#and honestly the subtle way he differs from the folks around him usually works better | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kissofthespring · 3 years

Text

title: ruin the mob ship: iwaizumi x fem!reader (afab!reader) genre: yakuza x coffee shop au cw: blood, guns, violence, potential assault, face sitting, degradation, daddy kink. cute nicknames for the reader. unprotected sex. (wrap it up folks.) note: this is just part one. There will be a part two eventually. (oops.)

"Hajime..."

The wound won't stop bleeding. You can feel your consciousness slipping. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Dummy. Tsubaki?!" He practically yells as he presses his steady hands to the wound.

"No, no, no."

How had you gotten here?

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

Six months earlier.

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

Iwaizumi ran his hand through his spikey locks as he stared at the image on his phone. A pretty girl with her hair pulled up and off her neck. The smile on her face reaches her eyes. She's mid-laugh this shot. "This is Ushijima's sister. She has no idea, though. She's his half-sister. Same father, different last name." Matsukawa says as he reads over the information on the laptop in front of him.

"She's just a girl. What did she do?" Hanamaki spits as he takes apart his gun and starts cleaning it. He's right in a way. You had just turned 29 years old. The smile on your face made Iwaizumi feel old. He had just turned 35, but he couldn't remember the last time he smiled like that.

"So, are we taking her hostage? Or..."

"Killing her. Little Cutie has a price on her head, it seems." Oikawa interrupted him, kicking his feet up onto the table. "It's a hefty one. Otherwise, I wouldn't have us take the job. Iwaizumi, you're the best, so it's on you."

"Tch. Fine." Iwaizumi had a weird rumble in his chest. What had you seen to get you on their radar? Or who had you spoken to? "She works for a coffee shop, yeah? This should be easy."

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

Usually, whenever Iwaizumi Hajime got a job, he'd look over the provided profile and then take out the contract. Something about this one set him off. You probably had no idea you'd seen something. You looked like the type that would go to the cops right away if you'd seen something terrible. So clearly, to you, it was normal. He stepped onto another roof, watching you as you turned down an alleyway stepping toward the red light district. Now, this didn't make sense. This wasn't on his profile of you—a barista working her way through graduate school with no contact with your father. In fact, you didn't seem to have any family contact. He watched as you slipped into the red light coffee shop. Struck with the realization that you were exactly like your profile after all. You were setting the coffee in front of a customer when he walked into the shop. "Welcome. I'll be right there in a moment."

There's no line, so he moves to stand at the counter. He takes in your appearance over his shoulder. Yep, he can see Ushijima in your eyes. It's the shape and softness of your features that set the two of you apart. Not to mention your body. The curve of your breast visible beneath the black apron. The jeans you'd wiggled your way in were form-fitting. Your shirt was a half-buttoned black dress shirt. Just formal enough that you looked professional, but still, the cleavage made it sexy. Working in the red light district, you seemed to pick up something from the girls that frequented your establishment. You step back around the counter before grinning at the man in front of you.

“How can I help you today?”

Your voice is chipper as you lean against the countertop. You take in the appearance of the man in front of you. The all-black tech wear was something you were familiar with. There was a silver earring in his ear, and you could see a tattoo peeking up past his coat as you observed him. Fuck. He was your type. Probably covered in tattoos underneath the jacket on his frame. He was built too. Fuck.

But if he was in the red light district, you knew better. He was one of four things, a pimp, a john, a yakuza, or an escort. From the looks of him, you couldn't help but think that he was too pretty to be a pimp, so either he was getting some, or he was just a part of a crew. You rested your hip against the countertop as the man before you stared up at the menu above your head.

"Large coffee, black, and a small cup of ice water."

"Sure."

You turn to get his coffee and find him pulling out cash to pay. "Nope. You're new around here. On the house tonight. If I see you again, then I'll make you pay." You wink as you pass him the coffee, then move down to grab an ice cup. His eyes widen as you clear the total and smile again. "Usually, I hear a thank you for that."

"That's not a way to run a business..."

You pass the man the water before shrugging. "It's a cup of coffee; I sell more than I give away. Stand in front of me any longer, and I'll make you pay." He picked up the coffee, and the water moving over to the bar area. You could see the scowl on his face, though. Had you surprised him? Hm.

Hajime couldn't help but stare at the coffee cup with anger. Her blood would be on his hands, and she had given him free coffee... Was it foolish of him to think that perhaps whoever put a hit out on you was wrong? Probably. He couldn't help it, though. He watched you as you worked, made fresh coffee, dumped the dregs of the old one. Looked up at the door when the bell rang. Gave a smile to the old man in front of you and smiled that same smile at the gangster that crossed your threshold. You were glancing at the clock before throwing him what you thought was a subtle glance.

Hajime was nursing that same cup of now cold coffee three hours later. You two were alone in the shop; you were about to say something when the bell above the door rang, and your face turned cold. It was instantaneous the shift in the air.

"Hey, Pet." The man who entered called out with a grin. "Thought over my offer?" He lifts his still-lit cigarette to his lips, a smirk curling upon his lips. "This place really could use the protection, and... You'd make a lot more money."

"Listen, Futakuchi. You're great, and I even let you smoke in here when the sign says no smoking. But I'm not interested in being one of your girls, or protection for the shop. We manage fine, thanks." You turn your back to the man lifting a heavy pot of coffee to dump it out for the night. "I'm closing up for the night. Please leave, Futakuchi."

"What about that guy?"

The brown-haired gangster pointed at Iwaizumi, who offered you a smile as if he was willing to play along if need be. "He's my new employee... Now please leave." You glance over at Iwaizumi, who stands to his full height; he was glad that he had grown from his childhood. Now standing at 6'0, he was taller than the other man by centimeters, but it was enough. He shrugged off his coat, the tattoos along his arms finally visible. The brown-haired man had to know what they meant.

The Seijoh Syndicate was infamous. The traditional Japanese style, mixed with a floral and dragon motif... It worked for him. You admired for a moment before you cleared your throat and tossed Iwaizumi the keys for extra measure, "Lock the door after him, would you?" You noticed the way his muscles rippled as he nodded, "Well. The lady did say to leave." Futakuchi crushed his cigarette under his boot before turning around, "I'll be back, Y/N. Maybe next time, you'll be kinder."

"Doubt it!"

You called as Iwaizumi locked the door, and you clutched the edge of the countertop in front of you. "I... I can't thank you enough for helping me out. I'm sorry for getting you roped into this. Um. Thank you..."

"Iwaizumi Hajime." What a mistake that was for him to tell you and a way to identify him, but he did it.

"Thank you, Iwaizumi. You honestly saved me from having to be really aggressive with him. Ever since I opened this place, he's been trying to get in my pants." You take a heavy pot of coffee off the burner before moving to dump it in the sink.

"How did you know that you could trust me to play along with you?" Iwaizumi asked gruffly, settling back into the seat at the bar. When you shrugged, "I didn't. But I hoped that you would. If you wait for me to finish up, I'll split the tips with you for your help. I just don't trust that he's gone." Iwaizumi gave you another nod before siping on his cold coffee. Even cold, it tasted good. Weird. Must be the beans she used. He watched as you locked up the safe for the night and then stood up.

Your head could nestle just under his chin if he so wished it. He didn't, but you could. As you grabbed your bag and handed him his portion of the tips, you grinned. "You know, I understand you might not need the job, but if you wanted a position here..."

He cut you off before you could finish. "I don't. You shouldn't be so generous. Someone will one day take advantage of that kindness." Damn it... It was him. Iwaizumi realized. He would be the one because he was going to have to kill you eventually. You watched as the man grabbed his coat and left the shop. You turned on the alarm then stepped out into the back alley behind your shop.

You were walking home, your keys stuck between your fingers when you felt it. The shift in the wind, someone was following you. When they struck, you'd thought you'd be ready, but your head was pushed against the brick, and the hand that you had your keys in was twisted behind your back sharply. "Sh, Pet. I just... I don't think you're safe working with that guy. Nor do I think you're safe on your own." The mouth of the man who had been trying his damndest to get with you found our neck. He was pushing you against the wall with his body weight and one hand. His other was tracing the waist of your jeans. You thought that if anything like this was to ever happen to you, you'd struggle or something, but you froze.

He pulled your arm a little harder, causing you to yelp. "Let her go." There's a click behind you, and your eyes find the green ones of Iwaizumi. The gun in his hands looks huge; you shrink into yourself when Futakuchi lets you go. "Hey man... Look, I let her go. Whatever, Y/N. If this is who you're with now, I'm out. Fucking bitch." Iwaizumi raises his arm, shooting into the sky, causing you to flinch, and the man who was now cursing your existence to scrambles away.

You had shrunken in on yourself when you felt a hand press against your forehead. "You okay? Let me help you home." You clung to him and directed the man who saved you from another to your home. What a fool you were. You had no idea what he was sent to do. As you pressed your key into the door, you looked up at the man, "Can I repay you somehow?"

"Don't be so kind. You just saw what happens when someone wants to take advantage of that kindness. Next time I won't be there. So... No. Go take a shower and eat something. Good night, Dummy."

You were about to tell him not to call you that, but exhaustion took over, and you just slipped inside your apartment instead. Meanwhile, Iwaizumi was documenting the exits and entrances around your place. God damnit. Taking you out could be easy if you weren't so... Good.

This was a bad hit.

Whoever had it out for you had it for the wrong reasons.

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

It went on like this for five weeks. Iwaizumi would show up three hours before closing, hang out in your coffee shop and then walk you home. You had gotten to know bits and pieces of him too, and he had done the same with you.

One night it's the two of you left in the store, locked up for the night. You weren't paying him any attention when he brushed your hair out of your face a bit gentler than you thought Iwaizumi would be, making you drop the peach scone you were bagging up for the night. "Fuck!"

He's laughing, doubled over, clutching his stomach as you smack his arm. "That's what gets you to swear, Tsubaki? I was gentle. What would you do if I wasn't?" The tension is right there between the two of you. "Shut up, you jerk." You reach for your scone to throw it away when you noticed he hadn't stepped away or gone back to his coffee. "Come driving with me, Tsubaki. It's a nice night." Your eyes met his before you nodded, fiddling with the keys in your hands, "Sure. I'm almost done..."

You finished the closing tasks, turned off the lights around the store, pushed the money through the red door on the safe, and finally set the alarm for the night. Iwaizumi was smoking a cigarette outside the door when you slipped out of the shop. "Okay, I'm ready." He took in your appearance for a moment. You wore a black skirt today, and the thin black top left little to the imagination. God, he liked you. It still lingered in his mind; he was supposed to kill you.

Oikawa had gotten annoyed at him for not completing the job weeks ago, but... Hajime didn't give a fuck. He had spent time with you, and feelings developed from there. You were kind. You cared about everyone who came into your store equally. You'd close shop if a woman came in after being beaten by a John. When a young man came in wounded, you dropped everything to patch him up. You were a safe haven for women and gangsters alike. They knew they could come to you for a place to hide. He found himself unable to kill you. Whoever had put the hit out was wrong. He'd find them first.

You had no idea the thoughts that brewed in the spiky-haired man's head. He held the door open for you to slip in, then slipped inside himself and started driving.

The road turned to gravel as he drove into the hills of the prefecture. Your hand rested against the edge of your skirt, nerves making them shake a little. He turned his wrist up on the gear shift. "If you need to hold my hand or something." Instantly, you latched on to it, bringing it over to your lap, and grinned. The hitman couldn't help himself. He'd gone soft for you... His hand gripped your back. You relaxed, and eventually, your hand slipped out of his, but his hand didn't move from your thigh, gripping it slightly.

Finally, he stopped at a spot overlooking the city. It was secluded and beautiful tonight. His hand moved down your leg to your knee before moving back up gently, "I like you, Tsubaki. You know that, right?"

"I had an inkling. Does this mean I get to call you Hajime now?" You turn toward him full-body, shifting so your back was against the passenger side door, and his hand came up to rest on the back of your seat. "I like you too. I mean, I have for a while, and not just because you saved me before." You fiddled with your fingers, a look of shock coming over your face when Iwaizumi reached for your hand.

He lifted your right hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of your wrist, making you breathe out sharply. His green eyes traced your frame and finally found your face. "Can I kiss you?" The question hit your ears, and before your brain could stop you, you leaned forward to capture his lips in a kiss.

The kiss is hungry and rough. Teeth were clashing together as you finally break that tension you had both had between you two. You reached up to tug his hair, and you could feel his growl against your lips. "Fuck."

The windows fogged before you realized it, and he was pushing you against them, his hand wrapping around your neck to pull you closer to him. He was rough, but god did it feel good. His teeth tug at your lip before whispering, "Can I touch you, Tsubaki?" He presses his forehead against yours, his fingers tangled in your hair as you catch your breath.

"Yes. Touch me, Haji. Please."

The moment the please leaves your lips, he feels feral. His name dies on your lips as he palms a breast with one hand and slips the other one up your skirt resting on your thigh. The kiss was deepening as he swipes his tongue along the seam of your lips. Your gasp was all he needed. His hand moves to your cloth-covered cunt, before pulling back to whisper, "I want to fucking hear you moan."

And moan into his mouth you did. Gasping as he played with your clothed breasts, you wanted more.

The man above you is grinding his hip against your calf as he cages you in against the passenger seat. "Please, don't tease, please." You whisper as the kiss breaks, and he leans back to admire you for a moment. You're his prey here. With his big hands, he could snap your neck and be done with the job. Or he could give you pleasure. His hand lingering on your breast and the other between your legs told him what he wanted to do. He wanted to fuck you. Wanted to ruin you.

The hand between your legs found your hip clutching it slightly. "I want you. But I want it to be special. We shouldn't do this here." You let out a whine that he knew would be his undoing. "Hajime... I want to feel you inside of me. We can go back to my place if you want a bed. I just... Fuck me, tonight."

"Dummy." Iwaizumi whispered against your temple before capturing your lips against his. He slides his hand down to your cunt again. "I know how to satisfy you for now, at least until we get to your place and we make some choices." His large fingers brush against your panties before pushing the fabric to the side. He swallows your moans with kisses as he rubs your clit with his middle finger. He slides that same finger down until he gets to your center and pushes inside of you.

Your hips jolt, and you gasp as his mouth makes its way down your neck, leaving marks as he goes. "More, please. Hajime. Please."

He drives his middle finger into your cunt, grinning at the gasp that chokes from your lips. "Such a greedy little dummy." He adds another finger before he glances down to marvel at the way you suck his fingers in. The dirty and lewd noises were coming from your mouth as he fingers you. "This hand of mine taking you out? Making you dumb? Sweet, sweet little one." He feels your body shake involuntarily, your head rolling backward.

"That's it, baby. Let it go. Cum for me."

Your thighs are shaking as you cum with a gasp, his hand tightening on your throat to control the blood flow and how you were feeling. It was so good that a second one washed over you quickly.

Your vision finally colors again, and you watch him as he lifts his hand to his mouth, sticking each finger in one by one. "You taste so good, Tsubaki. Like my favorite candy."

You roll your eyes at him before shifting to press your body against the passenger side door. "Just drive to my place, and don't make illusions to me tasting like candy..." Iwaizumi shifted gears before chuckling. "I could say something else, but I thought candy suited you. You're sweet. I liked it. And so did you if the way you came was any indication."

The drive went on like that, him teasing you and you bantering it right back to him. When you arrived at your apartment, you instantly felt shy. Your state radiated off of you in waves as you stared up at the tall building. Iwaizumi's hand reached over to squeeze your thigh. "We don't have to do this tonight... I got you off; that’s what I wanted to do."

You looked up at him shaking your head before reaching for his hand and lacing his fingers with yours. "Come inside; I’ll get you some tea."

His voice reverberated in your brain as you both got out of the car, "I don't want tea, Tsubaki." I want you. Those words are unspoken as you both approach your door from the confined space of the elevator.

You fumbled with the keys, dropping them than picking them up again. Iwaizumi's hand rests on the small of your back to soothe your thoughts. "Do I make you anxious? It's not my goal, dummy." He's gentle as he brushes your cheek with careful fingers. He's treating you like glass as you both enter the apartment. Shoes fall off feet quickly as soon as the door closes.

You step backward into your apartment, leading him down the short hallway to your bedroom. He follows his hand resting on your shoulder, taking in the ease of your clothes. "God, you're so beautiful." He pushed your shoulder strap down your arm smiling as your tank top fell quickly. Your overshirt was already discarded when you entered your apartment. Your knees hit the bed, and you reach for his long sleeve shirt. "It's not fair if I get naked first, Hajime."

He pulls the shirt over his head with one arm in a swift movement and lets it fall to the floor. He steps closer so that his body can cage yours in against the bed. His knees were nudging your own apart slightly. "We're nowhere near even, Peaches."

Your fingers trace the patterns of his tattoos, running up his arms and across his chest. Iwaizumi lets you touch him like this, a cool grin curling upon his lips. "You like them?" Your fingers find a dragon wrapped in ivy; the teal creature struggles to the sky on his right arm. Tsubaki flowers bloom across his pec then the more traditional Yakuza tattoos catch your eye. You knew he was a part of a gang, but this was so detailed. You press your mouth to the flowers and nod. "They are beautiful. You are beautiful, Ha-" He cuts you off, catching your mouth with his and kissing you deeply.

The sensuality of the kiss makes your back arch practically into him. When you broke it to breathe, he's smiling down at you brushing your hair back with such careful calloused hands. "No one has ever called me beautiful before, Tsubaki-chan." He nibbles your bottom lip before lifting a hand to your chest. "Can I take all this off you? I want you."

There were moments of softness as your clothes fell away to skin. Iwaizumi’s rough hands roaming gently down your body until he got to your cunt again. You breathed in sharply as he touched you and felt your body react and arch toward him. "Hajime." You moaned as he captured your lips and reached for your hand to place it on his thick considerable cock.

Your delicate fingers wrapping around him caused his breath to catch in his throat. "Fuck, dummy."

You stroked him gently, rubbing your thumb over the slit on his cock as you did so. He caged you in from above as your feather-light touch caused a soft moan to escape his lips.

He hisses through his teeth as your foreheads touch, and you stroke him, your hand tightening a bit as you move it. "Tsubaki..." He whispers against your skin, dropping kisses against your shoulders, "That sweet hand of yours, it probably doesn't feel as good as your cunt. I want to do something for you, though."

He pulls you with him and rolls onto his back. He pulls your hips to his face roughly, his large hands cupping your ass as he did so. "I'll make you feel good, dummy. Just sit still and enjoy the ride." His teeth nicked your thighs as he pulls you closer to his mouth. "Hajime! Hey, wait. I don't want you to get hurt by me." He looked up at you from between your legs; he’s practically salivating as he says. "Oh, you little dummy. You won't hurt me. I want to make you feel good." He pressed his face to your center, smirking when he felt your thighs clench under his hands. "Sensitive, huh?" You squeal a little bit as he buries his face between your thighs.

You're drenched, and his tongue has you fisting his hair with the first stroke. He speaks against your cunt, something you can't quite hear, but it makes your body vibrate, "Mine." His fingers spread you wide tentative licks against everywhere but where you want him. He's not gentle. He eats you out like a starving man. Getting lost in your taste. You gasp and whine as your body arches against him. His nose brushes against your clit, and your nails dig into his arms. Fingers against the inked limbs.

You're gushing against his mouth as he tugs you against his face more. He hummed against your clit, smirking as your body arches and your full weight finally rests on his face. His tongue flattens against your cunt, as he finally lets his the fingers of his right-hand slip inside of you. "Cum, Tsubaki. Cum for me."

He sucks against your clit, his teeth grazing against it slightly. You gasped, hips bucking slightly. He chuckles as you tug his hair, "Hajime, I..." You came hard thighs locking around his ears as your body falls to his face. You're trying to catch your breath, body folding to the pillow. Hajime slips out from under you, rolling you over and pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek. "You okay there, Peaches? You taste so good. I couldn't help myself." He reached for your cheek brushing your hair away from your face gently. "Such a pretty little thing."

Your fingers brush against his inked arms and chest softly. "Did these hurt?" You ask as you catch your breath. He doesn't seem as though he's going to move forward tonight. He's made you cum. It was all he wanted today unless you were up for more. "They hurt like hell. Mat- uh, my tattoo artist has a heavy hand." You trace the dragon as it rolls up his shoulder. "So... Now what?"

Iwaizumi rolls on top of you, nipping your neck, his sharp teeth making you jump. "Now, I'll fuck you. I'll fucking ruin you for anyone else." He looks up at you before taking your chin in his hands. "If you don't want this, let me know. We can stop right now." You leaned forward to catch his mouth, kissing him mid-sentence. "Fuck me, Hajime."

He groans against your mouth, moving to pin you against the bed. A growl slipped from his lips as he pressed you against the bed, he pushed his pants down and his boxers following as well. His cock bounced against his stomach, well-hung; you couldn't help but lick your lips. You noticed more tattoos that traveled down his legs as well. His golden skin is covered in beautiful black ink.

"You're beautiful." You whispered. Iwaizumi reaches for your hand before kissing the inside of your wrist. "You are. Now, lay back for me." You do so, and his body covers yours. He reaches between your legs, grinning down at you, "Such a wet little slut." He made sure to look into your eyes when he degraded you. He was checking to see if this was okay. "Please. Daddy..." His mouth dives into yours, his tongue licking generously into your lips. He lines his cock up to your entrance before pushing inside of you.

A whine escapes your lips. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, dummy. You feel so fucking good." You clutch his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. "Fucking hell." He caught your lips before pushing into your insides more. He bottomed out finally, your walls fluttering around him. Your plush velvet walls fluttered while he lifted his eyes to meet your own. "Are you cumming again? You're so tight." Spots developed in your vision as he ruts into you. His hips grind against your own, the angle of him lifting your hips, but pressing your chest down slightly to the bed made your back arch.

"Harder. Fuck me harder, Hajime."

His hand slips up your chest to your throat, wrapping it around it as he lowered his body to yours, his mouth against your ear. "You got it." He sets a rough pace, his hand squeezing around your neck to control the way your body felt for him. "So fucking tight." He groans as he shifts your hips to change the angle again. You cry out loudly as he continues to rut against you. The head of his cock nudges your cervix entrance, and you arch, a whine escaping your lips. He was stretching you out in the best ways; your entire body arches as you cum unexpectedly, eyes widening as he meets your gaze.

"Came already? Pretty slut. Daddy's turn."

He kisses your mouth before rolling you over, pressing his chest to your back as he presses inside of you again. You’re sensitive from your orgasm and fluttering around him again. He grins against your shoulder before moving his hips roughly against yours; his right hand slides from your hip to your mouth, right hand, and sticking two fingers between your lips, he grins. "Fuck, you're gorgeous like this. All fucked out on my cock. Your mouth open like this. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." He starts pulling his fingers from your lips and finding your clit to make you cum again.

He drives your head into the mattress, and you gasp the angle changes again. "Where do you want me to cum, Dummy?"

"Inside. Please, Daddy."

His green eyes met yours as you spoke, begging him to cum inside. He grabs you by the neck, pulling you up against his chest, and presses his mouth against your ear. "That's it, baby. That's it, so tight." As you cum again, he follows, groaning as he does. "Fuck, what a good girl. Good fucking girl." He presses kisses to your shoulders as your body collapses bonelessly in Hajime's arms. He gently lets your body move to the bed. He brushes a hand through your hair as he pulls out and watches as his cum slips out of your cunt slowly. He pushes it back in with his fingers before looking up at your face. "Let me clean you up and get you some water."

