#it's just far more interesting to see his good intentions contrasted with his harsh personality | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

krabmeat · 3 years

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☊⏃⋏ ⟟ ⏚⟒ ⟒⋏⎅⟒⍀⋔⏃⋏ ⏃⋏⍜⋏? ⏃⋏⊬⍙⏃⊬⌇ ⋏⍜⍙ ⏁⊑⏃⏁'⌇ ⏃⌰⌰ ⍜⎍⏁ ⍜⎎ ⏁⊑⟒ ⍙⏃⊬. ☌⍜⎅ ⍀⟒⏃⎅⟒⍀ ☌⟒⏁⏁⟟⋏☌ ⍀⟒⎐⟟⎐⟒⎅ ⎍⋏⟒⌖⌿⟒☊⏁⟒⎅⌰⊬ ⏚⊬ ⎅⍀⟒⏃⋔? ⟟⏁'⌇ ⌰⟟☍⟒ - ⏃ ⍀⟒⏃⌰⌰⊬ ⏚⏃⎅⏃⌇⌇ ⏃⋏⏁⏃☌⍜⋏⟟⌇⏁ ☌⍜⎅ ⏁⊑⏃⏁ ☌⟒⏁⌇ ⌿⎍⌰⌰⟒⎅ ⍜⎍⏁ ⍜⎎ ⏁⊑⟒ ⎍⋏⎅⟒⍀⍙⍜⍀⌰⎅, ☊⏃⌰⌰⟟⋏☌ ⎅⍀⟒⏃⋔ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ "⌇⏃⎐⟟⍜⎍⍀" (⏚⎍⏁ ⟟⋏ ⏃ ⋔⍜⍀⟒ ⌇⏃⏁⟟⍀⟟☊⏃⌰ ⍙⏃⊬ ⟟⋏⌇⏁⟒⏃⎅ ⍜⎎ ☌⟒⋏⎍⟟⋏⟒⌰⊬ ⌇⟒⟒⟟⋏☌ ⏁⊑⟒ ⋔⏃⌇☍⟒⎅ ⋔⏃⋏ ⏃⌇ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ ⊑⟒⍀⍜ ☊⏃⎍⌇⟒ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌿⏃⌇⏁ ⏁⊑⟒⊬'⎐⟒ ⋔⍜⌇⏁ ⌰⟟☍⟒⌰⊬ ☊⏃⌰⌰⟒⎅ ⟒⎐⟒⍀⊬⍜⋏⟒ ⏁⊑⏃⏁ ⊑⟒⌰⌿⟒⎅ ⏁⊑⟒⋔ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ ⋔⟟☌⊑⏁⊬ ⊑⟒⌰⌿⟒⍀ ⏁⍜ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌿⍜⟟⋏⏁ ⍙⊑⟒⍀⟒ ⏁⊑�� ⏁⟟⏁⌰⟒ ⎎⟒⟒⌰⌇ ⍜⎐⟒⍀⎍⌇⟒⎅ ⏃⋏⎅ ⎍⋏⎅⟒⌇⟟⍀⏃⏚⌰⟒). ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⍀⍜⏃⋔⟒⎅ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌰⏃⋏⎅⌇ ⍜⎎ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌇⋔⌿, ⏚⍀⟟⋏☌⟟⋏☌ ⏁⟒⍀⍀⍜⍀ ⏃⋏⎅ ⊑⟒⌰⌰⎎⟟⍀⟒ ⏃☊⍀⍜⌇⌇ ⏁⊑⟒ ⍜⎐⟒⍀⍙⍜⍀⌰⎅, ⌰⟒⏁⏁⟟⋏☌ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ ☍⟒⌿⏁ ⟟⋏ ⍀⏃☌⟒ ⌇⏁⍀⍜⌰⌰ ⎎⍀⟒⟒. ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⟒⋏⎅ ⎍⌿ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ⏁⎍⋏⎅⍀⏃, ⏁⊑⟒ ⏚⎍⍀⋏⟟⋏☌ ⎎⌰⏃☍⟒⌇ ⍜⎎ ⏃⌇⊑⟒⌇ ☌⟒⏁⏁⟟⋏☌ ⌰⍜⌇⏁ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ⊑⏃⍀⌇⊑ ⌿⟟⌰⟒⌇ ⍜⎎ ⌇⋏⍜⍙. ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⊑⏃⌿⌿⟒⋏⟒⎅ ⏁⍜ ⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⌇⏁⎍⋔⏚⌰⟒⎅ ⎍⌿⍜⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ☊⍜⏁⏁⏃☌⟒⌇ ⍜⎎ ⏁⍙⍜ ⟟⋔⋔⍜⍀⏁⏃⌰ ☌⍜⎅⌇ ⏁⊑⏃⏁ ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⋔⏃⊬ ⍜⍀ ⋔⏃⊬ ⋏⍜⏁ ⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⎍⌇⟒⎅ ⏁⍜ ☍⋏⍜⍙. ⍙⍜⋏⎅⟒⍀ ⍙⊑⏃⏁'⌰⌰ ⊑⏃⌿⌿⟒⋏? ⟟ ⍙⍜⎍⌰⎅ ⌰⟟☍⟒ ⏁⍜ ⌇⟒⟒ ⊬⍜⎍⍀ ⏁⏃☍⟒ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟟⌇.

- ⟒⋏⎅⟒⍀⋔⏃⋏ ⏃⋏⍜⋏

𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚎𝚗𝚝

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜: philza, techno, Wilbur,(next few only mentioned)Mexican dream, schlatt, dream

𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚜: they/them

𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: fire, death, arson, betrayal mention, being used, reference to drugs, slight cursing

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚜: translation vvvvv

Can i be enderman anon? anyways now that's all out of the way. God reader getting revived unexpectedly by dream? it's like - a really badass antagonist god that gets pulled out of the underworld, calling dream their "saviour" (but in a more satirical way instead of genuinely seeing the masked man as their hero cause in the past they've most likely called everyone that helped them their mighty helper to the point where the title feels overused and undesirable). They roamed the lands of the smp, bringing terror and hellfire across the overworld, letting their kept in rage stroll free. They end up in the tundra, the burning flakes of ashes getting lost in the harsh piles of snow. They happened to have stumbled upon the cottages of two immortal gods that they may or may not have used to know. Wonder what'll happen? i would like to see your take in this.

- enderman anon

AHHH IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I DONT KNOW IF YOULL EVEN READ THIS STILL BUT TY FOR THE REQUEST IT ISNT THE BEST QUALITY IM SORRY :[[[

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You almost don't recognize the sensation of grass against your calloused and rough hands. You were in the void playing solitaire with Schlatt and Mexican Dream, and the next thing you knew you were suddenly pulled harshly by the back of your collar, falling on your spine. The looming mask of Dream is what stood above you, but he looked different. Longer hair, smelly, wearing a stained lime green jumpsuit with ‘0001' sewn into it and covered in cuts, scars and bruises. But before you could even question why Dream was suddenly there, he stepped back into the void, the void slowly surrounding and consuming him the further he went backwards. His now bony hand is still tightly gripped onto the back of your shirt, so while struggling your body is also enveloped in darkness. All it took was one blink and there you were on a patch of grass, staring at the pale blue sky.

"Huh."

Was all that came out of your mouth. You were still shocked at the turn of events that just happened, but no longer grounded. A running river nearby stunned your senses. How long had you been dead? It felt like years, but when you look around at the familiar forest you died in, not much had changed except for a couple newly planted saplings here and there. The swirling ashes you remembered before you died had all settled and compressed into the soil.

The river showed a strange reflection of yourself- your features have clearly sunken into your skull and there's a streak of white hair coming from your scalp along with words in fancy gold letters on your arm reading,

"May thy woes and hurt of the past no longer eradicate the upwards of this lost souls future. Allow thine to be praised by Ender themselves and be granted another chance at mortality."

Scrubbing or picking at your arm did nothing, so onwards you went walking along the forest to what you remember being a bustling "community".

Each mound of dirt you saw only brought memories of your death, of the place and people who sought to treat you like you were disposable. And now that you’re alive, you hate that they technically ended up being right. Your death; alone in a forest. Running away from the unexpected attacker, ashamed and too prideful to die in the prying eyes of your enemies. It fills you with rage, all the lives taken by your hands and for what? You weren’t overreacting, you knew that for sure. And before you knew it, you stole some fresh flint and steel from a random chest and got to work.

You had always wanted to touch the fires you set. The soothing feeling you got from watching wood burn to char and ashes satisfied you. And it made it all the more euphoric to know it was trees of your manipulator's land. Running across the land, with flames as far as you could see when you looked behind you. The heat swirled around your neck and went into your nose, but the feeling was muscle memory at that point. You were still riding your high when a voice reached out to you, luckily when you were finally calm.

"What- Y/n? Hold on, is that really you Y/n..?"

You spin on your heels to the familiar manipulative British voice of a person you haven't seen in a long time.

"Wilbur?! Man, I haven't seen another person's face other than those two addicts in a while- you look different."

His eyes much like yours are sunken deep into his skull, purple-pink bags under his eyes and dull skin. Wilburs shocked lips fade into an opened mouth smile when he walks up to you with his hands momentarily confused on what they should do. Eventually, his right hand settles on clasping your left shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze.

“Y/n it is so good to see you! You look quite different yourself, wouldn’t you think-? Oh, look! We’re matching!”

The grey streak in your hair seems to make another appearance when Wilbur briefly smacks it with his middle and pointer finger.

“Ay, it’s nice to see you too Wil, but back up for a second alright? I've got something to ask you by the way…”

Wilburs head peaks in interest, urging you to go on.

“I’m guessing that little streak in your hair wasn’t a fashion choice- and if it was it’s a bit strange- but how’d you get it? You died when you blew up L’manburg! I mean c'mon, people don’t just, well…REVIVE!”

He starts to walk. You aren’t quite sure where, but stumbling along with Wilbur while his arm is draped lazily atop your shoulders seems to suffice.

“Ahh Y/n, you’d be surprised. The most WONDERFUL thing happened, actually! Years and years in my hell of a train station; do you know who was at the subway door when it finally opened, Y/n? Dream!”

“Wh- Dream?!”

Appalled, you try to stop in your tracks but fail when wilburs arm is still pushing forward. His storytelling voice dies down to curiosity and excitement.

“Wait, did he save you too? He did, didn’t he? Oh, this is wonderful!”

Wilbur emits eagerism and you suddenly realize what you could do with his desperacy to be socially accepted. Putting on the most exaggerated and animated voice, you speak.

“Oh my god yeah! Gosh, that Dream guy is my hero! Thanks to him, I get to have another chance at living again, and isn’t that just…swell.”

In all honesty you didn’t really try hard to sound sincere but by the look of Wilbur, it seemed to work just fine.

“Right?! I’ve been meaning to visit him in the prison if you’d like to tag along with me the day I go? I’m sure he’d love to see you, since he revived you and all.”

Oh, you were sure Dream wanted to see you. He wants a boon- a trade. Why else would he revive two of the most historically significant people on the server if not to make some sort of deal with them? Sure, Wilbur is as gullible and carefree as ever but you at least still had scraps of mental stability and level-headedness that made you all the more a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention Wilbur doesn’t know that Dream killed you, but telling him that now would blow your act. You decide to keep your thoughts to yourself.

“Yeahh, sure! I’d love to go, just tell me when.”

And that’s the end of that conversation. The two of you walk to wherever Wilbur is going. It honestly surprised you how he couldn’t see through your apathy. From what you remembered, he was keen on being wise about people and their intentions but you guess years and years in hell do things to a person.

Somehow, you’re stuck in your mind for long enough that only now do you feel the sharp winter air making the hairs on your arms and legs stand straight up.

“Wait, snow?”

The tundra was a drastic contrast to the void you were once in with schlatt and Mexican Dream. Instead of black as far as you could see, it was a blinding powdery white.

‘Mexican Dream would’ve liked it here, probably would have tried to snort the snow like coke.’

You weren’t built for the snow, though. Hell- you didn’t even have a memory of anyone living in a tundra when you were alive! Why was Wilbur even in the tundra? You didn’t have the energy to ask, still feeling brittle and tired, back aching from laying on the dry dirt longer than expected earlier.

“Yeah, just figured I’d show you around! Plus I already need to grab a couple things from an ender chest and this was the closest by. I’m a very busy man, after all.”

But why were there so many footprints in the snow? As far as you knew, Wilbur was the only one who lived out in the tundra- and he didn’t seem like the active type at all. There were strange shapes as well, large hooved footprints. However, all thinking comes to a halt at the same time Wilbur does.

“We’re here! You might see some familiar faces cause I live with people.”

Well, that answers the footsteps as well as the tall red-caped piglin hybrid giving leftover bones and raw meat to a polar bear.

“TECHNO! TECHNO, HEY!”

He tenses up for a second, you could tell he wanted to be left alone but that didn’t really bother Wilbur. But you recognize him. The name and the apparel- that guy is Technoblade. The same Technoblade who stood by your side while the two of you blew L’manburg up for the last time, and now the Technoblade who resides in a cottage shrouded in snow.

“Technoblade?!”

Hearing your voice being carried by the crisp winter air, he turns around immediately to see you and Wilbur a few feet away. Techno stood there dumbfounded, but he didn’t know why. He wasn’t particularly joyed or ecstatic to see you, but he was at the very least happy to see an old ally back.

“Y/n? Oh my god, now we’ve got TWO of you? We don’t have room for another one, alright?”

For some it might be hard to see the meaning behind his words. Luckily you’ve talked to him enough to where you can tell he’s being playful.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just build directly on top of your house. Besides, who WOULDN'T want to be near me 24-7?”

“Me-“

“Oh f*ck off.”

You would’ve thought that that was Wilbur due to the similar accent, but there was something off. The slight gruffness and age, yet still succeeding in sounding mellow.

“Phil! How’s my favorite old bird doing?”

He gives you a face. Not a happy one like you expected, rather a face that says ‘really?’ Probably because of the old comment. The two of you briefly hug, Phil’s tattered wings stretching out slightly.

“I’m doing alright, are you okay? Here, would you like to come in? It’s pretty cold outside, you probably haven’t seen snow in a couple years.”

He wasn’t wrong after all. You were freezing your toes off and were itching for lemon tea. The kind Phil used to make when he, Technoblade and Dream discussed plans on destroying L’manburg. Ah, the good ol days…

“Of course! We’ve got a lot to talk about- you still have that old chess board?”

“Yes, but first you have some explaining to do about the fire over in that tree, Y/n. You just got back and you’re already burning down forests?!”

“Did someone say fire?”

Techno has an eager stride in his step once he also looks back to see the raging lights of orange and red in the nearby forest.

“Don’t worry Phil! It’s just- ahh, a controlled burn..?”

Your tone of voice is unsure when a black crow shoots down from the sky into the snow in front of you. It’s left wing is charred and has smoke dancing from the burn. Philza looks at you with a stern glare.

“Oh my f*cking god…that’s it! We’re all going inside now, you too Techno. I don’t want you and Y/n going on a rampage.”

#krabs kreates #mcyt x platonic reader #mcyt x y/n #mcyt x you #mcyt x reader #dsmp x platonic reader #dsmp x y/n #dsmp x you #dsmp x reader #philza x reader #philza x y/n #philza x you #techno x reader #techno x y/n #techno x you

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lepusrufus · 3 years

Text

To bargain for immortality pt.5

Another few good weeks passed before they heard from their so-called goddess, gone who knows where. Not that anyone would ever question her absences, even the lords knew better than to stick their noses in her business.

When Nicole found herself once again following Emma through blue-lit underground corridors, there was an odd determination in her strides. She wanted to figure out what the hell was going on with her and Miranda, if nothing else, was a scientist who above all loved solving an equation. And what else could her situation be described as if not an intricate equation with a bit fat X as her missing factor.

She was right in thinking that Miranda would find her issue of interest, as when she finally brought it up the woman furrowed her brows and turned to face her, a clipboard grabbed from a nearby table.

“And there was nobody else?”

“No. Just me, Cassandra, the pharmacist and some guy that came for his medicine,” Nicole answered with a barely contained huff.

“What for?” Miranda tapped her pen against the paper in anticipation, a clear sign that she may be onto something and was only putting together some puzzle pieces that nobody but her could see.

Nicole had to dig through her memories for a moment. “An infection. At least that’s what the pharmacist mentioned.”

Miranda hummed and scribbled something else. There was no point in trying to decipher what exactly, the woman had the handwriting of two drunk doctors put together. How very fitting for her.

Without another word, she was on her feet, unbuttoned lab coat flowing after her the same way her black robes did when in goddess mode. “Follow me. I want to test something.”

And what else was she supposed to do really?

Quick steps took them down the hallways, black stone walls surrounding them and taking on an odd shine under the unnatural neon lights above. At least Nicole didn’t have to jog for once, Miranda not being that much taller than her.

The journey was short and they reached their destination quickly, which seemed to be a door not unlike the one belonging to the lab they had just vacated, except this one had the number 24 engraved on a small plaque on it. Miranda pushed it open to reveal a small hospital looking room, four beds divided by grey curtains but only one seemed to be occupied, a sleeping woman hooked to a heart monitor whose rhythmic beeping caused some memories to resurface in Nicole's mind.

Those memories however were quickly pushed down by a sudden burst of nausea at the decaying smell that seemed to forcefully crawl its way down her throat. Nicole all but slapped a hand to her face and turned around in a pathetic attempt to block out the overwhelming sensation. Some blood also started to trickle down her face and past trembling fingers, although thankfully not an ungodly amount like before.

By some mercy of well… herself, Miranda didn't stop her when she decided to do a wobbly turn and hastily exit the room. She followed Nicole out and observed as she slumped against a wall, pulling a tissue from a pocket to wipe at her face.

"What… the fuck," Nicole breathed out.

"Was that the same as before?" Miranda's eyes were full of a weird kind of glee that could only belong to a mad scientist. Not that that would be an inaccurate description for the woman.

Nicole only nodded, trying to get her face on a more presentable level before speaking again. "Is she-..."

