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singtheskyandfightlikehell · 3 years

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BatFamily Headcanons: Stuffed Animals

In an attempt to productively combat my recent writer’s block, I’m practicing writing the batfam characters through short character study fics (which I will post once I make enough) and comparative headcanons. I might end up making short fics out of these, as well, since some of them got a bit long anyways

Today I decided to explore how many stuffed animals each member of the batfam (plus an adjacent character or two) has, what they think of them, how they got them, etc. I’ve got eleven characters on this list (and I’m still missing some, sorry)

Bruce:

Bruce put aside stuffed animals when he was eleven, deciding it was time to become serious. However, since acquiring children, he has been gifted a number of stuffed animals, ranging from a small and realistic brown bat to a child-sized bear wearing his cape and cowl. None of the children know this, but he keeps them all in a prominent position in his walk-in closet. Sometimes, when he has a particularly nasty fight with one of his kids, or he discovers something (like an injury) that they were hiding from him, he’ll tell the stuffed animals all the things he struggles to tell his children in the hopes that, one day, he’ll figure out how to express himself when it actually counts.

Alfred:

Alfred has no stuffed animals of his own, but he keeps the old, worn teddy bear that was once Thomas’ and later Bruce’s, alongside the somewhat lopsided bunny that Martha attempted to sew for Bruce when he was two. They sit side by side in a spotless glass cabinet filled with other memories that various members of the family have at one point or another attempted to cast aside.

Dick:

Dick has a pair of stuffed elephants, Eleonore and Zitka, and a teddy bear of his own, all from the circus. Most of the time they sit on the shelf under one of his nightstands, but when he has a particularly bad day, he’ll hold them all tightly until he falls asleep. If he’s crying, he finds it slows the tears to press kisses to the tops of their heads, or just smoosh his whole face into them. Sometimes, if he’s having a particularly good day – especially if no one else is sharing in his good mood – he’ll tell them about whatever made him happy. The rarest occasions are a bittersweet combination of both, the moments when he dwells on his happiest memories of his parents. When this happens, he is more likely to address them than his family, talking to them like old friends who were “there” for the things he’s recalling. It reminds him of the parties he would host as a small child, attended by his stuffed animals and his parents and sometimes other people from the giant family that was Haly’s, and for just that moment he’ll feel suspended somewhere between grief and content.

Barbara:

Barbara had lots of stuffed animals growing up, but as she got older, she gave most of them away. The only one she kept was a little otter that her father gave her for her first birthday. She doesn’t remember this, of course, but they have an old home video of that day which she’s seen a few times, and she know it’s one of her dad’s favorites to watch when he’s feeling nostalgic. She does remember the way she used to drag the otter with her everywhere she went when she was about four, and it’s so worn now that all of its original fluffiness has disappeared. She sets it up near her main computer and uses it in place of a rubber duck.

Jim:

When Babs decided she was too old for her stuffed animals, Jim was instructed to give them away at one of the Gotham children’s toy drives he helps run as commissioner. Only about half of them ever make it out of the house, because he keeps looking at them and remembering little moments that involve each of them. He has two boxes full of them that he swears he’s going to bring to the next drive, but he’s been swearing that for over ten years now.

Jason:

When Jason first arrived at the manor, he swore up and down that stuffed animals were dumb kids toys that he was way too old for. The first time Dick showed up at the manor after Jason was there, he brought a plush dog he’d picked up on the way there, unsure what to get his surprise new brother but not putting an excess of thought into it either. After all, he wasn’t about to ask Bruce what Jason might like. Jason made a show of scorn and tossing the toy in the trash, but when Dick was gone he dug it back out. When he was sleeping, he clutched the dog protectively against his chest like it might be snatched away at any time. When he wasn’t sleeping, he kept it hidden in a box wedged under a floorboard beneath the bed, alongside his other contraband. It was there when he died and it’s still there now. Every time he’s in the manor, he thinks about sneaking into his old room to retrieve it, alongside some of his other old belongings, but he never does. His reasoning alternates between not caring, being too old for toys, not wanting to set foot in his old room, and not wanting to get caught caring after all these years.

He does however have an obnoxiously long bright red snake that Roy won at some sort of archery carnival game while they were supposed to be tracking a suspect. He’d griped at Roy for wasting time with frivolous games, a complaint that was very on brand for their relationship. He’s pretty sure Roy saw through him, though, and understood the real reason he was so antsy to leave the carnival, given his soft apology later that night. He also recently acquired a floppy stingray, a gift from Lian for his latest birthday. She told him that she’d gotten to pet a stingray at the aquarium where she’d bought it, and it reminded her of him. Specifically, she’d said he was, “Kinda dangerous and maybe a little scary, but actually really soft to anyone who’s nice enough”. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that description, but the gift had a place of pride, resting atop an old model of his helmet that Roy had “defaced” with a sweet message that always made Jason smile.

Cass:

Cass grew up without stuffed animals, and was honestly a little confused at first about why she might want one. The first one she ever got was a tiny key-chain cat that was given to her by a little girl she saved. She was unsure what to make of the object itself, but she treasured it as a symbol, proof that she was doing good in the world. It was Steph who convinced her to look for more, to look for stuffed animals in her “style”. Eventually, she got two of the most different ones she could find: an iridescent octopus packed tightly with beans and made of a coarse fabric, and a large fluffy goose that squished like a cloud and was made of the softest fabric imaginable. She likes tossing the octopus lightly in the air to feel the weight of it, and faceplanting into the giant goose. She also has a big bear holding a plush heart that Steph got her for their first Valentine’s.

Tim:

Tim’s relationship with stuffed animals is a bit more complicated. He had five growing up: a dog, a bear, a lion, a rabbit, and a lamb. They had names, stories, personalities, and they were his friends (his only friends, at the time). When he was seven, he woke up one day to find them gone. His mother scolded him for his tears, explaining that he was too old for baby toys, and that his attachment to them would only hinder his path forward. For years, he felt ashamed whenever he thought of his grief towards them, because he knew they were just toys, he knew he was being a baby about it, and yet…

It wasn’t until he was fifteen years old and stumbled across an article about autistic people and the projection of feelings onto objects that he understood why he had been willing to sneak out at night to search through pawn store after pawn store and – once – the landfill in the hopes of seeing his beloved toys again. As a teen in the Wayne household, he knew he could get as many stuffed animals as he liked, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so after what had happened before. He got one giant, floppy moose, barely half a foot shorter than himself, that he clings to like an octopus when he manages to lay down, whether he succeeds in falling asleep or not. Additionally, on a night after Jason made amends with the family, Tim returned to his room to find a fifteen inch plush latte with a cute little face on the mug portion and a sticky note on top that simply read: Sorry for trying to kill you a bunch. My bad :) He keeps it on top of his dresser, and while he doesn’t really hug it, he did discover it was the perfect object for chucking at his siblings’ heads whenever the situation calls for it.

Steph:

Steph loves stuffed animals. While she never got any of the fancy brand name ones, or the luxuriously soft ones, or the hyper-realistic ones, her mom had a tradition of buying her one for every birthday, Christmas, and Easter. She soon had quite a collection, and – like Tim – she gave them all names and personalities. She played out complex scenarios with them and the few dolls she had, designing an intricate world of wild concepts and plots. She also used her stuffed animals to conquer her fears, like thunderstorms and darkness, by pretending they were all more scared than she was, so she had to be brave for all of them. Steph still has her whole collection, as well as quite a few “nicer” (though equally loved) ones that she has acquired from various Waynes. At this point, pretty much everyone in the Wayne family has given her a stuffed animal at some time or other. For a couple of years now, she has taken to posing with her massive collection and making fake family Christmas cards to send out to everyone she knows, where she will update them on the well-being of any plushie they’ve given her.

Duke:

Duke also has a great love of stuffed animals, although he doesn’t match Steph for quantity. He only had a few beloved animals growing up, all of which he’s held onto (a panda, a penguin, a turtle, a frog, a leopard, and a pikachu). Since being fostered by Bruce, Duke has taken to searching out and buying only the rarest stuffed animals he can find: an anteater, a platypus, a manatee, a sloth, and an axolotl have made the cut so far. Bruce knows about this and has taken to keeping an eye out for anything interesting whenever he’s out. After accidentally mentioning it at a gala one time, it has since become his favorite topic, as getting drawn into an intense discussion with Bruce Wayne about where to acquire strange plushies for his son elicits one of two reactions from his guests: delighted awws or hilariously awkward attempts to steer the conversation back to high society definitions of business and pleasure. At Duke’s request, a large shelf was built around the top of his room, so that all of his stuffed animals can sit comfortably and be clearly seen.

Damian:

Damian was much like Jason when he arrived at the manor in more ways than one, but his determination to prove himself above stuffed animals was certainly on that list. He sneered at his siblings’ attempts to treat him like the child he swore he wasn’t. And honestly, even after he began to lower his walls just a little, he still wasn’t particularly fond of stuffed animals. Sure, he privately thought they were cute, and sure he might (might) find himself holding one at night if it happened to have been left in his bed by an annoying sibling, but in general he preferred live animals to fake ones. Real animals had personalities and feelings, fake ones did not, it was as simple as that, no matter what Stephanie claimed. But as time went on, Damian found himself acquiring a small army of stuffed animals against his will. Some of his siblings (Jason, Tim, sometimes Duke) gave them to him because they found it funny to watch him growl about how he was not an infant in need of deceitful comforts. Some of his siblings (Dick, Cass, sometimes Duke… sometimes his father as well) would give them to him because they knew he liked animals so they assumed he’d like imitations of animals as well. Steph would just give them to everybody, every now and then. But regardless of motive, Damian soon found his room overflowing with stuffed animals that were moderately cute but ultimately pointless.

It wasn’t until a patrol a few years after he’d taken on the mantle of Robin that he discovered a solution. Tim had hidden a tiny stuffed bear in the medical supply compartment of his utility belt, a felt bandage wrapped around its little head. He hadn’t been wounded, but the young girl he’d rescued had been bleeding from a wound that looked worryingly dirty. The bear had fallen out of the pouch, right into her lap, and she’d stared at it with wide eyes, surprise halting the flow of her tears. She’d held onto it the whole time he disinfected her arm and bandaged it, and afterwards he had insisted she keep it. For the first time that night, she’d smiled. After that, Damian began taking a few of his many stuffed animals out on patrol with him, ready to hand out to any and all injured, lost, or otherwise traumatized children once he’d rescued them from their troubles. Eventually he began running out of toys he’d been gifted, even though he kept getting new ones, so at some point he begins to regularly sneak out for the sole purpose of acquiring stuffed animals to hand out. He never tells his siblings, but he suspects they’ve found out anyway, when the presents they give him drastically decrease in size.

#batfamily #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #duke thomas #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #barbara gordon #jim gordon #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #jayroy #stephcass #my headcanons #i stole elements of the hc for dick tim steph and duke from my own personality lmao #also the only portion of this that draws on canon (to my knowledge) is the stuff about dick #i've seen stuff about him having a stuffed elephant with both of those names so i decided to just give him two #can't go wrong with extra elephants #but yeah i hope there's nothing that like blatantly contradicts any of this stuff #i'm trying to speed read a bunch of comics rn but i keep reading like 50s-80s era primarily #so there's a number of characters i haven't really gotten to yet #also i've discovered i find green arrow comics more entertaining so lowkey i keep reading those instead oops #i have a very convoluted list of what i need to read to hit the major plot points of batfam and arrowfam #but i also lowkey feel like major plot point comics are gonna tell me less about characterization #filler episodes are where its at #but there's no reading order lists that give me 'best filler issues' sorted by character

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something-very-special · 3 years

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Call Her Back

Probably already a post with this title from the Let’s Play but it’s appropriate.

Thoughts on Replicant up to Ending A (and change):

This game is pretty. I guess it didn’t really hit me because I’ve always thought that the original NIER was pretty, but this game can be very pretty.

This in particular just kind of struck me as I was going across the Northern Plains. It had been dominantly gray, overcast skies up to that point because Part II of the game is meant to be. You know. Bleak. But I walked out onto a bright, sunny day with an expanse of blues skies, the mountains in the backgrounds, the ivy a burst of green growing up the rusted sides of the train tracks and it just kind of hit me that the game can be very pretty.

(Then I got punched out by a Shade.)

It’s definitely not a matter of massive graphical overhaul. The models look much better (getting a good look at the Twins during the finale, they really are beautiful) and I’m sure the environmental poly count is much higher and just overall smoother, and there are little touches here and there and just the capacity for better atmospheric lighting... I mean it all helps. But NIER is a game that’s always had fantastic art direction, making the most out of its budget through atmospheric tuning. There’s something uniquely beautiful about its muted palette and the way it uses its spaces that elevates it beyond the its actual technical limitations. It doesn’t look like an end-of-generation PS4 game, but that’s not an insult; it looks very much like itself from ten years ago, with its solid art direction, but touched up where it matters.

Does the sidequest grind seem... better...? I haven’t really dug into the BEST part of the game (spending 30 hours grinding out weapon upgrades) but I mentioned before my theory about how the sidequest grind is supposed to be carried out across multiple playthroughs and that’s why it sucks. To my surprise I finished Ending A missing only one sidequest (your friend and mine, Life in the Sands), with all of the other ones being more or less... pretty natural? The only thing I really needed to go out of my way for was Memory Alloy but all the other components didn’t really give me the kind of grief I remember from my playthroughs of the original. ‘Grief’ of course being relative to getting the platinum trophy, but my first time through the game I gave up finishing a few outstanding sidequests (specifically, fixing the lighthouse broke me-- I could not find 10 Mysterious Switches!)

Maybe I just got lucky, especially with the Machine Oils. Maybe some weird muscle memory kicked in. I feel like there were a few purchasing options that weren’t open originally, too, to ameliorate some of the grind, but it might also be a case of those options being cost-prohibitive so I just didn’t really acknowledge them... whatever the case the sidequest grind felt overall pretty painless. I dunno!

I really need to know how to manipulate events. For literally seven playthroughs straight of the latter half of the game I always did the keystone quest as Junk Heap (start) - Forest of Myth - Junk Heap (end) - Facade - Aerie. It wasn’t until I did a run with my college roommates and Popola gave me the Aerie letter before the Facade in invite that I realized the Aerie wasn’t actually programmed to be the last event.

Absolutely blew my mind, and ever since I became aware of it, it feels like the game goes out of its way to make sure the Aerie always comes before Facade. When I did my Let’s Play of NIER I kept a save file from the start of the kystone collection so I could re-do the events in case they went ‘out of order’ (according to my headcanon)... which they did. I replayed the latter half of the game again in order to get things the way I wanted them to be, same order, and fortunately it cooperated the second time, but I still don’t understand what the trigger is, if there’s a way to manipulate it, or when the determination is even made.

