brief update on the Creeping Horror that Is Devouring My Brain
you know that never say never thing?
yeah.
I swore I was never going to write tentacles, and it was going to take a lot of armtwisting to get me to read them.
Enter the twisting.
And now in my head there is TENTACLED CHIBICRACK happening.
Sephiroth keeps trying to turn into the Angsty Brooding Hero On A Clifftop Against the Cruel Lashing Storm(TM)... except it's a lot harder to be impressive-looking, even with that snappy black trenchcoat, when you're three feet shorter and dragging your hems behind you as you crawl around grouching.
Aeris is fascinated. Aeris is dangerous when fascinated.
And Zack? Zack just HAD to go and see exactly how literal he could make the phrase "barcrawling."
::headdesk headdesk headdesk::
From Cloud:
"It was kind of crazy," the boy murmured, running a hand through his hair. "General Sephiroth was, uh, kind of unconscious -- I was kind of responsible for that actually. And Zack was hurt pretty bad too, and we had to figure out how to move both of them without getting seen too much, and even with the wheelbarrow -- have you ever tried using a wheelbarrow for moving two hurt people who've both got tentacles longer than you are tall? It was like trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon -- things flopped and oozed a lot, and I'd kind of noticed them when I was trying to keep the General from sliding out of the wheelbarrow entirely and -- er --"
About then, he'd noticed the series of interesting colors the tips of Sephiroth's tentacles were turning. "Spaghetti with a spoon," the General echoed, very, very quietly.
"Er," Cloud said. "I'm sorry, sir. This is probably not the most dignified way of telling your commanding officer what you did with his unconscious body the other day, is it; I mean, 'wheelbarrow' is the sort of thing you're not too surprised to hear when somebody's talking about moving somebody with Zack's affection for alcohol-assisted partying, but it's not necessarily the most suitable transportation for someone's normally very sober commanding officer, especially when there are tentacles to deal with, and, er, I should really shut up now, shouldn't I...?"
From Aeris:
"Zack!" Aeris sounded positively indignant as she rushed over and looked up through her window. "Get back here! I wasn't done playing with your wriggly bits yet and-- oh, for the love of... Zack, get back inside; I don't want you doing that on top of shingles, they've got poky edges and you're already cut up!"
...
"Zack," she was shouting towards her rooftop, "I don't even want to know what you think you're doing to my chimney -- but if you have to get a marriage licence for it before you get one for me, I'm going to be very cross with you!"
...
"You are not trailing slime of questionable origins all across the floors I've just mopped, Zack. Mother would be horrified. --Cloud, where'd you put that wheelbarrow?"
Poor Sephiroth can't even get a good melodramatic angstfest going without some kind of untoward interruption:
"Aeris," Sephiroth conceded, because it was one less battle to have to fight and he was obviously too deeply beseiged already. "I truly appreciate what it is you're trying to do for Zack's sake, and also for myself. But your faith and generosity are shields too frail to hold against the eldrich horror that is consuming your beloved from within--"
"That's an eloquent way to say it," Aeris said, smiling. "I bet she'd like being called an eldrich horror better than some of the other names I have for her. Much more respectful than 'undead asteroid hairball' or 'freak mutant virus thing' or 'zombie space loogie,' all things considered."
"Zombie space l--" The whites were showing all the way around Sephiroth's eyes, and he was trying to curl up into the corner again.
Of course, it's not really Sephiroth's fault he's off his sturm-und-drang stride, Cloud thinks...
It seemed as though something had broken inside the General, though, somewhere between the books and the monsters in the tanks and Nibelheim's midnight and that long nightmare and being prevented from murdering his life's cruel nemesis and sneaking back into his own city as a fugitive just in time for his brand-new boyfriends' girlfriend to make startling personal comments about major architectural fixtures' xenosexual preferences.
So then, once Zack gets done humping the chimney, Cloud and Sephiroth are DOOOOOOMED.
"One good thing to say about the situation -- for once in my life I've actually got enough arms to cuddle everybody at once," he said, in drowsily sated bliss.
Cloud, who was trying to discreetly wriggle away from the tentacle that had made its way up the leg of his pants, coughed so that he wouldn't squeak high and said, "I'd call that groping, myself."