You groan softly before nodding. "Maybe two cups of water. Hajime, I don't think anyone's ever..." He grinned, pressing a kiss to your fingers. "I can tell. I'll be back. Towels?"

"The linen closet is outside the door. My cups are above the sink. Thank you."

Hajime leaves the room to grab what he needs to clean you up. Meanwhile, you sigh, trying to relax now that your sexual libido's been satiated. It was then you heard his phone go off—the ring tone indicating a text message. You reached for it, surprised when it opens up right away.

shittykawa: Well, is the job done?

Your eyes widen, quickly placing the phone back, unsure as to what he was talking about, but whatever it was, you didn't need to get involved. Hajime came back into the room, moving the damp towel up to your leg while holding a glass toward you in the other. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Hey, I think your phone went off." He continued cleaning you off, reaching for the object with a frown. "Shittykawa, it's not important. Now, do you want me to stay tonight?"

"Yes."

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” He kisses your cheek gently before grabbing his phone and getting up from the bed. You fell into a deep sleep as you waited for him to come back. Meanwhile, Iwaizumi stared out the window in your living room, calling Oikawa quickly. “Pick up, pick up.”

“Iwa-chan, what the fuck are you doing? Why isn’t she dead yet?”

“Listen, Shittykawa. It’s a bad hit. I’m going to kill whoever put it out on here. She’s an asset to the red light society.”

“Are you blinded by pussy? Iwa-chan. She’s Ushijima’s sister. She’s collateral for him. The guy who put the hit out wouldn’t be wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because the amount of money we were paid wasn’t anything to sneeze at. Look, if you don’t kill her, another team might.”

“I don’t care. It’s a bad hit, Tōru. Please.”

“Fuck, you slept with her. Fine… We’ll come up with something… Fuck, Hajime. If she gets you killed, I’ll kill her myself.”

“She won’t. Now, good night…”

“Good night. Enjoy your fucking fuck.”

#iwaizumi smut #iwaizumi x reader #long fic is long sorry #my writing #iwaizumi hajime x reader

103 notes · View notes

maldito-arbol · 3 years

Text

Let’s talk about zodiacs and TPN Part 1

This is largely inspired by the fact that I talk about the characters’ zodiacs nonstop in the fanfic I’m working on for my tpn witch au, and I’ve been chortling to myself the entire time about how well some of them fit their sign and how some of them just... don’t. I’m going to simply infodump about each character, their sign, element, and some attributes they fit to a t while others don’t make sense. I will also touch on compatibility for all you shippers out there, don’t worryyy. Now this isn’t at all a critique or review of the characters themselves— I know astrology is not the first thing authors consider when choosing character birthdays, if they even do at all, this is simply me rambling about my hyperfixation and projecting onto fictional characters like we all do.

A couple last notes— one character in particular (cough cough Ray) has a different “canon” birthdate from “actual” so I’ll discuss both. Also, while I will be doing surface level research to make sure I’m not talking out of my ass, im not a professional astrologist, I’m simply a witch with an enthusiasm for zodiacs. Well then, without further ado, let’s talk about the kiddos.

Emma

Birthdate: August 22nd

Sign: Leo

Element: Fire

An overview: The funniest thing to me about Emma is that she’s literally the epitome of a Leo. Fire signs are generally very outgoing and energetic—they talk a lot and tend to be the leaders of the packs. Leos in particular are incredibly admirable and truly know their way around a conversation. If I ever wanted to get stuck in an elevator for 48 hours with no wifi or connection to the outside world and only one random stranger to talk to for the entire duration, I would pick a Leo in a heartbeat. Emma is very much the leader-type, she’s someone everyone pauses and listens to when she calls for their attention, and she always prefers to talk her way out of conflict rather than fight—but not in an underhanded manipulative way, no, Leos are very genuine with their feelings and will be upfront about their reasons for their actions.

Take this scene between Emma and Leuvis for example— this to me is about the closest to perfect of a summary of what Leos are like, and how Emma fits her sign beautifully.

She doesn’t want to fight, but she will if she has to—for the good of her friends and the good of humanity. She can stick to her ideals and yet extend a hand to the enemy anyway. This is what makes Leos such a force to be reckoned with in leadership roles.

Compatibility and ships: I know I know, this is the part you’re most excited about. I’m going to attempt to refrain from sharing my opinion on each ship itself, I will simply point out which have the highest compatibility levels. First of all, essentially all signs are most compatible with 1. Other signs of the same element and 2. Their compliment sign, their elemental opposite.

Since Emma is a fire sign, she’s generally compatible with other fire signs (Sagittarius, Aries, and of course Leo) as well as Air signs (Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra). So speaking broadly, she’s compatible of course with Norman as an Aries, as well as Ray IF he truly is an Aquarius. But if we narrow it down a little bit, I should mention that fire signs being fire signs can often clash with each other because both their energies are so high (personal experience lmao), and therefore their elemental opposite, air, are generally the way to go. Usually you’ll find on astrological charts and sites that Leos are most compatible with Geminis and Aquariuses, so Ray again if he is an Aquarius, and then we bring Violet into the picture because she’s a Gemini. (Uh, speaking as a Gemini, Leos are my favorite people to date, and I always seem to crush on them as well. I have a problem. A Leo problem.) I’m so sorry Gilemma shippers but fire and earth signs are like the worst combo, I don’t know how this happened because I love Gilemma with all my heart. The stars simply did not align for us this time

Norman

Birthdate: March 21st

Sign: Aries

Element: Fire

Overview: okay listen. I didn’t believe Norman was an Aries at first because he’s not as high energy as most fire signs, but then the more I thought about it, the more it just makes sense. The most key trait to an Aries is loyalty. They are so incredibly loyal and caring to the people they love that they often neglect themselves in the process. They can be very quick to anger if someone hurts or insults their friend, and are unafraid to start a fight or commit morally gray or even black actions in service of their loved ones. Point is you don’t mess with an Aries’ family or friends. You will get burned.

All the loyalty applies to Norman so incredibly well—the way that his plans and actions revolve entirely around Emma and Ray, and the way that he sacrifices himself for their escape even though he’s terrified of dying. But even more so this loyalty strikes you in the face when he returns as William Minerva, willing and committed to full on genocide all to keep his friends alive and safe. As I’ve said Aries are quick to anger, which seemingly isn’t very present in cool-headed, thoughtful Norman, but then you remember this:

Look at his expression. Even if he doesn’t easily lose his cool, when he does it’s terrifying. So essentially Norman is a much more subtle Aries— he’s not in your face aggressive or full of energy, but he has all the hidden signs. So yeah, I honestly can’t think of any other sign that describes him better. Norman is an Aries.

Compatibility and ships: being a fire sign and all, Norman’s compatibility is actually very similar to Emma’s. He’s compatible with other Fire signs (Sagittarius, Leo, and Aries) as well as Air signs (Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini). Speaking broadly that makes him compatible with Emma and Ray again, but narrowing it down Aries are much better in general with Libras and Leos so congrats Noremma shippers you won.

Ray

“Canon” Birthdate: January 15th

“Actual” Birthdate: February 5th

“Canon” sign: Capricorn

“Actual” sign: Aquarius

“Canon” Element: Earth

“Actual” Element: Air

Overview: alright Ray is a bit of a mixed bag to unpack. Because it’s been stated that Ray’s January 15th birthday is not his actual birthday outside of the source material, then it’s reasonable for me to count both birthdays because people have different ideas of what’s canon and what’s not. Interestingly enough though, Ray does indeed fit well enough into both the Capricorn and Aquarius signs, however I personally believe one shows through him better than the other.

We’ve been talking about fire signs for Emma and Norman so it’s finally time to dive into two other elements! We’ll start with Capricorn then, the Earth sign. The most important thing to remember is that the Earth signs are the most grounded and practical. If you want someone who can give you logical and rational advice, your best bet would be the Earth signs (Air signs are also good at this but this ain’t about them. Although you will notice some overlap in traits between these two, particularly in Capricorns and Aquariuses).

We can already see the ‘practical’ side show through in Ray by the way he hyperfocuses on taking Norman and Emma to escape but insists on leaving the other kids behind. This isn’t to say he doesn’t feel for them, on the contrary, Earth signs are indeed very in tune with their emotions and empathy, but Capricorns really know how to set that part of them aside in favor of the calm and certain route. They like tangible solutions, things they can grasp with the least amount of risk, and they’re very resistant to changes—like giant rocks. This is also noticeable in how Ray gets so very flustered by Norman and Emma’s impulsivity. He clashes with both of them because Earth signs prefer to take things slow while Fire signs just like to make a leap and hope for the best.

Note how Emma says “not that I mind...” meanwhile Ray is out here going “I MIND!!” Which we learn is because of his identity as the spy. He’s got his own plan and a tangible solution to shoot for, and Norman and his impulsivity and Emma going along with it is messing everything up. Thus, he forcibly retakes control of the situation via making a deal with Norman after the traitor is revealed. Very Capricorn stuff.

And if you want an image that just completely sums up the Capricorn in Ray, here you go:

On the OTHER hand, if we’re to go off Ray’s “actual” birthdate, which was so lovingly calculated by Tempo, then we get Aquarius Ray, the Air sign. The most important things to note about the air signs is that they’re the thinkers—the farthest from impulsive, they’re the least in tune with their emotions, and they are oh so horribly indecisive. Where Earth signs will be able to give advice that adheres to both logic and emotion, Air signs stick purely to logic. Where Earth signs are able to make calm and rational decisions, Air signs will agonize over options and often find themselves lost, searching perpetually for a solution with no cracks in it. Hello. I’m an Air sign. :’))

I’m gonna come right out and say it. I hate Aquarius men. Aquarius women and enby folks, they’re great. But Aquarius men? I may, as a Gemini, get along with them in surface level casual conversation, but behind every Aquarius man’s back is a Mal waiting to strangle him the moment I am given the opportunity. I’m so sorry Ray my son but you are not an Aquarius okay. Alright. Well, let’s just talk about the parts of him that do fit Aquarius.

So from the very start Ray is obviously a thinker, someone who considers his options very carefully before he makes a decision, and someone who hates making choices based solely on emotion. In fact, he hates expressing emotions at all. Aquariuses are very good at repressing or hiding their emotions behind other emotions (most air signs are). The most common way to do this is to put up a wall of either numbness or full-on rage. We can see both in Ray.

Instead of showing vulnerability in a healthy way, he would rather do that. Ok cool Ray.

Aquariuses can also be very quiet people, and Ray’s pretty dang quiet for most of the series too. They’re the intellectuals you know are intellectuals even though they aren’t up in your face about it. Their reserved nature makes them 10x scarier when they’re genuinely angry, because boy can an Aquarius rage.

The thing about Aquarius Ray for me here is that while Ray does indeed have Aquarius energy, it’s not the Core of Ray. To me he’s so much more of an Earth sign, so therefore I diagnose Ray with Capricorn.

Compatibility and ships: ok this is a mixed bag again. Now if you got Aquarius Ray then of course he’s compatible with other Air signs (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius) and Fire signs (Leo, Aries, and Sagittarius), which would make him compatible with Norman and Emma for sure, as well as probably Ayshe for you Rayshe shippers because my personal HC is Aquarius Ayshe.

If you’ve got Capricorn Ray, then Capricorns are compatible with other earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) and their compliment water signs (Cancer, Pisces, and Scorpio), though they’re best with Cancers and Tauruses. So yes, Anna is a Taurus, which makes Rayanna a compatible pair. But guess who’s a Cancer. Don. ALL MY RAYDON SHIPPERS GET OUT HERE YOU COWARDS IM CALLING YOUR NAME. YOU WIN THE SHIP GAME.

Gilda

Birthdate: May 13th

Sign: Taurus

Element: Earth

Overview: So again with the practical and grounded Earth signs. Tauruses now, are the most stubborn of them, which can be a little irritating at times, but it’s also a great asset when you consider how reliable they truly are. They’re bulls, which makes them solid and difficult to move, and you can always fall back on them when you’ve leapt too far ahead. Gilda is of course the epitome of reliable, and her stubbornness does show through at times—like when she’s the one person against Emma going out into danger all the time, constantly trying to talk her down into a more practical and certain solution. She’s also the first to attempt to bring Emma to see Ray’s side of the escape plan, which is very earth sign of both of them good job guys.

Compatibility and ships: I know I know I’m still upset Gilemma isn’t compatible astrologically but we can talk about other Gilda ships! Tauruses are most compatible with other earth signs (Capricorn, Virgo, and Taurus) and water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces) which makes her compatible with our other lovely Taurus, Anna! Gilanna shippers unite. But they’re best with Cancers and Scorpios, which means Gildon is is at highest compatibility.

Don

Birthdate: July 4th

Sign: Cancer

Element: Water

Overview: HEY YALL ITS TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY LEAST FAVORITE SIGNS: W A T E R. (I’m sorry my water friends, I’m sure you’re lovely, but as an air sign I am always extremely suspicious of water signs at first meeting because our compatibility is so low it might as well not exist) So the water signs are at the absolute highest emotional level. This can make them extraordinarily kind and nurturing, but it can also make them absolutely unreasonable and destructive. None is this more present than in Cancers, one of the most sensitive signs, but also one of the most empathetic. We can tell very clearly in Don that he wears his emotions on his sleeve—he’s unafraid to cry or show his anger, but he also takes very good care of his younger siblings and shows such an intense concern for them that it can become frightening.

He’s such a good boy 🥺

Compatibility and ships: okay so same drill, Cancers are generally compatible with other Water signs (Scorpio, Pisces, and Cancer) as well as Earth signs (Taurus, Capricorn, and Virgo) though their highest compatibility is with Tauruses and Capricorns. So again. GILDON AND RAYDON SHIPPERS R I S E.

God I’m so sorry if I cause a ship war. I rambled for too long and I’m very tired, so you only get these five characters for now. BUT! That’s why it’s a part 1. If you want more please feel free to harass me in my ask inbox about the characters you want me to overanalyze the signs of. Gemini out!

119 notes · View notes

the-darklings · 3 years

Note

ღ and jeara bestie 🤪

OH BOI DO I HAVE THINGS TO SAY. GET A SNACK FOLKS.

Who’s the first to wake up in the morning: Jean. He's more prone and used to waking up at the crack of dawn. Clara does it only if she needs to - she's far more likely to stay up way past normal sleeping hours, and he likely has to seduce coax her to bed. If he stays in bed longer it's because she's all wrapped up around him and he doesn't want to move though he would never admit it.

Who’s the one to make breakfast: He's more likely to be up early, so he either makes it or if they're away on business, orders for them. He's bigger on breakfast in general while Clara could likely get by with some coffee and that's about it.

Who’s the one to serve the other breakfast in bed: He's FAR too into little games between them to not try it at least ONCE. Does it half because he wants to and half because he enjoys the suspicious glint in her eyes as she munches on her food - and yes, he might totally end up using this as a stepping stone for some morning seduction but whose counting?

Who would suggest a quickie in the morning before work: Jean, Jean, Jean. Honestly, they're more likely to start their day with slow (or not) morning sex just in general. They both have quite the appetites, especially for each other, so that's always on the menu. Slow murmurs of French and kisses against her throat, tugging her close and stroking her skin with a little smirk - it's all part of the fun. Clara more often than not meets him in the middle though, and those times are just perfect for heating his blood to boiling point.

Who suggests they both ditch work to lay around all day: Could be either. Jean, for how calculating he is in everything he does, is also more impulsive when it comes to such things. A big believer in living only once and for yourself, no matter how selfishly. Is 100% the type to drop by the Pit of Vipers and just steal her for the day under the guise of needing her for something important but it's for selfish reasons of waiting to escape for a bit.

Who chooses the movies: They take turns. Neither is in too wildly different things. Jean has a keener interest in historical things while Clara favours thrillers and mysteries.

Who initiates kissing during the movie, thus distracting the other from the movie all together: Jean lmao. Definitely, the type to already have his arm around her anyway, stroking his fingers down her shoulder/arm, teasing over the sensitive skin, his nose dipping closer towards her ear where he might whisper something in French for the sheer purpose of distracting her. Only to then dip his nose even lower, his lips teasing over her shoulder and neck. A slow kiss there, chuckle if she shivers (because she always does when it's her neck, and he knows it, and wields this fact as his absolute favourite weapon in melting her) before grasping her chin and kissing her slowly. She may be his viper but it's not long before he's wrapped her in his arms and she relocates from his side and onto his lap where he has access to every inch of her skin. She may grumble and scowl but her eyes glow and her kisses are even hungrier than his. He loses the track of the movie entirely somewhere between her nails scratching and tugging on his hair and her sucking on the skin of his neck.

Who orders lunch: Either - but Jean is more likely to take the lead in most social situations.

Who steals food from the other’s plate without asking: Both do it, but Clara more often than Jean. There is still that high-class etiquette he's had to learn stuck inside his head. But when she's in a particularly playful mood, he throws the rule book out of the window. Playful Clara is one of his favourite things, if only because she's an even bigger delight yet a challenge when she's willing to sink her teeth into him verbally as much as he is.

Who curls up next to the other and falls asleep due to a full tummy: Clara. In fact one of her favourite spots is beside him, resting on his shoulder or even in his lap. Since one of his favourite things to do is play with her hair, he doesn't mind it one bit. There is an insane amount of trust that comes with such a gesture, so that trust in him unsettles him a lot but he rather selfishly indulges in it all the same.

Who distracts the other from trying to work at home: Jean does it all the damn time. He pokes around her things, asking questions she's happy to explain, but once he starts touching things he likely shouldn't she's just :/ mf these things can kill you. Clara gets hers back though. Him on the phone to an important contact? Time to walk around naked or strip for a shower. Then it's only a matter of silently counting how long he lasts before his hands are on her, followed by a low growl of her name in her ear.

Who asks to go get ice cream like a five-year-old: Clara : ) and he's happy to take her. They often take long drives and sit on the hood of his car, eating ice cream, and he 100% taunts her about the happy smile on her face even if he's unlikely to admit how much he enjoys the sight of it.

Who takes pictures of their partner eating ice cream: Clara is more likely to do it if only to have a silly picture of him (something about him always looking like he expects someone to paparazzi him and dressing like a supermodel to go buy eggs), and she 100% uses this silly pic as his contact photo. 😌

Who makes a sexual joke about the dripping ice cream on their partner’s face: Both. Their casual, sexual talk would get a fair few flustered but they do it so casually in between sharp grins. Just the more one pushes the more the other strides forward. It's all about seeing who comes out on top - if it's too easy, it's no fun.

Who cooks dinner: He's likely the better cook of the two, but they're usually too involved with their worldly affairs and attending the Syndicate business to bother with dinner at home. But on the very rare occasion they do, they're more likely to do it together. He enjoys having her close, asking her to stir something only to sneak behind her (not like she's unaware with those razor-like instincts), and kissing her neck while wrapping his arms around her waist.

Who cleans up the kitchen afterwards: As above. But if they do cook, it's both, again, mainly because he 100% uses that time to just play the cat-and-mouse.

Who stays up until 2 reading: Clara. They actually enjoy reading together a lot. It's one of their most subtle ways of spending time together yet most peaceful. She curls against him or lays her legs across his lap and he keeps occasionally stroking his thumb against her inner knee. She finds it rather distracting ofc.

Who stares at their partner while they're sleeping: Both do it to a criminal degree. Clara enjoys doing it by resting her chin on his chest, eyes narrowed with fondness, a small smile tugging on her lips. Jean just stares at her a lot - period. The man has mastered eye-fucking long ago and honestly if eyes could devour. . . but when she's asleep? Curled up in blankets and comfortable? Her hair loose and messy. . . he might let his fingertips trace over her cheek or temple.

Who kisses their partner while they sleep: He's likely to kiss her awake and she's likely to steal the last kiss of the night. When in a particularly wicked mood, she's likely to wake him up with slow kisses across his chest, neck, and finally mouth. Suffice to say, it doesn't take much to rouse him. It's a low, sleepy groan that vibrates against her lips until suddenly his arms are around her and he's dragging her on top of him.

#honestly their energy #s: almost love #oc x oc #oc writing #c: clara #c: jean #i know this is someone indulging me from discord and i salute you #asks

19 notes · View notes

norcumii · 4 years

Text

The Rex/Obi theory

Since apparently we can pin a post, bringing this back from the old blog even though I really ought to do a better write up and just post it as meta on AO3. As always, ship and let ship, we’re all here to have fun, etc.

First off: background sources. Post Blue Shadow Virus, the Naboo gave Rex a set of guns. They are very shiny, very nice, and named Negotiator and Vigilance. Now, given that Obi-Wan has “The Negotiator” as a title, one has to wonder about “Vigilance.” Since Anakin is known as “The Hero With No Fear,” it’s probably not him.

It has also been pointed out to me (thank you, @morecivilizedage) that Obi-Wan’s flagships were the Vigilance and Negotiator. Which…yeah.

Later on, it seems the shuttle that Cody and Rex take in Rookies is named The Obex.

…I am not a fan of the name smushing habit people have for ships, but that’s…kind of blatant.

Also, I recently found out that Sideshow put out an Obi-Wan figure, based on the 2003 Clone Wars design (the modern Clone Wars, and what’s declared current canon, was the 2008 version). To my admittedly limited knowledge, Rex does not exist in the ‘03 show. If nothing else, he’s not listed as a character on the IMDB page. HOWEVER, part of this figure’s design is a wrist com hologram – of Rex. Not Cody. Not another Jedi. REX. WHO DOESN’T EVEN EXIST IN THAT SHOW, WHICH HAS SCREENSHOTS SHOWN ON THE BOX. They didn’t have to call the hologram Rex, and it’s out of continuity to the presented Obi-Wan, and would calling this hologram “Rex” instead of any other clone really sell more figures?

Gotta admit that’s Interesting.

Now, given I totally pick and choose data from non-show sources (…see the horrific novelizations of The Clone Wars – or better yet, please don’t. Character assassination abounds), we need to look at the actual show.

It starts with the movie. Cody has a minimalist presence in there, whereas Rex interacts with Obi-Wan a lot. There’s several scenes where there’s some lovely close interplay, including a bit where Obi-Wan is ordering Rex to pull back – while gripping Rex on the shoulder.

Take a moment. Consider how often you see on the show Obi-Wan touching anyone. He doesn’t tend to initiate that, and it’s rarely outside of a combat situation. But that man can’t seem to keep his hands off Rex. Watch with that in mind, and please, feel free to tell me I’m missing things.

So back to the Blue Shadow Virus. When Anakin is freaking out to Obi-Wan because his wife and student are liable to be the first to die, he wants to know how Obi-Wan can not be on edge. “I’m just better at hiding it.” Take the parallels – Padme and Ahsoka are Anakin’s family. Now, Obi-Wan is prolly also having a HUGE internal freakout because they are in THE hanger that started Duel of the Fates in Episode I, but if he’s hiding the same sort of emotional breakdown, who is that about?

Parallels are important. Take The Deserter. That is THE shipping episode. Watch how Obi-Wan reacts throughout: he’s grumpy at first, because Grievous is up to the usual shit. Then he coms in to find out what Rex’s status is – and upon hearing Rex has been shot, his immediate reaction is worry, concern – I’d almost say he’s distraught. His orders to Jesse to hustle up and help them take down Grievous is more snarled, harsher, and from that point on Obi-Wan has an edge to him that wasn’t there before. This particular battle has become personal to him, and when Grievous gets away, there is genuine ANGER that a Jedi should not be expressing. What the hells else has Grievous done this episode or the last to merit that sudden change?