And then they throw the Little Mermaid into the mix, which I wasn’t expecting (that is, I knew it was added, but I’ve been mostly avoiding spoilers -- and happily, the changes have largely been a delight, I’m so excited for the subsequent playthroughs -- but the way it was posted about made it seem like it would happen after and apart from the keystone quest. Not so, my friends).

The reason for this is just the emotional escalation of each factor of the quest. The Forest of Myth is weird and little else (at this juncture, of course). The Junk Heap is a personal tragedy, but the actual tragedy has already occurred and you’re just experiencing the fallout. Facade is a powerful and personal tragedy that deserves to be experienced later on. The Aerie is a terrible place and nobody misses it it’s an enormous loss and profoundly traumatic for the party, and it feels like the appropriate apex to basically force them to go to the Castle and finish the fight, having already lost far too much.

Also it’s just super weird to me that they see that devastation, they literally wipe an entire settlement off the map, and then the next day everybody’s super excited to go to a wedding.

It also becomes even weirder that you go to Popola post-Aerie and nobody mentions ‘yeah that didn’t go so well’ but coming out of Seafront they have a legitimate conversation about the loss of the ferryman and the people they’re never getting back. I guess that guy had a personality but I still think maybe somebody should mention the smoking crater where people used to be.

Then again it’s legitimately funny to me how basically everybody is just agreed the world is better off without it.

This might also just be an issue of familiarity. Maybe if I’d always ended on Facade, or actually known that they could be swapped out as they are, it wouldn’t feel so weird. I definitely got used to the pacing with the Aerie at the end and I feel like I got into a debate with somebody about how it’s more appropriate for Facade to come last so this might just be a personal thing. But it’s still a personal thing and I’m still vaguely irritated I can’t figure out how it works.

Anyway I blew up the Aerie So that’s that problem taken care of.

I feel like the ambiance surrounding Wendy was a little creepier this time. I swear I heard that good stock creepy child laughter in the background.

Then the ferryman left This was a nice bit of foreshadowing; following the Aerie events I wanted to hop over to Seafront to take care of an extant sidequest only to find the ferry dock in the Northern Plains empty. I thought that maybe this was just a weird way of railroading you to make sure you went through the Village first, even though there were no scenes that would trigger just by being in the Village.

Alas.

Not gonna lie, when the couple was first introduced I thought for SURE it was going to be the wife who wound up dead. I guess it’s because the guy had a purpose as an NPC so yeah, I was tricked. Good design decision; the ferryman is talkative and bright and definitely difficult to forget and even though he was kinda obnoxious there’s a definite void where his dialogue was. It’s clever too that you’re forced to use the ferry at least once so you can’t escape the dialogue that you’re presented with, meaning that even if you don’t really make use of the ferry you’ll always have that contrast between him at the start of Part II and the other guy (his brother, maybe?) taking over the job and just not really talking to you afterward.

Episode Mermaid First of all, to be clear, I’ve not done the Route B playthrough yet. All I know about the Little Mermaid is what’s presented on the surface, what can be gleaned from there, what I remember reading in the Grimoire NieR short story. This is very much just an impression and reaction to the first encounter and it’s pretty cool.

I like that they managed to go into yet another genre style aping a point-and-click adventure.

I like the atmosphere of the wrecked ship. It really brought me back to the ‘ghost ship’ level archetype with its little hints of spookiness.

I appreciate that it ties subtly in to the Haunted Manor (technically the Part I Seafront dungeon) with Weiss’ utterly irrational fear of ghosts.

I love every excuse they find to get Kaine and Emil (and especially Kaine) out of a situation. It’s almost a running gag that Kaine keeps getting knocked out of dungeons and boss fights. None of them are quite as great as her getting Rules Lawyer’d in the Barren Temple, but there’s something delightful about “Let’s get you some fresh air, we’ll be right outside, be careful!” and then bookending it with Kaine and Emil just chilling at the end like “Well yeah there are a lot of holes in the hull we just popped in.”

(I forgot to go backward to see what happens if you try to take them into Seafront proper, gotta remember that next time.)

Interesting thing when you find some of the dropped apples is that Nier and Weiss talk about the dinner they had with the couple. This was actually a really sweet and oddly emotional conclusion to the added sidequest between the bickering couple-- entirely missable. I would assume the dialogue just doesn’t trigger if you didn’t do the quest but it was a nice touch.

I appreciate the use of dead bodies in the hold.

(That’s a sentence.)

But for the game’s focus on violence and excess of blood it’s very selective in how it uses actual corpses. Any time you see a dead body it really emphasizes the seriousness of the situation. The corpses in the hold and the blood spatter -- especially compared to how bright and clean Seafront as a whole is -- was surprisingly effective. Again, just good atmospheric buildup.

Bit of an anticlimax as a boss, though. It is a really cool boss, between the environmental buildup to the fight and then actually unveiling her, but for how big and scary she is the fight itself went by fairly quick, and the actual finale (the postman whacking her hand telling her to go away she’s groooooss) felt a bit weird in comparison to the way the boss fights in the rest of the game usually play out. Of course, I don’t have context of her dialogue (I can take my guesses, her holding out her hand to Hans as he freaks out and attacks her is already a palpable tragedy) and by the way the scene was framed I suspect the Route B reveal is where the most important part of the scenario lies.

And the seals came back! It’s the little things.

“I wish I was Fyra.” So in the original Replicant the conversation between Emil and Nier before Sech’s wedding was apparently an implication that Emil had a crush on Nier and wanted to marry him. It was ambiguous enough that people had to ask for clarification and some players interpreted it as a weird, childish expression of looking up to and respecting Brother Nier. It was clarified in the Grimoire NieR that Emil is gay and crushing hard on Brother Nier, and this line of dialogue here seems to have been... not made explicit, but changed even between RepliCant and ver. 1.22 to make the implication a little clearer, at least insofar as he isn’t interested in girls. (It winds up missing the implication that he’s into Nier specifically, though.)

...which is funny, because it colors his introduction to the King of Facade somewhat differently. These two meeting is honestly really sweet on a few levels (Sechs recognizing him from Nier’s descriptions, which implies that Nier’s been visiting Sechs regularly and so proud of his interactions with Emil he told the king of another nation all about him, and the King is legit excited to meet him) but then a couple of minutes later Emil is all ‘I’m so jealous of Fyra’. He isn’t crushing on Nier, but he is totally crushing on Sechs.

Endgame At this point in the game the distinction between Brother and Father has become mostly lost and the final charge is pretty much the same as

wait what’s up with the music in the Lost Shrine? This is Snow in Summer.

Or an arrangement thereof. That particular track level from Snow in Summer winds up getting used in a few new places and it has this kind of weird, vague sense of dread that makes it work pretty well. Utterly threw me off in the Lost Shrine, though (I think it’s appropriate given its connection to the Shadowlord/Gestalt Nier so slowly re-introducing it in the climb is pretty cool). It also builds insanely as you climb, which is a very cool effect but, um, I’m just here to pick up some sidequest items right now this feels like a little much.

There isn’t much to say regarding any impact or differences in the large part of this area of the game. It’s a good final dungeon, it carries good momentum, it works as well as it ever did (that is to say, rather well). The emotional beats are great and translate equally well between the protagonists, although I have to give the nod to Papa Nier during a lot of this just for the imagery of such a big, powerful man becoming so broken the further he goes in (and Kaine being strong enough to toss him around like a rag doll anyway).

The final flashback with Nier and Yonah also feels better with Papa Nier. I always read it as, of course, Papa Nier having his moment with Yonah, giving her the flower, and as he lays back down Yonah does the same big sigh like she’s trying to emulate her dad and it’s really sweet. This is another one of those moments where it’s not something that feels wrong in Replicant, but just having that comparison in the back of my head is something that I just can’t help.

Is Papa Nier still Best Neir? Yes.

But there’s room in my heart for Brother. I’m glad the bizarre marketing decision happened and both of these characters can exist.

...and then we reload the save. Okay, okay, so-- so here’s the thing-- I figured that’s a good place to conclude a session, right? Get to the ending, prepare for the next run. But I also know that Route B starts with Kaine’s unskippable novel segments. I’ve read them, of course, so I figure I’ll just reload into Route B so I can make a save after the novel sections, really get into the meat of Route B when I’m fresh.

So skim through those--

Beat up the Knave--

Skim through the rest--

Educated Warrior... didn’t pop...?--

Wait what’s this camera angle--

Why am I outs--

oh my god

KAINE AND EMIL HAVING GIGGLY GIRL TALK AROUND THE CAMPFIRE OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING

THERE’S MORE.

THERE’S. MORE.

I legit short-circuited. Going in I knew they added the Little Mermaid. I knew they added Ending E. Those were things I suspected would be added and went out to specifically confirm; beyond that I’ve been keeping myself completely spoiler free.

I had no idea there was more. I had no idea this was happening.

I’m so excited.

And a goofy thought for the road

“I polished you with a special cloth, I poured warm water on you--”

“Wait, you poured water on me?”

/imagines Emil running blindfolded eight hours across the Southern Plains with an 8oz plastic water cup, getting to the library, splashing it on Kaine, waiting expectantly

/nothing happens

/walks dejectedly eight hours all the way back to the Manor

#NieR #NieR Replicant #Musings #Ramblings #OH MY GOD WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME ABOUT THIS #I AM SO GLAD NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THIS

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iwach4n · 4 years

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i said I'd do it and now it is simp time because punk yamaguchi is the only thing on my mind rn. general hcs for now but perhaps i will do a boyfie hcs for him as well

also yes this is sorta badly written and obnoxiously long its mainly just me rambling all my ideas

punk third year hcs

his confidence has grown drastically since the beginning of first year, especially when it comes to volleyball. but the end of second year and the holidays before third year starts are when he really starts to come out of his shell and experiment with his style

his hair comes first. he doesn't have time to get a haircut for a while, and so he ends up tying it back as a temporary thing. except its no longer temporary because he really likes it

he only does it for volleyball and when he's studying at first, just to get his hair out of his face. sometimes when he goes out on errands.

but he leaves it up after morning practice once, and suddenly he's getting Looks. he would have missed all the blushing stares of the girls (and probably a few guys) if tsukishima hadn't pointed it out to him

his face has become a bit more defined and masculine recently coz puberty, and although he still has pretty soft features, tying his hair up shows off a sharp jawline

he's a bit awkward about all the attention he's getting at first! like he really doesn't know what to do with it. but he slowly manages to take it in his stride (tho he'll still get blushy if anyone outright compliments him on it)

buying a leather jacket on impulse is really the turning point for him. he loves the more confident vibe it gives him, which in turn makes him even more confident

he buys more clothes like that to match it, and by the time third year starts he's decked out with a whole new wardrobe

when the new first years start on the first saturday practice, they're already a little nervous because karasuno has a pretty intimidating rep.

but when they see this guy with long hair, a leather jacket, big boots and ripped jeans unlocking the club room? shaking

that is, until he notices them and starts talking

he literally just smiles and they know they're fine. just immediate 'cool older brother' vibes

he's absolutely great as a captain, he helps out all the new kids and keeps tsukishima and kageyama from being too mean or intimidating

one day, yachi asks if she can paint his nails. he agrees and loves it and now he constantly has his nails painted. they're black more often than not but sometimes he switches it up with random colours. because of the volleyball they're always chipped but it just adds to the whole vibe

tanaka invites noya and all the third years (like the year below them you know what i mean) over to his house to catch up. when yamaguchi shows up he does a visible double take, but before you know it he's giving him an undercut and noya's dying his hair black

he's now a lot more scary at games. not only is his style more evident even without the clothes, he's also spent years watching his teammates intimidate their opponents and he's picked up a thing or two

while hinata, tsukishima and a handful of the younger ones are actively insulting the other teams, yamaguchi can't really make himself do that and knows that as captain he should reign them in

"leave them alone guys, we don't have time for this"

but his confident stare and tiny smirk sends shivers down their spines too

the minute they get round the corner, everyone's clapping him on the back and cheering about how he 'totally made them piss their pants', while he just laughs awkwardly

the first time he does something like that, he genuinely feels bad about it and almost apologises. but sooner or later he just finds it kind of funny

at some point, tsukishima finds some rings that akiteru used to wear (akiteru had a low-key eboy phase in my mind but thats another story) and gives them to yamaguchi. its like a gateway drug to jewelry for him honestly

rings? yes. chains? you bet. bracelets? fuck yeah.

soon enough, he's got a couple of piercings too. he starts off with a few in his ears, but then he gets a lip ring and eyebrow piercing too and he looks sO GOOD

he's pretty much got fangirls at this point. and one thing they love is how he looks really punk and hot but whenever they talk to him he's super sweet and awkward

he forgets to take his lip ring out before a game once and they l o s e t h e i r m i n d s

audible groans from the stadium when ukai reminds him at a time out

(honestly me too i can't stop thinking about how hot he'd look with a lip ring)

(i've been trying so hard to keep it together and not just yell about him this whole time but it's so hard. i'm breaking down man. i've got a crush on punk yams send help)

ukai is also his go-to for advice on piercings, and the man lives for it. he's watched this kid grow from a nervous smol babie to a confident punk child and he's more than happy to take him under his wing and share what he knows

if there's one group of people he knows he'll never be nice to if he ever saw them again it's his old bullies. he’s moved past them but looking back he gets kinda mad

well, one day he’s walking out of saturday practice with tsukishima and sees an awfully familiar group of guys walking down the road, talking about the school, and about “doesn’t that really weak freckly kid from elementary go here?”

well, speak of the devil

remember how they were intimidated by tsukki before? oh how the turntables.

i wouldn’t say tsukishima has a ‘soft boy’ style, but he opts for slightly preppy clothes like button up shirts, knitted sweaters, that kind of thing. and he usually wears lighter colours (beige, light blue, a muted yellow, ygm)

meanwhile, yamaguchi is here with all his black clothes and piercings and newfound confidence, and the way he’s looking at them is honestly a bit terrifying

“t-tadashi?” “who the fuck let you call me that?”

tsukishima is genuinely impressed. probably the first time he’s heard him swear not out of frustration

its a bit of a staring contest until one of the new first years runs up and calls him captain and asks him if they’re getting meatbuns (he totally carries on daichi’s tradition of treating the team to them prove me wrong). he’s back into nice senpai mode when he says he’s buying, but the bullies now know he’s also the captain and it just increases the air of authority he’s got right now

they keep staring each other for another minute or so, and tsukki’s getting concerned because god knows what this kid’s gonna do

but he suddenly just starts walking past them, no fucks given

“come on tsukki. these assholes aren’t worth our time.”

those bullies are left having an existential crisis in the street because that was mildly terrifying and also the last years treated him well damn (puberty hit him like a freakin BUS)

I WAS GONNA END IT THERE BUT I NEED TO TALK ABOUT TATTOOS

while he’s still in high school, he can’t get any tattoos done professionally, but he definitely messes around giving himself stick-and-pokes

they’re all quite small and simple - little stars and smiley faces on his ankles and arms

would probably let the team try their hand at it on him. as a result he has some deformed splodges, something that is just barely recognisable as a volleyball and a couple freckles on his legs joined up like a dot-to-dot (he asked yachi to do a crow on his bicep because she’s the best at drawing but she was too nervous about messing it up)

he’ll also try giving the team some if they want to (though not first years coz to him they’re literal babies). hinata tried to get the third years to have matching ones but tsukishima didn’t want to be associated with them like that and yachi was a bit scared to so they didn’t end up doing it

when he’s old enough, he gets a few proper tattoos, but they’re all quite small and simple. he probably seriously considered getting a big design on his neck (kind of like this) but he ultimately decided against it

in conclusion yamaguchi is punk in third year and my heart is going absolutely crazy over him

(jesus christ this turned out long)

#haikyuu #hq yamaguchi #yamaguchi tadashi #haikyuu yamaguchi #yamaguchi #hq tadashi #haikyuu tadashi #haikyuu yamaguchi tadashi #hq yamaguchi tadashi #haikyuu headcanons #punk!yamaguchi #punk yamaguchi #yamaguchi headcanons #karasuno #anime #manga

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Close Enough: So Long Boys And Clap Like This

ON this hour’s episodes: Josh decides to have a vasectomy after a pregnancy scare and soons end up dealing with second thoughts and bostonian robots while Alex regrets getting his after meeting what are maybe his children. Then Josh finally sells a game but it falls through and takes up extra jobs to avoid telling his family while Bridgette is forced to get a real job on her birthday and Alex enjoys inudstrial humis. Clap Like This under the cut.

