#unfortunately the best format for me to get my ideas down in is rambling in a discord server | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

h-worksrambles · 2 years

Text

Top 10 Sonic characters

As Sonic Frontiers continues to make me more intrigued with each new trailer, I decided to channel my recent thoughts on the series, and ramble about my favourite characters from across the franchise. I don’t think a topic this self explanatory needs much preamble, except that will contain spoilers for numerous games in the series. Also, while I will touch on external media where relevant, this is gonna be pretty game centric as I’m not super familliar with the comics, and getting too bogged down in other continuities can get confusing fast. With that said, let the hot takes begin!

10: Chaos

I tend not to very big on the one off villains of the Sonic series. I like the idea of a rogues gallery for the series, but because I think the franchise has such a solid main antagonist (and trust me, we’ll get there) any other baddie who steps up to the plate ends up feeling like a downgrade. Thankfully, Sonic Adventure provides the exception to the rule. The former guardian of the Chao, Chaos is one of the major antagonists in Adventure, freed from his prison within the Master Emerald by Dr. Eggman. Chaos’ signature ability to evolve to new more powerful forms by consuming the Chaos Emeralds gives him an interesting dynamic with the heroes as a recurring boss fight who is fought in a number of increasingly more threatening incarnations. His overall presence and threat level is therefore able to escalate in a way not many Sonic villains do. This culminates in the iconc final battle in which he becomes the deadly Perfect Chaos, taking on Super Sonic amidst a flooded Station Square, an envoronment the player has had the whole game to get comfortable in before Chaos tears it down. And while he starts a tendancy for other villains to abruptly replace Eggman as the final boss which I’m not too fond of, Chaos gets a pass for doing it first and, in my eyes, doing it best. The main thing that prevents Chaos from being higher is that while I love him as a recurring fight and as a means of storytelling through gameplay, the actual narrative side of his character is...a little weak. Chaos’ role as a force of nature villain means that he can’t have much in the way of personality outside of what other characters tell us Chaos is feeling. His backstory does generate a degree of pathos on paper but it’s not executed as well as it could have been. For the uninitiated, Chaos was the guardian of the Chao, and a once gentle entity who watched over his charges at the shrine of the Master Emerald. However, his home was desecrated by the warmongering ancient Echidna tribe who wanted to use the Emerald’s power for themselves, killing the Chao in the process. Chaos was driven into a maddened rage and took revenge on the warmongerers, before being sealed in the Master Emerald by a young Echidna girl named Tikal, before he could do any more harm. It’s a pretty interesting backstory and takes the series into unexpectedly dark territory compared to what came before. And on paper, this story of violence, greed and tampering with the unknown, ended by Sonic and co. reminding Chaos of the importance of friendship is a nice, feel-good arc. Unfortunately, in practice though, it’s told through a string of disconnected, vague flashbacks across each character’s campaign, and this format means there’s just not enough time to give Chaos, or Tikal, the pathos that this story warrants. It tends to be more effective when read on the wiki than actually played. Still, quibbles aside, I appreciate Chaos, and Sonic Adventure’s lore, for feelng like an organic extension of the concepts set up in the classic games. It gives greater weight and context to the Chaos Emeralds, Angel Island and the ancient Echidnas, and that’s admittedly cool even if the execution could use some work. Chaos remains a fun villain to fight and think about, earning him a spot on this list.

9: Metal Sonic

Sonic’s robotic doppelgänger, debuting in Sonic CD, Metal Sonic is probably second only to Eggman as Sonic’s most recurring adversary. In his debut game, he served to impede Sonic’s efforts to undo Eggman’s conquest of the Little Planet, copying Sonic’s abilities and kidnapping Amy Rose as bait. His actual in the flesh (uhh...so to speak) appearances are brief, with his most noteworthy scene being the deadly race against Sonic on Stardust Speedway. Metal typically tends to be a silent, cold figure, a sharp contrast to Sonic’s warmth and liveliness. His ability to copy the abilities of his foes also appears to extend beyond Sonic himself, with Sonic the Fighters portraying him as mimicking the whole roster’s moveset in an infamously tough penultimate battle. However, outside of CD, his appearances were pretty brief, with his other most noteworthy role being in the Sonic OVA, which introduced an intriguing concept that Metal, being a copy of Sonic, shares personality traits with him (though he expresses them solely through body language rather than words), and may therefore have some capacity for good. This anime still shines as one of Metal’s best moments. It wasn’t until Sonic Heroes that Metal would make another prominent appearance, though it’s sadly not one I’m wild on. Here, Metal Sonic betrays Dr. Eggman, takes control of his armada and uses his copy abilities to become an amalgamation of all the playable heroes (as well as the latent vestiges of Chaos) transforming into a giant metallic dragon, even capable of using Chaos Control. Existing as a copy of Sonic has warped Metal’s self perception to the point that he now believes himself to be the real Sonic, and wants to overcome his ‘copy’ before creating an empire of machines. It’s an interesting idea but one that falls flat in execution. Mostly because someone decided it was necesarry to give Metal a laughable redesign complete with a cape (Edna Mode would be ashamed) and to give the previously silent character a voice. Subtlety is thrown out the window as this two bit cartoon villain rambles about his desire to become the supreme being. It’s a spectacle and a half to watch all twelve heroes team up against him, but ultimately, he ends up feeling like Metal Sonic in name only. Plus, sidelining Eggman at the last minute had become a throughly tired trope by that point.

Fortunately, Metal has stuck around since, returning to his prior role as Eggman’s stoic right hand robot. Whenever he shows up as a boss fight, it’s always an entertaining time. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful that Metal may recieve a more pronounced role in the future. Even if I disliked the execution, the notion of Metal Sonic believing himself to be the ‘true Sonic’ is interesting, and one I would like to see revisited, perhaps re-exploring the idea more subtly by keeping Metal as a silent character who emotes through physicality, rather than generic villain monologues. I’m down for this bot to show us what he’s made of again...provided there’s no capes involved this time.

8: Shadow the Hedehog

Oh yeah, we’re getting into the spicy takes now! Shadow is probably one of the most popular characters in the entire franchise; his recent teaser appearance in the post credits scene of the second Sonic movie spawning mass outpourings of hype from fans. And while I certainly enjoy the character, and may once have ranked him second or even first when I was younger, I also have a complicated relationship with him. But before we get into that, let’s look briefly at Shadow’s debut in Sonic Adventure 2. Like Chaos before him, Shadow took the franchise into much darker territory. He is the product of a research experiment held fifty years ago on the Space Colony ARK, to create the ‘ultimate life form’ by Professor Gerald Robotnik. In the present day, Shadow works with Dr. Eggman to use the ARK’s weaponry to hold Earth to ransom, planning to backstab the scientist to destroy the Earth and avenge his deceased creator and his friend, Maria. This leads to him repeatedly clashing with Sonic, their rivalry escalating over multiple boss fights. Meanwhile, he grapples with his fractured memories, his identity and his hatred of humans, until he recovers his true memories of Maria and redeems himself, teaming up with Sonic and sacrificing himself to save the Earth like Maria wanted.

Much like Chaos in Adventure though, it’s not exactly ideally executed. As fun and campy and ambititious as Adventure 2′s story is, it can be extremely rushed in places and Shadow suffers from an absurdly fast redemption arc. His character hints at many fascinating subtextual points, raising questions about what concepts like identity, memory and life would mean to an artificallly created being. It’s some of the most ambitious writing in the series. Unfortunately, despite these high concept ideas, the practicalities of Shadow’s redemption amount to him conveniently remembering the truth of his past at just the right moment. There’s little in the way of proper self-reflection or growth, which is…y’know, kind of the point of a redemption arc. Still, despite these issues, Shadow’s personality is pretty charming, a quiet, smug-yet-not-too-smug powerhouse whose clashes with Sonic are the highlight of the game. But this contrasts with a surprisingly gentle and sensitive soul, which has been hardened by revenge but learns to heal. His story, for all its faults, has a satisfying and pretty sad ending. So yeah, I like Shadow...

In Sonic Adventure 2.

Sadly, much like when I once gave my thoughts on Sephiroth from Final Fantasy, Shadow is proof of what happens when you don’t let a good thing rest. He is promptly brought back from the dead in Sonic Heroes, setting the stage for a number of writing decisions that have led me to turn on the character. His two game spanning amnesia arc was ultimately pointless, culminating in his own spin off game, Shadow the Hedgehog, which made him feel horribly out of character as a brooding, sullen anti hero, making extremely ill-fitting choices through the game’s morality system. He then joins the very military that ruined his life in Sonic 06 where he’s basically the secret main character, jumping to full blown creator’s pet, running circles around the rest of the cast in a way that makes him feel like an embarrassing Gary Stu. Since then, his portrayals have amounted to little more than ‘angry rival to Sonic’, with much of the charm or nuance of his debut having evaporated. And while I’ve seen much blame levelled at modern iterations for ‘flanderising’ him, I just found it to be the latest in a long line of bad writing choices for him. Moreover, I can’t help but feel this was kind of inevitable ever since Sonic Team decided to bring back a character who’d already died, and whose story had already been told.

The strength of Shadow’s first appearance is enough to snag him a spot on this list. But at the end of the day, I do think the trope of ‘foil to Sonic who starts as an enemy but becomes a friend’ has been done better both before and since, and when practically every creative decision with the character has left me cold, to the point that he kind of embodies a lot of the franchise’s problems with excess and inconsistency, it’s hard to feel the thrill for him I once did. Still looking forward to that third movie though...

7: Amy Rose

One of the most prominent characters, the leader of Team Rose and Sonic’s self proclaimed girlfriend, Amy first showed up in Sonic CD. Originally kidnapped by Metal Sonic and rescued by Sonic, Amy’s long standing crush on the blue blur has led her to often follow in his wake. But Amy is keen to prove herself and not be dead weight, so this has led to her getting character development and becoming more independent. This is most evident in Sonic Adventure, where she takes on one of Eggman’s powerful mechs to protect a baby animal she befriended in the story, spending the whole game evading her pursuer before finally confronting it and taking it down. Despite her crush on Sonic being the most well known part of her character, (and this next point may bother a few shippers in my audience) Amy tends to be at her most enjoyable when she has relatively little to do with him. She’s a very plucky, spunky character, keen to join in the fight against Eggman despite not having powers on the level of the others, so she finds workarouds like her techniques with her signature Piko Piko Hammer. Games like Sonic Advance key into this by giving her a unique playstyle quite unlike the rest. By Sonic Heroes, she’s even formed her own team, following her hero’s example while striking out on her own. She’s also one of the more gentle characters, often able to win over even antagonists like Gamma or Shadow when Sonic can’t.

Unfortunately, Amy tends to get done kind of dirty by the writers a lot of time, in turn getting a needlessly harsh response from fans as a result. Her crush on Sonic, despite being probably the least interesting part of her character, was often played up as borderline obsessive while her temper was cartoonishly exaggerated in media like Sonic X, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Riders and the like. Put simply it was nowhere near as funny as the writers seemed to think it was and just gave Amy the vibe of a bad walking anime trope. Amy was fun because was plucky, determined but deceptively sweet despite her strong willed nature. Not because she was a one note jealous yandere who hit her friends with a hammer when she got mad.

Thankfully, Sonic Team have moved away from this in recent years, though, like many Sonic characters, the negative response to her worse portrayals seems to have left them still kind of scared to use her much at all. However, unlike Shadow, who would have been better served by just being retired good and early, I still tend to enjoy Amy when she shows up and I look forward to future games giving her more time to shine.

6: Miles ‘Tails’ Prower

Miles Prower, aka Tails, is one of the franchise’s most long standing characters, Introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as a wide eyed kid who tagged along with Sonic out of admiration, Tails has proven himself to be a worthy ally and friend to Sonic across the games, to the point that they’re often potrarayed as surrogate siblings. Their friendship remains one of the most endearing in the series, so it’s always fun to see them interact. Tails is a lot like Amy where a big part of his character development is about wanting to be like Sonic and learning to become independent by embracing what makes him unique. As early as Sonic 3, Tails’ unique ability to fly helped him to stand out from Sonic by playing levels his way, to the point that he’s pretty much the game’s easy mode. Meanwhile, in Sonic Adventure, Tails’ campaign is a full on character arc about him embracing his skills as a mechanic and pilot, skills only he can bring to the group, and he even faces down Dr. Eggman alone without Sonic. His newfound independence carries on into Sonic Adventure 2. Even when he thinks Sonic might be dead, he resolves to keep fighting on behalf of his ‘big bro’, taking down Eggman on his own. It’s a great multi game arc and probably one of the best (maybe even only) examples of consistent, cross-game character growth in the whole series. Despite that though, Tails’ friendship with Sonic shouldn’t be downplayed as it’s still a very endearing part of his character. Sonic Advance 3 adorably describes them as having an ‘unbreakable bond’ if they’re selected as a team. One of the best showcases of their dynamic is Sonic Colours, where plenty of time is devoted to their charming back and forth as they explore Eggman’s Interstellar Amusement Park. Even though he knows he’s the smarter of the two, and isn’t afriad to gently point out his friend’s recklessness, their genuine trust in, and respect for each other never fails to shine through.

The only thing keeping Tails from ranking higher is that he occasionally suffers from a lack of agency. As much as I like the interplay between him slowly becoming more independent from Sonic while still being his best friend, you start to notice that the games tend to be scared of letting him go too far from Sonic himself. Tails is at his most boring when he’s just reduced to a fawning tag along who’s only really here because Sonic is. Games like Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06 and Sonic Forces all really struggle with giving Tails meaningful stuff to do in the game, or just giving him much of a life outside of Sonic. Fortunately, Tails is likable enough that, even when he’s just kind of here, it’s at least consistently nice to see him. And the 2D games in particular like Advance and Mania have done a great job making him fun to play. It’s always a pleasure to see this kid take to the skies.

5: Sonic the Hedgehog

Any list of best Sonic characters would be incomplete without the fastest thing alive himself. Sonic’s character is arguably a major part of what allowed the franchise to get as popular as it did. A much of that is because he’s first and foremost...well...cool. Hyperactive, adventurous, confident (to the point of a little cocky), Sonic has a brand of capable coolness that’s easy for kids getting into the series to latch on to. Some of the most enjoyable scenes of the series are just watching Sonic do his thing, racing across the plains as an unstoppable, determined force in Sonic CD’s intro, or blitzing through an armada of robots with a cheeky grin in the opening of Sonic Unleashed. He’s just consistently fun to watch.