Miranda scoffed. "Are you deaf? I can assure you the woman is quite alive," she responded with an eye roll.

The soft beeping monitoring the heartbeat could be heard faintly from behind the closed door, so her words had to hold some truth to them. Though her intentions were still shrouded in mystery.

"Then why the hell does she smell like that?"

"She doesn't," came the nonchalant reply and it had Nicole almost seething.

Is your ego stuffed up your nose, is what she wished she could snap and say, but she knew better.

If Miranda noticed the daggers in her eyes, she paid them no mind. Instead she noted something down on the paper precariously attached to the clipboard she got a hold of before exiting the lab they had been in previously. When she finished, she simply motioned for Nicole to follow and continued further down the hallway, without a second glance.

She only stopped once to exchange a few words with an unfamiliar assistant on the whereabouts of certain patients. Patiens. Why would Miranda keep any sort of patients down there?

Before she had time to dwell on it, Miranda pushed another door open, this time leading to another corridor dimly lit by strategically placed torches. Apparently nobody bothered to get electricity to this particular part of the underground maze of tunnels, the warm light so pleasant on the eyes as opposed to the harsh neons of the previous area. The tunnel was also long, way too long for it to be an often used path, especially given how awfully humid the air was becoming. Nicole tried to take a mental note of where they were heading, squinting her eyes in an effort to imagine what was above them, but with how convoluted the tunnels down there were, it was fruitless.

After maybe fifteen minutes of walking, awkward silence -at least awkward on her part, Miranda didn't seem to care- only broken by the echo of steps and the soft sounds of crackling fire from the torches, the tunnel ended in what looked to be a far too modern stairwell. Nicole had to pause for a second, looking at the unnerving contrast where dark ancient stone gave way suddenly to gray concrete and steel, going up in sharp angles and blocking the view to whatever laid above. The overall architecture did look vaguely familiar though, but Miranda didn't seem to have the patience for sightseeing as she quickly started walking up the stairs.

At the top of the staircase stood a steel door that was quickly unlocked to finally reveal a place that Nicole recognized. She blinked rapidly in surprise, all but freezing in the doorway at the sight of the hospital corridor she had walked down on so many times before, complete with a handful of nurses discussing in a corner. She shook her head and slowly followed the woman, not wanting to remain behind. It didn't take long before they came across the one person Miranda was apparently searching for.

"M- Mother Miranda," Salvatore's voice came in an oddly high pitch, at least for him, when he almost crashed with her in his hurry to get somewhere.

"Moreau," Miranda greeted with a nod and unreadable expression. "I need the documents on each of your patients and where they're staying." Straight to business apparently.

He simply nodded and moved his attention to one of the nurses standing nearby, instructing him to finish whatever task he was supposed to before their arrival. The man moved rigidly, painfully aware of Miranda's presence. Then, Moreau led them to his office, starting to pull out a consistent number of files from a large bookcase.

His office was, unsurprisingly, a mess aside from the one place he held the documents keeping track of all his current patients, complete with a few books and office supplies haphazardly placed on the desk. A few spare white coats were hanging just by the door, together with a long and worn leather jacket that he often times wore when outside the building. A familiar string of bones was also peeking from one of its pockets, nowadays worn as a necklace since, after the effects of his mutation were lessened, he found the crown quite unsightly.

"Are you coming by anytime soon," his voice came from behind, snapping her out of her exploration. "We could use a hand sometimes."

Nicole turned to give him a polite smile. "I may, but I have some things to get out of the way for now."

A glance in Miranda's direction revealed the woman hunched over the documents on the desk, writing down a list with the aid of whatever she was reading. They could do some small talk for the time being.

"How have you been," Nicole asked, turning to him again.

She and Salvatore were on quite friendly terms ever since she started occasionally helping out in the hospital that he was in charge of. Not that they had much time to ever hang out, but the few times they did, it's always been a pleasant interaction among colleagues.

"Some days are better than others," he responded with half a shrug.

Judging by the deep purplish circles under his eyes, today wasn't particularly stellar. He was slightly hunched, whether it was out of habit from a time when sitting straight was quite impossible or from tiredness, she couldn't tell.

"Any news from the castle?" He asked with a chuckle. He was rarely welcomed in Alcina's home so the curiosity wasn't unwarranted.

Nicole shrugged. "Same old same old. Bleeding out prisoners, stopping Daniela from breaking vases and all that boring pseudo nobility stuff."

He let out a quiet laugh. "Nobility? Should I start calling you my lady?"

Nicole snorthed, giving his shoulder a small shove that didn't make him move in the slightest.

Their joking banter was interrupted by Miranda all but shoving her way in between them and out the door, calling for her to follow. With a small wave, Nicole was quickly after her, falling in step just slightly behind the other woman. Though it was a small building after all, so it didn't take long to reach the first door on Miranda's list.

"I want you to tell me exactly what you feel," she flatly told Nicole while pushing the door open.

She frowned, eyes slightly narrowed in confusion and glued to Miranda's back as she stepped inside the small room after the woman.

Any incredulous question died on her tongue when she seemed to be yanked back in time, to the yearly family trips her father insisted they all go on. It was to a relative, or family friend, Nicole couldn't quite recall, who owned an old cabin near a lake. Problem was, the lake was always murky and full of algae, the water gaining an unpleasant scent under the August sun. She and Alex never tried swimming.

"Well?" Mirada raised an eyebrow, impatient.

Nicole scrunched up her nose, both wanting and desperately trying not to take a deeper breath. "Pond water? The kind of water that's stagnant and muddy in summer, full of dead fish and weeds."

She tried not to fidget, her mind running a thousand miles an hour. The so-called goddess seeming completely uninterested in shedding light on what the hell they were doing was not of much help either. A frustrated sigh threatened to escape when another person spoke up.

"Doctor?" A meek voice came from the only bed in the room, from a young woman who seemed asleep when they had walked in. She looked between the two of them confused and with squinted eyes.

Miranda simply raised a hand, not even sparing the girl a glance. "Pay us no mind, we're only here to check on something. We'll be on our way in a moment."

Nicole couldn't help the confused look she threw the girl's way. Was she not recognizing the woman this whole town worshipped? An amused snort almost escaped her but she knew better. Besides, who could really blame her? Mirada was wearing an oversized lab coat, blonde hair held back in a ponytail and there was no trace of the makeup that usually accompanied her ceremonial robes and mask.

Not that Nicole had time to appreciate the odd humanity of Miranda's outfit, as the woman turned on her heels and exited the room as soon as she was done writing. She was starting to grow annoyed with the uncooperative and know-it-all attitude, but decided against voicing any opinions and settled for following along to the next door.

It kept on being a rinse and repeat of the first room, only variables being the patients inside and her answers. Sometimes the change wasn't too obvious, maybe just a more metallic undertone or a new faint smell latching onto her senses, like the sickly sweet aroma of honey. A handful of times though she had to all but slap a hand over her face to not be overwhelmed by the enveloping stench. One room in particular made her almost stumbled backwards and out the door, when a strong metallic smell contrasting the accompanying one of decomposition hit her like a slap in the face. The man inside, who was evidently not doing particularly well, didn't seem appreciative of the apparently crazy woman coming in and rudely interrupting his rest.

Nicole didn't look forward to lingering around by that point, but there was one more room to check.

They pushed open the door, and the familiar stinging scent of decay immediately overtook her senses, seeming to latch on to the very inside of her throat. A small rivulet of blood also started dripping down her face, and Nicole quickly pulled out a paper tissue from her pants pocket to press against her nostrils. It was both to stop the bleeding and to shield her senses from the smell.

Once outside, Nicole was trying to catch her breath while Miranda was simply writing something down. Another set of steps approached them, who turned out to be Moreau coming to check on their findings. Upon being given the clipboard to read -he could actually decipher her chicken scratch, really?- he let out a curious hum.

"I need to go over John Abbott's file and compare them," Miranda started, clicking her pen and putting it back into her pocket. "I'll send an assistant after it later." Then she looked her way and waved a hand dismissively. "You're free to go, I'll send Emma after you when you're needed."

Nicole blinked, dumbfounded, her voice coming out harsher than she probably should've allowed it to be. "That's all? What did you find?"

The exasperated edge in her voice did not go unnoticed nor was it appreciated. Miranda rolled her eyes slightly and gave her an answer. "You can distinguish illnesses by smell. We'll do a more comprehensive test and list, but for now we have enough to say that's how the Mold manifested with you," Miranda explained, half turned away and ready to leave.

And she did turn to leave as soon as she was finished. With a nod towards Salvatore, she made her way back down the hospital corridor and presumably towards the passageway that led back to her lab.

Nicole wasn't particularly keen on going down there again if she could help it, so she instead stuck by Salvatore's side as they walked back to his office.

That day wasn't the first time Nicole had entered that room, so the fact that it also served as some kind of archive did not go past her. The office itself was decently sized, and even had a storage room attached to it with the sole purpose of keeping old files that may be important but Miranda didn't need at hand. Although, in all honesty, Salvatore wasn't particularly skilled in keeping everything organized. That's what my secretary is for, he would say, ignoring the fact that Miranda would gut anyone who touched those documents if they weren't part of the small group of people she deemed worthy. Therefore, the files were a mess, the only saving grace being that he at least had the foresight of organizing them by decade.

With a sigh, he started looking through the binders all but stuffed on one of the many shelves. Nicole sat down at his desk, occupying herself with a crayon that she started twisting around her fingers absent mindedly. There was some semblance of relief in finally figuring out what had so cruelly changed in her body, and what an ironic twist of fate said change was. To have spent years pouring over books learning about the illnesses that now were recognizable by something as simple as an acidic smell of blood. On the other hand though, the knowledge that Miranda had a tendency to find some kind of use for all her experiments left a sensation of dread slowly making its way into the deepest crannies of her chest, where a certain parasite had burrowed and made a nest for itself.

"Mind if I call the castle, I don't really feel like walking all the way back," she asked, eyes settling on the phone pushed to the side by a couple books and scattered pens.

"Sure," he responded without moving from where he was pulling out papers, only to shove them back inside their folders when they weren't the correct ones.

Her hands hovered over the keys for a moment. She wasn't about to call Alcina's personal phone to ask for a ride, heavens no. The phone in Carolina's study, where the Constable would spend her time when not in the stables, would be the best choice if only she could remember the number from memory. Nicole decided that the one in the main hall was the best next thing, where one of the guards at the entrance would probably hear the ringing and answer.

She dialed the number and listened to the typical ringing sound once, twice, until she thought nobody was actually around, but at last, a voice came from the other end.

"Alo?"

Nicole took a moment to recognize the voice as Dalia's, the head chambermaid.

"Hey, it's Nicole," she started toying with the pencil again. "I'm at the hospital, can you send Carolina with a horse to pick me up?" She sensed the slight hesitation on the other woman's side and thought to clarify. "I'm not injured, just with Moreau."

She heard a slight exhale from the other end of the line and had to entertain the thought of whether the woman was relieved due to genuine concern for her wellbeing, or she was well aware of how irritable her wife could be. Her being injured definitely made its way on the list of things that would bring out the anger and cruelty carefully crafted over almost a century.

Before hanging up the phone, she sighed and thought better of her request. "Actually, tell Cassandra to come."

She could almost feel the slight grimace from Dalia at being asked to go talk to the most sadist of the sisters, and with a request no less. Oh well, there's to hoping that Cassandra wouldn't be too peeved at said request coming from her wife.

She hung up after hearing an of course, my lady.

With a way to get back home without having to do the trek on foot assured, she leaned back in the chair, watching Salvatore continue on his search. He was standing with his hands on his hips, eyebrows pulled into a frown that slightly wrinkled the already rough skin of his forehead. He looked almost as if he resorted to glaring at the piles of papers, hoping that enough intimidation would scare the right file into jumping into his hands.

It almost made Nicole snort, were it not for the curiosity that both acted as a distraction and pleaded to get some more answers. "So, who's this… Jack Abbott?"

"John Abbott," he corrected without tearing his eyes from the shelf in front of him. He grimaced then. "He was one of Mother Miranda's earlier experiments, and had a very similar mutation to yours."

At that Nicole's eyebrows shot up past the low line of her fringe, interest successfully piqued. She turned in her seat to fully face him, one arm thrown over the back of the chair. When he didn't continue talking, instead pulling out one of the last binders on the shelf labeled 1930's, she impatiently prodded for more information. "And?"

Moreau pulled a face, probably wondering if he was even supposed to talk about it. It didn't take long for him to let out a defeated sigh, the demand to play dumb were Miranda to ever ask about this going unspoken, but more than understood. "Same thing as you really. He could tell what illness someone had by a specific smell, down to the nasty nose bleeds whenever it got too much," he started, noticing a few drops of blood that had dried on her upper lip.

He turned back to pulling out the very last binder dedicated to that decade and relaxed his posture ever so slightly when he saw JOHN ABBOTT written in big letters and black ink on one file. Another frown tugged his cracked lips downward, the information written in such a clinical way only mudding the memory of the frail man he had briefly met so many decades ago. "His body took well to the Cadou until… well ,until it didn't. I don't know what went wrong, but his body just rejected it at one point and he died being slowly consumed by the infection."

At that Nicole's face fell, dread now overtaking her usual curiosity. He must've noticed, for his next words came the slightest bit rushed and with a strained kind of reassurance that wasn't convincing to either of them.

"It may very well not be connected."

Nicole almost scoffed, not at him but at the situation at hand. The hand holding the pencil was tense and, had she not been as weak as she was, the wood would've probably cracked by then. "Did you know him?"

With a slight shake of his head, he answered, not a negation but more a gesture of pity. "Barely. I was brought here only after he started," he narrowed his eyes at a wall somewhere behind Nicole trying to find the right word. He didn't. "...deteriorating."

That was about as much as her brain wanted to know at the moment, letting a heavy silence fill the space for endlessly too long. She was caught in her own thoughts that started to twist and turn into countless what ifs. Thoughts that crashed to a halt when a nurse knocked on the half open door to announce her presence.

"Lady Cassandra is waiting outside," she told Nicole, expression pulled in a poker face that could only belong to someone who had to deal with her wife and tried to seem unbothered. Tried and failed.

Nicole sprung to her feet, circling the desk and about to make her exit when he called out. "Take care of yourself," Moreau told her, looking up from the papers he was reading.

Her lips turned slightly upwards into a smile. "You too." And then she left, rapid pace taking her through off-white hallways and slight smells that she was now painfully aware of.

Stepping outside was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one, the orange hue of the setting sun welcoming her after the hours passed under the harsh lab lights. How ironic was her hatred for the damned neon lights, when not too long ago she would've gladly spent her life under their bluish glow.

Even better than the warm sun on her skin, was the sight of Cassandra, dressed in her usual riding attire and absent mindedly scratching the furry muzzle of one of the castle's Clydesdale horses. A big beast of a horse, black and white with its feathery legs that, Nicole realized with an eye roll, she wouldn't dream of getting on without help.

Her pace quickened until she found herself embraced by a pair of strong arms, the stable smell mixed with Cassandra's cologne filling her senses with something finally pleasant. She didn't let go until she felt a gentle kiss placed on top of her auburn hair.

"Darling," Cassandra greeted her once she pulled back, gloved hand coming to rest on a pale cheek. "How are you?"

Nicole sighed and pushed into the touch, the kind of tiredness that could only be felt after a day spent bending over backwards to every one of Miranda's whims settling into her bones. "Ready to go back home."

Cassandra simply nodded once and moved her hands on her hips, getting a good enough grip before picking Nicole up to where her foot could reach the stirrup so she could pull herself up. Her wife decided that climbing in the saddle was below her at the moment, choosing instead to turn into a swarm, only to retake her human form a mere second later, on the horse's back, her front comfortably against Nicole's back. With a few taps of her boot against the stirrup still occupied by Nicole's foot in a silent demand to let her guide the horse, she took a hold of the reins and they finally started moving down the stone paved road.

There was no complaint on Nicole's part, taking it as a good opportunity to sit back and enjoy the ride, pressed to her wife's chest.

A few eternally long minutes were spent absentmindedly scratching the horse's muscular neck, where short black fur met the mane held in a beautifully done french braid, that only their Constable could pull so seamlessly. A few long minutes spent mulling over what she had found out, thoughts twisting cruelly with every worst case scenario her mind could conjure. Had she made a mistake? Was the infection a mistake to begin with? How cruel could fate be sometimes. Back in New York she had come to terms with a meaningless life, the only truly important thing she had amounted to at that point being choosing a career path to spite her father. But now, after finding a place to call home where she ached to stay to the point of seeking eternity for it, the very thing that could allow her to remain there forever could also take her life away, miserably so.

"What's wrong?"

Cassandra's voice snapped her back to reality, so much so that she even shook her head a couple times to chase away the lingering thoughts. She gave an inquisitive hum in an attempt to play dumb. The attempt was met with an incredulous eye roll.

"You're quiet," she simply responded.

"I'd think spending decades with Daniela would make you appreciate quiet people," Nicole jokingly threw back.

"Not you," came the reply, one hand leaving the reins and coming to rest on her thigh. "I love hearing you talk, even when you're blabbering about proper medical technique."

At that Nicole let out a light gasp, turning around with mild offence written in her eyes. She couldn't find anything to retaliate with for once, setting instead for giving her wife a slight shove with her elbow, that only elicited a laugh.

She shook her head and let out a sigh. "We did figure out what's with the damned nosebleeds." At a curious hum and Cassandra's chin coming to rest on top of her head, she went on. "Apparently I can distinguish illnesses by smell. Now that would've been useful during med school," she finished with a bitter laugh.

Her wife responded with a snort. "If I were Daniela, I'd say you're joking to hide how you really feel." She shrugged. "However I'm not her, and I'm assuming you'll simply tell me without the need of an impromptu psychoanalysis," she said almost smugly, the hand that was until then lazily placed on her leg finding its place around her waist.

The times when Nicole wished to curse her wife's apparently impeccable observation skills were rare, but this was one such occasion.