So Long Boys

Aka the greatest vacesctomy based comedy episode since Brooklyn Nine Nine’s “Choclate Milk”. If you don’t know the show or don’t remember that episode if you are a fellow 99er it’s the one where Jake thinks his superior officer and friend Terry getting a vasectomy means chopping his penis off. I mean it starts off just assuming he’s making a joke but it becomes blurry if he’s just making quips or genuinely thinks that’s how it works. It’s also easy to compare these two because they both, while vastly diffrent and great episodes in their own rights: have a simlilar beat to the plot: a character trying to get a vasectomy for responsible reasons but being unsure they don’t wnat more kids. It’s just Brooklyn Nine Nine is more also about Jake being hurt Terry dosen’t think of him as a friend, a position he reverses while Close Enough has indentured pop and lock teenagers, a dark ride dedicated to scaring people out of kids and bostionan robots that sound like JFK from Clone HIgh. How does any of this fit together, let’s take a look.

So we open with Josh and Emily having a huge pregnancy scare, which was caused by the birthday sex from the pitch trailer aka Josh trying to pass it off as “we’re just doing our taxes sweetie!”. In other words the main bit I wanted to see transfered to the show proper. And while there’s a few joke this scene is mostly played for drama.. it’s not out of tone with the rest of the show. What really has made this show work for me is it combines regular show antics, but with the added maturity of having an older cast dealing with growing up. A bunch of 30 somethings to start instead of a bunch of 20 somethings so instead of dealing with stuff like video game competitionts, guys nights, and dating woes, it’s more dealing with juggling family and friends, having a job you hate and trying to ballance your career with your passion. And here is no diffrent: Josh and Emily HAVE no money, live in a cramped apartment with their best friends and a newly divorced couple which as we’ve seen isn’t always easy, and work jobs htey utterly hate and would have to double down on, snuffing out their real dreams, in order to support this kid. Josh outright says he’ll get a second job and give up his video game development which wihle it’d probably be miserable for him would be a sad neciscity. I myself do this blog on the side while trying desperatley to get an actual paying job, it sucks and their situation is compounded by having a kid on top of it who needs their support and attention. It’s stressful enough without adding a second child. Thankfully it’s a false alarm. However Josh, in a show of responsibility decided to do something about it and get a vasectomy. Still being josh though, his getting one also involves a massive and hilarious vasectomy party, where a bunch of people we never met, and alex and bridgette obviously play party games involving pinning sisssors on testies and theires even a breakdancing sperm. Emily and Pearle’s reactions are gold to this: Emily, before the opening, tells Josh he’s not allowed to plan parties anymore, understandable while Pearle genuinely didn’t belivie they were dumb enough to have a vasectomy party and gives out an understandable “Damn you white people” when she’s proven wrong. Alex also gets set up for his subplot in the episode mentioning he got his a year ago, which given his and Bridgette’s relationship was probably falling apart around then was a good call. I do however like this: Something big happend and Josh is taking responsibility for it, while still being josh about it, but it shows how unlike a lot of idiot heroes in adult cartoons,he’s still a genuinely nice guy who tries to do what’s right, and has more than one brain cell. he has two thank you. So Alex drives josh to get a vasectomy, while Randy presumibly watches Candace as we only see her at the start (Peale was watching her during hte party to help keep her in the dark for now) and finish of the episode. Meanwhile Emily, Bridgette and Pearle have a small B plot having brunch mamosas and boxing up candace’s baby stuff. We also find out for 100% sure our heroines nationatlities: Bridgette is japanese while Emily is Mexican. Mostly because Bridgette always saw Emily with a bigger family and only half for racist reasons that get her handcuffed to a pipe by a drunken Pearle. This show really needs more of Pearle asa every time she shows up she’s a fucking delight and if the show hopefully returns for season 2 I could easily see her getting more screentime. Emily ends up in tears and realizing she may want more kids, which is.. resonable. Their only 32. While it’s resonable to want or have any amount of kids, except like 20 like that one tlc show... I never watched it but when the only two things you hear about a show you don’t watch is the weird, archacic dating setup they have that feels like it produces a good marriage as much as Charlie Sheen did, and that the mother won’t stop having kids despite it nearly killing her multiple times and having you know 20, you kinda don’t want to watch it. Anyway it’s resonable to want a family of any size you want, Emily realises she’s not sure she wants to stop at 1 just yet. Meanwhile in the A-Plot Josh has come to the same conclusion after finding out that not only is this version of a vasectomy he’s getting permentant, mostly due to ball scorching done by robots, but after a hilarious but deeplly insulting carnival ride in the clinic that’s supposed to Scare josh out of having kids and features two teenagers fighting and pop and locking, a goblin and a wall just saying why why why why, impilng kids ruin your sleep, your romantic lives and are terrible. Josh however understandably takes offense to this, and seeing a brother and sister.. only make him not want to deprive candace of possibly having a sister oneday. Again while he and Emily are in no way in position for a second kid now.. they have time and Josh could easily sell a game at some point: he almost does in the next episode. ONe of Emily and Bridgette’s songs could go viral. Or Josh could end up finding a much better day job or Emily could get a promtion at hers. While not wanting to have a second child while they can’t support one is the right move, Josh realizes not wanting ot have one at all, at least in their spectfic case, was an overreaction to a scary situation. Josh decides to think more, despite the doctor offring up some pubic scaping for extra, and he and Alex end up finding the Teens from the ride.. who are in fact real kids who look an AWFUL lot and act an awfl lot like alex and are basically indentured to the doctor,who treats them like crap and has them undder contract to pop and lock for him and look at his new pubic hair designs (”Those nights are the hardest”). Josh decides not to go through with it but the bostioan robots who do the procedure refuse to let that happen and leave Josh, Alex and the Twins on the run, while Alex himself reconsiders parenthood as he’s now proud of what he thinks are his kids. As the four are cornered it turns out the doctor is also a prisoner.. but an unsympathetic one since he can A) go home and B) is willingly collaberating with obnoxious robots to do a dangerous verison of a serious procedure to save his own ass and is karmically atomized. When Alex brings up his thinking the kids are his, they sadly explain he isn’t: Their dad’s a republican senator (Tot hteir shame the girl, who I almost forgot to mention is voiced by the wonder Kate MIccui, in her second role in a JG Quintel show. HOpefully if there’s a season 2 or the show stars having arcs they can find a full role for her on the show. ) and Alex finds his sperm he donated ended up in a dumpster.. but is determined to protect the kids anyway. Thankfully our heroes are able to escape with Emily, who sneaks ina fter the robots locked down the faicility’s help, with Josh bummed because he was proud for being responsible as the two discuss still wanting to have kids, with Emily pointing out .. this is STILL responsible. Not going through with something you have doubts about and having an honest talk with your partner is the responsbe thing> The five of them escape, and while Alex knows he’s not the teens father, offers to be there for them if they ever need it. Wrapping things up at a skating rink, The Ramierz’ skate and Josh and Emily plan to do their taxes again later, though likely with a rubber this time, and Alex got his vasectomy reverse and is really weird about it to Bridgette’s annoyance. Also 20,000 years into the future subhuman cavemen versions of hismelf are the dominatne lifeform Neat. Overall this ep was really good, having great character stuff for Josh Emily and Alex, while still having some good bits for the rest of the main cast minus randy who I feel the show honestly forgets exists half the time, with drunk Pearle being a delight. But it’s the emotional core for both sides: Josh and Emily hastily deciding to not have more kids before wondering if they want to keep the option open while Alex realisses he might want to be a dad himself and his bond with waht he thinks are his kids and protectivness of them is really sweet. It’s also not lacking in great jokes; The entire rollercoaster of “DON’T HAVE KIDS” is just black comedy gold from start to finsih including the green goblin for some reaosn, the boston robots and vasectomy doctor are great vilians and overall the episode is just really good and really mature for an episode that also makes plenty of testicle scaping jokes. You can do both.

Clap Like This

And continuing the trend from the last few episodes, we have the weaker one (though Golden Gamer was still pretty damn good), second this time around, though like Golden Gamer it’s still decent. The plot is a bit simplier and starts with Josh FINALLY selling a game to two idiot tech billionares, Clap LIke This, a game about clapping along that actually seems really damn fun and I wish were real like Ladder World. While Emily enjoys being able to spend money and her husband finally living his dream or so she thinks, Bridgette, who we find out has been on an allowance from her parents, is cut off on her birthday and has to get a job at a forever 23, one of the few times this show has used an offbrand and not nearlya s awesome a name as “Plugger Inners” it feels lazier if only because again, Plugger Inners exists. But as was revealed earlier, the two guys who bought it went broke and the deal feell through but josh, feeling terrrible about them not being able to afford the finer things anymore, hides it from his family and takes as many shifts as possible at plugger inners. He also runs into David Hasslehoff doing his best mitch von malibu as he just.. throws more money at josh to do what his son asks. Or nephew or whatever. I went back and redited this after finding out that really was him and supposed to be him. I’m also calling his annoying son Hobie for reasons that will be come clear if you’ve ever watched allison pregler’s baywatching series but it’s always fun to see the hoff in something. Especailly the time he made this really embarassing music video.

youtube

But alass the 200 dollars Hoff made off “jump in my car” that he gave josh isn’t enough and with him having taken all the insltation jobs josh is forced to turn to black market insltations including one where he installs a tv while jaws eats a guy.. I genuinely wish they’d used this song.

youtube

#close enough #jq quintel #reviews #animation reviews #hbo max #so long boys #clap like this

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synthient · 5 years

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The Key to Understanding Deltarune: The Halloween Hack

So we’re currently in the middle of a 4000 year content hiatus

Which is unfortunate, because ever since the big iconic Halloween-day surprise demo drop, my brain has been rattling a baseball bat against the inside of my skull and chanting “CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT”

Undertale was like candy for the thematic analysis side of my brain. I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights going “fun value......he put a quantitative value on fun.....numbers going up.....”

I am desperate to know what kind of themes Deltarune is going to tackle. Can you effectively predict that from one (1) 3 hour demo? No. Does my brain care? No.

Which is what lead me to the wonderful world of intertextuality, or examining how a media text is shaped by other media texts

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this with me doing a playthrough of EarthBound, the video game that Toby has cited as his biggest inspiration for Undertale

That was fun & interesting (the “throwing away an emotionally engaging experience to grimly make Numbers Go Up” thing feels a lot closer to home after trying and failing to get the sword of kings), but it didn’t provide much insight into Deltarune, specifically. It wasn’t enough. I needed more. I was willing to dig into literally any intertext (except Homestuck, which no force on this earth can compel me to read :) )

anyway thats how I ended up playing Toby Fox’s high school fangame

And somehow (sorry Toby) I walked out of there with an unironic theory (a game theory....if you will....): Deltarune is Toby’s adult reexamination of the Halloween Hack.

What is the Halloween Hack?

You know that thing where, like, people take the engine of a Pokemon game and edit it so there’s a new region and a bunch of new fakemon, and also There’s Swears Now

In 2008, Toby Fox entered a contest on an EarthBound fansite for the best Halloween-themed EarthBound hack

In one sense, reducing the Halloween Hack to a “bad romhack with swears” is a little bit of a disservice. There are some glimmers in there of a really affecting, thought-provoking game, and you can see some of the early blueprints of what would later become Undertale (“do video game ‘monsters’ really deserve to die” is a major theme, and the character of Dr. Andonuts was effectively split up into Alpyhs, Asgore, and Sans)

But it’s also. very much a fangame made by a 16-year-old.

You can read a basic summary of the Hack here. High school-age Toby wrote two pretty extensive analyses of his thought process behind the game. I’ll be referring back to them a lot, and I’d highly suggest giving them a read--Toby’s been so famously resistant to making any Word of God statements about Undertale that it’s kind of fascinating to see him being so candid

an extremely long and rambling examination of How This All Relates To Deltarune

The Halloween Hack opens in the town of Halloween Twoson. Twoson is one of the cites in EarthBound, and here it’s been painted orange. and there’s pumpkins now

See, high school Toby had...a bit of a chip on his shoulder. In the Making Of notes, he explains that he was frustrated that “most people generally thought I was just ‘another funny guy’”. So he designed the opening of the game to seem unoriginally close to the original EarthBound--like “a regular, funny, lazy hack”--to lull players into a false sense of security before the horror elements set in.

Two interesting things there:

“Lazily, unoriginally close to the source game” sounds an awful lot like the Dark World segment of Deltarune

Halloween Twoson looks very visually similar to Hometown

Toby’s description of Twoson also sounds pretty Hometown-esque:

The main impressions of Twoson that I wanted to give the player were: It's funny. It's a nice fall day outside. The person hacking this game is ridiculously lazy. It's a nice place to live. If you look at it a little closely, it's kind of claustrophobic.

And when does the horror kick in? When the player descends into the underground tunnels beneath the city.

The “horror” in the Halloween Hack is, however, Pretty Not Good.

There’s a whole lot of the flavor text narrator (put a pin in that one) insisting “this is so scary. you’re so scared. your hands shake and your head throbs because you’re so scared.” There’s also a thing where the battle text keeps going “the shambling zombie BITES your HEAD OFF!!! (you lose 15 hp).”