While being the mascot of an incredibly lucrative multimedia franchise means he’s not prone to a ton of growth as a character, Sonic has a deceptive amount of range. While his first impression is that of a fast talking, hot blooded adventurer who can’t sit still, Sonic is capable of being surprisingly emotionally intelligent and fiercely loyal to his friends. He empathises with Chaos’ suffering in Sonic Adventure, is able to offer genuine life advice to the distraught villain Merlina in Sonic and the Black Knight, and dives in to protect the alien Wisps in Sonic Colours without a second thought. Often Sonic will play a pivotal role in the development of other characters in the series, the flat character who helps the rest of his friends to live as their best selves. The fact that this rarely, if ever, crosses into annoying Gary Stu territory is honestly pretty impressive. Others may call him a hero, but in his own words, he’s ‘just a guy who loves adventure’ Sonic and the Black Knight is a game I’ve seen especially get a lot of praise for how right it gets Sonc as a character. And even as someone who doesn’t particularly like that game, I’m inclined to agree. I’d even say he pretty much carries it just by being so likable and sincere underneath all the confident bluster and quips.

I even debated putting him higher on the list but the main reason I held off is mostly that being ‘ground zero’ for the series can kind of hold Sonic back as a character. Most notably, despite being a very simple character who shouldn’t be hard to write, Sonic is most prone to drastic reinterpretations depending on who’s writing or voicing him. I think this is down to the fact that Sonic was always marketed on being ‘cool’. But what constitutes as ‘cool’ is subjective. Depending on what culture or context he’s being written for, Sonic’s character can change pretty drastically. Just look at how in the 90′s alone, Sonic was interpreted as a chill, nature-loving adventurer in the Japanese canon, a catchphrase-laden dude with attitude in the American cartoons and Archie comics, or a prickly, sarcastic punk with a secret heart of gold in the British Fleetway comics. Couple that with his numerous English voices, and Sonic is arguably one of the more inconsistent characters in the cast, with differences in his portrayals in the games, the Sonic Boom show, the movies and the IDW comics still being hotly debated by fans. This is actually a large factor in why I said I would mostly stick to the games. Because sorting out my feelings about Sonic’s ingame variances is hard enough without including everything else.

Still, no matter how much his character is prone to change, I nonetheless tend to find myself liking Sonic whenever he shows up, and he’s a big part of why I keep coming back to the series. It’s just fun to guide this hyperactive hedgehog with attitude through fast paced levels and watch him trade banter back and forth with evildoers on his journey to save the world.

4: Knuckles the Echidna

Here he comes rougher than the rest of them...

Got the memes out of your system now? Good. Moving along.

Sonic’s rival-turned-friend first appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The last surviving member of the Echidnas, Knuckles has spent his life guarding the Master Emerald on Angel Island. Originally tricked into believing Sonic and Tails were a threat to his island, Knuckles eventually saw the error of his ways and joined the two to stop the mad scientist. Since then, while he still maintains his role as guardian, he has been able to venture beyond his island, finally getting to see the world by joining Sonic on his adventures, even making a name for himself as a treasure hunter.

For as many foils as Sonic has had over the years, Knuckles is still probably the most entertaining one in terms of his dynamic with Sonic. Whereas Sonic is impulsive, quippy and playful, a seasoned explorer who has met and befriended plenty of people across his travels, Knuckles is blunt and direct, having spent his life in isolation bound to a single duty. He lacks Sonic’s people skills which can make him seem gullible. He’s naive but short tempered. Sonic can easily get a rise out of him, but Knuckles is also more prone to call out or challenge Sonic in a way Tails or Amy might not. They’re often a common source of comedy when they butt heads. I think a lot of this played into why his recent portrayal in the second movie was so well recieved.

He’s also a treat whenever he’s playable. In Sonic 3, as well as the Advance games and Mania, Knuckles was in many ways the expert mode choice. He couldn’t jump as high so he struggled with typical platforming, but his unique skills in wall climbing and gliding made him to go-to-character for finding secrets. Sonic could blitz through levels in record time, while Knuckles could plumb them for hidden rewards. He was Sonic’s tempramental opposite in gameplay just as he was in personality.

Granted at times, his naivety gets misinterpreted by the writers as mere stupidity, and while that can be genuinely hilarious in iterations more divorced from canon (see the alternate universe tv show, Sonic Boom) it doesn’t feel true to him in the games, which can go hand in hand with how, much like Tails, the writers sometimes seem unsure how much of a life to give him outside of Sonic. As much as I like Knuckles, his task as the guardian of the Master Emerald gives him a distinct role in the setting apart from Sonic himself, meaning he benefts from slightly more infrequent appearances, so that it’s more meaningful when he does show up. I also do thinkthat, even at his best, the guy has a lot of missed potential. His identity and legacy as the last of his kind has only had its surface scratched in Adventure and Chronicles, both with less than ideal execution.

He may be perhaps the most memefied member of the cast, but I think that speaks to his staying power. Tough and capable yet funny and adorkable, nobody in this series knock-knocks quite like Knuckles.

3: E102 Gamma

The latest in the line of Dr. Eggman’s E-Series robots in Sonic Adventure, Gamma only had one major appearance in the whole series, but he left a powerful impression. Gamma’s storyline marked the first time a mainline Sonic game let us actually play as one of Dr. Eggman’s robots. He begins in the service of his creator, but a fateful encounter with Amy Rose leads him to question his identity. Much like the Badniks from the original Genesis/Mega Drive games, Gamma is an animal encased in a robot shell, so Gamma resolves to free his ‘brothers’ by hunting them down one-by-one, liberating the captive creatures inside.

One of the things that benefits Gamma’s story is its sense of subtelty. Charming as Adventure’s story is, it’s prone to its fair share of janky localisation and goofy animations as an early 3D game. But in Gamma’s story, both of those are kept to a minimum. Gamma is a robot of few words, fiercely dedicated to his mission, and what little dialogue he has amounts to quiet, analytical introspection. He gives the game some much needed restraint, and most of his story is self-contained to his personal arc, with little impact on the wider plot. While it may be disconnected, it’s probably the tightest written of the bunch. It all culminates in Gamma facing down his brother, Beta, mutually destroying each other to free the animals trapped inside them. The innocent bird within his casing lives on and reunites with their family, but Gamma himself silently crumbles to nothing on the deck of the Egg Carrier.

Gamma’s journey remains one of the most compelling parts of the series’ storytelling due to its uniquely subdued and subtle tone, but it’s also a fascinating take on one of the series’ long standing elements. Much like how Chaos gave elements, like the Master Emerald and Angel Island, from the classic games more context and history, Gamma provides a new perspective on the plot point of Eggman turning animals into machines, a staple since Sonic 1. This has always been a minor component of the gameplay, but here it’s used to elicit genuine pathos, demonstrating the cruelty behind Eggman’s goofy appearance, and demonstrating why it’s so important that Sonic constantly puts a stop to his goals.

In a series that is often corny, campy and in your face, Gamma’s arc was quiet, tragic and understated. The fact that so many players were moved by his death demonstrates how likable Sonic Team managed to make him, how they did so much with so little. One off character though he may be, Gamma is rightly remembered as a fan favourite, and I think the fact that Sonic Team haven’t brought him back (outside that one weird time in Sonic Battle) proves that they understand that this shouldn’t be tampered with. Gamma did his duty. Now let him rest...

2: Dr. Eggman

I’ve come to make an announcement: Dr. Eggman is one of the best characters in this franchise!

The world renowned mad scientist and the greatest genius in the world (at least in his estimation), Dr. Eggman has been around since the very beginning, and is rightly a staple of villany in gaming culture. With an IQ of 300 and an even larger ego, Eggman considers himself the rightful ruler of the world, capturing innocent animals and using them to power his machines. Back in the 90′s, Eggman helped to reinforce the subtle environmental message of the series as a whole. The lone human in the early games (at least that we saw), Eggman invaded undisturbed islands of natural beauty so that he could exploit and weaponise them for his own gain. His factories and techo bases were the antithesis of the game’s colourful, pastoral environments, and Sonic’s triumphs helped restore the vibrancy of the land. It’s unapolgetically green in the most 90′s way ever and I love it for that.

This is all bolstered by the fact that Eggman is legitamately fun. He walks this great line of hammy, funny and genuinely capable. He’s often a source of comedy, but not so much because he’s particularly bufoonish, but moreso because it’s fun to watch his ego trip him up, or seeing him clash with his notably less intelligent lackeys across numerous adaptations. Despite this, he can also be genuinely menacing. I’ve already touched on how Sonic Adventure recontextualised the sinister undertones of his plans, but Sonic Adventure 2 also warrants mention. Even if he spends most of the game as Shadow’s unwitting puppet, the game sees him using the Eclipse Cannon to put our heroes, and the whole planet, on the ropes like never before up to that point in the games. It’s probably the closest Eggman has ever come to beating Sonic for good. And a lot of his plans are honestly pretty darn devious. Sonic Unleashed sees him break apart the entire planet. Sonic Generations has him controlling a primal time-controlling alien to undo his past mistakes. Sonic Lost World has him play both Sonic and new villains, the Deadly Six, for fools, and in Sonic Forces, he finally beats Sonic and rules the world for six months. The man is a tank.

The games don’t tend to give him much in the way of backstory but honestly, he doesn’t need one. Eggman is a testament to scientific hubris. As far as he’s concerned, he’s the smartest person in the room at any given time, and that makes him qualified to rule. He doesn’t care if other people think he’s evil. They’re idiots, why should their opinion mattter? The closest he’s gotten to sympathy is a throwaway line in Adventure 2 implying his passion for science began with a genuine respect for his grandfather, Professor Gerald. And really, I think that’s all he needs.His love for science may be genuine, but now it pales in comparison to his love for himself. And all of this is sold by a consistent string of great voice actors in both English and Japanese who excel at bringing him to life. He’s probably the most consistently well performed out of the entire cast.

Honestly, the only time I don’t like him is when the writing itself seems to lack faith in him as a villain. The 2000′s especially had a really obnoxious habit of writing him out of the plot to make way for other, more ‘serious’ (read: boring as sin) monster of the week villains. But I’ve ranted about that enough already. And even then, plenty of those games still provided him with great moments before unceremoniously giving him the boot.

Dr. Eggman was, and is, exactly what the series needs. A cartoonish yet capable antagonist who perfectly contrasts our hero and is a joy every time he’s on screen. Honestly, if the Eggman Empire were ever to become a thing, I’d be tempted to sign up.

1. Blaze the Cat

The princess of another dimension, the guardian of the Sol Emeralds, and (in my humble opinion) the best character in this entire franchise: Blaze the Cat.

Blaze first appeared in Sonic Rush, where her dimension was thrust into contact with Sonic’s thanks to Eggman’s machinations. Blaze wandered Sonic’s world gathering the lost Sol Emeralds, a dimensional counterpart to the Chaos Emeralds. Originally Blaze was a cold and distant figure. Like Knuckles, she was fiercely devoted to her responsibilites, and had little to no social interactions. But she also had the baggage of her unique powers. Blaze is pyrokinetic, able to create and control fire. This was invaluable to her role as guardian, but only made it harder to conect with others when she was young, her powers often frightening those around her. Convincing herself she didn’t need friends, she became very closed off. However, her journey into Sonic’s world changes her perspective. She finds herself unconditionally accepted by Cream the Rabbit, and while her personality clashes with Sonic’s at first, she comes to see him as worthy ally and friend. The two save their universes, and go their seperate ways, promising to see each other again.

As a reformed rival and character foil to Sonic who he helps to grow past their flaws, I’d say she almost feels like Shadow, but better, at least in some ways. As the saviour of her world who fights her own alternate Eggman, she is effectively Sonic’s dimensional counterpart, making the contrast between their personalities much more interesting. And we get to see that arc followed up on in Sonic Rush Adventure. Here we enter the Sol Dimension, and we see Blaze in her element, using the lessons she learned from Sonic to be a better leader to her people in the fight against Captain Whisker (aka ‘Totally Not An Eggman Robot’). We all see she’s still making the effort to come out of her shell socially, as she gradually befriends the well meaning, if somewhat overbearing, Marine the Raccoon. Much like Tails in the Adventure games, Blaze’s arc feels like it carries on coherently across games, helping it feel like the game’s world, and the people within it, are progressing. It’s rare, but satisfying, when this somewhat slapdash franchise, can nail something like that.

As a character, Blaze almost feels immune to being badly portayed, or to fandom discourse. Her appearances, while rare, given that her position means she can’t show up often, are typically welcomed. Even in a panned game like Sonic 06, she somehow managed to be one of only fun characters to play. She’s the one character who almost everyone, no matter which sector of the fanbase you fit into, seems to like. And it’s not hard to see why. She’s one of the few playable female characters in the series. She’s a kickass, no nonesense character, who still is able to show a softer more caring side. Her powers are flashy and fun to watch. She has some of the best and most consistent writing in the series. She’s just so easy to like.

That being said, to briefly circle back, I do think Sonic 06 makes for a good statement as to why it’s okay that Blaze doesn’t show up that much. One of the few attempts to majorly incorporate Blaze into a mainline game outside the Rush duology, the game proceeded to completely rewrite Blaze’s backstory and undo her character arc, reducing her to a tag-along for the far less interesting Silver the Hedgehog, even trying to fridge her to advance his development. This pretty appalling handling of her character has been thankfully written out of canon by the game’s ending, and I, for one, am happy to pretend it never happened (though I’m left wondering why Sonic Team are still so insistent to push them as a duo despite that ending). Perhaps Blaze benefits from rarity for the same reason Gamma does. To relentlessly spam her with appearances would reduce what makes Blaze special. Her few roles have elevated her to a standout character of the franchise and maybe that’s enough.

Blaze may be a princess in canon, but in my eyes, she’s a full on queen, more than deserving of the top spot as the best Sonic character.

And with that, there’s our list. I hope you enjoyed this countdown of my favourites from the colourful cast of Sonic. I hope my takes won’t inspire too much controversy! And most of all, I hope you’re also looking forward to seeing some of these faces return in Sonic Frontiers this November! But until next time, take care!

#sonic the hedgehog #top 10 #character discussion #chaos 0 #metal sonic #shadow the hedgehog #amy rose #miles tails prower #knuckles the echidna #e 102 gamma #dr eggman #blaze the cat

21 notes · View notes

scribbleboxfox · 2 years

Note

Definitely not the friend of the person who sent the artwork with the chair–

Can confirm, she's been rambling on and on about your fic for weeks. Months. I decided I had to read it for myself, since she spoke so highly of it, so I started today. Somewhere around the seventh chapter now. I'm always cracking up at the notes at the end. For the record, you nailed Caboose. I could hear his voice more clearly than anyone else's.