"That too," Zack said, utterly content as he ruffled Cloud's hair with another tentacle. "Cuddling and groping everybody, at the same time. Life could certainly be worse."
...DOOOOOOMED. And pulling rank doesn't help a DAMN thing.
"Zack, do bear in mind that I still outrank everyone in this room."
"Yeah, whatever," Zack said.
"I strongly urge you to reconsider a plan that will get you court-martialled."
"You don't even know what the plan is."
"When you get that expression on your face, it rarely matters what the plan is," Sephiroth retorted, with some force.
"But it's a good plan."
"That is an excessively subjective analysis of--"
"--Don't give me the bullshit line about analysis of available evidence, because you haven't got any available evidence, and 'Zack had That Grin on' is really not admissible in a Shinra military tribunal." Zack crossed his arms, as well as several tentacles for extra emphasis.
"It would be admissible if the jury knew you," Sephiroth said, pained. "What, precisely, is the plan?"
"We need to know more about what the triggers are, so we don't go apeshit in the wrong place at the wrong time," Zack said. "Panic's pretty much a given, and so is groping, but we really need to have some idea of how much panic we need to watch out for. Or how much groping. Agreed?"
"About that 'groping' part, Zack--"
"And I'm sure not going to go around pulling out flesh-eating hallucinogenic biotoxins on you guys deliberately. No arguments there, I assume."
"No, of course not, but--"
"So, since you've got more experience than I do with neurowhatsit trigger points, you're going to train me about how to 'surf the waves.' And since I've got more experience than you do with the chemicals that don't eat people's faces off and make sounds bleed orange inside their heads, sex biochemistry is where we're going to start."
"Zack--"
"And," Zack continued, "you can't train me unless you've experienced the whoa-good-drugs side of it too. Which means it's officially your turn for some industrial-grade tentacular groping. Since you're the one who has a handle on the theory of mastering the biorhythms and all."
"I think I could get to like the army," Aeris said thoughtfully.
"See why I love her?" Zack asked the room at large.
...never say never, that's all I can say...
::goes to fall over and sleep some more::
yeah.
I swore I was never going to write tentacles, and it was going to take a lot of armtwisting to get me to read them.
Enter the twisting.
And now in my head there is TENTACLED CHIBICRACK happening.
Sephiroth keeps trying to turn into the Angsty Brooding Hero On A Clifftop Against the Cruel Lashing Storm(TM)... except it's a lot harder to be impressive-looking, even with that snappy black trenchcoat, when you're three feet shorter and dragging your hems behind you as you crawl around grouching.
Aeris is fascinated. Aeris is dangerous when fascinated.
And Zack? Zack just HAD to go and see exactly how literal he could make the phrase "barcrawling."
::headdesk headdesk headdesk::
From Cloud:
"It was kind of crazy," the boy murmured, running a hand through his hair. "General Sephiroth was, uh, kind of unconscious -- I was kind of responsible for that actually. And Zack was hurt pretty bad too, and we had to figure out how to move both of them without getting seen too much, and even with the wheelbarrow -- have you ever tried using a wheelbarrow for moving two hurt people who've both got tentacles longer than you are tall? It was like trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon -- things flopped and oozed a lot, and I'd kind of noticed them when I was trying to keep the General from sliding out of the wheelbarrow entirely and -- er --"
About then, he'd noticed the series of interesting colors the tips of Sephiroth's tentacles were turning. "Spaghetti with a spoon," the General echoed, very, very quietly.
"Er," Cloud said. "I'm sorry, sir. This is probably not the most dignified way of telling your commanding officer what you did with his unconscious body the other day, is it; I mean, 'wheelbarrow' is the sort of thing you're not too surprised to hear when somebody's talking about moving somebody with Zack's affection for alcohol-assisted partying, but it's not necessarily the most suitable transportation for someone's normally very sober commanding officer, especially when there are tentacles to deal with, and, er, I should really shut up now, shouldn't I...?"
From Aeris:
"Zack!" Aeris sounded positively indignant as she rushed over and looked up through her window. "Get back here! I wasn't done playing with your wriggly bits yet and-- oh, for the love of... Zack, get back inside; I don't want you doing that on top of shingles, they've got poky edges and you're already cut up!"
