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sopxhiea · 3 years

Text

Disturbance

Alfie Solomons X Reader

Summary: The scary gangster realizes that there’s only one creature that will not do as he says and his soft spot for the eldest girl grows into something else before he can prevent it.

Part 1

“She’s cranky.”

“Move away if you don’t want this kiss.”

He’s not going to say it.

Not when he watches you fiddle around with the buttons in your hand, the one your younger sister ripped off her jacket the same morning. He will not open his mouth when you come around to talk to him about some shipments and some things that don’t add up. Not even when you’re so close to him, standing right next to his seated form that he can smell the vanilla off you.

Although everyone knows it.

The match was rather uneventful, a test of some sorts for the gangster to make sure he kept his hands to himself. He had behaved, asked after the girls and about you and you’d given him vague information while wearing what he thought seemed like a golden shower. He had gone out to gather himself a few times, leaving a confused pretty lady and snickering Ollie behind.

He was a man that got everything he wanted.

People never said no to him, most of the time they already knew what he wanted anyway but you just toyed with the gangster. A few smiles here and there, a slight touch on his arm and he was feeling some type of way already. He had dropped you off at your house after collecting your sisters and found his eyes searching for you in every little corner.

He was right fucked, as he’d put it.

It’s been a couple of months of you working for the gangster. The workload is significantly demanding and the more time passes, the more jobs he gives you but you don’t dare complain. Your sisters are all in school, some sort of daycare in the weekends whenever you have to work and he’s the one making sure you’re all taken care of.

There’s less screaming in the mornings, as Essie has grown fond of the broad man who shows up nearly every morning with breakfast in his hands. She’s young, and even Lily doesn’t see the way he steals glances your way but Emily, the oldest is not blind and the gangster forgets that. Although he doesn’t mind in the slightest.

The bakery is hot with the changing season, hot to a point where short sleeves do not cut it anymore. The women at the front bakery store have told you to wear skirts, long ones with less garments underneath but you have decided on a dress, nothing fancy but something to get you by around the house as well. It almost hugs you too tight in some areas and you realize this once some bakers start giving you a look but are too afraid to flirt or even comment.

Since you’re off limits.

Apparently everyone knows but you. The workers, the bakers around the front, even Emily but she won’t say a word because she thinks Alfie will take away her going out at night privileges she’s earned by taking care of Lily. You climb the stairs, footsteps soft against the wood and he hears it, almost feels a lump in his throat but decides he’s too much of a man to feel light-headed around a woman, whatever that means.

You knock once and enter, don’t realize the way his eyes are ogling you in the dress you’re in. A smile is apparent on your lips and he knows what day it is.

“Mr. Solomons-”

“‘s Alfie, lass.” he says, like a plea at this point to try and get you stop calling him by his surname. Not only does he want to hear you say his name but the formality does things to him where he has to shift in his pants.

“Mr. Solomons, Lily has that ballet recital today and I was wondering if I could leave early to get ready.” you say and he nods, looking at your eyes the entire time.

He knows what day it is, since Lily has spoken of it so much and you realize the gangster remembers everything, well almost everything, they say. She’s been showing him some moves she’s learned for the recital every morning he’s around and all he’d do was to clap with Essie on his lap.

“When is it, pet?” he asks, the pet name stuck on you after months of working for the man and you don’t mind. If anything, it’s the evident mark on his soft spot for you but you don’t ponder on it too much.

“Around 7, I think. Shouldn’t last too long.” you speak and he throws a light smile your way. His lips are closed this time as he watches you, head to toe and you wonder about how appropriate some things he does around you are.

That is not to say that you’re not oblivious but you’ve been around enough men to know the signs. The way he leans towards you while walking, the small nods he throws your way each time you’re around his perimeter and not to mention Essie telling you that Alfie had been calling you ‘the pretty sister’ for a while now.

But you decide some things take time.

And you speak this time, before he can ang the slight glisten in his eyes do not help. “You want to come with?” you speak, and his eyebrows raise slowly.

He’s a smart man.

Taking care of his late employee’s girls as much as he could, that was smart. Offering them all his help and even visiting them in the mornings, that was smart. Hiring his pretty little daughter who happens to be an excellent bookkeeper to walk around in dresses, that was not smart.

Going to the younger one’s ballet recital, that would not be smart.

He didn’t care for the talk around town, people loved to gossip and he knew it from being around the streets but he figured it would hurt the little girls and her. And he wouldn’t let that happen, it simply wasn’t smart.

But he did want to see you in a different dress, all dolled up.

He wasn’t too proud of the dreams he’d been having, they were mostly daydreams but he’d caught himself envisioning you in too many scenarios that involved a lack of clothing and an expression of pure bliss. He knew the boundaries but the looks you would give him didn’t help.

“Lily would like it.” you speak and it’s the last blow.

And you know it.

Unlike what many would’ve thought, the gangster is not all he was told to be. Sure, he’s scary looking and very cruel to some but not to little girls. He’s soft, too kind at times you find out as you watch him play with your little sisters every morning.

He doesn’t care, he realizes and the words leave his mouth before he can stop himself, although it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. “I’m fuckin’ there, lass.”

------

He can hear the screaming.

He knocks once on the door and braces himself. The man has been to war, seen dead bodies with their brains all over the soil but this, this he has to get ready for. Emily opens the door with a scowl, which then turns into a smile when she sees it’s him. She’s wearing a pretty dress, hair done beautifully and Alfie wonders how the other ones are looking.

“Hello, Mr. Solomons.” she speaks, Alfie can tell you have taught her to speak that day but reckons he can do better.

“Aye, Emily, what did we say about ya’ callin’ me that, hm?” he asks, not swearing although it takes all his might to be careful.

“But Y/N said-” she says and confirms his suspicions. Alfie throws a smile at the young girl before stepping in and realizing the living room is empty, although the screaming has not stopped.

“Eh, your sister says a lot of things, don’t she.” he asks and sits down on his usual place on the sofa and Emily sits next to the gangster and nods. She’s changing by the passing day and Alfie feels like he can’t catch up.

“Good thing she’s pretty.” Emily says in all seriousness and it causes him to burst into laughter, laughter in which Emily joins her.

And that’s when you emerge from the bedroom.

Lily is holding your hand, wearing a purple dress with ribbons on her hair. Alfie can tell she cried from the hiccups that come and go but she has a smile on her lips now. Essie, on the other hand, is still crying as you hold her on the other side. Her dress is slightly different in color, looks wonderful nonetheless.

And there’s you.

Your dress is slightly shorter and completely different in color. The olive green material ends around just under your knees, with a generous look around your collarbones. Your hair is tied, a low bun which Essie threatens to ruin at any given moment. Alfie feels himself get stuck for a second but Emily slightly elbows him so that the brute can gather himself and speak.

“’ello, pet.” he speaks and Lily slowly approaches him, as she sometimes does and reaches for the beard. Alfie lets him, eyes traveling from the little one to you.

“I didn’t hear you come in.” you say, voice soft as you put Essie on the couch next to Emily so you can get your coat and theirs.

“Em let me in.” Alfie says and Emily nods, her youngest sister on her lap.

“Oh..okay.” you say and disappear behind the door. The entire time, Alfie is watching you go and Emily is watching him. She’s amused to say the least.

And that’s when Essie starts crying again.

You emerge from one of the rooms with all their coats. The little one is not coming with you, as your trusted neighbor has agreed to watch her for the night. You dress Lily and Emily dresses herself in their coats and Alfie clears his throat, making you look up at him and he signals Essie and her crying.

Although he’s far too used to it at this point.

“She’s just cranky, I don’t know why.” you say, clearly frustrated as you finally let go of Lily and reach for Essie to put her coat on.

“Tried the bribin’?” he asks with a smile on his lips and you shake your head.

“Well, if you’re talking about giving her sweets to shut her up....yes.” you say and he chuckles with a curt nod.

Then all of you get in the car, with Alfie’s hand on the small of your back and you carrying Essie. You don’t miss the way Emily looks at you, eyebrows wiggling each time she catches your eye but you just tell her to stay put. Then you drop off Essie, with much trouble and get to the recital with a gangster sitting next to you.

----

The recital goes on pretty smoothly, all cheers and smiles as Alfie lingers at the back. Emily claps for her sister, a smile on her lips as she does so but you excuse yourself a little after to get some air as they get ready for the next act. Alfie watches you walk towards the back part through the exit and decides Emily is old enough to take care of herself.

He finds you sitting on the pavement around the back part of the building, breathing deeply as you look around every now and then. He knows you need these moments. Moments of stillness without any screams, without Emily asking you for a dress or Lily’s chocolate covered hands. He knows you love them but the deed is much too strong for you.

“Y/N.” he says, cautious as he approaches you. You’re no longer sitting but leaning against the concrete block.

“Emily’s inside?” you ask, your prior concern always being your sisters. He nods and speaks.

“Yeah, she ‘s.” he says and you nod this time.

You search his eyes then, for something that will tell you why he’s there. It’s easy to grow fond of him, you think, especially when you see him so much but there’s another side to the coin you don’t like to think of. The danger that comes.

“Something wrong?” you ask and see the heaviness in his gaze. You don’t quite know what it is, since he’s not a man easily read but you figure you know a thing or two by now.

He shakes his head and then looks at you. There’s uncertain things swimming in your orbs much like him and he wonders if they’re the same things. Doubts and then turns his face to look at the sky.

“There’s somethin’, yeah..” he speaks and you know better than to interrupt him. “.....somethin’ I really wanna fuckin’ do.” he says and you nod, urging him to go on but he seems to stall for a second. He then speaks, he’s not looking at the sky anymore but you. “But see, pet, there are things yeah, fuckin’ things blockin’ my way.”

he says and watches you nod, understanding but then you stop and a smile graces your lips. It’s not mocking but not sweet either.

And then you speak, not afraid to counter his words. “I never took you as someone who’d stop just because there were....things blocking the way.” you speak and you half-know what he’s saying.

He’s not the most subtle of admirers. You’re not bothered by it, quite the opposite if anything. You know he’s a man of power, known as cruel to some although you’d speak to differ. His lines are all harsh, you’re too soft compared to him so you don’t count on the opportunity of anything happening.

He takes a step towards you, and then one more until he’s entirely too close. You don’t dare move and his eyes are locked into your lips. You are right, he thinks, he’s not a man that stops at anything just because he’s had a couple of doubts. But then, the doubts are worth taking into account if it’s you. He’s all harsh lines and your softness seems unreachable to him.

His eyes look at your lips for a solid second, his entire presence looming over you as you stay still. He’s tall, a bit too tall for you if you’re honest but you just crane your neck and he leans down slightly, you’d know what his lips would feel like against yours.

And then he moves and speaks. “Move away if you don’t want this kiss.”

He’s not a man of doubts, he gathers and yes, there is a lot at stake but he goes after what he wants. Alfie always has and currently, the thing he wants is standing right in front of him and he’ll be damned if he’s gonna pass up the opportunity to kiss the pretty lass.

His lips are soft, unexpectedly so as his hand finds your waist and resides there while the other cradles your skull with a gentleness that seems foreign to him. He kisses you softly before pulling away slightly to see if you’ve moved in any way but sees you staring at his lips, standing exactly still.

Then you reach for him.

He thinks he’s dreamed it until your lips peck his for the last time and you break the kiss. He sees the blush rising on your cheeks, lipstick smeared and hair slightly puffier than before. He doesn’t take a step back, stares down at you as you fix yourself too fast for him to realize what’s happening but he remembers you’re good at fixing people up.

You sigh, licking your lips once more to savor the feel of his lips before you speak. Your voice is breathy and he has to stop himself from assaulting your lips once more. “Come on, then. Emily will be waiting.”

And he follows you like your tail for the rest of the evening.

-----

He’s smiling like a damn fool.

It’s easy to realize that the big scary gangster is not all that cruel. Sure, there is a side to him that’s simply cruel. He’s not the most forgiving when it comes to some either but he also happens to be a huge teddy bear, you think as you watch him handle Essie after you’ve opened the front door to the house.

“Emily, can you take care of Essie for a minute?” you ask, not waiting for an answer from your sister before you drag Alfie by his sleeve to the kitchen. The girls stare at each other for a while before they all move to their rooms, except Lily who waits for you in front of the door.

You close the door, immediately after he enters the kitchen and look at him with a stern gaze. He’s making it obvious, all of it. The big scary gangster has had a stupid grin on his face ever since you’d kissed him and it makes you frustrated.

“What?” he asks, still smiling a little as you stand in front of him, arms crossed and not amused at all.

“Are you going to stop smiling?” you ask, a slight mock to your words as you stare up at him.

He takes a step towards you then, his aim to trap you between his broad form and the door almost achieved before you escape his embrace by ducking under his arm.

“Lass, come ‘ere.” he says with a tone you haven’t heard before and you don’t follow his orders, as much as you want to.

“Alfie, the girls are right outside.” you say, trying to take steps back each time he takes one towards you. Your back meets the cold wall then, a ‘shit’ passes your lips and he chuckles. His breath tickles your face. It’s not that you don’t want to kiss the gangster but the chance of Emily barging in to see the scene is too high to risk it.

But it seems as though he doesn’t care.

His lips are greedy this time, not as soft as they’ve been as he devours you within the short amount of time he’s given. You moan lowly at the way he’s kissing you and hear a thump against the kitchen door which makes both of you stop.

“Let me in!” Lily screams and it makes Alfie chuckle while all you do is glare.

Before you can open the door and pick your sister up, Alfie traps your small frame between the wall and him again and speaks. He’s not daft and knows how he wants to carry this out. His voice comes out muffled between his small pecks.

“We’ll talk once they’ve gone to fuckin’ bed, yeah, I’ll wait, pet.” he says, eyes greedy as he lets you go. You nod once more before opening the door and taking a red-faced Lily in your arms.

She doesn’t say anything at first but then speaks, connecting the dots a bit faster than you’d initially thought she would. She speaks as loud as she can and you swear she’s doing it on purpose.

“What were you doing?!” she says and finger points at Alfie but before he can answer you put her on the sofa and speak.

“Grown-up stuff.” you say and that seems to shut her up for the time being.

Emily then comes in the living room with Essie on her arms, Lily now sitting on Alfie’s lap as he tells the little girl a story about another dog he had. You watch him as his eyes meet yours in the middle of speaking, a childish glisten before he cradles her in his arms and speaks. “Now, time for bed, innit.”

The rest of the night is filled with you running around as Essie screams and Alfie rocks her around. She doesn’t seem to mind the rocking until she almost throws up on him and it makes you laugh entirely too much for an accident. Emily takes care of herself, in bed before bedtime and you take care of Emily in the meantime.

When you walk into Essie’s room, you see her on his arms as he rocks her back and forth, the little one sound asleep. You note the way she’s holding onto his bracelets and how he hesitates to put her in the crib. You give him a small nod and close the door behind you. He pecks your lips once more before taking your hand and dragging you away into your room and murmurs under his breath to not wake the little one. “Time for grown-up stuff.”

----

Tagging: @clairecrive @parkbearum @sourirez @vetseras @mollybegger-blog @babylooneytoonz @peakascum

A/n: Heyyy I hope you liked this chapter, do let me know what you thought and if you’d like to be added to the tag list !!

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shyficwriter · 3 years

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Temporary Home: Chapter 3

Guardians of the Galaxy fanfic | Reader x Guardians (With Yondu and Kraglin!)

Summary: Just as things start looking like they'll get better, Rocket seems to ruin it. Hopefully this time he learns something.

Previous Chapter here | Next Chapter Here Or click here to: Start From Beginning

Author’s Note: Shorter chapter this time.

Word Count: 4,075

You might have slept in after having taken a middle-of-the-night walk, but your body had other ideas, waking you up right at seven A.M. Probably had a little something to do with eight strange people living in your house. Who's to say?

Breakfast today went smoother than yesterday. Nothing was spilled, no one was bit. It was almost nice.

However, afterwards you found yourself at a loss for what to do. You knew the garden was already free of weeds from where you weeded the day before, so there went that idea.

Sure, you could sit and relax, maybe try to get to know your new house guests, but you were still feeling too antsy and irritable to do that. You wanted something to keep your mind busy.

Eventually you settled on laundry. The machine was half full anyway and so you went upstairs to grab the hamper from the bathroom and threw it's contents in. Unfortunately you'd need to wait for the clothes to finish washing before you could hang them or fold them, but you supposed maybe you could sweep the floor while you waited.

You finished the kitchen much faster than you would have liked, and so you decided maybe you'd sweep the upstairs landing and work your way down.

You had swept about halfway down the stairs when Peter and Gamora decided to walk up the stairs about the same time as Mantis decided to walk down the stairs, hugging her bear. Upon seeing Peter and Gamora, Mantis then further decided to show them the "wonderful bear" you had given her before bounding down the rest of the stairs and out the front door.

They looked to you as she left, and you blushed and looked down at your task at hand. "Don't read too much into it. Just- you know... Thought it'd keep her from crawling in my bed at night... Seems to have worked."

"Right," said Peter, throwing a cheeky grin at Gamora. His tone was overly inquisitive when he spoke to you next, "Say, would you know anything about the toy car Groot found waiting in his room last night?"

You quickened your sweeping down the stairs. "I should really finish up here. Got other work to do."

Gamora looked pleasantly intrigued, and Peter lightly chuckled as they continued up the stairs.

You were grateful the sitting room was empty when you went to sweep in there, but you were also soon dismayed to have finished the chore so quickly. The washer still had a good chunk of time before it'd be finished and now you were once again left wondering what to do.

Might as well clean the bathroom.

More dismay befell you when you entered, however. Someone hadn't flushed. Again. Know who doesn't have to worry about house mates not flushing? People who live alone.

In disgust, you flushed for whoever the offender was, making a mental note to make a general callout to whoever it was to stop it, before getting a start on cleaning the bathroom.

The washer was finally done by the time you finished, and you jumped on the chance to grab a basket and bring the clothes out to the line. Sure, you had a dryer, but hanging them would keep you busier for longer. You put in your earbuds so you could listen to music while you worked.

Once outside you noticed that's where most of the others had gone. All but Peter and Gamora where in the back yard enjoying the sunshine. Yondu, Kraglin and Drax were shooting the breeze while Rocket pushed Groot on the little wooden car, which was just big enough for him to sit on, down the stone garden path. Groot would squeal in delight until he reached the end, then he would cheerfully run back carrying the car for Rocket to do it again. Mantis had discovered the rope and plank swing hanging from the old oak tree and was gently swaying as she cuddled her bear.

You made your way toward the clothesline on the other side of the yard and faced away from them as you went to hang the clothes on the line.

You were about three towels in when Kraglin taps you on the shoulder, making you jump. You turn to face him and pull out an earbud to hear what he was saying.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle ya, ma'am!"

You frowned, embarrassed. You were usually never this jumpy, especially not on the job, but this whole new situation has been playing with your nerves.

"Would you like some help, there?"

You shake your head, reaching down to grab a shirt to hang on the line.

"Well, would ya like some company?"

You come back up from the basket with another garment and raise your eyebrow at him.

"Not much of a talker, eh?" Kraglin said, starting to feel a little awkward. He was trying to make nice with you, but you weren't giving him anything and he didn't really know what to do. He told himself it'd be easier if you were someone he was trying to steal from. Cap'n was better at stuff like this.

You shrug.

"Well, I just wanted to say it was real nice what ya did for the little fella and the girl."

You look at him, already feeling a blush returning, and repeated what you said to Peter and Gamora earlier. "Don't read too much into it." You reach down to pull another garment.

Now Kraglin frowned. He tried to think of something else to say. Maybe he could break the ice with a joke? "Say, you ever hear about the guy who couldn't get his blaster to fire?"

You raise an eyebrow.

"He had to read the trouble shooting section in the manual."

You tilted your head. "Was that a joke?"

Kraglin made a grimaced grin and rubbed the back of his head, "Ah... yes?"

"Hm." is all you offer and you return to work.

Kraglin tries again. "What about the one about the constipated Krylorian?

You didn't look up. "I think your friends are calling for you."

Kraglin, missing the hint, "I didn't hear-"

You look up, the look in your eyes sending a chill through the former first mate. "Oh yes, they did."

He got the hint.

***

"She turned you away so fast!" Drax laughed when Kraglin returned.

Kraglin shook his head. "Apparently she's not a big talker. Actually almost kinda scary." He glanced back toward you briefly as if to make sure you stayed there.

"Scary?" Drax asked, perplexed. "But she looks all small and weak like Peter, or you?" He shook his head. "You are terrible with women."

"Hey!" Kraglin objected.

Yondu grinned.

"And I wasn't trying to get her into bed! I was just trying to break the ice is all."

Drax looked at you then back at Kraglin in confusion. "It's too warm? There shouldn't be any ice to break?"

Yondu shook his head and said, "No that's- Nevermind."

***

When hanging laundry you noticed some white mushrooms were starting to spring up around one of your clotheslines poles, and unfortunately you couldn't quite tell if it was the safe type or the poisonous type. You might have left it alone, but knowing the little tree child was running around now, you wanted to be sure. Just in case. You told yourself you just didn't want to clean up his vomit if he ate them and got sick.

You knew you had a book on mushrooms, so after you finished hanging the wash you headed inside and towards the sitting room to find it.

Everyone had long since come inside and now Yondu, Drax, Kraglin and Peter were already in there, playing a game of cards at the table while Mantis curled in the rocking chair reading a book of children's fairytales.

You stood there looking through the titles of your books, trying to find the right one, when suddenly you felt a pair of hands fluttering at your sides. You jerk with a gasp and spin around to grab the hands of your attacker and see that it's Mantis.

"Mantis- what are you doing?" You say, your tone laced with a gentle warning. You didn't release her wrists yet.

"You seemed grouchy. I wanted to make you laugh!" She replied cheerfully, not alarmed in the slightest by your tone.

You raise an eyebrow at the innocence of her answer. Eyeing her you say, "I'm not ticklish," before cautiously releasing her and making a shooing gesture. You turn back to the books.

Peter quietly catches Mantis's attention and with a grin nods in your direction, encouraging her to do it again. Yondu sees this and shakes his head softly, grinning at the mischief.

Not twenty seconds go by before you feel her hands at your waist again, and again you jerk with a gasp before spinning to catch her again. "Mantis," you say more warningly. Now Drax is grinning.

You hear snickers coming from the table and Kraglin says, "I think you are." It was funny to him. Just awhile ago you were almost scary in your stoic-ness, now you were jumping and shying away from Mantis's attempts to tickle you.

You glare at them but ignore him. "Mantis, go back to your book," you say firmly.

Mantis just giggles but finally starts backing away as you eye her.

Assuming you're safe you turn back to the bookshelf. You soon find the book you were searching for and reach up to pull it from the shelf when you feel it yet again, this time along your ribs. You jerk your arm down with a small squeak and turn to grab Mantis's hands again, your eyes wide. "I swear I will turn you over my knee!" You threaten, a faint giggle in your voice making you sound a whole lot less threatening than you wished at that moment.

The guys are snickering again and Mantis innocently asks what that means.

You sigh and release her. You had no intention of doing it anyway, it just came out. Something that your elders used to threaten when you misbehaved as a child. "Go." You say, pointing at her forgotten book in the rocking chair. "Read."

Seeing mirth glistening in your eyes despite your threatening tone she obeys with a happy giggle and you turn once again to retrieve the book you had come for. Louder snickers could be heard from Peter when you stopped your motion halfway to turn and check that she wasn't coming back. You narrowed your eyes at him before finally grabbing your book and leaving to do your research.

You found the mushrooms weren't poisonous after all.

***

The next day you decided to practice your archery.

Rocket was still being a shit, being rude to his friends and to you, and he kept fighting with Gamora and Peter. Kraglin somehow managed to break one of your favorite mugs. You found out that apparently Drax had been the one not flushing, and that was super awkward. You left Peter to deal with him. You tripped over Groot's vines at least five times. Mantis managed to startle you so bad you nearly had a heart attack (Though in her defense you had your music in so you didn't hear her approach to ask you a question) Then there was Yondu, who you felt like he was watching your every move.

Needless to say, you were looking to blow off some steam.

You had a target set up behind your work shed and along the wood line of the forest. You pulled about 20 practice arrows and your bow from the shed and walked behind to aim at your target.

You had been out there maybe an hour or two, just shooting the target full of arrows, gathering them up, and then shooting them again, all while you listened to your music.

You had emptied your quiver again when you felt a hand on your shoulder and nearly decked Peter, catching yourself just in time when you saw it was him.

You caught your breath and scolded him. "Don't DO that!"

"Sorry! Sorry! You couldn't hear me with your music in so I waited until you ran out of arrows." he reasoned. To be fair, it was a good idea. You probably definitely would have shot him with one if he snuck up on you like that before you ran out.

You sighed. "What do you need?"

"Nothing. Just, we hadn't seen you for awhile. I thought I'd see where you went. I know it was a little rough with everyone today."

You only grunted in response, going to collect your arrows.

He followed. "Look, I just want to apologize for everyone. I know you didn't need to let us stay-"

You cut him off. "Didn't I? Seems like Fury made the decision for me."

"Cut the crap."

You turn to give him a hard look that said, 'The hell did you just say?'

Peter backtracked slightly. "I mean, I was clearly there the day Fury sprang this on you. You offered before he told you he had already decided. You can't try to tell me now that you don't give a crap."

You narrow your eyes before turning to continue on toward your arrows. "Hell if I can't."

"Well I know better."

You reached your target and started pulling arrows. "You don't know me at all. You haven't even been here four days."

"Ok, that may be true, but we can still try to be friends since we're all stuck together, right?"

You stare at him a couple moments while you pulled the rest of your arrows, before huffing a breath through your nose and looking down.

"You need some time alone with the thought. That's ok." Peter said, relenting. "Just know the gang's not normally like this. They're still adjusting." He lied. He knew they were totally like this, but he was still hoping maybe they'd settle down enough to not make you hate them.

You sighed. He had a point. Maybe you shouldn't be avoiding them as hard as you had been. Maybe if you made an effort to be friendlier this whole situation would go smoother. "I suppose..." you began, "that maybe I have been a little..." you struggled for the right word.

"Grouchy? Scary?" Peter offered lightheartedly. "Like the crotchety old person they try to make you think is the masked monster in Scooby Doo, but it turns out to be some other guy that wants to scare them out of their house?

"Watch it." you say eyeing him, but your mouth twitched. He was right. Perhaps you had been a little 'crotchety.'

"Careful, that was almost a smile." Peter teased.

You broke your gaze toward the ground so you wouldn't actually smile. You weren't ready to let your guard completely down yet. It only half worked.

Peter grinned. It seemed like his plan to chip your shell away was working. Slowly, but still. Progress was progress. He turned to walk back towards the house.

"Hey," you spoke up.

He turned back to face you again.

"You hungry?" you ask. You offered to cook again. Stipulating that it was just because you were bored again, nothing fancy, and you weren't going to make a habit of it or anything, of course.

Peter nodded and smiled, accepting the offer as you joined him to walk back to the house, stopping just long enough to put your bow and quiver back away in the shed.

***

Peter offered to help cook again, and again you declined, stating that you were only cooking spaghetti and it was like the easiest thing to make as you pulled out a pot and filled it with water.

He didn't press it. Baby steps. He had already succeeded in getting you to (almost) smile, he wasn't going to push his luck. However...

You place the pot on the stove and turn on the flame when Peter says, "Ok, but one thing before I go."

"What's that?" you ask, stepping away from the stove to grab the salt container from the cupboard.

Peter took full advantage of you reaching up to quickly aim a poke to your sides, making you jolt with a squeak.

He quickly went to run away, almost knocking into Yondu who had walked into the kitchen for a drink.

"Dammit!" you cry out, unable to hide the surprised laughter from your voice. "You behave or I'll put you in that pot!"

Peter laughed. It was totally worth it.

Yondu just looked at him with a 'What the hell!?' expression, asking, "Why is it funny when she says it?"

***

The pasta was nearly done and you had started working on the sauce when you realized you had run out of dried basil. Knowing you had some fresh out in the garden you decided you'd hop out for a quick second to grab some. The flame under the sauce hadn't even been turned on yet, and you lowered the flame under the boiling pasta just out of habit before you went outside, so you trusted that leaving the stove unattended for five seconds would be fine.

However, fate had other plans.

While you were cooking Groot had convinced Rocket into another game of tag. Whether he deliberately disobeyed or simply forgot, you'd never know, but as he was running from Rocket he ran straight through the kitchen, and Rocket didn't stop him.

Didn't stop him has he climbed on the counter.

Didn't stop him as he jumped over to the table.

Certainly didn't stop him as he hopped onto the vent over the stove, though he most definitely should have.

Maybe it was arrogance on Rocket's part that he could make the jump, or even just sheer ignorance over his ability to keep a grip on the sloping metal, but as Rocket pursued Groot, always just slightly behind the tree child, and he made the jump from the table to the vent hood, he slid, and tried to correct by pushing off the (thankfully cool) saucepan, which knocked the pot off sauce off the stove as he lifted off with a loud clatter as it hit the floor.

Groot was fine, having by now hopped off the cabinet onto the floor. Rocket regained his footing, clinging to the cupboard above the stove as he surveyed the damage.

He knew he fucked up.