That aside, I did have a real question. Figured I'd ask since apparently you're a super easy to talk to/contact (if my excited friend's notes about sharing the artwork have been any indication). I do not know how tumblr works, though. Fingers crossed I figure it out quick.

The actual questions:

How did you come up with the idea for your story?

How did you make it work? As in, how did you make a plot, stick to it, and then keep going–

How are you able to impersonate fandom characters so accurately and not fear being incorrect??? (I struggle with this, hence my not having written fanfiction in, like, ever haha)

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

AHHHH YES HELLO HI I'M SO GLAD YOU STARTED READING AND I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!

I'm going to put my answers under a cut so it doesn't clog up people's dashboards. (Click on the "Keep Reading" link/button thing to see them!)

Gonna try to answer your first two questions together, since they pair up nicely.

Honestly, and this is going to sound silly, the idea for The Long Road Home sprung from a goofy one-liner that I thought up for Fox to say. More specifically; I'd come up with Fox as a way to give Locus a goofy sidekick that annoyed him but ultimately became his best friend. She was originally just a silly OC that I did some doodles of, and I wasn't planning on getting attached to her or Red vs. Blue. But then I imagined the stupidest, funniest one-liner I have ever come up with.

Unfortunately, said one-liner needed context. Over a million words of context, apparently LOL. So I started brainstorming, came up with a plot, and planned it out. It's hard to explain the exact technical work that went into building this thing, but I'll try;

Initially, I started by asking myself "where do I want these characters to end up, and how are they going to get there?" Then I determined the load-bearing plot points from there;

The characters meet Fox

She convinces them to work together with Locus

Locus earns some of Kimball's trust; enough for Kimball to let him help Fox on her crusade to find evidence against Hargrove that the UNSC will have to pay attention to

They go to Earth and Locus discovers the power of friendship

At the same time, Hargrove decides to continue his campaign to wipe out Chorus

[Insert other spoilery plot points here]

From there, I came up with a document that holds all the super important plot points and the order in which they happen, along with all the necessary sub-plots that help move the story along.

The way I format it is "Chapter Name: Plot point 1 - Plot point 2 - plot point 3" so I know what needs to happen in each chapter. I've included an image below that hopefully helps illustrate this a little better;

This was the first thing I did when planning my fic. It took me a while to finalize it; I didn't manage to get it close to the finalized version that exists now until around Chapter 14. Since then I've tidied it up even further as I've tightened up my overall story direction, and continue to do so every few chapters I write to make sure that everything that happens in future chapters makes sense with what's happened in previous ones.

TL;DR: this document exists for me to know where the fic is going and how to get there, and serves as a framework for the overall story as a whole.

The next step; which is more of a housekeeping thing on my part, is the chapter outlines. These basically serve as a rough draft and help me get all the "filler" down so I can use it to connect the stuff that happens in each chapter. To further explain; I outline the chapter scene-by-scene and include some of the more minute details that happen. I like to write these like they're a FandomWiki article about an episode of a TV show so I don't get too descriptive with them (they're rough drafts after all,) though I'll usually include pieces of dialogue that I think could actually work in the chapter, or serve as a means of getting an idea across.

Here's an image of what it looks like;

Since these are basically rough drafts, I like to use them to just throw down whatever ideas I can come up with, and then in the final draft (AKA the actual chapter) I iron out all the stuff that either won't work or isn't as good as it could be.

Both of these documents help me stay on track and keep me motivated. I find that the timeline document keeps me super excited about what's going to happen in future chapters, because I can just scroll down and see it. And the outline document allows me to throw out whatever ideas think will work on a chapter-by-chapter basis without my perfectionism kicking me in the head.

TL;DR #2: to actually answer your question about how I make it work; I found a technical method that works best for me (which I've outlined above.) Basically, I found a way to get down all the basic ideas for what I wanted to happen in my story. Then, before each chapter, I wrote outlines that define the exact execution of each idea that happens in that specific chapter. Utilizing both in tandem have helped keep me on track, and kept me motivated for what comes next in the story.

Hopefully that makes sense! :'D

As for how I handle character-voice... I've re-watched Red vs. Blue a few dozen times now, so I have some idea of the general cadence of the main characters (what they would say and how they would say it.) But honestly, the way I nail it down in my fic is I just...read their dialogue aloud. Or failing that, I'll read it in my head using the voice of the character I'm trying to emulate.

It usually takes me a few tries to be successful, and I'm honestly super happy that you think I nailed Caboose since I always struggle the most with him.

When all else fails though, I'll either re-watch the Chorus Trilogy or pull up the (incomplete) WikiQuote page for it. Since The Long Road Home takes place immediately after that part of the show, the dialogue from the Chorus Trilogy is the best reference for characterizing the main cast.

TL;DR #3: Research and references are your best friends when writing dialogue. I find that if I can't imagine a character saying a certain thing, then they either wouldn't say it the way I'm trying to write them saying it, or they wouldn't say it at all. Reading dialogue aloud can help A LOT with figuring out if something sounds right.

(But also don't worry about dialogue being perfect. In the more recent chapters, my characterization for some of the Reds and Blues has definitely slipped lol. I think, if you are going to try to write a fic at some point, the most important thing is that you love the characters and the media they came from, and that you're having fun overall!)

Thanks so much for all the questions! It always puts a huge smile on my face whenever anyone asks about my fic! :D

Have a great day! <3

#tlrh #ask #SORRY ITS SO LONG I TEND TO RAMBLE #also anyone and everyone can and SHOULD steal this writing process if they think it'll help them #though i cant say it'll work for everyone #i just have adhd and need STRUCTURE or else i'll keel over like a horse with a broken leg #ANYWAYS TY FOR THE ASK I OWE YOU MY LIFE

8 notes · View notes

hangjie · 3 years

Text

FORMATION B !

summary. you approach megumi and yuuji, nobara, and gojo assemble

pairing. megumi fushiguro x reader

content/warning. a bit of self-blame

word count: 1.1k

author’s note: this idea has been itching in my head since i’ve seen jjk ( aka since may ) HAHAHAHAH. kinda rusty in writing since i haven’t written anything for a whole month, so i’m sorry if this is eh, nevertheless i do hope you enjoy this ! did not specify the gender or breed of max, so you can imagine freely and reader is kinda awkward but it’s cute 🥰

“max!” you call out. “max, where are you?” you roam around the park in search of your furry best friend, max.

since they have been walking in circles, scratching the door, and begging you to go out of your house all day, you decided to do so since a walk in the park sounded like a good idea (and mainly because, you couldn’t resist their puppy-dog eyes and didn’t want more scratch marks on your door). but that idea turned sour because max ran off while you sat down to check on your phone. despite tying their leash on the bench, they must’ve pulled on their leash until it became loose and escaped. so here you are, screaming and running around to look for them.

you repeatedly yelled max’s name and walked around the park to find them. you even asked some passersby if they’ve seen your dog but unfortunately, none.

you were running out of options and hope. plus, it was nearing evening, so you had to go home soon. ‘maybe they went back to the house?’ you thought despite the chance of max going home on their own being slim. you packed up your things as thousands of thoughts coming flooding into your head about why you weren’t careful. 'why did i even have to stop by to check on my phone? what was so important than looking after max?’ you thought and started to blame yourself on why max ran away.

before you can turn around to make your way home, a very familiar bark is heard from afar. your eyes widen and your heart quickens as you turn back front to see max running towards you. “max!” you cry out as you crouch down, them running around your legs and barking at you happily “don’t go running off like that, you hear me?” you scold and pat their head before looking up to see someone, a boy, walking up to you as well.

he’s tall and fair, his clothes as dark as his hair yet his eyes, a dark blue with long lashes adorning them. he’s not smiling nor frowning, his expression was stoic yet you feel instantly drawn to him.

“so i’m guessing you’re their owner?” he asks as you stand up straight and brush the dirt from your legs. “yeah! i was looking everywhere for them. thank you for finding them.” you bow in gratitude and respect for him but he shakes his head. “it wasn’t a problem really. they approached me while i was walking with my friends alongside the street beside the park.”

“oh, i hope max didn’t disturb you and your friends.” you blush in embarrassment but the boy shakes his head again. “not at all. i didn’t want to leave them behind since i didn’t want them to get lost.” you instinctively bow your head in gratitude again, making the boy’s cheeks flush pink. “thank you so much. how can i repay you? maybe i can buy you a drink or—” before you can further say anything, you realize your words, making you blush and immediately stand straight, your arms waving around in dismissal. “i–i’m sorry! i didn’t mean it like that. i mean, i do but i just didn’t rephrase my words correctly and i just want to repay you for finding max and—” you freeze and cover your mouth. “i’m rambling, aren’t i?” you say, your voice muffled by your hands as the boy in front of you nods and blushes harder. you take a deep breath to try and lessen the fast pacing of your heart. you slowly look up at him and offer him a smile, saying, “why don’t i buy you coffee sometime? as my way of thanking you for finding max.” the boy sighs before giving you a small smile. “sure.” he nods, making your smile turn brighter.

“i’m (y/n) (y/l/n) and this is max.” you exclaim to your four-legged friend who’s sitting beside you and contentedly looking at the both of you with their tongue sticking out on the corner of their mouth. “i’m megumi fushiguro.” he bows his head and you do the same before the both of you stand back up.

“if you don’t mind me asking, when are you free for that coffee? i’m available on—” before you can finish what you were saying, you’re cut off by a loud 'fushiguro-kyun!’ from afar.

you turn to the side to see a girl with short light-brown hair and a boy with pink-hued hair and marks on his face goofily running towards the both of you. when they neared the two of you, they latched on to megumi as they started talking simultaneously.

“who is that woman?!” the girl asked, tears forming at the corner of her eyes. “was it all a lie when you said your time with me was the most enjoyable of all?!” the boy then asked. “that night! that night!”

you try to hold in your laughter as megumi said, “what? seriously, what? are you going to do this every time?” while he had a stoic look on his face.

you and max watched the scene unfold until a booming masculine voice says, “could you not touch him so casually, please, you homewreckers?!” you all turn to see a man with white hair, formally dressed in slacks and a light blue dress shirt and dark circular glasses masking his bright eyes, holding his coat over his shoulder. “megumi-chan has violin practice with me now. let’s go home, megumi-chan. today, i’ll have you master 'mary had a little lamb.’”

since you can’t hold in your laughter anymore, you burst out laughing, making everyone look at you in confusion. you fish your phone out of your pocket and hand it to megumi. “put in your number so i can text you,” you say in between laughs and giggles. megumi takes your phone and types in his number before handing it back to you. “i’ll text you about the coffee when i get home.” he nods in agreement and you smile before putting your phone back in your pocket and waving at megumi. “i’ll see you later, megumi. good luck with violin practice.” megumi’s cheeks redden, making him pull the collar of his jacket to his cheeks and wave at you shyly. you chuckle and start to walk away from megumi and his friends with max by your side.

once you were gone from sight, megumi hits the back of yuuji’s head with his fist, making nobara squeal in fright. “seriously, can the three of you stop? you do this every time.” his forehead forms a tick mark in irritation as gojo looks at him innocently, making megumi glare daggers at him. “you three better not do this again. you’re embarrassing me.”

“we promise, megumi-chan,” gojo says, giggling.

spoiler: they broke their promise

287 notes · View notes

uwua3 · 3 years

Note

Yo! Can i ask for a cute Pirate AU with an adventure seeking MC pirate captain, who, when she and her crew are making a stop at some port, meets her childhood friend, Tenma, with whom she has romantic tension, only Tenma is a big blushing tsundere mess, and MC is verrrryyy oblivious to his blushiness, but accidentally innocently flirts with him?? If that makes sense? Also oops the soldiers have seen me, the wanted pirate, wanna get out of here and join my crew?

summary: a deal is made between a pirate captain haunted by their legacy and an island medium who wants to go home

warnings: alcohol, death (mentions), cops/police, crime, fights (physical/arguments), fires, ghosts, military, near–death experiences, pirates, slow-burn, swords, unrequited love/love triangle

author’s note: thank you so much for your patience requesting this pirate story~ i did my best to do this justice, as i love pirates more than anything! .*:ﾟ（｀・ω・´）ゝﾟ:*. this was a jolly good time to write, thank you! (please let me know if you would like a part 02 to this, as it ran longer than expected)! thank you!! :D

word count: 6,163

music: ship in a bottle – fin

captain, let’s make a deal.