I think the True Lab sequence in Undertale is a decent demonstration that Toby’s come a long way since then (and that Honey We’ve Got A Storm Coming :’) ). But you know what the Hack’s style of horror reminds me of?

My first thought when I beat the demo and saw this stinger was “this looks like an intentionally shitty creepypasta.” Now I wonder if it’s lowkey adult Toby poking a little fun at teenage Toby

The Halloween Hack is a game about railroading. It’s Spec Ops The Line before there was Spec Ops The Line.

According to Toby:

The main theme of this game is the lack of choice. There is really no choice in this game. From the moment you start to the moment you finish, you're destined to kill Dr. Andonuts. There are two endings, but they both eventually end up the same way. It's all a big joke on the player.

You know why there isn't a choice there? Because you already chose to make Varik go into the door. You already chose to go forward. The only real choice, as Varik realizes at the end of the game, is to stop or keep going. By "stop" he means "turn off the game," and that's all you can do. Anything you play is your own fault for playing, and that's the only real choice you can make.

Interesting? Yeah. A little obnoxious? Also yeah.

That’s one of the criticisms people had of Spec Ops. "The atrocities we commit when we feel like we don’t have a choice” is an intriguing theme, but “~the only way to win is not to play~ [the game I worked hard on for the express purpose of people playing it]” isn’t a very satisfying conclusion.

Undertale, in direct contrast to the Hack, is all about choice. It earns the right to guilt you for the No Mercy Run by giving you every opportunity not to go through with it.

But even Undertale plays a little with the concept of railroading--you can’t stay with Toriel; you can’t spare Asgore in any of the neutral runs; you can’t save Asriel.

Now Deltarune seems to be returning full-on to the Hack’s “your choices don’t matter” premise. But it’s going to need to find something more insightful and satisfying to say about it.

Which makes me really curious about this:

If the Hack has a secondary theme besides railroading/lack of choice, it’s The Soul-Crushing Impact Of Internalized Homophobia.

The tragic antagonist, Dr. Andonuts, destroys his own life trying to repress his gay desire. He retreats into a dream world made of his neuroses and trauma, and he’s inevitably Otherized and murdered by the player. He’s something of a dark version of Alphys, who “disappears” into her lab without ever meeting and getting support from Frisk, Papyrus, and Undyne.

Undertale takes an opposite approach to its lgbt themes--the Underground is a utopia where homophobia and transphobia don’t exist. Everyone respects Frisk’s and Chara’s pronouns. Alphys finds solace and healing in her relationship with Undyne.

It’s a heartwarming growth from the despair in the Halloween Hack. And it’s a vision that’s been deeply meaningful to a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no value in exploring issues of homophobia. 16-year-old Toby tried to do that, but...wasn’t exactly at a point where he was equipped to handle it with a ton of sensitivity and nuance.

(There’s. There’s a boss battle where you fight the physical manifestation of Andonuts’ gay repression. It’s a crotch. You fight a crotch.)

Some of the hints in the Deltarune demo, however--the Toriel Has Become Catholic thing; the fact that Alphys and Undyne haven’t met and Mettaton hasn’t been able to transition; the potential trans implications of choosing a name only to have it discarded for an assigned one (“you can’t choose who you are in this world”)--make me suspect that’s one of the themes that Toby will try to revisit from an adult perspective.

The Hack is interested in the idea of the flavor text narrator as a distinct, intelligent entity, whose thoughts and goals don’t always align with those of the player character or the player.

The Hack’s narrator makes a habit of dictating “your” emotions to you (you’re scared; you can sense ‘the monster’ and you want to kill it; etc). The narration starts to seem more and more unreliable, until, as Toby put it, “The narrator starts talking to you personally...rambling about incoherent things.”

At the game’s turning point, you’re given a yes/no choice to kill Dr. Andonuts. Choose yes, and the narrator (mockingly?) calls you a good person, describes the murder you commit, and then narrates what appears to be your (or their? or Varik’s?) psychological breakdown. Choose no, and the narrator tells you that’s not a real choice and redirects you back to the yes/no box. If you press the b-button to try and opt out of the choice (the game’s unofficial subtitle is “Press the B-Button Stupid,” and doing so allows you to follow Andonuts into his dream world), the narrator starts to panic, although the game ultimately ends the same way.

Not to NarraChara Real, but NarraChara Real

The Hack is also interested in the idea of the player character as a possibly-unwilling puppet controlled by the player (who in turn is controlled by the railroading/their need to beat the game).

According to Toby:

As you approach someone you've never met that you're labeling as a monster, your body pushes you forward to kill him. What's funny is that it's not even uncontrolled, it's really just the force of the player's controller pushing that little bounty hunter into murdering Andonuts. You might not realize it, but Varik is almost dead, and yet he can't stop moving because you keep pushing those buttons.

The Halloween Hack is, fundamentally, a nostalgic meditation on an existing game.

It’s a little obvious to say, but the Hack isn’t a standalone game. It’s a hack of EarthBound.

Toby writes:

EarthBound dominated my childhood, shaped my preteen years, and played a large role in molding me into the offbeat pseudohippie I am today. It gave me a sense of humor. It helped me learn how to read. Its lessons served as a basis for my sense of justice and courage.

But at age 16, Toby’s feeling about the game that had shaped him were a little mixed. He describes “the staleness of a fifteen-year-old video game” as one of his motivations for making the Hack.

In Deltarune, he (kind of hilariously) has Alphys parrot his teen-self’s “staleness” line:

(I could write a whole meta just on the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie vs Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 thing)

Still, Toby’s nostalgia for EarthBound is essential to how the Hack operates. Earlier, I said there were glimmers of an thoughtful, affecting game buried in the “bad romhack with swears.” The most genuinely moving moment in the Hack, in my opinion, is the Onett sequence.

You wander though a faded, dream world version of Onett--the hometown from EarthBound--while a slowed down arrangement of the Onett music plays. Snatches of forgotten conversations appear on road signs. Various monsters from EarthBound follow slowly behind you, but don’t attack. The only battles are against creatures called “Remember Me?”

The EarthBound characters appear to recognize “Varik” as Ness, EarthBound’s protagonist--or are they recognizing you, the player, as the same person who played EarthBound once upon a time?

The one problem, of course, is that not everyone has played EarthBound. It’s a relatively niche game. The sense of remembrance and regret and loss in the Onett sequence is universal, but being shaped as a person by the specific video game EarthBound isn’t a universal experience.

But in the years since the Hack, Toby has created something with a wider reach than EarthBound. Something that can evoke that sense of memory and nostalgia in players. A familiar game that he can take apart, rearrange, and examine in an entirely different light.

He made Undertale.

And now he’s rearranging the pieces into Deltarune.

#deltarune #undertale #o and to clarify: i don't think the flavor text thing means that chara's evil #in fact i think deltarune's going to deconstruct that very reading of undertale #which is maybe a whole nother (hopefully much shorter) meta

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stereksecretsanta · 4 years

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Merry Christmas, @otpsfloat!

Hello dear @otpsfloat! I really hope you’re going to like this story, and I also hope I didn’t add too much fluff ;)

Summary: Derek is forced to go to a mini gold speed dating, but when he meets Stiles there, he isn’t really sure if he should rather thank his sisters for this amazing idea.

Read on AO3

*****

The Official Beacon Hills Rainbow Mini Golf Date Night.

Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Derek Hale hated living with his sisters. He had been sulking for a while, unhappy with college, with life, with everything.

Of course, Laura and Cora, the banes of his very existence - together with their mother Talia, of all people! - had attributed it to him not getting laid enough. (Or, in the case of his parents: of him not having someone to love, to cherish and to bond closely with!)

Thus Laura pulled some strings, added a lot of pressuring, and a near-blackmail in the form of “if you do this, you’re off the hook for an entire year!”, and here he was: At the Official Beacon Hills Rainbow Mini golf Date Night.

He already hated the colourful design of the rooms, the glaringly offensive brightness of everything assaulting his eyes. There were several courses of eighteen holes each, and a group of male and female visitors, all milling about and having a drink.

Derek cringed internally as he headed towards the cash register. He’d looked it up, before; Everyone would take a coloured golf ball out of a huge tub with their eyes closed, and would complete an entire course with whoever had the equivalent of their colour. The only thing they could choose in advance was the gender of their ‘dating partner’.

Derek hadn’t hesitated in signing himself up for men only.

There were a lot of people standing around. Some seemed shy, others were already trying to pair up. There were others, similar to him, who looked like they wanted to be anywhere else but here.

Derek was the last to grab for the ball, and the organisers were already beginning to pair the people up, smiling like this was the best thing of the entire world. And for some it seemingly was, judging from their happy expressions, but for him it was only something he had agreed to to get his family off his back for a year. He really didn’t get their complaints anyway, what was so bad with being single?

Derek toyed with the plastic ball, looking around idly. He wondered about getting a drink to loosen up, but knowing that it wouldn’t work (and assuming that they didn’t have anything stronger for werewolf customers) he decided not to. An attendee headed towards him, and he displayed the abysmal pink ball in his hands. She smiled, leading him on.

And then he saw his partner for the speed dating. He held his own pink ball, wearing a shirt with a cute fox on it, grinning sarcastically, Jeans, pretty worn converse and a checked shirt wrapped around his waist. He had moles everywhere, brown eyes and hair that stood up and didn’t look like it had been combed in a while.

“Great! Now that everyone is paired up, let me explain the rules again! We have three courses here, and you complete one with your current partner. If you want to get to know them better, you can take some extra 15 minutes at the Bar. If you want to continue, you wait here until all are done, and pick another ball. But let’s hope your current partner got the balls to sweep you off your feet, right?”, she announced with a loud laugh.

Derek blinked, slowly, and then made his way over to his partner for the night. He had to admit it - the boy was pretty cute. A somewhat upturned nose, awake, honey-coloured eyes, and a grin that matched the relaxed posture he had. But for some reason he looked awfully familiar to the werewolf - and not quite legal. “Hey,” he said, approaching the young man directly. “How’s it going?”

“Hey!”, he let out in an almost squeak, as his eyes ranked over Derek’s body. He smelled excited, hopeful and somewhat happy. “I am Stiles! You probably remember me from the one running in to you and throwing all his books down the staircase in college!”

Derek’s eyes widened at that. Christ, he remembered. “Damn, that was you,” he blurted out. “You nearly broke my neck. And your own, too, when you almost flung yourself down the stairs to save the books,” he added with a somewhat devious grin. “Out to meet new people?”

“Oh yeah!” He chuckled at that, wiggling his eyebrows. “Kinda. Actually… to be really honest…” he whispered and leaned in. “I lost a bet.”

Derek’s brows shot up. “Be glad you don’t have obnoxious sisters you think you need to get laid,” he replied, voice nothing but a quiet growl in Stiles’ ears. He didn’t miss the shiver that ran through the boy.

“Hah… so we both aren’t here on our own volition?” he asked, tilting his head. “But hey! It’s mini golf! Let’s make the best of it and have the game of our lifes!”

“You’d love mini golf,” Derek replied with a grumble. They both took their (ridiculously small!) clubs, heading to one of the courses. Being intimidating by nature meant people let Derek go first, and he smirked at that, walking past the people with Stiles at his side.

Stiles, who didn’t mind this at all. He smelled so ridiculously happy that it was almost overpowering everything else in the room. “Soooo… what should I call you?“

Oh, right. He’d never introduced himself.

"I’m Derek. Derek Hale,” he added, knowing that most people were at least remotely aware of his… unconventional family at the edge of town. And his werewolf blood, too.

“Derek…” Stiles repeated, almost purring. “Then show me how you treat these balls!”

“Oh, you’re an expert for balls, then?” Derek drawled. He dropped his own ball to the ground, putting it in position with his foot and eyeing the hole. Jesus, he sucked at mini golf. No werewolf senses would fix that. He flicked the golf club, shooting the ball towards its aim.

Stiles let out a laugh. Derek’s ball was way off. “Good shot, Der!” he said, placing his own ball down. He licked his lips, glanced towards the hole, and then hit it.

“Come on,” Derek growled, watching Stiles hit a hole in one. “You’re actually good at mini golf? What kind of nerd are you?”

“Wohooooo!” He let out a cheer and jumped up, grinning at the werewolf. “I am kinda good? Not greatly good, but… yeah! But I promise I didn’t use any magic…” he added as he wiggled his fingers. “And I am a nerd by association! And… yeah. But really, you’re giving up that easily?”

“Oh, I haven’t even started,” Derek said with a low rumble, and his the hole with the next shot as well. He didn’t comment on the magic statement, after all he wasn’t the only supernatural creature here. The one in the corner looked like he could be a Kanima, and he was sure that one of the organisers was a werewolf as well. And magic per se wasn’t that rare, it all depended on what kind of magic… and that was something he could find out later, once he decided that he was interested in getting to know this one further. If he would do it. “Keep going. You start this time, Mister Nerd by association.”

“Uuuuh! Call me Stiles, Sourwolf!” he shot back, a wide grin on his face. He hopped further, placed his ball in front of him again, and this time wiggled with his back. Was he trying to wiggle every single part of his body this evening?

Sourwolf? Derek chuckled against his better judgement, reaching out with the club and patting Stiles’ backside with it. “Wiggling for the audience?”

“Maybe I’m wiggling for you?”, he offered with a wink and then played the ball. But this time it went into the hole, jumped out of it and rolled down. “Maaaan!”

"Not quite as lucky all the time?” Derek whispered into his ear, walking past him. This time he was more effective than Stiles - he just needed two hits, the other three.

“So! As this is a date or something… we should talk, right?” he began, heading to the next area. “Okay. We know our names. Then… what else does one talk about during dates?”

“I’d ask what you’re doing, but I know that already,” Derek said smugly. “College, Criminal Science. Right?”

“Yes. And you?” He looked at him. “I only saw your abs to be honest… oh, and Cora, but she’s rude and kinda scary.”

“She is. Don’t tell her I said that, she’d eat my eyeballs.” He shrugged. “Architecture and art,” Derek said, putting another ball. “One because it was sensible, one because I wanted to.”

“Nice!” He nodded, watching him playing. “And you’re a werewolf. My best friend is one, bitten.”

“And you’re not scared?” This was a surprise; most people were. Derek motioned for him to shoot. “That’s rare.”

“Well… when he tried to kill me, yeah… back then I was. Scared shitless actually…” he murmured, a frown on his face. “…but I did my best. I tried to teach him as much as I could, without an Alpha for him around. He was bitten by a rogue Alpha, which I think… your family took out a bit later, if I remember correctly? You maybe know him? Scott McCall? He works at Deaton’s. He’s also helping me with my magic a bit, not as much as I’d like to, but that’s Deaton…”

“Yeah, actually. Heard his name before. Deaton’s my mother’s Emissary.” Derek said with a nod. “And well, in Scott’s defense, you look like a snack,” he added deadpan.