That's when you came back inside. He saw your face as you took in the mess, looked over to Groot, and then looked up at him.

He really fucked up.

The rest of the team also heard the clatter from the sitting room a few quickly came to see what had happened.

You didn't notice. You only saw red.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!"

Rocket started to reply with something snarky about not getting your "panties in a bunch" and how it could be cleaned but you cut him off before he could.

"He's made of wood!"

Rocket was slightly taken aback. "What?"

"That stove was- IS fucking lit." You reach over to shut off the burner under the pasta, side-stepping the mess. "What if he had caught fire? Or what if you knocked over the other pot? What if that fucking pot of boiling water had landed on either of you?! Do you even understand what that would have done to you?!"

By now the rest had heard you yelling and came to join the others in standing in the doorway to see what all the commotion was about. You still didn't notice them, you were too angry.

Rocket attempted to speak again. "I-"

You weren't finished. "I get it, he's a baby, he's still learning, but YOU most definitely should know better! But no! You think it's ok to play with him around a lit fucking stove! What the actual fuck! I swear, you're about as thick as manure but only half as useful!"

Rocket looked at the others in the doorway with wide eyes, not quite sure what to say. There was no way around it. This one was on him. They wore shocked expressions but also didn't say anything. Little Groot looked terrified at the (to him) giant angry lady screaming at Rocket.

You took a step back and finally assessed the mess. "And then there's all this!" you say, gesturing at the red tomato sauce now splattered all over your floor, your cupboards, the table & chairs, your stove. There was even sauce splattered on the window above the sink and the curtains, not to mention the walls. It was as if a tomato bomb went off in your kitchen.

You pressed the ball of your hand to your forehead. "You know what? No. I'm not dealing with this. Nope." You open the fridge, pulling out a bottle of whiskey. It was only then you saw the others standing in the doorway. You look to them, gesturing toward the pantry with the bottle. "Figure out your own damn supper." is all you say before walking out the back door and slamming it behind you.

Peter was the first to speak. He skipped asking Rocket what he had done, it was obvious by the red splattering the kitchen. Instead, what he said was more of a statement. "You really fucked up, man. You made her leave her own house."

"Should we go after her?" Drax asked. Mantis just stared at the giant mess as she hugged her bear, eyes wide. You had been very angry.

Yondu and Kraglin could see you out the back window, taking a swig from the whiskey bottle as you headed for the forest, much like you had the other night -minus the drinking of course. "No," said Yondu, "Probably a bad idea. Let her go."

Gamora agreed, and turned to glare at Rocket, demanding that he get down and help clean up the mess he had made.

Rocket actually looked kind of guilty looking toward the back door you had just left through. He didn't even argue back anything snarky, just did as Gamora asked without a word, which didn't go unnoticed as odd to the others.

He could have handled it if you had just yelled at him for making a mess. Could have shot back that you were uptight, had a stick up your ass- it was just a mess. Messes could be cleaned. Shit happens. Get over it.

But what he couldn't handle was that your first words, your first instinct, was to be angry that he had endangered Groot by allowing him to play near the stove. That he couldn't snark at- because you were right. What if Groot had caught fire? Or fell in the boiling pot?

He'd never forgive himself.

***

Hours had passed and half the bottle was gone before you finally returned.

Even in your drunken haze you saw that the kitchen had been cleaned, every trace of the tomato explosion gone. Even your curtains had been washed, dried, and re-hung.

You went to put what was left of the whiskey bottle back in the fridge, and saw someone had been kind enough to plop the pasta in a covered bowl and set it in the fridge so it wouldn't be wasted.

Not that you gave a shit.

Right now you wanted to sleep, and so you made your way to your room and collapsed on the bed.

Sleep didn't come right away. You faced the wall and covered your mouth, trying to hold back sobs from your anger, frustration, and sadness over everything. Even still drunk you had the presence of mind to know you didn't want anyone to hear you cry, especially since one of your new housemates was currently sharing your room and sleeping not two meters away.

The raccoon was a right asshole, the worst of the bunch. You wanted to strangle the little fecker, but knew you wouldn't. What you really just wanted was to be alone again, to bury yourself in work like you had before all this happened. Anything to keep your mind on other things-to push down the painful memories of your past that were now rudely breaking through your whiskey-addled brain and out your eyes.

Sleep did eventually come, and if you didn't know better you could have sworn you heard a gentle voice softly whispering, "Sleep," just before you passed out.

#gotg #guardians of the galaxy #x reader #roomates #peter quill #rocket raccoon #groot #yondu udonta #kraglin obfonteri #drax the destroyer #gamora #mantis #pasta

148 notes · View notes

kaashiboo · 3 years

Note

ahah heeeey!!!!! can i request kenma, akaashi and sugawara as best friends with gender neutral reader?

thank you for your hard work i really enjoy reading your headcannons (灬º‿º灬)♡

haikyuu boys as your best friend

┇ kenma, akaashi, and suga

gn!reader

【warnings: none】

➢ general note: ohoho this is a very long one so buckle up!

✎ a/n: aaww this is request is cute! thank you for appreciating my work and i'm so glad you enjoy reading them! take care of yourself!<3

kenma

you've been friends with kenma and kuroo ever since you were a child but you're more close with kenma due to his chill personality.

but that doesn't mean that you're less chaotic

kenma honestly questions himself as to why he's best friends with you

but you're a bit more tolerable than kuroo he guesses.

"say, if i hypothetically and accidentally broke your swi— kenma, you're gonna kill me with your stare." you laugh nervously.

"give it to me." you removed your hand behind your back and gave him his switch with a pout.

"are you mad at me?" you asked, rubbing your nape. awkwardly.

kenma sighed loudly, "yeah."

"oh" your shoulders dropped.

"but it's fine since i already bought a new one. i'm mad because i was planning to give you this one but i guess we have to make someone check it out if it's still repairable." he replied and your eyes lit up in excitement.

"really?"

"yeah."

"but i don't have the money for it."

"we'll make kuroo pay." he shrugged and you tilted your head in confusion.

"eh? do you really think he would agree to that?"

"i don't know. maybe. just do all his work or compliment him everyday, that might work."

"are you two planning on how to murder me?" kuroo appears out of nowhere, ruffling kenma's and your hair.

"yes." the setter and you answered in unison.

people also wonder how you can keep up with kenma but you're honestly one of the people that can see through him and could tell whether something is bothering him.

and he never hesitated to show you what he really feels. if he's mad then you'd let him vent and let out all his frustrations.

and there were times as well where he just wanted to be away from anyone so you gave him space.

but because he finds you tolerable, he begged you to not distance yourself from him.

now, in terms of YOU being sad, we all know he's not the greatest when it comes to comforting people but he would always find a way to cheer you up like offering you to play games with him.

he would even let you do the interior design of his house in minecraft as long as he can see you're enjoying.

just like what others do, he would typically protect you from mobs while you pick up flowers.

but most of the time, you would have a competition on which person could kill as many mobs as they can.

you also would do stupid challenges that you see on youtube.

and late night walks with him are the best since you never had to worry about bothering him when he rarely sleeps early.

let me rephrase that real quick, it's mostly you walking around while kenma sits on a bench,,, still playing.

but he would occasionally look for you to make sure you weren't lost or kidnapped.

you would eventually get tired so you just... lay on the grass and roll around.

kenma puts down his switch, "what are you doing, y/n?"

"i'm bored. you're not even paying attention." you whispered the last part but he still caught it.

"alright, sorry. stand up now. let's go to the convenience store and crash at kuroo's house." he offered and you immediately agreed.

because the two of you never failed to be in the same class every year, your classmates would be confused since you two would verbally fight and give each other a silent treatment and then one second later, you would give him food and he tries to help you beat the level you're currently on with the game you're playing.

and in the timeskip, the three of you have stable jobs like, rich rich rich very rich.

"at this point, we can be your sugar daddies." kuroo jokes but you paid no attention to him as you were still busy processing with what kenma gave you as a present.

literally everything you need for streaming— heck, you're not even sure if you would use all of them.

but kenma still wanted to drag you along with him to do things that he loves

not that you'd complain about it anyway.

"you're helping me set everything up." you finally recovered from your state of shock and pulled kenma up from your couch.

akaashi

and the best 'best friend' award goes to akaashi keiji!

look, just because he's a laid-back person, doesn't mean he's unaware of how to push your buttons.

he would subtly annoy you. so subtle that not everyone could notice that you wanted to murder him on the spot.

"akaashi keiji, i will seriously ki—"

"it's settled then! y/n, please come to my office now." the teacher spoke, making you groan in frustration before standing up but you made sure to purposely step on his foot and he silently winced in pain.

the chat with the teacher didn't take long and when you exited the office, you saw your best friend standing outside, waiting for you with a barely noticeable smirk.

yeah, we might have to take back his award.

you rolled your eyes and walked past him but he grabbed your bag and pulled you back.

"sorry, do i know you?" you scoffed.

"look, i'm sorry. i already told you that you shouldn't sleep in class." he reminded, implying that him dragging you into doing something was a sort of consequence from sleeping in class.

"i know! but you decided to be annoying again and volunteered that i would help with some activity." you complained. he still hasn't let go of your bag but you continued walking which may or may not made it look like you were his pet.

akaashi knows you're not actually mad at him and so he didn't have to bother to apologize again.

"if it makes you feel better, i volunteered first before you. at least we're now both busy."

you didn't respond and continued walking, "where are you going?" he asks.

"home."

"no."

"no?"

"i have practice," he said.

"what does that have to do with me?!" you wailed.

"nothing." you facepalmed and let him pull you to the gym.

the first time you met was during middle school. you were crying because you lost a competition and unfortunately for you, akaashi was the one who won.

he tried comforting you but you pushed him away.

akaashi was persistent though. he didn't want you to stay mad at him and so he bothered you everyday until you finally started to warm up to him.

you sighed for the ninth time. deciding to make a paper plane and throw it to akaashi's way.

it fortunately hit his forehead and he 'tsk-ed' at your action but he continued reading the book anyway.

you reached for the plane, crumpling it until it's round.

"i thought you were gonna teach me?" you question and threw the paper at him, again but lucky for him, he caught it.

he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, "how am i supposed to teach you if you keep throwing things at me?"

you see, you're smart but there are certain subjects that you really hate and you coincidentally got sick during a discussion and now you and akaashi are currently studying in the library.

he knows he could have just lent you his notes and you can just take a photo of it but he wouldn't let you do that because his reasoning was, "you'll learn better if you write it down." you've complained to him about it many times and he'll eventually get tired and not give you anything so now you've learned your lesson,

don't annoy keiji.

but sometimes, he's kind enough to cover for you when you're asleep during class and would lie to the teachers by saying you're sick.

which rarely happens since he doesn't always tolerate you so being friends with him feels like having a parent watch you all the time.

"maybe if i befriended konoha then i'm already done with this." you huffed.

"he doesn't have the patience to deal with you, y/n." you let out an offended gasp before throwing your pencil case at him.

honestly speaking, the two of you get along really well. you're more talkative and he tends to listen to your rants a lot.

and of course, he would also share to you how his day went and how he found a new way to get bokuto out of his emo mode.

hanging out with him outside of school can be chaotic at times.

especially if you decide to go to the arcade because expect him to tease you a lot when you couldn't get the prize you wanted.

he would help you though:)

and since you two are a popular duo, you would often get a lot of confessions from boys and akaashi would ramble about how it's a waste of time and that you should focus on your studies.

but he would also reassure you that he'll support you no matter what decision you make.

in conclusion, he's a bit confusing and indecisive but he just wants the best for you but then he would also start thinking that he's being controlling of your own life.

akaashi also can't keep his cool sometimes,

"i can't believe they cheated on me." you hugged your legs closer to your chest as you sob.

his practice was already over but he insisted that the two of you stay at the gym so that you could talk to him about your problems.

"they’re an asshole, y/n." he replied.

usually, he would rub circles on your back when you're crying but this time, he stayed still on his seat so you glanced at him and frowned.

"you weren't even paying attention," you said.

"i was," he stopped typing on his phone to look at you.

"i was just searching up ways how to murder someone without getting caught." he joked and you chuckled.

"just kidding. i was ordering your favorite food. now stand up and wipe your tears. don't let that asshole see you vulnerable. show him that you don't even need him in the first place because you don't need anyone, 'kay?" he pulled you up and nodded at his advice.

"except for me, of course. how else would you be alive if it weren't for me?"

"i have my own parents." you rolled your eyes playfully.

"they don't love you— they prefer me." he teased once again. earning a punch from you.

suga

aDMIT IT, SUGA IS SO FUN TO BE WITH.

like sureeee he would help you most of the time

but he's also the same person that would get you in trouble.

"vice principal, i am so sorry! i didn't mean to knock off your wig! please don't suspend me—"

"it's fine, l/n. just go and don't tell anyone." the old man sighed.

you bowed and left, running to where suga was standing.

you saw your friend biting his lower lip to stifle a laugh.

you glared at him but you couldn't help but to cackle at what happened and now you two are being noisy in the hallway that made others look at you weirdly.

"i told you, he's bald!" he exclaimed and your laugh couldn't get any louder until you start coughing from the lack of oxygen.

"oH MY GOD— DON'T DIE ON ME Y/N," he said dramatically before offering you a bottle of water.

"you're so dramatic, please shut up." you rolled your eyes after drinking.

you and suga have been arguing for a week about how he witnessed himself how the vice principal's wig flew off and it was too good to be true so you didn't believe him.

not until your beloved best friend pushed you to the vp's direction accidentally.

you were taller than the old man so when you bumped into him, you wanted to grab onto something for support but instead, you knocked off his hairpiece.

and suga ran away instead of helping you.

we love a supportive friend.

"well at least he was kind enough to not give you a punishment." suga shrugged and you just nodded your head in agreement.

when you transferred to karasuno during second year, you luckily met suga when you asked for directions.

you two were in the same class so he accompanied you the whole day.

he was very talkative and you loved hearing him talk about volleyball.

at first, you admired him for how approachable and kind he is

but now you just want to kick him.

"i said he wasn't my crush!" you convinced him but suga ony hummed in response.

"but you were staring at him with heart eyes." he quirked a brow.

"i wasn't!"

"you were!"

"i wasn't!"

"you we—"

"suga and y/n, that's enough." daichi sighed. pushing the two of you apart from each other.

"daichi! your vice captain is being annoying again."

"daichi, did you know that y/n has a crush on y—" his words were cut off when you covered his mouth with your hand and he had no choice but to bite your palm and you backed away in disgust.

"i don't like you anymore." you huffed and he just ruffled your hair.

"ah really now?" he smiled but you knew that behind that smile was an evil intention.

"nevermind." you muttered. not trusting your own friend.

oh and your parents adore suga.

like, they know you have other friends as well but suga is the only person they trust to be with you all the time.

and honestly, you agree with them. no words or numbers could describe how much you trust the setter.

despite his naughty and chaotic attitude, he always takes care of you.

kind of like akaashi but he's a bit more loose.

he's very good at giving you advice.

he's also the type of friend that sulks when you miss a game.

like, he would literally ignore you.

and now you're struggling how to make him forgive you.

"kōshi, enough. you've been ignoring me for a week! it was just one game, come on." you persuaded, poking his side but he didn't budge and continued writing down notes.

"i'm sorry for missing your game. i swear, it was an accident! i would never miss your next match again!"

he shifted in his seat and your eyes were filled with hope.

he looks at you with a slight hint of disappointment, "even if i'm not a regular anymore?" the question caught you off guard.

"what do you mean?" he remained quiet and you took that as a sign that he didn't wanna talk and so you impatiently waited for classes to be over.

as soon as you were dismissed, you pulled him out of the classroom to take him to your favorite spot just near the gym.

"i don't like how you're doubting my ability to support you. it doesn't matter what you do— heck, you could even commit a crime and i might bail you out of jail." you uttered. finally breaking the silence that engulfed the two of you the past few minutes.

you struggle with expressing how you feel sometimes and being able to decipher your analogies is one of suga's skills.

"your comforting skill is top tier." he replied.

you know how he would playfully hit his teammates? he'd do the same to you but he would only give you head pats, not wanting to hurt you physically.

and you unexpectedly just learned how to love it.

it somehow inspires you to work harder since he only gives you head pats when you achieve something and it's his way of congratulating you!

he also likes to drag you along with him. he wants to watch a movie? he would buy an extra ticket just for you!

but sometimes, he would whine about being broke when he's with you🤡

would also be ready to make a presentation as to why you are his platonic soulmate.

please just agree with him so he won't be sad</3

last but not the least, gossiping.

literally, the two of you will not call it a day if you haven't talked about any issues at all.

so even if you were sleepy, he would call or text you in the middle of the night and be like, 'tea time?'

aaahh imagine how shock i was when i saw that this was about 2k words overall AHAHA. i know that akaashi's part seems a bit off but honestly i just imagine him being a bit mischevious and more open to people he's genuinely close with so yeah! i had so much fun writing but i feel bad becaue it was so long- anyway, thank you for reading!<3

#kaashiboowrites #haikyū!!#haikyu x reader #kenma x reader #akaashi x reader #sugawara x reader #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu scenarios #akaashi headcanons #akaashi imagines #akaashi fluff #kenma headcanons #kenma imagines #kenma fluff #suga headcanons #suga imagines #suga fluff

143 notes · View notes

citadelspires · 3 years

Note

P1 - Given how great you're track record's been for doing hypothetical interactions of Amphibia kids with the Duck kids and Owl House kids, let's try doing the Duck kids meeting the Owl House kids and who they'd like the best. I'll exclude Violet for this for the sake of evenening things out 5 to 5. I'd assume Luz would get along best with Dewey (both jump into adventure), King with Louie (could see em teaming up for a scheme), Willow with Huey (eh, more leftover interaction but can work)

Screenshot of second half of the ask provided. Text: P2 Gus with Webby (would totally ask each other lots of questions about their species), and Amity with Lena (both got abusive figures they stood up to and would totally talk about their crushes on Luz and Webby LOL). Would love to see you take on Duck kids and Owl House kids interactions.

First of all I’m very pleased to hear you find my track record on these posts good, they’ve been really fun to write and it makes me really happy people like them! Second I am so sorry it’s taken so long to get to this ask, it’s a really in depth one and it took a long time to write, I hope you’ll find it was worth the wait!

Aight! Oh and one last thing real quick before I get into it. I hope you wouldn’t mind me adding Violet back in, partially due to the fact I love her, but mostly because there’s actually another owl house character I think works significantly better with Louie than anyone else and I really want the chance to talk about that. Saving that one for last hehe. This’ll be another long one, writing below the cut.

Luz and Webby So I do like a lot of the possible interactions brought up by your suggested grouping but my mind went in a few different directions. I’ll start with Luz, who would fit in best with another excitable adventuring partner, as pointed out, but I think the best fit for her in that regard would actually be Webby. While Dewey would no doubt get along great with Luz, there’s a special element to the potential relationship between Luz and Webby that really elevates the potential of their friendship to another level, that being: they both want to eat a hamburger.

An aspect of Webby I wish the later seasons of the show got into a little more, but is definitely something I would consider a core part of her character, is the fact that she got held up in the mansion her whole childhood, with no opportunities to interact with the world around her, have all the adventures she wanted, and most importantly to just be seen as the kid she wanted to be. And while Luz was technically able to go out into the world, the place she found wasn’t one that was willing to see her, or give her any of the chances she longed for. Both Webby and Luz fully understand that feeling of being trapped in your own life, of finally getting the chance to break out and just doing your best to make the most of it. I think there’s a lot the two could gain from spending some time together.

(Also, to borrow the bit about gushing about their crushes but from the other end, these two would totally get sidetracked talking about their respective crushes and also trying to play wingman for each other. It’s a massive comic disaster in both cases, but somehow both Lena and Amity manage to find it endearing).

Amity and Violet Okay wait lemme explain. While the two of them don’t have a whole lot in common at first glance, I think they would genuinely get along extremely well. While a lot of Amity’s focus on school came at the force of her parents, you cannot honestly expect me to believe that girl isn’t a studious nerd on her own anyway. Heck even outside the realm of studies she throws her full dedication into literally every single thing she does. Remind you of anyone? Beyond just being extremely intelligent Violet is clever and ready for anything. She takes everything in stride and always has a plan, she can go from “we were sleeping over and you said everybody get on the plane, so we got on the plane” to “I brought an axe” in a minute flat.

I like to think the two of them would have a mutual respect for each other based on their respective intellects upon first meeting, but as they become closer friends they find they can move from more serious respect to a casual enjoyment of each other. I would go as far as to say that both of these characters really value dependability in a friend, and that they each provide a lot of that. To wrap back around to the stuff about intelligence I think Violet could provide a lot of insight to Amity as far as showing her that pursuing studies and academic heights of her own volition can be something that she can just do because she wants to, and that’s no excuse for unhealthy parental relationships. Getting along so well with someone like Violet only to see that her parents are actually really loving and supportive, that would be really eye-opening for Amity I think. For Violet’s part she could get a lot of help from Amity as far as her pursuit of the secrets of magic goes. I suspect Amity would be much more interested in the study of her magic than Violet would be able to get Lena to tolerate lol.

Bonus Round: Amity would absolutely be a senior junior woodchuck and she would love it you cannot convince me otherwise. She starts quoting the JWGB around the owl house kids and they all look at her like she’s crazy.

Lena and Willow I feel like this one might seem a little out there at first but trust me on this one. Initially Lena doesn’t think too much of Willow, being as close as she is to Webby she knows liking flowers and cute things doesn’t mean Willow is automatically to be taken lightly but she feels like she’s got a good read on her that she generally prefers to avoid trouble and turns down opportunities for violence, which isn’t really Lena’s deal. Over time Lena figures she was right about her first impressions as Willow doesn’t seem to take many opportunities to expose some hidden power, even when Lena knows the people around her kinda deserve it.

She learns to adjust her opinion when she finally does get the chance to see Willow in action and realizes that girl is more powerful than any of the other kids she’s met in the boiling aisles bar none(yes this is my genuine opinion of willow if you don’t think she could kick your ass you’re wrong). It’s at that moment where she starts to pay more attention to Willow and notices a lot more of the strength she puts into all the little things, how much she cares for everyone and everything, and it does a great deal to show Lena that maybe having super strong magic powers isn’t mutually exclusive with being kind and gentle. And maybe gentle isn’t her thing but still, it’s nice to know.

For Willow’s part she’s just happy to make more friends. Especially if the opportunity arises, as I like to think it would, when they’re close enough friends, that Lena would start to hint around asking questions about how Willow remains so casual and nice with the ability to do so much damage, and Willow takes the chance to help Lena figure out her magic a bit more, and learn how to better appreciate it as an aspect of herself she doesn’t have to be scared of. (I mean come on Lena never really learned how to do any of it except barely kind of from Magica of all people she could really use something like that).

Huey and Gus Now there are some certain things about Gus that would drive Huey absolutely nuts. His lack of primary and reliable sources for any of his information being a big one, but at the end of the day I think he’d enjoy Gus’ desire to learn in the first place. Gus would probably be a little dubious about Huey’s “sources” and “citations” but if it helped him get more info on the human realm he’d certainly go for it in the end. In that way the two balance each other out pretty well. Gus is studious and intelligent but he’s a little off the wall, he’s got a big creative streak, and he’s really excitable. Huey is really really good at facts and analysis but he lacks the strength in imagination that Gus has. Huey is able to take all the grandiose concepts Gus is able to think up and help make them actually happen. Gus has that specific brand of an adventurers soul matched up with the fact he’s not actually the type to get into danger and fights, meaning he’s able to drag Huey out of his comfort zone a little and help him reach new heights with his mind that his struggles with creativity prevent him from reaching, while managing to not make him feel like he’s actually in danger. I actually believe the two of them together could get some really incredible stuff done.

What I’m saying is that with Huey’s help Gus could absolutely complete his tunnels under Hexside.

Dewey and King Now this, this is the pair who would go incredibly well together, at the detriment of literally everyone around them. If there is one person King “I Will Rule Everything” Clawthorne should not be exposed to its Dewey Duck. Within minutes of meeting each other the two of them would immediately have so many bad ideas. Between Dewey’s insistence on being the best and most daring adventurer while putting his name on everything and going down in history & King’s trying to rule everything and everyone, the attempts to raise the stakes would be constant and the two would spend literal hours endlessly trying to one-up each other. All in one day they search for legendary treasure, discover an entirely new civilization, try to take over said civilization, create a new species just to name it after themselves, and build statues of themselves in the middle of Bonesbourough. And that’s all before lunch.

Louie Here it is. The one I waited till the very end for out of sheer excitement. I even kept the second name out of the heading thing. That’s how secretive I’m trying to be about this. See, there’s one character in the owl house that works so well with Louie it’s practically canon. Their interactions have so much potential, they each bring so much to the table, I just couldn’t Not talk about it. And yeah, I know this ask was specifically asking about the owl house and ducktales kids, but I just couldn’t resist talking about the relationship between Louie and Eda.

A con artist from another world who was so successful she became nationally famous? There’s no way Louie would pass up an opportunity like that. For his part I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already managed to set up another underworld identity in the boiling aisles, or at the very least that Eda could totally have been to the ducktales realm and heard of his one there.

Either way I’m convinced the two of them would start planning a heist as soon as they figure out who each other are. Eda is a little prideful and wants to show this kid he can’t out-con her, but Louie knows what he’s doing just as much. Honestly with the two of them combined Eda wouldn’t have to worry about losing her stand for a long time. Over the course of their planning and seeing Louie in action Eda begrudgingly gains some respect for the kid, and while Louie was definitely just using her as a learning/profit opportunity at first, he’s pretty susceptible to getting attached.

For Louie, it’s the fact that she actually respects him for being good at what he does. Even back with his family who all love and care about him and all that he still feels like most of them don’t really get what he does or see what’s special about him, so having someone who made a whole life of it be even a little proud of him feels really nice.

And of course, at the end of their heist when they finally have the money in hand, and Eda just casually hands over his half, he stares at her like she’s crazy.

“You’re just.. Giving it to me?!”

“Well, yeah. That was the deal wasn’t it kid? I mean if you really want I definitely have a few ideas for it.”

“No! Uh, no, thanks, I’ll keep it. It’s just that you really remind me of someone, I guess I was expecting something else.”

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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

Text

Chapter 8 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

“Oh, hello there Sakura.”

She almost lost her balance when she saw her next customers. Standing beside Kakashi with her arm entangled in his was a brunette, a spitting image of Dr. Aki Nohara, a giveaway that this was her sister. Sakura’s surroundings dimmed out of focus, and her hearing became muffled as if she was submerged underwater.

“Couldn’t mistake that green eyes for anyone,” Kakashi continued. “I’ll have a caramel butterscotch with extra whipped cream – make it super heavy – and Rin –“

“That’s supposed to be my order, you dummy,” the woman replied beside him. He chuckled in fascination and tightened his hold on her arm. “Besides, you don’t like sweets.”

“You’re still on a specialized diet so allow me to eat and drink whatever you want while you stick with – “ Kakashi glanced at Sakura, and she immediately mustered a tight-lipped smile. “One iced americano in your smallest size please. Thanks, Sakura.”

She took in a deep breath, suddenly aware that she wasn’t able to acknowledge her teacher and his companion, but so many things have been running through her head – like how did he know it was her? Why was he with Rin? Did he propose already? She hasn’t even confessed yet.

Somehow, in the dragging silence in her ears, she heard Sasuke cleared his throat. That was enough to break her from the spell, and she put on her bravest mask. “Hi Kakashi-sensei. Nice of you to drop by! I’ll have your order ready in a jiffy.”

Kakashi turned around and waved lazily at Sasuke. “One of my students is here too. Are you on a red eye advance study?”

“Can’t sleep so might as well have caffeine.”

“You’re too young to have this energy.”

Rin jokingly slapped Kakashi on the arm. “You talk as if you’re old already.”

“But aren’t I?” The pair slowly drifted away to find a table, but Sakura noticed the flash of recognition when Rin took a long good look at Sasuke, but her friend stared at them like he was throwing sharp draggers.

“He looks happy,” Sakura noted as she fixed their drinks.

“I want your favorite coffee,” Sasuke quipped out of nowhere.

“There’s a thing called palpitations. It’s caramel macchiato.”

“Might do me some good while I wait for you to finish your shift.”

Sakura sighed, feeling the tiredness come upon her all of a sudden so she relented. “Just take it to-go. I want to get out of here.”

She quickly asked permission from the manager, saying she felt sick and fatigued, and with her clocking overtime in the past few weeks, her request was immediately approved without deductions. The mixed winter and spring air hit her lungs as soon as she stepped outside. Sasuke waited for her across the street, a gesture that implied she could go to him or separate ways right now. As she vied for time to decide, she took one last look through the window.

It was a foreign sight. She has never seen Kakashi’s attention torn apart from his books. Even if he was talking, there would be an open page on his side, stealing glances on passages when the conversations got boring, yet there he was, fully attuned to whatever Rin was saying with no book around him…like she was his favorite book and he enjoyed reading every letter of her.

And Sakura realized she could never be the story he would even want to pick up.

She felt the tears coming so she started her pace on the same road. Across from her, Sasuke got the signal and went the other way.