☀️🌻 sumeragi tenma

even out at sea, you couldn’t escape the fire that destroyed your town years ago. the fire that made you become a pirate captain

you were born by a local village by the coast, where the air tasted like salt no matter what and trade was your community’s main economy

it was home. a place where everyone knew each other as family, where the sun was hot upon even warmer smiles and the euphoric laughter of children surrounded the island. this was the land of the happy, the free, and the united

it wasn’t until the damn navy—your first enemy until death—came

according to heresay, pirates were supposed to plunder and pillage without mercy. pirates were the villain and yet, what would the navy be then? after what they did to you, they were anything but heroes

yonaguni was made of tall palm trees that provided shade during the eternal summer that sunburnt your skin, floating markets by the pier with tricky elderly and learning apprentinces in the family business, and rare wildlife not found anywhere else

now, it was nothing more than hell. you could remember it all—how the flames licked the open wounds from navy seamen, the screams of the innocent replacing what would’ve been last words meant for decades later, the sound of crashing trees blocking every available escape route as birds flew away in the distance

you were just a yonaguni native, and now, there was nothing left of your hometown. it was permanently erased from world history forever, and you were the sole survivor of the island, making you the most wanted vigilante alive

it had been years since you last had a nightmare of the attack. was haunting your brain and traumautizing you for life during every waking hour not enough?

but, you knew the answer why you couldn’t stop mourning the loss of yonaguni

it was nearing the anniversary of your friend, sumeragi tenma’s, death

and, as you climbed to the crow’s nest with the power of the ocean running through your salted veins and spite overwhelming you in the deepest, darkest parts of yourself, you could see it over the horizon

the navy said dead men tell no tales, but you were alive, and you would be a legend

“all hands ahoy or you’ll be given no quarter!” (everyone on deck or you’ll be shown no mercy)

“aye, captain!” your crew replied eagerly, their loyalty unwavering and strong as always. you stood atop of the main mast, surrounded by vast ocean bordering a blue, cloudless sky. even without your telescope, you could see everything in the world

beneath you sounded the swing of the lines (rope) against the wind before two feet landed in the crow’s nest. the sailor had the type of agility that only came from a boy born on sea

“cap, don’t tell me ya forgot about me?” your quartermaster, rurikawa yuki, grinned (a rare sight that only came when the ocean smelt strongest of salt and treasure), standing at the ledge whilst holding onto the lines with one hand. any other novice would’ve immediately fallen off with how strong the random gusts of wind were, but yuki was an enigma and your second in command for a reason

“ahoy, yuki! so long as the jolly rodger waves, this crew will always be ready to set sail.” you responded, sliding down the mast to be in the crow’s nest as well. yuki just rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and leaning upon your frame like it was nothing

“don’t hornswaggle (cheat) me, cap. what are you thinking about?” yuki read you like a map, as expected of the second best cartographer (after master boatswain muku, of course) in all the seven seas. you tried to remain present in the moment, with the wind flowing and sky clear, but it wasn’t enough

“... tell me, yuki. is it so easy to read the distraught upon my face?” you joked, but it fell flat as yuki raised an unimpressed eyebrow at your facade. yuki didn’t take bullshit from anyone, not even his own captain

“aye, do not be acting as if you’re feeding the fish (about to die), captain.” yuki carefully watched if any of their small crew was eavesdropping, but the rest were doing their proper tasks for the morning. cartographer muku was happily reading directions to helmsman misumi. the two were a fantastic pair, considering the “sky” ship hasn’t sunken

surgeon kazunari was dutifully sanitizing his medical tools besides them, taking some time to laugh loudly at some story misumi was dramatically reenacting as he spun the wheel skillfully

“boom about!” yuki called out without looking away, already feeling it in his bones moments before anyone else could. his intuition was unheard of, and you watched no one hesitate as they ducked just in time

“sorry~!” misumi responded without any apologetic tone to his voice whatsoever. his sailor’s grin was infectious and wide, a smile only those accustomed to the fatal winds and waves of the ocean could make. just like everyone else on the “sky” ship, they all were forged by the sea

“smartly make way to land before i toss you off myself!” yuki snapped, but it held no malice. he rolled his eyes unimpressed when kazunari laughed at misumi’s sarcastic salute, knowing pirates did no such navy thing without mockery

“oh, dear yuki, how could i drown with you by my side?” you reached over to ruffle his hair, the precarious creak of the wooden mast the last thing on your mind as yuki swatted at your hand, irritated by the littlest of things as always

“you’re right, i’ll have your head first anyways.” yuki said with no malice, giving you a small frown as his calculating eyes glanced over you once more, trying to find any cracks in your confident visage. when he found nothing, he climbed back down, seemingly unsatisfied when you didn’t break under his stare

(you were one of the few on the crew who didn’t flinch. the other was misumi, who just had no fear towards anything, so it wasn’t personal. after all, misumi was the finest swashbuckler around!)

ahead, your acute sight narrowed in on the growing formation in the distance, your gut tensing before realizing it was far too large to be another ship

with a grin, you hanged over the edge (a habit that no longer scares your crew), your voice amplified as it was carried downward by the wind. it was to be expected, of course, as a yonaguni native, your town always had a special connection to nature that no one else did

“my men, turn your heads and look forward into the horizon! what do you see?”

“land, captain!”

“then let us sail faster! the sooner we reach the shores, the quicker you all can take a damn shower!”

with a shared lighthearted laugh, everyone focused on their role and position towards the land mass ahead. whether it was the possibility of smelling like something else other than a siren’s cove or something more, you smiled, forgetting about last night’s sleepless disturbances

up ahead was fukusaki, sky crew’s next location for the night

after three months or so on sea, your crew’s resources were dwindling (much faster since everyone had a bottomless appetite). it was time to visit a port town to stock up and set sail the next sunrise

sure, it was a rushed habit of yours, but it was never good to stay in one place for too long. that came with the risk of losing again...

besides, who liked a crew of pirates to suddenly come to the town square in their stained clothing and gleaming swords?

after barely securing a place to tie down the great beauty known as “sky”, entering fukusaki was like any other town. merchants upon the docks were experts at haggling prices, civilians went by with their day to day life, and the sun burned everyone’s skin just the same

but as you placed your leather boot upon the wooden dock, something inside you turned. like something had suddenly shifted in the town but you had no idea what

yuki seemed to have felt the same thing, even if his facial expression didn’t change. as kazunari kept muku from fighting with a seller for a map of the local area (misumi was unfortunately encouraging him), yuki inched closer to you, his brows furrowed

“you feel that? something isn’t right.” yuki bluntly stated, eyes scanning his surroundings like usual. except he didn’t know what he was looking for, so a frustrated sigh left his lips

“aye, feels as if someone’s running a rig (playing a trick) on us...” you murmured under your breath, careful not to alarm the returning muku with haughtiness ablaze in his eyes and sheepishness from an apologizing but relieved kazunari (it was hard to believe muku used to be shy prior to joining)

“keep a look out. let you know if somethin’s amiss.” yuki peeled away, checking in with muku asking where the closest tavern was. at the mention of alcohol, misumi jumped in, rambling about how he had already talked to a local about all the best spots

you took a moment to take a deep breath in, the scent of palm trees and fruit replacing your usual endless seas. it wasn’t unsettling, just new. your sea legs itched to return to somewhere always changing, always new, but you knew you couldn’t do that to your friends

you straightened your back and walked with the confidence of a true pirate captain, swinging both your arms around kazunari and misumi, peering down at the map with an easy smile

“alright my hearties, where to?”

this gut feeling could wait, you had a few hours to relax before everything turned upside down

of course the captain got the most inconvenient yet boring jobs that could’ve been assigned

(yuki didn’t look sorry as he happily enjoyed your childish huff at being the grocery shopper, knowing how much you hated to interact with people outside of the crew)

due to your very limited people skills, you awkwardly tried to summon your confidence to come back around all the fukusaki shop vendors. when you were with your crew, all eyes were on you and how high your head was held. but, when alone... a captain was nothing without its crew, you supposed

a messily scrawled list by kazunari was in your hand (never ask a doctor to write anything) as you tried to decipher the words, holding it up to the sun to figure out what the hell he wanted

after getting the main idea of what each person wanted within budget, you stood on the outskirts of the town square, desperately trying to decide what was the best way to approach this situation

you couldn’t appear helpless or confused! how were you supposed to haggle in this state of mind?! as you slowly spun around in a circle to view all of the sellers before settling on a rather small, unimpressive stand

maybe that meant cheaper prices! you thought cleverly, walking over with the poise of a seasoned native. with a neutral expression, you reached a wooden display with a certain swagger to your step

however... there was nothing. as you stood in the front of the set-up and realized no one was there, you couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. what kind of service was this? was there no one actually here to sell anything?

before you could leave, a flash of orange appeared in front of you, purple eyes wide as if surprised they even received a customer. “w-wait!” he called out, nearly falling over his own table. this kid would clearly not make it upon a ship, you thought

for whatever reason, you stopped, looking over your shoulder with an unimpressed expression at the simple boy. he was tall and lean, wearing a bandana around his orange hair and an unbuttoned shirt. it was a casual appearance unfit for a merchant

“what is it? i’ve got places to be and there’s nothing here to be sold.” you stated, a wave of shock passing over his face before solidifying in a stubborn crease in his forehead

“huh? what are you talking about? haven’t you come here to get rid of that?”

when he reached out, you jolted back, a surge of energy visible in your body. you felt that strongly, what the hell did this random merchant do to you?!

“w—calm down! stop moving or i can’t remove the yokai! you’re making this difficult.” he demanded roughly, his proper words clipped from an accent unlike any other on this island. there was a certain... twang, to his vocabulary. as if it didn’t sit right, as if it was on the tip of his tongue

so much for customer service! you didn’t listen, dodging his hand like your life depended on it. as you ducked beneath his arm, you gripped his bicep with a death glare. at your narrowed eyes, the orange-haired boy gulped and stared back with astonishment

clearly, fukusaki natives weren’t this rude

“yokai? what the hell are you blubberin’ about, kid?” you questioned, your patience thin like a century-old rope worn down by salt. he set his lips in a straight line, as if trying to assess if you were serious or not. when you didn’t budge, he yanked his arm back and rubbed the sore spot, giving in

“ghosts. you got more spirits than normal around you, they’ve been there for a long time.”

you were about to retort, but fell silent at the remembrance of yonaguni. had your ancestors been with you all this time? you almost couldn’t believe you’ve been actually haunted by their deaths for this long

“i have no ghosts. do not try to scam me.” you flatly said before turning on your heel, intent on leaving the possibility of ghosts behind before tenma took a hold on your arm this time

“but, they’re trying to tell you—”

before tenma could finish, an irritated and offended voice boomed just down the cobblestone pathway

“you dare lay your hand on our captain?!”

“yuki, wait!” the crew clambered after him, hands always short of his shirt fabric as yuki’s sword made a sickening sound when pulled out of its sheath. the orange-haired boy let go immediately, attempting to make a run for it before coming face to face with misumi, whose previous smile was cold and nonexistent

it was as if the other merchants disappeared, fearing a start of a fight would be terrible for business. tenma was caught in the middle of a 5-person circle, with yuki pointing the tip of his sword at his throat

“state your name and business for grabbing our captain like that!” yuki was adamant on proving his sword was real by putting it closer to the boy’s adam’s apple. he tried not to shake under the pressure, but you noticed how his feet had no shoes and looked ready to run to anywhere but here

“um... t—johnny. it’s johnny, and i simply belong to a family of fukusaki mediums, that’s all.” johnny(?) said, as if trying to convince himself. all of you secretly exchanged a look, trying to decide whether or not to believe this so-called johnny

“you see ghosts?” yuki scoffed, his position already clear on the issue. ever since you two have met, you knew yuki never believed in anything involving the supernatural. after all, so many mysteries were hidden in the ocean, yuki doubted anything could scare him on land

but, you... you’re starting to believe johnny as you notice his eyes waver towards you. maybe not so much you, but whatever was surrounding you

“yes, sir. i can communicate with them as well. ever since i was a young boy, i’ve brought peace to the dead.” your head snapped towards him at that, something inside of you turning

that boy could bring your ancestors peace? could it be too good to be true? as if hearing your thoughts, johnny nodded to reaffirm your beliefs

before anyone else can join in on the questioning, you held your hand up and everyone fell silent, waiting for your next words. you could easily tell yuki to kill this boy and he would... but you won’t

“how much are your services?”

johnny blinked, clearly not used to this question as he mentally calculated whatever in his head. “uh... i usually don’t get paid.”

“if we took you on your ship, how much then?” (you immediately hushed a protesting yuki and wary crew)

“my payment wouldn’t be money.” johnny quickly said, almost shocking himself with how fast that answer came. you raised an eyebrow at that, about to question his terms before muku turned, eyebrows furrowed

“there’s someone coming.” muku whispered in a hush, immediately on guard as everyone shifted to a defensive position. at the first sound of a boot on ground, kazunari’s eyes widened. a telltale sign of the cop’s traditional uniform, which kazunari knew better than most

“go! go! go!” you ordered, everyone taking off running. without thinking, you took a hold of johnny’s hand. he squeezed it without flinching, turning and impressively staying by your side even as you got faster and faster

you were fast, but you despised running with a passion. if you closed your eyes longer than a blink, you could almost smell the smoke and crack of the tree trunks. for some reason, johnny smelt like coconut, and that humored you to a certain extent as your crew ran for their lives from the officers. someone must’ve alerted local authorities nearby...

even with a map, muku was lost to the island’s complex system. despite being quick on his feet, muku’s eyes frantically analyzed the outdated lines and pressed his lips into a straight line out of frustration. you knew you should’ve stepped in, but what could you have done?

“follow me!” johnny whispered hurriedly, turning into a waypoint before stopping and looking back. your crew subconsciously looked towards you as well, as if asking if this fukasaki native was trustworthy

though, it’s not like you had a choice now

you ran with johnny, the rest of your crew following suit. when you reached a dead end, you expected this to be a mistake before johnny nimbly flung himself up the ivy-covered wall, landing with a hard thud as if he hadn’t done so in a long time. ignoring the pain, johnny extended his hand an impressive height away

“grab my hand and we’ll be free!” pirates weren’t one to say no to freedom (or put all their coins in one chest...), so you got down to provide a boost to your crew mates. it wasn’t a time to be noble, so they all took your support without complaining, easily being able to run past johnny

when it was your turn, the sound of polished boots grew increasingly closer, much to your chagrin. you backed up quietly, gulping and trying not to look behind you as you glanced up. both johnny and yuki were standing there, their hands extended as you got a running start

you closed your eyes, breathed in the imaginary smoke, and leaped, feeling the grip of both their hands upon yours as they helped you up. just as you ducked beneath the foliage, you breathed a sigh of relief as the officers ran by without sparing a second look

when you opened your eyes, you noticed johnny was still holding your hand, his fist tight around yours as you could practically feel his heartbeat through leaning on his shoulder

you got up to thank johnny before noticing yuki’s uncharacteristic quietness and the way his eyes looked between you and johnny... as if he was betrayed

you didn’t think more of it despite the sinking feeling in your stomach

it was a night to celebrate! escaping the cops was no easy feat, especially on a foreign island. your crew, who had taken a liking to johnny’s ability to hold his own, invited him to drinks (not that they needed guidance to the safest tavern, of course...)

you nursed your own drink of choice at a rickety table with the crew, watching as they became less like pirates and more like their own ages with a few drinks and good music. yuki didn’t drink, which was something that had always occurred no matter where they went

johnny was flustered under all the attention, or it was the alcohol everyone insisted he could keep down. you stifled a chuckle when kazunari hooked his arm around tenma’s neck and ruffled his hair, the look upon his face priceless

you took a sip before lowering the cup’s rim, noticing yuki’s wary gaze. he met your eye with a frown, as if hesitating on what to say next. once again, how strange

“captain,” at that, you tried not to outwardly wince. it wasn’t common for yuki to be so... formal with you, at least. “do you truly intend on bringing this stranger with us?”

“johnny is no stranger anymore, yuki. he saved our lives, we are indebted to him.” you flatly said, glancing at johnny once more. yuki huffed, clearly disagreeing with your opinion as he rolled his eyes

“we would’ve been just fine without him. plus, he’s a medium! how do you know he’s the real deal, anyways?”