Stiles looked at him, as if to ask if he was serious, but then his lips spread into a grin. “If I’m a snack, then you’re the full meal.”

“Smooth,” the werewolf said with a quiet laugh. He nodded, motioning for him to go ahead. They kept talking, an easy back and forth between them.

It was really nice and also felt natural. Stiles’ happiness didn’t let up even one second, and he was a good challenge when it came to mini golf. He laughed when they just finished half the course with both of them needing three shots for it. “So, how do you like this date so far?”

“It’s pretty good,” Derek said with a low rumble in his voice. It was true; he enjoyed himself. “Much better than any of the others I went on, for sure…”

“That’s great!” Stiles blurted out, the tips of his ears turning red as he brightly smiled at him. “I am… actually quite excited. I mean… yeah, I just lost a bet, but… you are amazing….”

Amazing? Derek ducked his head a little at the surprising praise, then smiled over at Stiles. “So you don’t mind being set up like this, for once?”

“Wow… your smile is breatha-”, he began, then cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “I totally don’t mind. I didn’t expect much apart from a nice mini gold match, but… I get to know you and that’s wow.”

“Hmm. I agree,” Derek said, pitching the next ball. At this point neither of them was really focused on the game, and Derek felt comfortably… warm. Maybe this was a decent idea. The boy seemed to be fun… and he really didn’t mind hanging out with him.

Stiles walked to the next area, placing the ball down before he stretched and glanced at the werewolf. “So. May I ask why someone like you is single?”

“I’m a horrible people person, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Derek said drily, watching Stiles hit another hole. “Besides, I had some… bad experiences in the past.”

“I think you’re very compatible with me, though!” he shot back with a big grin. “And hey. No time like the present, right?”

Derek was suddenly directly behind Stiles as he got ready to hit his next ball. He whispered. “Hmm. Do you want to say you see us both as highly compatible in a … mating sense?” The werewolf watched with great pleasure as the ball went awry.

He could scent Stiles’ nervousness and at the same time there was something else, making it clear that he liked this very much. “Well… if this big ass werewolf likes a scrawny human…?” he whispered back. Stiles definitely tried to hide how nervous he was, but he couldn’t mask his scent, at least not to Derek’s nose. He picked up all the subtle changes, how he was interested, how much he liked it. But he also realised that he really liked Stiles’ overall scent. It was nice, calming, grounding in a way…

“Oh, I wouldn’t call you scrawny. Maybe wiry. Definitely… flexible,” Derek added with a smirk. Then he stepped away, dropping his own golf ball, and continued playing.

“Oh that’s mean! You totally did this on purpose to be better than I am! Oooooh, you just wait!” He grinned and then put the next ball into the hole in one. “Uuuuh yeah! You just watch me!”

“I am watching,” Derek said - and it was true. He was watching Stiles, and the boy was pretty damn good looking. Which didn’t mean he’d let him win.

“Well, I gotta say, Derek Hale… I am interested in getting to know you more…” he murmured as he waited for the werewolf to play.

“Is that the only thing you’re interested in?” Derek asked, feigning innocence. But he kept playing expertly.

“You? Heck no!” he answered with a chuckle, watching him miss the hole. “I play Lacrosse. I help my Dad with solving crimes. I help Scott with everything werewolf related. I read a lot. I play video games. I also learn how to manipulate mountain ash, and some spells and how to feel the land around you. And… well, I live with my Dad, who’s the Sheriff, to give you some more information about me.”

“Hmm,” Derek said with a nod. That wasn’t what he had wanted to imply, but it was just as well. Information for information. “I’m a werewolf in college. I live with my family and am a beta to my mother’s leadership. I don’t plan on starting my own pack in the next few years. I have obnoxious sisters, I probably read even more than you, I suck at operating a computer. Sometimes I volunteer in the city centre. And I drive a Camaro.”

“A Camaro?” At that Stiles looked up, almost whistling. “Nice one. I got a Jeep and its name is Roscoe. Eh… Scott’s my best friend. Lydia, the woman I had a crush on for a long time is a Banshee and is together with Jackson, a Kanima. I also know Isaac who really wants to be a werewolf. I never had a relationship ever before, never dated…. so… I’m a virgin in every sense!”

“I see,” Derek nodded. “I’m… not. I tried dating women, but truth be told, it sucked. So I ended up here, and met you, and… I don’t think that’s so bad,” he added with a small smirk.

“Oh man, I’m sorry…” he said with a frown as he walked to the next area. “Soooo… do you want to spend a bit more time after this ball kicking?”

“Absolutely,�� Derek agreed quietly. He smiled, and Stiles felt his knees wobble a little at that. “Maybe have a drink after I beat you, huh??”

“Beat me?” He laughed as he had a look at the score chard. “Actually, dear Mister Hale… this is the last area and I am in the lead right now.”

“…” Derek looked up. Shit, when had that happened? There was no way he could win. Derek growled, pitching the last ball in. “Alright. Drink on me then, I guess.”

“Yeah!” Stiles thrust up an arm, noted down Derek’s points and then followed him over to where the organisers were waiting. “We hope you had fun? Have you decided?” the woman from before asked with a smile.

“Decided?” Derek said. He found himself reaching out, curling his arm around Stiles shoulders. Drawing him close against his chest. “We’d like that drink now.”

This totally made Stiles blush, but he agreed with a very firm nod. “Very well. Then please proceed and pick a seat. You get 15 more minutes.”

“Thank you,” Derek said, politely, and led Stiles away with him. Only then did he turn his head. “Is this okay?”

“Totally okay!” he answered, chuckling. “I mean I heard werewolves are kinda territorial, but you’re starting it really early.”

“Tell me if it bothers you,” Derek hummed, leading him to a table. Then they sat down together. “Drinks on me, then. In exchange for your number, if you are game…”

“And you are straight forward!” Stiles added with a laugh. But he nodded and showed Derek his number, then saved the other’s number under 'Sourwolf’. “And… don’t worry. I am really honest and will not hold back just to be nice.”

“That’s good,” Derek said, and left it at that. He wanted to say so much more; how he hated it if people lied to him or kept their opinions. But maybe that was too much for a first date, so he remained quiet. They both looked at the menu, and Derek raised a brow. “Those cocktail names are borderline pornographic.”

“Yeah, right?” He chuckled and then lowered the menu. “Come on, we just got 15 minutes. Let’s focus on each other!” he murmured and leaned forward.

“So….. Han Solo or Luke Skywalker?”

“Han Solo. Rebels or Empire?” Derek shot back, leaning back a little. This was promising.

Stiles’ eyes lit up and his mouth fell open. “Oh my god! You are perfect! Star Wars! You watched Star Wars?!”

“Of course I did. But I prefer the old trilogy,” Derek added with a smirk. “Answer my question.”

“Ah, ah yeah! Rebels of course! I mean, they got the X-Wing and they’re fighting for the freedom of the universe!”

“Very good choice,” Derek purred. Yeah, he liked this boy. “Favourite Horror movie?”

“Oh, that’s… difficult…!” He leaned back, and began to nibble on his lower lip. “So… I guess… I haven’t watched a lot of full horror movies. But IT is good… and Freeze.”

“Oh, Freeze. Nice choice. Okay, your turn.” They both ordered a drink, barely paying attention to the waitress.

“Okay… now, let’s be more creative now. Favourite song when you’re angry?”

“How angry are we talking?” Derek replied with a raised brow. “Casual level of 'I hate my sisters’? Probably Destroya, by My Chemical Romance. Really angry? Something like Sentenced, if you ever heard of them.” He shrugged. “Favourite band when you were a kid?”

“Hmmm….” His eyes were on Derek and the smile from his lips never disappeared. “I guess Linkin Park and … Blink 182? Soooo, Der. What’s your guilty pleasure?”

“Chocolate chip cookie dough. No, don’t look at me like that. I love that stuff.” He made a face. “Doesn’t really match my habit of doing a shitload of workouts, though, so it remains a very guilty pleasure.” Derek considered for a moment. Then he leaned forward. “How about… the dirtiest fantasy you had today.”

“To…day?” He huffed, then rubbed his nose carefully. “….well…. actually quite tame. Just about kissing.”

Derek smiled. He didn’t hear a lie, so he nodded gently, motioning for Stiles to go on.

“Honestly! That was all! But now that you mentioned it… what about you and your fantasies?”

“Well, I probably thought about a certain person’s backside when they were bending down to retrieve a golf ball,” Derek said, looking at Stiles pointedly. He saw no reason in lying.

He laughed at that, and then winked at him. “Okay… You can thank your sisters for forcing you to get here! Because I want to meet you again for sure!”

“Oh yeah, I second that notion.” Derek nodded with a smile, and they finished their drinks. The fifteen minutes were almost over already.

“Good. Then we can text and… agree on another time and place for some more Stiles-Derek time? And I meant that in a totally innocent way, like getting to know each other more…”, he asked, standing up with a smile just as the woman approached them.

Derek nodded. They took a step aside, and then, before they parted ways near the door… Derek wrapped him up in a tight, long hug. And damn, did that feel good. His inner wolf was pleased.

“Hey, cuddlewolf…” he smiled and hugged back. “You smell really nice.”

They stood like this for a long moment, and it felt wonderful. Derek rubbed his head at the side of Stiles’ cheek, grumbling softly. Marking him.

And he didn’t mind it at all. “Scott will ask all the questions later, dude.”

“I don’t care,” Derek muttered. They finally let go of one another, and headed for the door. “I’m glad I went here tonight.”

“I’m damn happy I lost this bet!” Stiles let out with a laugh, walking alongside Derek, slowly heading back to the carpark. “I’ll text you once I’m back?”

“Definitely,” Derek said. His voice sounded almost breathy. They got into their respective cars after another brief, but warming embrace. They didn’t kiss; after all it was just a first date. But Derek felt…. good.

+++++

The drive home was uneventful for him. Derek parked the Camaro, took his phone, and then entered the house as silent as possible… knowing full well that his family would be waiting for him inside. They’d never go to sleep without needling him first.

And this time it was even worse. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he spotted Laura’s face, looking at her with expectant eyes. “Sooooooo?”

“God, you don’t even let me get inside?” Derek groaned. He could see Cora perching on a table, grinning widely. “At least get me a drink and say hi,” the werewolf demanded with a playful growl.

“Sure, sure. Get a drink. We’re in the living room. Waiting.” She winked at him and then disappeared into the room next door.

Derek bit back a groan, knowing that they’d all hear it. He padded into the kitchen, got himself a coke, and then strode into the living room, to the waiting faces of his sisters. “It went well,” he finally said, looking at both of them. “I met a nice guy. Got his number. Might see him again. And no, I am not giving you his name.”

“OH my god?! YES?” Laura’s face exploded in a smile and she leaned forward. “Tell us more!”

“There’s…. not much more. He’s nice, so far. Doesn’t mind me being a werewolf. I’ve seen him before.” Derek shrugged. His fingers were toying with his phone. “I like him.”

“You do?” Her smile grew as his mobile vibrated. And indeed it was a message from Stiles, stating 'Hey, Sourwolf. Just wanted to tell you that I reached home safe and sound’

“Tell us about him, come on!”

“Just a moment,” Derek said, sounding - to his own surprise - a little defensive. He typed a quick answer. “Am home too. My sisters are already planning a wedding I guess. Sorry bout that.” Then he turned back to them. “He’s… cute. A little younger than me. Goes to college, too.”

'Haha, I’m not wearing a dress!’ Stiles answered back in record time and with lots of smileys.

Laura’s smile grew even wider. “So… this was a good idea.”

“Better than your other ideas,” Derek replied smugly. Cora chuckled. “So, when are you going to bring him home, huh?”

“Not…. yet. But I guess I wanna see him again.”

“You guess?” Laura leaned back, looking at Cora with a grin. “You exchanged numbers obviously. And you seem to like him.”

“Urgh, fine. I do want to see him again. Preferably soon. And now I am going to bed. Good night you two!” He took the drink and his phone along, ignoring the protests of his sisters and their announcement to call their parents to tell them all about this. Derek headed towards his bedroom, already typing a reply. ‘Might look good on you tho. ;) I got off the hook, going to bed now. And you?’

'I’m already in bed. Going to sleep real soon and dream of how I beat you’ Derek could almost hear Stiles’ voice through the text. It was casual, and actually really easy…

'Aw, relish in your victory, until I get my revenge. How about something more physical? Basketball?’ He took off his shirt, tossing it aside on the bed together with his pants, before climbing inside.

'I told you I’m playing Lacrosse, right?’ Stiles answered with a grinning smiley. 'But we could also try something else. As you seem to like small balls. Pool?’

I probably like your balls, Derek thought idly to himself. He read the message again. 'Sounds good to me. Know a nice place?’

'Hmmm…. not really, but I know friends who do. Or we could go bowling if you like it bigger?’

Bowling? That usually included more people. 'What if I prefer to have you to myself?’ he sent back, reclining on his bed.

'Then I would suggest driving out into the preserve in my Jeep and choose a spot where we can see the city and have a picnic there?’

Now that? That sounded nice. Derek wasn’t really one for big crowds, although he could understand the security of them - especially for humans. 'You don’t think the big bad wolf is going to eat you up?’

'Then I will just have to wear my red hoodie…. ’, Stiles texted back with a wink. 'But hey, if you are okay with Lacrosse - we have a game next week.’

'You playing?’ He hadn’t watched Lacrosse games before, always considered them somewhat boring. But with Stiles playing that could certainly change. “When?’

'Friday evening.’ Stiles then texted the time back.

'I’ll be there. You have some celebration with the team after? Or do you want to grab a drink?’

'That very much depends on if we win. But if we do, I should probably celebrate with them! ’

'Definitely,’ Derek agreed. He got under the covers, realizing how nice it was to lie here and just… text. He’d never done it before, not like this. 'What’s your position?”

'Come and see, curious wolf…’ Stiles texted back. 'But at least I’m a regular now. In High School I was on the bench so often.’

'Alright, alright, enough questions for one night. Looking forward to seeing you play on the field’, Derek wrote. And he meant it. He wanted to see Stiles out there.

'Then come! But first we should have another… date?’

'Absolutely. And I love the idea with the woods. But maybe safe that for a later date where you feel more comfortable being alone with me. Awoo,’ he added, with a winking smiley. 'Back to ball games, I’d say. You and me.’

'Oooooh yeah! Let’s talk more tomorrow, I should really sleep.’

'Me too.’ Derek looked at his phone. No, actually smiled. He felt warm. 'I had a really good day. Sleep well, Stiles.’

‘Nighty Night! This was the best day ever and I’m so looking forward to seeing you again.’

‘Trust me. I for once could kiss my family for this idea.’

‘Better keep your kisses for me, big guy!’

‘Should I kiss you next time we meet?’

‘If you won’t, then I will!’

Derek laughed softly. ‘I will. I will kiss you. I want to kiss you.’

‘Tomorrow? Dinner?’