As for the literal parallels, Cut is Rex’s counterpart. They are contrasted again and again throughout the episode, and that culminates with Rex bidding Cut and his family farewell – so that Rex can go back to HIS family. So. If Rex is Cut, then the kids are obviously the other troopers under Rex’s command, and who does that leave as Suu’s counterpart?

Who is it that Rex talks to immediately? G’on, guess.

Also, Obi-Wan cannot stop gushing to Cody about Rex. I imagine poor Cody has to put up with this a LOT.

In fact, we can show that he does! The episodes with the Zygerrian slavers – Kidnapped, Slaves of the Republic, and Escape from Kadavo – are just chock full of this. The main crew takes out two BARC speeders. Anakin has Ahsoka riding shotgun in the sidecar, while Obi-Wan has Rex. The intriguing bit is that Cody is left for cleanup and directing the rest of the clones, even though technically Rex is ordinarily in charge of a larger battle group (depending on what bit of canon you’re looking at). There’s that exchange in the slave mines OP mentioned (2 slightly different versions and commentary are linked). There’s also the sequence where Rex gets permission from Obi-Wan to take the shot and be a bad ass on the villain (“I’m no Jedi” indeed). That interplay is subtle, and implies the two work together and closely enough that a glance and a nod are enough to convey what’s going on. Sure, the 501 and 212 work together often, but Obi-Wan has his own second-in-command.

Interestingly, Cody does not show up after the first episode in this arc. Given that they have the voice actor on hand, and the Wolf Pack is called in at the end for the rescue, tossing Cody and some 212 into the mix would have been easy. So that dynamic has implications.

Not factual enough yet? Screenshots of character positioning being more like a romance moment than in a war flick not good enough?

Let’s go to the Citadel arc. There’s more of the circumstantial evidence, where Rex can be interpreted as having Obi-Wan’s back more than one might think is usual.

But then there’s this gifset. As the mixed 212 and 501 soldiers are thawing from carbonite, watch Obi-Wan in the background. He nopes out of Anakin and Ahsoka’s tiff, and goes over to chat with Rex and Cody. When Obi-Wan gets over there, he raises his arm to do the shoulder grip thing (like I mentioned above, in the movie!). It might not be clear from the gifs, but there is not enough time for Obi-Wan to do that twice before he goes to the one arm behind the back kind of “at ease” posture. When he steps away from the troopers to be the Actual Adult in the room to Anakin and Ahsoka, Rex stands a bit straighter, in proper military posture, and dusts off his armor. It might not be a universal gesture of “aw yeah, I’m awesome,” but it sure seems pretty satisfied. Poor Cody meanwhile is watching the move, which helps capture the viewer’s eye (and leaves me wondering if he’s going “what the hell is up with you?” or “do not make me hose you down”).

I would honestly love to know someone else’s interpretation of that with un-shipping goggles on. ‘Cause I admit, I don’t see it.

That, folks, is why I ship it like mad. There’s more circumstantial evidence throughout the show, like how Obi-Wan and Rex interact (like a married couple, or in fact often like Anakin and Padme are presented at their best). There’s Rex being extra fancy and staring at Obi-Wan WAY more than Anakin in The Voyage of Temptation, otherwise known as “Satine and Obi-Wan in a Shuttle and Anakin Being Oblivious.” There’s the simple implication of the chemistry between the characters, though that is obviously open to interpretation.

This is animation. It takes time and effort and money to animate a simple shoulder grip, or a specialized gesture such as buffing one’s nails. Voice acting is an art where you have to convey so much emotion with what can be small adjustments to words. Scripts have to go through so much oversight and tweaking to convey a particular story, within the wide scope, and themes and plot threads have to be carefully considered. This isn’t chance, this isn’t one writer/animator/storyboarder going off into the weeds because they had a Neat Idea.

I really do think it’s canon.

-----------

Random other bits I’ve gathered while re-watching the show:

During the movie, when Rex is told that General Kenobi’s been captured, he just freezes. He goes from digging around off screen for what I suspect is a new ammo cartridge, stills, then yells at the soldier that they have to hold out, now keep. fighting. It’s less rallying the troops as a bit of emotional pushback.

During Voyage of Temptation, when Anakin is sassing Obi-Wan in the elevator about Satine the possible old flame, Rex is right there in the elevator with both of them (along with poor Cody). Rex isn’t on Anakin’s flank, but Obi-Wan’s (little odd, but I don’t recall offhand how they filed in). And Anakin is “sensing some anxiety” from Obi-Wan about Satine. I love how there’s now another reason for that.

In an…‘interesting’ coincidence, it seems that when Rex got shot in The Deserter, that’s the exact same place Obi-Wan gets shot in Deception. Nothing conclusive there, but it’s intriguing.

from The Zillo Beast Strikes Back – The first time we see Rex, Anakin is giving him orders to “Stay with General Kenobi” – there’s the implication that he’s already with the General.

They’re continuing to leave breadcrumbs in Rebels.

#star wars #the clone wars #sass and murder show #meta #Rex/Obi

257 notes · View notes

queerchoicesblog · 3 years

Text

The Understudy

Hiya, folks! So, as previously announced, the wlw writing project continues after a break with a miniseries set back in Vienna, one of the iconic capitals of opera at the time of Mozart. An emerging singer gets the chance to be an understudy in the latest Mozart’s discussed opera Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), that premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786, w and play the pants role of the page Cherubino. Preparing for the role doesn’t quite go as planned… .

I took the liberty to add a few Italian words every now and there so here are all the useful translations that might come in handy as you read: cara (dear, female adjective), una meraviglia (a true wonder).

Tagging: @scottishqueer

Previous wlw miniseries: Ancient Greece, Italian Renaissence, Belle Epoque Paris, Sixties.

Hope you enjoy it: if you do, please consider spreading the word!

____________________________

"So...will you do it?" The voice is calm just like the honeyed smile on her lips, but the look in the primadonna's eyes is unmistakable: the great Adriana Ferrarese can't wait to see me out of the door. She's a seasoned professional, she knows how to conceal her displease but I'm not dumb: a jewelled hand rested over Da Ponte's tight and eyes following every single move I make, every single breath I take, she's clearly conveying that my presence is no longer welcome here. It never was, I think: it surely wasn't her idea to invite me here today! Has she tried to dissuade the Maestro from summoning me, I wonder? I'm surprised she failed: you know what they say, feminine wiles can work miracles on men, make them change their minds like a vain girl changes clothes yet...here I am. And she's fuming underneath her well practiced poise. Poor Ferrarese, my blonde curls, my youth must be a threat to her especially in front of him. Ah, I knew that the rumours were true: she's the Italian operatic librettist's mistress! Cunning little devil...of course she gets all the best roles now. Before everyone else.

I join her game and pretend not to notice the subliminal messages she keeps throwing me. I fan myself nonchalantly, pondering the offer I've just received. I am a bit confused: I really don't know what to think of it or how to take it. "Let me get this straight, Maestro" I say, ignoring her and addressing Da Ponte. "You beg me to come here with great haste and ask me to be a last minute understudy for a...page role?" I may not be as famous as his mistress but it's an insult! True, my career hasn't reached its peak yet but I'm not the new girl desperate to get a role: I have adoring admirers throwing flowers and screaming my name whenever I walk into the stage after the grand finale. Who does he think he's talking to? He must understand my disappointment because he's quick to reassure me. "Miss Constanze, Cherubino is not a simple page" he smiles apologetically. "The whole opera revolves around the world of counts and servants, you know Herr Mozart is an innovator, an unconventional spirit...if I remember correctly, you have already worked with him" "Correct" I concede. I'm curious to see where this is going, how he will convince me to accept this. "Well, this new opera has already been a success and trust me: the people of Vienna won't tire of it anytime soon! And the role we kindly asked you to be an understudy for is the most loved by our audience, I assure you. Ask around if you don't believe me: those who attended the opera are head over heels for the Count's page, they recall his scenes, sing his arias underneath their breath...the audience is crazy for him! That's why we couldn't ask just anyone to replace the original singer, but only a refined, talented woman like you, Miss Konstanze" There's a note of pride in his voice. I must give him, it's not surprising that there servant or unconventional roles in Mozart's operas - in The Abduction from the Seraglio I played one of the harem girls - but by the brief description he gave me of the plot I cannot bring myself to understand how the audience can fall in love with a page who doesn't even have an aria for the whole third act and is constantly sidelined. It doesn't make sense: it's a recipe for oblivion to my ears. But he's right: the Wedding is the talk of the town so I should probably say yes anyway, even if no, I don't enjoy the idea of being sidelined. I mean, we all want to glow on stage and bask in the light and audience's adoration. We want their applauses meant for us alone, ringing in our ears when the curtains raise for one last blessed time, we want flowers thrown at us, we want glory. And I am not sure this Cherubino will be my ally on that front if there are two major romances in the main plot already. And even if the audience showed a liking for the page, well I must remember I am not the first singer so my performance will not avoid comparisons. The Maestro speaks again, derailing my line of thoughts. "You see, dear Miss Constanze, Cherubino is not a main character yet he is essential to the plot: without him the whole story wouldn't make sense! One could say that he bears the comedic side of the opera over his young shoulders and even if he doesn't get as many arias as other characters, oh, his are as sweet as cherries, una meraviglia! No wonder the audience loves him...and the restricted number of arias to study might help you prepare properly within such a short notice if you kindly offer your help-" "I would have prepared properly even if I had the double amount of arias within such a short notice, caro Maestro" I interrupt him, just in case he forgot who he is talking to, again. He bows his head, dramatically placing a hand on his heart in display of apology. "But of course, your outstanding professionalism is not questioned here, Miss. To prove it, let me tell you that Herr Mozart was particularly happy when I suggested your name for poor Dorotea's understudy". His mistress' smile is now so tight I have to summon every ounce of professionalism to refrain myself from bursting into a loud insolent laughter. "That's incredibly kind of you, Maestro: I really don't know how to thank you" I purr instead, unable to resist: how could I miss a chance to tease - and piss off! - the primadonna? La Ferrarese throws me a side look I will never forget: I wonder if she has a dagger hidden underneath her skirt and will chase me in the streets in the heat of jealousy when I turn my back at her. Sounds like a scene out of one of those Italian operas, I consider, amused. Do Italians do that offstage too? She only has to dare though: I am younger than her and I have claws too. "Say yes then, Miss" he proposes, radiant. "If you ask me, Herr Mozart thinks you are the best choice and the perfect Cherubino. Say yes, cara Constanze". His face is an expectant plea and I have a feeling that if his mistress wasn't here, he would be begging me on his knees to accept this role. Honestly, I don't know what to make of Herr Mozart's comment about me being just "perfect" to pass for a boy...am I not feminine enough for him in my skirts, tight corset and jewellery a wealthy admirer keeps giving? Whatever. That man is a genius maybe but he's certainly a weirdo. But I think I should accept: it's not the most flattering offer but no one reached the top without taking an understudy role at least once. And so here I am, a week later, in the room of one of Da Ponte's personal friends and composer to help me prepare for the new performance. I don't have much time, not even a month, but his flattery won me. I can do this. I must admit that I'm secretly happy to know that Herr Mozart won't direct the new revivals: he's a brilliant composer and musician but I still remember his wandering hands. I don't think any woman who worked with him - or simply has been around him for more than a bunch of minutes, I wager - got away without a pinch or a breast squeeze. I fail to understand why so many girls fall madly in love with him or at least confess they can't resist his charm. Even his wife still giggle like a child and melt in front of his "Wolfie", despite his endless and well known - and rather squalid, if you ask me - affairs! I mean, not that this Melchiorri is any different: by the so very discreet looks he keeps throwing at my décolleté or by the way his hands linger a bit too much on my hips when he insists to fix my posture, I bet he wouldn't mind me as his mistress. Another lecherous wop, excellent. I've been around so many by now that I know them by heart: honeyed words, usually blabs a lot in a dreamy voice of how they miss Venice or whatever dear hometown they come from and how much you remind them of this or that flower or woman of their childhood. Too many compliments, strong accent hoping you would fall for their exoticism, fine clothing. Just like Mr. Melchiorri. He's from Milan and is a close friend of Salieri. Sometimes I cannot help but wonder if we let too many Italians here in Vienna: sadly, so far they rule the world of the opera and our Emperor is head over heels for them. Ah, better not tell the Empress> she might throw ond hell of a jealousy tantrum! Melchiorri is very gallant, almost regal even if he loses his composure when he speaks of music. He often asks to excuse his passionate temperament with an apologetic smile but I can't shake my mind that this is just a subtle hint to another passionate temperament he would die to show me if the lingering stares he gives me, mesmerised, as I bite the Italian delights he has ready for me - "delivered directly for you, mia cara, from Italy" - every time I visit him for our private sessions are any indication. They're chestnut chocolate truffles with a pinch of brandy, I wager, covered in withe chocolate with a ruby cherry on top. They're called "capezzoli di Venere", that is nipples of Venus, he revealed one day, a mischievous smile on his face: he was probably hoping to shock me or see me blush profusely. Instead, I barked out a laughter and took a generous bite. I regretted it when he bit his lip clearly refraining himself for making another move. But at least he's a good teacher, I make progresses fast. I've been around too many Melchiorris and Herr Mozarts to be bothered. I mean, obviously I'm bothered that most men thinks we opera singers are just harlots in fancier dresses when we broke our backs studying languages, music and singing hard since a very early age. We didn't sacrifice the best years of our lives only to be mistaken for mannequins with a melodious voice when we sing the arias they wrote. But that's what it is and I must focus now. And it's so difficult at times with men like these. Just like when one day the door of his studio slams open out of the blue while I'm rehearsing an aria and a little boy of three, four years maybe runs inside laughing. He's visibly proud of evading whoever was asked to look after him. True to his "passionate temperament", Melchiorri is suddenly furious. He barely looks at the child and shouts out the name of the unfortunate servant before profusely apologise to me. A terrified young maid comes running and soon chaos takes hold of the room: Melchiorri alternates between tight apologetic smiles in my direction and not so gallant curses he thinks I do not understand to the the poor maid who chases the cheeky little boy with great effort but little success. I must admit it's rather amusing even if I'm wasting my time. Suddenly I have an idea. When finally the maestro shuts up to catch breath, I sing an impromptu elaborate thrill at full voice. The little boy freezes and turns towards in awe while the maid wraps her arms around him: caught! Melchiorri needs a moment to process what happened while the girl flashes me a quick, grateful smile. "There, emergency solved" I announce, beaming. "Can we proceed now, Maestro?"

#wlw writing project #wlw writing #wlw miniseries #original work #lgbtqa+#vienna #opera

11 notes · View notes

unculturedmamoswine · 4 years

Text

I just finished rereading Tortall and Other Lands, and made a totally subjective ranking of the stories. I posted it on reddit but I figured, what the hell, may was well post here too. If i could put it under a cut I would but sadly I am on mobile.

11) Time of Proving

It's good and all; I especially like the concept that the protag, Arimu, has to live alone and map new lands for a year to show her value to her people in order to lead them. But I think I like that bit of worldbuilding more than the actual plot. Though I do think it's pretty cute that Arimu comes up with excuses to keep helping Sunflower. An enjoyable story that's just eclipsed by the greatness of much of the rest of the book.

10) Plain Magic

I like this story. I like the thread magic especially. However, I don't think it really shows us anything new from Tammy if that makes sense. The thread magic, the ignorant folks doing stupid things, the cool stranger whisking away a gifted protagonist to a new life, it's all familiar ground for Tammy fans.

9) Lost

It's hard to put this story so low on the list. It has a lot of qualities to love, but much like Plain Magic it seems like it does mostly what we've seen from other Tammy content. Adria is a girl good at math, which isn't that valuable a thing in her society. But people around her recognize that and take her away to a better place for her, Tortall of course. And we get the darkings, which, cute as they are, seem kinda.. OP. They were OP in Aly's books, too. Ah well, despite my complaints it's still really cool and a fun story. And I love the way it shows the effects of years of abuse and how it makes you feel small. The way Adria's father uses fear to control her whole family, and the way Adria gets away from him by showing her courage, those are important things. I feel sure someone out there was helped by this story, you know?

8) Elder Brother

When I did my ranking, I was baffled that this story was so far down. I really like this story. That's the trouble with ranking stuff you really like, I guess. Fadala is a cool character, Qiom is an even cooler one, and I love reading about Qiom struggling to live his new, more confusing life. Reading about him weeping over his last apples is somehow really sad? And it's very cool to read about a totally different part of the world in the Tortall universe.

7) Huntress

It's very cool to read a modern-day story by Tammy! I love the merging of modern times and the fantasy elements of our usual Tammy stories. It's interesting to see how Corey (I don't think we learn her first name?) isn't devout, and arguably isn't even a believer, but the Goddess still comes to her aid anyway. I suppose it's out of respect for her family. I love the touch of the Goddess wearing modern day running gear. But my favorite thing has gotta be the total utter batshit crazy Pride. What completely insane villains. It's very Tammy to cast the murdering freaks as a bunch of privileged rich douchebags who think they can do whatever they want if they prey on the vulnerable and those that society has deemed as valueless. Golly, does that remind you of anything? It's nice that this story takes a fairly strong 'murder is bad' stance, when even in real life plenty of people are ok with rapists and drug dealers getting murdered. And I like that Tammy shows, through the Lions' threats to rape Corey, that they clearly aren't killing 'bad' people in order to be good guys, but just so they can get away with it easier. Though you could argue that the Goddess killing all the kids somewhat undercuts the 'no murder' message...

6) Testing

Admittedly I probably wouldn't like this one as much as I do if it weren't for the context of it being a semi-autobiographical account of Tammy around the time she rewrote Alanna's books as books for teens. That being said, it's a sweet story that looks at how vulnerable kids can come to trust an adult in lives that have been tumultuous and hard. It's honestly such a feel-good yet realistic tale.

5) Student of Ostriches

I think this one appeals to the kid in me. I was always so enchanted by African animals as a kid and that never really went away. Kylaia teaching herself to fight and run using the animals of her home as inspiration is just unbearably cool to me haha. Though it is much the same as I've said about Plain Magic and Lost in that it's well-trod ground for Tammy, Student of Ostriches really works for me. And it's always nice to have a peek into parts of the Tortall-verse we don't often see.

4) Mimic

I think Mimic sticks in my head more than any other story in Tortall and Other Lands. Ri, Mimic, Grandpa, even the dogs and the crow are all great characters. The beautiful setting, with the great plain and the storms, the dragons, the compact between the village and birds, it's all so memorable. I love that it's about choosing to grow up, and how you can't go back but it's worthwhile and necessary.

3) The Dragon's Tale

Call me basic, but I love dragons! It's so nice to see a story about Kitten, so great to see things from her point of view. Not being able to speak for sixteen years sounds like a freaking nightmare, but she handles it pretty well, I'd say. I like that she clearly thinks of Daine and Numair as her parents, and she adores her bestie Spots, it's just so cute! They really love each other, and I will always be a sucker for stories about people who love each other. But it's not just cute, there's some great meat here in the form of new characters like Afra, Uday, and Kawit and, best of all for me, worldbuilding! I really like when we see glimpses of the Tortall universe that we could never have imagined, as with Beka's unusual wild-adjacent magic. Here we get to see Kawit and learn that she's another example of an immortal that humans overlooked when locking them away four hundred years ago (and we get to see more of Tammy's love of opals lol). I like the subtle implication that opal dragons may be almost a link between classic dragons and basilisks, what with the beaded skin and long long tails. We learn more about Kawit's unusual magic. We get an explicit confirmation of the fact that multiple colors of Gift= more powerful Gift. This whole story is just crammed full of fascinating Tortall content with a soft, gooey center.

2) Nawat

This story is heavy, which is why I like it. I enjoy it when non-human characters are actually characterized as being fundamentally different from humans. It's challenging for the reader and the author to connect with a guy who is considering killing his kid, but I think Tammy succeeds here. It's hard to watch Nawat struggle with the different parts of his life coming together, and sad to see him feeling like his heritage is slipping away. It's nice to see that he really will be able to teach his kids about their own crow heritage when Ochobai grows her first quill. It's also fun to see Aly through his eyes.

1) The Hidden Girl

This story is so good that it makes Elder Brother better just by existing. It's really cool to have Fadala and Teky exploring different attitudes with regard to their culture. While Fadala has an almost Alanna-esque rejection of what her society sees as feminine, we also get to see Teky appreciate what powers women in her society are afforded, and also see her work to change some of the things she sees as wrong. While Fadala isn't willing to play by her people's rules and elects to leave them behind, Teky wants something better for everyone in her homeland. Neither of these attitudes is wrong, they're just different reactions to institutionalized inequality. Like Elder Brother, The Hidden Girl shows us new and fascinating Tortall content in the form of the more monotheistic culture on the far side of the world, which is very cool. We've never really seen an oracle before, and it's a cool new 'badass girl' archetype to add to the Tortall roster. It's all just wonderful, knowing women are changing things all over the world in this verse.

#Tortall #Tamora Pierce #Tortall and other Lands #my post #long post

65 notes · View notes

bitofthisandthat · 4 years

Text

[ Sleeping Patterns ]

Tagged by : @heedingcalls Tagging: @iim-a-pilot @feathersandforests @gamblealife @ducktales-wco-oo @anthropolite @womenofice @warraigoe ( That...that’s enough people to bug )

Gabby.