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

The last term of their second year came like a bazooka. Sakura threw herself on her pet project as a sort of coping mechanism. The announcement was done during the general assembly which did not generate the intended buzz or reaction. After all, it was a tricky topic to handle and many facets of which were still stigmatized when talked openly in public. Naruto, ever the people magnet, broke the agitated atmosphere in the auditorium with a slow clap and was soon joined by many others.

The council created a Google form which allowed students to anonymously register, and they get assigned a schedule on the day their contracted psychiatrist comes to visit. All they had to do was provide their designated client number. The council further complemented this with short programs that serve as mental health breaks for the student body. Sometimes, this would be as light as a block screening of a coming-of-age film or heavy like a conference with faculty and teachers and questions and concerns are remotely flashed.

Then came Valentines’ Day, and the council organized this some kind of literary showcase that presented the opportunity to mingle woes of personal sadness and griefs with confessions that would have been left unsaid. Naruto and Sasuke both helped in constructing the makeshift stage in the middle of the soccer field that would be used later that afternoon.

“Cookie points for my crush,” Naruto grinned as he hammered away. “Thanks for picking the poem I will be reciting tonight, grumpy. Didn’t know you were into literature.” He jokingly elbowed the raven-haired beside him, and he got a death glare in return.

“Do it properly. Look at that nail sticking out like your porcupine hair,” Sasuke grumbled. “And yes, I’m not as uncultured as you are.”

“But I still don’t understand it though.”

“Ugh, just use the internet to search its meaning, idiot.”

“Meanie!”

A fellow runner peeked into their work area and knocked on wood. “Hey Uchiha. Some girl is looking for you.” Her face expressed grimace, having done this for more than five times already within the span of an hour. If it wasn’t Sasuke, it was one of Naruto’s fan girls or boys.

Sasuke went to her and fumbled around for cash in his pocket. “Next time someone looks for us, tell them we went home for the day. Here’s money for your date later. If you have anyway.”

“Whatever grumpy.” The runner replied, still half-angry, half-frustrated, but she took the money all the same and told the girls that ‘They told me to tell you they went home for the day so shoo shoo.’

Naruto laughed at Sasuke’s successful attempt at bribery. “Look at that rich money. I wonder whether Sakura will give us chocolates.”

“Have you seen their office?” Sasuke flipped open the curtains that will be hang as backdrop. “Their desk is filled with chocolates from her admirers – platonically, romantically, whatever. Some people from other schools dropped by too. You got serious competition.”

Naruto chuckled nervously. “As if I do not know that already. Haven’t you told me before- she likes everyone and everyone likes her.”

Not really true at all now, Sasuke thought to himself. But ignorance is bliss, Naruto.

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

The three sat on the grass beside the stage, having full view of the student body listening to the reciters. Throughout the program, Sakura went through each package given to her, visibly stressed with evident signs of sleepless nights under her eyes.

“Before I forget, happy Valentine’s day you two. My council-mates told me you didn’t get any chocolates,” Sakura gave each of them a pouch of small chocolate bars. Sasuke didn’t have to guess if it was store-bought or homemade based on the cuts on her fingers.

“Sakura, stop eating. I almost gagged at the seventh chocolate,” Naruto complained. He tried to get the basket of sweets from her, but she just moved it away from his reach.

“Everything tastes bitter,” she muttered under her breath. “I need sugar. My energy can’t keep up with the countless interviews. I understand that the school board liked the exposure, but the burden falls on me. At least have a teacher back me up?”

“Heard Kakashi-sensei volunteered to accompany you in interviews?” Sasuke was too late in shutting Naruto up, but the most that question got out of Sakura was an eyebrow raise.

“I need more sweets.” She proceeded to jam the rest of the Hershey’s kisses in her mouth.

“Okay, we have a submission from Uzumaki Naruto,” the announcer said. “Shout out to our rookie MVP!” A round of applause. “And who might be the recipient of this poem? We heard through the grapevine that he hid from his admirers all day. I know several people are waiting to confess to him!”

Sasuke instructed him earlier to send the poem anonymously and address it to Sakura, but the dumbass blonde mistakenly exchanged it. He rubbed his forehead in annoyance, but he can’t bring it up right now.

“Just read the poem!” Naruto shouted on the side, clearly embarrassed now. Sakura looked up at him, genuinely curious now, and her sticky chocolate-filled mouth was on the edge of firing him questions.

“Sasuke and I sent in poems! Just to support your program, nothing really too deep into it ehe.” Naruto glanced at Sasuke with slightly widened eyes. “Right, Sasuke?”

“Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare,” the person started.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

Sakura slapped Naruto on the arm. “Didn’t know you read Shakespeare! What a romantic!”

“Isn’t it a tragedy?” Sasuke remarked, a look of disgust in his face when Sakura mindlessly offered him a toblerone. “No sweets for me.”

Sakura guffawed at Sasuke’s remark, and her laughing was a rare sight recently. She was in too deep in her student council functions that they barely see her. And when they did, she’d be a little bit closer to fatigue.

“What’s funny? Who’s Shakespeare? Let me in on the joke!”

“Let’s call on Kakashi-sensei, our very own student council advisor and youngest teacher in the university. He’ll be reciting a poem by Pablo Neruda. A man of culture, we see,” the emcee announced.

Sakura stopped laughing as soon as she heard his name. If Sasuke could glean into her thoughts, she’s probably making up excuses to escape right now.

Kakashi stood in the middle of the stage, holding an open book. “Let me just ramble on here for a bit. Neruda is a Chilean poet and a politician, but just as much as he is a revolutionary, he is a romantic and a worshipper of ideals and ordinary things. He often compared his muses to earth and nature – basic providers of our existence. It’s interesting to see. Now, this poem is what I would have wanted to say to someone who is fundamentally part of my existence, but she won’t listen to me.” Kakashi smiled even more at the onset of outburst of giggles from the students. “So you’re gonna be the audience whether you want it or not.”

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day

I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

your hands the color of a savage harvest,

hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,

the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,

I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,

hunting for you, for your hot heart,

like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

A thundering applause followed Kakashi’s poem and random shouts of, “Drop her name sensei!” “Good luck to your love life!” “Happy for you, sensei!”

As the lights went out on the stage, Sakura fished another pouch from her vest pocket, and Sasuke knew at once that it was Kakashi’s. She popped a bar into her mouth, staring blankly ahead.

“God, it’s so bitter.” Her lips started to quiver, and she started to cry.

Naruto threw a worried glance at Sasuke, but his expression must have given something away because the blonde didn’t prod, and he looked as if all the puzzles fell into place.

Sasuke just didn’t expect to be confronted about it as soon as the program finished. He was carrying blocks of wood to the shed when Naruto dropped the question – a question he already knew the answer to.

“You like Sakura.”

Sasuke inhaled sharply and halted his steps. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stacked the wood against each other and turned to face the blonde. “Besides, shouldn’t you be worrying about exams?”

“What exams? We’re exempted from it,” Naruto bristled.

Sasuke smirked. “No, you’re not. You didn’t qualify for finals.”

“Oh shit.”

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

“What do we get in return?” Sakura asked as she munched on her bento box. Shouts of the practicing dragonboat team filtered through their space.

“But last time you volunteered!” Naruto said.

“We’re friends so my services don’t come free anymore,” she chided back.

Naruto glared at Sasuke. “If she’s not gonna do it, you’re gonna do it.”

Sasuke nonchalantly shook his head as he skimmed through Naruto’s notes. “What she said.” They weren’t notes per se, but doodles of Sasuke and Sakura and interestingly, projections of different batting stances. “I’m also not gonna forgive you with the duck butt hair.”

“But you have a duck butt hair!” Naruto crossed his arms and huffed menacingly. “Ramen?”

“Same old, same old.” Sakura finished her lunch and started to sip her cranberry juice. “Give us something new.”

“Ramen and…..karaoke?”

Sakura brightened up at the prospect. “Deal.”

“At least add snacks to your place,” Sasuke interjected. “And not just ramen. Put some nuts or fruits in your fridge.”

Naruto grumbled but raised two thumbs up in defeat. “Deal.”

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

Sasuke has thin patience when it came to teaching Naruto, Sakura observed. She didn’t know how these two managed to do the supplementary math lessons when she wasn’t a part of their group yet. She didn’t mind teaching, but Naruto’s short attention span was a devil of its own. He would be attentive to her for 15 minutes and then drowse off so Sasuke and her agreed on non-negotiables.

“No ramen break for you if you don’t finish this set of problems,” Sakura told him.

“You’re demon spawns,” Naruto cried out in defiance.

“If you don’t get a passing score on this sample test, no kani toppings for you.” Sasuke raised the stakes.

“Demon spawns,” Naruto repeated.

“You won’t call us demon spawns if you see your name on the list of passers.” Sakura started the stopwatch on her phone. “Now go.”

This took her mind off things, from Kakashi’s public confession to the blank career form hidden within the pages of her history textbook. It was a good distraction until the penultimate exams day. Naruto came in with a bandana on his forehead with FIGHTING written in the middle of it. Sasuke, as usual, breezed through it, already finished by the thirty-minute mark.

And she? Well, she liked exams. The time limit and the pressure allowed her the reprieve to shut the rest of the world out so she relished answering each number until the bell rang. It was a moment where she can focus fully on the paper in front of her, the sound of her pen scribbling, and her mind working full force to cull out the answers in her memory. Her utmost concentration on questions suspended her own questions on her feelings for a teacher, on her parents’ divorce, on her future.

When the school plastered the results on the bulletin board, she couldn’t help but release a satisfied chuckle. She turned to Sasuke who was surprisingly stoic about the results. “First place! The bonus point really helped.”

“Why should I bother with a teacher’s middle name for the bonus question?” Sasuke grumbled back. “Congrats. Stop rubbing it in my face already.”

Naruto was too busy pointing his name on the board and bragging about it to the student body, most especially the freshies. When he found them on the back of the crowd, he rushed to them and placed his arms around their shoulders “Drinks on me!!!!!”

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

“He really shouted drinks on me in the middle of the school, sauntered in here like he’s loaded, and ordered two pitchers of iced tea.” Sakura kept bringing this up since they entered the karaoke room ten minutes ago.

Naruto was preoccupied with inputting song numbers on the machine to respond to Sakura’s banters. “Technically, they’re still drinks!”

Sasuke was on the phone with the kitchen, and from what she could hear, he was ordering almost everything on the menu. When he sat down on the adjacent couch, Sakura leaned forward to him. “Are you gonna finish all of that?”

He jutted his index finger to Naruto. “No, but he will.”

The first notes of Michael Jackson’s Thriller wafted through the room, and the blonde made a quick impression of the artist’s famed moonwalk.

“Why are you opening with that?” Sakura cried out in amusement. “It’s not even Halloween!” Sasuke watched Naruto try to dance with a straight face, but she thought he was itching to face palm the whole time.

Naruto kept beckoning Sakura to join him in the middle of the room, but she was busy laughing at him and taking videos. “I’ll send these to Haru as a pick-me-up. I think this is the best remedy.”

Next was Sakura’s pick – Heaven is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle. She couldn’t contain her laughter in between verses when the two boys finally heard that she was tone deaf. Naruto joined her with the other mic, trying to drown out the off-key notes. By the bridge, Sasuke stood up with them, a glass of juice in his hand, and mouthed the words.

“You know this song!” Sakura said excitedly.

“I don’t live under a rock!” He yelled back amid the loud music.

“OOOH BABY DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT’S WORTH OOH HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH. THEY SAY IN HEAVEN, LOVE COMES FIRST. OOH HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH!”

“Okay who’s next?” she asked when the next number flashed on the screen. Sasuke silently took the mic from her and faced the monitor with a hand in his pants’ pocket.

Naruto gripped the mic harder when the song started. “I’ll be your second voice, grumpy!”

She immediately went to the front and started recording. “One for the road.”

“No videos, Haruno,” Sasuke warned.

“Come on, it’s my remembrance,” she whined. He wasn’t able to clap back when the lines started to move.

“Turn around…” Naruto sang.

“Every now and then, I get a little bit lonely and you’re never coming ‘round,” Sasuke’s baritone voice filled the room like an empty coliseum.

“The fuck. You can sing?” Sakura gasped out loud. “How can you have that voice and not sing - like you know, every day?!”’

Sasuke gestured her to stop as he belted, stoic-faced, through the chorus with Naruto singing like a slaughtered pig in the background. Sakura stopped recording and joined them for the rest of the song.

Two hours and three pitchers of orange juice later, they finally settled on the couch and munched on Naruto’s leftovers of fries, buttered chicken, nachos, and calamari. On the karaoke monitor was David Bowie singing Heroes.

“Can’t believe we’re already seniors two months from now.” He stared at the ceiling, his eyes following the tag game of disco lights. “Elections of officers will be tomorrow which means Captain Haru will be formerly stepping down.”

Sasuke reached out and shook his hand. “Good luck next captain.”

Naruto immediately pulled out from his grasp. “What do you mean next captain?”

Sakura chuckled and patted his back as assurance. “Everyone knows it’ll be you. Have you seen how your teammates look at you when you’re discussing strategies?”

In the dimness of the room, she saw the flush on Naruto’s cheeks, and she found it amusing how he cannot take compliments.

Naruto scratched the back of his head. “Well, everything is possible, right? That said, I still haven’t filled out my college form, but I’m really set on getting an athletic scholarship and eventually be part of the national team! How about you grumpy? Changed your mind yet?”

“About what?” Sakura glanced at the silent raven-haired guy beside her. To be able to see this much of him was a nice privilege.

“I’m moving away after high school.” Sasuke fiddled with his half-empty glass, his eyes trained on the slushing juice. “I already sent applications to some universities in Europe.”

“We also have good medicine programs here. I don’t get why you have to move away so far. I’m so bad with converting time zones.”

Sasuke scrunched his nose in annoyance. “Are you dumb? The schools you listed are also out of this district.”

She seemed to be moving farther and farther from their exchange. Like an outsider peeking in, she understood the frailty of the moments in front of her, and by the time the next two months set in, the stopwatch would have started running its last lap. The bonds she has made so serendipitously were in danger of being cut off by dreams. She breathed in, engulfing the noise and scent of this room, panning every color and shape assembled like supercut in her head, praying that someday if she would lose herself, she’d come back here right at this frozen memory and relive the wonderful indecisiveness of adolescence and the chance to say I don’t know without repercussions.

“Sakura to earth?” Naruto’s voice.

“Idiot. It’s earth to Sakura.” Sasuke’s voice.

She blinked fast, returning to the moment that wasn’t finished playing out yet. She quickly brushed her hands on her eyes as if something got into her eyes, hoping they don’t see the small droplets of tears that have formed. “Oh uh, I have a list of prospects, but I’m not quite sure what to take.” The form was still blank actually.

“That’s a usual problem of anyone who’s too good at everything,” Sasuke replied.

“Are you complimenting me?” I wish I was.

“Should I take it back?” He proceeded to gulp down the remnants of his glass.

The monitor suddenly turned off, indicating their time has run out. “Hey guys, for our last term, let’s make the most out of it, all right?” Naruto asked. “I’m so happy we became friends.”

“No hugging please,” Sasuke said, but it was too late. Naruto’s arms were too strong to pull away from so the two allowed him a few seconds of skinship.

Naruto’s words struck a chord in Sakura; it was a resolve she tried to form and disfigure for several months now. Before they could stand up to fix their things, Sakura blurted it out loud before her courage took the best of her.

“For our last term.” She flexed her fingers and curled them up against her palm, placing weight on her lap as she ground her fists onto it. “For our last term, I’m gonna confess to Kakashi.”

AO3 LINK | NEXT CHAPTER | CHAPTER 9

#SCPS #student council president sakura #sasusaku #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #uzumaki naruto #hatake kakashi #kakasaku #narusaku #anime fanfic #fanfic #sasusaku fanfic

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stomp-that-ho-regard · 3 years

Text

Retcon

noun

(in a film, television series, or other fictional work) a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.

verb

revise (an aspect of a fictional work) retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events.

Retroactive Continuity

Reframing past events to serve a current plot need. [...] In its most basic form, this is any plot point that was not intended from the beginning. [...]

Post-hiatus C2, and the Great Retcon...

(The retconning really started with the playlists, but we’ll come back to those.)

First, some context:

SDCC (July ‘18) - Marisha was asked directly about Beau and Yasha and if she and Ashley had discussed it. “After the first few times that I kinda put the moves on her, we were at break, and I could sense that Ashley was wanting to ask me something. And she was like, ‘Hey, I’m just curious... is Beau- ’ And at that exact moment someone’s like, ‘Yo Ashley! We gotta go! We gotta get on stage!’ And I was like, ‘Bye!’” Then Brian asked, “And you haven’t had a further conversation about it?” Marisha said, “Nope!”

(Seven months into the campaign, and no discussions. Hmm.)

NYCC (Oct. ‘18) - Marisha was asked about who would Beau get flustered over if they ever flirted back, and yes, she said Yasha and laughed, but then said, “It’s like throwing pebbles at a brick wall.” Meaning, she was putting stuff out there and not getting anything back. (And, she really wasn’t. I still remember when a major portion of the fandom, including the diehard shippers [of which I was one at the time], weren’t sure if Ashley was even interested in this. More than that, it wasn’t until the Zuala reveal, that the fandom and the players found out for certain that Yasha was actually into women.)

(To me, Marisha’s answer here also suggests that at this point, there were still no discussions.)

Talks Machina for ep61 (May ‘19) - Marisha was asked ‘What was going through Beau's mind when Yasha revealed her past with Zuala? Has this changed any feelings Beau might have? Or has Beau's character growth allowed her to mature a little more with regards to her feelings about Yasha?’ Which Marisha instantly pegged as a shipping question. And she said, “I’m trying to figure out a way to answer this to not ruin everyone’s internal canon, in their brains. I don’t want people to overestimate Beau’s intentions towards Yasha. But then also, is that on me? Have I been leading everybody on?”

So, you had all of that, all the way up to ep61.

None of this indicates that ‘it’s been happening since ep1′ or that it’s ‘the slowest of slow burns.’ In fact, it shuts that down completely.

Moving forward to the Beau and Fjord convo (ep108)...

Marisha suddenly having Beau say “There was something about Yasha from the moment that I saw her”. She’s retrospectively attempting to give that moment more weight, when (based on the examples above) we know that the over-the-top flirting was just for fun. And truthfully, she really wasn’t flirting with Yasha any differently than she was flirting with any hot female NPC the party crossed paths with.

And now it’s clear that that one line she said is the reason why BY shippers have suddenly clung on to the idea that “It’s been happening since episode one! SLOooOowBuUuuUrn!!!!!” when its clear that it was not planned. (Not before the hiatus-from-hell, anyway.)

Then Marisha having Beau go from describing Jester as “She's fun. She makes me laugh. I like her ridiculous plans. I think she's complicated and layered.” to “It’s easy to lust after her”. I’ll direct you to Talks for ep85. After Marisha had mentioned that it was a bunch of little things that build, and then pinpointed a few of them, Brian tried to make a joke and said “So you’re saying it’s been more a series, than just one moment that you can point to and say ‘It was right here when I went, let’s fuck!’” Marisha specifically countered that with “It’s not even about 'let’s fuck’. It’s nothing sexual in this case.” (Having her backpedal on this so heavily was such a huge gut punch and was the thing that wholly soured everything for me.)

There were so many better, more delicate ways Marisha could’ve had Beau examine/come to grips with her feelings for both women, but all the reduction and saying they were ‘transferable’ was nothing short of insulting.

On that same Talks episode, Marisha also said this: “Going into this campaign all of us were like, ‘No relationships!’ I didn’t want it! I didn’t ask for this!”, while smiling. What this shows me is that she was thinking of a relationship in regards to Beau’s feelings for Jester. As if she was maybe even anticipating this culminating into something? Why even mention relationships at all if this was nothing serious and was always meant to fall by the wayside?

Brian then followed up with, “In my opinion, as a viewer, Beau’s someone who seems to be on the search for innocence. Whether innocence lost or just innocence in general. And to me it makes sense that you would be attracted to someone who exudes genuine and sort of intrinsic innocence.” Marisha replied with “Fairly astute.”

The next question was, ‘Beau has taken a pretty casual, no-strings-attached approach toward sex and relationships so far. How do her feelings for Jester compare to her previous romantic flings?’ Marisha answered immediately and very seriously with, “Noncomparable. It’s more than that.” She wasn’t playing coy and it didn’t take her a century to find the words. She didn’t even have to think about it. Succinct and direct.

How did all of that ‘organically’ disappear completely, after only 14 episodes?

(Everything felt more genuine back then, because it seemed like Marisha was going where the character was taking her, and not where she thought the character should be going.)

Post-hiatus, everyone and their mother are acting like BY is some epic romance-of-the-ages that was all mapped out, and like Beau having feelings for Jester was just some sort of temporary curveball. That Beau was confused, or was just missing Yasha and projected onto Jester.

That’s really fucked up no matter how you try to justify it. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen another piece of media backpedal this hard, and this callously.

None of that squares with what we were shown or with what we were told. Until, everybody made a hard pivot and now they've done (and continue to) do everything they can to rewrite campaign history, even though we have plenty of footage that contradicts the new ‘company line’.

Now, where the retconning truly began, with the playlists...

Remember the first round of playlists? Those were released randomly, whenever the cast felt like posting them. I also don’t remember there being announcements every time one came out either.

This time though, they had a fixed schedule, complete with official twitter announcements. As they started to just get back into the swing of things, Yasha’s playlist was released right after the first episode back.

So, right out of the gate, they had to make sure they started to drill home a certain mindset for viewers. That’s why Yasha had a song called ‘Let Me Hold You’. (Lo and behold, a few episodes in, Beau randomly asks Yasha to hold her.) A few weeks later, Beau’s playlist was released, and there was a song with the caption saying ‘Ultimately, all she really wants is someone to hold, and someone to hold her’. (But sure, no planning here! The wording is just a total coincidence, folks!)

The other song, directly about Yasha, mentions ‘a crush forged in battle’ (ok), and ‘awkward flirtations’ (???). Yasha never openly flirted with Beau before the hiatus, until maybe right after the Obann arc, in a very vague way.

On Beau’s playlist, there’s nothing about Jester. The one track that mentions her is actually about Artagan. Which, after all they’ve been through together, is fucking ridiculous no matter how you slice it.

In addition to that, Marisha had made Beau’s time in Kamordah (ep92/e93), and the incidents with her family and the Hag, about the group now, not about Jester, fully contradicting her own reiterated words that ‘Jester saved Beau’.

When Beau was talking to her dad, reverting back to her old self and getting all riled up, Jester helped her in that moment, and saved her. Yes, the group was very supportive, and yes, Yasha said something to him before they left the house (that Beau was out of earshot for by the way), but Jester was Beau’s rock throughout that whole thing.

With the Hag, when the group was having a hard time coming up with a solution, and they realized they might actually lose Beau, Jester stepped up and took control of the situation. She, single-handedly, saved Beau/the group from the Hag. And with that, Jester also became Beau’s hero.

In both instances, Marisha thanked Laura/Jester. First on Talks for ep92 with both of them on it. She reiterated, “You saved me. You saved Beau.” Then on Twitter after ep93 with, “Still processing last night. Saved by a cupcake? Eh - saved by @LauraBaileyVO ... again.”

But now suddenly, it’s the group. Just the group?

Now, don’t get me wrong. The entire party showing Beau support was incredibly important. The M9 showed her that they value her, that she’s important to them. It solidified the theme of ‘found family’, which was beautiful. But, to not also highlight how crucial Jester was in all of this, after making such a big deal about it?

That is very deliberate retconning of some hugely important, highly emotional moments for Beau that directly involved Jester.

Any of Beau’s organic and genuine connection with Jester (which encompasses their deep friendship as well as Beau’s romantic feelings) has been massively reduced (and now erased), specifically to prop up a supposed ‘deep’ connection with someone else that was barely ever there, is still barely there, and has no actual depth at all.

Case in point, the BY date (ep126) showcased this fact to the most extreme degree...

Yasha’s infamous line: “I fell in love with you in Kamordah.” So, Yasha literally watched Beau relive her childhood trauma, and caught feelings during it. I’m not wrong in thinking that that’s just a little disturbing, am I? Also, if that’s the moment she supposedly fell for her, why did she not offer her any form of help? I mean, besides that one sweet moment with TJ, the entire time Beau was in Kamordah, she was the most broken down she’d ever been and needed some real comfort, which is something Yasha did not give her. (Jester did though. In spades.)

So, on multiple levels, this seems highly out-of-place.

Several people have said that that line was not thought through. In my opinion, it actually was thought through and was only said specifically to have viewers completely dismiss everything else that happened in the Kamordah episodes. Despite the FACT that Beau and Yasha barely interacted during those episodes, they have now stripped down the party’s experience there, and twisted it into a giant BY shipping moment. (Further feeding into the retcon.)

Their ‘trip down memory lane’ was laughable. Most of the things that were mentioned, Yasha wasn’t even around for.

Gee, remember when the cast was actually good at separating what they knew from what their character knew? When you start injecting what you know into your character (who isn’t supposed to know, because they literally were not physically there), you are metagaming.

The entire date was one big metagaming bonanza. And it had to be, or else they would’ve had nothing to talk about. There is not one thing they have to call their own. To people who don’t have BY tunnel vision, it was made glaringly obvious that they have nothing in common and their dynamic is fairly shallow. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast are sitting there watching this unfold, smiling and nodding along as if it all makes perfect sense and isn’t utterly ridiculous. (And I’m sitting here wondering when I got shunted into the Twilight Zone.)

The shallowness holds true for FJ as well. Aside from both of them being from the Menagerie Coast, what exactly do they have in common?

While Fjord has grown as a character, as far as Jester goes, he still does not seem to have the capacity to fully understand her as a person, or fully respect her abilities/emotional strength/intelligence. He doubted her often, which led to Jester getting irritated with him several times over the course of at least the last third of the pre-hiatus episodes. He even continued to doubt her judgment (in regards to the Traveler) in the post-hiatus Rumblecusp episodes. But hey, they’ve kissed now (ep118) so all of that gets wiped clean, and he’s being touted as her ultimate romantic soulmate who’s oh-so-perfect for her.

For fuck’s sake, why does that sound like something pulled right out of a CW show?

(I'm convinced that the only reason FJ is ‘popular’ is because the shippers have projected Travis and Laura’s real-life marriage onto the characters. If Fjord and Jester were played by different people, or Travis and Laura were not together, people would realize how paper-thin and half-assed this pairing is and hardly anyone would care about it.)

Beau and Jester had developed the deepest, most genuine friendship and overall dynamic in the entire party, that should have absolutely been given the chance to be explored further. They constructed a pretty solid foundation that could have easily been built upon, and the fact that it’s been unceremoniously pulverized and snuffed out in favor of such overwhelming tepidity and flavorlessness will never not infuriate me.

Finally, to finish this off, I will say with my whole chest, that that is one of many nasty, rotten patterns that I’ve seen far too much of in all kinds of scripted media, which is...

Not wanting to commit to the thing that’s actually growing organically, because it’ll ruffle too many feathers. It’s too inconvenient. It gets in the way. Because of course, nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to take a risk, or you know, actually follow where the natural fucking chemistry is taking you. Of course not! Heaven forbid, we go down a different road! You have to go with what’s ‘expected’, no matter what, at the great expense of something new that’s come along that’s clearly better. Even when what’s expected is hollow as fuck and doesn’t make sense anymore, because characters have grown and dynamics have changed, they decide to dig their heels in with the most fanservice-y options instead.

Yet this is UNSCRIPTED media. A D&D campaign, that’s supposed to be mostly improvised. D&D, that’s all about taking chances/going with your gut/making bold choices/etc., from people who have claimed up and down that they “like to see things play out at the table”.

So why are those same disingenuous patterns being utilized here too?

One of the big reasons I got into CR was because I naively believed that because the format was different, that the storytelling would be different. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about running into this nonsense here. That I wouldn’t have to worry about getting bullshitted, jerked around, and having my intelligence insulted left and right, but alas, here we are.

In conclusion... [TL;DR, kinda?]

Reframing past events (between B & J, and B & Y) to serve a current plot need (railroading BY):

Beau playlist ignores Jester’s importance to what transpired in Kamordah. (minimizing/erasure)

Beau playlist doesn’t acknowledge/hint at Beau’s feelings for Jester. (total erasure. could have at least included a song about feelings being lost, or being confused about feelings for a friend, but Marisha took the cowardly route, and didn’t bother mentioning it at all.)

Beau playlist claims that Beau and Yasha have both been flirting forever. (easily debunked by session footage.)

In her conversation with Fjord, Beau says, “There was something about Yasha from the moment I saw her”. (it was just about hooking up then, and stayed that way for a majority of the campaign. This line suggests that Beau has had ‘deeper feelings’ for and/or has been ‘in love’ with Yasha since the first episode, that this was all intentional build-up, which again, is easily debunked by session footage, panels, and TM.)

In her conversation with Fjord, Beau says, “It’s easy to lust after her.” (minimizing/erasure/twisting of Beau’s feelings for Jester, which Marisha had previously stated were ‘noncomparable’ , ‘more than that’, and that her attraction is ‘nothing sexual in this case.’)

This isn’t a fucking conspiracy theory. This is plain evidence of a planned retcon.