...
"Zack," she was shouting towards her rooftop, "I don't even want to know what you think you're doing to my chimney -- but if you have to get a marriage licence for it before you get one for me, I'm going to be very cross with you!"
...
"You are not trailing slime of questionable origins all across the floors I've just mopped, Zack. Mother would be horrified. --Cloud, where'd you put that wheelbarrow?"
Poor Sephiroth can't even get a good melodramatic angstfest going without some kind of untoward interruption:
"Aeris," Sephiroth conceded, because it was one less battle to have to fight and he was obviously too deeply beseiged already. "I truly appreciate what it is you're trying to do for Zack's sake, and also for myself. But your faith and generosity are shields too frail to hold against the eldrich horror that is consuming your beloved from within--"
"That's an eloquent way to say it," Aeris said, smiling. "I bet she'd like being called an eldrich horror better than some of the other names I have for her. Much more respectful than 'undead asteroid hairball' or 'freak mutant virus thing' or 'zombie space loogie,' all things considered."
"Zombie space l--" The whites were showing all the way around Sephiroth's eyes, and he was trying to curl up into the corner again.
Of course, it's not really Sephiroth's fault he's off his sturm-und-drang stride, Cloud thinks...
It seemed as though something had broken inside the General, though, somewhere between the books and the monsters in the tanks and Nibelheim's midnight and that long nightmare and being prevented from murdering his life's cruel nemesis and sneaking back into his own city as a fugitive just in time for his brand-new boyfriends' girlfriend to make startling personal comments about major architectural fixtures' xenosexual preferences.
So then, once Zack gets done humping the chimney, Cloud and Sephiroth are DOOOOOOMED.
"One good thing to say about the situation -- for once in my life I've actually got enough arms to cuddle everybody at once," he said, in drowsily sated bliss.
Cloud, who was trying to discreetly wriggle away from the tentacle that had made its way up the leg of his pants, coughed so that he wouldn't squeak high and said, "I'd call that groping, myself."
"That too," Zack said, utterly content as he ruffled Cloud's hair with another tentacle. "Cuddling and groping everybody, at the same time. Life could certainly be worse."
...DOOOOOOMED. And pulling rank doesn't help a DAMN thing.
"Zack, do bear in mind that I still outrank everyone in this room."
"Yeah, whatever," Zack said.
"I strongly urge you to reconsider a plan that will get you court-martialled."
"You don't even know what the plan is."
"When you get that expression on your face, it rarely matters what the plan is," Sephiroth retorted, with some force.
"But it's a good plan."
"That is an excessively subjective analysis of--"
"--Don't give me the bullshit line about analysis of available evidence, because you haven't got any available evidence, and 'Zack had That Grin on' is really not admissible in a Shinra military tribunal." Zack crossed his arms, as well as several tentacles for extra emphasis.
"It would be admissible if the jury knew you," Sephiroth said, pained. "What, precisely, is the plan?"
"We need to know more about what the triggers are, so we don't go apeshit in the wrong place at the wrong time," Zack said. "Panic's pretty much a given, and so is groping, but we really need to have some idea of how much panic we need to watch out for. Or how much groping. Agreed?"
"About that 'groping' part, Zack--"
"And I'm sure not going to go around pulling out flesh-eating hallucinogenic biotoxins on you guys deliberately. No arguments there, I assume."
"No, of course not, but--"
"So, since you've got more experience than I do with neurowhatsit trigger points, you're going to train me about how to 'surf the waves.' And since I've got more experience than you do with the chemicals that don't eat people's faces off and make sounds bleed orange inside their heads, sex biochemistry is where we're going to start."
"Zack--"
"And," Zack continued, "you can't train me unless you've experienced the whoa-good-drugs side of it too. Which means it's officially your turn for some industrial-grade tentacular groping. Since you're the one who has a handle on the theory of mastering the biorhythms and all."
"I think I could get to like the army," Aeris said thoughtfully.
"See why I love her?" Zack asked the room at large.
...never say never, that's all I can say...
::goes to fall over and sleep some more::