Name: Gabby Mcstabberson Ethnicity: ( Eagle/peahen half-breed ) Probably East Indian & White; but what specific white culture is a ? to her given her orphan status. McStabberson isn’t a real surname, but code. Country: She was raised/dumped off in central Japan, but has been all over. She has no one country that she belongs to. She’s lived in Europe, Asia Major, and US all at different times. Residence: Calisota, Duckburg and St.Canard. ( currently ) Average hours of sleep: 6-8, but if on watch or a mission, she sleeps in 2-3 hour shifts. Type of bed: Anywhere between a luxury hotel bed queen-king, to crashing in the wild/caves with just a bedroll. She’s slept in temple/church attics when on the road. She’s even slept in trees if it meant safe hiding. But if she’s in one of her safe houses, it’s a wide square free-form cushy double mattress no frame, ( futon style ) just loose cotton sheets & memory foam. Amount of blankets: If she’s indoors, she usually just needs a couple high count cotton/bamboo sheets, and cocoons herself with those plus a light throw. If it’s cold, she will bury herself under the usual sheets plus a luxe down blanket. If outdoors, it’s just an an insulated camping roll that can withstand the elements. Amount of pillows: Indoors? she will usually build a curved pile of 2-3, and plant down in the middle, or use the excess blanket as added padding. Outdoors, she usually has no pillow, but she was accustomed to sleeping with none when she was raised among her syndicate/temple. So, she CAN do without any headrest if on the road, but once she has cover or access to indoors, she’s using whatever padding she can. Type of clothing: If outdoors or on the job? Her clothes remain on, obviously. She MAY take off her boots if the terrain isn’t too dangerous. Indoors, she really would rather sleep nude/panties. Sometimes it’s just a crop-tank and panties. She’ll walk around in a short robe or shorts if she’s out of bed, though. Sometimes a slip. But honestly she’s all about as little on her as possible when indoors/safe. Do they sleep with company?: Verse dependent. Otherwise, she does not sleep with anybody out of peace of mind and safety. If she’s indulging in sexual company, after they’re done, she’s out the door, sometimes sneaking out while her partner’s asleep. Yeaaaaah. Do they sleep with plushies?: Nope. Not even as a kid. :/ However, the monkey she had then would sleep near her. Though in Lola’s verse, ( @hoopsheartthrob ) if she crashes on the sofa from exhaustion, she has woken up with a blanket over her and one of Lola’s plushies wrapped in her arms somehow. Do they sleep better with company?: It doesn’t make a difference to her at all. Though in her ship verses, she is alarmed at how much harder it is for her to fall asleep and stay asleep without her lover there. If she’s in their bed together, she will nuzzle up and cocoon on THEM more than her usual blanket fort. Does it matter where they sleep?: Noooooo. XD If she can sit up in the crotch of a tree or lay down on a cave floor I think she’s okay. Though she sleeps lighter outside because of her light sleeping/vigilance. She obviously MUCH prefers nice bed and fine linens; after leaving that syndicate/temple lifestyle, she never looked back to the days of sleeping like a dog in a barn ever again. If on a mission, she does what she has to do to sleep wherever. She can usually count down and fall right to sleep instantly. Consider it her martial-monk training. Frequent dreams, nightmares?: She has either NO recalled dreams at all, or vividly surreal ones that may disturb or confuse her, but not scare her. What do they do if they cannot fall asleep?: She’ll try mediating first, but if her mind’s racing too much and it’s impossible to sleep, depending where she is, she’ll give into the alertness and either go out in the night to walk, look at the stars, or cityscape. Sometimes she looks up an old hook-up and attempts to wear herself out that way. But most of the time, the meditation works to calm her down. Deep slumber or naps?: She’s a light sleeper, so deep sleep is relative. If she can’t get 6-8 uninterrupted hours of slumber, after a long night mission with little to no sleep, she’ll make up for it after she’s “off the clock” by taking a few isolated naps at her safe house. She won’t ever do without rest!!! When do they wake up?: Depends entirely on her job du jour. But normally, she’s an early riser, not just out of habit, but she HAS to start her day with meditation and some kind of stretching/low impact work out. Then her breakfast, etc. In ship verses she’ll stay in bed a bit longer if it means she’s comfortably curled around them. When do they sleep?: She’ll stay up pretty late to the wee hours of the morning if she’s on a mission or fun night out, but normally she tries to be in bed by 11-midnight. Seeing is how she’s up like clockwork around 6:30-8am. What could wake them up?: She’s a light sleeper, so a lot, pfft. On the road, it just has to be subtle shuffling or murmur outside her campsite or hotel door, and when she’s outdoors, she does NOT sleep deep. A frog hopping into a puddle could wake her. If she’s in one of her safe houses or ship-verses, any noise from a drawer opening/closing or a deep mattress bob will do it, and when she wakes, she’s either ready to fight off whatever’s there, or annoyingly ask with bleary eyes what they’re doing ( if a friend/lover ). But then, she’ll slip back to sleep instantly with an exasperated sigh. So partners gotta leave the bedroom if they can’t sleep and do things like pace around the room or watch TV. JUST SAYIN’. She’s been conditioned since a child to always be ready to fight someone off if they sneak in on you while you sleep.

Gladstone.

Name: Gladstone Gander Ethnicity: ( Sebastopol goose-pecking duck half breed ) Culturally wise, whatever his fam is? Scottish-English-French? Country: USA Residence: Duckburg, Calisota--currently. Though canonly he’s lived in the countryside outside of Duckburg with his grandma and cousins after orphaned as a small child. He’s also lived in other glamorous or exciting cities at random stints given his gambling, stage career, and due to wherever Lady Luck has sent him. He always ends up back at Duckburg, though! Average hours of sleep: 8-10, sometimes 12 if he’s been out way too late and partied way too hard. Some of those hangovers are a bitch. He also surrenders to jet lag with no objection after long trips and just HIBERNATES. The man does love to lounge and sleep in finery. Type of bed: King, and of course, top of the line. He did try out waterbeds and other bizarre bed trends here and there just to see how comfortable ( or sexy ) it was. He is the first to go for gimmick style sleeping if it means a new way to experience comfort. Currently, he has a purple mattress-sleep number type deal he’s very proud of. 🙄 And his frame, of course, is imported and a high-end style. Amount of blankets: He does go full luxe, so the finest sheets plus at least 2-3 blankets; one thinner cashmere, one medium thick plain white down quilt, and finally, one thick, “royal” style comforter that usually is just rolled back off the foot of the bed if he’s got company. But usually it’s just the sheets and the down quilt covering him. Amount of pillows: 2 king sized ortho pillows side by side, so he can roll to whatever side and have the same level of comfort. He does have some random pillows at his sides also, as he shifts around in his sleep and ends up in different positions if he’s sleeping alone. Type of clothing: He sleeps totally nude, let’s be real here. He may saunter around his place in various luxe robes, or if he’s got family or friends over, he’ll wear pajamas around them out of courtesy, but once he’s in his bedroom and the door’s shut? 100% naked as a....jay...bird. Do they sleep with company?: Yesss...whether we’re in a ship verse or not, he’s pretty canonly...uh...popular. He gets around. He doesn’t think it’s gentlemanly to send a lady home right after they’ve done the deed, and his bed is huge and amazingly luxurious, so he’ll offer her “breakfast and coffee” as the quintessential code. Do they sleep with plushies?: Ha, no. “Not sexy, folks.” As a kid he had a couple, obviously. He’s woken up with a random plushie or action figure on his chest or head posed in hilarious ways whenever he falls asleep babysitting the kiddos, but other than that, nope. Do they sleep better with company?: Yes, actually. He does sleep alone more than you’d think, which when he does, he’s all over the place in his own bed. After all, he IS lonely under that bravado and vanity, so half his conquests may be some underlaying need to wake up with someone at his side. He doesn’t toss and turn at all if he’s got company---be it romantic or familial. Does it matter where they sleep?: YES. Glad is a creature who loves his comforts. If it’s not just so, he’s a cranky bastard the next day. He’s extremely picky about where and how he sleeps if he’s on vacation with family and friends, infamously so. His bed at home is already tailor made to his specifics, and he knows which hotels fit his standards. Frequent dreams, nightmares?: He gets very vivid, happy, beautiful dreams. Of course he does. He also gets a lot of er...sexy dreams, too. But I digress. When he DOES have nightmares they are incredibly disturbing and horrific, showcasing family hells they’ve all endured or curses on the horizon, some are supernaturally caused nightmares. When he gets the rare nightmare, he ain’t falling back to sleep any time soon. What do they do if they cannot fall asleep?: He’ll watch some late night TV like shopping networks and infomercials while sipping some liquor. Sometimes he’ll read through some biography books he has or magazines...Sometimes he’ll call an old girlfriend up and bug her, or try and get a booty call out of it. Or he’ll call a family member or friend that may be up or not, and fein false shame and be all: “Oooooh did I wake you?” and then go on to chat until he hears them fall asleep on the other line. Then, usually he can fall asleep again. Deep slumber or naps?: Depends; he is a cat napper if it’s midday, he’s on a boat, an outdoor chaise, or hammock---and the sun’s warming his face and he has a cocktail or lemonade in hand. Because, hey, he can’t help it with THAT kind of set up. But, since he already gets an obscene amount of nightly sleep, cat naps are totally accidental and rare. When do they wake up?: Around 9 or 10am if it’s a normal schedule, but noon-2pm if he’s been out all night partying or on the gambling circuit. When do they sleep?: Whenever he feels like crashing. He doesn’t have a same-set time every night. Sometimes he turns in early around 10, sometimes he glances at the clock and it says 4am, and he’s just “WHOOPS. Bedtime.” What could wake them up?: He sleeps like a log once he IS out, so a lot of shoving or shaking ( or “adult contact” if you’re one of his ship verses ). But, ultimately, he has an alarm like anyone else.

Negaduck.

Name: REDACTED. ( J/K: Drake Mallard, of course. Nega-versed but same name ) Ethnicity: ( Pecking duck ) “Euro-mutt.” Country: USA ( Negaverse version ) Residence: St.Canard, Calisota ( Negaverse ) as well as St.Canard “Prime.” Average hours of sleep: 6-7. For an ornery bastard when he lays down, he conks out. Type of bed: Sometimes he falls asleep sitting up in his recliner watching TV, or if he’s too beat up and injured to lay down on a bed, and needs to keep his feet up. ( Like if his ribs are bruised too badly to lay flat. ) But when he sleeps in bed, depending on if he’s in one of his hideouts, hotels, or the Negaverse, it’s either a queen or king with loose, messy sheets and a couple mis-matched blankets and a 2 pillows that are not the same size or quality. If he’s in one of his fancy hotel spreads, obviously it’s super luxe accommodations as he smokes a cigar while wearing a haute bathrobe. Though, in his abandoned subway hideout, it’s just a twin-sized mattress on a prison-style cot with a fitted sheet and one blanket with a mushed-up small pillow. Honestly, he can fall asleep on concrete. Amount of blankets: He can’t stand to be covered with more than a rumpled sheet unless it’s freezing, then he’ll also use one oversized thick comforter/quilt. Ship-verse wise, whatever her bed is like, he’s adjusted to THAT, and little else. But he will end up kicking the blankets off of himself some time during the night, regardless how many she uses. Amount of pillows: Honestly, it starts off with one, but he always ends up with his head flat on the mattress...In ship verses? Her chest. 🙄 Type of clothing: Boxers only, but if he’s with a lover, that’s nixed for nekkid sleepin’. Back in the Negaverse, he’ll fall asleep with his boxers and his robe on. Sometimes Gos crawls into bed if she had a nightmare, so he’s always dressed just in case. Do they sleep with company?: Sometimes....Ship verses, yes. Everywhere else, IF he’s worn out after a romp, he’ll stick around. But usually he vamooses after he’s sealed the deal, so she doesn’t get any bright ideas about them. If she’s sleeping over one of his hotel stays? Sometimes he’ll let her stay over...but he makes it pretty clear she better not stay past morning coffee. Cab faire is SOMETIMES provided. Otherwise? HE SLEEPS ALONE, DAMNIT!! Do they sleep with plushies?: Only if Gos left hers behind and got out of bed first. XD Do they sleep better with company?: It really doesn’t matter to him. Once he’s out, he sleeps like a rock. In ship verses he’s gotten used to his dame so he’ll begrudgingly admit to himself he’s gotta crash with her. That is, unless they’re fighting, then he’s staying the hell away from her. And probably sleep on the sofa. Does it matter where they sleep?: Nope! After being in prison where you sleep on terrible cots and have to watch your ass ( literally ) constantly, or being knocked out after a caper and waking up in filthy, uncomfortable places like warehouse floors or alleyways, he can pretty much fall asleep anywhere. Though, it IS nice to have his comfy chair or lady friend’s bed. Frequent dreams, nightmares?: Half the time he has NO dreams/nightmares, just black, blank sleep. The other chunk of time ( about a quarter of the time ) he has nightmares, which he takes to be “his normal” dreams. They involve a lot of his life in symbolism, disturbing metaphors, and warnings, and replays of past traumas that still haunt him. He denies openly that he has PTSD, even as it effects his dreamscape. When he has truly normal or pleasant dreams, he wakes up suspicious. What do they do if they cannot fall asleep?: He takes a hot shower or bath, smokes a cigar while in the tub, maybe has a tumbler of whisky too. He’ll probably jack-off later if he’s still awake. Sometimes he’ll take a sleep aid or medication, because he will do whatever it takes to knock himself out without actually knocking himself out... Deep slumber or naps?: Deep, deep, deeeeeeep sleeps. Most of his naps tend to be “involuntary,” post fight. When he does nap it’s only because he’s had a LONG, hard job and he just CRASHES. If he crashes at home in the Negaverse on the sofa, Gos usually covers him with one of her princess blankets and puts a few of her plushies around him. When do they wake up?: Depending on the scene! On a job he pulls sleep shifts and wakes up as needed to his schedule. Normally, he’s up by 8 am, unless he’s been injured and accidentally finds himself in bed all day. Or, if a job made him crash in at sunrise, he’ll be up around noon. When do they sleep?: Whenever needed according to his work schedule. Sometimes he has to be asleep by as early as 7pm if he has to pull a big job by midnight, sometimes he IS in bed by midnight. If he’s on the run or a job is taking forever, he’s collapsing in bed around 4-5 am. He has the most chaotic sleep schedule EVER. What could wake them up?: Remember, he sleeps the sleep of the dead, so he needs ceremony. Soooo if you’re his squeeze du jour or a ship verse? Sex. Or, just violently shaking him awake, jumping ON him roughly, slapping him awake, having his alarm at high volume, or if you’re Gos, prying his eye open with her fingers and saying “DAD!...oh! Are you up?” while in his face...Also, brewing strong, good coffee down the hall will magically do it. Otherwise he has an internal clock that just wakes him up without an alarm.

#HEADCANON || GABBY #HEADCANON || GLADSTONE #HEADCANON || NEGADUCK #DIRTY DEEDS #{ Only tagging it DD because these 3 have a few methods to fall asleep/get up that aren't sfw XDD }#{ SO long tis why it's under a cut YEESH. }

6 notes · View notes

socksual-innuendos · 4 years

Text

BLESS ME WITH YOUR OTP!

Blank Template here

Art by @yesjejunus

Do they fight often? If so, what is their dynamic like?

Not really, no. Usually they have small disagreements that are arbitrary enough that one of them will give when they get bored of bantering. Real fights, however, happen very rarely if at all, and when they do Contreras knows it isn’t something to fuck with. Depending on what it is, he will usually fold, but there are a few possible things Emi could do that would set him off. These sort of things mainly pertain to the other doing something that will directly and negatively impact their work or life style. Since they aren’t hugely involved with each others personal lives, these sort of things don’t come up often.

Who is the most skeptical of the two?

I think this may actually go to Emilia. I write Contreras to have deeper ties into the illegal trades happening in Vegas, and I honestly think it surprised her to see how much he was dealing with. She’s seen illegal trade rings, she’s known kingpins, she’s worked with and against some of the worst organizations, she knows what people like him are suppose to look like and he tics like....two of the boxes. She’s thoroughly convinced that if Boyd wasn’t so suspicious of him and he wasn’t an NCR soldier his ass would have been strung up a while ago for being too reckless in his deals.

Who would be most likely to suggest a night of dancing?

I think both are as likely to drag each other to the dance floor as the other, though I think Emilia is the only one of the two with rhythm. That said, I don’t think either really suggest a night of it, it just sort of happens in the dives they frequent.

What would they do if the other was injured in battle?

I think Contreras would try and assist Emilia out of the fight depending on how close they were at the time and the situation at hand, but I think Emilia would tell him in a very impolite way to get out of the way until she can fix the situation and then deal with him.

How do their fighting styles complement each other?

Emilia is a ‘direct action’ sort of gal and Contreras is ‘get the gal who is a direct action sort of gal to do it for me’ type of guy.

Do they want children? Does it frighten them? How many do they want?

HAAAAAAAAAA-- Ok I’ll actually answer this one seriously instead of laughing. In short, no, neither want kids, though if they had to be parents they suppose they could knock up/get knocked up by worse people.

Contreras just doesn’t want children or the ties of a relationship at all. He hates kids, he thinks one would be a drain on his resources, and he definitely doesn’t want to get tied in to all that parenting bullshit (or get trapped by some lady). He will actively go out of his way to make sure he doesn’t accidentally knock someone up, and if he does he’s not afraid to make his stance known and provide resources to get rid of the mistake.

Emilia would rather have her children back than have more. After settling in with Rosa, she always thought that she’d be ok with having one more if it was ever feasible for her situation. Pregnancy however scares her, and she fears getting tied in with a man even more. Her family is hers, and she doesn’t trust most men enough to want to invite one into that. She’s seen how it can go wrong and she refuses to allow that. Even though their views on keeping a pregnancy may differ, Emilia would never tell him if he was the father. In a way, she’d be comforted that he’s so repulsed by kids/being stuck as a parent, but she also knows circumstances can get weird, and she would never risk any negative outcome.

What happened when they took them home to their families? If their families aren’t in the picture anymore, how do they feel about it?

I actually have no idea if Contreras ever finds out about Camila, but I think he’d be indifferent to her for the most part. Seeing the girls interact though would probably be jarring for him. Emi can be a completely different person around her sister, but the way she talks with her is entirely different than anything he’s use to hearing from Em. That said, I don’t think Emi wants him knowing about Camila, just as a safety precaution. The less people that know about her sibling, the better. Though, I do think Cam would be delighted to see who Emi keeps sneaking onto a military base for.

Though Emilia would be curious to see what family he did have, Contreras doesn’t keep up with them anymore. His folks enlisted him as a teenager and he hasn’t looked back since. That said, Isaac is about as close as it comes for him, and he’s delighted to introduce the two.

How does each person show affection towards the other?

Lotsa sexy times. Their relationship was business partners that turned into a semi casual fling, but their situation hardly allows them easy time together (probably for the best, they’d drive each other insane after being in the same room for extended periods). They do enjoy each others company though. Emilia, though rarely, has brought him a home cooked meal before. This is a very big display of affection from her. She doesn’t cook for other people often, never mind men she sleeps with, but it’s not like he’d ever know that.

For him, I suppose its time. He actually tried to get leave to spend a few days on the Strip with her. Just her, no ulterior business motives. He was even disappointed when she didn’t want to stay the night with him. It seems like a small thing, but for them its the small shit that matters since they aren’t about to stop their lives for each other.

Who cries the most? Who is better at comforting?

I would say Emilia has more reasons to cry just on basis of life things, but I don’t think Contreras is someone she would ever feel comfortable doing that around. Even then, he’d be shit at comforting, mostly because he’s not invested in trying, but also because he’s trash at any deeper emotional stuff. Emilia would appreciate that if he ever caught her on the off day, though. She doesn’t want to open up to him about much, she wants to bullshit around and forget, which he is definitely ok with doing. I think both sort of work well in that aspect, since they both feel the same way about being comforted.

Who is the bigger flirt?

Emilia is, definitely. Just because she can be subtle about it if she feels like it. They def make passes at each other for the fun of it, and it often devolves into who can be nastier.

#Emilia Vazquez #Daniel Contreras

9 notes · View notes

betweengenesisfrogs · 5 years

Text

Homestuck is My Favorite Sprite Comic

Yes, you read that right.

Homestuck is my favorite sprite comic.

Those of you who remember the earlier days of the internet are probably looking at this post in disbelief right about now. Others of you might be scratching your heads, not knowing what I’m talking about.

But here’s my pitch: Homestuck is the culmination of an entire genre of internet art, and the tools that make it so powerful are the very tools that made that genre once so reviled.

Homestuck is the greatest and most successful sprite comic of all time.

And honestly, I’ve wanted to talk about that for ages, so let’s do it.

WHAT SPRITE COMICS WERE

Many of my readers are probably too young to remember the era of sprite comics. So: what were sprite comics?

Sprite comics were a genre of webcomics made entirely by taking pixel art from video games – especially character art, called “sprites,” but also backgrounds and other images—and placing them into panels to tell a story. They were near-ubiquitous on the internet in the early 2000s, emerging right as webcomics in general were seeking to establish themselves as an art form.

They were not, shall we say, known for their quality. The low bar to access meant that art skill was not an obstacle to starting one. The folks behind the huge swell of them tended to be young people, kids and early teenagers recreating the plots of their favorite video games with new OCs—not the most advanced writers or artists. They were the early 2000s’ quintessential example of ephemeral, childish art. Unfortunately, they look even worse today—blown-up pixels don’t hold up well when displayed on higher-resolution monitors.

Today, they’re mostly forgotten, remembered only as a weird, strange moment in the youth of the internet. Someone who evoked them today, such as a blogger who compared them to one of the most successful webcomics of all time, would be inviting good-natured teasing at the very least.

It would be unfair to dismiss them entirely, though. In this low-stakes environment, comics where the author could bring more skill—engaging writing, legitimately funny jokes, or especially, a real ability to work with pixel art—really stood out. (Unsurprisingly, these authors tended to skew a bit older.)

The obvious one to mention is Bob and George. Bob and George wasn’t the first sprite comic, but it was the most influential. Conceived initially as Mega Man-themed filler for a hand-drawn comic about superheroes, it quickly became a merging of the two concepts, with the original characters made into Mega Man-style sprites, full of running gags, humorous retellings of the Mega Man games, elaborate storylines about time travel, and robots eating ice cream. It was generally agreed, even among sprite comic haters, that Bob and George was a pretty good comic. Worth mentioning also are 8-Bit Theater, which turned the plot of the first Final Fantasy into a spectacular and hilarious farce, and of course Kid Radd, my second favorite sprite comic. (More on that later.)

But even if you weren’t looking for greatness—there was something just damn fun about them. The passion of sprite comic authors was clear, even if their ideas didn’t always cohere. To this day, I think the sprite comic scene has the same appeal pulp art does—it’s crude and rough, full of garbage to sift through, but every so often, something deeply sincere and bizarre shines through, and the culture of its authors is a fascinating object of study in itself.

Okay, full disclosure: I was one of the people who made a sprite comic. I’ve written about my experiences with that in more depth elsewhere, but yeah, I was on the inside of this scene, rather than a disinterested observer, and from the inside, maybe it’s a lot easier to see the appeal.

Still, let me make this claim: even with all their flaws, sprite comics were doing some incredibly interesting things, and Homestuck is heir to their legacy.

TAKE ME DOWN TO RECOLOR CITY

One of the problems people always had with sprite comics was the sprites themselves. They’re the most repetitive thing in the world. You just keep copying and pasting the same images over and over again, maybe with a few tweaks. That’s not really being an artist, is it? It’s so lazy. Re-drawing things from different angles keeps things dynamic, develops your skill, and makes your work better in general. Right?

I’m mostly in agreement. Certainly I think it’s fair to rag on the Control-Alt-Delete guy, along with other early bad webcomics, for copy-pasting their characters while dropping in new expressions and mass-producing tepid strips. And to be fair, digging through bad sprite comics often felt like an exercise in seeing the same slightly-edited recolors of Mega Man characters over and over again. You got really tired of that same body with its blobby feet and hands.

(It should be noted, though, that there were folks in the sprite comic scene who could pixel art the quills off a porcupine. I salute you, brave pixel art masters of 2006. I hope you all got into your chosen art school.)

All this said, I think the repetitive and simplistic nature of sprite comics was often their biggest strength.

THE POWER OF ABSTRACTION

In his classic work Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud makes an observation about cartooning that has stayed with me to this day.

McCloud notes that simple, abstract drawings, like faces that are only few lines and dots on a page, resonate with us more strongly than more detailed drawings. This is because our minds fill in what’s missing on the page. We ascribe human depth to simple gestures and expressions based on our own emotions and experiences – and this makes us feel closer to these characters as readers. Secretly, simple cartoons can be one of the most powerful forms of storytelling. If you want your readers to fall in love with your characters, draw them simply, and let them fill them in.

Video game sprites work very well in this regard. They have that same simplicity that cartoons do. In fact, I’d be willing to bet a huge part of the success of SNES-era RPGs was simple, almost childlike character sprites drawing people in. I think sprites did the same for sprite comics.