She almost let out a groan, pushing further back into Cassandra's form. "There was this other man, John Abbott, with the same mutation. Except his body rejected the Cadou and he died slowly and painfully," she explained, her voice quieting halfway through, but almost flinched when the arm around her went stiff with an almost vice-like grip. The realization of how long Cassandra has really been in the Village for slowly crept its way from Nicole's memory, having been filed away and almost forgotten in a metaphorical drawer of obvious things that however were rarely brought up. "Did you know him-"

"You won't end up like that sorry bastard."

The conviction behind that one simple sentence almost had Nicole letting out another short bitter laugh. Not out of bemusement of course. Irony perhaps, at how determined her wife was to double down on cheating death, not only for herself but her too. Even when death could be brought by the very thing keeping them alive.

"Not much we could do about that," she said in a small voice, one hand toying with the black fabric of Cassandra's sleeve.

"Don't think for one moment that I'm joking," she started, an edge of a warning behind her tone. Her hand came to rest more gently on the bottom of Nicole's sternum, where the skin had healed in a dark scar that seemed to send jagged cracks all the way to her stomach. "I'll pull the wretched little thing out of your chest myself if I have to."

At that Nicole actually let out a laugh. "Way to go with something morbidly romantic."

Cassandra chuckled close to her ear, bending down slightly to leave a peck where her neck and shoulder met. "You're not going to die. I won't allow it."

A silent possessiveness accompanied her words. An implication that she now belonged there, in her arms, and frivolous things such as death had no place to come between them. She should flinch at such implications, were it not for the fact that it was mutual and Cassandra knew better than to recklessly throw herself on death's path, knowing well that soon her wife would follow in her steps.

The soft kiss was returned when Nicole bent back again, until the angle between their bodies allowed for their lips to meet tenderly, in a way that anyone would believe was so utterly uncharacteristic to the both of them, ruthless in their own ways but soft like velvet running on smooth skin with each other.

They rode in comfortable silence up until the gates to the stable, where they dismounted and handed the reins to one of the servants waiting there. The sun had set by then, purple and dark blues reigning the skies as they entered the castle through one of the secondary doors.

She parted ways with her wife, saying that she would soon join the rest of their family as she headed up the stairs. A change of clothes was due. That and a request to their seamstress.

Oh her way back down, she stopped by the open door to the woman’s studio, busy with readjusting some garments for one of the ladies. A curt knock on the wooden frame of the entrance got her attention and had her pulling a face upon realizing that she had probably lost count of whatever she was mentally keeping track of. Nonetheless, she offered a polite smile when greeting Nicole.

“My lady, what can I do for you?”

“I need a facemask,” Nicole started.

The woman’s eyebrows pulled in a confused frown. “I thought a new batch of surgical masks just arrived the other day.”

Nicole raised a hand when she went to check on the shipments list. “I meant something I can wear for longer and outside the lab, surgical masks have a tendency to clash with an elegant gown, you know,” she explained with a chuckle. “Preferably that can filter out any smells?”

“Oh. Of course, I’ll just need to take your measures to make sure it’s fitted for you.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” she proposed and, after the seamstress gave her an hour, she continued on her way down the hallway to where the rest of the Dimitrescus were gathered.

Being home brought some peace of mind, thoughts of dying and being forcefully ripped away from her life momentarily placated in favor of enjoying a few hours by the fireplace with her family. Leaning against Cassandra as she draped an arm around her shoulders and listening to Daniela and Bela have a hilariously heated debate over the latest book they've read felt downright blissful in its mundane aspect.

Although no matter what, the little parasite that now called the inside of her chest its home, was quietly gnawing at her worried mind.

#unhinged maiden™ my beloved #cassandra dimitrescu x maiden #mother miranda #salvatore moreau #to bargain for immortality #fanfic #big reveal is big

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allthingsarmin · 3 years

Note

Hello, can i please request an armin x reader but it’s a modern au where armin is a nerd and the reader is popular, feel free to ignore if you don’t like the idea :)

Thank you for your request, anon! I really hope you like it, and I can always rewrite it if it’s not the way you imagined. Also, sorry it is a little long - I think I got carried away with this prompt haha.

The beginning might be a little angsty, but the ending is cute ^_^

GN!Reader

Warnings: one cuss word, mentions of self-doubt, kissing

Word Count: 2,346

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Things change - sometimes for the better - like how Armin finally cut his bob-length hair and now has a handsome undercut that suits his jawline and like how you are finally growing taller since it seemed like forever that Armin was the taller one.

Things change - sometimes for the worse - like how you and Armin used to be so close in grade school, but now in college, your relationship is made up of awkward smiles in the hallways, small waves when passing each other in the library, and unfinished conversations on SnapChat.

Things fade - relationships come to an end, people move on, and that’s just life. Look at you now, from a quiet person to a popular student known for your humorous remarks, angelic facial features, a delightful sense of style, and your beautifully color-coded notes. You capture hearts with your smile, and you never fail to make anyone laugh with your stupidly funny puns and nonsense. To put it simply, Armin is a bit different - well, you could say nerdy. Quiet, polite, and has as much passion for the world as he does intelligence. Always heavily invested in school and studying as you could almost always find his nose in between the pages of a book or study guide. Poor Armin - not known for his sweet personality or his above average intelligence. Definitely not known for his sense of style but always comes to class dressed in a rather dashing blazer and keeps a couple Kleenex tissues in his left pocket. Armin barely has any friends, - if any - but he always makes sure to hold the door open for strangers, smile at teachers when entering the classroom, and send you a “Happy Birthday!” text every year.

Some things don’t fade - like Armin’s feelings for you even after you two grew apart and he was forced to watch you from the sidelines. How could he not be so deeply in love with you? When you two were close, you coddled up with each other and read books about the ocean, learning about sharks and so naively believing in the theory of Atlantis. You stayed over at each other’s houses and studied together as well as comforted each other if one of you didn’t do as well as you expected on a test. You used to braid his long blond locks as he told you stories about his grandfather. During the summers, you would use chalk to draw a picture of you two on the blistering sidewalks outside his house, and he would give you handmade bookmarks as a present. Even though you two have grown apart, he is still in love with you, watching you laugh from far away. The way your eyes squint out of happiness and the sound of your hearty laughter makes his body heat up and his cheeks rosy. The way you sometimes send him “Good luck!” texts for when there’s a big test in a class you both are taking makes him smile with teary eyes since it seems that you have in fact not forgotten about him and his intense anxiety when it comes to test-taking. The way you ran up to Armin and gripped his arm when you unexpectedly saw him in the campus coffee shop that one time sent a euphoric tingle throughout his body that made him forget how to breathe properly. How could he not love you when you were always there for him, when you remembered every personal detail he told you during late-night childhood sleepovers, when you tried your best to make him love himself? Armin wants so badly to tell you how important you are to him, how he wants to protect you from everything bad in the world, how he wants to wrap his arms around you and listen to your heartbeat… you are just so hard to reach. He is a nerd, a loser, and you are so popular, surrounded by endless amounts of friends… he’s sure your contacts are completely full and DMs flooding with people who are interested in you and are a lot better than him. What was the point in even trying?

Luckily for Armin, you feel the same way. To be honest with yourself, your stupid jokes, loud laughter, and wide smiles were really just a cover-up for how deeply sad you are. No matter how many friends you have or instant messages you receive from strangers online, you feel incredibly alone because none of them are him. Popularity doesn't matter to you anymore - you just miss your best friend so terribly. You missed walking on the beach together, splashing each other with the salty waves, making study-flashcards together, and being able to touch his beautiful blond hair whenever you wanted. Armin’s birthday is coming up, and you want to make your move and do something big for him that would let him know how special he is to you. This time, it wouldn’t involve loads of friends or a loud party with that overly social and fake personality of yours.

You text Armin: “Hey Armin! We haven’t talked in awhile, but your birthday is this Saturday, and I would like to meet up with you. Are you free to go to the beach on Saturday? I want to give you a present, and I just want to catch up with you. I miss my friend!”

Armin read the text with relief. Even if he couldn’t have you the way he wanted, he still wanted more than anything to reconnect with his old friend. “It’s good to hear from you, y/n! I have no plans for Saturday, so of course we can meet up… around 7pm if that’s okay. I want to watch the sunset! And I miss you too…”

Saturday:

It is November, which means it’s cold. At the beach in November? Even colder, so you make sure to dress warmly.

It is 6:59pm, and you trudge through the moist sand, the harsh wind bearing itself against your face making the tip of your nose turn a bright pink as you grip your hoodie close to your body. In the distance, you see Armin sitting on the sand, shoes off and wearing a dark green sweatshirt with a black beanie. Sitting next to him was his backpack - of course he was the type to bring his school work with him while you always brought your violently vibrating phone with you everywhere.

You release a tired breath as you sit next to him in the sand, setting the bag of presents down beside you and keeping your cold hands in your hoodie pocket. A big smile is on your face as you ask him: “Aren’t you cold, Armin? Why don’t you have your shoes on?!” Armin laughs as he turns his face toward you. At this point, you can see how red his cheeks really are, and this is really the first time you’ve noticed how handsome he actually is. The softness of his blond eyelashes beautifully contrast with the sharpness of his jawline. His smile is soft, and his deep blue eyes pierce into yours. “Hahaha, I don’t know. I just haven’t been to the beach in a long time…” he trails off. “It’s ‘cuz you’re so popular now that you don’t have time to hang out with me,” he states in a playfully butt-hurt tone though you can sense that he is indeed a little upset about it. The waves hitting the shore fill the awkward silence between you two. “I know,” you softly say, “but I think about you all the time. I miss you, and I hope we can be close friends again,” you confess. Armin feels his heart flutter when you say that you miss him. He wants to tell you he loves you and wants to reassure you that he’d always be there for you, but instead he pats you on the back. “It’s okay! I was just joking,” he awkwardly laughs. “Of course we are friends, and I hope we can be even closer too.”

He glances to your side. “What’s in the bag?” he inquires. “Oh!” you exclaim, seemingly as if you forgot about it. You rush to give him the bag and shove it into his arms. “It’s just some stuff I got you for your birthday.”

He rummages through it, going through the endless amount of tissue paper on the top. He pulls out a light blue sweater first.

“It’s almost winter, so I figured I’d give you something warm. I think this color…” you pause and hesitantly reach up to adjust his beautiful blond bangs, “... would look good on you.”

You both make eye contact for a second and quickly look away from each other. “Haha, it’s beautiful, y/n. Thank you!” You are just about to say ‘no problem’ before he is quickly taking off his green sweatshirt and replacing it with the light blue one, his very toned abs peeking through the plain white t-shirt he had on underneath the sweatshirt. You feel your cheeks grow warm and instantly look away. Armin notices and chuckles to himself. He would honestly never mind if you wanted to look at them or even touch them.

“Now, onto the second one,” you say, trying to change the subject. Armin pulls out two matching, homemade bracelets that feature a seashell on both of them. He looks at them silently and intently.

“I made matching bracelets!” you say proudly. “They’re like friendship bracelets, so we both have to wear them all the time! You aren’t allowed to take it off!” you joke.

“They’re so pretty, y/n,” he whispers as he stares at the shells, a sparkle in his eyes. He immediately puts it on and gently takes your wrist to put yours on.

“There,” he says contently, carefully placing your wrist in your lap.

You two sit silently next to each other, shoulders brushing against one another and watching the waves as the sun casts a dull orange and purple glow across the sky. The sounds of waves crashing against the shore and the squawking birds in the sky cancel out the noises of Armin softly crying.

Once you notice, you quickly snap your head around. “Armin, are you okay?” you ask, extremely worried.

“Thank you for the presents, y/n,” he sniffles. “You have always done stuff like this for me,” Armin continues as he gets flashbacks of you two running across the beach and gawking at beautiful seashells, telling jokes to each other in grade school when it was supposed to be reading time, and making funny drawings of each other. “I’ve never told you thank you - for being there for me and comforting me all those times, and just letting me be myself. It’s been such a long time since we’ve done anything together. I miss making you laugh, and I miss going to the library with you and asking you about your day.”

At this point, you feel like crying too because you feel the exact same. You spent so much of your life wanting to fit in, and you finally became popular but at what cost? You nearly forgot about the most important person to you, the one person that actually cares about you.

“I love you,” Armin suddenly blurts out, a tear running down his face. “I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine,” he says so quietly that it’s borderline pathetic. You swear your heart stopped when he said that. You feel a burning sensation all along your body as you forget about the cold air hitting your face, and you feel your breathing stop. The uncertainty you felt that kept you awake every night about whether Armin thought of you the same, all the self-doubt, all the guilt about leaving your friend behind, had been erased in an instant.

The silence between you two is unbearably awkward, and with confidence you seemingly pull out of nowhere, you throw yourself onto Armin’s lips, your arms enclosing his broad shoulders, and both of you falling sideways into the wet sand. Armin, at first shocked, passionately kisses back and links onto your soft lips. The tips of your noses are cold, but you both eventually succumb to each other's warmth. You both pull away to catch some breath. Armin gently wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you closer to him as you bury your head in the crook of his neck. Even after all this time, he still smells the same - vanilla and cedarwood. “I love you too,” you softly say. Noticing that you both are practically wallowing in the sand by now, you apologize. “Also, sorry I ruined your new sweatshirt. There’s sand all over it,” you laugh.

“Oh, it’s okay,” he reassures, shyly placing a kiss on your forehead. “Want to watch the sunset with me?” You nod your head enthusiastically, a smile you couldn’t help leave your lips.

“Oh, fuck,” you quitely exclaim.

“What’s wrong?” Armin asks in a concerned tone.

“I forgot I have an essay due at 11:59 tonight.”

Armin busts out laughing - a sound you wouldn’t mind hearing for the rest of your life even though he’s laughing at your poor planning.

“When the sun finally sets, we can go back to my dorm, and I can help you with it if that’s alright with you,” he politely offers.

“Sure!” you happily reply.

You both sit up and face the horizon. The sun was almost gone, and the sky was a heavenly pink color while the sea began to look indigo. Your hands were linked with Armin’s, and for the first time in a long time, you felt warm despite the air getting cooler.

Getting ready to go to Armin’s dorm, he grabs his backpack and his dark green sweatshirt. You get up and check your phone, not at all caring that you have nearly fifty missed text messages and missed calls asking why you didn’t come to the weekly campus party.

You finally have all that you need.

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I really hoped you liked it! Requests are open ~ I have another request that will be posted soon.

#armin arlert #armin x reader #aot x reader

144 notes · View notes

generallypo · 4 years

Photo

night/day

sticker proj! am still learning. more important to my brain, however, are the HOB/TOG crossover thoughts courtesy of 4am and bad sleeping habits. there lie hysterical laughing and raving, all under the cut.

all warnings are dead at this point. yeet haw

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so hear this: TOG, except khun is now an infamous hobo trash god living his best life after getting the boot from heaven. this is his third time. the first two were official mandates, the third more of a soft plea for mercy after everyone up there gave a collective groan of christ, not this little shit again.

baam? probably been pining in a cave or a volcano or a very wee ramshackle house for, oh, say 800 years. no one’s really sure if he grew out of his emo phase or not yet.

yep that’s it that’s literally all i was thinking about. the rest is just character and story banter and a couple of hot takes. thanks for tuning in.

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in all honesty, i feel like matching tog charas with hob charas could go both ways -- surface personality-wise, i would say khun would actually fit hua cheng better? both start off as mysterious protector types to the MC and are sly and charming; on the other side, baam and xie lian are sweet and mild-mannered, enduring whatever problems come their way. hmm.

but if -- spoiler alert, i guess? -- we were to look at backstories and further, underlying character traits, khun’s history lines up with xie lian’s almost to a scary extent. born to a royal/extremely prominent family? indirectly leading them to disaster? suicide in the family as a result? being exiled to the very lowest level in society? aye aye, sir.

and by the end of all these events -- xie lian after the first few centuries of fucking with and getting fucked by history, khun after he arrives at the bottom of the tower -- neither are outwardly affected by their past, but it haunts them in subtler, unwanted ways, and it makes them jaded, cautious men. xie lian is obviously nicer when going about things, but i like to remember that khun actually does harbor an altruistic streak in him: helping maria simply because he admired her kindness, vowing to aid baam after his interest in the black march wanes and he realizes baam is a legitmately decent person. he has no attachment to rachel, but for a simple promise to a dead boy he’s willing to carry her several floors up the tower. khun is a softer soul than he shows; it’s the constant danger of the tower that makes him behave with such a contrasting harshness and vigilance. (also, as of s3 khun is apparently an unkillable cockroach... so now he really is twinsies with xie lian. little buggers.)

and conversely, baam isn’t always just sunshine and honey -- his intense, almost obsessive capacity to fixate on -- worship, even -- a person is pretty starkly reminiscent of hua cheng’s focus on xie lian. at least, from an outsider’s perspective. as a reader, we’re privy to the far more benign nuances of his interactions with the local trash god, but from the pov of an another character, the way he constantly hovers and menaces anything between him and xie lian is... basically season 1 and 2 of tog with baam and rachel?

cue the blatant similarity between their motives for doing so as well: growing up isolated from the rest of society, finding a reason to live through the first person to accept them and consequently building their entire life around that person. that extreme of a love, regardless of its purity or good intentions, can be terrifying -- and is why, i think, rachel’s rejection during the hell train arc is completely reasonable, and xie lian’s acceptance of it is a beautiful miracle. tog is the example of a failed and, frankly, very human ‘love’ story, and hob showcases the very best of one, uplifted by a superhuman willingness to wait until both parties are ready to see each other equally. and for that reason, hob truly is the romance of all romances -- 800 years of patience and quiet understanding and mutual comfort? godly.

hence, my chipmunk brain stands up and screams: xie lian!khun and hua cheng!bam! it makes perfect sense! do it! do it! do ittttt! i like to think there’s a bunch of cute similarities with the plot and character development and overall progression and that it totally works and all. it’s totally deep. yeah.