‘Sounds good.’ In fact, it sounded amazing.

‘I’ll text ya where and when tomorrow! Gotta sleep now, Dad’s complaining! NIGHT!’

‘Good Night, Stiles’

#otpsfloat #stereksanta19 #*fics19 #*gifts19

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cyrusgoodboye · 6 years

Note

A bully is mean with Cyrus ( not necessarily because of his sexuality) and TJ is pissed.

Basketball Day - a Tyrus fanfiction

I apologize for the extremely long wait. I really liked this idea, and it was a very fun idea to play around with. I hope you enjoy it!

On the third Friday of every month, Jefferson Middle School’s gym coach allowed (forced was a better word in Cyrus’s opinion) his students to partake in a monthly game of basketball. This usually enabled the Good Hair Crew and Jonah to form a group of their own (mostly Buffy and Jonah played, although Jonah was admittedly not that great at the sport, while Andi and Cyrus would stand idly by, making sure it looked like they were participating whenever their coach threw a glance their way.) It was the perfect setup; everyone got the chance to spend time with their friends, and no one got hurt! However, on the third Friday of April, the group’s normal routine did not play out like they had expected it to.

“Cyrus, come on!” Andi groaned, dragging her best friend Cyrus towards gymnasium. Getting Cyrus to come to gym was probably the biggest chore of all of the responsibilities that came with being Cyrus’s friend. That boy did not like PE.

“I don’t wanna!” he whined. He stumbled over the threshold as she dragged him towards his inevitable doom. Oh, how he despised gym class.

By the time that gym had rolled around that Friday morning, Cyrus’s day was already off to a bad start. He had missed another opportunity to possess one of the much coveted chocolate chocolate-chip muffins, he hadn’t gotten the grade he had wanted on his most recent algebra test, and, even worse, Buffy was missing school.

It was a rare occurrence for his best friend, and Cyrus felt naked without her at his side. Of course he missed her, and it was tough to face the day without her random quips about Ultimate Frisbee, or her unrelenting support, but nevertheless, Cyrus wholeheartedly approved of her absence. She was finally getting the opportunity to spend the day with her mom, who had just returned from her lengthy deployment, and Cyrus knew how far and few between chances like this came for his best friend. His only worry was that him, Andi, and Jonah might have to find a fourth team member that they didn’t really know well, or one that didn’t know them that well, either. Those people usually made fun of him.

Once Andi finally got Cyrus past the entrance and into the gymnasium (Andi had to bribe him with tater tots from The Spoon, but the trade was well worth it in her opinion), she ordered him to stay put while she went to go look for Jonah. Cyrus watched her run off into another direction, and he felt his heart begin to pound. He hated being by himself.

In order to calm his nerves, he began glancing around at his classmates, looking at potential prospects for a fourth teammate. This is good, he told himself as his heart rate began to decrease steadily. Just keep…oh.

Cyrus’s eye caught on a certain basketball player, and his heart stopped altogether. T.J. Kippen.

Cyrus watched T.J. run a hand through his effortlessly tousled hair as he talked to a group of what Cyrus assumed were his friends, and he felt an unexplainable urge to touch the boy’s wavy, chestnut locks. Why did it look so soft?

Cyrus blushed when T.J. fleetingly glanced his way, and he ducked his head to conceal his flushed cheeks. That was a close one, he thought to himself. Be more careful!

Post-bar-mitzvah, Cyrus could admit that his feelings for T.J. had grown into something…different. Something that made his heart pound in his chest, his palms sweat, and his words to get stuck in his throat. And, maybe, something he couldn’t entirely label just yet.

Somehow, it felt a little different for what he felt for Jonah, or used to feel, that was. Whatever feelings he had harbored in his heart for the Frisbee player were now shifting to T.J., the most recent object of his affections. It was all so confusing, and even more so when he couldn’t talk to anyone about it (besides Andi and Buffy). Cyrus longed for the day where he could be open about his huge secret with everyone; especially his family. It was starting to become really hard to keep such a huge secret from his four shrink parents…

Before Cyrus could finish his thought, a bell-like laugh emitted from the basketball player, and the butterflies in his belly stirred uneasily at the sound. He loved it when he witnessed T.J. being happy and lighthearted.

Prior to having been introduced to him (he was still calling him Scary Basketball Guy at this point), Cyrus caught glimpses of the brooding basketball player in the halls or in their few shared classes. He had always wondered what T.J.’s problem was. Was being the captain of the basketball team too much pressure on him? Was he struggling with family problems? Or was he just a jerk that didn’t care who he hurt?

However, upon meeting him, Cyrus was surprised by how kind T.J. was to him, a complete contrast to how he treated Buffy. He never would have guessed that the same basketball player who was so spiteful to his best friend would even be capable of being caring and comforting, let alone to him.

In the end, Cyrus learned that T.J. had a learning disability, and he also felt inferior compared to other students (like Buffy) academically and physically, which caused him to lash out. It was almost hard to believe that someone that held himself up so high and mighty on the outside was actually hurting pretty badly on the inside.

Cyrus was broken from his thoughts when he noticed T.J. begin to slowly turn towards him, and suddenly everything felt like it was in slow motion. His heart rate began to climb rapidly; this was like the part in the cliche rom-com where the main protagonist met her love interest’s gaze from across the room, both of them thinking about how they were each other’s true love. Granted, Cyrus wasn’t a girl, and T.J. would never be into him like that, but still, a boy could dream.

When T.J. fully faced him, he caught Cyrus’s eye, and the corners of his mouth upturned in a slow smile. T.J. raised his hand and waved endearingly at him, and Cyrus internally swooned. He grinned widely back, beginning to return the sweet gesture, but T.J.’s friend pulled him back into their oh-so-important conversation before he got the chance.

At the sudden loss of interaction with T.J., Cyrus frowned. You can always talk to him later, he thought, trying to console himself. It’s not like it’s the end of the world. Except it was. It always was the end of the world in his mind.

In order to hide his disappointment, Cyrus busied himself by untying and retying his shoelaces. In his case, they could never be knotted too tight! It was a good distraction, too, from all the surrounding rambunctious students that were making his stress levels rise unnecessarily.

When the remaining students finally joined their peers in the gymnasium, dressed and ready to go, their gym coach stormed in with a clipboard in his hands.

Instead of waiting for them to settle down their chatter naturally, he blew sharply into his whistle, and the noise pierced the air with its shrill tone. Cyrus winced at the sound, and he shrinked back as the coach glared at all of them. He didn’t think he’d ever seen the coach so mad. Well, except for yesterday, he added in his mind.

“Everyone quiet!” the coach demanded, causing a group of eighth-grade boys to pause in their obnoxiously loud conversation. They smirked at each other, not seeming to care about their obviously frazzled coach. “Because of an incident that occurred during yesterday’s game of flag football,” Coach Anderson said, shooting a not-so-subtle glance at the boys that were just talking, “Dr. Metcalf has requested that I assign teams instead of allowing you to do it yourselves.”

At first, the students were baffled into silence. They weren’t allowed to pick their teammates? It was the most absurd thing they had ever heard! Then, all at once, the middle schoolers outburst at the new rule, causing chaos within the spacious gym room.

“You can’t do that!”

“That’s not fair!”

“Why should we all get punished?”

A jumble of complaints and cries about the coach’s decision went on and on, and Cyrus prepared his ears. He didn’t have to be a genius to predict what was going to happen next: one, two…

The coach blew whistle, effectively silencing the middle school students. “Enough!” Coach Anderson barked as the middle schoolers covered their ears in discomfort. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” As the students shuffled nervously, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation, the coach began to call out groups. “Team 1 is Andi, Gus, Denise, and Jonah.”

Cyrus gulped, and his panic began to rise in his throat. How had Andi and Jonah been put together but not him? And what was he going to do? What if he got stuck with someone he didn’t know? Or even worse…someone who would tease him…

Cyrus tried to shake his worries away, albeit unsuccessfully. Why was he born with a tendency to worry about everything?

He glanced over at T.J., and he longed for the boy to be on his team. T.J. always knew how to make him feel calm with his presence (except when Cyrus allowed himself to get worked up about his feelings for the boy), which was a welcome change from the constant anxious frenzy inside of his mind.

As the coach continued down the list, Cyrus got more and more distressed. He had originally hoped that he would get paired with some of the classmates in his grade (at least he’d know them), but most of them had already been called. Even T.J., his last hope, had been assigned to Team 4. The day seemed determined to be a nightmare specifically designed for Cyrus to endure, and painfully so.

After calling a few more names, Coach Anderson finally gave the answer to the question that Cyrus had been uneasily waiting for. “Team 6 is Cyrus, Kyle, Aaron, and Cameron.”

Cyrus felt his stomach clench. He had never even talked to any of these boys, but he had a feeling that they wouldn’t be too accepting about having him as their teammate.

Aaron was the only one out of the bunch that was from his grade, although they had never talked. Aaron seemed decent enough, from what Cyrus could tell. He was quiet, and he kept to himself, but that wasn’t a bad thing.

Cameron, on the other hand, was a different story. Cyrus hadn’t talked to him either, but he knew that Cameron was the captain of the soccer team. From the horror stories that Cyrus heard about him through Buffy, he was even more ruthless than T.J. had been just a few months ago.

Even so, Kyle was the most callous of them all. In fact, Cyrus and the rest of his peers had witnessed the boy’s cruelty first-hand during flag football yesterday.

It had started out as a normal, innocent game; Buffy was dominating as usual, Jonah was attempting to follow Buffy’s strict commands in order to appease her (she was the team captain, after all), Andi was continually trying to keep up with their teammates (how exactly did one play flag football, anyway?), and Cyrus was cowering in the corner in order to stay out of everyone’s way. He wasn’t really sure how to play the game, and it looked too intense to actually partake in. And there was a lot of running. He couldn’t deal with lots of running.

However, the one rule Cyrus did know about the sport was that there was no tackling allowed. But, as the game progressed, it was apparent that this rule was not being followed by his classmates. By the end of the class, one kid had a bloody nose and the other had her glasses broken beyond repair. All because of Kyle and his corrupt band of jerk friends.

When inquired by Coach Anderson and Dr. Metcalf, Kyle played off his offense as ‘an accident,’ claiming that him and his buddies had gotten excited in the midst of the game and tripped, crashing right into their poor victims. Dr. Metcalf and Coach Anderson suspected foul play, but because there was no evidence to support their suspicions, they were forced to go along with it. However, this clearly was not stopping their principal from taking the matter into his own hands.

“Cyrus?” Andi asked, nudging him. Cyrus shook himself from his thoughts. When had she shown up beside him? “Are you going to be okay?”

Cyrus glanced worriedly at the coach, who was already chastising a student that had requested a switch. He frowned, but tried to hide his trepidation from his best friend. You’ll be okay. “I’ll be fine,” he insisted, reiterating his own thoughts aloud. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince more: Andi or himself. “Go have fun with Jonah.” Cyrus forced a smile upon his face, but he could tell that she saw the insincerity behind it.

She looked questioningly at her friend. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I can talk to Coach Anderson if you want…,” Andi offered unsurely. Her eyes wandered over to the coach, and Cyrus saw her corners of her lips dip down as she watched the teacher reprimand their classmate.

“It’s fine,” Cyrus promised, feeling his stomach churn even more. He couldn’t believe he was going through with this. “Go, I’ll be okay.”

Andi gave him one last worried glance before squeezing his arm. “Good luck.”

Cyrus bit his lip as she jogged away, running towards her teammates. He needed more than good luck for what he was about to endure.

As Cyrus began to stroll over to his own teammates (reluctantly, he might add), he took deep breaths, only focusing on taking one step at a time. Right foot, left foot, right foot… He was so concentrated on walking that he didn’t even realize when he bumped into Kyle. At the contact, he ricocheted off of the boy’s freakishly tall body like a pinball in a pinball machine, and he stumbled backward, barely managing to catch his balance.

“Watch where you’re going, Goodman,” Kyle said cruelly, still chuckling. Cyrus ducked his head to hide his bright red cheeks, and he silently cursed his entire existence. Why did he have to be so clumsy?

After he got his brutish laughter out of the way, Cameron nudged Kyle. “Come on, man, let’s get started!”

Kyle agreed. “Okay, how about me and you versus Owens and the dweeb?” Cyrus winced when the bully referred to him as ‘the dweeb’. More than anything, he wished that Buffy were here to defend him. Even if he hated confrontation, being insulted to his face stung more.

Cameron shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

As the team began to play two-on-two, Aaron and Cyrus versus Cameron and Kyle (like the latter had arranged, with no objection on Cyrus or Aaron’s part), Aaron tossed the ball to Cyrus, who hurled the ball towards the basket as well as he could possibly manage. The basketball missed its intended target completely, landing pathetically three feet away from the goal.

Kyle snickered at the sight as he plucked the ball in one fluid motion, and Cyrus almost envied his gracefulness. “I bet you can’t even hit the backboard!” he taunted, laughing harshly. Cyrus grimaced at the sound. He wasn’t one-hundred percent sure what the backboard was, but he was certain that whatever Kyle had just said wasn’t a compliment. “Why do you even take gym if you’re such a girl?”

Cyrus resented his comment, and not just because Kyle was insinuating he was girly. Taking gym wasn’t even a choice. If it had been, Cyrus would’ve definitely would’ve taken any other class. He tried to point this out, too. “Actually, it’s a state requirement-” he tried to input. Before he could finish his statement, he was cut off by Cameron.

“What a loser,” the boy remarked, sniggering along with Kyle. Those two had sure become fast friends, Cyrus noted. If only they hadn’t bonded over making fun of him.

Cyrus looked helplessly towards Aaron, but the boy wouldn’t look him in the eye. Aaron’s reluctance to help him made his throat tighten, and tears pricked at his eyes. How was he going to handle anymore of this by himself?

As Kyle and Cameron bickered about who’s turn it was to check the ball (whatever that meant), Cyrus took a deep breath to calm his nerves. You can do this, Cyrus, he assured himself. Just ignore them.

It was easier said than done. While Cameron was trying to pass the ball to Kyle, Cyrus shuffled across the gym floor awkwardly, hopping from side-to-side. He wasn’t trying to block Kyle from receiving the ball; in fact, he was trying to get out of Kyle’s way so that he didn’t have to encounter his wrath, or be his next victim of PE crime. However, in the midst of his getaway plan, Kyle stuck out a leg, causing a clueless Cyrus to trip and stumble onto the hard gym floor below with a loud thud.

Cameron and Kyle chortled at the sight, both exchanging a sadistic smirk. “Look, he can’t even stand up without falling over!”

Cyrus squeezed his eyes shut, wishing that he could be somewhere, anywhere else other than right here at this very moment. Their grating laughter consumed his senses entirely, and he almost missed the squeaking of sneakers echoing from the gym floor behind him.