Here’s the weird thing: Bob and George worked. Despite four different characters being variations on the same friggin’ Mega Man sprite in different colors, they immediately began to seem like different people with distinct personalities. For me, George’s befuddled, helpless dismay immediately comes to mind whenever I picture his face, while with Mega Man himself it’s usually a wide-eyed, childlike glee. I would never confuse them. This, despite the fact that the only actual difference between their faces is that George is blonde. It’s pretty clear what happened. The personalities the author established for them through dialogue and storytelling shone through, and my brain did the rest.

Sprites, in short, were a canvas upon which the mind could project any story the author wanted to tell. Even the most minute differences in pixel art came to stand, in the best sprite comics, for wide divergences in personality and ideals, once the reader spent enough time with them to adapt to their style of representation.

Wait a minute, haven’t we seen this somewhere before? Character designs that focus on variations on a theme, with subtle differences that nonetheless render them instantly recognizable?

Oh, right.

Look at what greets us on the very first page of Homestuck. An absurdly simple cartoon boy, abstracted to a ridiculous degree—he doesn’t even have arms!—followed a whole bunch of characters that follow suit. Though many other representations of the characters emerge, these little figures never quite go away, do they? Why is that?

Simple: they’re very easy to manipulate. They’re modular—you can give John arms or not, depending on whether it’s useful. You can put him in a whole variety of poses and save them to a template. You can change out his facial expressions with copy and paste. You can give him a new haircut and call him Jake. It’s all very quick and easy.

Sprite comics proliferated because they were very easy to mass-produce. Andrew Hussie’s original conception of Homestuck was very similar: something he could put out very quickly and easily, where even the most elaborate ideas could rely on existing assets to be sped smoothly along. We all know the result: an incredible production machine, churning out unfathomable amounts of content from 2009-2012. I’d say it was a good call.

But it goes way deeper than that. The modular nature of sprites always suggested a kind of modularity to the sprite comic premise. George and Mega Man were different people, true, but also two variations on a theme. Was there something underlying them that they had in common? Perhaps their similarity says something like: We exist in a world which has a certain set of rules? One of my favorite conceits from Bob and George was that when characters visited the past, they were represented by NES-era Mega Man sprites, while in the present, they were SNES sprites, and in the future, the author used elaborate splicing to render them as 32-bit Mega Man 8 sprites or similar.

Suppose there was a skilled cartoonist thinking about his next big project, who wanted to tell a story centered around this kind of modularity, a narrative that was built out of iterative, swappable pieces by its very design. He might very well create a sprite comic named Homestuck.

Homestuck is a story about a game that creates a hyperflexible mythology for its players, where the villains, challenges, and setting change depending upon what players bring to the experience, yet which all share underlying goals and assumptions. What more perfect opportunity to create a modular story as well? Different groups of kids and trolls have motifs that get swapped around to produce new characters, whether that’s through ectobiology, the Scratch, or the eerie parallels between the kids and trolls’ sessions. And yet each character can be analyzed as an individual.

This is an incredible way to build a huge emotional investment from your readers. Not only does this kind of characterization invite analysis, the abstractions draw readers in to generate their own headcanons and interpretations. A deep commitment to pluralism is at the heart of Hussie’s character design. Then, too, it encourages readers to build their own new designs from these models. Kidswaps, bloodswaps, fantrolls—these have long been the heart of Homestuck’s fandom. And what are bloodswaps if not sprite recolors for a new generation? With the added bonus that now a change in color carries narrative weight, evoking new moods and identities for these characters in ways that early sprite comics could only dream of.

In Hussie’s hands, even the dreaded copy-and-paste takes on heroic depth of meaning. Even when Hussie moves away from sprites to his own loose art style, he continues to remix what we’ve previously see. Indeed, Hussie talks about how he would go out of his way to edit his own art into new images even when it would take more time than drawing something new. Why? Because he wanted to evoke that very feeling of having seen this before—the visual callback to go along with the many conceptual and verbal callbacks that echo throughout Homestuck. This is at the heart of what Doc Scratch (speaking for Hussie) called “circumstantial simultaneity:” we are invited to compare two moments or two characters, to see what they have in common, or how they contrast. Everything in Paradox Space is deeply linked with everything else. And Hussie establishes this in our minds using nothing less than the tool sprite comics were so deeply reviled for: the “lazy” repetition of an image.

(It’s fitting that some of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous images in Homestuck—dream bubble scenery and the like—are the result of Hussie taking things he’s made before and combining them into fantastic dreamscapes.)

But it all started with the hyperflexible, adaptable character images Hussie created at the very beginning of Homestuck.

And if you need more proof that Homestuck is a sprite comic, I think we need look no further than what Hussie, and the rest of the Homestuck community call these images.

We call them sprites.

THE FIRST GENRE-BENDERS

Was Andrew Hussie influenced by sprite comics in the development of Homestuck? It’s hard to say, but as a webcomic artist in the first decade of the 2000s, he was surely aware of them. It’s likely that he quickly realized that his quick, adaptable images served the same purposes as a sprite in a video game or a sprite comic, and chose to call them that.

One purpose I haven’t mentioned up until now: sprites lend themselves very well to animations. In fact, in their original context of video games, that’s exactly what they’re for: frames of art that can be used to show a character running, jumping, posing, moving across a screen. It’s not surprising, then, that sprite comic makers quickly saw the utility in that.

Homestuck was, in fact, not the first webcomic to make Flash animations part of its story. There were experiments with various gifs and such in other comics, but I think sprite comics were among the most successful at becoming the multi-media creations that would come to be known as hypercomics..

Take a look at this animation from Bob and George. It represents a climactic final confrontation against a long-standing villain, using special effects to make everything dramatic, but ultimately, like many a Homestuck animation, leads to kind of a pyscheout. The drama and the humor of the moment are clear, though. This relies in large part on the music—which is taken directly from the game Chrono Trigger. This makes total sense. Interestingly, it also contains voice acting, which is something Homestuck never tried—probably because it would run contrary to its ideals of pluralism. What I find fascinating is that in sprite comics, animations like these served a very similar purpose to Homestuck’s big flashes: elevating a big moment into something larger-than-life. Another good example is this sequence from Crash and Bass. Seriously, it seems like every sprite comic maker wanted to try their hand at Flash animation.

(By the way, it’s a lot harder than it looks!! I envy Hussie his vectorized sprites. Pixel art is a PAIN to work with in the already buggy program that is Flash.)

The result: because of the sprites themselves, sprite comics were among the first works to play around with the border between comics and other media in the way that would come to be thought of as quintessentially Homestuck.

What it also meant was that another genre emerged in parallel with sprite comics: the sprite animation. Frequently these would retell the story of a particular game, offer a spectacular animated battle sequence, parody the source material, or all three. Great examples include this animation for Mega Man Zero, and this frankly preposterous crossover battle sequence. Chris Niosi’s TOME also found its earliest roots as an animation series of this kind. You also found plenty of sprite-based flash games, in which players could manipulate game characters in a way that was totally outside the context of the original works.

The website the vast majority of these games and animations were hosted on?

Newgrounds, best known to Homestuck fans as the website Hussie crashed in 2011 while trying to upload Cascade.

What’s less talked about is that Hussie was friends, or at least on conversational terms with, the owner of the site, hence the idea to host his huge animation there in the first place, and other flashes, like the first Alterniabound, were initially hosted there as well.

It’s hard to believe that Hussie wasn’t at least a little familiar with the Newgrounds scene. I suspect that he largely conceived of Homestuck as part of the world of “Flash animation—” which in 2009 meant the wide variety of things that were hosted on Newgrounds, including sprite animations.

The freedom and fluidity sprite comics had to change into games and animations and back into comics again was one of their most fascinating traits. Homestuck’s commitment to media-bending needs, at this point, no introduction. But what’s less known is that sprite comics were exploring that territory first—that Homestuck, in short, is the kind of thing they wanted to grow up to be.

PUT ME IN THE GAME

I would be a fool not to mention another big thing Homestuck and sprite comics have in common: a character who is literally the author in cartoon form, running around doing goofy things and messing with the story. This was an incredibly common cliché in sprite comics, no doubt because of Bob and George, who did it early on and never looked back. You might have noticed that the animation I linked above concerns a showdown between Bob and George’s author, David Anez—depicted, delightfully, as another Mega Man recolor—and a mysterious alternate author named Helmut—who is like Mega Man plus Sepiroth I think? It’s all very strange. I could ramble for hours about the relationship between Hussie and the alt-author villains of Homestuck and what it all means, but I’m not sure I can nail anything down with certainty for these two. Maybe Bob and George was never quite that metaphysical.

But yes, bringing the author into the story in some form was already a cliché by the time Homestuck started up. Indeed, I think that’s why Hussie’s character refers to it as “a bad idea” to break the fourth wall—he’s recognizing that people will have seen this before, and are already tired of this sort of shit. And then he goes and does it anyway and makes it somehow brilliant, because he’s Andrew Hussie.

Homestuck breathes life into the cliché by taking it in a metaphysical/metafictional direction. I don’t think that was really the motivation for most sprite comic authors, though. Let’s see if we can dig a little deeper.

I think the cliché kept happening because sprite comic authors were writing about a subject that very closely concerned themselves: video games. I’m only kind of joking. The thing about video games is that even though they’re made for everyone, playing through one yourself feels like an intensely personal experience. You develop an emotional relationship to a world, to its characters, that feels distinctly your own. Now, suddenly, thanks to the magic of sprites, you have an opportunity to tell stories about that world for others to read. Of course you’re going to want to put yourself in the story in some form.

When it wasn’t author characters in sprite comics, it was OCs. You know Dr. Wily? Well here’s my own original villain, Dr. Vindictus. You know Mega Man? Here’s my new character, Super Cool Man. He hangs out with Mega Man and they beat the bad guys together. Stuff like that. Most sprite comics retold the story of a game, or multiple games in a big crossover format, with original elements added in. There was quite a lot of “Link and Sonic and Mega Man are all friends with my OC and they hang out at his house.”

What’s interesting, though, is that because these sprite comics were very aware that they were about video games, this was where they sometimes got very meta. It started with humorous observation—hey, isn’t it funny that Link goes around breaking into people’s houses and smashing their pots? But sometimes, it grew into more serious commentary. Is Mega Man trapped in a never-ending cycle, doomed to fight the same fight against the same mad scientist until the end of time? Is it worth it, being a video game hero?

Enter Homestuck. What I’ve been dancing around this whole time is:

Homestuck is a sprite comic…because Homestuck is a video game.

Or more specifically, Homestuck’s a comic about a video game called SBURB, where the lines between the game and the comic about the game blur as characters wrestle with the narratives around them, both those encoded into the game and those encoded into our expectations.

Homestuck presents the fantasy of many a sprite comic maker: I get to go on heroic quests, I get to change the world and become a god. I get to be part of the video game. And then it asks the same question certain sprite comics were beginning to ask:

Is it worth it, to be that hero?

I want to tell you about my second favorite sprite comic, a comic called Kid Radd.

Kid Radd distinguished itself from other sprite comics of the time by being a completely original production. Its sprites looked like they could be from a variety of NES and SNES-era video games, but they were all done from scratch, and the games they purported to represent were all fictional. Kid Radd used animations with original music, and sometimes interactive, clickable games, to tell its story. It also used all sorts of neat programming tricks to make it load faster on the internet of the early 2000s, which was great—unfortunately, these same techniques made it break as web technology evolved, something Homestuck fans in 2019 can definitely relate to. The good news is, fans have maintained a dedicated and reformatted archive where the comics can still be seen and downloaded.

Kid Radd’s premise is that video game characters themselves are conscious and alive—more specifically, their sprites. Sprites developed consciousness as human beings projected personality and identity onto them, remaining aware of their status as video game constructs while also seeking to be something more. The story follows the titular Kid Radd, at first in the context of his own game, commenting on the choices the player controlling him. He must endure every death, every strange decision along the way to save his girlfriend Sheena. Then the story expands into a larger context as Radd, Sheena, and many other video game characters are released onto the internet as data. They try to find their own identities and build a society for themselves, but struggle with the tendency toward violence that games have programmed into them. The story culminates in an honestly moving moment where Radd confronts the all-powerful creators of their reality—human beings.

It’s a very good comic.

The first sprite comic authors wanted to fuse real life with video games. Later sprite comic authors decided to ask: what would that really mean? Would it be painful? Would you suffer? Would you find a way to make your life meaningful all the same? Despite the limitations of sprite comics, these ideas had incredible potential, and in works like Kid Radd, they flourished.

Homestuck is heir to that legacy.

It takes the questions Kid Radd was asking, and asks them in new ways. It tries to understand, on an even deeper level, how the rules of video games shape our own minds and give us ways to understand ourselves.

At its heart, Homestuck is a sprite comic, and it might just be the greatest of them all.

EPILOGUE

I’ve seen a lot of good discussion recently on how Homestuck preserves a certain era of the internet like a time capsule: its culture, its technology, its assumptions, its memes.

I think sprite comics, too, are part of the culture that created Homestuck. Do I think Hussie spent the early 2000s recoloring Mega Man sprites? No, probably not. But what I do know is that sprite comics were part of his world. The first webcomic cartoonists came of age alongside an odd companion, the weird, overly sincere, dorky little sibling that was sprite comics. Like them or hate them, you couldn’t escape them. They were there.

And maybe a certain cartoonist saw a kind of potential in them, in the same way he summoned Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff from the depths of bad gamer culture.

Or maybe he just knew, as some sprite comic authors did, that the time was right for their kind of story.

On a personal level—Homestuck came along right when I needed it.

Around 2009, the bubble that was sprite comics finally burst. People were getting tired of them, or growing out of them, and blown-up sprites no longer looked so good on modern monitors.

I was more than a little heartbroken. I’d enjoyed Bob and George, read my fill of Mega Man generica, and fallen utterly in love with Kid Radd. I’d been working on my own sprite comic for a long time out of a sense that there was huge potential in them that we were only scratching the surface of. I’d dreamed of maybe someday doing something as amazing as the best of them did. But I was watching that world disappear. I had to admit to myself that my work wasn’t going to continue to find an audience. That I could live with. But it was painful to think that the potential I sensed, the feats of storytelling I wanted to see in the world, would never be realized.

And then, in the fall of 2010, a friend linked me to a comic that broke all the rules, that mixed animation, games, music, images and chatlogs. A comic that crafted its own sprites, just as Kid Radd did, and remixed its images into an ever-expanding web of associations and meanings. A comic that took on the idea of living inside a video game with relish and turned it into a gorgeous meditation on escaping the ideas and systems that control us.

That this comic would exist, let alone that it would succeed. That it would become one of the most popular creations of all time, that it would surpass other webcomics and break out into anime conventions and the real world, that it would become such a cultural juggernaut, to the point where it’s impossible to imagine an internet without Homestuck—

I can’t even put into words how happy that makes me. It’s the reason I’m still writing essays about Homestuck nearly eight years after I found it.

And it’s why Homestuck will always be my favorite sprite comic.

-Ari

[Notes: The image of the kids came from the ever-useful MSPA Wiki—please support and aid in their efforts to provide a good source of info about Homestuck! They need more support these days than ever.

For more on Homestuck’s place as a continuation of the zeitgeist of early 2000s experimental webcomics, this article by Sam Keeper at Storming the Ivory Tower is excellent and insightful.

Thanks for reading, y’all.]

#homestuck analysis #homestuck #homestuck's influences #hypercomics #understanding homestuck #sprite comics #internet culture

1K notes · View notes

keelywolfe · 5 years

Text

FIC: Owed to a Grease-cian Earn (baon)

Summary: Stretch should've known something was up when Edge asked to go to Grillby's with him.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Hints of Kustard, Angst, Issues with LV, Suggested Past Prostitution, Implied Past Promiscuity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Notes: Note the tags, some angst ahoy!

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Back in Underswap, Stretch had always been in the know. He saw things, knew things people thought he shouldn’t, he could Look into souls and sometimes did, felt the sins of others crawling up his back.

He’d given that up pretty quick when they came to this ‘verse. Sometimes, a lot actually, it was better not to know and seeing that shit let him assume too much. It’d taken that ass-of-u-and-me thing way further than it should’ve with Edge and years later, he still had a regret about it. Too much of the negative, not enough of the actual soul and Stretch didn’t miss it one fucking bit.

It did mean he was pretty out of practice, though, and he should’ve known something was up from the beginning when Edge asked to go to Grillby’s with him.

Grillby’s was the only Monster-owned establishment outside of New New Home. Had to give him credit, Grillbz was a pretty savvy businessmonster. He’d hustled to get this place up and running in record time, before any Humans even thought of passing laws to prevent it. Protests here were few and far between and it was pretty damn popular with Monsters and Humans, like the Beanery was. During the day it was a family establishment, with some of the best burgers in Ebott. At night, there was plenty of entertainment. Stand-up comedy, local bands, even slam poetry from time to time and that was what brought them here tonight.

Stretch couldn’t say he actually liked slam poetry, but he loved coming whenever they were doing it. It was worth it for the people-watching alone; interesting folk crawled out of the ground and Thrillered their way downtown for this and since Andy couldn’t come, he’d planned on making it a solo trip. So he’d been pretty surprised when Edge wanted to tag along. It hadn’t even occurred to him to turn Edge down when he offered to come, hell, no, he loved spending time with his honey.

He was feeling pretty damn guilty about it now. Grillby’s was not on Edge’s top ten list of hangouts; he’d probably rather go to the DMV than here. Stretch didn’t mind some grease slathered on his food, added flavor in his humble opinion, but he knew better than that where Edge was concerned, and neither was he much for drinking. And the only person Edge ever seemed interested in watching was sitting in this booth with him. So that meant he got to sit around in a place he didn't want to be, surrounded by people he didn’t want to be with, picking at drinks and food that he didn’t want.

Sounded like a fun night, if you were a pal of the Marquis de Sade. They’d only been here an hour and this was the second time Edge’d gone to the bathroom to wash his hands, impressive even by his standards, considering he was wearing gloves.

It wasn’t Stretch’s fault, no. He hadn’t asked Edge to come along, no sir, he wasn't a glutton for punishment, preferred it to be snack-sized. But he still felt bad; there was no question that Edge only came along to keep an eye on him, hell, he’d already caught his baby stifling a yawn once and this was a Monster who was capable of sitting through meetings about trade agreements. Edge knew his boring.

But if Stretch was filled with relief about Alphys’s news, he had a sneaky suspicion that Edge was still feeling a little fragile about it. S’ok, he got it, the whole situation was a clusterfuck from start to finish. Between his HP, Andy’s attempt at getting some internal air conditioning, and Edge’s LV trying to tap dance on his soul at night, Edge was due a little fragility. If his baby needed to keep him in arm’s reach for a little while, he could deal. For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t like he was the one who’d have to be hands-on if his HP ever gave out, so Edge was welcome to all the extra snuggles he needed until he got back on an even keel. Edge probably considered the boredom and grease a fair price.

Stretch gave the bar a glance, trying to decide if it was worth fighting his way through the crowd for a drink. Grillby was moving tirelessly along with the other bartender, flames tamped down to a steady glow that matched the dimmed lights. Some nights he would put on a little show, give a demonstration on a few interesting things that alcohol and fire could do when mixed. Tonight he was probably trying not to distract from the show, currently what Stretch presumed was a Human waxing poetically about avocados—was that a Human? Honestly, he was having a hard time deciding.

But hey, with the frequent fiery shows, it was no surprise no one tried to burn this place down. Maybe Deb should ask for a special presentation at the Beanery someday.

He’d just decided that sending Edge to get him a drink when he came back might entertain him for about a minute when from behind Stretch came, “Hey, Papyrus! Haven’t seen you here in ages!”

“rolf,” Stretch had to struggle not to make a face. He knew Rolf, a little better than he preferred to remember and from two Universes besides. Here was a Monster who hadn’t shown much difference between Underswap and this ‘verse.

A distant relative of the Dogi, he had the ears and the muzzle but not much else in common. Not every Monster had taken well to surface life and Rolf was one of them. He wasn’t bad sober, but when he’d been drinking he was a jackass and a half, something Stretch figured out pretty quick on one shitty evening. From the smell of him, he’d already been here a few hours. “i go by stretch, now, remember?”

Rolf only laughed, too loudly, earning a couple of dirty looks, and crammed into the booth next to him. Stretch wasn’t beating too many Monsters when it came to body weight and he was forced to scoot over to keep Rolf from falling into his lap. It was still cramped enough in the booth that he was pressed in tight, the heavy smell of beer and not enough showers strong in Rolf’s fur.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Grillby had a strict policy against using magic in his establishment. Once, you got a warning, second time, a month’s ban. A third and the ban became permanent.

Which was the only thing keeping him from knocking Rolf out on his ass when he settled a clawed hand on his knee. “You’re lookin’ good tonight, you know that?”

Yeah, in a hoodie and jeans, he was a regular supermodel shaking his ass on the catwalk. Rolf’s grin let his tongue loll out, a dribble of saliva dripping down to puddle on the table. It clammed up into a frown when Stretch firmly moved his hand away and he whined, “C’mon, you always used to be up for a good time.”

“maybe you didn’t hear,” Stretch said coolly, “but i’m married.” Not that any idiot shouldn’t know; the Monster community was small and Edge wasn’t exactly the most private citizen around. Neither was he, to be fair, most of New New home followed his twitter, if not the experiments he got up to with the minions on the weekends.

Rolf threw back his head and his raucous laughter was loud enough to earn a glance from Grillby and half of the rest of the bar, fiery glares both figurative and literal at them both for interrupting the ode to avocados. “Yeah, I heard, everyone heard, you and that dust-scraper shacked up. Think you’re worth more than that, don’t you?”

Just hearing him call Edge that set his teeth to grinding, forcibly wrangling his temper down. He was not going to start a fight, not here, not with a bunch of Human college students listening to some guy wax eloquently about being a lone wolf in a city of sheep. Low, he said coldly, “i know i’m sure as fuck worth more than you. get lost, fuckface, find a different tree to piss on.”

“Come on,” Rolf leaned in too close and the alcohol on his breath was gagging, “I have G. Buy you a pack of smokes and everything.”

Okay, screw being subtle. That implication made his already simmering temper flare into white-hot. He’d heard that gossip, thanks a heap, and he didn’t know who the fuck started it, but it had never been true, not even in Underswap. Stretch gave Rolf a hard shove but he didn’t budge an inch, even when he dug in his fingers. “Fuck you!”

“That’s the idea, pretty,” he leered

Enough of this shit; Grillby would definitely kick Rolf out if Stretch asked and he wanted him gone before Edge came back. This was the kind of stupid bullshit that Edge did not need to deal with right now, not when his LV was giving him a bitchfit. Rolf deserved an ass-kicking but if Edge lost control and gave him one? There was too much of a chance he’d get too rough, his control was taking a walk on the wild side. If that happened, he’d never forgive himself and Stretch was not about to allow his baby to get any emotional scars over this piece of shit.

But his racing thoughts weren’t giving him much to work with. Even if he were allowed to use magic, Rolf was touching him so if he shortcutted, this prick would be coming along for the ride. And going anywhere alone with him would be fucking stupid, calling for Grillby to help would be humiliating, so what the fuck could he— Stretch gave him another hard shove and hissed, “i said no, asshole, knock it off!”