“i just... know.” you tried to elaborate, but it fell on deaf ears. there were some parts of your past you just couldn’t elaborate on, some parts that wouldn’t make sense to a non-yonaguni native

yuki slammed his water on the wooden table, a sound barely distinguishable in the rowdy atmosphere before getting up with a skid of the stool. he silently left, no doubt heading back to the docks where the stars shined the brightest and moon made things shrouded in dark more visible

you got up and followed without speaking another word. the crew knew disagreements between you & yuki were far and few, so there was no time to ask silly questions

when you reached the outside, the salt in the air and muffled sound of everyone having fun made you stop. behind you, you noticed the door didn’t slam completely as a quick-footed pair of feet made their way besides you

“are... you okay?” johnny asked, his hands in his linen pockets as you exhaled, nodding as you leaned onto the wall. johnny stiffly stood by the door, as if guarding it

“yeah, yeah. i am... just a little tussle, that’s all.” you sounded as if you were trying to convince yourself, but neither of you pointed it out. a few moments of awkward silence passed, before johnny cleared his throat

“okay, i didn’t hear nothin’. just... heard the spirits around you get loud.”

there he went again about the ghosts and spirits! you subconsciously patted your hair down flat, turning to look at johnny with yuki-like skepticism in your narrowed eyes

“how can you see there are ghosts on me? how do i know you’re not pullin’ my leg?” you suspiciously questioned, watching as johnny bristled under the attention. it seemed as if the island natives didn’t question his credibility as a medium

“you know i’m right. you have tens, maybe more, spirits attached to you. i can help you take them away, for a price, of course.”

“which is?”

“i want to find an island lost to me long ago.”

if you blinked, you could’ve sworn you were talking to a past-version of yourself. why did that request seem so familiar?

“do you know its name?”

“nay... my family refuses to tell me anything about where i’m from. all i know is the navy is the reason i lost my parents.”

“mine too.” you admitted with a breath and the conversation paused, you two sharing an understanding expression of sympathy but unshakable faith. you two understood each other despite knowing one another for a few hours

“then, is it settled?” johnny held out his hand, which you took with a firm grip. his palms were soft for an islander, funny enough. he must’ve thought differently since this was one of the few times you took off your leather gloves

“as long as you bring peace to my ancestors, you’re comin’ with me.”

when the hours became late and you ultimately decided everyone passed their limit a long time ago, you and johnny led them all to their barracks with laughs and humor in the air

when you reached the docks, yuki was barely noticeable in the night as he stood upon the mast of the ship, his hair waving in the wind like a flag

he didn’t look at you, not once, so you didn’t climb up. how could you when johnny was holding your hand with his eyes flickering back to you, or whatever was around you?

you introduced johnny to his new quarters and left him to be, feeling free for once in your life that night

morning came with the unfurling of your sails and your position in the crow’s nest. the sky was blue and cloudless, just like everyone predicted as the sea welcomed your crew into its arms

“ahoy, my hearties! off we go to find our next treasure!” you commanded joyously, the crew hurrah-ing in return at your enthusiasm. like most pirates did, your crew’s goal when off-land was to find a ship to rob and make off with their goods

you turned to the side, about to say something before realizing yuki wasn’t next to you. he must’ve slept in, that’s all. you didn’t question it even if he was always on time the years you knew him

disguising your expression of disappointment, you left your crew to their own means, sliding down the mast as per usual. when you landed, you noticed johnny standing awkwardly to the side as everyone was doing their own job

“hey, johnny! what are you muckin’ around for?” you questioned lightheartedly, slamming your freshly-shined boots (after an unfortunate drunk throw-up incident) upon the oak boards. johnny flinched from the sound, unaccustomed to the constantly-busy atmosphere of a large ship

“do you... need any help? i kinda, feel guilty just lazing about in my quarters.” johnny confessed, a red flush against his face as he rubbed the back of his permanently-sunburned neck. you were taken back for a moment, not used to being offered help

“um... you seem to know how to throw a person off their rhythm! i have nothing on mind as of now, hmmm....” after much consideration, you snapped your fingers with a start. “perhaps consider shadowing me for today! get the feel of a captain’s life—”

“no need, captain. i will take him off your hands for you.”

you turned to see yuki besides you, his feet silent and eyes attentive as always. you sensed the tension still imbedded between you two, gulping as you tugged at the collar of your shirt. for some reason, you immediately felt disappointed at the missing opportunity of tenma being with you

why were you feeling this way?! there was no reason to think like that as a busy, efficient pirate captain!

“thank you, yuki. return him in one piece, alright?” you joked, turning away to review what needed to be done that day. as you left, you didn’t notice yuki place a cold grip on johnny’s shoulder with an uncharacteristically eerie stoic pose

johnny looked after you, wondering what was behind that shroud of spirits who wanted nothing more than to see you freed of them

“you’re quite lucky the captain has taken quite a liking to you, johnny, was it?”

yuki & johnny found themselves ending the ship’s tour in the underground of the main deck, located along the cannons placed in their corresponding holes. the smell of gunpowder and flint was nearly suffocating, but yuki moved with ease and seemed to revel in johnny’s tight expression

“y-yes... the captain is very kind and charitable to take me on board.” johnny managed to get out without coughing, his eyes inspecting the materials and wondered how loud it truly was during battle

“you agreed to come so soon. you have no family of your own?” yuki asked innocently, mindlessly fixing the placements of the bombs behind the barrels. johnny shook his head, explaining it wasn’t an emotional attachment he had to fukusaki

“how... suspiciously fortunate.” yuki deadpanned, suddenly whipping around with a blank stare. it caught johnny off guard, who nearly stumbled back into a cannon. yuki wasn’t armed, but his tense demeanor and personality change was jarring

“listen, kid, i’ve got no clue who you are, but you have no reason to be upon this ship.” with every word, yuki seemed to come closer until his pointer finger pushed in the center of johnny’s chest

“you may have fooled everyone else, but our captain has always been too naive. i see right through you, johnny. who are you, really?”

johnny shuddered, backed against the wall and desperately holding onto anything that can keep his wobbly legs up. he didn’t know if it was the rocky seas or yuki’s simmering anger, but he felt like he was staring straight into one of those cannons

“i’m johnny, an island medium who sees ghosts on your captain. it is my duty to let them go, that’s all.”

a moment passed, before yuki took a few steps back. before johnny could react, he found the tip of a real sword pointed at his neck once again

“you’re lying, i know it. do not make me ask you again, who are you?”

johnny tried to remain placid in the face of a weapon, but he gritted his teeth and couldn’t help himself

“why the hell does it matter to you? are you in love with your captain or something?!”

silence, then yuki lowered his sword. he sheathed it back, before turning and leaving without another word. johnny let out a deep breath, sinking to the floor as he closed his eyes

if johnny listened hard enough, he could hear your spirits try to communicate with him. but, their voices were garbled and unlike anything he’s heard before. who were you and why was he here?

the first time you & johnny met in terms of spirits was two weeks after a pattern of sleepless nights

he already found you teetering close to the edge, your hands folded as you searched for something, or someone, past the blackened seas

it was as if some savage sea monster had spilt its ink-like blood into the waters, the once blue surface that reflected lucky skies now murky and as mysterious as the dark side of the moon

with your usual guarded glint now gone, you still seemed just as capable to be the one responsible for such dark seas

“good evening.” johnny mumbled lowly, placing the lantern besides his feet as he made his way next to you. you hummed, not particularly fazed by his sudden appearance despite not paying attention. it’s as if you had eyes in the back of your head, like a sea monster

“i suppose fukusaki isn’t used to the rocking of wooden ships?” you retorted, to which johnny sharply exhaled through his nose, a sign of amusement at your observation

“nay, but... i haven’t been able to properly maintain my sleep schedule ever since boarding. your spirits... are rather loud for ghosts.”

you full-on laughed at this, disturbing the intimate atmosphere between you two. johnny couldn’t help but smile at your worn-down exterior. you presented yourself like you were made of a glass bottle, but you were as intricate as a carved artisan ship

“try living with them your whole life, boy, then you can start complaining about their volume.” you jested lightheartedly, offering a soft smile at the newest recruit. as you leaned back onto the railing of the ship, you watched the constant surface of the waves, as if you could anchor your endless thoughts to davey jone’s locker

johnny mimicked your position, his elbow knocking into yours. his hands were much too soft for a seasoned sailor, you noticed this in the dim lantern light. for a moment, you let your impulses take over and you wondered how they felt against yours

“pardon my words, but when will you let me speak to them? i can never find you through the day...” johnny began to ask, but trailed off when your salted eyes and weariness became apparent in the way you exhaled quietly

“it is not your fault but mine, johnny. this is my ship and i am the captain, that’s all. i cannot allow myself to suddenly become weak in case i am needed.” you spoke like a true hero, well, as much of a hero a pirate could be

johnny didn’t exactly understand, considering he just got up and left his entire life on a whim of a promise to find out who he was. but, he nodded anyways, watching blurred movements of entities swirl around your head like troubled smoke

“what about now? will you let me—?” when johnny reached out, you immediately stepped back, your lips pressed in a straight line as if restraining your true reaction

“you look for every reason to touch me, don’t you?” you tried to force it out like it was nothing, but it was clear how your boots twisted like they were prepared to run away

when was the last time someone physically comforted you in any sense? or... comforted you at all?

“captain...” johnny mumbled, eyes wide with pity and you couldn’t stand it. he called you captain, but he didn’t revere you like a typical person would. he didn’t flinch at your sword or head held high, it was unnerving

“what is the purpose of having a crew if they cannot help you through this?”

the wind wailing against your ears reminded you of how little time there was in a day, and how the sun would rise soon and this cycle of pretending everything was okay would begin again

it was maddening, to live the same day again and again with no change

johnny perhaps was someone you looked forward to, a diversion from the expected

“do you consider yourself apart of my crew, then?” when johnny took a moment to think, you wondered what he was remembering. was it the night where misumi pretended to fall over board to scare everyone or was it when kazunari didn’t react to seeing a skeleton that time? was it when muku could predict every type of weather for the next day without fail or when yuki finally cracked at a joke after a hour of pretending nothing was funny?

or, was it when you two shared glances across the deck, clinked your glasses a little too long, or when your hands ghosted over another when pulling lines?

“yes, your crew is my own as well. and like them, i wish to help you, if you’d let me.”

you always found yourself unsure around johnny, unaware of how to respond in a way worthy of your pirate captain title. as you hesitated, johnny looked you in the eyes and his eyes reminded you of storm clouds thundering in the distance

“why else would you take me on the ‘sky’? if you didn’t want help?”

perhaps those were words you would reveal later, but you couldn’t bring yourself to share the real answer. it was a gut feeling that your world would be turned upside down, and you were right when you felt your throat dry at johnny’s hopeful gaze

johnny continued on, straightening his usual bent posture and his voice carried, like he was one with nature. as if they supported him unconditionally

“i know this is your own battle to win and this is your ship and you are my—our captain, but please... let’s make a deal.”

you stood, intrigued, as you witnessed a side of johnny never seen before. once meek, once easily intimidated, now talked to you like an equal

“let’s promise to say things we both really feel. be honest with me, do you want me to help? to remove the spirits and let them move on?” when you nodded, johnny let out a breath of relief and moved closer, gathering your hands in his. when you didn’t pull away and only tensed, he spoke as if he was sure things would change

“i can help you, i can make them go away. you bring me back to my home, i let your spirits go home. deal?”

“is that how you truly feel?”

“and more.” johnny’s eyes glanced down, and you felt your heart stutter as if the surface rocked

“i feel the same way. i wish to help you.”

that night, you remembered for the first time in a long time, a captain was nothing without its crew

#sumeragi tenma #tenma sumeragi #a3! act! addict! actors!#a3!#act! addict! actors!#a3! actor training game #a3! headcanons #act! addict! actors! headcanons #mankai a3!#mankai company #a3! x reader #a3 x reader #tenma x reader #a3! tenma #a3 tenma

50 notes · View notes

arknights-imagines · 3 years

Note

*Cries tears of joy* Thank you so much! You handled it with bravo and gender neutral kid!doc makes more sense too. By the by do you think you could expand the prompt with one more person? Flamebringer with kid!doc? If not that is alright too. My heartstrings were tugged by every three of them but Hellagur specifically was very endearing, ｡ﾟ(TヮT)ﾟ｡ bless you so much ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

Aaaa Anon!! 🥺 I'm getting back to you pretty late, but tysm for this request and your last one!! 😭 I love the child Doctor idea (I get a little carried away with writing them shsjbsjs) I'm very glad you liked the first one 🥺👉👈

Since I'm now back from my hiatus, I wanted to finally post this as I've been writing it for a while. 🌸 I also plan to expand on this again with Broca and Courier for some of my friends at a later date! 🥳 Anywho, forgive my rambling, please enjoy 🌸

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

Flamebringer with a Doctor who got turned into a child for the day

The Executor, SilverAsh and Hellagur version is here 🥰

Headcanon format; written in second person, from the perspective of the Operator for the most part

Contains: Flamebringer, gender-neutral Doctor; reader as the Doctor, implied established relationship, mention of side characters, general fluff 🥺

Word count: 2.8k

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

FLAMEBRINGER

･ Flamebringer quite enjoyed gardening and flowers, and he enjoyed your company just as much - so whenever you were able to spend time tending to the flowers and plants in the green house along with him, he was always open to it.

･ However, you weren't exactly the most educated person when it came to flowers; they were plants, so almost all of them were harmless. How any harmful flowers could there really be?

･ Well, those were your initial thoughts.

･ You had been helping Flamebringer in the greenhouse one afternoon - it was normal as always; he checked each of the flowers, giving them water or moving them to a place where they would be able to get more sun, while you assisted him by passing him gardening supplies and helping him transport flowers around.

･ You had finished handing him a jar of what looked like soil when he gave you new instruction, "There's some lone flower pots down the far corner of the greenhouse, they must be longing for the sun. Fetch them for me, won't you?" Nodding with a smile, you set off to find the flowers in question.

･ Flamebringer tended to the plants that needed his attention whilst waiting for you. He had just finished watering the last one when he heard you call out to him from a distance, "Flamebringer?" Raising his voice a little so you could hear, he replied, "Yes, blossom?" Your next words came out a little hesitant, "Should this flower look like thi….-"

･ Your voice trailed off suddenly, and the Sarkaz paused and quirked a brow up. He waited a few seconds, but the sound of something breaking followed by a thud came rather than your voice.

･ Flamebringer stopped giving attention to the plants immediately, his eyes narrowing his eyes slightly. The Sarkaz called out your name but the greenhouse remained silent. A little worried, he dropped what he was doing and quickly made his way toward where your voice came from.

