see all of Venice. The lights of the buildings, the people, it was magical. You felt you were flying above the clouds. 

“Look at this view Peter! Isn’t it magnificent?”

“Yeah, it really is,” he said as he looked at you. Peter took his phone out and you and him took many selfies. Some pretty and some silly. It was a perfect night. 

“Peter look how high we are. Look at all the little people below. HELLO WORLD!!!” You screamed since you were high up. Peter loved your enthusiasm and your attitude about the world. Such little and small things made you happy. That meant so much to Peter. “You know you really are special y/n, like really special. You’re different and you’re really nice.”

You beamed a great big toothy smile, “you’re really special as well Peter.”

As you two got off the Ferris wheel you still had a hold onto Peter’s arm. Quickly you let go, shy. 

Peter’s phone rang and as he looked at the caller id it said Nick Furry. Peter cursed under his breath. 

“Is something wrong Peter?” You asked, seeing how odd Peter reacted. 

Peter scratched the back of his head, “no, no, its nothing really its nothing.”

“Peter if you need to go somewhere I’m fine going by myself.”

Peter would be crazy to leave you alone. He wanted to keep you safe. There were great big Elementals still roaming about. He could not let you go by yourself. 

“I’ll walk you home!” He blurted out as he blocked you. He realized he would be taking you to the hotel and not your house so as red as an apple he shook his head, “I-I I meant to say hotel.” He felt terrible keeping the secret that he was spider-man from you. His hands were getting sweaty and he could tell he was getting nervous. 

“Peter,” you held onto his hand softly. The bracelet he bought for you clinking against his wrist. “I would love for you to join me.”

Arriving at the hotel Peter could already see the many text messages on his phone, but he had to take care of you first. He dropped you off your room, “well I guess this is it.”

Honestly, you were sad to see the day end, you wish it could go on forever. You didn’t know what this meant. Was this a date or just a hangout? You were so confused!

“Thank you Peter.”

Peter turned on his heels seeing you were done for the night but he felt a tug on his sleeve. You held onto him, mentally slapping yourself. You didn’t know how to proceed. “Peter wait. Tonight was so incredible, it was amazing. Its been a long time since I’ve had this much fun. You really are an amazing person but,” there was that but, “if you’re hiding something from me, something bad I just wish you would say what it is. I thought I meant more to you than that.”

Peter bit his lip. He did want to tell you the truth, that’s all he wanted but it would make you unsafe. 

“Y/n I can’t.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“I just I-”

“Peter I care about you a lot. You mean so much to me and I don’t want you hurt.”

“Me neither!”

“Then just tell me Peter, tell me whats going on.”

“I can’t y/n because I love you!”

The air was silent. All that was heard was the breathing of a certain young girl and a certain young boy. Confused but also knowing. They both wanted the same thing. All they wanted was each other. 

“You...you love me?”

Peter’s face was all red and his eyes were closed, he nodded his head lightly. He was about to leave when you stepped closer and kissed his lips. It was your first kiss and his too. It was small and light but it was perfect. You gave him a few more pecks and brushed his hair with your fingers. 

“I love you too Peter,” you whispered, kissing him one last time. “You are the one for me.”

Peter knew he could not lie to you no longer. You two now were boyfriend and girlfriend, your relationship was more serious. Peter held your hands as he walked into your room. 

“Okay I have to tell you something y/n, the secret that I’ve been hiding is,” he gulped as he said something he could never take back.

“I’m Spider-Man.” 

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[dyingswanpavlova]

“ lovely surprise “ // [ fluff ] cheryl blossom x fem!reader

summary: Cheryl is giving reader the sweetest gift for Easter Holiday.

word count: 1635

a/n: Took me almost a year, but I fell in love with her, I guess.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Long story short: I need your help.”

You let out a long sigh, followed by eye rolling and ironic laughter. Wonderful.

“Come on, you can’t mean this.”

You tried your best to hide it but you knew you were actually pretty flattered by her offer and you knew that you knew it was. But you couldn’t not let her get her wish like that. She was not the princess. Actually, she was ... But she shouldn’t get her way that easily.

“Please”, she begged, trying her best as well, grabbing you by your sleeve.

You thought about it for a few more seconds and bit your lip to make it look more dramatic. Cheryl knew that you would agree eventually, but there was a little tension in her shiny eyes.

You rolled your eyes again. “Alright.”

A high shriek ripped your ears out their comfort and immediately let you regret your decision somehow. Still you smiled when she hugged you energetically.

“I’ll just get my pencils and all the stuff - where should we do it? Like home? At yours? You can’t get undressed here and-”

“Wait, what? Get undressed? Cheryl, that’s not what we were talking about”, you protested, almost choking on your vanilla milkshake.