“Yes, you should knock it off.”

Well, fuck.

Those words were dripping with cold, practically freezing in the air itself. Say what you would about Underfell, it’d gone a long way towards helping Edge really perfect that casual sort of menace that usually got people pissing in their shorts.

This was an all-new level of suck, and Stretch wondered a little wildly if it was possible for a Monster to die of panic, because here he was sitting ass to elbows with a guy he’d drunkenly slept with once. Edge wouldn’t doubt him, he knew he wouldn’t, but, but, he didn’t know what to do, didn’t want Edge to get hurt in any capacity, not by anyone else or himself.

“babe—" Stretch started, still struggling with the unfamiliar sensation of not knowing what to say. Just his luck that his one superpower would give out now, usually he couldn’t manage to shut himself up.

But anything he might have said stuck in his throat, unspoken, when Rolf turned to Edge and showed his teeth, growling low in his throat. “Yeah? What’re you gonna do?" he sneered. "Gonna kill me? Add a little more EXP to the pile you’ve already got?”

People talked so blasé about things screeching to a halt, but right now they were all living a textbook example. The entire bar was watching them, even the kid on stage was silent, notebook pages crumpled in one hand as he stared wide-eyed. Grillby was watching closely but he made no effort to intervene, not yet. Only polished the glass in his hand while he waited with everyone else to see how this panned out.

Stretch was about to shortcut out and damn the consequences, take the black mark on his record and pin this asshole down outside with a little blue magic when Edge spoke again.

“Don’t be ridiculous," Edge said mildly. He tucked his hands into his pockets and Rolf probably didn’t appreciate the subtle insult of it. "I’m going to remind you that your monthly stipend is dependent on the contract you agreed to when you moved to New New Home, and that if you break that contract, say, by breaking the law assaulting someone who is only trying to enjoy a drink at a bar, you no longer benefit from it. You can move out and live with the Humans and cover your own expenses without having to worry about petty rules. Although I would remind you that assault is generally frowned upon by the Humans as well.”

There was no telling how much Rolf had to drink, but it wasn’t so much that the picture Edge was a painting for him wasn’t crystal clear, no happy little mistakes, just broad, blatant strokes. Slowly, he slid out of the booth, that low growl still vibrating in his throat and Stretch didn’t think he imagined hearing him mumbling something about whores. That was fine, he could whine like a two-month puppy. Stretch didn’t give half a shit what this asshole thought of him, but he really hoped Edge wasn’t listening too hard.

Once Rolf slunk away, back to an empty table in a dark corner of the bar, Edge sat back in the booth, across from Stretch and everything around them slowly resumed, like a film reel flipped back on. Glasses clinked, bottles opened, and the kid on stage started up again about pencil graffiti.

“my hero,” Stretch smiled wryly, the tension in his soul leaking out, leaving him weak with relief, “you're a smooth motherfucker when you want to be, aren’t you.” He frowned when Edge didn’t say anything, “babe?”

“Give me a moment,” Edge said tightly and Stretch took a good look at him, at the pinpricks of his eye lights, the way his gloves creaked as he clenched his hands together.

So he did. Didn’t talk, for once, let all the words bubbling in his mind fizzle out and instead, he busied himself making a tower around his empty beer bottle out of the condiments and silverware. There was enough math involved to keep him entertained, weighing out on whether the ketchup or the vinegar was best as a foundation, the exact formation required to balance the saltshaker in the end of a spoon.

He was just jenga-ing in the last fork when Edge gave the ketchup base a flick with one finger and it collapsed in a mini shower of flatware.

“you asshole, you have no respect for art,” Stretch laughed, gathering up forks and spoons. Then softer, “you okay?”

Edge sighed. “I feel that’s a question I should direct back to you.”

“me?” Stretch scoffed, waving that off, because no, thanks. “please, i could have handled that asshole in two seconds if it weren’t for ‘da rulez’” He made little air quotes around it, just to see if Edge grimaced. He did, and that right there was encouraging, a nice little slice of normality.

“I know you could.” Edge reached over and took his hand, squeezing gently. His gloves were buttery-soft against Stretch’s bones, but he sort of wished he could feel the light scrape of phalanges. “I’m not upset with you, I want you to know that.”

“yeah, i know.” Stretch gave him a lopsided smile. Edge had never held his previous indiscretions against him, if that was what you called fucking around with anyone that offered. This was the first time one of them had shown up asking for an encore though, so it was kinda nice to hear.

Edge looked at him searchingly then slowly nodded. “So long as you know.” He drew Stretch’s hand up, his breath warm as he kissed his knuckles gently. That was better, much more normal, so it was something of a surprise for him to drop Stretch’s hand and pull out his phone to start typing, enough that Stretch blinked at him in confusion.

“what are you—?”

“Contacting Embassy security.”

That gave him a hell of a jolt, “babe—"

“It’s not only about you,” Edge didn’t look up from his phone, “If he’s like this often, drunk and aggressive, he’s a danger to himself and others. I don’t want to hurt him, love, but he needs help before something worse happens.”

Of course. Of course Edge was thinking about helping him, so worried about his LV, about hurting people, and here he was making sure some asshole was gonna get better than he deserved. Stretch loved Edge, more than he could explain, sometimes so much it scared him a little, but the warmth that rose in his soul right at this moment was soft and sweet, begging to be properly shared.

“you’ve got a good soul, babe.” Stretch regretted it the moment he said it, too teasingly light, and the way Edge’s eye lights constricted made his own soul throb once in sympathy, that warmth dimming. By unspoken rule, only his soul got to be talked about and held, his supposedly perfect LV-free soul.

True to form, Edge didn’t say anything to that. He only tucked his phone back into his pocket, shifting to stand, "I'll get us another round, try not to get into more trouble while I'm gone."

"i wasn't trying to get into trouble the first time." Stretch pointed out. It got him a brief smile, but not the kiss he was angling for. He saved his sigh until Edge walked away, tracing the circle of moisture his bottle left on the table with one absent finger.

“babe, you have a beautiful soul,” Stretch whispered to nobody at all, “someday i’ll get to tell you that.”

For now, he only turned his attention back to the stage. A woman was up there now with hair in a rainbow of fascinating colors and no paper notes, only raising the microphone with brisk determination. He watched with interest as she began talking about public transportation, only glancing once at Edge who was standing in line at the bar. No one else was giving Edge so much as a cautious look and the bartender’s smile as he stepped up was friendly.

It allowed him to relax, focusing more on the show. No one thought anything bad, then, no one let Rolf’s drunken anger give them a worry about Edge’s LV, even if it was jarringly high.

Good enough.

~~*~~

Rolf was considerably drunker when he stepped out of Grillby’s at closing time to see the plain black cars waiting for him. His waitress had cut him off about an hour before, fucking unfair, he’d been sitting by himself, not causing any trouble at all. Hadn’t even said a word when the dust collector and his whore left earlier, kept his head down looking at his drink.

None of the Monsters leaning against the cars looked remotely threatening, but he wasn’t stupid, not by a long shot. ‘specially not when one of them was Sans, and maybe he’d swapped out the pink slippers for sneakers, but otherwise he could’ve stepped right out of Snowdin, the hoodie and shorts, that easy grin. Made Rolf think of other days, better ones, staggering home through the snow with a drink in his hand and a song in his heart.

“heya, rolf,” Sans said, easily, “was hoping you’d come with us, yeah?”

Hoping, right. Conjured magic was heavy in the air, clammy humidity before a storm, and part of him was ready for the fight, more than, wanting to lash out and hurt a couple of these pricks for daring to try laying hands on him. But he wasn’t that drunk, not that stupid, and he wouldn’t get off a single hit, he knew. Not against Sans.

He only walked up to the closest car and one of the Monster’s held open the door for him, one for the backseat. He hesitated long enough to sneer, “So much for freedom on the surface.”

“nah, you got it wrong, pal,” Sans’s easy smile never wavered. “you’re pretty free to do what you want. out from under the mountain. out in the sunshine. but your freedom ends right about the point you make the humans want us all dead. that kinda takes away my freedom.” He stepped closer and Rolf hastily climbed in the car. Too late, Sans stood in the open door, keeping him from closing it. “anyway, we’re just here to help you get home.”

“Home,” Rolf repeated, hopefully. Sans nodded, his grin widening.

“gotta little tip for you, first.” His pleasant smile seemed anything but when coupled with those suddenly dark sockets and Rolf swallowed hard, the pressure of too much beer heavy in his bladder. “stay away from stretch.”

The reminder of the little whore made his anger surge again and Rolf blurted out, scoffing, “I get it, that pussy stays in the family, huh.”

Sans laughed as if it was the best joke he’d heard in a year. His eye lights flared back to life as he chuckled and Rolf let out a little tremulous laugh of his own, “nah, don’t be stupid, i just don’t like to see anyone hurting my brother.” A cheery ting choked off Rolf’s laughter and he cringed, strangling on lack of air and terror as Sans leaned into the car, one of his eye lights flaring like staring into insanity. His voice was deeper, trembling in Rolf’s very bones as he whispered, “stay away from stretch or you’ll have a really bad time.”

Then it was gone and there was only Sans and his easy smile, along with the sharp smell of urine. He slammed the door shut, giving the top of the car a slap and it drove off in a short caravan, headed towards New New Home. He watched a little longer, until the taillights twinkled out of sight before he said to no one in particular, “good enough for you?”

He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder at the sudden flare of crimson eye lights. “for now.”

Sans nodded, “they’ll either get him some help or get him on house arrest until he wises up. it’ll work out.” Sans slanted a glance over his shoulder, towards the sudden click of a lighter and a whiff of cigar smoke. “whoever gets home first gets to top?”

A dark chuckle and a plume of exhaled smoke. “you’re seriously underestimatin’ the appeal of getting’ to lay there while you fuck me.”

“am i?” The innocence in his voice was as pure as New York snow, “guess you’ll lose, then.”

There was nothing but the sound of a shortcut, a faint pop of displaced air, and Sans cursed aloud and vanished into one of his own, leaving the street empty and a neon sign flashing with the word, ‘Grillby’s’, the same above as it had been below.

-finis-

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name

47 notes · View notes

cat-stark · 5 years

Note

👀 Jonsa 💞

who’s the cuddler: they’re honestly both a bit touch starved, and neither are very into public pda, but sansa is better about initiating touch. jon usually stiffens at first, but he quickly relaxes into it. sansa touches him a lot throughout the day, just little brushes of her hand against his curls, his arm, etc. they’ve improved so much from the beginning of their relationship - sansa usually winds up cuddling jon as they fall asleep, and he’ll actually wind his arm around her waist when they’re at her parents’ house for sunday dinner.

who makes the bed: both, but they also argue about it a l o t. jon uses the strict military style, while sansa does up her bed hotel style. the differences are small, but noticeable. mostly though, the arguing comes about when jon decides to get up and make the bed ON TOP of his sleeping girlfriend.

who wakes up first: jon has always kept really early hours. he finds the morning incredibly peaceful, and he likes getting a head start. he also thinks watching sansa wake up is the most adorable thing, because she is decidedly NOT a morning person, but wakes up early anyways, and she’s always grumpy and groggy and hilarious.

who has the weird taste in music: j o n. sansa prefers the soft acoustic singer/songwriter genre, but jon is super into nordic folk music and scandinavian edm.

who is more protective: they’re both incredibly protective of the other. they like to think they’re subtle, but they’re stupidly obvious about it. neither are terribly physical (though when it comes to creepy uncle petyr, there’s usually some shoving involved) but plenty of people have learned that sansa’s cutting tongue can be just as painful as a well delivered punch.

who sings in the shower: sansa likes to sing whatever song she was listening to in the radio. since her radio is currently on a pop station, and she’s terrified of looking away from the road, even to fiddle with the radio, and she always forgets to change the station when she’s not actually driving the car, it’s usually a top 40 song. it drives jon nuts, but he loves listening to her sing, so he’s in a bit of a catch-22. whenever he’s REALLY annoyed, he finds creative ways to occupy her mouth in the shower instead.

who cries during movies: sansa cries at everything. jon cries at nothing. sometimes he worries it makes him cold and unfeeling, but he has a hard time emotionally connecting with movie characters. anytime he looks down at his girlfriend’s tear-streaked face, his heart beats so fast and so hard his chest actually hurts, and his fears about being emotionless disappear pretty quickly.

who spends the most while out shopping: sansa. she’ll do the odd “treat yourself” day every now and then, usually with one (or more) of her siblings, but for the most part she’s pretty economical, and a killer bargain hunter. however jon is practically monastic and terrible at indulging, which sansa is slowly helping him work on.

who kisses more roughly: jon sometimes worries that he’s too rough with his kisses, and so he’ll back off and become ridiculously gentle, but sansa is quick to remind him that she’s not actually made of porcelain, and quite likes it when he kisses her like she’s the only person on the planet.

who is more dominate: it’s pretty understood that sansa takes the lead in most aspects of their relationship. she had very little control in her previous relationships, and jon hates how she was treated, so he’s more than happy to let her show him what she wants.

my rating of the ship from 1-10: 15/10

send me a ship and i’ll share some headcanons!

#stark #answered #jonsa

95 notes · View notes

missmarquin · 5 years

Text

To Bell a Cat

I decided to make a proper post for this, ahahah. Otayuri Short story, based on the following prompt floating around tumblr: 'Story idea: The most wanted woman in town has announced that she’ll only marry the one who can open her front door with the key around her cat’s neck. Many men try to hunt the cat down, chase and trap it, but to no avail, the cat is simply too quick, smart and clever, and always finds a way to evade and avoid them.You are the first one to figure out the obvious: Do not chase the cat. The cat is befriendable. Get the cat to trust you, to genuinely enjoy your company, and you can hang out with the cat. You may eventually be allowed to touch the cat. The cat will freely let you take the key.

Secondary plot twist: The woman is a shapeshifter. She is the cat.'

READ ON A03 FOR PROPER FORMATTING!

“Leave.”

The acidic tone that the word dripped with was almost impressive. Otabek paused in his step, looking towards the porch of the house, where a very angry-looking man stood. Yuri Plisetsky was a tall and wispy thing, all legs and little else, aside from hair that shone like spun gold. It was braided simply and hung over his shoulder.

Two women stood before him, stars in their eyes. They sighed at the sight of him, hands clasped demurely. Except that they were anything but, Otabek supposed. The women of this village could be pushy; Otabek knew that better than any-- he’d been on the receiving end of it more times than he could count.

“Oh but Mr. Plisetsky,” the girl closest to him crooned. She was cute enough, with brown hair that sparkled with slips of red beneath the afternoon sun. She adjusted her arms, pushing up her chest, trying to show herself off in just the right way.

“I said leave,” he snapped, nothing bother to hide his disdain as he waved towards her breasts. “And take those with you.”

The girl frowned. “But--” The glare that the man shot her shut her up quick, and her friend burst into a howling laughter, moving to tug her away.

Yuri watched as they left his yard, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl set deep across his features. And then he noticed Otabek standing there, watching, bag of sand still slung over his shoulder. “What the fuck are you looking at?” Yuri snarled.

Otabek raised a brow. Despite everyone in the village knowing of the man, Otabek didn’t talk to him much. He was the kind of man to admire from afar and keep quiet. Yuri kept to himself for the most part too; the people that sought him out were those like the girls-- distracted by his fine looks and intentions to bed him.

“You’re quite crass, aren’t you?” Otabek finally asked.

“What’s it to you?” Yuri asked right back, raising his chin in defiance.

That was a better look for him, Otabek decided, not the ugly snarl he had worn earlier. “Nothing,” he replied easily.

“They have no fucking boundaries,” Yuri snapped. “No means nothing to them.”

“Perhaps if you spoke to them, like you did me, they’d leave you alone,” Otabek replied. “What woman likes a man with such a nasty mouth?”

Yuri blinked slowly at that, like he had never quite considered such a thing. And then, “Tch. Don’t you have somewhere to be?” His words were clipped, but the anger behind them had disappeared, leaving behind bitter annoyance. “Off smacking a hammer against some metal, or something?”

“Smacking a hammer,” Otabek repeated dryly. “There’s a little more to it than that.” Blacksmithing was a little more than complicated.

“I doubt that,” Yuri sneered. “You’re no better you know. Guys like you are all muscle and no brain. The little witches would be better off following you around instead.”

At that, Otabek smiled wryly. “Not so much. They really aren’t my type.”

“Aren’t your type--” Yuri started, but Otabek cut him off.

“Too young,” Otabek clarfied. Truth be told, Otabek’s type were tall and leggy blondes, usually with a smart mouth. He wasn’t picky in regards to sex, but Yuri was by far the most interesting person in the village. Not that he’d ever tell him that.

Not that he’d even entertain it.

Yuri’s mouth twisted into a smirk at that, apparently agreeing. “Yeah, fucking children, if I didn’t know any better.” Then he remembered that he was angry at Otabek, and motioned him away. “Now scram.”

Otabek left him with nothing more than a little wave.

....

Otabek walked by Yuri’s home every day on the way to the smith. Most days were similar-- Yuri yelling angrily after a multitude of admirers, trying to scare them off. It seemed to have the opposite effect.

Otabek got it, really he did. Yuri was beautiful, with fae-like thin and narrow features. Tall, with wide shoulders, but narrow at the waist. His hair practically glittered in the sunlight that it captured, and it didn’t help that Yuri was the vainest person that anyone knew. His grocery list at the apothecary for his cleaning routine was the stuff of gossip.

The more that he fought against them, the more they came. Strength in numbers, Otabek supposed. The larger the group, the more bold they were, which only added to the man’s aggravation.

That morning was different. Otabek saw a large group of women giggling about, while Yuri slumped around his yard. The one closest to him had pulled her neckline so low, it was amazing that she stayed within the confines of her dress.

“You know what? I’m fucking sick of this,” Yuri finally spat, slamming his rake down into the dirt. “One of you wants to marry me? Okay. We’ll play a little game.”

Otabek paused in his step, dropping his sack of sand to the ground to listen. Interesting.

“My cat,” he began simply, and Otabek cringed. Potya was a terror amongst the local folk, snapping at any wayward fingers that tried to pet her. She was a nasty creature, with a nasty temper, and it made sense that a man with an equally foul disposition would find a friend in her. “She holds the key to my heart, as well as the key to my home. I’ll tie it around her neck. To whom ever manages to capture her and take the key, you can let yourself in. And then I’ll marry you, or whatever.”

“Your cat?” a woman screeched, a tall one with flaming red hair. “How hard could that possibly be?”

At that Yuri smirked, the grin spread wide across his face, dangerous looking. “Make no mistake in thinking this little game will be easy. As such, I offer you one piece of advice-- Potya and I, are one and the same.”

The woman snorted at that. “How on earth is that advice?”

“To woo me, you have to woo her. She is the keeper of everything that I have.” Yuri shrugged at that. “In the meantime, I will be left alone.”

Yuri didn’t seem the type to make such a bet, so part of Otabek was intrigued. When the crowd finally dispersed, he remained, watching the man quietly as he raked leaves.

“I’m surprised that they didn’t make you promise,” Otabek finally said.

Yuri looked up and scoffed. “You again. You know, you’ve never bothered me before, but you’re starting to.”

“Doesn’t change my observation.”

Yuri paused, leaning on his rake. “I’m a lot of things, Ironworker, but I always keep my word.”

“Then why make such a wager?”

At that, Yuri smirked, a rare and subtle thing and said, “Because there’s no way for them to actually win.”

…

It was in the coming days, that Otabek realized he usually saw the cat, more than Yuri himself.

He had ever really paid attention to the man before, but with the wager and the entire village on high alert, it was suddenly noticeable. The most eligible bachelor around had promised his hand, and despite the absurdity of the game, the village was eating it up like bait. There wasn’t a morning that he walked by Yuri’s home, that there wasn’t a person looking for Potya.

And it wasn’t like Otabek sought the place out, it just happened to be on the way to the Smithy.

But he couldn’t deny how entertaining it was, watching person after person stalk after the cat.

Especially Mila, the red-headed woman, hiking up her skirt as she trudged around in Yuri’s yard, trying to avoid the mud. She wasn’t very successful.

On the way back to his home for lunch, Otabek watched as Potya slipped from her fingertips, causing her to scream in frustration. It was something he didn’t quite understand-- the innate need to settle down with someone. It wasn’t that Otabek wasn’t interested, it just wasn’t something that was important.

Sure, the women of the village were cute and all, but they weren’t needed. He got along fine on his own. It was hassle free and no-drama, and the only person he had to take care of was himself.

And sure, people talked, but he didn't really care about it. It was the same shit that they said about Yuri. Oh, what a shame, someone so handsome with no one to look after him. Oh, what a waste of a man.

Otabek snorted at that. The only waste around here, was the time spent chasing around a cat that they would never catch, all because they felt the need to have something more.

One month into the wager, he spotted Potya walking along the stone hedge that surrounded Yuri’s property. Otabek paused and she was poised to dart away, but Otabek made no move. And so, she didn’t either.

He stared at her. She was a fluffy thing, soft ivory fur with a gray face. Cute, really, if you liked cats. Otabek wasn’t particularly fond of them, but he’d never really given them a chance, he supposed. He didn’t have time to look after a creature, with all the times he set about work.

“You take care of yourself mostly, don’t you?” he asked the cat. It wasn’t like she understood him, but the tone and kindness were there. “Yuri just kind of let’s you do your own thing.” Potya blinked, her tail swishing slightly behind her. She was still poised to move as soon as he did, but he made no move to go closer.

“Lucky guy, I guess,” Otabek continued. “Keep it up. The running away thing, I guess. He’s depending on you.”

Potya cocked her head to the side, and if Otabek didn’t know any better, it seemed like she understood.

....

Two months in and Yuri was still winning. Otabek was honestly surprised that the townsfolk hadn’t given up yet, but then again… Yuri was that handsome, he supposed. At least they’d left himself alone. Otabek finally had room to breathe.

Potya was as slippery as ever, but when Otabek would walk to and from work, she’d taken to walking alongside the stone beside him. She probably liked him because he didn’t try. He didn’t really want to.

That day though, Potya wasn’t to be found, and instead Yuri was in the front lawn raking leaves. Except this time he was shirtless. Otabek swallowed thickly, watching the muscles of his arms flex as he raked. He was thin, but lean, and suddenly he saw the appeal that drove the women flocking to him.

“Hey, you,” Yuri called out as Otabek walked by, pausing in his work to lean on the rake. Otabek turned to him, unable to hide the surprise that floated across his face. “So uh, I saw you,” he said, “with uh--- with Potya.”

“She’s a good cat,” Otabek said simply.

“You have no intention of chasing after her?”

Otabek blinked at that. “Er-- should I?”

“No!” Yuri said immediately. Otabek frowned slightly, a worried expression tugging at his face, prompting the other man to continue. “I was just curious, I guess. Surprised.”

“Why does that surprise you?”

“Well I mean, it seems like everyone wants me.”

At that, Otabek raised an eyebrow. “Who says I don’t want you?” Yuri’s mouth dropped open in surprised, causing Otabek to laugh. “I’m joking,” he cut in, and Yuri snapped his mouth shut. “You really are that vain, aren’t you?”

Yuri scoffed. “Of course I am. I mean, have you seen me?”

“Yes,” Otabek replied. “But I only see a man that wants to be left alone.”