#op #super long post #uber rant #happy thursday! ;)#beaujester #i wrote this up back in december but didn't have the energy to finish it until now #it got longer as i went #guess i still have a lot of bitching left in me lol #that's what happens when you feel like you've been getting kicked in the teeth for nine months

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alicemitch09writes · 3 years

Text

lame

04.

a fist full of fuck you

Junior school was always a rough patch for you and Izuku, especially because it was the reign of Bakugou Katsuki amongst the horde of crazy pubescent teens. On the first day at Aldera Junior High, he had made it clear that he was going to rule the school and become top, leaving the two of you out the dust.

Of course, with an acquired quirk and confidence like his, it was easy to assert his dominance. And with his rising fame and sheer dominance, the two of you were immediately cast out, because you didn’t have quirks. (It was easy to hide the fact that you had a nocturnal quirk anyway)

Throughout junior high, your only friend was Izuku, you didn't mind. But despite being the 'quirkless girl' nobody dared to cross you because you were a bit of a delinquent, a bona fide fighter who could beat anyone – with a quirk or not, to a pulp. Still, you tried to avoid fights for Izuku’s sake, your family name’s sake, and because you didn’t want to give in to their jeers. (You also had that annoying promise to keep.)

Due to your closeness, rumors began to spread of your relationship with Izuku, which you didn't correct. After all, nobody seemed to give two shits when you were younger, nor do they seem to care now. So, what was the point anyway? Izuku was your best friend, he was like a brother to you. He felt the same.

And as for Bakugou? Well, he was happy in his own little bubble, reigning, terrorizing, the occasional name-calling towards you or Izuku, casting explosions as a warning whenever your paths crossed.

It was your last year, if you could remember perfectly, your teacher had just passed out papers, happily announcing that everyone was going to take heroics. Beside you, you could see Izuku meekly shrinking in himself as the whole class went wild at the prospect of getting into a kickass school, especially granted with their own unique talents. Scoff.

However, Bakugou rose as the best – of course, besting everyone, even receiving praise from your ass of a teacher. He had no problem with calling them out as worthless extras to his great glory.

Per the norm, you and Izuku were alienated by the whole thing, but it didn’t phase you one bit. But when your teacher announced Izuku’s desire to enter UA, that’s when you phased, as his announcement caused everyone in the class to go deathly silent.

A smile immediately crossed your lips as you turned to your best friend, meeting his gaze and giving a supportive thumbs up when the class exploded into laughter. The smile turned into a scowl at the motherfuckers you call your classmates, even your teacher! Pathetic really.

“Izuku, pay them no mind-“

An explosion blasted before you could finish, the force causing the green-haired boy to jump back. Alarmed, you immediately were on your feet, watching as Bakugou lashed out on your friend. Venomous, mocking words were leaving his mouth, causing your friend to shrink even more, the class watching in glee as the school’s top student was putting the reckless boy in his place.

Having enough, you ran towards your friend, angrily shouldering the blond boy aside, crouching a little to offer a hand. “Izuku, can you stand?”

At the sight of you, his eyes lit, hands just reaching out to take yours before one of your classmates jeered behind you.

“Oh look, it’s the quirkless girl out to help the quirkless boy! How cute!”

“Haven’t you heard? She’s not taking heroics, she’s just gonna head to some generic lame-ass quirkless school to be with the rest of her lame ass quirkless normies. What a loser!”

“Just as I thought, the quirkless gotta stick together!”

The class laughed at that.

“And what of it?” you said, Izuku finally on his feet, his eyes turned to you. Giving him a reassuring look, you looked over your shoulder to your classmates with an impassive look. “So, what if I get to be with my fellow quirkless normies? At least I can feel normal and less of a freak like the lot of you.”

“W-What?”

“Stupid little quirkless bitch-”

“Quirkless, quirkless, quirkless. Wow, that’s really all you guys seem to care about. Why, jealous of us normies who don’t have to worry about shit aside from living peacefully? And as far as I know, maybe the lot of you will turn out as rejects since not all your quirks are as great as they seem. I don’t have to half-ass my so-called talent because there’ll definitely be others better than me.” leveling your eyes with carmine, you could see him grinding his teeth, a deep scowl on his features, you flashed one last playful smirk before you gave the last word “not many will actually care for the filth you all are actually are.”

Feeling a tug, you smiled brightly at Izuku, no longer shrunken but back to his normal self, before heading back to your seats, acting as if nothing happened.

Class resumed awkwardly, you being completely unfazed by the glaring looks from your classmates and dozed off easy.

Later that day, you were sitting on your desk, slightly refreshed because the day was ending. Bag in hand waiting patiently for your friend to finish packing so you both could go home; smiling at Izuku as he relayed the events that happened earlier that day.

“Eh, that sounds pretty exciting, Izuku. Well then, you better get home and write it all down!” you say encouragingly, feet swinging.

“Yes!” Setting his phone down, he lifted his Hero Analysis notebook, eyes sparkling with excitement at the notion of writing a new analysis on the heroes he’s seen.

Suddenly, the notebook was forcibly taken from him by Bakugou, who seemed unpleased at their ‘unfinished’ business earlier during homeroom. Two of Bakugou’s goonies appeared, laughing at the notebook in his hand.

“What the fuck?” Hopping off, you walked up the blond angrily. “Will you give it a rest already?”

“Kacchan,” shrieked your friend, standing from his seat. “give it back!”

Instead of returning it, the blond blew up the notebook, causing it to char, before tossing it easily out the window. Izuku screamed, completely at a loss of words. Angrily, your glared deepened at the blond, who didn’t bother looking your way as he headed towards the door breezily, goonies behind him.

Bakugou had always been a bully to both you, especially towards Izuku. It was so petty and cliché really, you wanted to throw up.

Long when you were younger, Izuku was always a target for Bakugou’s wrath, an easy pedestal to step over just to feel good about himself, a dummy he can just beat over and over because he can. It made you sick.

Gone were the happy days of you three, happily going about with your innocence, forever tarnished by quirks that branded you instantly the moment you had one. Gone were those days.

As for you? He didn’t even bother. You were a waste of space because you fought back, so there was no pleasure picking on a tomboy who could fight back and care less. It was always easier to aim for the weaker link.

But for Izuku, you had to be brave for you both. After all, you were his only best friend, his shield.

Worriedly, you turned to your friend, hating the crestfallen look on his face, reaching out to him. “Izuku-“

“If you want to be a hero so much, there is an efficient way. Believe to have a quirk in your next life” your hand froze in mid-air; the world had gone silent. “and dive off from the school roof. “

Silence.

A beat of silence.

A twitch.

And then, a beat, a hitch.

Suddenly, you saw red.

Just as he finished his sentence, a heavy fist slammed into his jaw, knocking him back against the door with a loud clatter, as though it were ready to break off from the hinges, alarming students on the other side.

“(NICKNAME)!”

Breathing heavily, you dropped your hand to your side, your fingers were shaking uncontrollably, balling them into fists didn’t help the anger seething through your blood, seeping into your bones, nails biting painfully into your skin.

Watching the blond get knocked on his ass did little to give you satisfaction, especially when his words rang over and over in your head still.

If you want to be a hero so much, there is an efficient way. Believe to have a quirk in your next life and dive off from the school roof.

Had you been calmer, you would’ve seen the absolute shock on his face, eyes locked on you.

One minute you were next to Deku, the next, you were in front of him, punching him with everything you had. It was quite the punch, judging from how the door rattled so much that it opened a little.

Coming to his senses, he nearly stumbled back on his feet, grabbing at your collar, snarling. “You-“

“Fuck you,” you all but said in one exhale, voice shaky and words full of anger and venom. Words that matched your eyes – so full of anger and venom.

It was all it took for both your friends to turn to you, shock at the amount of hatred falling out of your usually calm demeanor. But as they say, one can only handle so much before they break.

Bakugou’s hold loosened, faltering at the words leaving your mouth, at the eyes burning deep into his own.

“Fuck you, fuck your aspirations, fuck your friends” your eyes rose, angrily turning to the gazes of the two boys behind you, who flinched at the anger emanating off you. “fuck everyone in this school and fuck your quirk.” There was a sharp intake of breath, coming from him. It made you scoff. “Because let’s face it, Bakugou, without your quirk, you might as well be fucking worse than a dead fuck.”

Those infamous last words of yours, that signified and solidified the death of whatever relationship you had with him, giving you the expression on his face, that was plenty satisfaction.

Izuku had to physically take you away, grabbing both your bags as you left the room. He had to calm you down, extremely worried to see you so worked up. Gulping, he squeezed your hand, green eyes searching for yours. Weakly, you squeezed back, a feeble smile on your face. That was plenty.

As the two of you turned a corner, the green-haired teen froze beside you, turning to him in confusion, you followed his gaze, heart twisting at his fallen Hero Analysis notebook that was being poked by the fishes.

“Stop eating it,” he muttered, voice weak. “it’s not fish food.”

“Izuku…” you called out, worried about the way his shoulders hunched, posture rigid.

If you want to be a hero so much, there is an efficient way. Believe to have a quirk in your next life and dive off from the school roof.

Balling your hands into fists, you could feel the anger boiling, threatening to take over. No. Instead, you walked up to your friend, took the wet notebook from his hand, and waved it in the air, water splattering everywhere in the process.

“(N-Nickname), be careful of the pages!” he cried, you stopped only when the dull look in his eyes disappeared. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The favour returned.

Satisfied that it was semi-dry, you appeared by Izuku’s side, browsing through the pages – which miraculously were still readable despite getting wet. Each page, you bugged Izuku to explain what was written, he’d readily go on about what he wrote and more.

Hearing him speak calmed you, but it reminded you of the absolute fear in his face from earlier, your heart clenched – that was not you. So, you swore never to get that angry in front of him again. Also, Bakugou Katsuki was nothing but a dead fuck to you.

And yet, why did you feel like dying at that moment? Why did a part of you die thereafter?

It was the worse day of your life.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

But the worst was yet to come.

One phone call.

One phone call was it took.

One call from your grandfather, urging you to come home.

“L-Listen carefully to what I’m going to say, (Name), okay?”

Never had you heard your grandfather, the feared Shihan of your family, the stoic, cranky old man, in tears, sounding so weak, so afraid.

“I-It’s about your parents…”

Amidst the infamous Sludge Incident, you received word of your parents’ death, they were killed in action by villains.

Was the universe playing with you? Did the impact of the punch you gave Bakugou earlier rebound and knock you out?

Suddenly, the anger from earlier immediately dissipated, replacing it with a feeling as though someone had pierced into your soul, taking everything there is about you.

Numb.

A numbing sense washed over you, unable to take any valid information, make sense of your environment, or even your senses.

Heavy.

Everything felt heavy, your heart, your body – everything.

All you knew was that your heart was in pieces, tears wouldn’t stop pouring for days, and your life would never be the same again.

“(Name), what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Eh? Uh…um…”

“Don’t you want to be a hero like me and mama?”

“Should I be?”

“Well, according to family tradition, yes.”

“But how about according to you guys?”

“Us?”

“Well, actually, we’d be happier with whatever you want. Just so long as it makes you happy.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“…so, even if I want to be a gang leader?”

“Don’t push it, (Name).”

“Heh, kidding! I love you, Ma, Pa!”

“Getting cheekier and cheekier every day.”

"She is your daughter, after all."

For a whole week, you missed school to mourn.

Your mind too caught up in the loss of the two people you cared for the most in the world to even worry about your education.

Everything was a blur, a complete blur to you.

Understandably, everyone understood. Your grandfather. Auntie Inko. Auntie Mitsuki. Uncle Masaru. Especially Izuku, who came over to check on you from time to time. And during the burial, he held your hand. Tight. Warm. An assurance.

(Somewhere, you could have sworn you saw blond – aside from Auntie Mitsuki but paid no mind.)

When your parents died, so did a part of you.

The week after, you came back a hollow of a person you once were. Coming back to school, you were prepared for the onslaught of jeers and hatred, after giving Bakugou a beatdown last time, yet, all you got were condolences from everyone. That didn’t bother you much and just went on with life.

People were better. You suppose that’s what happens when people realize how much loss can affect someone.

Recovering was hard.

Every day hurts.

Every second was a reminder of loss.

Every waking hour felt like a bitter pill.

You just wanted to scream, to wreak havoc, to let it all out.

But how could you?

Since their deaths, you'd have nightmares of the time your parents left for their mission, in which they never came back. It was worst with insomnia wrought by your quirk, in fact, the grief made it worse. You were barely sleeping at all!

Izuku noticed just how tired and depressed you were, was the first to reach out to you. It was what you loved about him - he was selfless and full of compassion. Even as he suddenly went on a strange body regiment – that seemed to tax him physically and mentally, he was always there to keep you afloat. As opposed to Bakugou, who went out to call out on you two.

Still, after punching him in the face and the death of your parents on the same day, he was less menacing towards you, Izuku even.

It didn’t change the fact that the blond was dead to you, deader than your parents.

However, you did notice cans of coffee on your desk during lunchtime, or after a period where you slept in. Sometimes, there’d be an apple before the first period. One time, you could have sworn to hear explosions followed by angered shushing as you dozed off at the clinic.

There was a time, when you two crossed paths, both of you were silent, staring at each other. Carmine eyes stared into your dull (e/c) ones, his filled with worry and concern. But neither of you said a word, you just walked past him, dismissing him entirely.

Eventually, you found yourself applying for a part-time job, trained harder with your grandfather, all these to distract you, at least. And it worked, for a time.

You just weren’t sure about the other void.

masterlist • five

#lame #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou katsuki fic #bakugou katsuki angst #bnha #bnha fic #bnha angst #bnha angst fic #mha #mha x reader #mha fic #mha angst #mha angst fic

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bluerosewritings · 3 years

Text

Why Can’t Life Be Closer To A Dating Sim!? | Idia x Reader

Happy birthday Idia!

This is a direct sequel to this post: https://bluerosewritings.tumblr.com/post/626417568274628608/please-be-my-sibling-in-law-ortho-x-reader

You moved your hands from your cheeks, using them to support yourself against the spare bed’s frame while you tried to make sense of what happened. There were troupes in Idia’s anime and games where their younger siblings got involved in their older sibling’s love life, but it was usually to stop the MC getting romantically involved with said older sibling, not encourage it! On top of that, Ortho’s choice of words to ask you to be his ‘sibling-in-law’... surely he knew what he said, right? Or would it be better if he didn’t? Even if your heart was even ready to comprehend Idia waiting for you in a tuxedo, you doubt his encounter with Eliza had left him wishing for early marriage.

Sighing, you push yourself off the bed frame and shake your head to get a hold of yourself. That shouldn’t be the part you were focusing on - right now, what you needed to think of was how you were going to confess.

...yeah, you couldn’t even think that with a straight face.

Why did love have to be so hard...? It was easy for the love interests in an otome game to just... say whatever they were thinking! Wait, but in some games it was the MC who confessed and had to hope the love interest’s stat was high enough... so, which one were you!? Love interest or protagonist!?

“Wait, maybe don’t compare yourself to a piece of code...” You quietly reprimand yourself, massaging the bridge of your nose. “Just... how can you confess in a way that isn’t going to completely scare off Idia...? Yeah, that’s probably impossible.”

Still, you couldn’t let that deter you. Ortho may have already alerted his brother and he was on his way over, probably completely oblivious to what the younger Shroud had planned. That meant you might have less time than you thought.

You quickly whipped out your phone and typed in ‘confession advice’. Surely there’d be one or two sites with help outside the usual be yourself stuff, right...?

“Um... (y/n)?”

Idia’s hesitant voice makes you jump out of your skin, turning around to see him standing awkwardly in the spare room’s doorway. You also lost your grip on your phone and it fell to the floor before you had a chance to even glance at the suggestions.

“O-Oh! Idia! I didn’t think you be here so soon!” You laugh half-heartedly.

Idia’s hands fly up to his chest, his expression turning into panic. “E-Eh!? W-W-Was I too fast!?”

“It’s okay! It’s fine!” You tell him, hoping he would relax. Though the fact you weren’t facing might not have helped too much. You just really needed to look at that advice! You’d take anything at this point!

Idia frowned at your behaviour, dropping his arms to his side as he watched you scoot across the floor. He was starting to regret coming over so fast - Ortho had told him you’d had something important to talk to him about and hurried over, worried that something serious had happened. It had not crossed his mind once that he would be lucky enough to have maxed out your metre high enough to reach your confession ending. No way. Not once. No way a gross otaku like him would even dare to think he’d have a chance with someone like you.

His worry only grew at seeing you get more and more frantic while searching for this unknown item. Idia looked across the floor and noticed a small light peaking out from the spare bed. Curious, he kneels down and stretches out to grab it, only being noticed by you at the last second.

Everything seemed to slow down once you realized your phone was still on. “Wait, don’t look...!”

Sadly, your words proved futile, as when they were spoken Idia’s eye’s registered the words on the screen. Not even a second later, his hair turned into raging red flames, not helping your panic at all.

“Idia! Calm down!” You tell him, though it came out more like a question than a command due to your frantic nature. “I-I can explain!”

“T-T-T-This has to be for some sort of g-g-game, right!?” Idia tries to rationalize, pointing between you and your phone. “D-D-Did you want advice for s-some s-super hard game or something!? Haha, you didn’t have to call me all the way out here for t-that...!”

“W... Well, not... exactly...?” You explain hesitantly, trying not to scare him any further. “If I wanted to beat a game, I’d just search up a guide...”

“S-So, what’s this for...?” Idia asks, only slightly calmer as his curiosity took over.

You bite your lip, unable to look Idia in the eye for more than a moment, though you tried your hardest to keep looking in his general area. “...I like you, Idia. Not just platonic. Also romantic.”

You treasured those precious seconds before Idia’s hair burned even bright. A worry about if your phone was melting would have crossed your mind if it wasn’t occupied by thoughts of what Idia’s answer would be. His prolonged silence was not helping in the slightest.

“Y-Y-Y-You m-m-mean it...?” He searched for a confirmation, voice cracking at every possible opportunity.

You slowly nodded, your heart racing too hard for your brain can function your words. Idia went back to his silence as he handed you back your phone, lips quavering as he struggled to summon up a simple one-word answer.

“T-There’s a movie. That we can see this weekend.” You tried to suggest, hoping it would help the situation even the smallest bit. “I can’t remember the name, but it’s something you’d like...”

Idia hummed, cleared out his throat and then nodded. “Yeah... yeah. I’d like that. A lot.”

The two of you stayed in an awed silence before you felt a surge of courage go through you. You couldn’t get any more embarrassed over how this confession was going anymore, right?

You walked up to Idia, who instinctively flinched. Determined not to be deterred, you measure yourself to his height and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before smiling warmly.

“Want to head back to your room and start planning?” You offer once you realize Idia’s muteness wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. Judging by his facial expression anyway.

Idia could only nod in response and follow, eyes wide, as you took him by the hand and guided him back to his own room. He really had gotten high enough on your metre to reach the confession ending...! Was this actually real...!?

Hidden away, Ortho rejoiced, throwing his arms up in triumph as he sent a silent congratulations to his brother.

#idia shroud #idia shroud x reader #idia x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #ortho shroud

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maddogofshimano · 3 years

Text

Lee Wen Hai Character Story

Minor Y0 Spoilers

Alright it’s been a little bit but I was doing other nonsense like ripping all the substory text out of Y0. Anyways!

Sotenbori’s God Hand, Lee Wen Hai. I really love this dude.

Summary: Lee is attempting to leave his life as a hitman behind for good, but a local organized crime group’s executive is asking him to do one more job. Things get messy, which is exactly what Lee was worried about.

<A few months after Makoto began working with Lee Wen Hai> Lee: Ya don't gotta push with much force. Just let your body weight handle it.

Makoto: Don't use force, use my body weight... umm, like this?

Lee: Nah, you're bein' too timid about it. Don't worry about hurtin' your old man none. (Tl note: I had to re-read this line a LOT but I’m like 90% sure Lee is just straight up calling himself her dad) Makoto: Y... Yes sir! Lee: ....Oh, that's gettin' a bit better. Now, your palm is one half of a conversation with the muscles. Makoto: There's a lot to massages, isn't there...! I'll study hard! Lee: Though, why do ya wanna do massages anyways? You're my guest, ya know it's fine if ya don't work, right? Makoto: You've done so much or me, I can't help but feel a little guilty... So I'd like to be helpful to you Lee-san, even if only a little. Lee: (After all the awful shit she's gone through, she's still a good kid...) Makoto: I've got a an older brother. He's really smart, and a hard worker so... I hope I can become more like him. Makoto: ....Lee-san, you remind me a little of my brother. Lee: Heh... So this brother, ya came over to Japan together? Makoto: No... when I was just a child, my brother disappeared... I haven't seen him since. Makoto: However, for some reason he showed up in Japan... Eventually, somewhere in Japan, I'm sure I'll meet him again. Lee: ...Alright. I'll help ya look for him too. It may not seem it, but I got some connections I can pull scattered all over. Makoto: Th-That's... I could never ask you to go that far... Lee: I'm your stand-in dad... nah, I'm standing in for your older brother. It may be corny, but you can rely on me for anythin'. (Tl note: the term Lee uses here is actually foster father, but it was hard to word well with the bit about her brother) Lee: So let's get lookin' for your real brother then.

Makoto: Lee-san... Lee: ...Huh? Y-You're cryin'!? I wasn't tryin' to make ya cry! Makoto: It's just... Since I came to Japan, I've never been treated this kindly... Lee: Geez, uh, I'm really no good when girls cry! I'm beggin ya, don't cry any more! Makoto: Okay... sorry... Lee: I was seriously... Organization Executive: Yo, am I interrupting? (Tl note: They’re pretty vague on things for a long time, but he’s part of the yakuza, so I’ll use appropriate terms so I don’t have to say “organization” over and over to stay generic) Makoto: Ah... welcome! Lee: ....Makoto, today's lesson is finished. How bout you head on home first. Makoto: Ah, yes sir. Thank you for today... Exec: That girl, seems like she can't see. Where'd you find her?

Lee: It's got nothin' to do with you. Why'd ya come here today anyways. If it's about a "job", you're barkin' up the wrong tree. I ain't in that business anymore. Exec: Haw? What do you mean? Lee: I mean exactly what I said. I ain't takin' "jobs" anymore. Exec: And would that possibly be... because of that girl? Lee: That ain't related. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that I've already decided that I ain't gonna do it! Exec: ...Well, you do have the freedom to go from a hitman to a civilian. In the end, however, you'll agree to take this contract. Exec: In the same way that blood and law are tied together, so too is our organization and its members. ...Still, your case is pretty straight forward. Lee: What do ya mean? Exec: You know too much of the underbelly of the organization. You know what that entails. Lee: .......... Exec: As a talented hitman, you could leisurely stroll around Sotenbori. Now that you're a civilian however..... Lee: The well informed acupuncturist will get erased, is what you're sayin'. Exec: That's it exactly. Lee: Heh, I already knew I was riskin' getting snuffed. Ain't the first threat of it, and it don't change how I feel. Exec: You're a stubborn bastard huh... Well, ultimately you'll help me with my job. Lee: What makes ya say that? Exec: Despite how I look, I'm an executive in the organization. I can talk to any of the higher ups directly. Exec: All I have to say is that this civilian's been meddling. Of course, I'd rather you just clean up this job. Lee: I've already decided I ain't killin' anymore. How many times do I gotta tell ya, I ain't takin' that job! Exec: It's fine if you don't kill. Really, I just want you to get a little violent. Lee: Huh....? <They head out> Exec: Inside this bar is a gang that I want you to knock around. Of course, it's fine if you don't kill them.

Lee: ...Is that really gonna be okay? Exec: Mhm, this job will be a cinch for you. ...Of course, I tried to tell you that. You just didn't want to listen. Lee: When it's a job from guys like you, it's never been simple... <he goes inside the bar> Lee: Pardon the intrusion.

Goon: Eh? Geezers ain't allowed in this bar. You can go drink cheap booze with your own family.

Goon 2: We're renting the place out right now. Before you get scared shitless, don't you think it'd be a good idea to head on home? Lee: Heh... you brats sure have a mouth on ya. Too bad I went and grew a conscious before I could bury ya. Goon: What the hell did you say! You want us to throw you out on your ass!? <fight, Lee crushes them> Goon: G-Guh.....

Lee: What, it's already over? That gang was all bark and no bite. Exec: Finished? Lee: Yeah, they won't be standin' up any time soon. I stopped before it got to anythin' dangerous. Exec: As expected, you did everything exactly to the letter. It'll be quick to get them to cough up what I'm after. Exec: Oi! You two, do you know a man called Iwai? That asshole has something he was supposed to be watching. Goon 2: I-Iwai, it's been a long time since we've seen him..... Exec: Covering for him isn't going to be good for you! If you don't want to die, hurry up and spit it out! Goon 2: Honest! I'm serious, I don't know any more than that! Exec: Tch...... Hey, what do you think!? Is Iwai going to come here!? Goon: He won't...! He ran off to join some family and totally cut ties with us! Exec: ....Lee, these bastards, do you think they're lying? Lee: Hmm. Well, this group ain't exactly fearless. The whole crew is already pissin' their pants. Exec: Looks like they really are separate... <they head back outside> Lee: This job's done. Well, I'm headin' home.

Exec: No, the job isn't over yet. I know it's a bother, but I'll need you to stick with me a little while longer. Lee: Oi... you're changin' our deal. I just did your damn job! Exec: I told you this job was to tidy things up. That was supposed to clean things up, but the plan went off the rails. Lee: Piece of shit... Exec: Let's get going to our next destination then. Or would you rather I speak with my higher ups? Lee: That's different than what ya said earlier. You're a real weaselly guy. Exec: Let's say that you don't continue with this job, this world wouldn't speak kindly of that, right? Lee: You're gettin' ahead of yourself. Whackin' some chinpira is one thing, sniffin' after the Osaka yakuza will land ya in a world of hurt. Lee: Even if ya take me along as a body guard, there's nothin' stoppin' your business partner from pumpin' ya fulla lead. Lee: The jobs ya bring me are always this way. Without exception they're a pain in the ass that I get tangled up in. Exec: And yet you always get them done in the end, don't you? I'm going to buy that arm of yours once more. Exec: I'm begging you, Lee. Lend me your power one more time. Lee: ......I had just stopped stickin' my neck out like this and ya had to go and say stuff like that... Lee: I just gotta know somethin'. What is it that you're chasin' down? Exec: Our group's stolen cash... 200,000,000 yen. Lee: Hmm... that is a hefty sum. Exec: The amount doesn't matter to our organization, it's our pride that's been wounded. We absolutely must get that money back. Exec: If the money is returned via your cooperation, then my organization will no longer be able to touch you. Doesn't that sound like a good job? Lee: Keh, so that's your game. Awful patronizin' to say it that way. Lee: ....Eh, whatever. This is the last time I'll be workin' with ya. <END PART 1>

Exec: Ora! <punch>

Exec: Cough it up already, Iwai! <punch> Iwai: ......... Exec: There you have it. No matter how many times he's beaten he's not talking. Hmm... I guess these fists just aren't going to cut it. Exec: These guys that don't squeal, they really know how to take a hit. Well, no use beating on him for no reason. Lee: And this guy, he's the mastermind that ran off with your cash? Exec: Mhm, by the time I caught wind of it, he'd already hidden the money. Lee: What a lousy job. Exec: My kyoudai was preparing our payment to the government. To get him out of that jam, I have to keep looking. (Tl note: I’m assuming it’s a bribe, but I’m not actually sure! It might be a tributary payment up to the main branch but I can’t find much one way or the other on that) Lee: So you're coverin' for your kyoudai, huh. Exec: I agree that this job isn't worth it. But, for my kyoudai's sake, I'm going to keep searching for that cash. Exec: This guy's in a totally different league from that gang. No matter how much you torture him, he's not going to cough up the location. Lee: Hey, lemme have a go at squeezin’ it outta him. Exec: Sure, be my guest. I'm going to go ice my knuckles.

Lee: Well then... Iwai-san, let's get started. Nice to meet ya. Iwai: .............. <fade to black> Lee: Ya don't wanna know what kinda torture I got. Ya should talk fast. Iwai: ................. Lee: Do ya intend to stay quiet till ya croak? If that's your decision, ya gotta know you'll be tortured the whole time. Iwai: ............... Lee: If ya really ain't gonna talk, you've got some guts. Unfortunately no amount of guts or backbone is gonna get ya outta this. Iwai: .............. Lee: Eh, I get the picture. Well, let's get started. First off the nerves in your shoulder. Give ya a taste of the painful death you've settled on. Iwai: .............. Lee: (.....Hm?) Iwai: ...........? Lee: I couldn't recognize ya with how bad your face is swollen. You've been to Hogushi Kaikan before. I recognize the feel of this. Iwai: ............ Lee: Yeah, your shoulder was always real stiff. I'm rememberin' it now. ...Say, didn't ya always come by with a skinny lady? Iwai: ............. Lee: Ya both came in durin' the middle of the day smellin' like cheap soap. In the middle of the dry skin on her back, there's a bodhisattva inked in. Iwai: ............. Lee: Yeah, a soapland worker. Think I outta make her aware of this? Iwai: She's got nothing to do with this! Lee: Finally ya gave me somethin'. Though it wasn't very clear. Seems like that cash, well it must be hidin' in the same place as that soapland worker. Iwai: She really has nothing to do with this! Believe me! Lee: Seems I'll have to go hear that from her myself. Once I get there, I'll do some lookin' around. Iwai: I-I'm begging...! She... That woman, please forget about her! Lee: Man, you're a real fool. Not only did ya fall for a soapland worker, ya went and gave her all the family's cash too. Lee: And what, ya planned on stayin' silent till ya got beaten to death? Iwai: With all that money... she wouldn't have to work that job anymore... At least, that's what I thought... Lee: You really are a dang idiot... But, I'm the same kind of guy.