When Cyrus felt a hand come down on his shoulder, he apprehensively opened his eyes, seeing none other than T.J. Kippen himself staring down at him with a worried expression, his lips dipped downward and his brow furrowed.

T.J. bent down to his level, maintaining eye contact with the boy in front of him as he did so. “Are you okay?” he asked Cyrus in a quiet, yet urgent, voice. Cyrus felt a sense of security wash over him as he stared deeply into T.J.’s gorgeous green eyes, and he felt a warm tug in the pit of his stomach. No. Please help me. I need you.

When he opened his mouth to answer him, Cyrus found that no words would come out, so he settled for a trembling shake of the head. At that single motion, T.J. rose, bringing Cyrus up with him.

“What did you guys do to Cyrus?” he asked accusingly. His hand never wavered from Cyrus’s shoulder, and Cyrus gulped as the butterflies in his stomach swirled uneasily.

Kyle put on an innocent facade, speaking fluently without guilt. “I have no idea what you’re referring to, T.J.,” he said, giving an easy-going shrug. Cyrus couldn’t decide if this kid was a good actor or a pathological liar; probably both. “Goodman here just has a little trouble with sports. I think he’s a tad girly. Or should I say she,” he joked, getting Cameron to laugh along with him. Cyrus felt T.J.’s grip on him tighten in anger, and he wished that he could grab the basketball player’s hand to help comfort him in return.

“Says the guy who didn’t make the basketball team this year,” T.J. shot back. Kyle choked during his fit of laughter, and his face turned an angry red at T.J.’s comment. Someone has a bruised ego, Cyrus thought to himself.

“You’ve become so lame since you’ve been hanging out with this loser,” Kyle sneered in retaliation.

T.J. was clutching onto Cyrus so tight that he was bunching up the boy’s gym uniform in his hand. “You guys are the losers,” he retorted, releasing Cyrus of his grip. “Come on,” T.J. urged him, seizing his hand defensively. “You’re playing on my team today.”

Cyrus was completely floored. It was one thing for T.J. to risk his reputation for him, but for him to risk getting in trouble, too? It was too hard to comprehend. “But…Coach Anderson said-”

“I don’t care what Coach Anderson said,” T.J. interrupted, tugging Cyrus forward. He paused in his tracks, consequently causing Cyrus to stop in front of him, only mere inches from his face. T.J. searched Cyrus’s eyes, and the basketball player’s mouth melted into a gentle, sweet smile that made Cyrus’s heart leap in his chest. “You’re playing on my team today,” T.J. confirmed, as if to relieve any of the lingering anxiety in Cyrus’s mind.

Cyrus took a deep breath before relenting. If you say so. “I’m playing on your team today,” he repeated, the words passing softly from his lips. Maybe Cyrus had a newfound appreciation for basketball day after all.

*sighs dramatically* WHEW! Glad I finally finished writing that. I’ll be working on my other prompts, and I’ll try to get those done for y’all soon. Thank you so much for reading this prompt and don’t forget to comment below or to read it on AO3 or fanfiction.net. Thank you!

~emmagrace13

#tyrus #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #cj #andi mack #buffy driscoll #good hair crew #jandi #tjyrus

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themastercylinder · 5 years

Text

SUMMARY

A teenage girl purchases a baby American alligator while on vacation with her family at a tourist trap in Florida. After the family returns home to Chicago, the alligator, named Ramón by the girl, is promptly flushed down the family’s toilet by her surly, animal-phobic father and ends up in the city’s sewers.

Twelve years later, the alligator survives by feeding on covertly discarded pet carcasses. These animals had been used as test subjects for an experimental growth formula intended to increase agricultural livestock meat production. However, the project was abandoned due to the formula’s side effect of massively increasing the animal’s metabolism, which caused it to have an insatiable appetite. During the years, the baby alligator accumulated concentrated amounts of this formula from feeding on these carcasses, causing it to mutate, growing into a 36 foot (11 m) monster resembling a Deinosuchus or Sarcosuchus, as well as having an almost impenetrable hide.

The alligator begins ambushing and devouring sewer workers it encounters in the sewer, and the resulting flow of body parts draws in world-weary police officer David Madison (Robert Forster) who, after a horribly botched case in St. Louis, has gained a reputation for being lethally unlucky for his assigned partners. As David works on this new case, his boss Chief Clark (Michael Gazzo) brings him into contact with reptiles expert Marisa Kendall (Robin Riker), the girl who bought the alligator years earlier. The two of them edge into a prickly romantic relationship, and during a visit to Marisa’s house, David bonds with her motormouthed mother.

David’s reputation as a partner-killer is confirmed when the gator snags a young cop, Kelly (Perry Lang), who accompanies David into the sewer searching for clues. No one believes David’s story, due to a lack of a body, and partly because of Slade (Dean Jagger), the influential local tycoon who sponsored the illegal growth experiments and therefore doesn’t want the truth to come out. This changes when obnoxious tabloid reporter Thomas Kemp (Bart Braverman), one of the banes of David’s existence, goes snooping in the sewers and supplies graphic and indisputable photographic evidence of the beast at the cost of his own life. The story quickly garners public attention, and a citywide hunt for the monster is called for.

An attempt by the police to flush out the alligator comes up empty and David is put on suspension. The alligator escapes from the sewers and comes to the surface, first killing a police officer and later a young boy who, during a party, is tossed into a swimming pool in which the alligator is residing.

The ensuing hunt continues, including the hiring of pompous big-game hunter Colonel Brock (Henry Silva) to track the animal. Once again, the effort fails: Brock is killed, the police trip over each other in confusion, and the alligator goes on a rampage through a high-society wedding party hosted at Slade’s mansion; among its victims are Slade himself, the mayor, and Slade’s chief scientist for the hormone experiments and intended son-in-law. Marisa and David finally lure the alligator into the sewers before setting off explosives on the alligator, killing it. As the film ends with David and Marisa walking away after the explosion, a drain in the sewer spits out another baby alligator, repeating the cycle all over again.

Lewis Teague Interview

Did you work closely with John Sayles in creating Lady in Red and Alligator?

Lewis Teague: We collaborated very closely on Alligator but not on Lady in Red because the script was virtually finished on that movie when I was brought in. But when Brandon Chase offered me Alligator he had a completely different script. I loved the idea and thought we could have a lot of fun with it, but I accepted the job on the condition that I could bring in a writer of my choice and rewrite the script from scratch. Brandon Chase was agreeable to that; he was familiar with Sayles’ work and admired it, so, to his credit, he said yes. Sayles and I quickly fleshed out an idea and Sayles wrote the script very, very rapidly.

What were the changes you wanted to make after seeing the first screenplay?

Teague: The story we came up with is completely different. The only thing that remains from the original idea is the existence of alligators in the sewers. There was virtually nothing in the original script apart from that basic idea that I was interested in doing. What I was interested in doing, and the two big changes we made in the story, was that I wanted to do a film with some humor and I wanted to do a film that would be allegorical in some way. I’m not interested in doing a horror film or a suspense film just for suspense’s sake. There was a concern of mine–and John and I spent a great deal of time talking about this—that the film should be allegorical in the sense that the existence of the alligator should be a manifestation of the hero’s nightmares or fears. So then the discovery, pursuit and eventual vanquishing of the alligator by the Robert Forster character is allegorical to the conquering of the fears and guilt that exist in his soul.

Something I especially liked about Alligator was the way it incorporated humor into the story without defusing the thrills and suspense. When you were directing the picture, what were your ideas about maintaining this balance between humor and horror?

Teague: I didn’t think of it so much as a balance, because I never felt that the elements were in conflict. I never felt the balance of humor in relation to the suspense was critical. I tried to maximize the suspense as much as possible within the limits of production and story, and maintain a sort of consistent droll attitude toward the material. Although I didn’t think the balance of humor versus suspense was critical, the nature of the humor I felt was important. I never allowed it to drift into camp, in other words, the humor always came out of the comedy of the situation and never made fun of the situation. The characters always had to take the situations seriously. If I ever allowed the characters to not take the situation seriously, the humor would then become camp, and then suddenly the audience would become distanced from the material and that would destroy the suspense.

Robert Forster seemed particularly well suited for the role of the cop-hero in this movie. Were you involved in the casting of this part?

Teague: Yes, I fought for Bob in the picture. There was some pressure on producer Brandon Chase to go with somebody who might have been a little more commercial and, to Brandon’s credit, he recognized that Bob would be more suitable than some of the other-quote-unquote-more commercial choices and ultimately decided to go along with Bob and make a better picture. I’m a big fan of Forster’s. I directed second unit on a picture called Avalanche and had a chance to work with Forster on that; I was really impressed with his skill. So when I directed Lady in Red, I cast him in a small cameo in the picture. I was enormously appreciative of his help in that movie and I thought his cameo really stood out. I was just waiting for an opportunity to work with him again, and he was perfect for Alligator.

What was involved in the effects for Alligator?

Teague: Before I became involved in the picture, Brandon had hired an industrial designer to construct a full-sized rubber monster-alligator-I think it was 26 feet long. It never really worked. It looked great as long as it was stationary. We did a test with it to try to get it to walk, and I think that’s what convinced me to do this picture as a comedy. We ended up using a variety of techniques to film the alligator. We had that full-sized rubber alligator, which was only useful for stationary shots; we had a mechanical head that was mounted on a moveable rig that we could use for closeups of the alligator chomping on things; we had a mechanical tail which was very strong and moved on a crane that we used for scenes of it swatting things; and we also used real alligators on miniature sets for a few shots. So we intercut all of those methods, and used a lot of shots from the alligator’s point of view and tried not to show the alligator whenever possible.

You seem to have liked working with Brandon Chase on this picture.

Teague: Yeah, Brandon was very supportive. He made three critical decisions that I think are largely responsible for the success of the picture. First of all, the decision to go with me (laughs), secondly to let me work with John Sayles, and thirdly to go with Robert Forster.

These two film veterans should know. 1980’s Alligator, which Sayles wrote and Teague directed, surprised both critics and fans by being both intentionally funny and scary, an all-too-rare combination.

“There was a story in the New York Times a couple of years earlier, remembers Chase, “about sewer workers who found baby alligators that had grown up a bit. These were from people who had visited Florida and Louisiana and bought cute little alligators from roadside stands, and they brought ’em home and then–what next? They flushed ’em down the toilet! And I thought, ‘Alligators in the sewer system that’s sensational movie material.’ We embellished it for our purposes, of course, but it’s essentially a true story.”

Chase then commissioned longtime friend Frank Ray Perilli to flesh out the idea. Perilli, a stand up comic turned screenwriter, had hit recently with two heist comedies, The Doberman Gang (dogs robbing banks) and Little Cigars (midgets robbing banks). But according to the director, his draft of Alligator didn’t quite cut it. “I liked the idea, but I didn’t like the script,” Teague says of his initial exposure to the project. “I had just finished The Lady in Red, which John Sayles had written, so I did the film on the condition that John could come in and rewrite it. The original script had a child as a protagonist; it was totally humorless, and it wasn’t scary or funny, so I didn’t see much purpose in doing it.”

“All I remember about it was that it was set in Milwaukee,” says Sayles about the original script, “and that the alligator getting big had something to do with beer running off into the sewers. Which is why people from Milwaukee are so big, I guess. I also remember the finale took place in an old abandoned sawmill, so there were a lot of chainsaws and such.”

At the time, Sayles was a novelist (Union Dues) whose screenwriting skills had recently helped make Battle Beyond the Stars and Piranha far better than the average Roger Corman quickie. Teague hailed from a background in documentaries (including work on Woodstock), and had spent 10 years editing and directing 2nd unit for Corman’s New World Pictures, where the two met.

Writing Alligator at the same time as The Howling, it took Sayles all of two weeks to come up with a first draft, and, after suggestions from Chase and Teague, another two weeks to arrive at the final version. The man who gave horror a much-needed shot of originality in the early ’80s grew up watching Hammer and Godzilla movies, and saw fit to make an unprompted mention of The Manster, an obscure Japanese two-headed man movie (!), while discussing Alligator.

“Because the alligator didn’t tower over buildings like Godzilla,” he explains, “and wasn’t big enough to be a huge, terrifying threat to everybody, what I had to play with was the spookiness of going down into the sewers—the unknownness of it.” Sayles, who witnessed baby alligators being sold through the mail as a child, studied animal behavior in college. Thus Alligator, like Piranha, benefited from scientific accuracy, down to the monster’s mating call.

The script opens in Florida, as a family on vacation buys a pet alligator at a roadside stand for their little girl. Back home, “Ramon” is soon flushed down the toilet by the disgruntled father. Thirteen years later, gunshy cop David Madison begins to notice a rash of corpses showing up in the city sewers. After losing a partner to the mysterious predator, he teams up with herpetologist Marisa Kendall, who remembers having lost her pet alligator oh so many years ago…

Not content to crank out just your basic no-frills monster movie, Teague and Sayles sought to add levels of depth behind the fun and scares. “One of the things I like about horror films is that the monsters can easily be used as parables or metaphors for something,” Teague says. “I thought it would be interesting if the main character was pursued by some demons from his past that the alligator could symbolize. And his only way to exorcise them would be to face his fear and go out and slay the dragon, so to speak. I talked in conceptual terms about that with John, and he ran with it and came up with a backstory about Madison having a partner who was killed and who he felt guilty about, and it was ruining his life.”

“Something I consciously did was have the monster, like all social ills, start in the sewer and slums and eat its way up through the socio-economic classes,” Sayles says. “You’ll notice that only when it starts attacking the upper middle class do people start doing something about it.”

While shooting 2nd unit on 1978’s Avalanche, Teague became friends with that film’s costar Robert Forster, who later offered his services, unpaid and uncredited, as Turk the hit man in Lady in Red. Impressed with the actor’s work in his debut feature, Teague insisted on Forster as Madison over the possibility of other, better-known actors.

“Robert gave the picture so much of its character,” says associate producer Marianne Chase. “Alligator worked because it was tongue-in-cheek. His performance in the lead stopped it from being another dumb serious horror movie. With him as the hero, you knew it was supposed to be fun.”

“Often when you write a low budget movie, you have no idea who’s going to be in it, and you just cross your fingers that it’s not going to be the second stuntman,” says Sayles. “The gun-shy cop who lost a partner is a standard device in police and military movies, but because Robert Forster is a good actor, all that stuff played out well. He made the guy more interesting than they usually are. If you can make a character three-dimensional in a horror movie, you’ve done a lot. That way the action stuff is more powerful, because you care about whether the guy lives or dies.”

Forster, the star of everything from the classic Medium Cool to Satan’s Princess, also gave the film its most memorable running gag.