･ "....oh?" When he looked to the floor, right beside a broken flower pot was your Rhodes Island jacket all bundled up in an oddly shaped pile. The Sarkaz quirked a brow up - were you playing some kind of joke on him?

･ Before he could roll his eyes and gently scold you for fooling around, something crawling out from under your coat made him freeze and do a double take.

･ "...blossom?" From under your jacket, a small child was looking up at him with wide eyes. Taken off guard, the Sarkaz simply stared back for a few moments, not moving an inch.

･ What was a child doing there and why did they remind him so much of you?

･ A soft voice approaching caught his attention, "Hello Flamebringer," It was Perfumer, when did she get there? The Vulpo was beside him in a few steps, smiling softly, "Have you seen the-....oh my."

･ It didn't take that long for her to notice the child crawling toward them both. After a few seconds, Perfumer greeted the child quietly, scooping them up and looking them over. Flamebringer was a little preoccupied with looking around for any sign of you, speaking in a calm tone despite the fact he was still a little surprised; "Were you looking for the Doctor?" He began, "That can wait. This is no place for a child, who brought them here?"

･ Perfumer was silent for a moment, "Flamebringer, I know this sounds a little bizarre…but I think this little one is the Doctor."

･ The Sarkaz almost laughed at that suggestion, but then the child reached out to him, cooing "Flamey! Flamey!", and when Flamebringer recognized the grin they had on their face, he too understood what Perfumer was saying.

･ He stared for a moment, "...Hello blossom." When you smiled wide at the nickname, he knew the child was you - there was no doubt.

･ Perfumer quickly took charge, telling Flamebringer to follow her while instructing one of the staff in the greenhouse to get a sample of the flower you had been trying to bring back to the Sarkaz.

･ After getting back inside the Rhodes Island facility, the Medic operator let Flamebringer stay in the medical room while she ran tests on you. He was still cautious; less of you, and more of himself. Any wrong move and he could accidentally hurt you, so he kept his distance for now.

･ Perfumer was quick with her tests, and when she finally turned to Flamebringer she exhaled, holding you in her lap as she spoke. "I think I understand what happened. The flower they picked up was heavily mutated, so when they sniffed it, the spores released from the plant caused…quite the interesting outcome." She smiled, motioning to you, "It's only temporary, however, so please don't worry. We'll just need you to take care of them until they return to normal."

･ Flamebringer lifted a brow, "Oh? You're giving me the responsibility of looking after them?" Perfumer blinked, "Of course. They'd be most comfortable with you."

･ The Sarkaz looked to the floor, "I have no experience caring for children." Had it been anyone else, Flamebringer would've declined immediately; he didn't exactly have time to look after a child, nor was he the most capable for the job either. But this was you they were talking about, and you were always worth his time - even so, he wasn't confident that putting him in charge of babysitting you would be the best choice.

･ Perfumer shook her head simply, carefully offering you to him, "There's nothing else wrong with them; they don't seem to be fussing up and they're not uncomfortable." She smiled when Flamebringer took you in his arms, his eyes softening, "I think they'll feel the best with you, but if you're busy I can find someone else."

･ The Sarkaz stared at you for a moment, his face calm. He always saw you like a flower, he did call you 'blossom' after all; you were captivating yet not invincible. Flamebringer was always ready to protect you, but this was different - you were so tiny in his arms and you didn't seem to have a care in the world. He wasn't sure about what he would do to take care of you, but he was open to figuring it out.

･ "Don't misunderstand me. I will watch over them." Holding you carefully in his arms - albeit a little stiffly -, the Sarkaz stood, "Do what you must to investigate the mutated plant that caused them to turn into a child."

･ Perfumer nodded, and that was that; Flamebringer was off with you in his arms.

･ Once he was out of the medical room, you cooed and peered up at him. Smiling slightly, he stroked your cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Don't worry, I’m no threat to you." Though, judging by how you then nuzzled your face into the crook of his neck, you already seemed to understand that.

･ Flamebringer wasn't one to live by a strict schedule, but it was obvious that there wasn't much he could do with you in his arms. Training was out of the question, until the staff could clean it the greenhouse was much too dangerous with you as a curious child, and one couldn't really discuss battle formations with him considering you were a little toddler.

･ He wasn't annoyed, however. Whether you were comfortable or not mattered more to him than his own comfort. Making his way down the hall, the Sarkaz exhaled, turning to you when you started blabbering again,

･ “Flamey?”

"Yes blossom, wasting time isn't something I’m interested in."

･ It didn't take long before he started attracting eyes and stirring up murmurs - many at Rhodes Island saw Flamebringer as a machine made for war who lived off the high of being on the battlefield, so to see him cradling a small child was enough to cause a commotion.

･ “A kid?” “What is he doing with a child?” - it really came as no surprise that the majority thought that the last place a child would be safe in was Flamebringers’ arms.

･ Even so, no one could really muster up the courage to ask about why the Sarkaz was going about his day holding a child; even with the cute toddler on his arm, Flamebringer still looked rather intimidating.

･ Eventually - and unfortunately for them -, another Rhodes Island employee was forced to swallow their fear and approach Flamebringer to ask him something about weaponry.

･ “Uhm, Mr. Flamebringer?” As soon as the Sarkaz’s sharp gaze fell to them, the younger Operator stood up straight and gulped, “Sorry for bothering you, could you take me to the lower arsenal? I’m supposed to pick up a weapon there for delivery but I can't find anyone who knows the way there.” It had barely been a minute and Flamebringer already seemed impatient with them.

･ The Guard Operator exhaled, rolling his eyes a little. If he was honest, the answer was ‘no’; the last thing Flamebringer liked was wasting time on trivial matters. The thing was, however, that you were in his arms this time. He knew that if you were able to, you’d urge him to help his fellow Operator - and he would end up doing so just so you were pleased.

･ So, the Sarkaz was willing to help - emphasis on was - until the Operator brought up the child in his arms.

･ In an instant, Flamebringers’ eyes sharpened and his tone dropped an octave, “Ahh...I'm not particularly fond of people who have a habit of asking too many questions. You're already wasting my time as is; don't put me in an even worse mood.”

･ Needless to say, your cute appearance did nothing to calm the poor Operator who was now trembling like a leaf in the wind the entire walk to the lower arsenal.

･ The Sarkaz had always been very protective of you - now that you were in such a vulnerable, fragile form, he was twice as more vigilant than usual.

･ No one bothered Flamebringer much afterward, and when anyone passed, he subconsciously held you a little closer to his chest.

･ If anyone approached him gushing about how cute you were, they were easily scared away with a curt "Think carefully before you decide to touch them.” from the Guard Operator; people were starting to wonder how he hadn't caused the kid in his arms to cry yet.

･ Such was notable to himself as well - even when he was emanating the most suffocating, cold aura, you sat happily in his arms; quiet and not making a fuss.

･ In fact, the only times you did get upset were when you had to be away from him; around lunchtime, the Sarkaz brought you to Perfumer so she could help feed you properly. Flamebringer obviously chose to sit with you as you were fed, but as soon as you were out of his arms, you started whining a little.

･ All throughout being fed, your eyes stayed to him and called out babbles of his name with your mouth full, “Flamey….” - It was as if you were worried he would be gone if you didn't keep your gaze on him.

･ Perfumer smiled a little, wiping your mouth after she fed you the last bite, “Hm, they keep staring at you.” The Guard Operator sighed a little, lips pulling into a small smirk as he leaned over to tilt your chin up,

“Oh?....You don't have to be vigilant around me, blossom.”

･ When Flamebringer was done in the Rhodes Island facilities, he went straight to the greenhouse. The mess from that morning had been cleaned up already, and the plans surely needed some water before the sun began to set; it would be the last thing to do before he called it a day for the both of you.

･ The greenhouse, vacant with sun spilling through its walls of glass, was quieter than usual.

･ Letting a sigh leave his lips, the Sarkaz shut the door to the greenhouse behind him, before turning his attention to you; surprisingly, you had stayed wide awake throughout the entire morning, resting calmly in his arms. Even as a small, naive child, you obviously trusted him.

･ His usual smirk playing his lips, the Sarkaz tilted your chin up, causing your attention to go from the colour planted pots to his eyes; “Flamey?”

･ At your babyish voice, the smirk on his lips melted into a soft smile, he tapped your small nose with his finger in a playful manner, chuckling a little at how you went cross eyed staring at his finger; “Something worth heeding, blossom - don’t sniff anything suspicious.”

･ You giggled a little, eyes sparkling with amusement, “No sniff!”

･ How was it possible that you were even cuter than you originally were?

･ Finding a bench where you would both be able to admire the sunset-painted sky, Flamebringer sat down with you on his lap and began watering his plants as usual. On occasion, you reached out toward the flower pots and grabbed at the air, prompting the Sarkaz to gently redirect your hands away; as cute as you were babbling about wanting to touch the flowers, who knows what you would turn into if you came into contact with another weird plant?

･ You were clearly feeling a little restless, however. You kept kicking your legs back and forth and tugging on his jacket to occupy yourself; now it seemed like your boredom had reached its peak and you had resorted to trying to investigate the horns in his hair by scaling him like a mountain.

･ To satisfy you, Flamebringer took a moment, “Blossom?” Held between his fingers was a flower - a white daisy with a yellow center. When he spoke his nickname for you, you stopped trying to climb him to reach the horns atop his head and instead sat back down in his lap. Gently, the Sarkaz watched you with a gentle face expression as he tucked the flower behind your ear, speaking to you afterward, “Ahh, that suits you well, don't you think?”

･ You seemed beyond elated, your eyes filled with stars and your lips pulled into a wide smile as you cooed happily, "Flamey! Flower!". Grinning back at you a little, Flamebringer returned back to his flowers.

･ When the sun had fully set, you were fast sleep, your head resting on his chest as small snores left you. The Sarkaz made no move to stand; the sky was filled with stars that night, and the moon was glowing overhead. Life was short - he figured he might as well enjoy any moments of calmness he was gifted.

･ His attention turned back to you - Flamebringer never had a childhood, nor did he encounter many children who were living happy and safe lives. He wasn't a gentle person, he didn't see himself as so and neither did many other people; but there you were, in the body of a child, resting on his chest with a daisy tucked behind your ear.

･ The daisy; a symbol of innocence.

･ Flamebringer cared for you immensely, and even though you had flaws like anyone else, he saw you as a warm-hearted, strong person who changed his life a little everyday.

･ And so, he promised;

･ “My days are numbered, but until something claims my life, I’ll stand with you through you anything and all things, blossom.” You were asleep, he knew that, but it didn't stop him from murmuring, “Like these flowers, we will both meet our last day eventually...but you can't wither yet.”

･ Whether you were a child babbling about flowers or a strong leader sending their forces into battle, Flamebringer swore to be close by, for anything you needed or anything you wanted. The innocent light your eyes carried; he would protect it even if it meant he wouldn't get to see that light anymore.

･ Then, out of nowhere, his thoughts were broken by a call of his name; “...Flamebringer?”

･ "Ahh-" Much to his own embarrassment, the Guard Operator jolted just a little, then he recognized your oh-so-familiar voice, “Hello to you, my blossom.”

･ There you were; fully grown and sat in his lap. It seemed like whatever effect the flower had on you was now wearing off. Yawning a little, you rubbed your eyes before snuggling closer to him and resting your head on his shoulder, “Flame….I’m tired.”

･ He chuckled a little, wrapping an arm around your waist, “Hah, rest; you’ve been through more than enough today.”

･ Once you bean snoring again, his eyes came back to the daisy, still behind your ear. The little flower of innocence.

･ You and him both knew that either of you could die at anytime, anyday. But quite frankly, Flamebringer didn't care. For now, he held you close, vowing to stay with you no matter what crazy things you two went through.

#🥺 child doctor shsjbsh #arknights #arknights imagines #arknights flamebringer #arknights doctor #flamebringer arknights #doctor arknights #arknights fanfic #arknights fanfics #arknights imagine #arknights writing #imagine #imagines #writing

66 notes · View notes

marvellouslymadmim · 3 years

Note

Hi!! I was wondering what your headcanons were about Calanthe after she loses Pavetta? Also do you have any plans to write a fic featuring Calanthe x Eist after Pavetta dies (whether it be in A Night With the Queen or otherwise)? I love your writing so much (I’ve reread every fic you have for them about 5 times each) and I’m curious about your take on Calanthe’s grief. I do love to feel pain 😭

oof. I have a few. And yes, we’re gonna see some of it in A Night with the Queen. But due to that story’s format, we won’t be able to go as in-depth as my actual headcanons are, so here we go:

I feel like Calanthe is someone who does two things when she is hit with a loss: instantly lash out at everyone around her (banquet scene, anyone?), and then immediately internalize it and blame herself for everything she didn’t do to prevent the situation. She’s used to getting her way (I mean, it’s canon that she was a spoiled child, and we definitely still see that she’s politically powerful enough to very rarely hear “no” by the time she’s ard rhena), and I think sometimes she truly has bought into her own mythos as the Lioness of Hochebuz--she was a child who triumphed over an army, and I think part of her believes in her own invincibility and therefore her own ability to truly make anything and everything go her way, regardless of the odds. So when things don’t go her way, it isn’t because they never could--but rather because she didn’t try hard enough.

So when Pavetta is lost at sea, Calanthe does both of those things. In Blood of Elves, we see in a flashback from Ciri’s POV that Calanthe definitely lashed out at Crach (and most likely Eist, once he returned from searching) for ever allowing Pavetta to leave the isles with Duny. The book also talks of Eist’s “stony, pale face. And the queen’s silence.” So...definitely things were happening there. I think that after Calanthe blamed Crach and Eist for allowing Pavetta to go out to sea, she began blaming herself for not preventing it--for allowing Pavetta to travel to Skellige, for not searching long enough and hard enough for her afterwards, for not eventually bringing Pavetta’s body back home to rest.

In A Night with the Queen, we’re gonna see Calanthe becoming obsessed with the idea that until they find a body, there’s still a chance that Pavetta is alive. Because her daughter is powerful beyond anything anyone has ever seen--she can create her own tempest, so what could a tempest do to her, truly? She constantly pushes Eist to keep looking, to keep sending out search parties farther and farther away from the wreckage site, still convinced that Pavetta washed ashore, completely unharmed, and is merely waiting to be found and brought home.

I think it takes a while for Calanthe to truly admit that her daughter is gone forever. And I think when she does, it creates a new grief spiral as she accepts it. That is the moment that she truly turns inward and shuts out the rest of the world.