Iwai: Eh...? Lee: Hang tight. <Lee leaves> Exec: Oh? Did you get him to spill?

Lee: He said he left it at a soapland. Exec: Haw!? Of all the stupid shit. That bastard, does he think this is a game! Lee: Yeah, he probably does. Still, only one way to be sure. <Lee leaves> Barker: Sir, sir, would you like to spend some time playing today?

Lee: Yeah, I think I will. I think I'll pick a lady who's inked up with a bodhisattva. Barker: Huh...? Lee: It's a pretty flashy tat. I'm sure ya know which shop she's in. Barker: Wh-What are you saying! Do you think I know every single soapland worker around here!? Lee: If that's the case I'll just have to search through 'em all myself. I might as well start with your shop and give it an examination. Barker: A-A weird customer is on his way over! Please, get the conflict resolution people! Yakuza: Hello, we're this area's "conflict resolution" people. Sir, I'm afraid you're making a bit of a scene.

Yakuza 2: If you're determined to play anyways, how about you play with us instead? Though, our play time might get a little rough for an old timer like you. Lee: You got some soft 'n' green asses. I'll have to work 'em over a lil. (Tl note: Lee says their asses are green and mochi-like, and that he's going to 揉む them a little which is. uh. usually rub/massage. fellas the homoeroticism of this posturing is pretty intense) <they fight> Yakuza: Wh, some other family's messing with us! Someone, phone HQ for reinforcements....!

Lee: Aww, don't go kickin' up a fuss. We were just playin' around. Lee: I ain't gonna cause another racket on your turf. I'm just looking for a soapland lady who's got a bodhisattva tattoo. Yakuza: Bodhisattva tattoo... Lee: Seems like ya know her. Which shop? Yakuza: The discount shop on the first corner.... Her name is... Niru, I'm pretty sure.... Lee: Niru, huh. Thanks, that helps. <he goes> Lee: Pardon me.

Niru: Eh....?

Lee: So you're Niru-san, huh. This shop seems to be pretty empty. Niru: Who are you... you’re that massage shop's... You're... not a customer, are you. Lee: Hey, Iwai told me to come here for somethin'. Niru: ............. Lee: He gave ya somethin' to hold onto. He needs ya to hand it over to me. Niru: I-I don't know what you’re talking about... I'm not holding onto anything... Lee: Well that's a lie. Right now there's gonna be a mess of problems if ya don't hand it over. Niru: Problems... Lee: Do ya wanna end up fish food in the Sotenbori River? Niru: .....! Lee: That's the kinda thing you're dealin' with here. If ya understand that, just cooperate and hand it over. Niru: ......... <suitcase hits the ground> Niru: That person, he brought that suitcase and promised he'd be back to see me later... but, it's been more than two days since I've seen him... Lee: Did ya look inside it? Niru: No... Lee: That's good. See ya. <Lee leaves> Niru: Th-That man, what happened to him!? Is he okay!? Please! Don't kill that man! Exec: Ohh, you got it all back! What kind of torture did it take to get it!?

Lee: It took something much more painful than torture. Exec: Hehe, well, as long as the money's returned, it's all good! Though, was it really being held onto by a soapland worker.... Iwai: ......... Lee: I've got somethin' I need ya to do. Help this man out. Exec: Huh? After this guy took my family's cash? There's no way I can keep the blame off of him. Lee: I ain't askin’. Exec: Oy oy, what's all this about. Whether this jackass lives or dies, that doesn't really affect you does it? Lee: He made a promise to his girl. Exec: A promise....? Hahaha! Man, are you a weirdo or what!? Iwai: Ugh.... Lee: Huh...! Exec: Of course I'm going to kill him! And I'm going to kill that soapland worker too! And then... <pistol noise> Lee: Guh...! Exec: I'll kill you too. Lee Wen Hai. <END PART 2>

Lee: Guh... Exec: Hehehe... The professional killer Lee, putting another person's life above his own. Are you getting senile? Lee: Mother fucker! Exec: Uh oh, looks like you can't move. Must be from that hole through your stomach. Lee: You planned on killin' me from the start...! Exec: I'd heard you'd stopped taking jobs after you picked up that girl. It was pretty clear that you wanted to wash your hands of this business. Exec: That made this the perfect time to ask you to do this "job". Lee: ....... Exec: This cash really was stolen from my organization. But, it's not my kyoudai's cash. It was being prepared by an asshole I despise. Exec: That arrogant bastard came preaching to me about preparing his 100 million. I got so mad that I wanted to kill him. Exec: So that got me thinking. Who was stupid enough that I could tempt into stealing the payment? Lee: That idiot, he was... Exec: Mhm, and that man, he's the driver for that arrogant bastard. He's stupid and always having money trouble, so he was the ideal piece. Exec: I went to talk to him at his hideout with his crew. Exec: The suitcase I had with me had around 100 million yen in it, but I was being pretty careless. Lee: ................. Exec: And then of course that moron really went and took the money and fled. After that, I had to figure out what bait to use. Exec: He'd be captured wherever he was hiding. After he was disposed of, I'd use that money to gain favor in the family. Exec: That insufferable bastard would be disgraced... and everything would be perfect for me to advance. Exec: I didn't expect him to hand two hundred million yen over to that soapland worker... That guy, he's really a bigger idiot than I could have imagined. Lee: That's a shitty picture you've just painted. I did learn one thing from it... Exec: Ah, thank you. ...Well, that's enough of my bragging. Exec: I'll be sure to pass along the information about you. "He became a civilian and has run off somewhere" is what I'll say.

Lee: Ya really don't get it. It turns out, you're the one with no end game here. Exec: Oh...? Are you going to be a sore loser right at the end? Lee: Earlier, why didn't ya follow me when I went out? Exec: Nobody would believe that all that money had been entrusted to a soapland worker. But, with that in mind, how is my endgame a problem? Lee: When I was out I called your organization. Exec: Haw...!? Lee: When an organization is tryin' to retrieve cash, they don't make moves by themselves. Normally, they use foot soldiers. Lee: Plus, I was angry that I had already gone back on my promise to stop doin' this sort of thing. I figured I should know what kind of shape the family was in. Lee: And ya wanna know what one of your boys over there told me that really surprised me? <stabbing sound> Exec: Y-You piece of shit...! How did you...! Exec: Guh! Shit, the gun...! Lee: C'mon ya amateur, yer gettin' shaken and flustered. If it's me throwin' needles, it's more accurate than any gun.

Exec: Flustered...? That stuff about calling my family was a lie!? Lee: I really did call 'em. In fact, they're gonna be here soon. Exec: Wh-... Lee: I didn't expect ya to put a hole in my gut though... Ah well, I can handle a handicap. Exec: Handicap....? Lee: I'm gonna kick your ass before your organization shows up! If I'm workin' with this sorta handicap, it should make for a good fight! <they fight, Lee does in fact kick his ass> Exec: Gah....

Lee: Guess a single hole wasn't enough of a handicap. The guys from your organization haven't even shown yet. Lee: ...Hey, Iwai, you still alive? Iwai: G-Guh... Lee: Seems like bein' that stupid has made ya real tough. The members of your organization will be here soon. Ya better scram before it's too late. Iwai: I-... Is that okay..? Lee: Ya made that lady a promise. If ya break it you'll never sleep easy again. I'll smooth talk the boys. Get outta here. Iwai: I-I'm in your debt! <Iwai leaves> Lee: That guy also had a hole through his guts... He really is powerfully stupid. (Tl note: the line kind of implies he’s powerful because he’s stupid) Exec: Heh..... People sure do change when they get involved with a woman... Lee: Ah? You're already awake. Ya lookin' for round two? Exec: Don't even joke about it... Though, it is a relief... Lee: What is? Exec: That softness... it's going to kill you one of these days... I think before too long, we'll meet each other again in hell...

Lee: Say what ya like. I ain't dyin'. <door opens and the family boys come in> Goon: ...Oh, ouch. Our backstabber looks like shit.

Goon: You're an executive too. When someone betrays our organization... I'm sure you know what happens...? Exec: Shut up... Just do whatever you like to me, I don't care... Goon: Fine by me! Boys, end him! <beating noises> Another Exec: You're the hitman, Lee? Where's the money?

Lee: Here it is. Seems like it's all accounted for. Exec 2: ...Sure enough. Where is the man who took the money? The kid who drove for me. Lee: Ah, that matter has already been cleaned up Mr. Executive. If ya'd like to find him, maybe try lookin' around the mountains next year? Exec 2: ...That's good. You've done me a favor. If you ever need one in return, you need only ask. Lee: I think I got one thing ya can do for me in return. Exec 2: What's that? Lee: I'm becomin' a civilian. I'd like for ya to square that away. Exec 2: Is that all? Lee: Yep, just that. Exec 2: ...Understood. I’ll handle it. I'll stake my honor on it. Lee: Well, if that's all, I'm gonna head on home. <Lee starts to leave> Lee: ...Ah, if ya ever have any aches and pains come see me. I'll fix ya up at Sotenbori's Hogushi Kaikan.

Exec 2: Haha... Yeah, I'll stop by next time I'm in the area.

Makoto: Press with my own body weight...

Lee: Oh, that's feelin' just right. Ya got some surprising talent for this. Makoto: Do you really think so!? I've been practicing on our regulars during lunch hours, so maybe that's why I've improved this much. Lee: Heh, and now we got even more regulars. Makoto: Yeah, like that one lady. She always smells like really nice soap. Lee: ...That customer, has she been comin' in alone? Makoto: Yes, by herself... Why do you ask? Lee: Nah, it's nothin'. I'm always happy to get more regulars. Makoto: This time she did say she wanted a massage from you, Lee-san. It sounded like she might be someone you've met before. Lee: (The soapland worker? I wonder if she'll ask me about that idiot man next time we meet...) Lee: ...Next time that customer comes in askin' for me, tell her I ain't gonna do it. Lee: I'd rather my apprentice get in some more practice. Makoto: Hehe, sure. Lee: Outside of that, anythin' odd happen? Makoto: Anything odd? Hmmmm, nothing recently. Lee: Alright. That's good. Though, if anythin' does happen tell me right... OW!? Makoto: Eh...!? Lee: That's where the gun... I mean, that's where I had a surgery! The wound opened! Makoto: I-I'm so sorry! Lee: I got a serious request... Let's start this from the beginning! Today's trainin' will be tough! Makoto: Yes sir! I'm ready to go!

<END>

Bonus time: man, Lee just can’t catch a break! it’s really interesting seeing this and the sugoroku event, Lee keeps sticking his neck out for people because he’s a good dude and it always goes to shit but he just keeps doing it anyways! I love him. After years and years and years of Kiryu dancing around ever saying he’s Haruka’s dad I was so taken aback by Lee just saying it outright. It hasn’t even been that long!

also ouch! what a called shot by that exec! I hate that he’s completely right

I’m not really sure what happened to the other 100 mil, since 200 mil did get mentioned twice, or if I just misread something? It’d make sense if it were 100 mil from each executive but it was not super clear to me. I’m also not sure if Makoto saying that Niru smelled like really nice soap implies that Iwai did get her 100 mil still, or if it’s just a difference in world view where Lee thinks it smells cheap and Makoto thinks it’s nice. Iwai wasn’t with her, and she still smells like soap at noon, so I’m leaning towards her not getting the money

during the Y0 event they had The Grand as a location you could send teams to so they’d gather items for you. I sent Lee and..........

Lee. Lee I think they need those. Lee c’mon.

actually... were... were those just lying around in the Grand...? 😳😳😳

#yakuza #ryu ga gotoku #Lee #Lee Wen Hai #ryu ga gotoku online #rggo #Makoto #Makoto Makimura #hello to all the new followers too!#I am here to give you more Lee content #yakuza 0

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blackjack-15 · 4 years

Text

Silly Rabbit, Ecological Terrorism is For Kids! — Thoughts on: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (ICE)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. As ICE sends off the Jetsetting Games category and moves into the Odd Games category, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I’ll go into what storyline marks this game a bit Odd in the Nancy Drew series as a whole.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: ICE; TRT; mention of FIN; mention of CUR; mention of TRN; mention of SEA.

This meta is under a read more because of its sheer length.

The Intro:

Ughhhhh. UGHHH.

The White Wolf of Icicle Creek has a lot of things that make it distinct in the Nancy Drew video game series — it sports the first new interface since SHA, it has the world’s most boring list of ‘enticing moments’ from the game on the back, its assets look like they were forcefully molded out of gummy bears, it randomly was released on Wii, it’s the best-known game among non-fans thanks to the Game Grumps — but it also stands out because not one of those things make it enjoyable to play or to watch without a heavy amount of MST3K-style commentary.

Also because it features the fandom’s least favorite puzzle of all time…but more on that later.

A point to get out of the way before we get into the game proper is that this game feels a lot like a cheap knock-off of Treasure in a Royal Tower. Like, a lot like a cheap knock-off. One of those animated films called “Bemo’s Lost in the Ocean” or “A Toy Tale” that come out around Disney/Pixar films to try to trick hapless grandmas into buying them.

Just lining it up, we have Nancy stuck in/around a lodge in winter, an edict from the owner of the lodge to figure out what’s up with repeated Incidents and possible sabotage while most guests have left, an academic around Nancy’s age, an Old Coot, an Olympian whose grandparent was important, chores (including food related chores) to do in order to progress in the story, a suspect you can only talk to face-to-face for part of the game…the list honestly goes on in both big and small ways.

While ICE isn’t the only one that tries to do this (since I’m not doing a SEA meta, I won’t get into the fact that SEA literally just remastered DDI’s characters and said ‘good enough’), it does feel particularly egregious because, for all its copying, there’s not enough in the game to distract from it even a bit.

ICE is a game searching for an identity and unable to find one, no matter how many plot points, chores, or games (horrible, unskippable games) they throw at the player. We have full on international espionage and ecological terrorism here (more on that in the next section), and it just…doesn’t matter, at the end of the day. It also takes place in Canada, but your only clue to that is that one of the characters says “eh” a lot, so that’s not great either.

If ICE is a new game to you (it can be a bear to install and even worse to complete, so I’m going to go off the assumption that not everyone will be familiar with it), you’ve probably only heard of the cooking chores, fox and geese, and that this is the game with the Return of Tony Balducci, previously of TRN fame. (Honestly, ICE had a big enough cast without its phone characters, but HER decided to shove three phone characters along with one partial phone character at us anyway.) And, to be honest, that’s pretty much all there is to the game.

Now I know this sounds harsh, but there is a possible explanation to the lack of content in this game. In my previous meta (link at the top of this post) I made a note that CRE’s production in all likelihood suffered because the company was focused on ICE’s new interface. I don’t think it’s a leap at all to say that ICE’s story and characters could also have suffered because of the same thing.

The biggest problem with ICE — besides the weird stuff we’ll get into below — is that it’s a shallow game. None of the characters have any real depth, the plot is a paper-thin copy of TRT, the puzzles are alternatingly impossible and extremely easy, and in an effort to add “depth”, we get…well, we get this next section.

The Weird Stuff:

With each of the Odd Games (ICE through RAN, Heaven help us all), there’s something that makes the game truly…well, odd. Odd for the Nancy Drew series, odd for the age range specified on the front of the box, and odd in general when you look at the rest of the plot.

In this game, it comes in the form of terrorism — or rather, two types of terrorism. Guadalupe is our first (and only, in this series) ecological terrorist, belonging to a fringe group called “Run and Go Free” and being perfectly fine with illegal acts (destruction of the fishing lodge, sabotage of personal property), even telling Nancy that she’s done worse in the name of Run and Go Free.

Nancy Drew Games are no stranger to hippie/naturalist types (see DOG, DDI, CAR, etc.) but Lupe is our first to be legitimately dangerous. Sure, she doesn’t end up being the ultimate Bad Guy, but she is A Bad Guy, and it really does seem very odd to me that after everything Lupe does (and insinuates that she’s done), that she gets away with barely a slap on the wrist in having to leave the lodge.

Lupe in no way fits in with the rest of the plot; there’s nothing to justify her being present in the game, she can appear about halfway through the game and then leaves to become a phone contact soon after, she’s not present enough to be an actual suspect — she has no place in the plot nor the game, and it really does just boggle the mind that a character is in it at all, especially with ICE having a greater than average number of suspects to begin with.

On the other hand, however, we have Yanni, an Eastern European Olympian spy/terrorist, sent by the Fredonian (a commonly used fake country) government to bomb around the lodge to find uranium under the cover of training for the next Olympics.

That is a whole lot of things for one character.

You’d think with the presence of Lupe that Yanni would fit right in, but he doesn’t make her — or himself — any less odd or out of place than he would have been alone. It’s a ‘suspicious Olympian’ character that we already got with Jacques, but he’s a million times worse, setting off friggin bombs to find a metal that his government wants for…well, the normal reason that governments want uranium.

So we can add in “reference to ongoing nuclear warfare” as another thing that makes this game Odd.

Yanni doesn’t fit the game or the plot, which is pretty bad considering he’s responsible for about half the plot in the first place. He also has that weird aside about his grandmother being eaten by wolves, as if HER wants the player to suspect him because of some twisted revenge against wolves plot (which would have been Very Weird) so that they can pull the rug out at the end and be like “see?? He’s a political terrorist looking for uranium for nuclear bombs for his country!!! Gotcha!!”.

Like, it’s not a Gotcha if it’s absolute lunacy. My land.

With that explanation out of the way, let’s get to something a little less Odd.

The Title:

I actually don’t have much to say here. The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is honestly a great name; it tells us the focal point of the game (the wolf), the location, (Icicle Creek), and even pretty much tells you the season that this game is happening in (white, icicle). It accomplishes a lot in a very short amount of words, and pertains accurately to the game we’re dealing with.

We’ll chalk that up in the “Win” category…especially since we’re going straight back into the “Lose” category with the next section.

The Mystery:

The mystery is a mess, full stop. There’s way too much going on for the amount of payoff (i.e. little to none), and the plot, thin at best, completely drops off at the 2/3rds mark when all the player has left to do is wait for random events to occur and keep putting off fox and geese.

Anyway.

We begin with strange, destructive incidents of sabotage happening at a renowned winter resort. Most of the guests have left, and there’s been some damage to parts of the resort. Asked for help by the owner of the resort who’s away on business, Nancy must pick up the slack left by staff who have quit, run food-related errands, and discover who might be behind these attacks before it’s too late.

Oh wait, that’s Treasure in a Royal Tower. Lemme start again.

We begin with strange, destructive incidents of sabotage happening at a renowned winter resort. Most of the guests have left, and there’s been some damage —

You get the picture.

The biggest difference pre-game is that after every incident, a white wolf is spotted, only to disappear before the police get there. People start connecting the wolf to the crimes, and go as far as blaming it for cases of food poisoning and slashed tires, as if the wolf is cooking food and using a knife with its paws.

Just as Nancy’s arriving on scene, the bunkhouse is blown up and she hears the wolf howling — so obviously there must be a connection there, and a wolf definitely isn’t just responding to a loud noise.

This part honestly feels a bit like the beginning of CUR, where the game tries to establish Scary Feelings and Ominous Threats and just comes off ham-fisted.

The back of the box features three ‘exciting’ things that Nancy gets to do in this game, which are as follows: cook lunch and dinner, ride a snowmobile and wear snow shoes, and do snowball fights and ice fishing. While it’s sad that those moderately exciting things are the best that the box can boast, it’s even sadder that they really are the best the game has to offer.

It’s easy to lose thread of the mystery nearly as soon as Nancy gets to the lodge, because she’s immediately bombarded with laundry that has to be done before a certain time, meals that have to be done within a certain hour or two, and a suspect (Lupe) that can just refuse to show up.

Oh, and the return of Tino Balducci.

Returning in a game where he doesn’t fit in and where no one wanted him in the first place, Tino’s there to “help” Nancy solve the mystery by giving her a questionnaire for her suspects to fill out that asks what planet they see themselves as, among other inanities.

Honestly, this whole section could be summed up as “Tino returns, among other inanities”.

Nancy, throughout all of this, somehow has time to do a bit of detective work, interviewing a cast of rather one-note suspects, figuring out that more than one person is responsible for the many accidents. Guadalupe’s sabotage is discovered and she’s sent home, Yanni is increasingly unavailable (which is hugely suspicious), snowball fights are more prevalent than necessary, and finally the villain is exposed, all culminating in a glitchy, nigh-impossible snowmobile chase.

Oh, and there’s a half-tamed wolf storyline that kinda pops up every now and again.

All in all, the mystery is a weak thread throughout the game — which is a problem, because it’s the only thread throughout the game — that’s easily overshadowed by the chores, games, and frankly awful visuals throughout the game.

Now, to those who contribute (in a way) to the non-entity that is ICE’s story:

The Suspects:

Ollie Randall is our resident grumpy caretaker and is Chantal’s right-hand man, along with being on the Avalanche Patrol and a firm believer in the bad luck that wolves bring. His wife can’t handle cold temperatures due to a nerve condition, so he’s also his daughter Freddie’s sole parent during the winter.

As a culprit in the game as it now is, Ollie would have been the only sensical option; fed up with the awful guests that come and cause havoc, he starts causing little easily-solved accidents to spook away the less hardy-type guests, but it keeps spiraling as it doesn’t keep out everyone but people like Bill Kessler. Frustrated by the treatment the lodge gets, he decides that if people don’t treat it nicely, they can’t have it at all…

Unfortunately, Ollie is limited to being Grumpy, and not a lot else.

Freddie Randall is Ollie’s daughter and the self-proclaimed Snow Princess due to her ability to stay out in the cold for hours in her snow fort, and to take repeated snowballs to the face courtesy of a teen detective.

Freddie is…I know I talked about how Yanni and Lupe don’t really fit into the game, but Freddie really doesn’t fit any version of this game. She’s there for a mini game, she doesn’t have a personality, you can’t skip her mini game, she’s voiced by Lani Minella…the list goes on and on. Her shining moment of glory is acting as a red herring by throwing a snowball through Lou’s window.

She’s pointless to talk about as a potential culprit, even though she would have been an interesting “culprit” in a case where all the incidents are actually Freddie accidentally causing trouble, but that probably would have been even less satisfying than how the game actually went, so we’ll just move along here.

Our cross-country skiing Olympian from the fictional Eastern European country of Fredonia, Yanni Volkstaia is both our only suspect wearing a onesie and our only suspect with a family member eaten by wolves.

I know, that’s already a high bar to top. Don’t worry, he’ll fall very, very far below it.

Yanni, as mentioned above, is our odd spy/terrorist villain who is disguising his being there for uranium by saying that it’s his Olympic competitors trying to throw off his training. Why an Olympian is training alone without any coaches or security…well, let’s just say that Yanni didn’t really think his cover story through.

Just because Yanni’s the obvious culprit doesn’t mean he fills the role well; Yanni is obvious, annoying, and his paper-thin cover is just annoying enough to be…well, annoying. He throws out that his grandmother was “killed and devoured” by wolves as if he wants Nancy to believe that that’s the reason he’s targeting the lodge but…it still points directly to him. It’s just not great all the way around.

Joining Yanni in terrorism is Guadalupe Comillo, activist from California and hard-to-find suspect. Lupe can, as mentioned above, literally just not appear for a bit, stalling out the game and making her even more annoying than she already is.

Lupe’s cover is that she’s a bird watcher, but she knows absolutely nothing about birds — like honestly nothing, even though she had time to make her cover story (not unlike Yanni).

She gets sent away by destruction of private property (Ollie’s gun – super dangerous to make a gun misaim out in the wild and she’s lucky he didn’t hit anything problematic [like another person] because of it) and good riddance, but appears as a phone friend to rather pointlessly exonerate herself and do pretty much nothing else but stop the game in its tracks until she lets it proceed.

As a culprit, Lupe would have been the other obvious choice, but she’s just not in the game enough, so she’s easy to ignore. Her cover is thin, but so is her motivation (!!! Save the wolf!!!), so she’s one of the most annoying non-entity suspects in this series.

Our second Californian in the cast is Lou Talbot, who is a college student, master of ‘earthitecture’ (inspired by Poppy Dada) and stealer of dinosaur bones for money. He also plays fox and geese with Bill in his spare time. He does a really good impression of the Guy in my MFA twitter as well, but that’s literally it.

No, really, that’s his entire character. I can’t even posit what he would be like as the culprit because that is LITERALLY all we’re given on him. End of bio. My gosh, what a waste of pixels.

Lou’s partner in fox and geese is Bill Kessler, who loves to fish and whose grandmother used to own the lodge before Chantal. While he feels that his grandmother Tilly was cheated out of the lodge, he has little desire to get it back, and really just wants to hide the fact that he’s been to the lodge before (an odd thing to hide, but whatever makes him feel better.)

Like Lou, apart from that, he really doesn’t have any character. He basically is a mix of TRT’s Jacques in his family connection to the lodge and SHA’s Dave in actual amount of motivation (i.e., 0 motivation) to do anything about it. He is, however, the person who makes Nancy play fox and geese, and for that alone, I hate him.

As a culprit, Bill’s played as a red herring for a solid 5 minutes of gameplay (though not very well — why would an avid fisherman blow up a fishing shack?), and then totally discounted the moment Nancy finds out his backstory. He’s really just there — like most of the cast, worryingly enough — to pad out the number of suspects and to give Nancy a taste of Hell through fox and geese.

The Favorite:

There are a few bright spots in this confused mess of a game, so let’s go through them.

My favorite moment in the game is when Nancy, after Yanni says the horrific line about his grandmother being killed and devoured by wolves, can ask “how”. As if that’s a sentence that needs a ‘how’. It’s a great moment of Nancy being absolutely tone deaf, and I giggle like a madman every time I think about it.

My favorite puzzle in the game is probably the cooking minigame, which I dislike in frequency and time requirement, but do love in actual practice. It’s fun to cook in every Nancy Drew game, and this one is no exception. I just wish it wasn’t regimented so heavily.

I love the atmosphere of the lodge; it’s beautifully animated (in fact one of my favorite locations in the ND games), big without being too big, and is never boring, even by the end of the game. The lodge is largely a character unto itself, and is quite successful as a wonderful location.

The Un-Favorite:

There’s a lot to unpack here, but we’ll keep it short because the fix section of this meta is gonna have me by the throat.

My least favorite moment in the game is the moment Tino comes into the game. As the game now stands, there’s no reason for him to be involved, and short a comment about him by the Hardy Boys, which would at least justify it a little, he’s purposeless. He’s worse than that, actually — he’s there to slow the game down, and that’s a cardinal sin.

My least favorite puzzle in the game is a tie between fox and geese (UGH) and the final snowmobile chase. My problems with fox and geese are obvious — they’re everyone’s problems with fox and geese: it’s a required puzzle, it’s hard to do, there’s no way to cheat through it, and it takes forever.

The final snowmobile chase is somehow even worse. It’s buggy, laggy, has nothing to do with the actual plot, has arbitrary win conditions — it’s the worst (or at least among the worst) that HER has to offer with final puzzles. If everything else about ICE was perfect, engaging, fun, and thought-provoking, this final puzzle would still put me off of playing it. It’s just that bad.

The storyline with Isis and that whole backstory isn’t treated well in game; it’s almost as if they came up with the title and then remembered at the last minute that there’s supposed to be an actual wolf. I would have loved more of a focus on that storyline; as it is, it barely counts as a blip on the game’s radar — which is a shame.

The Fix:

Gosh, how on earth will I fix The White Wolf of Icicle Creek? The answer is that I don’t feel like I can just apply a few quick fixes and be on my way; the only answer I could find is to approach this as if I was at the proposal meeting for this game — how would I outline the barebones scenario?

This section will be long, as I’m going to start just from the skeleton and build things in. What follows is my own imaginings of what my own personal ideas would be to create ICE, rather than to fix it from what the finished product was. As an important note, the side-plot with the wolf, as it was really neglected and bare-bones to begin with in the game, is mostly removed.

The first section I’ll work on is structure. Though it wasn’t done perfectly in FIN, I feel like the pacing of ICE could be vastly improved by putting a clock on the game by assigning designated days and tasks. Three days is still probably a good idea, as it lets us easily break the story into a 3-act structure and delineate certain tasks for certain days without overloading one day in particular. We’ll get more into what should happen in Days 1, 2, and 3 later in a general overview of how the plot would go.

The mechanism used to get Nancy there — Chantal being a friend of Carson’s — isn’t bad, but I’d change it up just slightly. Nancy’s not yet a “professional” detective, but we’re only 2 games from her being hired by a foreign country’s authorities, so she should be making her way up there. It stands to reason that Nancy would attract some attention from the business in CRE since the Hardy Boys would definitely mention Nancy in their de-briefing and Aikens is a big name, so let’s build on that from here. Chantal is still Carson’s friend, and she still wants to get these incidents solved while she’s away from the Lodge for legal matters — someone got injured at the lodge and is now suing.