Alligator! Oh, boy, that’s a favorite of mine. I was losing my hair at the time, and… I was in Schwab’s Drugstore, one of the great meeting places for actors from 1941 to 1983, when it closed, but everybody, everybody, everybody went there for breakfast, including the governor, Jerry Brown. Actors, directors, writers, publicists, hookers, horseplayers, and hangers-on—you name it, they were all at Schwab’s. And I was sitting there in a booth, reading my paper, and some guy was standing there waiting for a table, and I looked up. I thought he was reading over my shoulder, and I looked up to make sure he had finished before I turned the page, and he wasn’t looking at the newspaper. He said, “Hey, Bob, I’m a friend of yours.” I said, “Yeah, Lenny.” He said, “I’m gonna tell you something, but… I’m a friend of yours.” I said, “Lenny, what is it?” He said, “Bob, you look better with hair, and you’d better do something about it.” And I thought to myself, “Jesus, the guy’s right.” I had gotten to the point where I was making jokes about hair loss.

Now, you may remember that, in Alligator, there are a series of little jokes about a guy who’s sensitive about losing his hair. You remember that? I put those jokes into the movie. I wrote ’em, I asked the director if I could put ’em in there. He said, “Yes,” and the very first time we saw a rough cut of the movie, they were all in there, and in the second rough cut, they were all gone. And I figured, “Oh, God, this director didn’t like them,” or something, and I was sorry about it to myself. But then the third time, I said, “You know what? I think those belong in the movie.” And he called me back and said, “I’ve had friends tell me that they miss those hair jokes, so I’m gonna put ’em back in the movie.” And you may remember that when the movie was released, those hair jokes, every single reviewer commented on them. Without knowing how they got there, sure, but they all recognized that it was something human about the character, which gave it a little plus. Because, you know, it was a genre movie. It was a spoof of Jaws, basically. With a guy who was losing his hair. So when Lenny said what he said to me, that’s when I said to myself, “Losing my hair is not good enough to make the next joke. You’d better do something about it.” – Robert Foster

After coming to Los Angeles with $35 in her pocket a few years earlier, Robin Riker made her screen debut as Dr. Kendall, the young scientist who helps defeat the killer gator. Riker and Forster together create one of the few love affairs in monster movie history that doesn’t seem horribly forced.

“What I liked about the script was that Kendall was a woman of substance,” Riker recalls. “She was a herpetologist, she was strong, she had a sense of humor, she kept up with the boys when the alligator broke out and the action started happening. When people asked me about Alligator when we were making it, I would say, ‘It’s like Jaws and I’m the Richard Dreyfuss character. ”

While Teague had his choice for the leads, Chase suggested they round out the cast with some familiar American character actors for their drawing power with overseas audiences. Michael Gazzo, the gravel-voiced screenwriter turned performer, famous for playing mobsters in films like Fingers and The Godfather, Part II, was cast as police chief Clark. Septuagenarian Dean Jagger, who began his career making monsters (1936’s Revolt of the Zombies), ended it that way too: His role as amoral industrialist Slade, the man responsible for dumping the hormones that created the beast, would be one of his last before dying in 1991 at age 87.

“He was wonderful,” Teague says of the late actor, famous for films like 12 O’Clock High and Vanishing Point. “He was 100 percent alert, had a great sense of humor. We were both fans of Rudyard Kipling, and we had a lot of fun between takes reciting Kipling poems to each other. Charming, erudite, very interesting guy.”

Henry Silva, the unforgettable chiseled-faced villain in films such as The Manchurian Candidate, Thirst and Dick Tracy, landed a rare non-traditional role as Colonel Brock, the big game hunter brought in to tackle the overgrown reptile. In an inspired touch, Brock goes to the South Side ghetto to recruit local “natives” to help him navigate the urban jungle.

“I’m cast so much as the heavy in films, and what people are not aware of is that when I was in New York doing theater, a lot of the plays I did were comedy,” says Silva, who left school at age 14 and became a dishwasher to pay for acting lessons. “I liked Alligator because of the humor in the film. I was killing so many people in all my other pictures, and it was getting a little boring. It was nice to make people smile again for a change.”

Unable to afford to recreate a sewer system on their slim $1- million budget, the filmmakers spent much of the 25-day shooting schedule in the actual Los Angeles sewer drains, the same locale where the classic Them! was filmed. “It was really nightmarish—it was a good thing it was a non-union movie where we could abuse everybody and keep them down there all day,” Teague laughs. “It was odorous and damp, and we were usually standing up to our hips in toxic waste water.”

“One day, when we were shooting the scene where the SWAT team is trying to chase out the alligator, some people saw these actors with fake guns and called the police, recalls Marianne Chase. “By the time we came out of the sewers, there was this fleet of cop cars waiting for us. And the wardrobe man, who was last to come out, saw all these cops and jumped right back down into the tunnels. We all had a good laugh about that.”

A low-budget horror film shot in the sewers doesn’t seem like it would make for pleasant memories, but all involved with Alligator share positive feelings about its lensing. “A lot of that had to do with Lewis,” says Marianne Chase. “He used to be an editor, and so he knows beforehand exactly how he wants things to be shot. There’s no Maybe we’ll do it this way, maybe we’ll do it that way. He’s editing the movie in his mind as he is shooting it. That gives everyone working with him a confidence, and gives the shoot a momentum. Nobody’s hanging around till the director decides what to do.”

“There was only one thing that made me very sad during the film,” says Silva. “Sue Lyon, who played Lolita, had one day’s work on the picture.” Lyon, who set the movie world on fire at age 14 as James Mason’s object of desire in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, and later made headlines by having a brief, unconsummated marriage to an imprisoned murderer, had a single scene as a TV reporter, and has not made a film appearance since. Lyon’s scene with Silva, where he comes on to her by imitating alligator mating sounds, is one of the film’s comic highlights.

Sue Lyon

“She was such a warm, beautifully dressed woman-yet I knew she had fallen on hard times,” says Silva, who continues to actively work in films, mostly in Europe and Asia. “That bothered me a great deal. Here’s a girl, taking this bit part, who was once a film star in her own right. She’s a talented person, but the industry had somehow found no more use for her. She was so young! To think that when you’re 21, you’re through-it really shook me up. It says a great deal about the American film industry, and not something positive either.”

The shooting progressed smoothly on the tight schedule, though how the film would end was still up in the air. “We had to go back and forth about the endings quite a bit,” says Sayles. “I had one ending where it was doused with gasoline and set on fire. They weren’t going to do that with a real alligator, and couldn’t see a way to do it to the fake one without destroying it. That meant that it would have to be the last shot of the movie, and also, the advertising value of the giant alligator that they had planned to utilize would be gone. If it was all melted rubber, it wouldn’t be able to make personal appearances at shopping malls. In the final draft of the ending. I wound up writing things like ‘EXCITING CROSS-CUT MONTAGE-YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THIS, LEWIS!’

“I watched a lot of movies with underground locations to get ideas on how to shoot Alligator,” Teague recalls. “Especially The Third Man, where the hero, Harry Lime, dies in the sewers at the end. When we were down there shooting, I got inspired and spray-painted ‘Harry Lime Lives on the tunnel wall, which you can barely see in the last shot.”

For a film of its era and budget, Alligator’s creature FX are surprisingly good. “We tried to farm the job out to various special effects houses to build us a giant mechanized alligator, but the costs were enormous,” Brandon Chase remembers. “We figured we could go with an alligator that we could put two people inside instead.”

To test his theory, Chase commissioned industrial designer and then-mayor of Beverly Hills Ben Stansberry to create a prototype monster suit. “The original 26-footlong gator was cast in rubber on a frame of rattan and wicker with wire hinges, and two guys would wear it,” explains Teague. “I went down to this warehouse where the alligator was in storage, and it looked fantastic, so I was very excited. They cut it down from the ceiling, and it just crumbled into dust. The rubber had gotten totally dried out.

“Brandon then hired Bob Short to make a new alligator from the original mold,” Teague continues. “They were worried about it falling apart again, so they overbuilt it. It had a thick rubber shell, with an aluminum-and-steel armature. It weighed a ton. We had a screen test out in the valley where these guys had their shop, in their parking lot, and a huge crowd had gathered to watch. We hired these two ex-football players to be inside it. Now remember, a real alligator takes long strides; that’s how it moves so fast to kill its prey. The two guys inside it took long strides in human terms, but it looked like the alligator was taking these short mincing steps.

“So the cameras are rolling, and I’m calling a cadence so these guys can walk in sync, and this gigantic monster starts taking these little baby steps. Well, the 200 passers-by that gathered to watch this thing just burst out laughing. At that point I made two decisions that it was gonna be a comedy, and that I would show as little of the alligator moving as possible.”

“It didn’t look real for very long,” Brandon Chase says of the monster suit. “They couldn’t walk for more than a few moments because of the heat inside and the weight of the thing. Lewis sensed that problem beforehand, so we shot all the profile moving shots with a real alligator on miniature sets. Also, when we did tight close-ups of a head or eye or mouth, we’d use the real one. Cutting between the movement of the real gator and our fake one created much greater credibility.”

In describing the cost of making Alligator, Teague revealed, “The budget was a little under one and half million, and we had about a four week shooting schedule. The musician’s strike began shortly after we finished the movie, which was unfortunate, because James Horner was writing the score, and he had just completed the score when the strike began, so he wouldn’t let us have it. I think he recycled that score and used it on a movie called Wolfen. There you go; not a bad picture either.”

Like Teague’s first film, Alligator got excellent critical notices but fared less than spectacularly at the box office. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby (asked personally by the director to review it) raved, stacking it up against mega hits Raiders of the Lost Ark and Superman II as one of the best releases of summer 1981. Alas, Alligator never made even half the money those blockbusters did, coming and going from theaters in a flash. “It didn’t do that well in theaters because Brandon booked it into houses that only had one week’s availability, never imagining that it was gonna get the reaction it did,” Forster says in his typically outspoken, from-the-hip style.

“Brandon thought he could make more money releasing it himself, rather than take what the studios had offered him,” says Teague. “They would have done a better job publicizing it, and it would have played in theaters longer, but they would have had complete ownership, and it would have been the last we would ever see of it.”

John Sayles Interview

Sayles had traveled this Jaws-inspired territory earlier in Piranha, which I think is slightly superior to Alligator. But Alligator and Piranha both share the spirit of unpretentious B-movie glee, and both include a little social commentary with their humor and gore. Alligator is at least better in one respect: it stars the great Robert Forster as the unshaven cop hero. Forster’s low-key sincerity gives Alligator a pathos that Piranha lacks, although Piranha has better rhythm, action, and humor. I also think Piranha handles the gore better, as some of the severed arms and legs in Alligator are plainly gross.

Both films employ the old-fashioned monster-movie pattern of depicting a kill early on, showing glimpses of the monster from time to time, having the heroes discover telltale signs of the monster, putting the heroes in conflict with corrupt or ignorant authorities, and finally setting the monster loose at some kind of big festival at the conclusion. Both films, thanks to Sayles, are very good at foreshadowing and at setting amusing patterns in the narrative. An obvious example: the gator’s name is Ramon, and in Madison’s apartment are posters of Ramon Santiago

How did you get involved with Alligator?

Sayles: I had already worked with its director, Lewis Teague, on Lady in Red, a movie that’s very popular in Europe. That was one of the best scripts I’ve written, though Lewis had only twenty-one days to shoot it, a budget of under a million, and no voice in casting the first four leads. Robert Conrad was Dillinger, a small part. Pamela Sue Martin, recently on Dynasty, was the lead. She’s okay, but she hadn’t done a big part before. Anyway, they had this script for Alligator, but it wasn’t a good script. So Lewis talked the producer, Brandon Chase, into hiring me. They gave me this script that was set in Madison, Wisconsin. The alligator lived in a sewer for the whole movie. It never got above ground.

What turned the alligator into a fantasy monster in the original script?

Sayles: A brewery had a leak and the alligator was drinking the malt, or something like that. It never made sense why it was a giant alligator. They killed this alligator at an old abandoned sawmill. Someone had left the power on at the old abandoned sawmill. And someone had left a chainsaw lying around the old abandoned sawmill. They plugged the chainsaw in and threw it into the alligator’s mouth. All the alligator’s thrashing around didn’t even pull the plug out, even as the chainsaw cut him to bits. So I rewrote Alligator. All I kept was a giant alligator, and I started from scratch. I wrote the whole first draft on the cross-country flight from L.A. to New York.

Were you following concrete instructions?

Sayles: No, Lewis just said, “This script needs plot, character, mood.”

What was the alligator like?

Sayles: They had built an alligator years earlier, and it was sitting on a shelf. When they took it off the shelf, it fell apart. They had to build another alligator. Well, there was a lot of good stuff I wrote that never got shot, whole subplots, because this alligator couldn’t cut it. This alligator couldn’t do the things they said it could. It couldn’t go in the water, for instance. Since there was only one foot of water in the sewer, I decided the alligator should end in the Mississippi River and drown. But that wasn’t filmed. Earlier I’d wanted to burn the alligator, have a guy pour gasoline on it. I liked the idea of the alligator walking around on fire. They said no, because the alligator was booked for a personal appearance in a flatbed truck for publicity. We couldn’t destroy it. We had to cut away from it.

So what did you do?

Sayles: Finally we blew it up. I wrote the scene over the telephone. Lewis called and said, “Well, it’s time to shoot the end.” I said, “Oh well… let’s have the alligator take dynamite off somebody. We should do some crosscutting at the end. Also, someone should drive a car on top of the manhole cover…”Lewis said, “That sounds fine.” He story-boarded the conclusion and did a great job. I said, “Don’t put any dialogue in except, ‘Move your car! My boyfriend is down there with the alligator!'”

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(Alligator) A tabletop game based on the film was distributed by the Ideal Toy Company in 1980.

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Cast

Robert Forster as David Madison

Robin Riker as Marisa Kendall

Michael V. Gazzo as Chief Clark (credited as Michael Gazzo)

Dean Jagger as Slade

Sydney Lassick as Luke Gutchel (credited as Sidney Lassick)

Jack Carter as Mayor

Perry Lang as Officer Jim Kelly

Henry Silva as Colonel Brock

Bart Braverman as Thomas Kemp

John Lisbon Wood as mad bomber

James Ingersoll as Arthur Helms

Robert Doyle as Mr. Bill Kendall, Marisa’s father

Patti Jerome as Mrs. Madeline Kendall, Marisa’s mother

Angel Tompkins as newswoman

Sue Lyon as ABC newswoman

Leslie Brown as young Marisa

Buckley Norris as Bob

Royce D. Applegate as Callan

Tom Kindle as Announcer

Jim Brockett as Gator wrestler

Simmy Bow as Seedy

Jim Boeke as Shamsky

Stan Haze as Meyer

James Arone as Sloan

Peter Miller as Sgt. Rice

Pat Petersen as Joey

Micole Mercurio as Joey’s mother (credited as Micol)

Alligator (1980) Retrospective SUMMARY A teenage girl purchases a baby American alligator while on vacation with her family at a tourist trap in Florida.

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