As someone who, unfortunately, is very deeply acquainted with grief and loss, I can tell you that grieving is an extremely private process and even if you share a loss with someone, the journey of your grief is entirely solo. You heal at different rates, in different ways. You heal...apart, in a way. And then you have to figure out how to grow back inwards, together again. I think Eist and Calanthe grew apart in their grief and then did have to make a conscious decision to turn back into each other, to find and give comfort as a team.

I think in the beginning, Calanthe is very unaware of how it affects Eist. She’s too wrapped up in her own grief and definitely relies on his support even as she pushes him away and continues lashing out. Ciri is definitely the main reason that she doesn’t freeze him out entirely during this time--just as she fixates on bringing Pavetta back, she obsesses over Ciri’s wellbeing to deflect from dealing with her own issues.

And I think she uses Cirilla as a shield, too. Constantly puts their granddaughter between her and Eist to avoid dealing with the growing gulf between them. Ciri has always spent a lot of time with her grandparents, but after Pavetta’s death, Calanthe keeps Ciri at her side at all times. For months, Ciri sleeps with them, and stays within Calanthe’s line of sight during her every waking moment. Eist misses having time to simply be with his wife and his best friend, but of course, how can he say anything when it’s for the wellbeing of their granddaughter, who just tragically lost her mother? And how can he say anything when Ciri obviously brings Calanthe comfort in turn?

Once Calanthe does realize that Eist has also experienced loss, and that he’s spent his time trying to take care of her, rather than deal with his own grief, a shift occurs. She acknowledges the burden she’s put on him and becomes apologetic--and from there, they gingerly and slowly start to move forward, together. Ultimately, I think it’s what strengthens their relationship past everything they were before. Because Calanthe recognizes that she has pushed him in ways that would cause most people to abandon her, and yet he stayed. I think that given her first marriage, she always kind of assumed that there was a chance things might fall apart between her and Eist--but when the worst possible thing imaginable happens and they survive it, she abandons all thought of them ever truly being separated, emotionally or physically. (and honestly, it makes her little Tommen toodley-boop out the window more understandable, too--because she doesn’t want to be in a world without him, because he’s been one of the only people who has ever seen her and made the world bearable....she’s done what she could to correct her folly with Geralt and has sent Ciri into safety, and now all she wants is to be with Eist again) After that, she truly becomes the all-in, completely devoted and adoring lover that we see in her final scenes with Eist. They understand and see each other on a level that no one else ever has or will, at that point, and they’re both highly aware of it--and eventually, they find a way to see it as something to relish and celebrate.

As the years wear on and the grief become less startlingly painful, I think Calanthe is able to find comfort in seeing Cirilla become so much like her mother. We see there’s a stark difference in how Calanthe reigns/presents herself as queen between the time of the betrothal feast and the sacking of Cintra. I think some of it is due to the fact that Calanthe genuinely tries to be more of the influence that Pavetta would have been on her daughter. And she tries to honor Pavetta’s legacy by teaching Ciri in a kinder, softer way than she taught Pavetta. She tries to raise Cirilla not according to her own ideals (most of the time, at least)--but rather what she thinks Pavetta would have wanted.

Ok, I feel like I’ve rambled enough for one post...thank you so much for dragging me down the headcanon rabbit hole (and for re-reading my fics, the thought brings such joy!) and hopefully we’ll actually get to see some of this come up in future fics.

#thanks anon!#headcanons #pavetta #calanthe of cintra

10 notes · View notes

ask-hws-germanys · 3 years

Note

Building off 2 other anons, I'd like to add my 2 cents if you're still taking advice and if not feel free to just delete this.

Most of your characters feel more like OCs than Germany alts, but while to me that makes a lot of sense since say if I were to meet a version of me that was born and raised in a different world completely different from my own, he would have a pretty different personality, depending on your theories of nature vs nurture when it comes to building a personality.

But because a lot of the alts feel like OCs (like I would not have thought Aster or Theobold to be versions of Germany if not for the name qnd description of your blog, while siren Germany and LT are more obvious as versions of Germany), sometimes people just don't know how to interact with them. While some OC blogs take off in the fandom, it's usually historical hetalia blogs or blogs that used to be for cqnon characters but were turned into OCs later because the artist left the fandom but still liked their muse.

IMO this isn't a bad thing, it's just one thing that might add an uphill battle for interactions and fan involvement, so I like the ideas of showing more Germany and Lutz to help out on that front.

I agree it's hard to know your audience, and while Tumblr has the set-up to be the best site for interaction, it just isn't for several factors I'm sure people who've been here longer and know about trends more can say better than I can. And as a fellow ace, I get being uncomfortable with the simping thing and want to say don't push yourself in that direction if it makes you uncomfortable.

By what I've seen with blogs that have come and gone, I usually saw the best interaction on blogs that leaned into humour and historical/cultural blogs. For more plot-heavy or backstory-heavy blogs, I usually saw them as part of collaborative AUs, where they helped each other by sending each other questions or interacting with each other, which got people to ask more about what would happen. Independent AU plot-driven blogs usually struggle, from what I've seen.

For this one blog, whose not in the Hetalia fandom anymore but most people knew their PH as being a hws OC before they left the fandom a good while back, I've seen them take questions from Facebook, so they've been cross-posting there. I've also seen people cross-post on DA, taking questions from the comments there as well as Tumblr. I haven't seen people do it with IG or Twitter, but I stayed away from the fandom on those apps even before the more recent drama.

So I rambled a lot, I'm sorry, but here's my bullet points.

- More Lud and Lutz as others said

- AU blogs aren't always popular, which there unfortunately isn't a fix for. It's more information to remember that interaction will unfortunately be lower than you hope BUT

- Cross-posting elsewhere can help get more eyes, and it gives you a good idea on where people are more likely to engage. Just a heads-up that you'd have to figure out how to change up the format for each site.

Good luck, and I hope your muses can find the love they deserve!

The weirdest thing is I always saw the opposite (aus being more popular), but I could never stand historical hetalia so I probably have blinders on in that regard. Nor can it really be helped because I'm not here for gritty IRL history. Not like I can't touch on it but it's just not my forte I like the AU side of the community I just find it more fun.

Dont worry Im used to low numbers and low interaction

I don't have anywhere else to cross post, I'm not using twitter, I have an Insta but the whole problem is that most sites other than tumblr dont let you view things in chronological order anymore. So I feel like it would only cause even more confusion. I only really use discord and tumblr. Maybe I could try making one of those ask blog discord a lot of people have? Meh.. who knows.

A lot of people are saying the number of characters is intimidating and at this point I'm very tempted to cut the cast down, I'll see what happens at this point.

#mun tema #blog advice #delete later

2 notes · View notes

antialiasis · 4 years

Text

The Phantom of the Opera / Love Never Dies (or: A Passionate Defense of Meg Giry, Who Deserves Better)

So The Phantom of the Opera is a very famous 1986 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and we watched it the other day (the 25th anniversary Royal Albert Hall recording that was streamed on ALW's YouTube channel, if you care).

(Several thousand words of mostly-negative rambling below the cut. Dear God, how did I have this many words in me about this.)

My expectations going in were... very reserved. I love Jesus Christ Superstar with all my heart, but the other Andrew Lloyd Webber musical I'd seen was Cats, which was plotless fluff that did nothing for me. I was also aware that the basic gist of the story of Phantom was a love triangle, which is very rarely compelling to me. I even told Shadey before we started that I didn't really expect to particularly like it. But hey, the musical format is a good one for exploring inner conflicts, and I had a while ago watched a musical I did like that revolved around a love triangle of sorts, namely Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, so who knew?

(To be fair, as far as I'm concerned Great Comet's less a love triangle and more a naïve nineteenth-century girl who's engaged to a guy being confused into wanting to elope with a different guy simply because he's very hot and seductive and standing very close and flirting with her while she's at the opera with her arms scandalously bared and she just has no idea what these strange new feelings she's feeling mean and assumes it must be love. The guy she's engaged to is not really a presence for most of the story, and the other guy is transparently a slimy douchebag and the whole point is the audience knows this but she can't tell; the tension of the story isn't "Who will she choose?" but "Will the other characters somehow manage to stop this obvious oncoming trainwreck and save this poor girl from herself?")

The basic setup of The Phantom of the Opera is that young, talented soprano Christine Daaé is reunited with her childhood friend/crush Raoul as she gets her first big break at the opera. However, for a while by this point she has been secretly trained in singing by what she believes is an 'angel of music' sent by the ghost of her dead father - the titular Phantom of the Opera. In reality, he's simply a disfigured but brilliant man who has been living in the basement of the opera, who's become smitten with her in particular.

There was exactly one scene in Phantom where I did kind of dig it, namely the titular song "The Phantom of the Opera", also very distinctly the best song on the soundtrack by a pretty wide margin, where we're properly introduced to the Phantom as he leads her to his basement lair. It's a pretty great song, way ramped up in intensity compared to everything leading up to it since the overture (which is just an instrumental version of "The Phantom of the Opera"), the staging is gorgeous, Sierra Boggess is so obviously entranced by this dark, mysterious mentor that it hurts - it feels like the story's properly kicking into gear now, and in the moment I was so ready for it.

But unfortunately, after properly catching my attention there, it kind of failed to keep it. Phantom is some two and a half hours and really feels like it; most of the songs are kind of uninteresting, the story could be cut down significantly without really losing anything, and even the individual events each just take a while, with a lot of time taken up by empty spectacle or lyrical fluff. Take a scene like "The Music of the Night", which immediately follows "The Phantom of the Opera". The actors are doing a great job, it absolutely gets across this delicate sexual tension, the song's fine, but... did it really need to be six minutes long? Could we not have gotten the same point equally effectively in, like, three or four minutes max? I felt like almost every song in Phantom was twice as long as it needed to be; my attention kept wandering halfway through a song as I thought okay, I get it, when are we moving on? Part of it is probably just that most of the music here is quite slow, and the lyrics are kind of repetitive and don't say all that much; Jesus Christ Superstar not only has significantly shorter songs, with the longer ones having more going on, but also has a much more upbeat tempo overall and Tim Rice's lyrics are always saying something pretty clearly in plain language, where Phantom's lyrics tend to be meandering and florid and restating the same thing in different words, and the lines go on forever, and I just find my brain sliding off them and internalizing the feeling of what's being said more than the actual content of the words. All in all I just felt it dragged, a lot, and that's the main reason I had a hard time enjoying most of it much; I feel like this story could have been told in forty-five minutes and would have been better for it.

Regardless, what happens, lengthily, is the Phantom starts to murder and blackmail people and send snide letters in order to bully the producers into having Christine perform, first a leading role someone else is playing and later an entire opera that he's written just so he can secretly kill and replace the guy who'd be playing her love interest; she obviously realizes that actually anyone who would do this is a murderous douchebag, and swears her love to Raoul, causing the hidden Phantom to ominously swear that "You will curse the day you did not do / all that the Phantom asked of you!"; and at this point Shadey went "...What a dick," and yeah, that about sums it up. We're no longer really looking at a love triangle; we're looking at a deranged, obsessive stalker hounding this girl who's by now simply afraid of him.

At the end, the Phantom holds Raoul hostage, threatening to kill him unless Christine stays with him. Christine agrees (because she doesn't want him to kill Raoul), but still kind of genuinely sympathizes with the Phantom and what a horrible life he must have led; her expressing that compassion brings out the Phantom's humanity at last, and he changes his mind and lets her go with Raoul. For all my issues with the execution here, as a story I think that's a perfectly good one; recognizing that the Phantom is deeply screwed up and hateful because everyone's consistently been horrible to him, and showing a glimmer of potential for change in him when someone finally treats him like a person, while still recognizing that of course, given what he's done, Christine is not actually going to stay with him and whatever redemption he might find after the end of the story will have to happen without her, is a solid core.

But while watching the show, it just all felt too long, I never really managed to care about Christine or Raoul who are both just kind of boring, and the Phantom's behaviour is so vile and possessive right up until the climax that there's just no way for me to really root for his redemption or feel sorry for him as the bulk of the story is happening. All in all, even though my expectations were tempered, I actually kind of enjoyed it less than I'd expected. The Phantom of the Opera, outside of the titular song, does virtually nothing for me.

So, of course, we immediately went and watched the 2010 sequel, Love Never Dies.

Okay, so I cheated a bit with the intro to this post. The truth is I wanted to watch The Phantom of the Opera largely so that we could watch Love Never Dies. See, while nothing I'd heard of Phantom had made me expect to particularly enjoy it, I had heard legends of how bad Love Never Dies was, to the point that I just really had to see it for myself, and in order to do that properly I would need the context of the original show. That's kind of how the whole idea of watching Phantom happened. And I'm happy to report that Love Never Dies did meet my expectations of being an exquisite trainwreck.

So. In Phantom, there is a side character, Madame Giry, who is the one person who actually knows who the Phantom is. She is the one who exposits about the fact he's actually a great inventor, artist, magician, etc. who was deformed and shunned from birth, escaped from a circus, etc. - but she's also the one who tells Raoul how to get to his lair, when Raoul wants to kill him. The overall sense of her character that I got, at least, was that she's someone who understands how twisted the Phantom is, but also understands the sympathetic reasons why - someone sort of conflicted, who wishes he'd had a better lot in life and is willing to help him to some extent, but also obviously knows he must be stopped when he's been going around murdering people.

In Love Never Dies, however, Madame Giry is inexplicably twisted into a woman obsessed with the Phantom, who along with her daughter Meg (a minor character in the original as Christine's friend, a dancer at the opera) personally smuggled him out of Paris and to America after the end of the first show. The two of them went on to singlehandedly help him get in with a sideshow carnival, then buy it, build a major amusement park on Coney Island and become rich - significantly thanks to Madame Giry arranging for Meg to perform sexual favors for investors, all in the tireless hope that one day the Phantom will reward them as they deserve (as he's vaguely promised).

The story this time around involves the Phantom inviting Christine (along with Raoul and their ten-year-old son Gustave) to his amusement park, under false pretenses of course. It turns out in the ten years since the end of Phantom, Raoul has become an alcoholic who's gambled away all their money and their relationship is on the rocks, and also actually Christine and the Phantom totally had sex before Christine and Raoul got married, and Gustave's actually their son (there's a song about this, just a shameless erotic Christine/Phantom fanfic in song form).