Carson decides to officially hire Nancy — paperwork, legal documentation, etc. — as a “concerned third party” in Chantal’s problems, telling her that her job is to find out two things: find out what’s causing the incidents of sabotage, and give Carson enough evidence in favor of the lodge’s safety that he can prove reasonable doubt against the people accusing Chantal. Nancy will be there undercover as a family friend of Chantal’s, with only Ollie knowing that she’s there in an official capacity.

ICE has a cast that is both unwieldy and characterless, and I feel like the way to fix that is through combining characters. Starting out we have Ned, Chantal, Tino, the ex-maid, her boyfriend, Ollie, Freddie, Lupe, Yanni, Lou, and Bill — 10 characters that we deal with in the present, plus one other player (in the boyfriend/stalker guy). 11 in total. That is a huge, huge cast that we definitely need to pare down.

The first thing to do is to take out Tino Balducci. He slows down the plot, is completely unnecessary, and isn’t even entertaining. Since there’s no Hardy Boys to play off of him (and I would keep the Hardy Boys out of this game, even with my love for them), Tino needs to go the way of the dodo. And good riddance to him, honestly.

Freddie, an obvious subject to axe, should instead be aged up to around 20 and combined with the maid whose ex-boyfriend’s letter Nancy finds at the beginning of the game. Freddie would handle all the chores the first day except the cooking.

Instead of a nebulous, incident-causing ex-boyfriend, Freddie would have just started a relationship with Lou, keeping our cast tight and visible, rather than one-off characters with nothing else to give to the story.

By now we’re down to Carson, Ned, Chantal, Freddie, Ollie, Lupe, Yanni, Lou, and Bill. I think we can do a little better than that.

The next step I’d take is to remove Yanni entirely. Yes, I know it’s a big change to remove the canonical culprit, but bear with me. With Yanni and Lupe having so many similarities and together being guilty of 99% of the Crimes in this game, I’m pretty comfortable in combining them. I’d also make the minor change of having Lupe be an Indigenous Canadian rather than Hispanic and from California, since our game is set in Canada and there’s absolutely no reason for a large portion of our cast to be American.

With Yanni gone, Lupe (or whatever her new name would be, since the name ‘Lupe’, all nationality changes aside, in a game ostensibly about a wolf makes me want to kill myself) assumes a few of his personality quirks – most importantly, a family member with a past with wolves. It doesn’t really matter if it’s positive or negative, you just want the association there as a herring (red or otherwise).

That puts us down to 5 suspects to talk to and three phone friends for a total of 8 players in the present. Since Chantal is supposed to be busy, I’d remove the ability to talk to her entirely — anything that Chantal could offer can come through Carson as Nancy’s official “employer”, which brings us to a nice 7 players — an entirely manageable number.

So let’s begin.

The beginning of the game with Nancy at her desk always includes a case file, so this time the case file would say that Nancy, at the behest of her ‘client��, Carson Drew, is flying out to Alberta to investigate strange happenings at Chantal Moique’s lodge. Chantal is trying to settle with people who got hurt there and are trying to sue her, and Carson’s helping to advise her. Nancy’s mission is two-fold: figure out what’s causing the incidents at the lodge, and find evidence that Chantal can’t be held liable for the injuries incurred by the guests suing her.

Wolves are commonly seen around the area of the lodge — Northern Alberta has some of the highest population of wolves in North America — and there’s a rumor at the lodge that the spirits of the wolves that are hunted in the area every winter are causing some of the sabotage.

Chantal thinks the rumor is being spread by whoever is doing the actual sabotage to make her guests leave and force her out of business, so Carson tells Nancy to pay attention to the stories about the wolves — and one snow-white wolf in particular, who is often sighted very close to the lodge. Carson suspects that, if it exists, the white wolf is actually a trained dog (a white/white and silver Siberian Husky, for example) being used to whip up panic, but tells Nancy to keep an open mind.

As Nancy’s arriving at the Lodge, an explosion occurs in the distance, causing the rumbling of snow to start. Ollie, who’s picked up Nancy from her plane, says darkly that he’s been waiting for something like this to happen, and that this will probably cause a minor avalanche (his opinion as the head of Avalanche Patrol in the area), making it impossible to leave the lodge for a few days. He tells Nancy to head straight to bed once they get to the lodge, as she’s in for an exhausting time dealing with the “weirdos” still left at the lodge.

Nancy wakes up and Day One begins with Freddie freaking out outside Nancy’s door. After explaining that the regular chef (who was off for the last month visiting family) can’t get back to the lodge until tomorrow and that Freddie’s only manned the kitchen once or twice, Nancy says that she has experience cooking and offers to take the chef’s duties for the day.

Day One has Nancy meet all the suspects – Bill’s playing a game (I don’t care what it is as long as it’s something that involves writing things down) with anyone who passes by and talks about how out of all the lodges in Canada, this one’s his favorite; Lou hangs out near the bones (make him an archeology major or something related to but not exactly paleontology) and Definitely Doesn’t Know the Cute Girl Who Works at the Lodge, How Dare Nancy Assume; Not-Lupe is gone until 4pm when it starts getting dark because she loves spending time in nature, especially with the Super Special Wolf running around the place; and Ollie’s in the workshop fixing the things that have been sabotaged, worries about his daughter being away from her mother and about her ‘cavorting’ with a guest.

Nancy still preps lunch and the day goes on without a hitch other than Lou having an overheard argument with someone at around 6. Nancy cooks dinner, accidentally (due to smudged instructions from Freddie) sprinkling paprika in everyone’s food and setting off an allergic (mild to moderate anaphylaxis, helped by an epi pen) reaction + hives in Freddie, who they fly out via helicopter that night.

Ollie, feeling hostile towards Nancy, takes a look at the instructions/recipe that Nancy worked off of and says to her that the first page is Freddie’s handwriting, but the second page isn’t — someone did this on purpose. Nancy calls Carson, who says that the soonest he can get there is the day after next, and to keep herself safe above everything — he’ll check in with the hospital Freddie’s at since it’s also in Edmonton, where Carson and Chantal are. Carson warns Nancy that the guests were about to settle the lawsuit when the news about the explosion hit the news, and are now more determined than ever to sue for all Chantal’s worth.

Day 2 opens with the cook (who’s unseen and just exists in order to relieve Nancy of kitchen duty) arriving and a phone call from Carson asking for Chantal/Freddie if Nancy can grab the laundry bags from the guests’ rooms and that the spare key is in the register at the front (of course guarded by a puzzle — I’d even accept a mini fox and geese, as one of the big problems with that puzzle in the vanilla game is that it goes on way too long.

While snooping in the desk, Nancy finds evidence that Chantal might have been guilty of criminal neglect — a few things around the lodge are listed as “fixed” and totally safe when really they still need some maintenance — and wonders how she should tell Carson and if she should wait until she has more evidence. Before she goes out for the day, Not-Lupe mentions to Nancy “in confidence” that she overheard Lou fighting with Freddie before dinner, calling it a “lover’s quarrel”.

After lunch and talking with all the suspects again, Nancy goes to grab the laundry with the master key and snoops in everyone’s rooms, finding various clues and suspicious things: Bill’s journal detailing how Chantal is running the place into the ground and needs to be replaced, along with a few lodge magazines; Not-Lupe’s gloves with suspicious specks of things on them (Nancy takes a sample of it in a Kleenex or something); Lou’s heavy suitcase that has a case with imprints of bones in it; Ollie’s has maintenance books that also detail how to take things apart and maintenance notes that say he saw the wolf around but didn’t have his gun; Freddie’s only thing of interest is a little dinosaur pin on her dresser.

Nancy takes the opportunity to snoop in Chantal’s normal room and finds that the things that were listed in the documents in the front desk really were fixed; Ollie reported to Chantal that things that he fixed were un-fixed by the time he went back to them the next day — most of the time suffering damage as well, such as the sauna that injured the guests that are suing Chantal. Nancy calls her father with the news, and Carson says to save those documents so that he can come get them tomorrow, and to see if she can find any clues to who might have done it.

After dinner Nancy talks to Lou, who confesses that he and Freddie started dating a few days ago after meeting online last semester in a dinosaur enthusiast forum — hence his decision to come to the lodge, as Freddie said there were cool bones here. He was originally going to steal a few small ones and thought no one would notice if he replaced them with resin-cast replicas, but Freddie caught him and they had a fight which ended with Lou deciding not to steal, and Freddie saying that she could help him make replicas for him to take home and keep in his house.

Nancy asks why he’s telling her, and Lou says that Ollie seems to get along with Nancy well, and he’d like Nancy to calm Ollie down if Ollie discovers that he’s dating Freddie. Nancy asks Lou about the wolf, and Lou says that some of the stuff could be a wolf — he’s seen one around the lodge once or twice — but he hasn’t really been paying attention to anything except the bones and Freddie (who he’s looking forward to visiting once he can).

When talking with Bill, he offhandedly mentions that he used to be a handyman — the sink in his room started acting up, but he fixed it easily because he thinks that Ollie has enough to do without doing this easy fix. Bill says that this would never have happened when Chantal’s father was running the Lodge and accuses Chantal of preferring to spend long “business trips” in the city to actually paying attention to the Lodge — he says she should just live in the city and hire a manager with experience who actually cares. Nancy asks Bill about the wolf, and he says if anyone could be haunted by wolves, he’d believe it was Chantal.

Nancy, it should be noted, during her explorations around the lodge, sees a few pawprints and some chewed-on debris, but otherwise hasn’t seen the wolf in person. Just traces and tracks.

Not-Lupe and Ollie both dodge Nancy’s questions – Ollie’s busy as everything seems to be breaking at once, and snaps at Nancy that without Chantal around, he’s the only person keeping the lodge afloat, and he’d be better off without the stress of this job. When Nancy asks him about the wolf, Ollie says that the last thing they need is some idiot tourist being attacked by a wolf, and so he refuses to believe that there’s a wolf around the area.

Not-Lupe is at her normal place at the window (though there’s a chair there because no one stands all day), and when Nancy asks about the wolf, says that that’s why she’s there — she heard the rumor about the wolf and wanted to see it, but that her visit’s been very disappointing — just a junky lodge with incompetent staff and no wolves anywhere. Her hobby is visiting winter lodges, and this one just Isn’t up to snuff.

Nancy tries to pry deeper, but Not-Lupe shuts her down and goes to bed; Nancy investigates the living room as everyone leaves for bed and finds crinkled up under the couch a magazine cutout about the Premier Lodge Group, a company that owns winter lodges all over Canada and the United States, and their plans to build a group of lodges in Alberta as soon as a few “minor inconveniences” with location are solved.

The day ends with Carson calling; Nancy tells him about all the suspects (Carson confirms Lou’s story by having talked to Freddie), the magazine, Ollie wanting to quit, etc. Carson promises to do some research on Premier Lodge Group and tells Nancy to send him a picture of the stuff she found on Lupe’s gloves. Nancy does so, and that’s the end of Day 2.

Day 3 opens again with Carson’s phone call, informing Nancy that he’ll be there in the early evening — he’s having a contact of his look at the photo Nancy sent, but he’s pretty sure it won’t be good news.

Premier Lodge Group was investigated a few years ago for sabotage to their competitors but ultimately nothing came out of it, and Carson suspects that people were paid off to keep quiet about it. Carson says that he’s looked into Ollie (since Carson suspected him the most) and apparently Ollie always grouches about quitting when he’s stressed but has been there for 20 years and is as loyal as they come, so Nancy says she’ll focus on Not-Lupe and Bill — the two lodge-hoppers who seem dissatisfied with the lodge.

Both Not-Lupe and Bill are gone when Nancy gets downstairs, and Lou (who’s planning on leaving that night to go to Edmonton) says that they both got a sack lunch from the kitchen and left early in the morning to go explore outside. He tells Nancy she can borrow his snowshoes and says that they both headed out (independently) in the direction of Skookum Ridge.

When Nancy gets up to the Ridge, she spots the “wolf” — really a Siberian Husky, like Carson thought, who seems very well trained. When the dog comes up to Nancy, a gunshot ripples through the air and nearly hits the dog, who would have gone running off had Nancy not grabbed her collar and yelled not to shoot. Nancy sees Bill across the ridge and waves him over, explaining that it’s a dog, not a wolf. The dog (whose name is something way better than Isis — literally anything else would do) is suspicious of Bill at first, which convinces Nancy that it’s not Bill’s — the only suspect left is Not-Lupe.

When she tells Bill what she knows about Not-Lupe, Bill admits to having seen her before at a lodge that went out of business due to mysterious accidents, but thought it was a coincidence before digging deeper in the magazines he brought and finding Not-Lupe in the back of a small photo of Premier Lodge Administrative Staff — he was worried about keeping it safe and knowing that there would be no cleaning staff until at least the next day, crumpled it up and put it under the couch he normally sits by.

A happy, friendly dog in tow, Nancy and Bill head back to the lodge only to find Ollie and Lou standing outside looking worried. They tell Nancy that they both went outside because they heard a loud noise, only to find the door locked behind them — and every other door locked as well. After realizing that Not-Lupe wouldn’t open the doors for them, Ollie went to get an axe for the door, only to have a note appear on the door’s window that if they forced their way in, the whole Lodge would be burned to the ground in an instant.

Carson calls then, saying that he’s a few minutes away, but that his friend got back to him — Not-Lupe’s gloves were covered in residue from explosives. Bill takes Nancy’s phone and begins to fill Carson in on who they think Not-Lupe is working for and who she is. Nancy asks Lou and Ollie to hoist her up to her own window, which she keeps unlocked, and crawls in, creeping downstairs to the main room to try to find how Not-Lupe will burn the lodge and stop her.

Nancy confronts Not-Lupe, who confirms her identity as a saboteur for the Premier Lodge Group, saying that with the bad press around the lodge Chantal would have already had to sell — but she’s going to go one step further and cause an ‘incident’, blowing up the lodge with fuses hidden around its ground floor — Chantal’s father won’t spend the money to rebuild the lodge, and the only proof that is against her is the word of two American kids, an old man, and a lodge-hopper with a very incriminating diary that would be found soon enough. She tells Nancy that she can either try to catch her or try to save the lodge and runs out the back, intent on escaping as she pushes the button to arm the explosives.

Nancy yells out the window for them to catch Not-Lupe, who’s got to be headed out to the main road, tossing the cushion of the seat Lupe usually sat in so that her dog can catch her scent, then has the final timed puzzle be switching off each detonator (which would be in each of the places where the suspects usually were, with the exception of Ollie’s whose is in the front desk).

As soon as Nancy disarms them, Bill calls out to her that Carson just called — Lou and the dog tracked Lupe to the main road, and Bill called Carson to let him know. Carson’s car stops Not-Lupe (Carson brought a policeman on a hunch), and the day is saved. Premier Lodge is snagged in a major lawsuit by Chantal’s father and other lodge owners who have had the same thing happen to them, and Chantal hires Bill as co-manager to ensure there’s always someone there to manage the lodge and for his wealth of knowledge of what makes a good lodge and good experience for guests.

The game ends with Nancy writing her letter to Hannah (so that Hannah doesn’t worry about them), and with her dad’s praise for a job well done.

I realize that this is a monumental fix; it’s a brand-new game made out of the skeleton of the old one. I also realize that there are a million and one ways to re-write this game; this one takes the idea of sabotage, one of the most frequent inciting incidents in the Nancy Drew world, and just makes it a little bigger.

No terrorism required.

#nancy drew #clue crew #nancy drew games #white wolf of icicle creek #ICE #long post #video games #nancy drew meta

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twokinkybeans · 4 years

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Pale Rose - Lion Whisperer AU Chapter 2 [Starker]

Chapter 2: Mister Six AM. Peter groans as he turns around in his bed to slap the alarm. The sun is already shining through the curtains and he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Peter cracks his back and sighs, slowly raising his hand again to grab his phone. He unplugs it from the charger and frowns when he sees a wall of notifications. He puts in his code and opens his email first. He gasps when he reads his daily donation update. Their donation goal of 100k dollars was met. And kicked out of the park by another 560k. The number of separate donations has him lose his breath. How did so many people find this fundraiser? Peter opens the next email. YouTube contacted him to… Congratulate him? Peter’s eyes go wide when he sees the number in the email and he immediately switches apps to check his YouTube account. How many subscribers did he have yesterday? Around 700k?

“Holy shit…” he mumbles. 1.8 million subscribers . Peter jolts to sit upright in his bed, his bare chest uncovered from the thin sheet as he scrolls through the countless new comments he has. He pants, not believing what is happening. He’s pretty sure he can’t even read all of them anymore at this point. On his most recent video, the most liked comment sparks his interest. Who else is here because of Tony Stark?

“Oh, no, he didn’t.” Peter switches apps again and opens his Instagram. He stares at another wall of notifications and opts to just turn them off for people who aren’t mutuals. He’s about to hit the search bar to find Tony Stark’s Instagram in the list of people he follows, but with his notification wall compressed to just mutuals, one shines through.

Tony Stark now follows you. They’re mutuals now. Peter immediately hits his account and stares at the latest post. It’s a candid of Peter with Adi and Nedda. Tony didn’t have a phone with him, though, or a camera. How could he have taken this picture? Peter’s breath is stuck in his throat as he scrolls down to the caption, almost afraid of what he might read. Meet Peter Parker. A bright sun, that rivals the one up in the sky, who also happens to work with cats. Big cats. Wakanda’s Sanctuary, almost 300k square feet of land, is the home of lions and other animals that are native to Africa. There, Peter takes care of the animals that are endangered because of human interference. Animals that can no longer be released into the wild; that were saved from horrible private zoos or who fell victim to poachers. I was blessed with both a terrible sunburn and a generous conversation with Peter, in which he told me about his goals to raise money in order to fight poaching and to raise awareness for climate change. I do encourage all of you to watch at least one of his videos, just to get to know him and his feline friends a little better and to give him that small bit of ad revenue to help him achieve his goals. The world would be a better place if we were all a little bit more like Peter Parker. Peter stares at his screen, his cheeks flushed red at the endless stream of compliments. Peter reads over the last line again and again and again and again. Tony’s post got him this increase in subscribers. Tony’s post got him all of those donations. This was all because of Tony. Peter tears his eyes away from the phone to look at the small card on his bedside table. Matte black. No name. Just a phone number. Tony’s phone number. Maybe doing a collab with the billionaire philanthropist isn’t such a bad idea after all... - Peter assesses himself in the mirror. He’s never been this nervous for a video before. Or, ever at all, really. Tony Stark immediately agreed to being present for the move. Even on the phone, the man had been incredibly charming. Peter ruffles his hair in an attempt to make it look good, while sucking at his teeth. He swears quietly, knowing spending time with the lions will mess his do up again anyways. Peter opts to not think too much about it and covers himself head to toe in sunscreen, as he does every morning. He takes one last glance in the mirror before grabbing his baseball cap and putting on his walking shoes. When Peter opens the front door of his apartment at The Sanctuary he gulps and immediately walks back in to throw the door shut with a loud bang. Tony was already there. Right outside his small, messy room. Peter saw him well enough to have the image of Tony’s outfit stuck in front of his eyes. Camo shorts, brown walking shoes and a green shirt. His brown tinted pilot sunglasses hide his eyes mysteriously and fuck. He looks hot. Peter takes a deep breath in through his nose and closes his eyes, trying to calm his nerves. “Here we go…” he whispers to nobody but himself and when he opens the door again, he yelps, refraining from throwing it shut straight away again. Tony’s right in front of him, hand raised to knock on Peter’s door. The older man cocks his head and smiles. “Morning, Rose,” Tony quips. Peter swallows his breath and chokes when he hears the nickname. “You rushed back in, so I figured I’d come say hi.” “Yeah!” Peter exclaims, laughing sheepishly. “I- eh… I saw you didn’t bring a cap. I was gonna grab you one.” He presses his lips together in a smile. Yes. Good excuse. “A… cap?” “Yeah, a cap.” Peter doesn’t know what to say next and awkwardly stares at Tony’s features. “Should I have brought a cap, then?” Peter jolts when Tony speaks again and he points at his own head. “You get sunburnt at the top of your head quickly out there and I’m guessing you don’t want to put sunscreen on your scalp, so…” Peter swiftly takes off his own hat and pushes it onto Tony’s head. The man is startled by the gesture, but doesn’t protest. Peter stares at the man wide-eyed when he realizes what he just did. “-Ah,” he stutters. “Sorry about that, I should’ve asked, shit-” “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Tony laughs. “I get it, okay? When we first met I was just the random dude you see in the news occasionally and now I completely flipped your life with one post you didn’t want me to make.” Peter stands frozen in place, staring at Tony and pretends that that is exactly the reason why he’s so flustered. “I’m sorry for not asking permission. That’s on me. But- please- don’t feel like you have to do anything for me, okay? You don’t get the title of philanthropist by asking for things in return.” Peter takes a step back and looks at his feet with a frown. Tony clears his throat. “So, what are you gonna use for your head?” Peter looks up so he can stare at Tony again. Tony gestures towards Peter’s hair by nodding. “You just pressed your cap on me. Thank you for letting me borrow it, by the way, but don’t you need the protection as well?” “Right!” Peter exclaims, turning to fall on his knees and crawl under the bed to get a small box. He takes out an old, slightly more worn cap and waves it in front of his own face. “That’ll do.” - “Good morning everybody,” Peter smiles at the GoPro in his hand. “It is currently 7am, we got a busy day ahead of us: we’re going to be switching enclosures for two prides and if that goes smoothly, we’ll hopefully be taking Adi, Nedda and Beru for a walk this afternoon.” Peter looks down at his feet for a second and then back up into the lens with a wide grin. “Now, you must be wondering why I say ‘we’ for the walk, as that’s a thing I do without the volunteers of The Sanctuary, but I actually have a very special guest with me today!” Peter turns around quickly, whipping the camera with him until Tony enters the shot behind him. The man smirks and cocks an eyebrow. “Hello, there.” Peter feels Tony’s hot breath in his neck and has to stay focussed on the camera so as to not to lose his composure. A lot of people are gonna watch this video, simply because Tony Stark is in it, so he has to sell this right. For the lions. At least, that’s what Peter tells himself. “Tony Stark!” “Me!” Tony raises his hands above his head and they both pull a face, resulting in the both of them bursting out with laughter. “So,” Peter says, angling his camera correctly again. “A lot of you peeps have been asking me to make a video from the perspective of someone visiting The Sanctuary as opposed to just me with the GoPro attached to my arm, so I figured I could take this opportunity to see how well you handle a camera, Mr. Stark.” Peter presents the GoPro to Tony who looks at Peter’s fingers for a second. He really doesn’t like to be handed things, but every molecule inside his body is screaming at him to touch the boy, so he does something he rarely allows. With a grin, he takes the camera out of Peter’s hands, lingering a little longer than necessary and turns it until he’s no longer in shot. Instead, Peter’s all the viewer is able to see now. “Hey!” Peter exclaims. “You’re in this vid too!” “Yes, but you are infinitely more interesting to look at.” Peter scratches the back of his head and looks down, trying to hide his blush behind the worn cap. Tony clears his throat. “You doing your work, kid.” Saved it , Tony hopes. “Don’t think anybody goes to the Sanctuary Channel to watch my face.” “Well-” Peter exclaims, standing upright again with his lips pressed on top of each other. “I was also thinking that this video will be the one most people get introduced to my channel with because- well… You’re in it.” Peter nods, holding his chin with his thumb and index finger. “So, yeah, you can ask me anything that comes to mind. Doesn’t matter if I’ve touched on it before in other vids.” “Well, then, Mr. Parker-” “Peter,” the young man interrupts him. “Feel so old when people call me that.” “Sheesh, kid, you’re what, 22? Just a few days ago you were talking to me about retirement- we’re in the 21st century, people live ‘til 85 at least.” Peter laughs and boy, does Tony love making him laugh. “For the record,” Peter chuckles. “I’m 23. So that’s way older than 22.” Tony snorts. “And my workfield isn’t exactly without danger, Mr. Stark.” “Ha!” Tony exclaims. “Way to make me feel old, kid.” “But-” “If I’m not allowed to call you mister than you’re not calling me that either. Tony, kid. Call me Tony.” Peter hides his face behind his hands. “I’m gonna have to spend a whole day editing this vid, don’t I?” “Probably.” - “Alright!” Peter says excitedly as he hops into the truck. He slowly drives over the Sanctuary grounds. “Your timing is actually quite ironic, since we’re moving the Avengers today.” “The- oh?” Tony pretends he wasn’t already aware of this. He’s seen the videos of this particular pride. He knows what’s coming. He puts the camera diagonally and Peter chuckles, trying to steer with one hand while flailing slightly with his other to make Tony hold the camera straight again. “A group of four males. Banner, Thor, Rogers and-” Peter cocks one eyebrow with a smirk. “Stark.” “You named a lion after me?” Tony feigns his surprise with a wide smile and Peter scoffs a laugh. “These boys joined The Sanctuary as cubs about four years ago. Were all part of a circus.” Tony snorts and has to stop himself from losing his composure. “That’s not far off from the real thing,” he jokes. Peter presses his lips on top of each other in a grin. “Trust me, Mr- Tony.” Peter gently hits the brake and they slow down. “It’s quite scary.” “Says the kid who works with lions for a living.” “And hyenas,” Peter adds quickly. “And leopards.” “No black panthers?” “That’s the leopards,” Peter chuckles. “Leopards that are melanistic are commonly known as black panthers. But they’re still leopards, really.” Peter shrugs nonchalantly. Tony sniffs once. He’s getting schooled by a boy less than half his age. But he enjoys it. Somehow. Most of the volunteers were already waiting for Peter at the enclosure. There’s a large truck with a cage on top and a lot more commotion than Tony expected. “If you told me there’d be this many people I’d have prepped a speech,” Tony quips. Peter sighs dramatically and gets out of the truck. Tony follows swiftly and stares at how Peter speaks Xhosa with the other volunteers. It looks funny, almost, seeing a white boy speak the language so easily- fluently. After a minute, Tony grows bored, so he turns the camera to face him and pulls a few funny faces at it. When he realizes this video is going to be seen by a lot of people, he brings the GoPro closer to his face and whispers. “That was for your eyes only, Mr. Parker,” he grins. “Tony?” The older man looks up from the lens when Peter calls out for him and subconsciously, Tony smiles wide at the mention of his name. “You ready for the good part?” Peter shuffles past a few of the volunteers towards the gate and Tony makes his way over to fencing. “Oh, I am very curious, kid.” It’s not long before Peter’s by himself in the enclosure, the gate closed behind him. He casually strolls around, calling out the names of each pride member. Tony can’t help himself and inches closer to the fence. “So, these lions are four years old?” “Nearing five, yeah. They were only a couple months old when we found them. Sure made a wreck of my house when I raised them,” Peter laughs. “Pro-tip-” He raises one hand and only now Tony notices Peter’s holding a small chunk of meat in it. “-if you ever raise lion cubs; two at the same time tops. Not three. Never four. Four will make you so sleep deprived you think you have five cubs on your bed.” The boy chuckles at his own comment. “That was an interesting night…” Tony shakes his head with a wide grin. “I can imagine.” Peter suddenly cocks his head- listening. He turns and spots the first lion slowly making his way towards him. “M- Tony,” Peter says, looking back at the billionaire for a second. “Meet Rogers.” “Already have,” Tony groans, which makes Peter laugh. His focus immediately shifts to the lion and he squats, preparing himself for the imminent cuddles. He tosses the meat from his hand directly into the lion’s mouth. “Rogers is the most fragile of the pride. He was severely malnourished when he came here and though he bounced back, the joints in his back legs are not great. M’gonna have to help him get into the truck.” Tony listens carefully. Peter’s voice is sweet and soft. The white lion huffs friendly and presses himself against Peter, who pushes back against him with his head. When Peter opens his eyes, he nods at another lion approaching in the distance. “That’s Banner. He’s curious, but incredibly shy. Also the smallest of this pride. If none of you were here he’d come say hi, but the volunteers make him nervous, so he’ll probably keep an eye on us from over there.” Peter nods in the general direction of where the lion is and Tony turns the camera to get a shot of Banner. Not much later, a gigantic white lion approaches. He holds his head high and has a big mane. When he gets closer, Rogers immediately pulls back and lays down next to Peter. The big white lion claims Peter’s space and attention and the boy laughs as he pets him. “Thor’s the biggest- OOF!” The lion drops his weight on top of Peter, whose smile doesn’t falter. “Also the heaviest,” he adds. The lion huffs once, almost as if he’s protesting against Peter’s comments. “And the loudest.” Peter scratches Thor under his chin and the lion automatically opens his mouth right next to Peter’s face. His head could fit in there twice. At least. And the teeth are absolutely gigantic. The sight has shivers run down Tony’s spine. This is normal . This is Peter’s life. He knows what he’s doing, the boy does this every day. Tony bites the inside of his cheek. Lions. These animals are lions . Yet they act like house cats around him. Thor gets up again and without any incentive, he jumps into the truck. “He knows what’s up,” Tony laughs as he turns to the truck to take a shot of Thor from close by. He’s startled by a low rumble coming from Thor’s throat. “Is that purring?” he asks nervously. Peter stands up again, patting some dirt from the back of his shorts. “Lions don’t purr, that’s a growl. You better take a step back Mr- Tony.” Tony would make an offhand comment on how even though Peter corrects himself, he still ends up calling him mister, if not for the lion’s growls increasing in volume. He takes a hasty step back and Peter tosses another chunk of meat into the truck for Thor to eat. “The only big cats that purr are cheetahs and cougars.” “Now, that’s a fun fact. Good to know,” Tony says sheepishly, trying to hide his nerves. Tony frowns when Peter gets onto his knees in front of the truck. “What are you doing?” “Helping Rogers.” “You’re gonna let that gigantic beast step on you?” “Better than lifting him,” Peter quips back. He turns his head and whistles. “Rogie- Rogie, boy, come on!” Peter’s voice is high as he coos at the lion. Tony presses his lips on top of each other to stifle a laugh. Rogie, boy. He should remember that one for the real Steve. Rogers responds like a trained dog, but skips Peter completely by putting his front legs against the truck. He hops, but can’t actually get in. “Buddy, your balls are in my face, could you please get up?” Peter pats Rogers’ thigh before quickly placing his hand down again to brace himself. With great difficulty, the lion places one foot on Peter’s shoulder, not pressing his full weight down on the boy. It was enough of a step to help him get in, though. Peter stands up straight again with a triumphant look on his face. He tosses another chunk of meat into the truck and Steve takes it gladly. Thor had already laid down again, not too bothered anymore. Peter cocks his head at Banner, who’s still a bit away, but has decided to come a little closer when he noticed Thor and Steve entering the truck. Peter smiles kindly and squats, presenting a chunk of meat to the shy lion. Tony is absolutely enthralled by Peter’s control. The boy seems relaxed but if you look closely you can see how in tune he is with everything. How he keeps an eye on his surroundings. Banner creeps closer and when he’s next to Peter, it’s obvious how small he actually is. His mane is also way shorter than that of the other two. Tony stares wide-eyed at how Peter handfeeds Bruce the piece of meat. Handfeeds . “Not scared you’re gonna lose a hand?” “Nah,” Peter replies quietly. “Occupational hazard. And I trust my lions more than I trust humans, to be fair.” “Ouch,” Tony says to make light of the situation, trying to hide how that comment actually kind of stung. Peter chuckles, combing Banner’s short mane with his fingers. “We met three days ago, m- Tony.” “Does it really take you that much effort not to call me mister?” Tony laughs, hoping to steer the conversation in another direction. “I was raised with manners.” He grins at Tony and tosses the next piece of meat into the truck. Banner doesn’t hesitate anymore and jumps into the truck as well. “It physically hurts me not to call you mister.” “Sure, kid.” Tony zooms in on Peter’s face. “Well then, if I get to call you Parker you have permission to call me Mr. Stark.” “Deal!” Peter exclaims immediately. The boy’s smile is so bright Tony is pretty sure he’d be blinded by it if he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. After another minute, the lions in the truck are getting a little restless. Peter sighs audibly and turns to face the enclosure. “You can guess who’s fashionably late.” Peter glances at Tony behind him. “As per usual.” “Time management is not my strong suit! And I was early this morning,” Tony laughs. Peter places his hands on his hips, guiding Tony’s eyes to look at the boy’s pert butt. He quickly looks back up at the back of Peter’s head. Now’s not the time for filthy thoughts… Maybe later. “Staaark!” Peter belts. “Here, boy!” Peter makes a couple of those funny noises he made when Tony first met him. “Why do you do all that? Those… Uwus?” “Wha- the noises?” Peter snorts. “Can’t believe Tony Stark just said uwu.” “Hey-” the older man protests. “You said it first! And I am hip with the youngsters.” “You know what? I suddenly don’t feel so old anymore,” Peter says with a grin. “You, Parker, are a meanie.” Tony points accusingly and Peter laughs. “Ouchies, that huwt my feewings.” “Just explain the noise, please-” Tony lets out an overdramatic exasperated sigh, indicating to Peter that he’s not actually annoyed. Entertained, would be the right word. Peter nods with a smile and turns back to face the enclosure so he can make the sound once more. “The huffing is actually me mimicking the sound of a mama-lion,” Peter laughs. “It’s comforting to them.” “See, you could’ve just said that straight away.” Peter shrugs nonchalantly, but before he can reply with another quick-witted comment, they all spot the dark mane emerging from the bushes. Stark really does take his time, slowly placing each paw in front of the other, as if he’s on a catwalk. Tony chuckles at his own thought. Catwalk . Stark stares at Peter as he crosses the distance between them and Peter preps himself by sitting down already. “Stark’s the most affectionate of the four,” Peter says as the lion presses into him. The force with which Stark rubs his face against Peter’s has the boy laugh and push back. “Next to Adi and Nedda, he probably likes me the most out of all the lions here.” He pats Stark’s back. “He’s also the most handsome of all the male lions in The Sanctuary. Hands down.” “Isn’t that subjective?” Tony asks quickly, pretending the indirect praise isn’t making him tingle. Peter shrugs before he buries his face in the dark mane for a second. “For lion standards, this is a pretty boy. Stark’s also the most sexually engaged.” Tony freezes up at how casually Peter talks about this. He wonders if Peter is actually indirectly talking about him. Not about the lion he’s petting. “That is, if we would breed here.” “You don’t?” “I don’t breed captive lions. The ones that we have in The Sanctuary are saved from situations that make them unable to be released back into the wild again. We spay every female to prevent them from reproducing.” “Why not the males?” “Spaying both is a lot of hassle for something that’s not necessary. If we were to neuter the males they would still be affected by the females’ cycles. That’s why we spay the females, who are unaffected by the males." “Ah, that makes sense.” Peter studies the near-black mane on Stark. “Should probably take these boys out for a walk tomorrow. Lower their testosterone a bit.” Peter looks up at Tony and gestures at Stark’s head of hair. “There were a couple of wild lionesses right outside The Sanctuary about a week ago. Stark must’ve picked up on them and their cycle ‘cause he’s a little sexually frustrated right now. As is evident by the dark colour of his mane.” Tony licks his lips. This isn’t happening. This isn’t actually happening. He shifts where he stands, hoping his shorts hide his own growing sexual frustration. Peter smiles wide and gets Stark’s attention by presenting a chunk of meat in front of the lion’s face. He tosses it into the truck and before the others in there can get to it, Stark has jumped in. Peter carefully closes the cage on top of the truck and nods at Tony, who still hasn’t said anything in an attempt to hide how flustered he is right now. “Let’s go!”