Cheryl, sweet and well-played innocent as always, smiled at you.

“Not like that, silly. We’re not in the Titanic movie and I for sure am not DiCaprio - but I can’t draw your pretty contours, your magnificent mane, your soul and then let you wear a damn pair of sweat pants.”

Good point, you thought, but you didn’t answer anything. Your eyes followed her all the way out of Pop’s, as she rushed through the street like it was Christmas eve and she just realized that she’d forgot the most important present.

Months ago you would’ve never thought that you ever might get there. Sitting at Pop’s, sipping at the same vanilla flavored milkshake that Cheryl did, just from another straw. Actually, she liked the strawberry one more. But she’d never admit it - she knew you loved vanilla. You smiled and suddenly felt heat in your cheeks. She was so perfect and there was no way that you really deserved that.

  Hours later you found yourself sitting in your living room. Your parents went for Easter Holiday, intelligent as you thought, but you couldn’t leave. It was almost no time left til finals (well, actually there were some months, but that was not enough for a nerd who’d write award winning mathematics tests). So you stayed home to study and spend time with the cutest girl in town.

“I should wear what?” You lifted your view, just to find her staring at you with something in her eyes that you had never seen before. It was like...You were her muse. You knew Cheryl was good, no, great at drawing, but since you’d given her the official YES for drawing you...it was like nothing could stop her. Her eyes were sparkling like a star filled night in July.

“Panties, a white T-Shirt and a smile”, she responded chillingly calm and handed you over an oversized white T-Shirt that looked so sterile as if no one had ever touched it before. The white was so white that it almost hurt your eyes.

“But...”

“Listen, the shirt is so long, it doesn’t show anything. And also I’d never draw anything if I knew it’d make you uncomfortable, okay?”

You nodded at her, still suspicious, but you didn’t say anything.

“Honey. This is for you and only for you. And well, for me maybe. Do you trust me?”

As she spoke, she placed her hands on your cheeks. The skin of her hands was so soft that it sent shivers down your back. When you opened your eyes again, you saw her ones staring deep in your soul, as you thought. Immediately you felt weak in your knees.

“Yes”, your lips formed silently. You felt her thumb softly caressing first your cheek, than your lower lip. She lowered her view down on your lips, then looked back at your eyes.

“You won’t regret it. I promise”, she whispered.

“Okay. Okay.”

Before you had the time to say anything more, she reached out for the shirt again, pressing it against your chest.

“Please”, she said, trying to sound annoyed. She knew she couldn’t, when you were around, which left you even happier.

Without a word you took the shirt and threw it on the couch which should be your home for the next few hours. You unbuttoned your shirt quickly, threw it next to the shirt. When you reached out for it, Cheryl coughed.

“What now?”, you hissed.

“The bra, too”, she commanded, slowly sitting down on her chair with a giant drawing pad in front of her.

You gave her a diabolic smile. „Fine.“

As soon as your fingers reached the button, the bra sailed down to the floor, where it landed next to your feet. You reached for the whity shirt, when you noticed blandly staring. You looked up to find Cheryl slightly distracted. With your best poker face, trying not to become too red in the face, you put the shirt on, then let yourself fall onto the sofa.

„How should I sit?“

„A bit more left…yes, like that. I like your hair on one side, on the left side. Yes, you look like a tiger! I like that“, she said, talking more to herself than to you.

Cheryl had put the heating on the highest rate since you sat there half naked, for hours, with nothing to do but looking back at her while she did her best to let your figure become whole on a white piece of paper.

When she started, you could tell something was changing about her. Nothing about her apperance that was specific – the fire-red hair was tied up into a messy bun (which no one would see her with, usually), but her face was so concentrated, that it gave you goosebumps.

„I feel a bit like young Rose“, you said with a dying voice.

Your girlfriend smiled mildly. „You’re a hundred thousand times prettier than her, but yeah, I get your point.“ Her voice was mostly just a mumbling, but her hands were doing real work. You had never seen her so spiced up in her element. It was chilling to see Cheryl fly up high in one of her many passions.

After some time, you lowered your view. „I feel terrible now“, you admitted.

„Don’t worry, I won’t make you look terrible“, she murmured. You smiled, but your smile was hiding something. Suddenly she stopped working, then looked at you.

„What is it?“, she asked with a serious voice.

„I feel bad since your present is so…this. Compared to that…“

Cheryl found her smile again and put it back on.