At that, Yuri’s face fell the slightest bit. “No one gets me,” he said back. “It’s not that I want to be alone, but rather people don’t try to get to know me. To them, I’m only a handsome face. Perhaps what I want is a friend.”

Otabek hummed at that. “Perhaps you should reassess your treatment of others then.”

“God, you’re a fucking asshole, aren’t you?”

“Pot meet kettle,” Otabek said, shrugging.

“Anyway,” Yuri continued, “Potya likes you. So there’s that.”

“And I like Potya. She’s quiet.”

Yuri shifted his stance slightly, his head cocking to the side. “And what about me?” He seemed genuinely curious, so Otabek responded in kind.

“I’m still trying to figure that one out.”

....

The first time Otabek offered Potya a piece of chicken, she sniffed it, made a hacking sound and then scampered off. Otabek might have been offended if he hadn’t remembered that she was a cat. Sure, cats could seem picky, but they were still animals. It had probably just smelled weird to her.

The second time he offered her food, she sniffed it again, seeming to actually consider taking it. She didn’t, leaving Otabek behind to stand awkwardly at the edge of Yuri’s home. He left before the man could come out and shoo him away.

The third time, he brought her his mother’s cooking. He ate with her once a week and she sent leftovers home every time. And so, he held out a small piece of manti to her, and she warily sniffed it.

“I don’t know if it’s okay to feed lamb to a cat but… well, I mean, it’s tasty… so…”

Potya blinked at his words, her tail swishing back and forth. And then she leaned forward to take a bite. She must have liked it, because she came back to finish the piece, moving to lick the remaining bits off of Otabek’s fingers.

“Well, that’s that, I suppose,” he said with a gentle smile.

Potya didn’t stick around after that, but it didn’t stop Otabek from bringing her a bite every time he visited his mother.

Eventually, Yuri noticed.

“Hey, you.” Yuri was waiting for him it seemed, leaning against the stone fence where Potya usually did. “All that food you’re giving her is going to make her fat,” he said, but it lacked the anger that was typical of Yuri. Instead, a sly smile crossed his face in amusement.

Otabek was surprised. Otabek liked this side of Yuri. This was also the closest he’d ever been to the man, and he was struck by how tall Yuri was in comparison to himself.

“My name’s Otabek,” he said, realizing that he’d never properly introduced himself. “And she doesn’t have to take it.” Otabek then paused. “How did you even know?”

“I have eyes, dumbass. As well as a window.” Yuri gestured halfheartedly to his home.

“You’re just jealous that she’s my friend,” Otabek said.

Yuri hummed at that, brushing some of his hair behind his ear. “Or maybe I’m just jealous someone brings her food.”

“People bring you food all the time.” Otabek had seen it.

“Yeah, but not from you.” Otabek blinked at that, and Yuri froze, like he hadn’t really meant to say that. “Uh, what I mean to say is--”

“If you want some of my mother’s cooking Yuri, just ask.”

“For all I know, Potya has bad taste,” Yuri snapped right back, his typical tone finding its home.

“Potya is a cat.”

Yuri’s eyes narrowed into slits. “There’s more to a cat than people think, you know.”

“Just like there’s more to you, than people think,” Otabek replied. Yuri froze again, his cheeks tinting a slight shade of pink as he considered Otabek’s words. “In any case,” Otabek continued, moving to pull an oilcloth from his pack. He held it out to Yuri, who eyed it warily in return. “Here, you can have it. Share it with Potya.”

Yuri hesitated for a moment, before taking it. They brushed hands, and Otabek was surprised by how calloused the other man’s were. All the yardwork, he realized. Yuri was a florist, he remembered, and all the pruning and shearing required had taken its toll.

Otabek’s were worse, of course.

They parted without a proper goodbye, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, Otabek quite liked the warmth that filled his chest.

And the next time that he saw Potya, he held his hand out to scratch behind her ear.

She accepted without hesitation.

…

Potya found him, after that.

Otabek was usually the one to seek her out, but now she always seemed to be waiting for him. Silly, that he considered that a cat might be his best friend, but Yuri thought the same, so maybe it wasn’t such a wild concept.

One day, she strolled into the Smithy, jumping onto a work table, shaking out her legs. His boss turned around, surprised to find her there, nearly dropping his work.

“Uh… isn’t that…” Takeshi started with, but then fumbled slightly when Potya stepped closer to the forge. A little too close, and Otabek reached out to pluck her up like it was nothing.

“Ah, Yuri’s cat Potya,” he said, cradling her against his chest. Potya didn’t struggle against the touch, leaning in for a pet. Takeshi’s eyes widened at the display, at how Otabek casually rubbed behind her ears.

“Does the uh… I mean, you’ve caught the cat?”

Otabek blinked, suddenly realizing what he meant. He set her down on a different table, one far from the active forge. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to,” Otabek replied, shifting in slight discomfort. It wasn’t untrue, but as of late, Yuri had been more and more on his mind.

Probably because Yuri had been chatting him up every time they crossed paths. They had eased into a sort of friendship, and Otabek found himself looking forward to the words they usually shared on his walk home.

Takeshi hadn’t needed to catch the cat, because he was happily married, so he likely thought nothing of it. Until he’d seen Otabek casually holding the cat like it was normal. Finally, his boss seemed to find his words and said, “Well, I wouldn’t tell any of the women about it.”

The words were meant with humor, and Otabek chuckled, before moving to get back to work. Ironworker, Yuri used to call him, before he knew his name. It was hard and hot work, but it was good work. Otabek liked going home with the sore muscles of a long day; it made him feel like he’d accomplished something.

Before he’d come to this village, he’d worked as a weapons maker. His mother had wanted somewhere smaller though, than a capital city. And when Takeshi had seen his work first hand, he’d warned him that they rarely made such delicate work. Otabek might have traded in swords and armor for horseshoes and gate handles, but the work was still satisfying.

Potya watched him, her eyes slitted narrow in interest. Not for the first time, Otabek wondered about the cat. She seemed to more than she let on, her expressions quite human, for lack of a better description.

Perhaps that’s why he had taken to her. Or maybe all cats were like that, and he’d never bothered to find out.

Regardless, she stayed the entire night, watching him.

And the next night.

And every night after that.

The sparkle of her green eyes in the forgelight soothed him.

….

“Your mother is a fucking wizard, Otabek.”

Otabek grunted at that. “Don’t mention my mother in the same sentence as the word fuck,” he warned, moving to tighten a screw. He was at Yuri’s home to fix a broken gate… but the amount of damage done was clearly intentional. “How did this even happen?” Otabek asked.

Yuri let out an aggravated groan. “Mila.” Ah, the redhead. The village hadn’t forgotten the wager really, but most had just about given up, with the exception of her. “I refused the cake she brought me, so she took a hammer to my gate.”

Otabek paused, considering her work. “That was some hammer,” he replied.

“Yeah, a fucking twenty-pound sledgehammer. What kind of baker has one of those laying around?”

Otabek shrugged, but smirked. Perhaps Mila had more spunk than he would have thought. “You take the food that I give you,” he said.

“Yeah, because as I was saying-- your mother is fu--” Yuri paused. “Your mother is magic,” he amended.

“Well, she likes cooking extra food for you. She’s apparently bored.”

“Yeah I know. I ate lunch with her the other day.”

Otabek paused again, looking to the other man. Yuri was sitting atop the stone ledge his legs crossed. He was dressed plainly that day, tan pants and a white cotton shirt that hung off of his shoulder. Otabek’s gaze drifted down his neck and to the collarbone that peeked out, and swallowed.

Yeah, it was becoming undeniable by this point, his blossoming affection for the man.

“You ate with my mother?” he asked, trying to distract himself.

“You said she was lonely the other day, so I paid her a visit. She wasn’t surprised though.” Yuri gave Otabek a pointed look. “Apparently, you say nice things about me.”

Otabek grunted at that. “Am I supposed to say mean things about you? We’re friends.”

“Friends,” Yuri repeated, his expression a little bit tight.

Otabek wondered what he had done to offend the man. “Isn’t that what you wanted? A friend?”

But Yuri waved the thought away. “No more distractions,” he said. “Fix the gate faster-- it’s hot out here.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Otabek said, raising his wrench once more.

“Then who would entertain your sorry ass, hmm? Potya?”

“Potya does just fine.”

Yuri huffed at that, but said nothing more, crossing his arms over his chest in mock offense. Otabek looked at him with a gentle smile, and Yuri met the gaze with one of his own.

Otabek faltered slightly, slicing his hand along a sharp edge of metal. He hissed slightly, yanking away, but Yuri had already moved. He grabbed at his hand, pulling it to his mouth, licking at the cut and--

Yuri paused, dropping Otabek’s hand immediately. “I uh--”

Otabek’s heartbeat so fast, he was pretty sure it would fly out of his chest. “What, cat got your tongue?” he joked, trying to temper the hammering behind his ribs.

Yuri turned bright red, and then said, “I’m going to-- I have bandages inside.” He was gone before Otabek could protest.

Ridiculous, Otabek told himself. Shouldn’t he have found that gross? Wasn’t it? But instead all he could think about was the softness of Yuri’s tongue, the little kitten licks against his skin and-- Otabek groaned, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead.

Undeniable, he reminded himself. It was unfair, how much he suddenly wanted this man.

When Yuri returned, he said nothing as he cleaned the cut properly and wrapped it. And when Otabek went back to work, he said nothing either.

When Otabek was finished, he stood upright, and Yuri gathered himself to his feet. “Look, uh about--”

“Just make sure Mila doesn’t take another sledgehammer to it,” Otabek cut in, changing the subject. “First fix is free, but if it happens again I’m charging you double.”

It was an ill attempt at a joke, but Yuri smiled nonetheless. “Yeah, got it. Thanks, Otabek.”

Otabek was already out the gate and walking away, throwing a small wave in return.

…

Otabek wasn’t one for nature, but sometimes he’d take a picnic out to the trees behind his home. It was quiet, it smelled nice and it was a good place to think.

He wasn’t remotely surprised to find Potya there, beside him. The moment that he’d set down the quilt and opened the oilcloth, she was already trying to get a sniff of the food.

“You only love me for my food,” he said in good nature. Potya looked at him with that slightly unnerving gaze of hers and Otabek sighed. He reached out to rub behind her ears, and she responded by climbing into his lap, purring deeply.

“You know, it’s stupid,” Otabek said to her. “When this whole thing started nearly a year ago, I thought it was silly. I never set out to be friends with you, it just happened.”

Potya blinked in response.

“And then there’s Yuri,” he said quietly. “Things are… well… I want to be better than everyone else. I don’t want him to think--” Otabek sighed heavily. “It’s changed, everything’s changed. I like him Potya, and I don’t want him to think that I’m just like them.” He paused again to rub at her scruff. “I’m talking to a fucking cat,” he finally deadpanned.

Yeah, this was officially a full-blown crisis, he’d decided. This was a crisis, He didn’t know what to do anymore and he’d resorted to asking for advice from a cat.

“It’s not like you can even answer,” he said, regarding her regretfully.

Potya blinked again, before turning over in his lap, legs up and purring. Otabek reached out, scratching along her belly, rubbing the soft skin there and-- He raised an eyebrow, dipping down to look closer.

“Potya… you’re a boy?”

The cat in reply purred softly under his hand, enjoying the attention. Otabek wracked his brain, thinking back-- no, Yuri had definitely referred to the cat as a her. But Potya clearly wasn’t. Not that Otabek really cared-- a cat was a cat at the end of all things.

When he asked Yuri about it a few days later, the man only smiled slyly in return and said, “People assume that she’s a girl because of her testy nature. No point in correcting them.”

“So Potya is a boy… and that’s why he’s testy?” Otabek didn’t pretend to know anything about cats.

“No, he’s testy because people assume everything about him. They refuse to listen, even when they’re spoken plainly to.”

Otabek mulled over his words. “Yuri, you aren’t making sense.”

“No, I always make sense,” the man replied. “You just aren’t listening. You really are just like them.”

There was something about his words that made Otabek pause, but when he moved to ask, Yuri was gone. Otabek’s mouth hung open in confusion because it’s not like the man could just disappear.

And then Potya appeared from around the gate, rubbing against Otabek’s legs before scampering off.

It was official, Otabek decided. He was going insane.

…

Otabek’s sister still lived in the capital, but she had managed to convince her husband to bring her on a long trip to visit. So, after three days straight on horseback, she’d settled quite comfortably against a seat in front of the fire.

Potya was there too. Potya always seemed to be there, though Yuri hadn’t been around. Otabek hadn’t seen a slip of the man since their last talk-- which Otabek was now seeing as a small argument. What it was about though, he had no idea.

Otabek thought he had figured the man out, but he had been clearly wrong.

The cat purred against his hand, reaching into it. Maya eyes the creature warily. “You going to explain where that thing came from?”

“Potya isn’t a thing.”

“So you just have a cat now?”

“No, it’s--” Otabek paused to sigh. “He belongs to a friend. Sometimes he lets himself in.”

Maya raised an eyebrow at that. “You have a friend?”

Otabek mirrored her expression. “That’s what you take away from this?”

“Beka, you don’t have friends. You’ve never had friends,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I’ve had--” he started, but stopped the moment he saw the look that Maya gave him. He grimaced slightly. “Okay, so maybe I’m not the most approachable person--” She snorted at that. “But I’m not mean.”

“Last I checked, being mean isn’t a requirement. You just don’t do people.” Otabek huffed at that and she smiled in triumph. “Anyway, tell me about this friend.” The way she said the word made it clear that she saw right through him.

“Maya, it’s not like that.”

“Beka, you can’t hide shit from me. We shared a womb.” It was what she always said, when she was trying to prove a point. The worst part was that she wasn’t wrong.

“Yuri is… Well he’s--”

“He?” she cut in, interested.

“Are you going to let me finish, or not?” he snapped. Maya motioned for him to do so, leaning back in the chair. “He’s unlike any other person I’ve ever met. At first he seems like this angry ball of bad attitude, and he’s got a mouth to match. But then… you get to know him, and he’s nothing actually like that. He’s more bite than bark and-- Ouch!”

Potya had nipped him on the hand, a first, and while he didn’t break skin it had still hurt. Otabek glared at the cat, who glared right back.

Maya raised her eyebrows. “I think Potya disagrees with you.”

“Potya doesn't know what he-- Potya!” The cat bit harder this time, before pulling away and slinking out of his lap. He moved to curl up in front of the fireplace, the blaze turning his fur an orange hue.

“Anyway,” Maya said, “Seems like you and Yuri are friends now.”

“I--”

“But that’s not all you want,” she surmised.

Otabek snapped his mouth shut. “I don’t know what I want,” he confessed quietly. “But there’s-- it’s not just me,” he continued. “At least I don’t think it is. Yuri is hard to read.” Maya hummed at that. “Part of me wonders if it’s the wager.”

“Wager?”

“Yuri is the most eligible bachelor around. Women have sought him out, since he moved here. He got tired of it and turned it into a game.”

“Explain.”

“He said whoever could catch his cat and get his house key from around his neck, would have his hand.” He waved to Potya nonchalantly. “I didn’t really ever think about it. I didn’t go about trying to catch Potya, he just kind of happened. And because of that, Yuri and I happened.”

“And suddenly your thinking about-- well, you know.” She waved toward the cat.

“What do I do Maya? Being a friend isn’t enough anymore. I want--” Otabek sighed, pressing a fist against his forehead, letting out a frustrated grunt.

“Use your words,” Maya said kindly. It was something that their father used to tell him, when he became tongue-tied, unable to express what he felt. Which when he was a child, was more often than not. Even as an adult, he still wasn’t very articulate.

“I love him, Maya,” Otabek said quietly.

Maya hummed at that, and Potya picked up his head. It was a relief, Otabek realized, finally voicing the thought. Potya picked himself up from the rug and sauntered back over to Otabek, curling into his lap. Otabek slid his hand into the soft fur until his hand found the key wound around the cat’s neck, fingering it gently. Potya moved his head to press into his palm, licking at the skin there gently.

“I think he’s forgiven you,” Maya said with amusement.

“He’s a cat,” Otabek murmured. But he leaned over to press his forehead into the soft fur. Potya, despite all things, was a comfort to him now.

“Take the key,” Maya said finally.

Otabek snapped up. “What--”

“I mean, that’s the wager, right? Take the key and go tell him.”

“But what if Yuri doesn’t--”

“I mean, it’s not like you’d force him to marry you, Beka,” Maya said plainly.

Of course Otabek wouldn’t. It would be Yuri’s choice, because if he didn’t-- well, it meant nothing, if Yuri didn’t share those feelings. He fingered the key once more, and Potya shifted in his lap, belly up and looking at him plainly. Those green eyes, Otabek had always thought about those green eyes--

So much like Yuri’s, he suddenly realized, and his hand paused in the cat’s fur.

It couldn’t be.

“Besides, Mom likes him,” Maya continued. “She’s already given approval.”

But Otabek was barely listening, still regarding the cat. And Potya returned the gaze, far too knowing for a pet, his green eyes twinkling in the firelight.

Impossible.

But Potya waited expectantly, his chin tipped back.

Otabek slipped the key from around his neck.

…

There was quite a commotion in town, once Mila realized the key from around Potya’s neck had disappeared.

“It’s obvious,” she snapped angrily. Her bakery was only a stone’s throw from the Smithy, and Otabek watched here while he broke for lunch. She stomped angrily from the storehouse to the building proper. “Yuri took it off, because he’s tired of it.”

Sara tapped her cheek thoughtfully, sitting on a crate. “Yuri is a lot of things-- annoying being the first-- but he doesn’t seem the type to go back on his word.” Sara, of course, was right.

Mila snorted at that. “It’s not like it just disappeared.”

Otabek shoved his hand into his trouser pocket, where the key sat like a hot stone. He fingered it lightly, his heart beating wildly at the idea of actually using it. Take the key, his sister had told him. Take the key, and tell him.

Like it was that fucking simple.

“I mean, what if someone caught her?” Sara quipped, causing Mila to turn and just look at her. Sara then shrugged. “Right, right, that’s not likely. Potya is one slippery little hellion.”

“All Potya needed was some coaxing,” Otabek said, before he could stop himself. Both of the women turned to look at him, as if they’d just realized he was there.

“Needed?” Mila asked.

Otabek shrugged. “All you did was chase him around.”

“Her,” Mila corrected. “Potya is a girl.”

“Well, that shows that you’ve never been close enough to see that’s not the case.”

“And you have?” Sara then asked.

Otabek opened his mouth to respond, but paused. As if on cue, the cat in question slinked around the Smithy, his tail curling back and forth. He looked almost haughty, and Otabek nearly laughed.

Mila stood straighter, about to make a run for the cat… only to watch Potya sidle up to Otabek, where he leaned against the door jam of the building. The cat leaned against his leg, rubbing along his pant leg, as he reached out to rub at his ears.

The women gawked at the casual nature of the touch.

“You--”

“What--”

“You were so focused on wanting Yuri, that you didn’t listen to him. He told you how to win the game.”

“You…” Mila started, “You weren’t even playing.”

“Which is probably why I won.”

Mila blinked at that, while Sara sat straighter, interested. Otabek stood as well, Potya slinking around his ankles, pressing against him. “Won?” she asked, “Hey, wait, where are you going?”

Otabek reached into his pocket again, pulling out the key. It dangled from his grasp from a thin leather cord. Sara grasped and Mila turned red in anger, as Otabek turned to walk away without another word.

Potya traipsed alongside him, like it was where he belonged.

…

Potya waited for him on the porch.

He hadn’t meant to gloat in front of the women, but the moment had been too good to waste. Otabek didn’t regret it one bit. Even as he stood in front of Yuri’s house, the key practically burning a hole in his pocket.

It was like a hot coal-- he didn’t know whether to use it, or toss it away.

Potya was patient though, as he considered his options. The cat sat upon the porch, peering back quietly as his tailed swished back and forth. Waiting. Otabek watched him for a moment, before stepping closer and going, “I must be an idiot, Potya. I must be stupid, to think that this will work.”

Potya meowed at him. Over the last year, he’d never heard the cat make a peep, and in that moment it spoke volumes. Otabek knelt down again, reaching out to press his fingers into his fur. “He meant for you to chose, didn’t he? Cats have good intuition. He wouldn’t be with someone that you didn’t like, right?”

Potya rubbed against his hand, and then when Otabek stood, moved to slink around his legs. The cat followed, when Otabek stepped onto the porch. This was the furthest he’d ever come onto Yuri’s property, he realized.

He pulled the key from his pocket, slipping it into the lock and turned. He half expected it to be a farce and to not work, but the tumblers tipped and the key with them. Otabek stared at his hand, his heart suddenly pounding.

And he hesitated, unsure if this was worth risking his friendship.

Go and tell him.

Potya meowed again and Otabek opened the door, stepping inside.

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t the neat and tidy home he saw. Tons or books, tons of plants, tons of things, all neatly tucked away into their place. Shelves full of knick-knacks and trinkets, neat and with order.

Potya slipped past his leg, into the main living area. Otabek regarded him briefly, before turning away and closing the door behind him. And when he turned back, there was Yuri, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest.

Yuri always seemed to sneak up on him, Otabek realized. Always so quiet, appearing from nowhere. That day, he wore dark green trousers and that white cotton shirt that hung loosely on him. His hair shined like sunlight, tied into a tail and hanging over one shoulder. Otabek’s mouth went dry at the sight.

“You know,” Yuri said first, his tone twinkling with amusement, “of all the people who chased after the key, I definitely wasn’t expecting you.”

“I wasn’t playing the game,” Otabek answered honestly. “The wager didn’t mean a thing to me.”

“You were the only one who listened,” Yuri replied, his lips twisting into a smirk. “Every time that I gave you a clue.”

“Why give me clues?” Otabek asked.

“Why use the key?” Yuri retorted. He pushed away from the doorframe and stepped closer. “Why open the door? Beka, what is it that you want?”

“I--”

Beka. The word brought him pause, because Maya was the only one who called him that. Yuri was close to him now, leaning down ever so slightly, his green eyes practically searing straight through him

“Beka, use your words,” Yuri soothed.

“Potya,” Otabek suddenly blurted, recognition flooding through him, and--

“Yes?” Yuri replied easily, that smirk returning immediately.

Otabek wasn’t crazy. Or he was, and Yuri was, and everything was. But he he knew, Otabek knew-- he would recognize those crystal green depths anywhere. And suddenly, a lot of things made sense. Things like Yuri randomly disappearing, blurting phrases he had no reason of knowing, the childhood nickname only his sister used.

It sounded far better, coming from Yuri.

“How?” Otabek finally managed.

Yuri reached out, dragging a finger down Otabek’s shirt, and suddenly he felt dirty. He had come from work, he was covered in grime and ash, he was nothing compared to the other man. But Yuri didn’t seem to mind, his hand finding his waistband, resting there.

“I told you didn't I? Potya and I are one and the same.”

“But-- You--”

“Is this okay, Beka?” Yuri asked suddenly.

“Yes,” Otabek said immediately. “I’ll admit though, I’m confused.”

Yuri’s head cocked to the side. “About what?” And when Otabek didn’t answer, Yuri continued with, “Words.”

“I love you,” Otabek suddenly blurted.

Yuri pulled back slightly to look at him, moving his hands to rest on Otabek’s shoulders. And then Yuri smiled, a genuine, wide thing, and it took his breath away with how beautiful it was. And then it hit Otabek-- no one had ever seen Yuri like this, no one had ever tried.