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More: Next Chapter (yet to be posted) Masterpost (yet to be made)

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Taglist: @professional-benaddict @tonystarkweneedyou

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mocacheezy · 4 years

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(forgot to actualy post this when I first wrote it, anyways, rechecked the info with the help of wiki, so have my thoughts on TFA Megatron (S1))

So I finished the first season of Transformers Animated, and let me just… Let me just EXPRESS my feelings for TFA S1 Megatron and the shit that happens to him:

So Megatron has the Allspark in his sight after so many many years of searching. It’s on a tiny Autobot repair ship, shouldn’t be a problem to get it right? Except while fighting the Autobots a bomb planted on him (by Starscream, he should see this coming) detonates. He survives that with damage to his right arm, gets inside the ship and is facing off against 5 autobots (clearly repair crew, and not in sync) in no gravity. One of them manages to cut his arm off, he is down by an arm, big deal, ‘tis but a scratch, he’s fine.

… No like seriously, this doesn’t stop him. He ALMOST GETS THE ALLSPARK!

Except that the leader of this troublesome repair crew kicks him off ship, causing him to crash on Earth. The only thing intact is his head (that Sumdac finds). Is he dead? Is he in a coma? Whatever it is, Sumdac tinkers with what he found.

50 years later, Megatron wakes up, can’t move, can’t do anything really because he is literaly a HEAD (ᵃˡˢᵒ ʷʰⁱˡᵉ ⁿᵒᵗ ʳᵉˡᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵃⁿᵗ ᶠᵘˡˡʸ,ⁱ ˡᵒᵛᵉᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵉᵖⁱˢᵒᵈᵉ ʷⁱᵗʰ ᵇᵘˡᵏʰᵉᵃᵈ “ˡᵒˢⁱⁿᵍ” ʰⁱˢ ᵇᵒᵈʸ…ᵖᵘᵗˢ ᵗʰⁱⁿᵍˢ ⁱⁿᵗᵒ ᵖᵉʳˢᵖᵉᶜᵗⁱᵛᵉ), sees that Starscream was the one who tried to kill him and almost suceeded (or did he suceed? Again, not 100% clear on the function of that Key… It heals, it upgrades, it gives life and sentience… Did it REVIVE Megatron or did it just wake him up?)

And what does he do?

I MEAN LOOK AT THIS?!

He is LITERALY ONLY A HEAD, WITH SO MANY OF PARTS EXPOSED OR WIRES HOOKED UP TO SUMDACS MACHINES.

MACHINES THAT HE CAN’T USE, BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO PRIMITIVE.

AND DESPITE ALL THAT!

THIS GLORIOUS FUCKER!

STARTS PLANNING RIGHT AWAY! HE KNOWS THE SITUATION IS BAD AND HE BIDES HIS TIME!

He eventualy risks what little… Advantage? Is being locked away in the dark an advantage? When there’s autobots around being hailed as heroes, yea I think it might be though Megatron wouldn’t admit it… I think? Not outloud that’s for sure

Anyways, he risks it with exposing himself to Sumdac.

And then proceeds to deceive Sumdac! Like, Sumdac is smart. I actualy did need to take a step back and go “damn this poor man really is way over his head”, because on the first glance it seems really dumb to fall for a lie like that.

(I actualy would love to talk about the Professor in the future, especialy by just looking at him as a character on his own… BUT THIS IS MEGS SPOTLIGHT SO *yeets away for another time*)

AND MEGATRON IS NOT 100% GOOD AT THIS “I am an Autobot” THING. He lashes out! He is impatient, he is angry to the point of wrecking the lab with the energy surges and there are moments when Sumdac doubts that he himself can fix this mess he made, especialy with how angry this “Autobot” is.

But SOMEHOW, this glorious FUCK manages to turn most of the damage those outbursts cause into very convincing explanations for his reactions, WHILE also pretending to be useful and “helping”.

He can see almost everything from where he is, once he masters the connections with the cameras and etc. in the tower and things across the city. He deflects or “explains” why his plans included flamethrowers for amusement bots, and, let me say this again!

HE IS ONLY A HEAD AT THIS POINT IN THE SERIES!

A HEAD!

He is pretty limited with what he can do HIMSELF! Sumdac is not an ally, he is more of an enemy that isn’t aware of the power he holds over Megatron.

And he is doing everything FAR too slow.

That everything being mainly, getting Megs a body.

AND WHAT’S EVEN BETTER?!

There are so many robots around, all of them reverse enginered from Megatron himself, and none of them are of use to him. And when he DOES manage to get them to listen, something always interferes (Dinobots were a semi sucess, Soundwave rebelled, but did end up wearing a con badge (and boy was it eerie to hear Soundwave say ‘machines supperior to humans’ and how they will be all destroyed… Great episode that one) ).

So the robots of this planet are useless to him. He has to try and find a way to manipulate human criminals to do his bidding, getting him the materials Sumdac apparently can’t get without raising suspicion. Not that it’s hard, but they are useless as well, especialy with the Autobots meddling, so that also fails.

And there is always that Key. That he can’t just ask for, but can’t get no matter how he tries. And by god, does he try.

His only real, longe term-ish line of self defense at the moment is Sumdac and his guilt over using a friend of the Heroic Autobots…

AND THEN!

HIS DECEPTICONS ARRIVE!

And he isn’t even sure if he can trust them, given that his Second In Command blew him to pieces. So he has to gamble and hope for the best with Lugnut.

Which is clearly tiring because, as much of devout follower as Lugnut is (the fanfics are all spot on, writers of TFA Fandom amazing job portraying this mass of devotion), it gets annoying real fast when you are trying to get things done and really need to get a body asap, and the only one you can count on is determined to sing praises to you everytime you give an order.

Not even THAT seems to bring him any closer to his goal. And then Sumdac finds what remained of his body.

Pretty good for 50 years of weather exposure, eh?

BUT it seems he will have to keep waiting, because the blizzard that is raging outside causes a blackout, so the Tower is using the backup generator, so Sumdac declairs a delay in repairs.

Megatron alternates between bluster and sweet-talk to try to get his way, but it’s no use. Megatron attempts to call Lugnut again for assistance.

(Source: tfwiki)

From the looks of it, he came back online at the begining/end of fall, so he’s been,

pretending to be an Autobot (one who is a friend of bots he knows very little about, the ones who caused him to become like this in the first place)

pretending to be useful and helpful to Sumdac in exchange for attempted repairs (all of which have failed)

keeping his temper in check (good thing he can save the slip ups with quick thinking…)

for about… 3 or 4 months?

And no way to leave the lab?

With Sumdac as his only company?

Probably also in discomfort given THAT HE IS HOOKED UP LIKE THAT?!

With his ghoulish hand in sight that was/is CLEARLY being used as a chair for an organic?

… Yea. Imagine doing all that, being this close to finaly making progress, and instead being told “Weather bad, no can’t do, wait a while longer”.

So if Sumdac fears enough for the safety of his planet, he’ll surely work faster right? That seems to work somewhat…

Then comes Starscream.

The absolutely last Decepticon Megatron needs right now. So Megatron has to pretend he doesn’t know Starscream tried to kill him. With Starscream CLEARLY planning to kill him for good this time.

He is a head, what can he do?

We can soon see Megatron can take great joy in punishing that fragger, with limited resources he has, while Sumdac finaly works on his body.

The only fun perk of being a “friend of the Autobots” so far.

And then Blitzwing and Lugnut arrive. I swear, I was sure with all the talk Lugnut was doing, there was no way Megatron will actualy get that body.

Good thing they got the Key and that Sumdac didn’t think/wasn’t able to put in any override codes or sound the alarms.

What followed was a gorgeous villain reanimation/reconstruction scene and I loved every second of it. I mean, just look at this.

So, Megatron finaly has a fresh new body.

(gorgeous fucker)

He fights the Autobots, (if I start talking about the details, this post will never end), defeats them and does a magnificent job of offlining his SIC.

(Like, I love TFA Starscream. I really do. This purple bastard is a joy to watch, but given what he did, seeing him get offlined in such a dramatic, yet quick and efficient way(and knowing he comes back anyway)… Let’s just say, I was very pleased.)

The “Fuck you Starscream, Die 1.0” however, lets the Autobots escape and the chase begins.

Here I would like to thank the animators for giving both Bots and Cons gorgeous Magical girl-esque transformation scenes, because they are all beautiful BUT MEGATRON, HOLY HELL, I AM LOVING THAT HELICOPTER!

And they are back on the Ark, fighting in much the same way they were the first time,

But Megatron has no apparent weaknesses, except perhaps being cluttered with little shards of Optimus Prime after he finishes beating on the Autobot. Their one-sided fight carries them into the hold of the ship, where Megatron succeeds in acquiring the AllSpark…

Megatron manages to GET THE ALLSPARK!

SO MANY YEARS OF FIGHTING AND SEARCHING, AND HE HAS IT!

And he puts it in his spark chamber. Or in front of it.

…

Megatron. You just put an anchient artifact in your chest.

I… Listen, this is a step above Megan and his SpaceCocaineStraightToSpark Nonesense, BUT ALRIGHT!

I GUESS IT IS “SAFER” THAN HOLDING IT IN YOUR HANDS WHILE FIGHTING AND GLOATING.

Before he can celebrate, he is temporarily downed by Isaac, who knows enough about Megatron’s circuitry to disable his equilibrium sensors—

(”well fuck you too Sumdac”, I mutter to myself)

but although he drops the AllSpark Key in his stumble, the tyrant isn’t down for long. Megatron is about to finish Prime, when Sari hurls Prime the Key…

the kid Megatron could easily crush when she was standing infront of the Allspark (BUT HE DIDN’T!) throws the key to Optimus.

…

Who proceeds to jam it into the Allspark.

…

In your chest Megatron.

…

Where your own spark is, Megatron.

For the Lord of Decepticons and quite an old fellow, who I’ve just sung praise to, that was so dumb…

A destabilized Megatron flees the ship before the AllSpark explodes inside his chest, dispersing its energy throughout the atmosphere.

HE BLOWS UP! AGAIN!

This time his body is mostly in one piece, and he has Sumdac as a hostage but…

This Megatron does not have luck on his side.

He really does not.

The only reason he is still functioning is, that he is too stubborn to give up and die.

The whole “TooStubbornToDie” does seem to be a Megatron trademark, and makes me love his character even more.

TFA Megs. S1 and I already love him so much.

To finish up this rant of mine…

Someone get him a damn blanket and force him TO TAKE A DAMN BREAK! REST YOU STUBBORN FOOL!

#Moca screeches #Moca watches #transformers animated #tfa megatron #seriously dude please take 5 minutes off #Long post #For some reason the read more is not cooperating

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gerbiloftriumph · 4 years

Photo

The Three Adventurers: To Comfort a King

(also on ao3)

Based on The Three Adventurers crossover webcomic by @captmickey: More specifically, based on this picture.

When Link and Guybrush come to Daventry to throw Graham a surprise birthday party, they themselves are surprised by events that occurred when they were separated. But they won't be kept apart no matter what. Fluffy, friendly, sickfic, comfort fic with mild hijinks ensue.

1/1, 6k

~*~*~

Something felt wrong.

The weather wasn’t helping: Daventry’s castle town was saturated. Rain skimmed off rooftops and splashed in puddles beneath drains. Dark clouds weighed down the sky, making it gloomy even in the middle of the afternoon. It would make sense for everyone to be inside, staying dry and safe and happy. But something felt wrong. Tense.

Some deep knight’s instinct made Link reach for his sword hilt. This didn’t feel like people were waiting out a monsoon. This felt lonely, completely still and silent but for the rain dashing against window panes. No candlelight in the windows, no murmured conversation behind doors. The baker’s shop especially drew his attention. Some sort of accident had befallen it since Link’s last visit several months ago: there was a big wooden board nailed across the front windows, like they had been broken. The glass must have already been swept up, and very well at that since he couldn’t see any glittering fragments nestled in the cracks between the cobblestones.

Unless it had been broken into and the glass was all inside.

Don’t jump to conclusions, he scolded himself. Still. He warily stepped around the tree growing in the courtyard, searching the shadows, trying to pin down what was sparking the unease in his chest.

“Aaaah,” Guybrush yelled. Link instantly sprang forward, sword half drawn, before realizing it was a cry of disappointment and not a warning of attack. “Aaah, those alchemists aren’t here!” Guybrush walked out of the empty shop, leaning his elbows on the railing in front of the door. “I wanted to talk to that old guy. He’s got the only rubber chicken supply for miles.”

“No one’s here,” Link said, knocking gingerly on Amaya’s door, not expecting an answer: the forge was clearly cold. No smoke rose from the blacksmith’s chimney. “Where do you suppose they are?”

“Probably the castle. I bet they’re afraid of flooding. This rain is no joke; that river we passed was looking pretty sketchy. Summer in Daventry, eh?”

"Monsoon season is only in July, Graham said. And only for a week or two at that, normally.”

“July in Daventry, eh?” Guybrush swung himself down the shop stairs, boots sloshing up a wave. “Shall we go on to the castle, give him the shock of his week?” He grinned.

No one in Daventry was expecting the pair of adventurers. They’d been coming to throw Graham a surprise birthday party. He was turning twenty-two, and that seemed like an important marker. Double identical digits and all. But they’d missed his birthday by several days at this point. They had been inescapably delayed.

By a side quest involving a cat stuck up a tree.

Link had insisted they dig up bait, use it to catch fish, trade the fish to a traveler for an empty bottle, find a farmer with a cow to fill the bottle with milk (the farmer first requested they clear his field of wolves, a dangerous task that took some more scheming), and then use the milk to tempt the cat down. The cat hadn’t been appreciative. It had nearly taken Link’s finger off with a swipe of its claws. Once they’d left, both with a healthy amount of scratches and bites and a half empty bottle of milk, Guybrush had asked why they hadn’t just tempted the cat down with the fish in the first place.

Anyway, the delay had taken a few days. Travelers with empty bottles were scarce on the road, apparently. So, now they were late.

It would definitely be a surprise, then.

Link patted his pouch to make sure their chosen birthday present was safe. He hoped Graham would like it. It was possibly sentimental gooey nonsense, but it was their sentimental gooey nonsense. “You’re right. I’m sure they’re at the castle. Let’s go.” He squeezed the end of his hat to clear some rainwater, but it didn’t help.

~*~*~

The castle gates were shut tight, the drawbridge high. The rain fell endlessly, rivulets pouring down the battlements and rushing into the moat. The water was swollen, pressing against the banks. It looked like it was going to spill onto the road if this kept up for too much longer. The moat monster eyed them with curiosity, nosing just above the waterline. Link wondered if it would sweep out on the road with the overflow, too, and what merry hell it could raise if it got into the main river.

“Don’t suppose there’s a doorbell on this side of the moat,” Guybrush said, holding his hand over his eyes to shield them.

“Generally, castles don’t have those.”

“Neither do ships, to be fair. We’ve got a voice activated alert system on my ship, though.”

“Do you really?” Link was impressed—it sounded high tech.

“Yeah. Bet Graham does, too. It works like this.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and roared so loudly that Link jumped half an inch off the ground, “OI, ANYONE HOME?”

“Oh. Is that all?”

“All you need.” He drew in a huge gulp of air and yelled again, “WE’RE HERE...” he paused and glanced at Link, whispering hastily, “what’s the polite lingo for a king, again?”

“Seeking an audience,” Link whispered back. That usually was what people said when they wanted to talk to Zelda.

“HERE TO SEEK AN AUDIENCE. WITH THE KING. WHO IS GRAHAM. CAN GRAHAM COME OUT TO PLAY?”

They waited. For a long time, there didn’t seem to be any movement from across the moat, though the monster playfully flicked its tail beneath the water and sent a little wave skimming over the edge to douse their boots. Finally, a shaken sounding voice called back, “Who goes there?”

“I go where I like,” Guybrush yelled.

“No, I mean. Uh. Who are you, exactly?” The voice was flustered.

“Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate.™”

“And Link of Hyrule.”

“Not a pirate,” Guybrush added helpfully.

“Oh, it’s you two. Right. You were here for the coronation. Back again already? Um. Now...now isn’t a good time.”

“’Course not. It’s raining. But if you let us in, it would be a better time.”

“How did you even find out?” the guard asked distractedly. “They’ve only been back two days. We haven’t even told anyone yet.”

Link glanced at Guybrush, that little nervous thrill at the back of his neck rousing, a twitch in his fingers begging him to go for his sword. Some sense that something was wrong. “Told anyone what?” he asked.

“And Bramble’s pregnant, and this has all been very hard on her, and she doesn’t want to go back to the bakery right now, and who could possibly blame her after what happened to everyone?”

“Look, it’s raining very hard—”

“And the Hobblepots are absolutely destroying the kitchens. Number One is going to have a fit when he realizes, even if Muriel is helping King Graham.”

“Can we just—”

“And Muriel probably wouldn’t even allow you to see him, you know. He’s probably too drugged to even talk.”

“I’m sorry, repeat that?”

The guard hesitated. “Um.” They could see his helmet bobbing over the crenellations as he paced. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell anyone.”

“We’re not just anyone,” Link pointed out.

“Um. I mean.”

“Look, anyone could hear us from out here, right?” Guybrush said.

“Sure.”

“And you don’t want anyone to know whatever happened, right?” Guybrush continued, pacing a little to match the guard’s movements.

“That’s what Number One says, at least for now.”

“But if you let us in, then we’ll be inside, right? And then when you tell us, anyone won’t also hear. Because we’ll be inside, and anyone won’t be able to hear us in there.”

“I suppose?”

“And we’re not anyone. We’re Graham’s friends. We’re supposed to know. Whatever it is.”

“Um. I think that makes sense.” The guard seemed all the more uncertain. Whatever had happened must have been very serious to make him this befuddled. Or maybe he was always like this and Graham should hire better security. “I think that’s right.”

“Yes, it is. Now, let us in.”

“Of course, Mr. Threepwood, right away.”

While they waited for the guard to scurry around to the drawbridge crank, Guybrush muttered, “Also, I’m really sick of being wet.”

“You’re always on the ocean.”

“Not in it, though. Come on, he’s dropped the bridge. Hurry up.”

They scurried across, bubbles from the moat monster pursuing them. Unease nagged at Link, but he dared not speak until they had more of an idea about what was happening. The guard met them in the courtyard. He looked even more rattled up close. His armor wasn’t just damp with rain, but properly disheveled. It even looked like pieces were on backward. He smelled like wet pancakes, syrupy and pathetic.

“I mean, you’re his friends,” the guard babbled, wringing his hands. “It might help if he can see you.”

“Might help?” The apprehension was growing and growing. “Inside, now. And tell us what’s happening.”

“Hang on, I need to close the gate. The goblins might come again. He says it’s safe, at least I think he did, it’s all so jumbled, but…no one wants to leave it to chance, you know?”

“I don’t know.” Link was starting to get angry. “Can you just please tell us already?”

“Graham was kidnapped. With the villagers. A week and a half ago. By goblins. He just got back with everyone not two nights past. He’s really sick—he fainted almost as soon as he got to the castle, and he keeps screaming—nightmares, I guess—so Muriel drugged him to make him sleep. I really need to close the gate. Wait here.” And he vanished into the rain, leaving the two adventurers standing stunned and still and silent.

~*~*~

People had been tracking water into the castle, probably from running around in a panic. The plush carpet just beyond the doors was soggy under their feet. They wandered forward in a daze, damp carpet squishing behind them for a few paces until it dried out.

“I can’t believe it,” Link said, voice hoarse. “We’ve got to see him. Can you imagine? Goblins. I can’t imagine getting taken by bokoblins.”

“That’s because they’re about as smart as rocks,” Guybrush said. “I don’t know the goblins around here. They must be clever. Or Graham was daydreaming again. Easy to drop a sack over his head if he’s thinking about candy.”

Link elbowed him. “Be nice. This is serious.”

“I know,” he said. There was a glint in his eye, and his shoulders and jaw were tense. He had a sharpness to him, like a cutlass half drawn and ready to slice if someone looked at him wrong. “Come on.”

The hall was quiet. Candles flickered against the monsoon gray light, barely holding the darkness away despite it technically being the afternoon. A royal guard hurried past, clutching a tray. A teapot and cup were precariously balanced on top, and he was fiercely muttering under his breath about the state of the kitchen. He glanced at the visitors dripping rainwater on this once-dry section of carpet and frowned. “Dare I ask what you’re doing here?”

“We seek an audience with the king.”

He laughed bitterly and started reciting: “The king has been a little tied up lately. I’m afraid he’s indisposed to see anyone—the recent unexpected demands on his attention have been slightly overwhelming, so we’re feverishly requesting a safe delay in all visitations. Perhaps you can leave your contact information at the gate and we shall attend to you whenever we’re available again.”

“Yeah? The audience with the goblins was a bit rough?” Guybrush said.

The guard froze, teapot rattling on the tray. “Who told you.”

“Well. For starters, your speech wasn’t that subtle. Also the guard on the gate told us.”

“I’m going to kick Number Two out of the castle.”

Link stepped forward. “Sir, if I may. You might remember me. I’m Link, of Hyrule. The royal family there has had all sorts of trouble in its history, so I have some experience in matters like this. Also, I know Graham—uh, sorry—King Graham well. We used to travel together. He’ll want to see us as soon as he knows we’re here.”

“Did Number Two tell you how sick he is?” the guard asked suspiciously. “He might not even be awake to see you right now. You should probably just go away.”

Guybrush leaned forward, plucked the lid off the teapot, and inhaled deeply. “Steeping chamomile? And based on the temperature, it’ll be just perfect to drink by the time you get upstairs with it. He’s awake, or you’re hoping he will be. May as well let us come find out.” He glanced airily around the hall. “I seem to recall enough of the layout of this place from when we were here for the coronation. It wouldn’t be hard to find the way on our own.”

“I could probably have you escorted to the dungeon,” No1 said uneasily, “for…uh….”

“For obstructing tea, yes. But that would put a delay in your delivery. It’s getting colder as we stand here, you know. I’m sure if he’s sick he’ll want it hot and good. And the sooner he gets it, the happier he’ll be. If I know royalty, you want to keep them happy. It would be easier to go up together, wouldn’t you say?” That sharpness in his grin was starting to look like a shark’s—someone he loved was being threatened, and he wasn't going to stand back and let it happen, not if he had any say. He practically vibrated with urgency. “Also, there’s too much lavender in there.”

“Now, see here, you…” the guard hesitated again, sensing that sharp desperation, looked at his tray, looked at them, thought a moment, then said, “If you happen to follow me, I’m not going to stop you.” He started walking, muttering, “And lavender’s our main export anyway, I can’t help the amount they put in.”

~*~*~

There was another guard standing watch over the bedroom door. It looked like no one was taking chances. Bit late for all the caution, Link thought, but they’re doing their best.

As it turned out, though, the guard on the door wasn’t even going to be their last opposition.