„To be here with you for Easter, that’s the greatest gift I could ever get. To have you in my arms, watching stupid horror movies and hearing your breathing right next to me while falling asleep…“

She didn’t say it, but you saw how her lips slowly formed a word.

Paradise.

  It took many hours. Many, many hours. Many visits to the bathroom, some pill against headaches and so much classical music. But it was worth it, eventually.

„It’s done“, Cheryl said suddenly, more to herself.

You jumped up immediately. „Let me see it.“ Your eyes were burning.

„Okay…okay. I’m not sure if…I mean it isn’t…Okay, get over here.“

Her fingers were dirty from the pencils, her eyes seemed tired and her messy bun was even messier by then, but she looked as happy as never before, you thought.

She made sure your eyes were closed, before you reached the front of it. Then she let go of your face and told you to open your eyes.

What you saw was just spectacular.

You saw a girl. She had a massive amount of hair, you saw pale hands with bony fingers, you saw fullfilled lips and two terribly annoying dimples, you saw heartbreak and compassion, you saw a vulnerable girl that got nervous whenever she undressed infront of her girlfriend, you saw tensely laughter, you saw…you.

„Oh my god, Cheryl.“

„Don’t tell me…“

Before another word fell out of her mouth, you grabbed her by her hands, pulled her as close as possible and then you kissed her. You felt her heat, her sweaty hands in your neck, her cold nose, her nervous breathing, the chills she got when she felt your lips on hers. Her body was relaxing with the seconds and she placed her hands on your waist slowly before pulling her had back.

„So you like it?“

You smiled at her as if she’d just asked a question which answer was so, so clear.

„I’ve never seen something comparable beautiful, Cheryl. It’s the most wonderful thing someone’s ever done for me. I think it’s…it’s perfect.“

You felt her arm tightening around your waist, pulling closer, so close that nothing could get inbetween you.

„So, Cheryl, about your present…“

„If it’s the cherry formed wristwatch in white gold from Perry’s I’m freaking. Screaming.“

„How would you…“

„Hell-o. I’m Cheryl Blossom. Do you really think anything in this town gets to happen without my knowing?“

You grabbed her hands and stared at her, parts amused and other parts happy as ever.

„So, did you predict this as well?“, you whispered in her ear, kissing the edge of it, slowly and softly. You felt her breath was going faster and that was your sign.

„Bed time, cherry baby. I’ve got another surprise for you“, you promised as the two of you ran up the stairs and wouldn’t get back down til Easter was over.

And every second of it was worth it.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: LCD Soundsystem Looks in the Mirror, Again

If nothing else, the new LCD Soundsystem album proves that certain lessons can only be learned by studying a humongous record collection. Seven years after their last full-length release, James Murphy still takes scrupulous notes. After a staged hiatus and a period of earned inactivity, the formal facility evident on the new American Dream, out since September, is a pleasure. For this brand of listless dance-rock to sound so good confounds conventional attitudes about rock comebacks and reunion albums. Murphy still confirms every cliché about the constricting effects of self-consciousness on an artist, and that, too, is a comfort; it’s good to know he’s as endearingly awkward as ever.

Subjecting LCD Soundsystem to reasoned analysis feels counterproductive somehow — nobody will ever nail the band as ruthlessly as they did themselves, on their debut single in 2002. On “Losing My Edge,” an eight-minute monster dance track that builds marvelously from dinky unaccompanied drum machine to an explosive synthfunk climax, Murphy impersonates an aging hipster terrified and/or amused and/or infuriated that his taste is going out of style. LCD’s music has a frustrating way of anticipating and responding to criticism. Murphy’s singing and stuttering may indeed sound amateurish, stilted, but that’s the point: he plays the accidental frontman, a music nerd on stage, nervously struggling to enact rituals of stardom he’s observed so many times before. Said music nerd may indeed play dreary spot-the-influence games, designed to flatter rock critics congratulating themselves for discovering even such obvious references as the Kraftwerk hook in “Get Innocuous!” and the Bowie riff in “All I Want,” but that’s the point: LCD’s electronic digifunk template updates the classic college-rock taste profile for modern times, with cannily assembled synthbeats and mechanical functionalist irony. The whole concept of LCD Soundsystem as a band may indeed be limited, emotionally and formally, by obsessive historical positioning and pointlessly intricate self-referentiality, but that’s the point, too: the project’s impossibility works as a comment on the evolution of taste, the passing of time, and all the metalayers implicit in loving music as a fan and an artist. “LCD is a band about a band writing music about writing music,” Murphy said once, and he’s right. Fandom is the band’s subject. He’s always written songs that satirized various familiar hipsterish attitudes and phenomena (“North American Scum,” “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” “You Wanted a Hit”), and even his serious confessional songs are set, implicitly, against the backdrop of the New York indie scene. One might still wonder why these music nerds don’t have better taste, but hey now — that sounds like something a music nerd would say.