(additionally, all the matching butterfly imagery and coloration stuff: warm red tones for hc/baam, white/blue-ish for xl/khun. yep. for some things, i don’t have to think too hard at all, and i like that.)

anyway, the comparisons could totally go both ways, i agree with that. but here’s my current take on it since this one vibes with me a little more and i think there are deeper thoughts to be extrapolated out on it. also bc literally one reason: if khun were hc it would take him tops a century to scout out baam, convince him to travel far away, and like, i dunno, climb a tower with him or something.

#tower of god #tog #heaven official's blessing #hob #tian guan ci fu #khun aguero agnis #twenty fifth baam #khunbam #long ass emotional screeching #fanart #4am small brained mammal shenanigans

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quirkwizard · 4 years

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Stand as One

One of the major themes across manga is the importance of the connections between the protagonist and the people they associate with. They talk about how they can't make it by themselves or how they are doing everything for those they love and cherish. On the other hand is the villains. More often than not, they are the most powerful people possible, either using others for their own gain or just simply being stronger than everyone else, often doing what they do because of some selfish reason. But this is where My Hero Academia seems to differ. Instead of having a collective mindset like most of this manga seem to be leaning towards, the series seems much more oriented to the individual with heroes and much more to the collective with the villains.

Heroes, at their core, are highly individualized. It's all about a hero putting themselves out there as a brand, as a single entity that represents everything that they are about. They have their styles, costumes, and abilities, all of which are supposed to be helping the user stand out. But it goes beyond just that. Each hero is not doing what they do for altruistic reasons. Some do it for altruistic reasons, others do it for money, some do it as an easy way to become famous. As the series continues, we learn about how much a person needs to set themselves apart from other people. While they can be inspired by others to take action, it is ultimately up to themselves to get to where they want to be. The series puts a lot of emphasis is put on one's own hard work to become a hero and how hard it is to become one. It is the acknowledgement that they are weak and they can overcome this through hard work. Even Deku, who gets his power, moves, and his primary goal from All Might can still see the importance of branching and trying to do things his own way. This is reaffirmed further by Izuku learning how to grow his Quirk in news ways such as his Shoot Style.

But regardless of all that, there is a prevalent theme of effort on the side of the heroes. It is shown constantly how hard it is to become a hero, training for years at the chance of getting a license and working to get a public image. And part of that hard work is about someone growing personally, expand beyond their original comfort zones to be the best heroes they can be. Ochako branches out from her mainly supportive role to make herself more rounded, Kirishima learns to be more confident in his seemingly unimpressive ability, Shoto overcomes his personal feelings regarding his father to truly become the be hero he is capable of being. It's all about hard work and how that hard work gets that person to where they want to be. It ties in nicely back into the idea of individuality since all of these people are either made or broken by how much effort they put into their hero work. Yes, people who have strong Quirks certainly get a head start, but what ultimately determines how good of a hero that person is their effort. It's why Mirio was such a legend amount UA in spite of his ability, to the point his considered the person closest to the number one spot.

All this does mean that some people do get left behind. Look at Class 1-A for example. Despite being a group of students that are working together, they are ultimately competing against one another to try and become heroes. And while Aizawa's teaching may be harsh, it goes to show how hard it can be to function as a hero. If someone cannot make it in the hero world, they are left behind because they cannot put in the work to succeed. You either need to be in the work to become a hero or risk falling behind or failing in your work. You quite literally live and die by how good of a hero you are. And once a hero becomes official, most of the work seems to be done on their own, with teams being rarely seen in the story. The most other heroes have been sidekicks, but they are still playing second fiddle to this single entity, cursed to forever live in their boss' shadow until they can strike out on their own. Yes, heroes do work together at times, such as the join operations we see throughout the series, but most of the time they seem to work on their own.

But this individuality is in pursuit of a greater goal. While all the heroes are working against each other for money and fame, they are still working for the same objective: they help those who cannot help themselves and try to maintain peace for society. Even if a hero does not have altruistic intentions at heart, they still have to work and strive to help the most people possible, making it more about the group than the individual. But this is no better represented in then the person who stands at the very top of hero kind. The main goal of Number 1 hero is it is they are the person who is standing above everyone else, hence why so much emphasis is put on the person who actually fills that spot. To both inspire those beneath them to do better and provide a sense of comfort to the masses. They must sacrifice both in body and in soul to make sure everyone can hold on to hope. They are one for all.

As for the villains, this is one of the many ways they differentiate from heroes. When it comes to the villains, they are much more oriented to a group. This is done as a basic need to survival, coming together to oppose the much more well organized heroes, but it goes beyond just that. In working together, they are propping each other up, working far better together than they ever would apart. It is the acknowledgement that they are weak and they can overcome this through working together. Overhaul found people that were struggling to find meaning, giving them a second life under the yakuza. Re-Destro united many people under the teachings of his father and wanted the free use of Quirks for all, as misguided as it was. Even Gentle and La Brava, who are basically two ragtag nerdowells, still found and sense of completeness with one another not only in their complementary skills but in their emotional needs. This contrasts with the more solo working heroes.

Of course, this is best shown with the League of Villains. Heck, they were the inspiration for villains teaming up to get strong, both in the USJ attack and the League as a whole. But this is more so about the core League, especially true after the arrest of All For One. They work together, protect their own, seek vengeance when one of them is wronged. They grow and train together, sticking together through highs and lows to achieve what they want. This in of itself is best represented by Double, always surrounded by his allies and inspired to become stronger to protect them, and Spinner, who finds new power under the branding of villainy and the League. It's likely why so many people in the fandom gravitate towards this ragtag group of villains. They are the underdogs in the story, banding together to better fight against those with much greater advantages then they could ever hope to fight alone, whether they be heroes or different sorts of villains.

But how this differs is that this collectivism is that this all seems to be done for the sake of one person. Despite how much emphasis the villains seem to put on working together, it all seems done an individual's goal. Overhaul, for all of his talk about raising people up, still treats his subordinates as inferiors and garbage that he can toss aside. Re-Destro still sacrifices countless of his own people in the hope that he can kill members of the League. Yes, the various villains of the League seem to have their own goals and dreams, but all of that seems to be down in the pursuit of They cannot achieve their dreams on their own with the society they live in, so they must follow Tomura to get what they want. But what they want becomes superseded by what Tomrua wants. The more and more the series goes on, the more and more it seems to be all about Tomura. It stops being about the group, only focusing on Tomrua and getting him where he is now. It is all for one.

Now this isn't a perfect one to one comparison on either side. There are certainly exceptions to this idea on both sides. Hawks is someone who has his individuality striped away in favor of having an agent that will do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of the public. Stain is a figure who fights alone, trying to reform society in his own way through his actions and effort in a quite twisted manner. However, the comparison is still there for a large portion of the two sides. It's interesting to see this kind of development out of a major manga. While it still has some of the major tropes, it certainly has the roles reversed when it comes to this traditional theme. So why is this comparison here? Well I think it is to make a sort of connection to the nature of heroes. It's like Aizawa said, you can't always rely on other people to help you out a situation. If you want to help someone or help yourself, you need to put in the work and you are the only person who can make it work. It all works back into Horikoshi's inspiration of American comics and more American-style heroes, where people with the will and the way could achieve great things.

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friendlyfrat-boy · 4 years

Text

To Learn, To Grow, To Love

pairings: Usopp x Sanji (whatever that is called)

summary:

On Sabaody Archipelago, the nine were separated, sent to nine different locations to train, to grow stronger for the New World.

Usopp was sent to the Boyn islands, but he didn't know that. When he came there, he didn't know anything, and he was alone. No teacher, no friendly face, no one to save him and accompany him. No one to keep him from sinking into hollow isolation. He spent two years there, on an island where everything tried to kill him and all he could do was hide and try to survive. When all is said and done, he's hardly the apex predator there. No, unlike Luffy, raw strength did not save him here. But he did survive. And he does escape.

A mistake in his flying gear, aka a very large ant, left him stranded in the middle of the Grand Line. Luckily, he is found by Sanji on the revolutionary ship, and he is rescued. But he isn't alright, and Sanji notices this. Usopp needs to learn to heal, and perhaps, if things go just right, to love.

Chapter One

Two Years Apart,

One Moment Together

"What the fuck is that," Sanji muttered to himself, hand raised up to shield his eyes from the harsh rays of the sun as he peered out to sea.

He'd finally found refuge from the dozens of drag queens out for his dignity atop the mast of the ship. Why the hell had they insisted on coming along for his final journey to Sabaody Archipelago? Couldn't they give him some time to breathe out after these two horrible years?

Worst of all, they just wouldn't let him be in one place, not even on this damned ship. Sure, it was a rather large ship, fit for a whole gaggle of revolutionaries, but there just wasn't enough space to run away from all these drag queens for extended periods of time. The only place he could remotely consider safe was his private quarters, but that was only at night.

Regardless, he'd found some sort of solitude, perched up high on the main mast. Down below, he could see the dots that were his tormentors searching high and low for him. Some held dresses in their hands, others make-up. The pokers of the devils, he thought.

But he wasn't looking down there right now. No, for a while now, his attention had been focused on a little dot on the horizon. It was almost white and orange, but he could only barely tell that from the immense distance. For a while, he'd just thought it was the ship of some other crew or something. The sea was wide, and meeting other ships, as uncommon as it was, wasn't entirely rare. But something about that shape made Sanji reconsider that idea.

As time went on, soon enough, the dot became more visible, more defined in shape and colour. It seemed mostly white, with blots of orange and grey. But that's not the interesting part. No, the dot was, if Sanji still had his eyes still attached, an ant. Not in size, no, not in general shape, either. Just a straight up ant. If Sanji had been three years younger, still working at the Baratie in the mild East Blue, he would have doubted his eyes and/or sanity. Now… he really wouldn't be too surprised to see a giant ant out at sea.

Taking a drag of his cigarette (they'd thankfully let him restock every now and then) he continued observing the ant, as it was. Observation number one: it was big. Damn big. Big enough for a dozen people to ride on. Observation number two: it was dead. Dead as dust. Not one of the limbs was moving (one even seemed to be missing), the head was bobbing up and down lifelessly, and a pair of wings floated aimlessly at its sides. But the third observation, the one that made Sanji consider doing more than just observing the damn thing, was that something about it seemed to be alive.

It was still quite far away, so he could barely see it, but from his younger days, when spotting a ship was essential to life, he could make out a striking detail. Somebody was riding the ant. Well, less so riding, and more so just paddling along, using it more as a piece of driftwood than anything alive. The reason the person riding it stood out to Sanji was not how they continued paddling furiously despite barely getting anywhere, but more so their clothing.

Actually, the damn guy was barely dressed, his upper body mostly exposed, but what he was dressed in was all green. Hat? Green. Big, poofy pants? Green. The giant bag behind him, large enough to fit enough meat to satiate Luffy for five minutes? Very green. Damn green. All and all, the guy was a clear contrast to the dead ant itself.

But the final detail, the one that made Sanji willingly jump off the mast to greet the dozens of tormentors below, was his nose. Long and rounded at the tip. Not Kaku's, not anybody else's on the four damn seas…Usopp's.

The chances should have been next to impossible, the probability close to zero, but… There was no mistaking that nose. Ant aside, he wasn't about to let Usopp drift them on by. Promise to meet at Sabaody Archipelago be damned, Usopp clearly needed his help.

"Shitty Ivan!" Sanji called out, making his entrance on deck by planting his foot in the face of a surprised okama. With the skill and grace of someone who was clearly used to dealing with desperate unkillable machines of feminine beauty, he kicked the tormentor away before he had the time to try and make a grab for his ankles. A dozen other tormentors on deck turned to him with hungry eyes, sparing no sympathy for their "fallen" comrade. Sanji bit down on his cigarette and prepared himself for a long chase. He'd learnt long ago that there was no use trying to defeat all of them. One would always be replaced by two. His best bet had always been to run.

"What is it, Sanji-Kun?" Ivan asked, popping his slender, beautiful face out from the nook of some door Sanji hadn't noticed. Damn, he hated it when that shitty revolutionary used his powers to give him a female body. It was the only way Sanji had been able to see the female form for these past two years (outside of the imagination), but that didn't mean he liked it. If anything, it was more infuriating than his normal (albeit still terrifying) form. Kicking a pursuing tormentor in the face, Sanji turned to answer the admittedly sexy man. No words he'd ever want to hear himself utter, but it was true in this case.

"Turn the ship starboard, there's someone we need to rescue," Sanji said flatly, jerking a thumb at the still distant form of the ant. Ivankov trailed along his finger to gaze out at sea, where the ant was quite clearly visible. Humming, the man-in-the-body-of-a-hot-sexy-woman squinted at it, unknowingly copying Sanji by shading his eyes with his hand.

"Oh my! Inazuma, dear," the man mentioned emerged from behind Ivankov, thankfully as a man and not as a woman, "will you turn the ship starboard? Sanji-Kun, our newest member, would like to make a new friend." Inazuma nodded blankly and walked across the deck to do just that. Sanji followed his back with his gaze for a moment, before apprehensively jumping into the air to avoid being body-slammed by six okama at once.

As Sanji courageously jumped through the air, dodging missile-like drag queens left and right, the ship swerved harsly, the wood groaning just slightly as it was forced in a whole new direction. A few minutes passed, and soon enough, the ant was close enough to make out some actual details. Firstly, the man sitting on it was definitely Usopp. Tan skin, eager locks of hair going wherever they wanted to, circular eyes, and finally, long nose… Sanji was glad his assessment had been so spot-on.

However, what Usopp was doing made Sanji do a second take. He was paddling alright, but he was doing it with an oddly huge paddle. The paddle was black in tint, but where Usopp held it and where the end of it connected to the water, it was green, probably wrapped in leaves. But even more unnerving, Usopp simply hadn't noticed them. And they were close, too. In fact, they were just about to dangle down a ladder for him to hop onto.

But… he just didn't see them at all. Heavy, black bags hung from his eerily overfocused eye. Sanji could only see one visible eye, but it seemed dry, too intent on whatever he was looking for to even notice them. That wasn't all, either. No, his whole body had a strange tremble to it. His muscles, lean and toned under tanned plant-stained skin, were clearly exhausted. Sanji was no doctor, but as a proficient fighter, he knew what an overused muscle looked like. Bulging unnaturally and twitching with every movement - that was how Usopp's muscles looked like.

Furthermore, the actual movements that the muscles were executing almost seemed painful in how robotic they were. Paddle up, paddle to the front, paddle down, paddle back. Repeat on the other side. He… he'd been doing this for a while, hadn't he? Too long, if his muscles were anything to go by. Fixation. That's what it was. Usopp, as he was now, was the very image of unhealthy, self-destructive fixation.

"Oi, Usopp!" Sanji called out from the deck, where the okamas had thankfully let him do this without being interrupted. Usopp didn't even twitch at being called out to. Not a movement, only yet another paddle back. "Usopp! Listen to me, you shitty long-nose!"

Nothing.

That was enough. Sanji had been awaiting his meeting with Nami-swan and Robin-chwan for two years! And also everybody else. Meeting one of them early was a good thing! Seeing someone not in a dress, a man being a man... it made his heart flutter in a very strange way, and being met with exactly jack-diddly-squat in return did nothing to quell his frustrations. If anything, it only intensified them.

"RISE AND SHINE, SHITTY LONG-NOSE," Sanji roared, lunging from his place on deck to plant a sole in his friend's face. Even two years back, an attack by Sanji upon Usopp would send the latter man flying, but Sanji would at least have had the common sense to hold back. Now, however, he hadn't had a need to hold back for two years. Kicking an okama rarely sent them flying, and if it did, they usually came back with a vengeance and passion that reminded him of a starved Luffy. Or a sober Zoro. Both thoughts were equally terrifying.

This lack of restraint caused his empty-eyed friend to go flying at speeds nearing that of a subsonic missile. If Sanji had seen his friend's face as he flew, he would have noticed the sole-shaped burn-mark seared into the side of his face.

Sanji came to a stop on the ant itself, which was surprisingly buoyant. Usopp, thankfully, didn't fly too far, skidding to a stop only a couple dozen metres away. Silently, the man rose to the surface, his single, wide, terrified eye having regained some form of life as they scanned the horizon for whatever hurt him. And, in that scan, he caught a glance of Sanji, who was looking right back at him.

At seeing the smoking imprint on Usopp's face, Sanji couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. He hadn't meant to kick that hard, but… Nevertheless, seeing as how Usopp was looking right at him, he had to do something.

"Heyyy! Usopp, it's me! Sorry for hitting you!" he called out, smiling wryly as he waved to his blank-faced friend. The man in question did not respond. He didn't even smile. Just bobbed up and down, hazy eyes going from focused to glossed over, arms growing weak…

"Oh no you fucking don't," Sanji muttered to himself. Flexing his legs, he threw himself into the water, arms raised above him to form an arrow. He'd seen enough people drown to know what it looked like. He'd just never expected it to be Usopp. With his training, Sanji had become a very able runner/kicker/swimmer. If Usopp had been an airborne missile before, Sanji was now a torpedo, shooting through the water with little resistance.

There he was. Sanji's hunch had been correct to a tee - Usopp had bobbed right on under the surface and was currently just sort of sinking, not an uncommon sight for a devil fruit user, but odd to see in Usopp. If Sanji had been able to curse underwater, he would have. For now, he settled for an annoyed twitch of his characteristic eyebrow.

Another second passed, and Sanji was close enough to grab Usopp, which he did. One arm under his legs, the other on his back, he raised his friend to the surface in a carry he would usually reserve for the daintiest of ladies. Once his own head raised above the surface, carefully manoeuvring his friend so his head was above as well, he took a deep breath. He noticed quicker than he'd liked that his cigarette was soggy as all hell. Usopp seemed pretty out of it though, so at least he'd have no problem getting him aboard the ship.