No1 pushed past, bumping the royal bedchamber door open. Through it, the adventurers could just make out a shape huddled in the bed, and then they heard the most horrible, aching, sharp cough from Graham—it was the sort of ripping cough that made them flinch, that you could feel in your own throat. They started forward, anxious, but an arm shot across their path, blocking them. The door swung shut behind the guard, Graham’s agonized cough muffled.

“Oh! Lady Alchemist!” Guybrush swept an exaggerated bow. “Been a while. Love to chat. Bit busy right now. Got things to do, people to see. Could you just—”

She glared. “You can’t go in there.”

“You can’t stop us.” The joking edge vanished from Guybrush’s voice again.

“Do you wanna get sick? This is inappropriate anyway, seeing a king like this.”

“We demand to see him,” Link said.

“Yeah? And why should I let you do that?” It was amazing how a little old woman could threaten when she wanted. She bustled her way forward, puffing herself up. She was almost of a height with Link when she stood up on her toes.

From behind her another voice said: “Muriel. It’s okay. They’re his friends, remember?”

“Chester, you have the worst memory of all time, but you remember these two?”

“I remember anyone who tries to buy my whole rubber chicken supply out in one go with a lousy brass coin that doesn’t even have any value in Daventry.” Chester stuck out his hand for Guybrush to shake. “Nice to see you again, even in these circumstances. No, I still don’t have any inflatable cutlasses for sale.”

A friendly response at last. A memory stirred: kidnapped with the villagers. “We heard a little bit of what happened. Are you okay? Were you part of it?” Link asked.

“That we were, that we were. Nasty little things, those goblins. If it hadn’t been for him,” Chester thumbed at the closed door, and they could just make out another hacking cough, “we would have been in a lot more trouble. I’m not sure anyone would have come back.” He glanced down the hall, and whispered, “I think there was something intentional going on. Someone had it in for him.”

“Do you think they’ll try again?” Link wasn’t a stranger to assassination attempts. Keeping Zelda safe was a full-time prospect sometimes. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the stress of having another royal friend at risk.

“Not in the same way,” Chester said. “These guards,” he gestured at the one standing nearby, “are all puffed up since they got caught flatfoot, but they’ll smooth out. It won’t happen twice like it did, I can promise that. If I know who did it, and I think I do, repetition isn’t really his style, not if he can go bigger and better. Creativity’s the word. Besides, I think Graham’s got some ideas about opening up diplomacy talks with the goblins to prevent anything like this happening again. But I think there’s someone you’d rather hear all this from instead of me.”

“No,” Muriel said sharply. “I don’t care that they’re friends. That’s not a good idea for him, or them, and you know it.” She looked to the guard, like she was going to ask for help with chasing these two off. “Clear off. Maybe later you can see him. Right now is not appropriate, and I will have you chased out of this castle if I must.”

Guybrush opened his mouth to start arguing again, but Link gently touched his shoulder. She had precedence over them in this situation. That guard would listen to her, and chase them out, and then they would be much further from their goal.

“You’re right,” Link told Muriel. “We shouldn’t go through that door.”

“Just so,” she said, eyeing him a bit suspiciously, more than surprised that he was giving in. “So, shoo.”

“Oh, Muriel,” Chester sighed. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

“It would hurt them after I was through with them,” she snapped. “Go on, shoo.”

Link dragged Guybrush down the hall by the hand, steering him into one of the bedrooms down the corridor once Muriel had turned her back.

“Come on, I could have turned on the charm and gotten us in there,” Guybrush complained. “Now we probably won’t get to see him for days and I’m not willing to wait that long.”

“Look, I promised we wouldn’t go through the door,” Link said. He reached into his bag and withdrew his grappling hook. “Didn’t say anything about a window.”

“Aaahhh.”

~*~*~

On reflection, Link realized, this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe they should have tried to persuade Muriel after all. Or maybe if they’d started screaming, Graham would have heard them and ordered them in (unless the tea had been drugged to make him sleep, or he didn’t actually want them to see him like this after all). Now, Link and Guybrush were dangling off the side of the castle, clinging to the grappling hook rope, rain making everything slippery and hard to navigate.

“Are you sure this is the right window?”

“Got to be,” Link said. He used his elbow to swipe some of the rainwater out of his eyes. “I did the calculations. It’s gotta be it. This time.” (They’d already tried two other windows, both of which had led to empty bedrooms. One of them might have been where the Hobblepots were staying, based on the array of random junk everywhere that seemed to belong to Chester, but luckily the two alchemists were out doing something else. Probably still standing guard in front of Graham’s door. Presumably the Feys and Miss Blackstone were staying elsewhere in the castle, because no one screamed when the adventurers poked their noses over the windowsills and swatted them down.)

They could make out the warm flickering glow of a lit fireplace in the window above them, which at least matched what they had glimpsed through the door of Graham’s room. They just had to get there without sliding down the rope and falling fifty feet to the treetops. Guybrush was dangling near the bottom of the rope, finding it difficult to get purchase on the slick castle walls with his boots. “They’re going to think we’re invaders and shoot us down,” he muttered. “They’re going to think we’re goblins back to finish the job we started.”

“Be quiet and climb,” Link said, glancing nervously side to side in case there were a few royal guards taking aim at them from the balconies or parapets. No one was.

Except…Royal Guard Number One was looking down at them.

He had opened the window and was leaning against the sill, staring down. His chin was propped on his hands, but with his helmet on, there was no way to tell if he was enjoying this or furious.

Link slid down the rope a few feet in his frozen panic, knocking into Guybrush, who yelped and locked the rope tighter around his leg so they wouldn’t fall, and the two of them grinned guiltily up at the royal guard.

He sighed heavily (they could hear it over the rain, he was so loud and flustered), gripped the rope, and started to heave them up.

~*~*~

The room beyond was cozy, the large array of candles keeping the gloom (and perhaps those nightmares the guard had spoken of) at bay. Graham, eyes closed, was propped up against a pile of pillows in bed, slipping slowly at the delivered cup of tea and wincing at every swallow. No1 hoisted the two embarrassed adventurers over the windowsill and they fell to the ground, sloppy and squishy with rainwater. Graham looked up when he heard them, and his face—drawn, pale—lit up with a huge smile. He put the teacup down on the bedside table amongst a dizzying array of cups and pots and vials and bandages and tissues and ingredients brought by the Hobblepots.

“Number One said you were here,” he said, nodding toward the royal guard. His voice was raspy. “I kind of expected you to come in the door instead of the window, though.”

No1 took off his helmet and shook the rainwater off it, fluffing the uniform’s feather back up and putting it in front of the fireplace to dry. He bristled his moustache, but it looked more like he was hiding a smile instead of annoyance. He helped the two adventurers to their feet, insisted they wait for a second so they wouldn’t drip water everywhere, pulled some towels from a pile neatly folded by a large copper tub shoved in the corner, wrapped them up, and then let them go. Immediately, they rushed to their friend’s side. Link grabbed Graham’s hand out of some desperate instinct, squeezing hard. Graham squeezed back as hard as he could—which wasn’t particularly hard.

“I’m so sorry we weren’t here,” Link said. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? What happened? We don’t have the details. Oh, Graham....”

He looked absolutely awful. His bedhair, usually pretty hilarious anyway, was a tangled mess from tossing and turning in his sleep. His eyes were ringed with dark exhaustion, making it look like he’d been punched, but they were bright with a lingering fever, too. Link could feel the weakness in his friend’s trembling fingers. Graham was swimming in some ridiculously oversized nightshirt that more or less swallowed him up. It gaped here and there on his thin frame, and they could see the edges of bruises beneath it on his arms: bruises that, even partially glimpsed, looked uncomfortably like fingerprints.

“A kidnapping,” Guybrush said, shaking his head. He grinned mischievously, “Or was it a kingnapping?”

Link’s ears flattened, and the sheer look he shot Guybrush could have knocked a moblin over. “You’re going to end up right next to him nursing a black eye instead of nursing the flu,” he hissed. But Graham was laughing, and Link subsided, though he was still too annoyed to perk his ears up again. He was wary of pushing it if Graham wasn’t ready to talk yet, but he was desperate to know, to help in any way he could. “Are you...is it...are you up to telling us what happened?”

“No, I don’t have the energy to get up. But I can be down for telling it.”

Link dropped his head into his hands and moaned, “I can’t stand being around you two.”

“I can’t stand either, so it’s okay,” Graham said, patting Link gently on the shoulder.

“Aaaargh!”

“You can’t be mad at him,” Guybrush said. “He outranks you now—his hat’s shinier than yours.”

“Yes, my crowning achievement,” Graham agreed. “But that doesn’t make you beanie-th me.”

“Ahh, you’re fedorable when you’re being humble,” Guybrush said, “but you don’t need to downplay your escapades.”

“I’m not that far ahead, really,” Graham said.

“You’re going to make me sick,” Link sighed.

“If you hang around me much longer, you will be,” Graham said, and the laughter faded from his scratchy voice. “I heard Muriel. I’m glad you’re here, absolutely, but...she’s right, you know. You shouldn’t be in here. I’m not safe to be around, I think. I might give you this.” He gestured vaguely at his throat. “You don’t want it, believe me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not going anywhere.” Guybrush sat down so hard on the bed that Graham bounced. “Now. It’s time for you to tell us one of those stories you like to tell. But only If you’re ready.”

And so, after a pause and a sip of lukewarm tea, Graham began. The day had begun in frustration in the throne room and had ended in fear in a goblin cell. He kept rubbing his wrists, remembering the bite of ropes, until Link held his hands again.

He told of huge caverns, of stalactites dripping water into secret pools, of glowing salamanders scampering through the shadows, of mushrooms in every color casting off glittering spores. He told of sharp spears and heavy padlocks, of giant rats and whispered escape plans. There were costumes and stories: Cinderella and Rumplestiltskin. Porridge, sweetycakes, and frogs. Friends and enemies, and some people that might have been both in equal measure. Shrouds of stone armor, unbending bars and sharp bolt cutters, stolen beds, stolen people. The goblin king, his courtiers, and the book written by a former friend that had incited the goblins and started it all.

He talked for a long time, his voice wavering in and out. Sometimes he had to stop and take a breath, drink tea, rub his aching throat. He sank lower into the pillows, looking more worn out, but he stubbornly refused to sleep no matter how often they suggested it. Whenever these breaks happened, Link and Guybrush sat a little closer together and waited with him in comforting silence. They offered to at least give him a proper long break and finish the rest later, but he wanted to tell the story. Wanted to explain it from start to finish. “It helps,” he said. “Even if it hurts a bit.” He choked down another cough and sipped at a fresh cup of tea No1 had brought. No1 had also silently brought Guybrush and Link their own mugs, unasked and unexpected. They had crowns painted on them. The lavender tickled their noses, and the trio drank in quiet but good company.

At some point, Muriel and Chester came in to prep medicine doses. She saw the adventurers huddled together and took a step back, startled and angry, and she opened her mouth start yelling, but Graham cut her off, hastily saying, “Ahh, Muriel, you remember my best friends, right? I’m so glad they’ve come to visit. Link, Guybrush, meet Muriel and Chester Hobblepot, the greatest alchemists in the country.” He gave her a pleading, sopping kitten sort of look, breath held in nervous anticipation.

She deflated with a weary sigh—the look she gave them told Link and Guybrush they were destined for a sickbed next. “He should be sleeping right now,” she warned them.

“That’s what we told him,” Link replied, relief tinging his words now that he knew his position on this bed was secure. “He says no.”

“We’ve been over this,” Muriel said. She reached for a cup that Graham had been especially careful to avoid and tried to offer it to him. “You were supposed to drink this an hour ago. You can’t avoid your dreams forever.”

“I can definitely put them off,” Graham said, crossing his arms so she couldn’t force it on him. “Muriel, please. Just a little longer. I don’t want to sleep. It’s not...it’s not the nightmares this time, honestly. I’m just trying to explain things. I think straightening everything out, talking through it...it’s going to help the nightmares stop. Please.”

She pursed her lips, then sighed and stepped back. “Fine. This once, fine. But I’m going to swap those bandages out now anyway.”

Guybrush half stood. “Oh. Should we leave?”

Graham grabbed his sleeve. “N-no, please don’t. I’d like...please don’t go. I didn’t tell you this part, but...um. To make sure I wasn’t smuggling anything, the goblins would...literally shake me down. Upside down. And they’ve got hard hands.” Graham slipped up his nightshirt sleeve, and showed off some of the half-glimpsed fingerprint-shaped bruises. “These are mostly faded. It’s my legs that are...badly bruised. My own weight against their hands. That’s all.”

“This makes them heal faster,” Muriel said, plucking a jar from the tray. Link reached for it automatically, as curious about healing potions as ever. The jar felt icy cold in his hands, almost frosted over despite the warmth of the room. “Green ice scale,” she told him. “Good for deep soothing.”

Guybrush let Graham lean against him while they reapplied the icy goop and rewrapped the bandages so the bedsheets wouldn’t stain green. Graham shuddered, his shoulder pressed hard against Guybrush’s as he flinched away from Muriel’s touch. “It’s so much colder than it was last time,” he muttered.

“I think you just weren’t paying attention the first time,” Muriel replied.

Link stuck a finger in the jar and studied the gel. “Good for burns?” he asked.

“Plan on fighting a dragon soon?” Chester said.

“Fire arrows can have interesting consequences.”

“I’ll get some together for you. It’s a good snack on a hot day, too.”

“I’ll, ah, keep that in mind next time I’m in in the Gerudo Desert, thanks.”

Guybrush was staring at Graham’s bruises. It was almost possible to make out individual handprints in the colorful marks on his shins. “Those are nasty.”

“Just don’t poke them,” Graham said. “They were worse, if you can believe it. How much longer, Muriel?”

“Oh, a week, maybe. This knocks the heal time down, but doesn’t erase ‘em. I could go global if I had something that just erased ‘em.” She picked up yet another little pot from the hoard she had gathered, whisked off the lid, and offered the contents to Link and Guybrush. There were tiny little white leaves in it, crisscrossed with green veins. They smelled like extreme mint, like you could flavor an entire moat’s worth of lemonade with one leaf. It made Link feel a little nauseous. “You’re going to want this. Put it under your tongue and it’ll melt. One an hour. I’ll give you both your own bags of it, but start with this for now.”

After she left, the story picked up where it had left off, details untangling like knotted ropes, until Graham started to reach a rough conclusion.

“As for me getting sick. It’s probably not hard to guess. Muriel thinks...I mean, the stress alone was hard, but my cell was always wet. The rainwater kept finding channels down. It was one big puddle most of the time. And there wasn’t a lot of food to go around after the porridge ran out, and I couldn’t let Bramble go hungry, or the Hobblepots, or Amaya. It…it wasn’t….” He coughed, a hacking wheeze that rattled his chest. “I’m lucky. It could have been worse. I could have gotten like this before escaping. But...but I couldn’t let that happen. I think I didn’t let myself get sick until we were free. Everyone was depending on me, you know.

“But...but it was hard. To be alone for so long. In the end, Bramble and I found the goblin king together. I told him a story about what it means to be afraid. What it means to get too much responsibility too fast, to not know what you’re doing, and how friends are the only way to push forward and keep going. And that, a story about friends, was a story he liked, and in that place where stories hold more sway than kings, it was enough, and he let me, let all my friends, go.”

Link and Guybrush glanced at each other. Link breathed deeply: “Graham. The reason we’re here. It’s not because of what happened...we didn’t even know until today. We were here for a different reason at first. This...this isn’t the way we would have wanted to do this, but...” He and Guybrush leaned cheek to cheek together and shrieked “Happy birthday!” so loudly that No1, who had actually not been listening at all, almost fell out of the rocking chair. Link shoved his hand into his bag and withdrew a small wrapped box with a crumpled bow pasted on top.

“It isn’t much,” Link said apologetically. “It’s late. You had your birthday...” his voice faded.

“In that cell, yeah,” Graham agreed. His eyes were sparkling with excitement, though, and he spoke lightly. “It wasn’t that bad. I sang to the salamanders, and Wente made me a special sweetycake, somehow. But, guys, you didn’t need to do this.” He took the proffered gift all the same and slipped off the rumbled ribbon.

“It’s an engraving we had done,” Guybrush leaned forward, watching as Graham extricated a charm and chain. “I think it’s kinda cheesy, but Elaine and Zelda thought it was clever. They helped with the design.”

The charm itself was styled like a piece of eight, with two crossed swords and a bow and arrow printed on top—clearly tiny little renditions of their weapons of choice. Graham ran his fingers along the edge, finding a little latch and flipping it open like a locket. It contained an image of the three of them, arms flung over shoulders, apparently mid-joke and laughing together.

Link said, “We thought...well, it’s your first birthday as a king, and we were worried you might, y’know, get too busy and distracted and...maybe forgetful. Zelda said that’s normal, for a newly responsible royal. But we thought that together we did so much, and even if we can’t be here in person all the time for you as a king, we...well, I guess it’s sort of silly after all that happened, when you really did need us and we weren’t there for you then to help protect you and Daventry and all, but—”

“But you’re here. Now. And that’s all that matters to me. It’s perfect. I love it.” He pulled the chain over his head, and the charm rested against his chest. Graham bit his lip. “It’s probably too late, but...I mean, I’m definitely contagious, but...”

He didn’t have to finish saying it. His friends launched themselves at him and grabbed him in a tight hug. They stayed together like that for a long time, regret and gratitude and everything held in silence. They could handle anything when they were apart, but they were stronger together, and they reveled in it.

(Later, Link’s throat started to ache and Guybrush started coughing, but they both agreed it was worth it. Muriel just sighed and ordered more soup.)

#captmickey #King's Quest #kings quest #King Graham #the three adventurers #chester hobblepot #Muriel Hobblepot #this post is protected by the royal guards #monkey island #legend of zelda #ch2 #fic'ing #tcak

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fragbombgames · 3 years

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I should probably say something about the stories I’m working on. Let’s start with my biggest story, the one featuring the character I posted a drawing of earlier.

The story is called AEGIS. AEGIS is...well, you wouldn’t be entirely incorrect to say “Space Avengers”. It’s a team of special agents with unique skills and abilities, that protect the galaxy from various threats, the kind of thing that the military or police can’t handle.

However, AEGIS has...seen better days. Ten years before the story begins, a massive war raged across the galaxy, the largest conflict in history. The Wraiths, a militaristic race of powerful aliens, were throwing their entire military might at the galaxy in a desperate attempt to take over. The galaxy would have been lost if AEGIS hadn’t been fighting alongside the Galactic Navy against the Wraiths.

But over the course of the war, AEGIS took a lot of hits. One by one, all its agents fell in battle, with the commander dying in the final few weeks of the war. The sole surviving agent became the new commander after the war, and has basically spent the following ten years scrambling to rebuild AEGIS before another major threat arose.

He’s only managed to recruit two new agents - including the character I posted earlier - and now, the Wraiths are beginning to resurface under the leadership of their powerful new emperor. It’s up to just three agents to fight off the Wraiths, and any other threat that might show up, from genocidal warlords to dangerous criminals, and even giant monsters, while searching for new agents and allies to help them protect the galaxy.

The story is set in the early 41st century, in the Milky Way Galaxy - so, yes, Earth and our solar system are among the planets involved in the story. It has a large number of different planets and alien races involved though.

It’s by far the longest story I’ve got - I haven’t really, y’know, actually written that much, but I’ve got enough story arcs for about thirty chapters or so, each chapter being an entire single story arc, with AEGIS battling new threats and finding new allies.

At the start, AEGIS only has three active agents, but towards the end of the story there’s about seven or so, with dozens of recurring allies. AEGIS sometimes undertakes stealth/spy missions, so the agents use callsigns to refer to each other and their actual identities are kept secret.

Anyway. That’s a general idea of one of my main stories. Dunno how much actual sense all that made but, eh. If anyone’s particularly interested, I’m always down to infodump about the characters and worldbuilding I’ve done for AEGIS, plus the other stories I’ve got.

Thanks for reading this much. I’ve never really done anything on the Internet beyond just lurking around, so it’s a pretty big step to start getting my ideas and personal stories and whatnot out there.

#writing #aegis #stories #man this was way longer than i thought it would be #word vomit

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meimi-haneoka · 4 years

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Clear Card chapter 39 - review

AT LONG LAST!

Real life really takes the will to do lengthy things away from me, even if it’s for fun.

But I love Cardcaptor Sakura so much, so I take this almost as a “duty” to pay respect to this wonderful series. I love when things are done properly and not left “hanging”, so here we go, even if a bit delayed compared to usual: (long)THOUGHTS ON CHAPTER 39 under the cut!!

I’d like to start with a small consideration before going with plot-centric rants: I have noticed the post with this chapter obtained a lot less notes than usual, but it’s a trend that has been going on for a while. I’m not really sure what could be the cause, it can range from Tumblr shadowbanning posts from the tag search if they include a link (so the posts are not visible that much anymore, despite my efforts to make a second text post), to people preferring other sources to get their chapters (and that’s fine), to the fandom moving altogether to other sites and communities, or....to the fandom’s interest slowly fading away. Since it seems we’re almost going towards the climax, I’m not sure how to react to the latter option. I think this is supposed to be the moment in which the fandom’s interest is the more active, but I could be wrong. Anyway, if that’s the case, then I guess it’s really time for CLAMP to wrap it up.

Without further ado, let’s analyze this chapter!

The color page was L O V E L Y. Oh my gosh Sakura-chan, look how grown up you appear here. More beautiful than ever. She’s even re-using a sweater from another color illustration, lol. It’s perfectly fitting with the autumn season and I loved it!

Let’s bother her a little more

Starting off from where we left in ch. 38, Sakura is blown away and Syaoran tries to have The Shadow look for her once again, but....”fooled once, not fooled twice” thinks Kaito, isn’t it? Kaito wants Sakura to do stuff on her own, so he literally “throws” her into a dark tree hole, where her shadow can’t be traced, because well....there’s none. He isn’t looking particularly amused while he does this, well, what I mean is that it’s not like he’s having sadistic fun, causing her troubles. His face is kinda apologetic when he's all “here comes the knight but thanks, no thanks”, as if he understands that Syaoran wants to save her, but he cannot really do otherwise. Sakura needs to do this alone, in order to produce a fitting card. Would you care to tell us readers what this damned card is, Kaito?

The first conversation

Kaito is in the mood for some memories. Memories of the first time he spoke with Akiho. I found it interesting that he used the verb “having a conversation with” rather than “meeting”, and the reason is also pretty easy to guess: for him, it wasn’t the first time. He saw her (although from afar) when he analyzed her through that ball, to determine whether she had magical powers or not. And their first conversation didn’t start in the best of ways: Akiho’s first reaction is to run away. But what can you expect from a little girl who was used to be considered a bother and only basing on her magical capabilities, and not as a human being. So when Kaito asks her if he bothered her, her confusion is plain visible on her face: Is he talking to me? Me, who is usually the bothering one here?

And so she’s surprised big time when he actually shows to be interested to know which book she was reading. NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE ever did that for her. Remember what environment she grew up in. He is the first and only one wanting to even have a conversation with her (her family only made “questions”). By the way, thanks to Impatient Scans, we actually aknowledge Akiho here might be reading “Momo”, by German writer Michael Ende. That opens a whole new box of questions, starting from “IS THIS where Momo takes her name from? Who gave it to her? What is her real name? Could the story actually be giving plot hints?”

All in all, let me just say I loved this flashback. I always love when there’s a Kaito or Akiho flashback, because I’m so hungry for their background story. I know the story has to sacrifice a bit of the other characters in order to show more of them, because 30 pages are just 30 pages, after all. But it’s ok, that’s also the reason why I’m glad I warmed up to both of these 2, because every month I have more things to look forward to, and I generally am never disappointed with a chapter’s content.

There’s no turning back

As if on cue, Momo starts an inner monologue on Kaito and Akiho, and how much he changed for her.

He really didn’t care about anything, before. He couldn’t be bothered to do anything. He was a very apathetic boy, some fans have theorized he could be on the brink of depression himself without even realizing it (again, consider what a shitty environment he grew up in, a den of delinquents).

And yet.

Among all those criminals, he raised his hand. His voice loud and clear, “I’ll go”. He, the boy who found everything a bother, decided something for himself for the first time ever, and to assist someone else, no less. Momo wonders, to herself, what changed inside of you? Cause something must have changed.

This was another part I really really loved. All the memories of their travels together. You can see the different countries they’ve been to, and their body language, that implies there was still some kind of “distance” between them. Akiho seems still kinda “wary” of Kaito in these shots (and with a reason, who would trust anyone if they were raised up like she did?). But we can see them being more relaxed and at ease the more they spend time together, and it’s on this time spent together that Momo puts the focus on. It’s where Kaito should ideally start to find the answer to the big, complex question.

What made you do this?

Momo muses over how Kaito learned to do all sorts of things in order to please Akiho and to make her live in a healthy environment (remember Akiho saying that Kaito makes by hand all her meals?), finally not neglected but at the center of someone’s attentions. She makes a random example on the tea. Why someone who didn’t give sh*t about how tea tasted, went all the way down to learn how to make it in a delicious way? I love how CLAMP cleverly used the word 術 with the furigana “sube”, which means “how to do something”, but with the same kanji and the reading “jutsu” it also means “spell”. This probably to imply that some magic might have been included in this learning process, err. XD

I also loved how Momo thinks that Kaito needs to look at the truth straight in the eyes, without turning away. Could he be scared to admit the truth? Loving someone (and hear me again, love of any kind, not romantic love exclusively) comes with a little fear. For someone who never experienced it, all the more. It’s a totalizing feeling that might destabilize you. If he doesn’t wake up to this, it’s gonna be too late. That’s literally what Momo says.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE SHOCKER OF THIS MONTH! Momo and Akiho’s mom knew eachother, and Momo even received her ring and the task to look over her daughter, and Sakura as well. “My Alice, and that girl’s Alice”. I mean, I knew Akiho’s mom was going to be important, but dammit she really looks like she’s been the one moving some plot threads since long time!!! I love this.

The nightmare

And here comes the part where I start screaming “WHAT THE F*CK IS HAPPENING HERE”. Sakura finds herself in a strange land with big flowers (she’s still tiny, let’s remember that), flowers that can actually speak. At her surprised face, the flowers reply “You wished for this, didn’t you?”.

EH?

And then we get to this creepy scene of Akiho appearing out of nowhere, with her experiment outfit, calling Sakura in a dead tone. I was seriously freaking out at the panel composition. Made entirely to evoke creepiness. Apparently, we’re in Alice’s story. Yes. BUT WHICH ALICE?

The strange reality turns into a nightmare. Literally.

Everything turns dark, Sakura is having another one of her dreams. The “shaaan” and the clocks are a sign of it. MCF appears behind Akiho, who this time is in the same position she was when she was turned into a magical artifact by her clan. Sakura’s face twists in horror even before MCF opens his robe, because she knows who’s under it. The last time she saw MCF in a dream was also the last time she saw who was under it. Her heart and mind scarred irreparably forever. And there he is. Syaoran, dead in his eyes. Sakura’s shrieks “NO!!” in horror, she completely refuses to believe this is a real thing. Now, I don’t really know what’s happening here, because after this, everything breaks and she captures GUESS WHAT, the “Break” card. So it’s hard to determine if it was a real dream or only an illusion. Maybe Kaito made her go into her subconscious to find bits and pieces of what she experienced before, in order to shake her enough to produce the right card. Because, if all of this is coming from her, then it means a part of her brain does remember despite the time rewindings of Kaito. And it’s very important. She saw Akiho’s past when she was trapped inside Akiho’s book, but all of that was erased when Kaito rewound time. Well, not from her heart, however, because she hugged Akiho tightly while crying. So now what do we have here? A part of what she’s not supposed to remember. I think this vision is a twisted mix of horrifying things she saw previously, and indeed her natural reaction is to destroy in pieces what she’s seeing. Quite literally, since the two kanji for “Break” actually mean “Destruction”. Is this the card Kaito was looking for? I’m not sure. Because he said that “Rewind” went quite close to it, and I can’t make out any relation between “Break” and “Rewind”. I still have the impression the card he might want her to make has got more to do with “restoring” things to how they were before. So, if it’s instead Kaito the one who made her see those things, he might have wanted her to wish to bring everything as it was before. HE needed a strong reaction from her. But she made “Break” instead. Will it be ok for him so we can move on to the climax?

I have to admit I kinda loved the more creepy and nightmare-ish atmosphere of the last 10 pages. Sakura evidently has got something big going on, and it’s time she talks to Syaoran about this. It’s time she tells him fair and square what’s she’s seeing more and more often. It’s about him too, at this point. She can’t keep this a secret anymore, not when it’s eating her sanity and peace of mind away.

Next chapter is going to be published in the February issue, in stores on the last days of December if everything goes as usual (for New Year’s they always anticipate the release of that issue). So we have another unexpected break as I already said, and I kinda figured it when I saw CLAMP going on a trip 20 days ago. It’s ok, we can do this! If we’re approaching the climax, it make sense that they take vacation now, so afterwards they can work fully straight into the finale.

Thanks for reading this long rant, and I wait for your comments!

#Card Captor Sakura #cardcaptor sakura #CLAMP #ccs spoilers #ccsakura #clear card arc #clear card manga #chapter 39

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