Since LCD Soundsystem already had too many influences, too retrospective an ethos, the extra layer of nostalgia intrinsic to a reunion album project spelled disaster, especially so soon after the band’s big, showy, overly conclusive four-hour farewell concert in Madison Square Garden and accompanying documentary. Oddly, American Dream is no more nostalgic than their previous albums. As inventive posthistorical patchwork, all four records purport to stand outside linear time, and if anything, the new one has fewer textual layers. They’ve demodernized their sound: behold a passably punkoid rock album, fiery in places, elsewhere clunky. Their signature electrobeats, so skinny and dinky, are augmented by spookier art-rock keyboards and jerkier noise guitar; Murphy’s been listening to Joy Division, Suicide, and Berlin-era Bowie. Since the bleached abrasion of this approach has sounded tired since the early ‘80s, for the clattery drums and snaky, sinuous buzz guitar on American Dream to electrify so fetchingly honors the band’s gift for arranging elements throughout space, their knack for balancing crisp keyboards against blurry guitar. That half the songs nonetheless sound like perfunctory exercises in postpunk facsimile, however, is hardly a surprise. “Other Voices” rides a murky funk groove, plunging through a whirlwind of deep rubbery bass, high keyboard latticework, and clickity clave, compounded by Murphy’s spoken sneer and a sublimely affectless rapped interlude by keyboardist Nancy Whang. “Oh Baby,”, a felt romantic lament that sounds simultaneously epic and small, sways woozily as the band constructs a net of synthesizer hooks, including one particularly playful glassy lick that punctuates certain lines for emphasis. Elsewhere they thud, gauchely. “How Do You Sleep?,” a vitriolic hatesong against some former friend, plods endlessly over menacing congas and echoey bass; eventually a stronger beat kicks in, but by then Murphy has blown his voice yelling tunelessly about cocaine. The lighter, prettier “Call the Police” attempts to conjure soaring positive energy, with loopy fuzzy guitar passages that recall Robert Fripp soloing on Brian Eno’s Another Green World, but at seven minutes the anthem dissipates.

Murphy’s approach invites a multitude of comparisons, but Eno is particularly relevant. As a producer, Eno’s touch is unmistakable — David Bowie’s Low, Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, and U2’s Zooropa all share with Eno’s solo albums a certain spare, angular quirkiness, reliant on expanses of blank space, immersion in technology, wistfulness mitigated by cheer. It’s this aesthetic that LCD Soundsystem aims to inhabit on American Dream. The constantly strummed rhythm guitar and spiky keyboard octave jumps in “I Used To”; the chickenscratch solos on “Change Yr Mind”; the bleary guitar frizz that pervades the whole record — such amusing facsimile! I associate this sound with abrupt career shifts and attempts at cathartic renewal — Bowie moving from LA to Berlin, purging the drugs from his system, and embracing cold electronic European modernism; U2 selling their guitars and buying turntables. I suspect Murphy has a similar association in mind, for much like Low minus Bowie’s sense of play, the sober, clear-eyed, levelheaded American Dream serves to cleanse. Fusing harmonic ideas they learned from Eno with the band’s own increased sense of scale, it’s LCD’s coldest, harshest album, immersed in postpunk ideals of aural distortion and sharp bursts of sound. Whether inspired by the present political situation, or by the urge to play up their seriousness coming out of retirement, or simply from ennui, they’ve deliberately kept and accentuated their pained, earnest, confessional elements while avoiding satire, spoken declamatory comedy, and automated drum-machine functionalism. The album strains for gravitas. “Call the Police” and “American Dream” are but two of many forlorn ballads about age and cultural decline. Caught in the hissing electric lurch, they sound less detached and less meta; American Dream includes fewer distancing devices, fewer wry admissions of referentiality, than any other LCD Soundsystem album. It very nearly simulates direct expression.

One doesn’t play LCD Soundsystem albums for direct expression, of course, nor for gravitas. One plays LCD Soundsystem albums for their marvelous innovations in creative anachronism. I don’t fault artists for empty formalist constructions — Carly Rae Jepsen and Red Velvet fascinate for similar reasons. American Dream will please those in the market for chewy dance-rock beats and postpunk grooves, likewise those entertained by bricolage. Of such mild delights is a discography made.

American Dream (2017) and This is Happening (2010) are available from Amazon and other online retailers.

The post LCD Soundsystem Looks in the Mirror, Again appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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