Swimming back to the ship with Usopp in tow was easier than he'd originally thought. The only thing he hadn't braced himself for was Usopp himself. His muscles felt like coiled iron springs, permanently locked up in tension. The only thing accentuating this feeling was how every three seconds or so, a muscle would twitch harshly, in turn making another muscle twitch which would do the same thing to another, leading to a full-body shiver that almost made Sanji drop him the first time it happened.

"Stupid shitty long-nose falling off the ant…" Sanji grumbled to himself as he successfully climbed back on top of the ant, heaving up Usopp as well. He might as well grab Usopp's things while he was here. The only thing Usopp didn't have on his person seemed to be the obnoxiously large green bag, which seemed to be made of leaves or something. He kicked it aboard the ship, but gently, unlike how hed kicked Usopp. And that was it-, no, hold on, there was one more thing.

A strange, shiny black thing that almost seemed to have the shape of a hammer, right next to a hole in the ant that it had probably caused. The hammer, as it probably was, was sharp on one end and blunt on the other, the handle seemingly covered with blunt barbs on one end. Sanji picked it up in one hand, balancing Usopp in the other. It was heavy and clearly hard. It almost seemed to be from the chitin of some large insect, but that would be…

A glance at the elephant-sized ant he was standing on made Sanji feel like an idiot. Anyhow, the hole in the ant which the hammer had caused exposed flesh and some sort of yellowish goop. A quick step to the left prevented some of the goop from staining his spotless black shoes. Was he just imagining things, or was some of the flesh beneath the carapace scooped out…?

Let's ignore that. With the hammer in hand, Sanji jumped onto deck, successfully sticking the landing. The okama stared at him.

"If you dare attack me or Usopp, I will personally kick you overboard," Sanji growled, which kept them at bay. Happy with his newfound privacy, Sanji carefully let Usopp down to lie on the deck. He would have grabbed him a chair or something, but that could wait. Sanji hunched down next to his friend and did what usually worked after an event like this: pressed down on his stomach.

"Cough, splt, guhh-," Usopp spluttered, water escaping his air canals and wherever else it had been and splashing onto the deck. Propping himself up with one arm, Usopp heaved his upper body to the side to cough up more water. It felt strange that this was the first thing Sanji had heard from him. He hadn't said hello, he hadn't screamed when he was kicked, he hadn't begged to be saved… it felt wrong.

With the water expelled from his body, Usopp finally took the time to take notice of his surroundings. His exhausted, dim eye scanned the okama who had formed a ring quite a ways away, his attention eventually falling on the form of Sanji, who stood right in front of him. Sanji, bereft of smoking, decided to chew on his wet cigarette, mostly to hide his own anxiety over how… unlike himself Usopp was being. That big round eye of his stared at him, haze slowly, gradually replaced by dawning recognition.

But nothing more. This would be where Sanji would expect Usopp to say something like "ohmygodSanjiIwassoscaredthanksforsavingme" or just "Sanji! I missed you!" or even just a "the great Usopp-Sama did not need your help!" not… not this. His face was as blank as cardboard. The only part of his body that expressed anything, anything at all, was his eye. Bright and moist and disbelieving.

And then, he rose up. Slowly, stumbling, trembling and weak. No wonder, with how tense and overused his muscles were. Sanji followed his movements, rising as he did, until the two finally stood face-to-face. Usopp weak and taut, Sanji strong and stoic. Usopp as blank-faced and non-saying as Sanji had ever seen him, Sanji wearing his emotions and anxiety on his sleeve.

But it was Usopp who acted first. Sanji barely registered that first step, how Usopp practically jumped at him, arms flinging themselves around him, locked themselves around his body, his face buried into Sanji's still wet shoulder. His grip was iron, that much was for sure. Iron, and desperate. Sanji, in his surprise, could barely register how his shoulder got just a little wetter. How Usopp's trembling and uncertain fingers dug just a little bit more into his back.

Sanji could do nothing but return it. Absently, he noticed how Usopp had to stand on his tiptoes, just to reach to press his face into the nape of his neck. Two arms on his back, he held Usopp only barely. He didn't need to clutch him close, Usopp was doing all that by himself. He smelled of freshly cut grass and copper.

The second Sanji had that thought, all of Usopp's strength left him, and he fainted where he stood, falling back only to be caught in Sanji's arms once more. Sighing, Sanji manoeuvred Usopp into a princess-carry for the second time that day and headed for where he knew the infirmary was. He'd been chased around this ship dozens of times, and in this situation, he was happy, since it meant he could find his way easier.

The okama parted before him, creating a path to where they knew he was headed. Some of them shot Sanji unsavoury, knowing glances he didn't much like. He could even see a few of them eyeing up Usopp like he was a mannequin, but a sharp glare from Sanji shut them up. Some had the gall to squeal "Sanji-chan is so scary~", but Sanji didn't have the time or care to put the fear of God in them. Instead, he focused on the task of hand.

The man really was out like a light.

Soon enough, Sanji had found himself in the infirmary, where a slightly less buff man than the others was dressed as a nurse, with fishnet stockings and everything else that Sanji would never see in the same way. He decided to ignore the doctor, gingerly placing Usopp down on one of the many beds in the infirmary.

He hadn't noticed it much before, but Usopp was dressed very oddly.

His skin was as tan as it had always been, but it seemed less clear, more ashen than before. His upper body was mostly bare, and what Sanji could see was somewhat worrying. Green blotches from crushed plants and dried patches of what must have been blood aside, his chest and arms were covered in innumerable scars, most of them not having healed well at all. He could almost tell that one of the larger ones, crossing his right shoulder, had at some point been crudely stitched together. This did not mean that the wound had healed well. If anything, it almost seemed like the injury had just gotten infected by this. How Usopp had survived this at all could only be a mystery.

This aside, it seemed Usopp had switched his usual overalls for a pair of green, poofy trousers, kept in place by a pair of black leather straps spanning over his shoulders and down his back. Either these straps were made by Usopp himself, which wouldn't be too surprising, or he'd repurposed his old overalls to create them. Either way, the leather straps connected to something beneath the frilly poof of leaves that were at the top of the pants. This wasn't the only piece of clothing on Usopp that utilized these black straps.

Equally prominent was the large, spiked shoulder brace, also made by the chitin of some enlarged bug. It was connected to Usopp at three parts, one around the neck, one around the arm, and one running straight over his chest. This black chitin material could also be found as armour on Usopp's dark green pants, where they were haphazardly placed just about anywhere they could be fitted. He also seemed to have a large, more spiked piece of chitin adorning his left arm, probably to be used for defence or something, perhaps close-quarter combat?

Apart from this, he was pretty well-covered by leaves.

There was a big one on his head, a smaller one covering his left eye for some reason (Sanji really hoped their shitty sharpshooter hadn't lost an eye since that'd fuck up his vision for sure), a pair of leaves covered his ears for some damn reason, a bunch of long, bandage-like leaves covered his right arm (as well as the oar-thing he was still clutching onto), and leaves also seemed to be what made up the sheath of a machete that Sanji had only just now noticed on Usopp's hip.

Other interesting features would be the gloves and boots he wore, and what Sanji could only assume was his knapsack. The knapsack in question was almost the oddest feature of all. Calling it a sack was a bit presumptuous, and Sanji could only assume it was one because of its placement on Usopp's body. In short, it was a skull. A massive, sharp-toothed upside-down skull. Two pieces of chitin covered its eyes, and if Sanji peeked inside the hole under the teeth, he found it filled with things he had no idea what to make of.

Usopp himself was also quite different. His muscles seemed to have started relaxing now that he was passed out, but even when relaxed, it was clear his muscle-to-fat ratio was almost 1:0. It was a wiry, well-toned build, very similar to Sanji's own, clearly strong enough to do some damage in any situation. Sanji could feel a blush rising to his cheeks, but he didn't know why. Maybe it was seeing a normal, non-dress wearing man in so long. Still…

His hair was much longer. If it hadn't been tied down with an odd, orange-looking rope, it would surely have created an afro with a diameter of at least a metre. As it was, it reached down to his hips. Sanji really wanted to touch it, but touching people's hair while they slept was very rude, as tempting as it was. Somehow, he'd also grown a petite goatee, but in his face, it was hardly noticeable. No, what Sanji noticed instead, was exactly how sunken in Usopp's eyes were. Had they been open, they would have looked like a pair of eyes staring out from two black holes.

All and all, Sanji could only assume Usopp had been in a jungle for two years. A jungle with giant ants. Considering the chitin armour, giant insects, in general, wouldn't be too far-fetched. Sanji whipped out a new cigarette from the pack inside of his jacket, only to realize after snapping at it with a lighter for a few times that it was too soaked to use. He huffed angrily and crushed it in his hand, anger tugging at his eyebrow, making it twist up like a knotted muscle.

Why… why was he so angry? Usopp had survived, right? And if his own experiences were anything to go by, if Usopp's body was anything he could trust… he should be stronger now, right? So why did that gaze haunt him? Why did Usopp seem so broken? And why did that make Sanji so angry?

Kuma had done it for a reason. Ivan had said so, said they had to get stronger to survive, and Sanji had agreed. Like a fool, he'd told himself his Nakama would do well.

But Usopp wasn't well.

Usopp was scarred.

Could Sanji honestly say the scars on his body were any worse than those on Usopp's?

He almost fished out another cigarette, just on reflex. He glanced down at Usopp's unconscious body, and back at the okama doctor.

"If he wakes up, you tell me. And if he so much has a pink bow on him when I return, I'm flambéing you to hell," Sanji ordered, not waiting for a response to leave the infirmary. He couldn't stand to look at him if all it did was make him angry. Nonetheless, he did have something he had to do. Usopp's stuff. God only knew what was in that giant green bag, but whatever it was, he was sure Usopp wouldn't want it stolen by a bunch of curious drag queens.

Well on deck, he found the bag left alone, only a few okama still lingering around. One actually attempted to lunge at him, but a well-placed kick sent them flying into the Crow's nest, where they could think over what they'd just tried to do. With that done, he grabbed the bag. It was damn heavy.

If he didn't fear for its safety, he might have placed it in the infirmary with its owner, but the okama had no sense of privacy, so he hid it in his own quarters instead.

Sure, the okama usually didn't mind breaking into his house (a few unfortunate mornings where he woke up in a dress ensured that Sanji always slept with one eye open), but Ivan had told him that this trip would be different only in that aspect, and Sanji had for once actually felt grateful to that shitty queen of drag queens. His quarters really wasn't anything special, just a bed, nightstand, cupboard, and that was pretty much it. If he wanted to train making food, he'd have to use the common kitchen. At some point during the journey, all the okama had agreed that letting Sanji make food was better for everybody since he usually shared the food with them, and God was it good.

So, with Usopp's stuff secured in his room, drenched suit changed for a new, clean one, soaked pack of cigarettes switched for a fresh pair, Sanji went upstairs to the kitchen to get working on a soup or something for Usopp.

Something told him Usopp could use some good food.

#usopp x sanji #sanji x usopp #sanuso #usosan #writing #not sure how tags work have mercy #one piece #one piece fanfiction #long chapter #usopp #sanji

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swanface · 3 years

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If you had to pick new leaders and deputies for each clan and the tribe, instead of who would you personally pick- who would make for the most interesting picks?

oooh, trying to select “interesting” choices per each clan without inherently trying to think okay, who would make for a good leader or deputy, is...considerably hard. i tried to think through each clan and the current attitudes of each leader and see if i could “flip” those in order to make things interesting or essentially just different, so...here we go!

NETTLECLAN

Mottlestar + Featherflight or Mottlestar + Flintheart

though i don’t think it shows often, crowstar is a fierce cat. he’s not incredibly strict, as a leader — he’s warm towards his clan as a whole, and understands just how chaotic life can be — but he is incredibly willing to become stern and essentially strong arm any enemies that arise. he’s the sort to use his strength to his advantage, and, i think, the most likely of the current leaders to kill in order to solve a conflict. i wanted to give nettleclan a less certain presence as its leader and first thought about more anxious cats like twigpaw or pansypaw, but they feel too extreme, so i instead opted for mottlepelt becoming mottlestar. as a leader, i feel like he’d have a very flimsy sort of approach, and might tend to get stepped on by particularly stubborn clanmates or the fellow leaders of the other clans. he’s been shown in the roleplay to be a bit impulsive, and most of his actions are done with the intention of making others happy before considering consequences (see: his family), which i think would make for a very interesting nettleclan leader.

mottlestar as a leader feels to me like the kind of cat who would immediately gravitate towards choosing a deputy he knows well rather than a cat who might be a more steady or wise choice, and his options therefore are limited to featherflight or flintheart. both of them are actually pretty similar cats, when it comes down to it, colored by cynicism and very much unconcerned with anyone who happens to be outside of their own familial circles or social bubbles. they wouldn’t be making any friends with the other clans, and with mottlestar in charge, i think nettleclan would shift to being seen as “weak” or at least pushovers. featherflight might be a bit rash as a deputy due to her younger age, while flintheart would likely be very prone to snapping, too, as he’s clearly not a cat who works under the pressure of having the clan depend on him.

CREEKCLAN

Milkstar + Willowpaw

currently, creekclan has a very traditional sort of structure with currentstar in charge. outsiders are still allowed in, but the way he chooses to apprentice them and integrate them into the clan speaks of structure and of valuing the ways of clan life rather than bending them like mantisstar or even crowstar might. because of this, the clear opposite of currentstar’s leadership would be a less traditional kind of leader, as well as one who would bring about chaos. milkstar would be my first choice as leader with this duo set up, because honestly, willowpaw doesn’t seem like the type who would even want to be in charge, but it would also keep creekclan from...well. completely crumbling, i think.

but still, with milkstar as a leader and willowpaw his ever faithful sidekick, creekclan would have a much more hostile vibe, i think. they’d probably be known as troublemakers — both milkpaw and willowpaw have been known to rush into things without thinking, and i can see that getting them into problems with the other clans — and i imagine they’d have a pretty harsh way of interacting with enemies if it came down to it. willowpaw’s more lighthearted, but milkpaw has a lot of untapped anger at his center. as a leader, i don’t think he’d be strict, exactly, but i do imagine that if you managed to piss him off, there would be hell to pay for it. as his deputy, willowpaw would essentially support him in all that he chose to do. they’re already a pretty unbreakable team, and i think that if it came down to a conflict arising for creekclan, willowpaw would probably egg on milkpaw’s already volatile temper.

JAGGEDCLAN

Leopardstar + Eaglepaw

i honestly contemplated the idea of leopardpaw being leopardstar and appointing starlingstep as her deputy simply because i find the “young leader, old deputy” dynamic to be pretty intriguing in most cases, but another option i think that would be equally as interesting and viable is eaglepaw. leopardpaw as leopardstar would be the stark opposite of mantisstar, who is exceedingly trusting to the point of fault. jaggedclan would transform from being perhaps the most “open” clan, willing to help outsiders and fellow rival clans alike, to something a lot more isolated and closed off. jaggedclan is currently the only clan to have a leader / deputy pair consisting of cats formerly from outside of the clans (mantisstar and oakjaw being former loners / rogues), and because of that, i feel like their reputation shifted from being the most hostile toward outside culture to the most welcoming.

with leopardstar, though, they would again be far more closed off. i thought that maybe a good deputy choice for her would be someone that could balance her distrustful nature, but an interesting choice might be eaglepaw instead. he’s close enough to leopardpaw that i think she trusts him, and though he doesn’t have quite the same suspicion levels, he’s also very closed off personally. really, i think he’d have a similar feeling to oakjaw now — basically just the right hand man of the leader, there to back her up, but in this case he would be backing up leopardpaw who is...very much not the same sort of cat mantisstar is. leopardpaw, in my opinion, definitely has the right sort of personality to be a leader — firm, certain, able to make decisions — and eaglepaw, though not particularly confident on his own, would function well in a supporting role. of the leader / deputy duos i’ve proposed so far, i feel like these two would be objectively the most functional. undeniably different from current jaggedclan leadership, sure, but they’d have way more stability to them than the nettleclan or creekclan duos might.

FOGCLAN

Foxstar + Hemlockpaw

fogclan, as of right now, is a clan on the outskirts. lilystar’s callousness does them no favors when it comes to being accepted into the general community of the original three clans. she’s far from personable, quick to act rashly, and really does not confide in anyone but herself. because of this, to flip the dynamic, fogclan would need a leader eager to reach out and forge the bonds that lilystar hasn’t — perhaps not for lack of wanting those bonds, but because she simply does not have the personality that would lend itself well towards...well. making friends.

foxflame as foxstar is exactly the sort of amicable, friendly cat who might finally be able to sway the general opinion of fogclan from negative to...at least slightly positive. he’s affectionate, respectful, and tends not to tread on any toes. he might be a bit ill suited towards leadership when it comes to needing to stand firm, but honestly, i think fogclan might benefit from a leader who is more flexible or even more willing to take a few hits for the sake of general peace. to compliment foxstar, i’d also think a really bubbly sort of deputy would suit him, and the first cheerful cat i thought of was hemlockpaw. he has a bit of that competitiveness to him that i think could make fogclan not seem exceedingly like pushovers (like i mentioned nettleclan might), but he’s not aggressive. he’d be able to let things run off his shoulders without taking them too seriously while still providing enthusiasm and general support.

TRIBE OF TWISTED TUNNELS

Twilight Sun, Crow Breeze, Tumbling Leaf, Elk Frost

the tribe is considerably more complex when it comes to how leadership works, and so to keep in line with the idea of heirs being selected...what if an entire litter of four had been crowned heirs? in normal litters of more than one kit where heir status is declared, like vixen and rose, it is clear that only one of them can go forth to be the actual leader of spring, buuut...in litters of four, the siblings are given a unique season each. this means that if a litter of four was deemed heirs, they would all be set up to lead their respective seasons some day.

honestly, i began with twilight sun and crow breeze as concepts meant to subvert the more frigid leaders that proceeded them. summer’s due for a cat who is warm like twilight, and crow is pretty much the perfect example of a spring born (unlike tiger breeze herself). once i realized that i’d put two of the four siblings into place, i also came to realize that tumble and elk are pretty contrasting figures against willow leaf and honey frost. willow leaf has some sternness to him, but he’s also more of a traditionalist. tumble...is not, clearly. it’d be really interesting if she’d not only been born with the expectation of adhering to fall and its duties but also been assigned to one day lead the season. she’d be a chaotic leader, that’s for sure, but she might be able to settle into the role eventually. elk as elk frost is similar enough to honey frost that it wouldn’t be a total shake up, but elk has the backbone that honey frost often lacks, and therefore i think he’d be a solid option as a genuinely good, passionate winter leader.