Except for him.

“Those are good words,” Yuri said. “I’ve wanted to hear them for awhile.”

“Good things come to those who wait,” Otabek replied, causing Yuri to throw his head back and laugh. Otabek reached out then, grabbing the other man’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. Yuri stopped and looked at him, his lips still twisted upward and his eyes sparkling. “How long have you been waiting, Yuri?”

“Longer than I’d care to admit,” he replied.

“Was it worth it?” Otabek asked. “Am I worth it?”

“Every fucking moment.”

Otabek pulled his chin down, pressing their lips together. Yuri laughed into the kiss, moving to wrap his arms around Otabek, pulling him closer and Otabek smiled against his lips.

It was perfect. Yuri was perfect.

Everything was perfect.

…

#otayuri #otabek and yuri #Otabek Altin #OtabekAltin/YuriPlisetsky #yuri on ice fanfiction #Yuri on ice #Yuri Plisetsky

132 notes · View notes

literaryspinster · 6 years

Text

Forever Yours, Iris West

For those of you faithfully following Heart In A Cage, I have not forgotten that story and will have an update soon.

Chapter 3: The First Day Of School

On the first day of senior year, I put on my new green sweater and tweed mini skirt, and I braid my long black hair to the side so it hangs over my shoulder, This is my last first day of school before college, so I need to make it a good one, whether Scott keeps ghosting me or not. I can understand Scott avoiding Linda the last three weeks of summer, but me? I wasn’t the one who broke up with him, yet he hasn’t answered my texts with anything more than vague, one word responses. And of course it’s at the back of my mind that we’re co editors of the student newspaper together, but I’ve never had a problem separating the personal from the professional when it comes to Scott.

When we’re in the newsroom together our number one focus is always getting the next big scoop.This will be fine, I may not have Linda, I may not even have Scott, but at least I can’t call myself friendless. Me and Cynthia have three classes together this year. Cynthia is Felicity’s cousin through marriage, although I’m not sure who in their families is married to whom. She said she’d meet me out front so we could walk in together, just in case Felicity tries to corner me again.

She’s been doing that ever since she started going out with Barry Allen, and I still don’t really get why. I haven’t had those feelings for Barry in years. I’m not even sure why I ever did in the first place except for maybe the fact that he has pretty eyes, and is smarter than most guys at school. But he’s still goofy, and never really says the right thing and is completely oblivious to the fact that Felicity and I aren’t friends until I have to remind him for the 300th time.

Me and Wally pile into the car so I can drive him to his school before I drive myself to mine. It’s Linda’s car, she asked me to take care of it while she’s gone because that’s just the kind of damn good friend she is. I’m reminded of just how much I’m going to miss her yet again as I turn the key in the ignition and hear it roar to life.

“So, do you think Linda’s going to visit for Christmas?” Wally asks faux-casually as we pull out of the driveway and start down the street, the stereo playing some punk band he loves.

“Oh my God,” I roll my eyes and smile at him. “You aren’t even subtle Wally, you know she’s too old for you right?”

“She’s only six years older, Priyanka Chopra is ten years older than Nick Jonas.”

“Since when are you so into celeb couples?” I ask, and he stays quiet. “Please don’t tell me you Googled that so you could find out if you and Linda have a chance.”

“No,” he says unconvincingly, and I shake my head as he turns up the music.

We pull up to the front of his school, and there is a girl with sandy brown hair and blue eyes standing facing the street while a horde of overexcited tweens rush around behind her. She waves as I pull up and Wally waves back.

“Who’s that,” I ask, trying not to tease. I’ve gotten enough sisterly teasing out of my system for the morning, although I’m still curious.

“Oh, that’s Jesse,” he says. “She’s just a friend,” he adds quickly as if he’s reading my mind.

“Have a good first day all right sis, try to meet some people.”

“I have to say I’m feeling a little dragged over here, shouldn’t I be telling you that?”

He smiles and gives me a little goodbye wave. He’s such a twerp, but I wave back.

“I love you,” I say.

“love you, too,” He says before walking off with Jesse. And I’ve always liked that about Wally, no matter how much of a brat he can be sometimes, he’s never embarrassed to say it back.

I get to school half an hour early. Although I start to wish I would have stopped for coffee first when I realize how packed the front lawn is with students, hugging each other hello after their summers apart, telling vacation stories back and forth, flipping through Instagram photos.

Was it always like this before Linda left?

I start making my way through to the double doors in front. I don’t keep my head down, it isn’t my style, but I hope no one tries to accost me for a summer break recap that I couldn’t possibly make interesting for them. I spent most of it either hanging out with my baby brother or another couple. Deep down I know how sad that is, that Wally’s right and I need to meet people. And I used to love having lots of friends, places to go on Saturdays, but then…

I don’t know, being little miss social butterfly again feels besides the point. Popularity just isn’t as important as anyone thinks it is. It can’t make you happy when you’re already so sad.

Speak of the Devil, I stop short when I see her there, in front of the double doors like she was planning this. She looks great as usual, her perfectly tousled blonde hair down from its signature ponytail, her horn rimmed glasses sitting on her nose like they’re meant to make her look more approachable, but are doing about as good a job as they did on Rachel Leigh Cook in She’s All That. Jesus Christ I should have went through the back.

I turn on one heel and try to redirect before she sees me.

“Iris, hey!” she says, and I squeeze my eyes shut and curse under my breath at her fake-cheery voice. She saw me.

I turn back around and fake a smile, feeling a bit like a hypocrite.“Felicity,” I walk up to her like I have weights in my shoes. “How was your summer?”

“Awesome,” She says, nearly exploding like she’s been holding her breath until she could tell me. “Coding camp in Tokyo was wonderful. You so should have come. I mean I know coding’s not really your thing.”

“It’s not not my thing, just kind of focused on journalism right now.”

“That’s great, and it’s so cool that you’re into old fashioned things but do you really think a newspaper reporter is a solid career path?”

“Gee, I don’t know Felicity, maybe I’ll call you from my cardboard box in ten years and let you know,”

I start for the entry bar, but I’m told to stop by the only voice I want to hear as little as Felicity’s”

“Iris, Felicity, what’s up?” Barry says cheerfully. He always says my name first when I’m standing next to Felicity and I don’t get why. He’s so weird in every possible way and I wish Cynthia would come rescue me. already.

Barry slinks his arm around Felicity and gives me a friendly nod. “How was your summer?”

The dreaded question, I reply with a simple, noncommittal, “cool”My hand is still on the entry bar of the door.

“Just cool, no details?” Barry says.

“Nope, not a one.”

“There probably just aren’t a lot of summer internship programs or camps for journalism anymore,” Felicity says in such a way that Barry can’t detect how bitchy she’s being. Not like he’d defend me anyway, and honestly, why should he? I’m not his girl.

“That’s ridiculous,” Barry says, like he means it. “I mean, I read your articles all the time there’s no way there’s not something out there for you.”

Why does he always insist on complimenting me in front of her? He must know that it pisses her off, unless he really is that dense. I guess book smarts and emotional intelligence are two entirely different things. But I see the way her face changes, how her eyes narrow a bit. She reaches up to play with the collar of his button-down.

“By the way Iris, I’m really sorry you didn’t get an invite to my laser tag party. If I had known you wanted to go I’m sure I could moved some things around and squeezed you in,” Felicity says.

Goddamnit Barry, I think to myself, of course he told her about our asinine conversation the other day. And right now I’m finding it hard to pick who I want to strangle more.

“I never said I wanted to go, I was busy that day anyway.”

“That’s what I told her,” he says, looking a bit embarrassed. “That’s what I told you,” he quickly repeats over to her.

Felicity shrugs, “Heh, must have misheard. In any case it was a blast.”

I finally push the entry bar, ready to make my escape, when finally, by some annoyingly belated miracle, Cynthia shows up.

“What up uglies?” she says, nodding at them as she hangs an arm around me.

“Hey cuz,” She says to Felicity. “Good to see you’re feeling better after that bug you caught in Tokyo.”

“Bug?” I say, finally curious about the summer vacation Felicity’s been desperate to lord over me.

“Yeah, didn’t your mom tell my mom that you were basically catatonic with plane flu the entire first week and you had to be separated from the other kids and you never got to finish your app or something?” Cynthia continues.

“No, that- none of that happened, I mean it didn’t happen like that,” Felicity babbles anxiously. It must have happened exactly like that, and I feel suddenly redeemed. Thank you Queen Cynthia.

“Hmm,” Cynthia shrugs, “Must have misheard, anywho, catch ya later.”

She hooks arms with me and we finally slam through the door.

“Not a moment too soon,” I say.

“Ignore her, she’s just pissy because you look amazing. I bet she was hoping you’d show up to the first day with a massive zit or a bad haircut or the herps or something.”

“You have a very odd way of lifting my spirits Cynthia.”

“I do my best.”

I nudge her playfully, feeling better. Maybe I don’t have loads of friends, but it’s nice to have one awesome one, even if I had to survive my ill-fated friendship with Felicity to get it.

The day goes by glacially. It’s still at the back of my mind that it’s the first day of school, but it feels just like any other day, like the work is too easy and the folks in the halls are too gossipy and everything sucks and I want to go home. By the time last period rolls around, I’m relieved, not only because it’s nearing the end of the day, but because my last period is journalism. The student newspaper is my ultimate safe space, even with things being uncomfortable with Scott.

As always he’s the first one in class, already jotting down something in a notepad. I sit at the same table to show that we’re still cool, but still two chairs away to give him his space.I take out my notebook too, even though I can’t think of any notes to write down when we haven’t even been assigned our beats for the semester.

I look over at him, and realize he’s looking at me too.“Hey there,” I say with an uncertain voice.

“Hey yourself.” he says back. It’s quiet and nearly awkward as we both think of what to say next. He wore that checkered shirt today, with the sleeves rolled up, and I really hope one day I can look at him without picturing him laying me down on this table. I’d never go there, I’d never do that to Linda, but I can’t always help where my imagination wanders, even when I’m mad at him.

“Look,” he says before I can slip too far into my mind. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant, it’s just, the whole Linda thing and—

“Its okay, really,” I say, and I realize that it is. Maybe it’s just the thrill of being in journalism again, the smell of pulp and toner cartridges and red pens. But I’m finding it hard to stay mad at Scott, even as he still looks like he’s not sure what’s next

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

Before I can say anything else, the rest of the students and Mr. Bridge start to pour in. I give Scott one last smile before turning my attention to the front of the room. I can tell there’s still tension in the air, and maybe Scott can too, because next thing he leans over to whisper.

“I missed you,” he says, and I whisper that I missed him too.

The first day of student newspaper is always a little bit uneventful. Nothing has happened yet so there aren’t any scoops to tackle. Mostly we just get reaquainted with each other and get to know the newbies, pitch potential story ideas, and anxiously await our beat assignments.

Scott’s beat this year is the art and drama departments, not his first choice, but one he’ll happily sink his teeth into. My beat is the math and science departments, because of course it is. Mr. Bridge says that I’m too good a writer to not ever leave my comfort zone, and that important things were happening in those departments this year. But all I can imagine is having to cover Felicity’s stupid IT club.

And I realize I’m thinking about her again when I really don’t want to be. Why does she have to be such a bitch to me all of the time? She wasn’t always. She was a good friend once, and I know that good friend is still in there somewhere.

I head out to Linda’s loaner car, thinking that aside from gently starting to get things back to normal with Scott, this is already looking to be the quite the sub standard school year. And when I hear that too familiar voice again behind me, that feeling is instantly multiplied.

“Iris, hey Iris,” Barry calls, and I turn to face him but grab for my keys at the same time.

“I really don’t have a lot of time Barry, I have to pick up my brother.”

“I promise I’ll be quick.” He stops in front of me and I decide to hear him out. But he just stands there, looking at me.

“Well, what?” I say, breaking the pause.

“I just wanted to apologize for this morning. I guess I didn’t realize it in the moment but Felicity was being sort of not cool back there, and I just, I’m sorry. I’ll talk to her, I promise.”

“Please don’t” I say, knitting my brow in frustration. “You talking to your girlfriend about me is exactly the problem.”

“I wasn’t talking about you. You just came up and then the party came up. I didn’t know it was going to be a whole thing.”

“It’s not a whole thing. But is it really so much to ask that you two leave me alone? I mean, Felicity obviously has some issue with me, and maybe it’s not exactly one-sided but I think it would be easier for everyone if you’d just, you know, lay off.”

He sighs, and rubs his forehead before looking at me again. “That’s fair,” he says. “And I really am sorry, again. It’s just—

“What? It’s just what?”

“Nothing, nevermind. Okay, we’ll lay off. Promise.”

“Good.”

“Okay.”

There’s another long pause before I walk around to the driver’s side of my car and duck in. By the time I drive off he’s still standing there, like the conversation isn’t over.

Next Up: Chapter 4, The Sad Girl

#westallen #iris west allen #barry allen #the flash #felicity smoak #wally west #cynthia reynolds #scott evans

6 notes · View notes

libraryofrewrita · 6 years

Text

Chapter 14: Old Springdale

They hopped off the train and looked at the area that was the Springdale of the past.

Woah! It looks completely different, but it still feels like we're back home somehow...

The group walked to the nearest quiet area where there wasn't a lot of people and started discussing things with their Yo-kai companions.

"Okay, we just need to pick up two marbles, two Swirly Bells, and head to Timer's and More to look for a watch base...okay, what the heck am I reading here? This is all that we need to pick up? The watch base I understand, but the other two items seem a little random."

"Are you honestly questioning how a device that lets you communicate with Yo-kai works? I mean, I'm not an expert on the Yo-kai Watch, but I'm fairly sure that those parts are important."

Whisper looked at his Yo-kai Pad for a moment before turning to Hovernyan.

"Hovernyan? Do you happen to have a map of this place?"

Oh right...the internet and wifi weren't invented yet. Whisper can't get a map for us with his Yo-kai Pad.

Thankfully, Hovernyan did have a map on him and after he circled a few things on the map, he handed it to Whisper.

"Thanks, Hovernyan."

Whisper ran his finger over the map, mumbling to himself as he marked down possible pathways to hopefully make this easier and quicker for them while also trying to account for any unexpected changes they might run into.

"Okay, we'll head to the shrine since that's where the Swirly Bells are and then to Timer's and More to look for watch bases...nothing about where to pick up these apparently important marbles, though..."

Hovernyan shrugged and gave them a sheepish expression.

"Sorry, I know who has them, but I don't know where he is at the moment. He tends to wander around a lot, so tracking him down isn't easy."

"Friend of yours?"

"Yeah. A very good friend of mine."

Hovernyan didn't go beyond that as he lead the way to the shrine where the Swirly Bells could be obtained.

*****

Komajiro tugged Komasan's arm to get his attention as the group followed Hovernyan.

"Hmm? Yes, Komajiro?"

"Something just occured to me. Didn't our older brothers mention giving out bells when they were our age whenever they were traveling around and staying at the local shrines?"

Komasan had to think for a few minutes before he realized what Komajiro was implying.

"Are you saying that there's a good chance that we're about to run into our older brothers?"

Komajiro nodded as Komasan muttered,

"I was afraid you were going to say that, zura."

*****

As they approached the shrine, they noticed that Komasan and Komajiro were acting a little odd, whispering to each other about something.

"Hey, Koma Bros. Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah...but I think it would be best if we just waited here for you."

"Yep, you'll find out why when you get up there, zura."

They don't sound scared, but why else would they don't want to come with us? Unless...

"Did you two live in this area in the past? Are we about to meet you two and that's why you don't want to be there?"

"Actually, no. We were still too young to leave the Yo-kai Realm around this time. You're actually about to meet our older brothers before they became Komane and Komiger."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No, it's just that our auras are similar enough to their own auras to identify ourselves as family members and we want to avoid making things more confusing than they already are."

"Well, we can't leave you guys alone. What if a Wicked Yo-kai tries to hurt you while we're gone?"

"I'll stay with them. Like I told you, my aura isn't very subtle and the less Yo-kai that can identify me as an Enma, the less Yo-kai that are in danger."

"Just be careful, Lucas. There's still the issue with your powers and all."

Lucas smiled as he reassured them that nothing bad would happen to the three of them as he watched the rest of the group walk up to the shrine to get the Swirly Bells.

*****

"Hello! It's so nice to see humans and Yo-kai together!"

The extremely confident voice from Komasan was the first thing that tipped the group off that these were definitely not the Komainu Brothers they were familiar with. The second thing was the somewhat visible scars on their bodies. It was clear that these komainus were physical fighters and while their Komasan and Komajiro did fight when the occasion called for it, physical attacks were rarely used by their Komainu Brothers since they favored their inspiritments and elemental attacks more.

"Yes, the bonds between humans and Yo-kai is a wonderous thing to see."

Hovernyan floated down to the komainus and said,

"Listen, these two are helping some friends of mine bridge the gap between humans and Yo-kai, so we were wondering if you happened to have some Swirly Bells. They're for something really important."

"Sure, we got some. How many do you need?"

"Two."

The komainus nodded and smiled as they handed two Swirly Bells to Nate and Katie.

"These Swirly Bells can alert you to the presence of Yo-kai as long as you have it with you, so try not to lose them, okay?"

Nate and Katie nodded, waved goodbye to the two komainus, and went back to the rest of their little group.

"Hey, we're back. Did anything happen while we were gone?"

"No, it was pretty uneventful. What should we pick up next?"

"We're going down to the past Timer's and More...wow, that was a weird sentence."

*****

They walked up to Timer's and More and looked inside through the window, not sure if they were supposed to be surprised that nothing looked different.

"Okay, are we just supposed to watlz in there and ask for a watch base? Even though Mr. Goodsight is a Yo-kai, I think that would still be a pretty weird request."

"We just need something to work with. Surely he has blueprints or something like that laying around in there we can use."

Nate and Katie remembered seeing the blueprints for the original Yo-kai Watch back in the present, but somehow they doubted that Mr. Goodsight would just happen to have that particular blueprint. Still, the future of the Yo-kai Watch was at stake, so the group walked into Timer's and More, the bell annoucing their arrival.

"Welcome to Timer's and More! I'll be right out!"

As they walked up to the counter and waited for Mr. Goodsight to leave the backroom, they discussed the best way of asking him for two watch bases or at least a set of blueprints, eventually settling on telling him that some friends were working on a project and needed something for research purposes, although they weren't entirely sure if they would need the excuse or not, considering that not everything in their lives ever since getting the Yo-kai Watch has been that easy.

"Sorry for the wait, folks. The name's Mortimer Goodsight."

Even in the past he still looks the same as he usually does. Huh...I wonder why nobody's ever questioned the fact that he hasn't appeared to age.

Before they could say anything, they noticed Mr. Goodsight staring at Nate and Katie's Yo-kai Watches.

Oh, right. He's a Yo-kai that works with watches. Of course he would notice our Yo-kai Watches.

"Sorry...may I have a closer look?"

They nodded and placed their Yo-kai Watches on the counter, ready to snatch them back at a moment's notice.

"Hmm...maybe..."

Mr. Goodsight grabbed a piece of paper and pencil and was about to draw something when he sighed and placed the pencil down.

"Nope. Still not feeling it."

Hovernyan looked at Mr. Goodsight with concern written on his face as Nate and Katie slowly put their Yo-kai Watches back on.

"Is something wrong, Mortimer?"

"I thought seeing those watches your friends are wearing would spark something, but it's not working."

"Were you working on something by any chance?"

"No, I was just bored. It's been a slow week."

Mr. Goodsight tapped his pencil against the counter and looked at the Yo-kai Watches again.

"Actually, can you do me a favor?"

Nate and Katie exchanged glances before answering,

"Umm...sure?"

Please be reasonable, please be reasonable.

"Can you get me something with some heat?"

"...What?"

"I was thinking that maybe if I eat something with a good old spicy kick, my gears will turn again! However, nothing around here has worked. Trust me, I've tried."

Well...we don't have to risk Terror Time for this...

"Okay. We'll find you something."

"Great! If you find something, just bring it back here!"

They walked out of Timer's and More and said to no one in particular,

"Okay, where are we going to find something hot enough?"

"Well, there is a curry restaurant back in our time. There's bound to be something spicy enough there!"

"Okay, so do we go back to our present and get something spicy or do we stay in the past and look for marbles? Huh, that's a sentence I never thought I would say out loud."

They turned to Hovernyan, hoping he had some advice for them. Thankfully, he did.

"You guys return to your present and pick up something to help Mr. Goodsight. I'll see if I can find my friend with the marbles. We'll meet back here when we're done with our quests."

They all agreed and parted ways, the main group heading to a secluded area to summon Miradox while Hovernyan looked around town for his friend.

*****

Back in the present...

Asking Miradox to take them to present day Harrisville and to their grandmother's house had been easy enough for Nate and Katie. However, they did notice that something was off.

"Oh, right. We're still in our 'blending in' outfits. We better change back."

They got their original outfits out of the bag and quickly found separate rooms to change back into their original outfits. When they were done, they put the other outfits into the bag for when they were about to head back to the past.

*****

After secretly activating a Mirapo that was in the house and saying goodbye to their grandmothers and promising to come visit again, the group went back to the train station and started to ride the train home.

"Whisper? What are you doing?"

Whisper looked up from his Yo-kai Pad for a moment before glancing back down.

"If you must know, I'm looking for something to make navigating the past easier for you three."

"Like what?"

"Something to allow you to change outfits quickly. If there's an emergency, we can't afford to waste precious time looking for somewhere for you three to safely change clothes."

"Something like our bike charms?"

Whisper nodded.

"Pretty much."

Whisper tapped the screen a few times before his eyes lit up at something he was reading.

"Well, if that's the case..."

Whisper gave a few hums as he tapped the screen again and two packages instantly appeared next to him.

"Ah, this must be the mystery gift I got for using the 'Instant Delivery' option."

Whisper took the smaller package off the box and opened it with confusion crossing his face as he got a better look at what was inside.

"Rock-away Extract? When am I ever going to use this?"

Whisper desummoned both the Rock-away Extract and his Yo-kai Pad as Nate tucked the other package into the bottomless bag.

"Whisper? It just occured to me. How are you paying for this?"

"Oh, right. With everything that's been going on, I guess I forgot to tell you. Since I contributed to saving both the Yo-kai and Human Realms by giving you two the Yo-kai Watch, I was offered a position as part of a group of Yo-kai that deals with improving human and Yo-kai relationships. It's nothing fancy at the moment, but I'm being paid decently well."

"So, you're being paid to do the job you're already doing?"

"Yes, but there's other responsibilities as well that come with the position. Guiding you guys is just one of them."

"Now arriving at Central Station."

"Ah, our stop's here. Katie and I will drop off our suitcases back home and we'll start our search something spicy enough to take back to the past."

*****

"I'm home!"

"How was your trip?"

"It was great! I might even go down and visit Grandma more during the summer!"

After they put their suitcases up in their rooms and talked with their mothers over lunch, they went back out to complete their next mission to ensure the Yo-kai Watch's existance.

Previous Chapter: https://libraryofrewrita.tumblr.com/post/175285038304/chapter-13-questions-and-a-request Next Chapter: https://libraryofrewrita.tumblr.com/post/177559493319/chapter-15-further-developments

#yo-kai watch #yo-kai watch au #yo-kai watch rewrite #rewrite #au #chapter 14 #book two

5 notes · View notes