#nettleclan #creekclan #jaggedclan #fogclan #tott #threeclans #not gonna tag all the ocs but!

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daggerzine · 3 years

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The Simon Provencher interview (by Tom Murphy)

Simon Provencher is perhaps best known for his frenetic and creative guitar work for the post-punk band VICTIME out of Québec. But on March 26, 2021 the musician released his debut EP Mesures via Michel Records. It is six tracks of free jazz collages that bear favorable comparison to the avant-garde compositions of Anthony Braxton as Provencher makes creative and playful use of clarinet, electric guitar, percussion and processing to convey a strong sense of mood and place while making one very aware of aspects of the environment around us we often tune out. In pairing aspects of exploratory jazz and musique concrète, Provencher has given us an album that is both soothing and keeps us grounded in the present. The composer and musician recently answered some questions we presented to him via email about the nature of his music, its inspirations and methods of crafting its elegantly evocative passages.

Dagger Zine (Tom Murphy): Mesures will probably hit some people's ears as akin to a free jazz or spontaneous composition type of record. How did you approach putting together these songs and experimenting with sound compared with maybe how you do with VICTIME?

Simon Provencher: People wouldn’t be wrong in these assumptions at all. Mesures is a record that was written very quickly. I decided to trust my first instincts for much of the record. With VICTIME, our approach has always been more iterative. By that I mean that we’ll loop “embryonic” parts over and over again, slowly changing elements, morphing the composition until we found ourselves happy with how everything sounded together. I’m still very much into this way of writing, but Mesures was a much more immediate affair.

For me, inspiration almost always comes from timbre, usually through loads of guitar pedals. In this case though, I wanted to see what sounds and textures I could get out of the electric guitar without using any external effects or even amplification. Timbre was still my main concern, but in a more subtle way I guess. I slightly detuned the strings and experimented with resonances, chord shapes, finger placement, fingernails, etc. I also “prepared” the guitar: I jammed objects between the strings and tied sewing thread to the strings (if you pinch the thread with slightly wet fingers and slide them around, you get eerie, reverse-like effects).

Enough about me though, another big change was that this record was made remotely with two new collaborators, Elyze Venne-Deshaies (clarinet) and Olivier Fairfield (percussion). Both of them had “carte blanche” (pardon my french) to do whatever they wanted. I can’t speak much to their personal approach to improvisation, but both of them are seasoned veterans and delivered absolutely amazing performances.

D: Some people might think of any kind of music declared experimental is a barrier to its acceptance but your album seems to me very accessible as a form of pure expression. Do you have a sense of why your songs seem so open and, as one reviewer put it, welcoming?

S: I don’t quite know actually. I do agree that the songs have a certain softness to them that was certainly somewhat intentional. When I did the initial guitar parts, I did set out to make something conventionally “beautiful”, or at least “not harsh”. I don’t really have the vocabulary to describe what happened there, but the resonances, repetitions and patterns definitely implied a soft mood from the get go.

I guess this foundation inspired Elyze and Olivier to also play with softer tones, to approach the music with warmth and subtlety in mind. They really “got” the vibe of the music without me ever telling them anything about my intentions. A “shift” of some kind happened when the clarinet parts were added to the drums and guitars. I felt like the mood of the pieces almost completely changed (in a positive way, of course). I think there’s something to the linearity of Elyze and Olivier’s playing, in contrast with the repetitive, hypnotic guitars that gives the music a sense of wandering aimlessness which I really love.

On the audio engineering side, I did intentionally mix the songs with a certain softness in mind. We added some warm tape saturation to some of the sounds and carved out a lot of higher frequencies. On the songs with feedback and noise, Simon Labelle, who mastered the record, made it so that when the clarinets get louder, the high-frequency content ducks out of the way a little bit. This nifty little trick does help out a lot with making the noisy songs more warm and inviting too.

D: Listening through the album I found it resonated with the albums of Anthony Braxton and Ornette Coleman. The former of which never considered his music part of jazz though he is often associated with that form of music and the latter who expanded the range, dynamics and tonal choices of jazz. Were you inspired by in any way by those forms of abstract yet emotionally expressive music? How might you describe its impact on what you've done?

S: I totally was! I discovered Anthony Braxton through Québec jazz guitar great René Lussier. I’ve been a fan of Le Trésor de la Langue for a while and I got into his back catalog last year: his collaborations with Fred Frith, EAI stuff and more, some of which was released on “Les Disques Victo”. “Victo” stands for Victoriaville, a small city between Quebec and Montreal, where there’s a great contemporary music festival named FIMAV. Shamefully, I haven’t actually been to FIMAV yet, but I’ve loved finding recordings of some amazing concerts, a favourite being Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey’s 1987 Moment Précieux. I was amazed to find out about this rich local history of musical experimentation and improvisation. This record was very much inspired by the whole FIMAV sound.

Coleman is another great point of reference. His records and those of his collaborators, Don Cherry being another big one, all are major inspirations. As a guitar player, I especially got into James “Blood” Ulmer’s career. I really admire his approach to guitar and the immediacy and expressiveness of his music.

I’m probably paraphrasing it all wrong, but Don Cherry said of Ornette Coleman’s “harmolodic” approach that instead of improvising from chords, like in bebop, you’d start with melodies and improvise to create new forms, harmonies, rhythms to try and reach a certain “brilliance” as he calls it. You’d try to make the music transcend. In harmolodic theory, melody, rhythm and harmony are treated as equals, no solos, no lead and accompaniment dichotomy, no strict timing, scale or tonality.

This is both quite simple but also quite hard to actually grasp in a musical setting, and I’m far from mastering any of it, nor is it necessarily something I strive for, but it is an inspiring way to conceive improvised music for sure.

D: The first half of the album you make great use of what sounds like atonal melodies yet they perfectly convey the mood and lend a sense of texture. What informed employing those sounds in the songwriting?

S: I’ve always written music without much regard for tonality, key, etc. My musical background is still very much anchored in No Wave and noise music, where skronky chords and weird, unstable melodies are the norm rather than the exception. When playing, I really don’t think much about it, I follow what sounds good to me in the moment.

Looking back on the recorded music though, I feel like there is a lot of nuance to be found in atonality and imperfection. Detuned chords ringing out have such complex and interesting decaying resonances, you can almost hear the frequencies battling each other. These interactions between notes and lines that fall just short of resolving are part of the magic and intrigue of abstract music. In the case of Mesures, I think there’s something special with how some of the atonal, out of tune textures and weird synths clash beautifully with the in-tune clarinet parts, making either one “pop out” depending on where you focus your attention.

D: The second half or at least the second three songs on the album use processed drones and what some might call noise underneath or in the background, although very much a presence in the mix, of the clarinets? What do you feel this almost contrast in sounds conveyed that say a more conventional arrangement might not?

The second half of the record is basically a rearrangement of the first three songs. There’s four clarinet parts in there! On the first side, they fade in and out of focus, but on side B, everything is there all at once.

This is basically the result of me simply “soloing” the clarinet takes in my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, the software used to arrange and mix the music). When I heard the four clarinets at once, I really fell in love with the sound.

So I knew I wanted this to be the focal point of the rearrangement, and I knew I wanted to add something. I just happened to be working with feedback that week, so it kind of fell in place. Feedback manipulation was a technical interest first, I had gotten a new guitar pedal called a Feedback Looper, which sends some of your output signal back into the input of a series of pedals. This creates self-oscillating and rich, detailed noises that are somewhat interactive and malleable. By turning some knobs and flicking some switches on ordinary guitar pedals, you end up with an infinite amount of possible glitches and shrieking high frequency tones.

I don’t know if my ears got accustomed to it or what, but I’ve come to really enjoy the sound of this process. I also really love the tactile aspect of it, it feels kind of like an unpredictable modular synthesizer. When I had recorded the feedback improvisation, which I did in one single take, I thought this sparse, harsh rearrangement was a nice contrast with the more warm, conventional first three songs. At that point, the record felt complete.

D: The final three songs also remind me of Philip Glass in his soundtrack work wherein he mixes the playful and flowing with the dissonant. How would you say these sounds complement each other in your own music?

S: Especially on this release, while there are a lot of sounds that are contrasting with each other, I also feel like there is a sense of shared directionality. The song Et quart is a good example of this. The high feedback notes start out in almost complete opposition to the meandering low clarinet lines, but, as the song progresses, the sounds somehow seem to merge with each other and they end up flowing in the same direction for the song’s climax.

D: What are some other artists operating now that you find interesting and/or inspirational and resonant with what you're doing?

There’s way too many to name them all, but I’ll try! I think there’s a very interesting local-ish scene around me. I admire the work of N NAO, either her solo releases or her collaborations with Joni Void. Sarah Pagé does mind-bending music with harp and effects; I’ve had the pleasure of catching her live in Ottawa just before the pandemic started last year. Kara-Lys Coverdale is also a major inspiration, so is Kee Avil, whose live show and guitar playing blew me away.

I also need to shout out my friend (and bandmate) Mathieu A. Seulement, whose end-year list allowed me to catch up on a lot of fantastic new music, including, but not limited to Ana Roxane’s Because of a Flower, Jasmine Guffond’s Microphone Permission, Caterina Barbieri’s Ecstatic Computation and, last but not least, Holly Herndon’s magnificent Proto.

**the three Simon photos were taken by Charlotte Savoie

www.simonprovencher.bandcamp.com

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emocean-is-trash · 4 years

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I had another friend request the prompt “When It Storms” so here’s another bees oneshot!! the soccer au that nobody asked for :)

You can also find this on my ao3 @emocean_is_trash

~~~~~~~

“Do you want any popcorn?”

“No thanks. I had a big lunch. Thanks for the offer though.”

Blake smiled at Sun who proceeded to sit down next to her on the cold metal bleachers, keeping his gaze focused intently on the game. Their school was losing 1-4, which was practically unheard of. Menagerie Academy held a constant winning streak over the years. Their soccer team was considered to be one of the best in the city of Remnant, yet here they were getting absolutely pummeled by Beacon High. Beacon High, the so-called “lowest of the low” when it came to sports.

Maybe it was because their teamwork was stronger, but that seemed unlikely. They were really only winning because of a new freshman girl who was a crazy fast and unpredictable offensive player.

“Check out Stormrunner over there. She’s pretty cute. You think she’d go for a guy like me?” Sun asked in between loud crunches of popcorn in his mouth, pointing at the star player of Beacon High’s team. Blake rolled her eyes.

“You? Come on Sun. She’s way too cool for you. Someone like her probably has a million guys after her.”

“Geez Blake! Isn’t that a bit harsh? I bet I could totally get her number.” Sun responded cheerfully and winked at Blake, who sighed and took a piece of popcorn from the bag Sun was holding.

“If you really want to get rejected then go for it.”

“Fine, challenge accepted! I’ll talk to her after the game. Oh yeah, could you get me some soda? This popcorn really makes you thirsty.”

“Ah sure, if you need it that badly. Nothing that interesting is happening right now.”

Blake stood up and waited for the current play to finish. Once it was a good time, she trudged down the bleachers and over to where the concessions stand was located. On the way, she passed by students taking pictures with their friends and others milling about until she finally reached the back of the line to purchase food and beverages.

While she was waiting to reach the counter, Blake’s eyes wandered about the scenery around her. Their soccer field was definitely much more...worn in comparison to Menagerie’s. The goal nets looked like they’d been used for multiple years in a row, and the uniforms for Beacon’s team were very ragged. It was such a strong contrast to Menagerie’s appearance as a whole, who prided themselves on being pristine and elite in every way.

While Blake’s gaze scanned the area, she noticed some grey clouds rumbling over the field. She shrugged to herself and finally looked in front of her to see that she was next up to order.

“What can I getcha?”

Blake’s attention snapped towards the woman behind the counter. She was gorgeous. Her blonde hair framed her face perfectly. She had the most beautiful eyes which were a shade of soft lilac. But all of that was nothing compared to the genuine smile upon the girl’s face. It wasn’t long until Blake realized she had been staring at the poor woman.

“Oh um...sorry. I’ll get two large Colas.” Blake mumbled as her cheeks warmed from embarrassment.

“Coming right up! Two large Colas!” The woman hollered to a blond-haired boy standing near the soda machine who tried to grab a large cup only to drop it on the ground.

“So, what brings you to Beacon High? I haven’t seen you around before. You don’t exactly seem like the type to watch sports.” The woman asked as she trained her gaze on the game.

“Oh, well my friend Sun invited me to go. One of my other classmates, Ilia, is on the team and she wanted someone there to cheer her on I guess.” Blake replied. “What about you? You don’t seem like the type to work concessions in their spare time.”

“You see that girl with the black hair, red streaks? That’s my little sister, Ruby. She’s super talented. She made the varsity team as a freshman and everyone loves her. I‘ve been going to her games ever since I can remember. Go get ‘em Rubes!” The woman shouted loudly whilst the girl named Ruby turned around and waved at her before getting ready to advance again.

“That’s...really sweet of you. You must care about your sister a lot.”

“Yep! I always have. Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long. Jaune! Hurry up with the drinks! Oh, I forgot to ask. What’s your name?”

“It’s...Blake. Nice to meet you.”

“Blake huh? That’s a pretty name.”

”Oh, thanks. I was wondering, I’m sorry if this is totally crossing the line, but my friend Sun thinks your sister is cute. Am I right to assume she already has a boyfriend?”

The woman chuckled at the sudden question and looked Blake in the eyes.

“Close! She actually has a girlfriend. That girl in the bleachers with the white hair, Weiss, is the one she’s dating. I still don’t understand why she chose the Ice Queen of all people, but at least it’s better than some sleazy kid.”

“I see. They don’t seem like they’d get along. They almost seem like opposites.”

“Well I heard once that opposites attract, and whatever Weiss is doing is keeping Ruby interested in her. Here’s your drinks, sorry that took so long.” The blonde-haired woman smiled and held out the drinks for Blake to take.

“It’s no problem. I hope I’ll see you around...your name?” Blake questioned as she placed her money on the counter and grasped the drinks in her hands.

“Oh, it’s Yang. Yang Xiao Long at your service!” Yang responded cheerfully with a mock salute.

“Well then, I’ll see you around Yang.”

“See ya around! But before you go, those drinks are on me.” Yang smiled and sent a light-hearted wink in Blake’s direction, causing her to immediately blush at the flirtation. Before she could reply, Yang had already started taking the order of someone else.

Smiling to herself, Blake turned around and started walking back to where Sun was sitting. She didn’t make it too far before she realized her shoe was untied, so she set the drinks onto the ground and started to retie the laces.

While she was crouched down, Blake felt a raindrop hit her back, followed by another and another. Within thirty seconds, there was a total downpour of rain from the numerous grey clouds above. Having forgotten a jacket, Blake looked around frantically for somewhere to stay dry for the remainder of the game. Students were sprinting to the concessions stand trying to get inside of it. Blake grimaced when someone shoved her particularly hard to get passed.

In the midst of all of the chaos, Blake felt a warm hand wrap itself around hers and pull her away from the crowd, the drinks left forgotten. She looked to who was helping her and saw that it was Yang, the woman from before. Their hands stayed interlocked until they ran to behind some sort of shed where no one else was around.

Yang pulled out an umbrella from her back pocket and opened it, sheltering the two of them from the rain that fell above them. The two faced each other only mere inches apart, huddled close to stay dry. They were both still a bit out of breath, Blake inhaling deeply through her nose and gazing at the blonde-haired woman standing close to her.

“Thanks for getting me out of there.”

“Of course! I saw that you were in trouble, and I uh...also wanted to ask you something.” Yang replied sheepishly as one of her hands reached up to fiddle with a strand of her hair.

“Ah, what is it? Why didn’t you ask me earlier?”

“Honestly? I was too nervous.”

“Someone like you getting nervous? I didn’t expect that.”

“Well now you know, okay? Anyway, I just need to know. Have we met before?” Yang asked as her face turned slightly red and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Blake looked at Yang quizzically due to the nature of her question.

“No? I think I would’ve remembered meeting someone like you.”

“Cause it really feels like I know you.” Yang interjected.

“You do seem familiar, but I haven’t gone to any soccer games until today’s coincidentally, the one time it rains.”

“Well either way, I really think we should get to know each other. Blake? What’s your last name?”

“It’s Belladonna. Why do you ask?”

“Blake Belladonna, will you go on a date with me?”

Blake almost giggled to herself at the pure innocence and admiration that poured out of Yang during that moment. She was never the kind of person to go on a date with a stranger, but this seemed different. As a small smile appeared on Blake’s lips, she grabbed Yang’s hand and kissed her on the cheek.

“I would love to.”

#bumbleby #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #fanfic #rwby

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ronbegleyformayor · 4 years

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So this is going to be a long post—your question gets to the larger topic that is episode 100. Also to anyone reading this I would appreciate if you took a minute or two to read the whole thing—I purposefully waited a while to respond to this so my response would come across as measured as possible.

So anyone plugged into queer theory and media has probably heard of the term “bury your gays”. It’s a trope that goes at least as far back as lesbian pulp fiction novels from the early 20th century, and for a number of reasons that I’m not remotely qualified to comment on the trope has persisted into modern media. As the name implies, bury your gays is the implicit belief that for a story about gay people to end correctly, usually one or both members of a gay couple are killed before the it ends. Whether intentional or not, the trope is rooted in the idea that gay couples are not supposed to be together, that queer love is a temporary fantasy that must be righted by the end of the story. A weird kind of offshoot of this is the causing of gay characters to suffer through loneliness or separation from a partner, and it comes from the underlying idea that gay=alone. Frequently this manifests in queer characters feeling that they have to choose between family and friends and the “"gay lifestyle”“ when in reality those two things frequently are not mutually exclusive. A subset of this trope is featuring a gay character (or frequently the partner of a more-established gay character) as possessed by some form of “evil” to emphasize which side of the temptation is “correct” and which isn’t.

I’m guessing you can see what I’m teeing up here, so I’ll just add as a caveat that most writers (especially straight writers) do not necessarily agree with the homophobia behind these tropes, nor is it (usually) their intent to perpetuate negative stereotypes about gay people. That being said the legacy of this trope is alive in a lot of media, and intentional or not: gay people suffering is entrenched in how we think about writing them.

Now to be extra clear, I’m not (necessarily) saying this is what King Falls is doing. So far the writing of queer themes and homophobia has been nuanced and has avoided a lot of the pitfalls that have come to be expected, but I would also be lying if I didn’t say episode 100 didn’t rub me the wrong way, and for a couple of specific reasons, too.

For me what that boils down to is characterization and timing.

Let’s talk about characterization first.

Just think about this for a second: what do you know about Jack Wright? No really, can you name anything beyond the bare minimum of characteristics? He’s a journalist and radio host, has a belief in the paranormal, and loves Sammy. He has a sister and a fiancé, has black hair and brown eyes, and plays rugby. I can’t think of a single other concrete fact we’ve learned about him specifically, and being generous like less than half of the things on that list don’t directly have to do with Sammy. Now we could extrapolate bits of his personality based on the two very short clips we’ve ever heard of him and from what’s implied by Sammy and Lily, but that’s also kind of the point: everything we know about Jack Wright is almost exclusively based off his sister and his fiancé, both of whom are anything but unbiased. Did you notice how Lily trashed Sammy and Jack’s radio show in the first King Falls Chronicles but then went on to call Jack smart and prolific in his field like five minutes later? It’s a(n understandable) level of cognitive dissonance for someone who was going through the difficult process of grieving. Both Sammy and Lily are biased sources of information because both care very deeply for Jack. On it’s own that really isn’t a problem—in fact I would say it’s an opportunity for an interesting bit of narrative contrast between the perception of Jack and the reality of when we actually get to meet him.

That at least was my opinion.

Instead we have this ”“dark”“ version of Jack, a lover just out of reach who’s trying to tempt Sammy into leaving his family and friends for the “freedom” of the void. This is a situation that, if I’m being honest, has some homophobic tinges, and hearing the dialogue played out the way it was kind of made my stomach turn (and not in the fun, scared-to-death at 3AM way I’m used to).

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think this is what the writers were intending, nor do I think that there is anything necessarily wrong with having a normally good character occupy a “bad guy” role. When done correctly it can be interesting and compelling, and help tease out different aspects of a character or relationship dynamic. The issue isn’t that we’re seeing a “bad” version of Jack, the issue is that a. the specific wording of his interaction made my homophobia alarm bells go off, and more critically b. this “bad” version of of Jack is the only true version of him we know. Having him in a “bad” role outside his norm would be interesting if we actually had a real-time, in-person Jack with which to compare him. We might have a constructed idea of who he is from descriptions of biased sources close to him or tapes that are probably a decade old, but we only need to hear from this ”“shadow”“ Jack two more times and it’ll be more times than we’ve heard even recordings of the real Jack.

Emily, for example, had a baseline character established before her abduction. We got to know her as a character before she went missing, so when we eventually saw her as a different version of herself, we had a baseline understanding of how she typically acts in a situation, which is something we just don’t have with Jack.

Also, do you notice how Jack never directly spoke to Lily? He talked about her, but never to her, and can we take a moment to appreciate the gravity of that moment? Jack (or whatever was controlling him) had the opportunity to lure one of the four members of the "named” in the prophecy in the book, and instead of choosing his sister, the person he has known for his entire life and the only flesh and blood family with whom he’s in contact, and he chose to lure Sammy instead, to make Sammy choose between a gay relationship and the support system he’s built up.

Can you understand why this kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth? It feels a little like the “love the sinner” (Jack), hate the sin (being “bad”, trying to make Sammy have to decide between romance and a family), and that’s an adage that queer people tend to get tired of really quickly.

Again, because I really don’t want to be misunderstood, I don’t think this is what the writers intended; in fact I’m guessing the thought probably never even crossed their minds. But at the end of the day that’s kind of the point: if you’re going to make a show that subverts homophobic tropes (which I will readily say that they have done up until this point), you have to make sure not to accidentally fall into any of them yourself.

This leads me into my other issue with the episode: the timing.

My opinion toward the show right now would be considerably less harsh if this was not the last episode before a hiatus. I’m not saying the show can’t take breaks, but ending after this episode specifically? We are left with a very specific image of who Jack is, and exactly what kind of influence he has on Sammy. We’re left with the impression that Sammy has to choose between his found family and a gay relationship, and just to put icing on the cake we’re being told there is going to be another hiatus, prolonging the suffering of a character who has been through quite a lot already.

If this wasn’t the episode before a hiatus, I wouldn’t be as unhappy because we would have more immediate reactions to what had happened. We would have the four of them discussing it in detail. Maybe we even would have gotten a chance to hear Sammy himself say that this wasn’t Jack, and even get to hear more detail from him about who Jack is, if not what we heard. Maybe we would have actually gotten to see them get a step closer to getting Jack back instead of now knowing that the void has been opened, and we have to wait for another few months to see if the gay characters will ever get something even resembling a happy ending.

But we didn’t get any of that. Instead we got a cold, empty laugh that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since.

This isn’t to say that the show is headed in a bad direction. I think because this was not the intent that there is still plenty potential for things to stay on the rails. But what it looks like from here is that we are just continuing to prolong the suffering of the gay couple that sits at the emotional heart of the show’s main plotline. I’m just getting to a point where I’m starting to lose faith that we will see anything but it.

also huge thanks to @calebmichaels and @deputytroy. a lot of these points were the distillation of conversations between us, and if you think that I made a particularly interesting point at all in this post, it was probably their idea, not mine.

#kfam #king falls am #mine #wow that was a lot #also none of this is specifically directed at the person that sent me the anon #I just used your ask as a jumping-off point

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kisilinramblings · 5 years

Text

“Why did Marinette pick Adrien’s first?! What’s wrong with you Marinette?!”

“They are doing Marinette’s dirty again!”

First, Alya intervened, trying to help Marinette out by pointing in a direction to lead her attention. Problem is, Alya has done this several times throughout the show to point at Adrien. So, that’s one thing.

The second part of the explaination lies in the camera shot which is Marinette’s p.o.v. itself.

Let me ask you : what do you see first? Like stare away from your screen a few second and quickly look back at the screenshot I have taken. Who is the first to stand out the most to you?

See, the way it is framed and staged, Marinette sees Adrien first cause he is the one who stands out the most due to his white shirt and blond hair. Adrien is barely blocked by Kagami in Marinette’s vision while he partially hides Luka. Luka’s dark color theme also makes him blend in the decor.

Like if I put an effect to blur and increase the constrast of the image...

Adrien’s colors are the ones to drive our eyes are the most. Because eyes are attracted to the most contrasting element and in this case, it’s Adrien’s head as he is the only blond head among people with dark hairs.

I still think the shot could have been clearer just by pushing slightly more the camera focal length so Adrien is more defined than the background and foreground like this :

But at the same time, this might have been too obvious and counterproductive. Like at this point, as the audience and everyone else around, we know Luka is the obvious solution to Jagged’s problem, so not giving him about the same clarity than Adrien would have gone against the intent if it was for the audience to see both Adrien and Luka at the same time and same relevance.

Third and last part of the explaination, the context. Marinette usually knows what to do and is always ready to solve problems. Except a minute ago she was confronted with a harsh choice. She hesitated, She panicked due to the pressure. Her compass didn’t know where to point (little nod to Captain Hardrock which also happened at the Couffaine’s house, kudos team!). And now Jagged Stone has a problem to solve and call her out. “I need a guitarist like yesterday. Do you play guitar?” and all eyes look at her again in the space a few minutes, including both of her crushes.

Marinette is a kind person who doesn’t want to disappoint anyone. She shares that trait with Adrien who also wants to make others happy. Jagged was so sad when she told him she could only play the flute a bit. She wanted to help him out but she wasn’t the person for the job. She isn’t a good musician enough to fit the part. And there is where I pinpoint where she starts to mix things up.

Jagged was in need of a guitarist, but Marinette’s train of thoughts derailled because she was unfocused and call out of the blue. She is afraid to disappoint and hastly makes a decision. She looks around to find any good musician who could help Jagged. And she picks the first one that more or less fits the decription. That happens and I like how the allegory with the musician later serves in the story.

See, both Adrien and Luka are musicians, except their skills are specified. Luka is a guitarist while Adrien is a pianist. Both can play the music, both can be superheroes candidate, both can be potential love interests, but each come with their specific role and set of skills. Even if you give a pianist the best guitar of the world, the best tool, that doesn’t mean they will adapt to your need. No matter their skill to read the music, if someone can’t play the guitar, they can’t play the guitar. They can learn, but it will take a lot of time and it might be tedious for both parties.

And that situation was transposed with Aspik. Adrien’s role is already determined but Marinette wasn’t aware of it. Adrien knew he was Chat Noir but chose to help Ladybug as Aspik. But it wasn’t enough. Something was missing. Only the two of them together couldn’t do it. Their partnership couldn’t work. Neither would have Ladybug and Chat Noir alone. They needed the Snake Holder and his experience and wisdom to guide them in order to succeed. Do you guys see how that can transpose into Marinette and Adrien’s relationship? If they were to end up together right now, it wouldn’t work. It would never work as things are currently standing. They support each other great, they get along and can communicate and work together and do miracles together... but that works as long as the context is the one between friends. But even in their friendship, there is a slight problem...

Alix : And at least Luka gets to go out of the house whenever he wants

Luka : It’s a good thing Adrien has found someone he can get out of the house with at last

Adrien’s life itself is a severe constraint with any of his relationships. Marinette loves Adrien and would like to be his girlfriend except Adrien’s life is pretty scheduled and controlled over. Even as friends, they cannot spend much time together. They mostly see each other at school and some extraordinary circumstances. Otherwise, they facetime. That can put a strain in one’s relationship.

Kagami has more opportunities. She has more occasions to be with Adrien and she is willing to rebel a little to get out of her controlled life. Kagami takes the initiative. She leads. She is the first one to attack Desperada in order to protect Adrien and, in Frozer, she is the one who lead him to the ice ring. She might be able to be what Adrien’s needs to be more happy right now because Kagami can be his partner in crime. Together, they skipped their fencing lessons and will provide each other alibi and she allows Adrien to spend time with his friends and be happy. That started in Frozer. Similar scenario with the alibi happened in Reflekdoll when Alya convinced Adrien that technically, there is one hour before Adrien is supposed to be at home. With Kagami, Adrien is starting to rebel from the image he is supposed to give. She understands what it is like to have a controllong parent figure as she herself lives it. And she has tricks to do the things she wants to do without her mother knowing.

Marinette on the other hand needs someone with the same level of liberty as her. Someone with who she is comfortable with and can chill with and do nothing. Someone with who she can get out with her friends and grab an ice cream or go to the theater with, without a chaperone to watch over them and limit them. Luka fits more the description there. We have seen how busy Marinette’s life is in Gamer 2.0. Marinette doesn’t need to plan ahead and take time to scheme her way in if she wants to see Adrien. She doesn’t have time to do that. She needs to be with someone with who she can simply relax and appreciate the moment. Do you think she would appreciate it if she spends hours planning something to snatch Adrien out of his house or shedule only for an Akuma attack to happen only after they are doing something together for only a few minutes? I would personally be frustrated. And I think that’s why Marinette consider giving Adrien a Miraculous. Because as superheroes, they would spend time together. Be finally with him as Akuma attacks are frequent. She too would now have the opportunity to spend them with him. And I think that is what biaised her choice for giving Adrien a Miraculous. She wants to spend time with him, but she can’t cause he is unreachable as a civilian due to his overprotective environment.

“Then they should reveal!”

That wouldn’t solve the basic conflict of both characters. Marinette still isn’t capable to speaks openly about her feelings to Adrien. She won’t be able to concentrate on the job which asks her a lot of responsability and quick thinking. Reflekdoll shows she has no time to make jokes on duty because she is busy thinking, either analyzing her opponent and finding how to use her Lucky Charm to win the battle. She cannot get distracted like how it happened when Aspik charmed her. The weight she carries on her shoulders is enormous and she needs a right person to support her, not to distract her. She needs Chat, not Adrien, by her side.

As for Adrien, he will need someone to keep him grounded. We know his father is Hawkmoth, their enemy, the one who has been terrorizing the city to get his hands on the Miraculous, and it will only be a matter of time before Adrien finds that out. He is Chat Noir and will have to fight his own father and Nathalie. Two people he trusts and cares about. This will caused him a conflict of interest (Collector slightly demonstrated this) and will affect Chat Noir in his role as Ladybug’s right-hand man. He needs someone with some distance on the conflict to guide him because he won’t be able to see the conflict clearly. Adrien cannot bear to disappoint either Ladybug nor his father’s expectations in his regards. He needs to be free of them and be reminded of his role. And mixing Ladybug and Marinette together won’t be beneficial for him right now.

Basically, the secret identity serves like a barrage. It allows a certain amount of water (problems) to power the village down stream with electricity without flooding it. Remove the secret identity, remove suddenly the barrage, and the village with be flooded without providing anything constructive.

Sure they could work it out except as superheroes, the Miraculous safety is primordial. If they cannot recover quickly their synchronicity, they will lose. And it only takes them losing one single time for Hawkmoth to win and get their Miraculous. That’s the stake. They lose one fight and it’s over. They cannot retry 25 913 times like Aspik did. They lose their Miraculous and there is no more show if they cannot recover them before Hawkmoth does.

So if a secret identity can help protect balance of the world right now, so be it. Master Fu has explained there is a time for each thing and now is far from the time for them to have a Reveal. Oblivio showcased that Marinette and Adrien indeed make a cute and awesome team, but for that, they need to have forgotten about their respective inner conflict that keeps putting obstacle in their relationship. The contrast is ever more jarring when you first watch Oblivio then proceed with Desperada. Marinette and Adrien have both some maturing to do first and they might need someone else than the other to achieve it.

#miraculous ladybug #ml season 3 #miraculous ladybug spoilers #ml spoilers #desperada #ml analysis

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bestworstcase · 4 years

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how's everyone in bitter snow feel about the justice system in Corona? also how are the guards in bitter snow, how do these people treat their positions as guards?

okay anon you said “everyone” so like

gonna talk specifically about all the character’s perceptions right now, as of chapter 9, because a lot of these feelings evolve over the course of benighted and also the rest of the series 👍

major characters!

cassandra!

she is well aware of the harshness of the system. her own birth parents were executed for their crimes—we’ll get more into that later >:)—and given who her father is and what her aspirations are, she knows some of the more unsavory details about what guard work can mean. there is a part of her that is… uncomfortable with this, but she rationalizes it as a discomfort related to feeling like she’s trapped in the shadow of the (very serious) crimes for which her parents were executed. she has very much drunk the kool-aid that all of this stuff is correct and just because it’s only being done To Criminals, who of course are not like regular people, who must be protected From Criminals (like her parents, there’s this whole nasty feedback loop of self-disgust going on with this).

she also very much has her dad on a pedestal and doesn’t want to think badly about anything he does, and she wants to make him proud, and in her mind making him proud = succeeding as a guard. so that’s another huge thing tilting her in favor of the coronan justice system.

rapunzel!

i don’t think rapunzel has quite made the connection between the existence of the king’s watch and what they actually do, which is arrest people and feed them into the horrible justice system. she knows that eugene was arrested and nearly hanged, and she doesn’t feel good about that, but she also has not been exposed to this system as a… daily thing with a wider scope than simply being something eugene escaped from. she has a very particular kind of self-centered naivety where it is still hard for her to grasp that people… exist, outside of her life, almost like a lack of object permanence where the concept of Other People is concerned? because she grew up in a tower with nobody but gothel. she’s beginning to develop inklings of this, but it’s not there yet, and with frederic and everyone in the palace actively trying to shelter her from the more upsetting pieces of palace life still, she’s still kind of navigating around obstacles that she can’t see in order to get there.

anyway all of which is to say she’s laboring under the impression that everything in corona is hunky dory. still very much in the homecoming honeymoon phase.

eugene!

eugene is in this weird transitional place where he, by his own actions in the last chapter, has been rather rudely shocked out of his own complacency and now he’s looking around at all the luxuries and privileges he has been granted purely by virtue of being the guy who happened to bring rapunzel home and he’s going: oh. oh i didn’t earn any of this actually.

he knows exactly what corona is like. if you’re a thief in this world you know not to get arrested in corona. and he did get arrested in corona and he came very close to losing his life because of it. for a while there, i think he just fully embraced his pardon and decided to live it up because, well, why not, it’s what he deserves after a lifetime of hard living and fighting to survive… but fundamentally, he’s not an asshole even if he is sometimes an ass, and the more he lets go of the flynn rider persona the more his natural empathy reasserts itself. right now, his focus is on being better for rapunzel, but i think he sort of has in the back of his mind how very, very lucky he got in his brush with the coronan justice system and that inclines him to at least feel… dubious about becoming a cog in it.

lance!

he’s sort of similar to eugene, in that he has this criminal background and he knows exactly what sort of reputation corona has in the criminal world… but there’s also this element of, he’s sort of… adjacent to law enforcement now. thief-takers are sort of like private investigators and sort of like bounty hunters, and they exist in the weird margin between law enforcement and criminal activity and lance has this very personal experience of having been sort of… invited into that space as an opportunity to reform his ways, and that worked for him.

i think he and eugene could probably have a really interesting conversation not too far down the line about how they got out of the thieving business and became better people and ways that could be applied on a broader scale versus just chucking everyone in prison, which i imagine tends to be the default not just in corona but in most countries in this region. lance sees his experiences helping victims of theft as intrinsically linked to his personal decision to never steal again, whereas eugene reformed because rapunzel, specifically, treated him with compassion and dignity. put those two things together and you have a decent platform for a restorative approach to criminal justice.

varian!

varian is a kid. he has no clue about anything but his alchemy lol. i think he probably has a lot of romanticized notions of adventurous thieves in the vein of flynn rider and is accustomed to seeing guards/watchmen as The Enemy through that lens, but he has very very little actual real world experience with either and to him it all has this aura of fiction. it’s something that happens To Other People, not to him.

caine!

caine saw the coronan justice system tear her family apart when she was nine years old, over a petty theft her father committed to feed his starving family. also, she’s saporian, so she has this extra pile of cultural grudges against corona in addition to this personal trauma. she hates corona, and unlike in canon—where the narrative need to make everything About Rapunzel demanded that her motivations be dumbed down—she puts the blame for what happened to her squarely where it belongs, on king frederic’s crackdown and the system backing it. though she’s not a separatist herself, she’s perfectly happy to work with them to attack corona, and she sees her piracy as… sort of a campaign against corona and its allies? in that she targets mostly trading vessels belonging to the seven kingdoms and has definitely liberated coronan prison barges in the past.

as far as she’s concerned corona can just burn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ up saporia

sirin!

…honestly you’d be hard pressed to find anybody who hates coronan justice more than sirin does because [spoilers lol]. she keeps it on a very tight lock, because she is a pragmatist first and foremost and she isn’t interested in expending her rage on a doomed cause. when she acts on her hatred, she wants it to matter. and she’s also a leader, with a lot of vulnerable people relying on her to keep them safe, so she can’t just lash out the way she might want to if she had no other obligations. so she’s cultivated this very cold, very methodical anger and is proceeding with her plan very carefully but also, definitely enjoyed getting her hands bloody in the prologue.

assorted secondary and minor characters (just the ones i feel like talking about, rip to everyone else)

commander peter!

it is peter’s job to enforce the coronan justice system. fundamentally, he has to agree with it. i think he has this ideal of what justice should be in the back of his mind and he sees all the ways that coronan justice doesn’t line up, and he’s trying his best to close those gaps while working from within the system. he cares very intently about his country and its people, and he firmly believes that he’s working to keep everybody safe—even if it comes at the cost of this harsh, sometimes unfair system.

as part of this, he keeps very high standards of conduct for his watchmen. abuses of power do happen—peter can’t always be watching every single man in his force, and while he ostensibly commands the city watches in the rest of corona’s city’s too, in practice his influence tapers off outside of herzingen simply because of distance—but he tries to stamp them out as best he can.

(there’s definitely a big range within the king’s watch itself vis a vis how the guards approach their work. i think, taken on average, they... are cops. their job is to enforce the system first and foremost and they wouldn’t get into that career if they didn’t believe in it; some try to be more compassionate about it than others and some are just in it for the authority but they’re all... working to serve the system.)

arianna!

she’s both a foreigner originally—she was born and raised in eldora, one of corona’s neighbors—and very well traveled, so she has seen a lot of other models of justice in action and this leads to her taking a dim view of the way corona handles things. i think she and frederic probably have a lot of heated arguments about his crackdown in particular, and it’s one of the biggest points of contention in their marriage. she does often succeed in being a moderating voice, and i imagine she is a vocal proponent for reform not just in corona but in the seven kingdoms generally, but unfortunately she has no real authority in corona (because frederic is the monarch, not her) so her influence in this regard is limited.

frederic!

in contrast to arianna, frederic i think truly believes that cracking down harder on crime is the only way to make it go away. he’s thinking about how a criminal in a jail cell is a criminal who isn’t out on the streets hurting people, rather than thinking about where these criminals are coming from in the first place. he listens to arianna—and to ludolf and peter, who are other moderating voices in this regard—but he also has a very hard time stepping out of this mindset of “we just need to take the bad people and put them somewhere else so the good people will be safe.” in a way, i think he has a very similar mindset to rapunzel in that they both tend to engage in black-and-white thinking, but where rapunzel sees only the good parts of the world, frederic tends to see things in the most bleak light possible.

gilbert!

gilbert is a career military guy in a kingdom with no standing army during a time of peace. this… absolutely has an impact on his approach to domestic justice, and in particular he takes the attitude that criminals and dissidents are The Enemy. he feeds into frederic’s worst impulses and fears because in his mind, frederic is too cowardly to do what must be done to quash The Threat. i think… like frederic a lot of this ultimately comes from a desire to keep corona safe, he’s just jumped fully overboard into not considering the “wrong” sort of coronan part of the country he wants to protect. and then him seeing everything through this military lens is fuel on that fire.

ludolf!

he’s a champion of compassion. he hates the existence of the prison barges and the gallows, but i think he also does not have much in the way of actionable alternatives; he’s has this kind of idealized, almost rapunzel-esque idea that if they just apply a little faith and goodwill then the problems can be solved (and this tends to weaken his stance politically, because he runs into the “well then what do you propose we do” problem; he works best in tandem with someone like arianna or peter, both of whom are details people who can come up with real solutions).

quirin!

having been… sort of? the closest thing aphelion had to law enforcement back in the day, i think he has strong opinions on corona’s system—namely that it’s all wrong—but he keeps them to himself because he’s not one to talk about the past in general and he’s also well aware that in corona, he’s just some peasant and his opinions aren’t wanted. mostly, he tries to keep his head down, keep himself and his kid out of trouble, and focus on preserving the simple life he has constructed for himself.

(in aphelion, i think criminality was dealt with through the moonstone cult—this decayed somewhat over the course of the dedication, as aphelionese people lost their strong connection with the moonstone, but the basic philosophy still remained, and the basic philosophy was “work to understand the root of the problem, then shine the light of truth and understanding on it until the problem reveals its solution”)

adira!

adira very much thinks coronans are all a bit nuts and unlike quirin is not at all shy about voicing this thought when it happens to come up on the rare occasion that she stops being a vagrant long enough to talk to somebody. but that doesn’t happen very often. mostly she’s been too focused on searching for the sundrop and fixing the moonstone to care much about what corona does with its criminals, but also if she were directly asked she’d be like “were you trying to create a criminal assembly line? because that’s what you did” lol

nigel!

i think nigel is a very fearful person in general but this also wars with a degree of practicality. the notion of criminals frightens him but he can also recognize that many people turn to crime out of desperation or fear, and he has a tough time navigating this dissonance. on the whole i think he’d tend to lean toward whoever argued the most reasonably on any specific subject where coronan justice is concerned, which in practice means he ends up aligned with peter a lot—he respects peter’s authoritative experience in dealing with criminals, and peter tends toward this reasonable-sounding, incremental reform approach to the system that speaks to both nigel’s fearfulness and his practical side.

feldspar!

he’s in kind of an uncomfortable situation, in that he is saporian but i don’t think he is particularly open about that fact and would really prefer his coronan neighbors not… know about it. because being saporian, he has a clearer view of how the coronan justice system disadvantages his people and how the crackdown landed especially hard on saporia. i think he lives in perpetual anxiety over the possibility of getting in trouble or being accused of a crime and having his whole life destroyed as a result. also with his friendship with cass, there’s definitely a part of him that wants to just. shake her. until she wakes up to the injustices being done; but he’s far too anxious to actually do something like that so whenever she starts going on about being a guard he’s just kinda like :|

xavier!

as the royal blacksmith and thus supplier of the weapons and armor used by the king’s watch, he has this closeness to the law enforcement side of it that definitely biases him a bit in favor of them; they’re one of his primary customers and biggest sources of business. but also, he’s a very intelligent, very well-read person, and i feel like he spent some time traveling in his youth, so he’s in a similar boat to arianna where he knows for a fact that this is not the only or the best way to do things and he could probably be coaxed into a lengthy conversation about it with the right questions.

#bitter snow #anon i hope you didn't just mean the mains lol bc.#Anonymous

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charliejrogers · 4 years

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Birds of Prey (Or, Men Suck: An Action Movie!)

Before 2019’s Captain Marvel or 2017’s Wonder Woman had the opportunity to be smash successes, Margot Robbie’s turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, a character that was equal parts bad-assery, sadism, and unabashed sexuality, was the closest the comic book movie world had to a genuine female star. And, yes, that’s a direct knock on ScarJo’s Black Widow. Given the character’s popularity, Robbie’s interest in playing the character, the Me Too movement, and the subsequent success of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, a Harley Quinn movie was somewhat inevitable. The marketing for the film made it quite clear that Quinn’s new movie, Birds of Prey, aimed to rise far above the ashes of its predecessor. The previews advertised Quinn literally killing off the Joker (and symbolically cutting ties with one of the most complained-about aspects of Suicide Squad) by blowing up an ACE Chemicals building with Joker presumably inside. It was the location in the previous film where the Quinn and Joker’s relationship was born. This seemed like a bold, exciting jumping-off point for the film. Combined with its striking art design and lengthy sub-title (Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) the movie had me excited to watch a spirited indictment of the patriarchy under the guise of a comic book movie. That’s mostly what I got.

The movie indeed starts with an effectively brief animation detailing Harley’s life up to that point: haunted by her abandonment by her father and raised by harsh nuns, Harley’s need for male approval and hate of the establishment were finally realized when she met the Joker, a man for whom she cast aside her MD/PhD in psychology for a life of crime. But she gets tired of doing all the work and planning for Mr. J., but receiving none of the credit. It’s here you’d expect some big fight between Joker and Harley culminating in the explosion from the trailer. But the trailer was deceiving. We don’t see the fight. We just see Quinn’s reaction to being dumped by the Joker in a manner similar to how break-ups are portrayed in thousands of other pieces of fiction: crying hysterically, getting belligerently drunk, getting a pet, and denying that the break-up even happened. All this onscreen activity is accompanied by constant narration from Quinn who, instead of telling the truth about her pain and insecurities, lies and brags about her strength and maturity in dealing with the situation. When she ultimately decides to blow up ACE Chemicals, it is not an attempt to fight back against her abuser, but is instead her response to hearing other women talk shit about how she will likely go running back to the Joker. Blowing up the building doesn’t kill Joker (he’s not even present); it was just an immature, symbolic gesture to let the Joker know that she wasn’t coming back to him (like he would even care).

This rather weak portrayal of Quinn stands in stark contrast to the character as portrayed in the pilot of the recent animated show Harley Quinn. Interestingly, the show has Harley, who has recently been left for dead by the Joker, empower herself to leave the Joker. Yet, the portrayal at the start of Birds of Prey is intentional. It paves the way for eventual growth. It wouldn’t be much of a movie if she achieved her emancipation in the first five minutes. Plus, it perfectly falls in line with the relationship and characters established in Suicide Squad. There, Quinn and Joker were a couple madly in love, always desperately trying to get back to one another. Still, by shying away from the truth and horrors of the abuse Quinn suffered from the Joker and instead choosing to couch her abuse as “not getting credit/appreciation,” the movie weakens her power, strength, and growth in character. Her emancipation becomes less an empowered victory over abuse and misogyny and more just escaping the shadow of her arrogant boyfriend. This is unfortunate as symbolically it is satisfying that even Quinn’s first step towards independence, blowing up the ACE chemical building, is met with punishment and the assumption by male society that she can no longer defend herself. Seemingly every other bad guy in Gotham City knew to interpret the explosion exactly as Harley intended, and now they all seek vengeance for Miss Quinn’s many misdeeds, now that she lacks the protection of Mr. J.

The actual plot for the movie focuses on its villain, Ramon “Black Mask” Sionis, the epitome of white male privilege but without the confidence, a wealthy billionaire man-child so insecure he lashes out violently in response to the smallest insult. Sionis is trying to acquire the film’s MacGuffin, a diamond, on the exact same day all of Gotham’s underbelly, including Sionis, is out for Quinn’s head. The diamond is inadvertently pickpocketed by Cassandra Cain, a teenaged, female ne’er-do-well (Ella Jay Basco) who, like Quinn, is the victim of abuse and abandonment and has now turned to thievery to get by. For reasons I won’t spoil, Cassandra is unable to part ways with the diamond, so the hunt for the diamond becomes the hunt for Cassandra. It’s a hunt that involves multiple female protagonists. There’s Detective Montoya (Rosie Perez), a veteran detective trying to make a criminal case against Sionis. There’s Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), a singer in Sionis’s nightclub whom he forces to be his personal driver and errand-girl. And then there’s the Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a cross-bow-wielding bad-ass who actually isn’t after Sionis at all but is just kinda there on her own, separate revenge scheme. And, of course, Quinn inevitably gets involved in the hunt as well.

But for as much as the plot is about acquiring the diamond and escaping Sionis and his goons, it really is a film about female empowerment. The patriarchy, its inherent misogyny and perpetuation of rape culture, is the true villain. And emancipation from the grips of patriarchy is ultimately desired by all its female protagonists, not just Quinn. Detective Montoya is constantly passed up for promotions at work for decades even though she’s the brain by many successful operations. Black Canary, a Black woman, has an arc that combines misogyny with racism as she is forced into near slavery by Sionis (a white male who refers to her as “his little bird” and, not so subtly, “owns” an extensive collection of shrunken African heads). Her arc is my favorite in the film. And then there’s Huntress who… well, she’s just doing her own revenge thing, man. Like she’s killing dudes and stuff, but it’s hard to really link her with the deep anti-patriarchy themes the other three protagonists have. But where the movie really elevates itself beyond the sort of surface-level “girl power!” (that the Huntress unfortunately sorta represents) is in its willingness to be honest and nuanced about the brutality of sexual assault, even in the small degree it does address it.

Twice, Quinn finds herself incapacitated while being directly threatened by a man. The first occurs after her post-break-up binge-drinking night out where on the verge on consciousness, she is being caressed and fondled by a man in an alley and nearly kidnapped (and presumably raped) by two men. In the second instance, she’s hit with a paralytic agent. Her assailant crouches down next to her, puts her arm around his neck. “You’re still conscious,” he says to himself, as if reassuring himself like a man about to rape a drunk girl on the drink of consciousness. It’s rather disturbing and powerful to see our protagonist who is, in every sense of the phrase, a bad-ass be just as susceptible to be raped and taken advantage of as any other woman in society. No one is safe, and she’s not alone. There’s another rather difficult scene where the movie’s villain, Ramon Sionis, forces an innocent female patron at his night club, under the threat of death, to strip and dance on top of a table in front of the whole club. These are powerful and scary scenes that generally aren’t a part of superhero movies. No doubt, the success and nuance of the scenes is due to the fact that the movie is directed by a woman, Cathy Yan, written by a woman, Christina Hodson, and produced mainly by women (including the star Margot Robbie herself). If allowed to explore these issues more deeply, it would have been a fantastic film.

Still, this movie is not intended to be a deep, serious dive against real issues women face; I recognize its an action-focused comic book movie. And to that degree, the movie is mostly a success. It’s a fun movie with clever, visually-stunning action sequences. I was floored by its use of color (of purples, reds, and blues particularly) throughout all the fight scenes. There’s an extremely satisfying scene where Quinn infiltrates a police station with a gun that shoots out what looks like bean bags that release colorful dust/confetti upon impact. And the final battle scene in an abandoned boardwalk’s funhouse featured one of the most creative set pieces for an action movie this side of Temple of Doom, replete of trampolines, mirrors, and gripping melee combat (with mallets, bats, and kicks to the groin, instead of the often-more boring-shoot-outs.)

I really cannot say enough good things about the visual style of the film or its tightly choreographed fight scenes. Less good things can be said about scenes that do no feature fighting/action. McGregor as Sionis is fine, but Sionis is an uninteresting villain, and his over-the-top childish nature is boring to watch. The movie would have been better served by a villain like Jason Schwartzman’s Gideon from Scott Pilgrim vs the World, a well-respected, successful, confident, misogynistic tool, rather than the insecure mess seen here. Also, Ella Jay Basco as the teenaged pickpocket Cassandra is not a great actress and there was little chemistry between her and Robbie. This is unfortunate since the movie aims to cast Harley as Cassandra’s new foster-mother to highlight Quinn’s growth and this sequence takes up a good chunk of the middle of the film. I did like how the film explored the idea that Harley Quinn, though a “super villain,” is a normal person who needs to get groceries like the rest of us. Scenes like these helped to make Quinn more sympathetic but were largely hampered by bad dialogue.

Furthermore, are we just going to ignore that Harley handed Cassandra a bomb with a lit fuse, giving Cassandra no choice but to throw the bomb out a car window thereby killing one of their assailants?! Cassandra cannot be more than 15 years old, but the movie does nothing to explore what this obviously traumatic situation does to Cassandra. I’ll buy the film’s excuse that she has a penchant for pickpocketing as a consequence of her social circumstances… but you can’t tell me that she would have no second thoughts/trauma about killing another human being! Sorry, that’s the pediatrician in me getting out.

So yeah, I liked the movie. It’s not great, but it ain’t bad. Its weak dialogue and weak villain are made up for by the film’s great visuals and its absolute commitment to doing right by its themes, even approaching serious issues with nuance and grace, something that would never have happened if a bunch of dudes crafted this picture. And even if the first hour isn’t great, most of my complaints washed away in the last half hour when all the female protagonists finally join together and that awesome funhouse battle takes place. Further, it is satisfying to see that Harley Quinn really does change throughout the film. In defeating Sionis, she is able to finally free herself from the Joker, but also from all the men who assumed she was nothing more than the Joker’s bitch. The movie doesn’t leave much room for a sequel which in itself is refreshing. It tells a complete tale. Still, I’d happily seek to watch more of these birds of prey having been let out of their cages, free to take on more of patriarchy.

**/ (Two and a half stars out of four)

#birds of prey #margot robbie #harley quinn

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