The Phantom threatens to destroy everything Christine ever loved, and specifically to disappear her son, unless she performs an aria that he wrote for a concert at the park (what a dick). After beginning to suspect that Gustave is his, he takes the boy exploring around the park in the song "The Beauty Underneath", an absolute banger that's the definitive best song on the album by far this time around, but is unfortunately also absolutely bonkers. It features the Phantom trying to probe Gustave about his interest in the dark and morbid, in the creepiest, most suggestive-sounding way possible ("When the dark unfolds its wings / Do you sense the strangest things / Things no one would ever guess / Things mere words cannot express", "Have you felt your senses surge / and surrendered to the urge / have been hooked as you looked / at the beauty underneath", "When you stare behind the night / can you glimpse its primal might / Might you hunger to possess / hunger that you can't repress") with Gustave rapturously interjecting "Yes!" between verses. It seems at first the thing that's tipping him off that they might share DNA is the boy's musical talents, but no - apparently this is the thing that truly convinces him. I still really dig that song, and the staging is cool, but as a scene the content of it is just deeply strange.

Following this, the Phantom emotionally decides Gustave will inherit his entire fortune, and all that he's done will be his - and Madame Giry, overhearing, is outraged that yet again she and Meg are being overlooked, and wishes that bastard had never been born! Later, a drunk Raoul and the Phantom make a bet on whether Christine will actually sing at the concert, the one that the Phantom threatened her into performing at; if she does, Raoul will go home without her, while if she doesn't, the Phantom will pay off their debts and leave them alone. They proceed to not actually inform Christine of this in any way, so she has absolutely no idea that choosing to perform the song (again, she had been threatened, and had agreed to just perform it and then leave) will also mean her husband will leave her and she'll have to stay here with the man who, yes, is dark and sexy and mysterious and writes pretty music but also has kidnapped and threatened her on multiple occasions.

After we've spent a solid ten minutes and two songs on all the characters singing about their feelings on whether or not Christine should or will perform, she does (she has literally been told that her son will be killed if she doesn't!) - only after the performance Gustave is missing. Turns out Meg took him down to the pier to drown him.

When everyone arrives to confront her, the distraught Meg tearfully explains how she's been working tirelessly for the Phantom's sake for the past ten years, unwillingly selling herself to investors to engineer his success, all without him ever noticing or caring - and releases the kid and puts a gun to her head instead. The Phantom tries to talk her down, but as he's trying to take the gun from her she accidentally shoots Christine, and we get a terrible melodramatic ending where Christine dies in the Phantom's arms and Gustave just kind of accepts the Phantom as his real father with basically zero fuss I guess.

All in all, this entire musical is a parade of eminently bizarre creative decisions. It takes as a given that the viewer ships Christine and the Phantom, and does this whole incredibly fanficcy thing of deciding Raoul's actually an abusive gambling-addicted drunk now - but at the same time, it expressly undoes the whole potential for character development hinted at the end of Phantom and everything that made the Phantom kind of sympathetic. He's rich and successful and admired now, not suffering for his deformity at all; he has people loyal to him who'd do anything for him, only he doesn't care a whit for them; he's still obsessed with Christine, scheming to get her back, and willing to threaten and coerce her into it, with zero respect for her choices and agency. And moreover, even if one did ship them so hard that one just didn't care about any of that and only wanted them to end up together... they don't even end up together, because Christine immediately dies! What an exquisite way to make literally everyone unhappy. And what even is the awkward hasty fanfic retcon about how um Christine totally went just before her wedding and like, found the Phantom again (somehow??) and slept with him and was totally going to stay with him except he was gone in the morning? Why is Madame Giry suddenly a scheming villainous Phantom cultist pimping out her daughter to make him rich? This show is just really, really bad. I actually think the songs themselves are overall stronger than Phantom - but the story here just can't really be salvaged.

And yet. Despite all of that, despite that I think this is a terrible, terrible musical, several months later I'm still thinking about Meg Giry. Meg Giry is why I'm even writing this post, to be honest.

See, as far as I'm concerned, Meg is by far the most compelling, tragic and sympathetic character across both of these shows. The Phantom has the potential to be interesting more than he actually is; we learn about why he'd be bitter and hateful towards the world and can put together a motivation for his actions, sort of, but we can't feel it. Or I, at least, can't feel it; even with hindsight, all I really feel towards the Phantom for 99% of the total runtime is irritation that he's such a possessive douchebag. But Meg, though? My heart aches for every wavering line she sings in "Please, Miss Giry." I'm so invested in this girl and you have no idea.

For ten years her own mother has been drilling into her head that the only thing that matters is the approval of the Phantom, that her sole purpose is to please him and ensure his success at any cost, and that her own agency is unimportant and secondary, because one day he'll reward them richly and everything will be good, finally. And then, just when Meg finally feels like she's trained enough, become a good enough performer to win his praise at last, and her mother's been telling her about this beautiful aria he's been writing... turns out the aria's actually for her old friend Christine, the girl he's still obsessed with, who he's schemed to invite over and headline the show instead of Meg, without even telling Meg about it. And then he doesn't bother to even watch Meg's big performance even as she gives it her all. And oh, apparently he had this son with Christine who's suddenly going to inherit everything, because of course he doesn't care about anything they've done for him, never really meant to repay them at all, never even really bothered to think about it outside of when Madame Giry needled him about it, and her mother just bluntly tells her that it was all for nothing and they've been replaced.

And... and so, as her entire world has collapsed, this feeble degrading house of cards unimportant next to Christine, as she sees nothing but cold despair and a bottomless pit in her stomach, memories of everything she's had to do and told herself she was doing for his sake but really meant nothing at all... she sets out to just get rid of Gustave - to exact some sort of impotent revenge on both the Phantom and Christine, and to just fix at least this one latest thing - and then put a bullet in her head.

(You know how half of my buttons are about understanding and following the psychology of how a person is driven to the brink, to doing something terrible, to the depths of despair where they feel they have no option but to die? Meg, gggggghhhh. Fucking Love Never Dies, being so, so bad and then just punching my buttons in the face suddenly at the end with this minor character who deserves so much better.)

And she doesn't really murder the boy, of course; it's just a desperate, raging flail for something she can do, something to exact some power on something, make a difference, have something that she does matter to these people, in any way at all. But she fully intends to blow her brains out. She has no purpose and nothing to live for anymore.

Only then the Phantom starts to soothe her, apologize, tell her to give him the pain and the blame and the gun, Meg, telling her he understands, that she feels used and ignored but he can see now, and she almost starts to think maybe everything will be okay, maybe he does care after all, maybe he does understand and maybe now things will be different - only then the Phantom goes yeah, see, not everyone can be like Christine - and she realizes no, everything still revolves around Christine for him, and she's still the only person he ever seems to actually care about. No matter what Meg does, she's always secondary to Christine. Always Christine!

...And of course then the show goes right on to just ignore Meg some more while Christine and the Phantom have their finale. I couldn't care less about these people, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Why aren't we talking about Meg. Who gives a damn about the Phantom or Christine when Meg's right there?

The YouTube comments and Genius annotations on this show all just go on about Meg being jealous. I don't think that's the right word for any of this. She's not just mad she isn't the star. She's suicidal. Who kept singing, desperate for your favor / Who kept dancing, hoping you would save her, she sings, her voice breaking - it wasn't that she wished to be famous, or even that she wished he'd love her, per se. The fantasy that one day she'd finally be good enough for him to notice and appreciate her and rescue her from this hell was literally all she had to live for, and then Christine, and this sudden son out of nowhere, just appear to destroy it all, all the prospects she sees for a future worth living. Her actions make sense, within the framework of her thoughts. It's not good, it's not right, all of this is deeply messed up and horrible and skewed because of course there's more to life than pleasing the Phantom, but if any character's actions in this thing are narratively justified, it's Meg's.

But I can kind of get why this doesn't quite hit for a lot of people; I'm not sure I quite got all of it just from watching it that once, actually. See, I did kind of enjoy some of the songs (okay, it was primarily "The Beauty Underneath"), and I tend to give pretty much any musical soundtrack a second chance as background music at work because music in general tends to need to grow on me, so I went and listened to the soundtracks of both Phantom and Love Never Dies a couple times after we watched them. And when I say I listened to the soundtrack, there are actually two versions of the Love Never Dies soundtrack. The original version is the 2010 concept album; significant rewrites were made between that and the revised version, the one that was filmed in 2012. (The other soundtrack on Spotify is actually from 2018 and seems to have some changes from the 2012 version, but those differences seem pretty unimportant, so I think they can pretty much be ignored and the 2018 soundtrack regarded as basically being the 2012 version.) So I went with the 2010 one, curious about what had changed, because that is what I do.

The biggest change to the actual plot between these two versions is that in the original, Christine is simply invited to America to perform by the Phantom, for money, and he doesn't threaten her or Gustave! Christine is just going to perform because she was hired to and they need money. In the 2012 version, on the other hand, she was originally invited to America by Oscar Hammerstein, and the Phantom merely sends his circus employees to pick her up and pretend to be sent by Hammerstein, then presents her with the song he wants her to sing and threatens her to get her to perform for him instead of for Hammerstein. My best guess is this change was made because it really is kind of hopelessly naïve of Christine and Raoul to not suspect anything when a mysterious mask-wearing man going by an alias wants to pay her vast sums of money to appear at his amusement park in America, and they felt it would be better if they originally came there for more straightforwardly legitimate purposes, and had some definitive reason to not just immediately leave when they learn that the Phantom is behind this. But in order to fix that, they went and casually made the Phantom so much more of a dick! He was already manipulating and making bets on her, but adding threats of child murder to fix a plot hole sure is something. What a decision in a show where the audience is supposed to root for them to get together. This show really is fractally bad.

More importantly for our purposes, though, in the 2010 version the Girys have a significantly bigger part in the show. It actually opens with Madame Giry, in a prologue where she's in the ruins of the amusement park years later, reminiscing about what happened, and one of the Phantom's circus freaks accuses her of ruining everything, before we flash back to the story proper. In this version, an early scene shows Madame Giry pointedly telling Meg she's got an admirer, and Meg, after a pause, with a new note of tension and dread in her voice, asks "Is he important?" - a very revealing exchange, establishing that it wasn't ever Meg who wanted this and it's her mother who's been pushing her into it, and that's some pretty important context for why Meg is so fucked up. But the 2012 version opens with the Phantom pining for Christine instead, has a bit less of both Madame Giry and Meg in general, and removes this scene - even though the climax in "Please, Miss Giry..." is unchanged, and with hindsight it's pretty obvious from Meg's words there that yeah, even if we didn't see it that's absolutely still the case.

Along similar lines, the bit I mentioned where Madame Giry tells Meg the Phantom has been writing an aria, which they assume is for Meg to sing and signals a shift away from 'this vaudeville trash', only for it to actually be for Christine - this particular little thing that gets Meg's hopes up only to crush them - is actually removed in 2012. In general, original Meg is shown to be a bit more insecure and neurotic, and is more strongly implied to have been having suicidal thoughts for some time even before this. I think these various details that are lost in 2012 serve as pretty important context, and in total it makes it significantly harder to properly appreciate what's really going on with her in the filmed version, I think, which is a major loss because Meg is clearly by far the best thing about this musical.

The 2012 version does, however, add an element that I actually quite like - namely, an added emphasis on Meg's friendship with Christine. Meg is explicitly thrilled to hear Christine is coming (very much unlike her mother), nostalgic for old times, longing for the friend that she had, which is not only pretty sweet but makes a heartbreaking amount of sense given what her life has become since they left Paris - of course the thought of seeing an actual friend again, one from back when things were good, serves as a light in the darkness, a bit of an escape, until of course the Phantom's schemes result in Christine actually unknowingly causing Meg's fragile world to crumble entirely. You know how I also have a button about friends turned against each other by circumstance and possibly ending up murdering each other? Yeah. And it sure adds punch to the tragedy of Meg ending up shooting Christine to death... if only Meg weren't immediately written out of the scene never to be seen again as soon as she's screamed that she didn't mean to.

With regards to that, though, there is one more interesting change, though it's not audible on the soundtracks: as I described the climax above, which is how it happens in the filmed 2012 version, the Phantom is trying to take the gun away from Meg when it accidentally goes off and just happens to hit Christine. But apparently as the show was originally staged in 2010, Meg shoots Christine because when the Phantom compares Meg to her, she agitatedly waves the gun towards Christine and it accidentally goes off at that point.

I kind of suspect, given all the setup there is giving Meg genuine reasons to resent Christine at this point, that originally, at some unseen stage of the writing process for this thing, Meg was meant to actually intentionally shoot her, even if it was just in the heat of the moment. It's genuinely pretty weird narratively, especially in the 2012 version, that we do spend a significant amount of story time establishing this particular tension, and bring it to a head with the Phantom comparing Meg to Christine and Meg becoming agitated again and crying out Always Christine!, only for the bit where she then shoots her to be a total accident, and hence entirely unrelated to that buildup. I suppose they were to some degree self-conscious about the Girys playing such villainous roles here and tried to soften it by making this an accident, and then even more of an accident, even though it rendered a lot of setup kind of irrelevant.

Even if Meg deliberately shot Christine, though, she would still be the most sympathetic character here by a wide margin. Nobody else in this show behaves like a human being, but Meg does. I want to rescue Meg from this bad musical and put her in a different one where she does shoot Christine in a desperate, awful moment but Christine recovers and also is not in love with the Phantom for some inexplicable reason and the two of them escape together and Christine helps Meg recover her sense of self-worth and realize that her life is her own and doesn't belong to the Phantom or her mother and helps her heal and I guess Gustave can come too because it'd be a dick move to leave him behind but mostly it's Meg and Christine being friends and recovering from the abusive assholes in their lives.

#the phantom of the opera #love never dies #meg giry #character analysis #review #ramble #musicals #my buttons #suicide cw #oh boy it's me writing thousands of words of rambling about musicals again!!#except this time it's musicals I don't even like!!

18 notes · View notes

rockpapertheodore · 5 years

Text

A Toast to Trouble

Bonnie of Braugh, the Goliath of Chapel Bay, is the personal bodyguard of Lady Remadia Seneca, the Countess of Chapel Bay. For a year, she has served faithfully and happily under Her Ladyship, having to do little more than be an ear for Lady Seneca’s machinations and withering observations of the nobility, and serve a towering wall of iron-clad muscle and stand there with her fuck-off heavy warhammer to intimidate anyone who starts getting too disagreeable towards the Countess.

Lady Seneca has seen fit to reward her loyal service with a night off. Unfortunately, she has also seen fit to commission the ethereal twin couturiers, Artemis and Apollo, to fit her for a very fancy dress, for a very fancy party.

Bonnie was under the impression that she was supposed to rewarded for her loyal service, not damned straight to her own personal hell.

Tags for Content: Explicit, Low Fantasy, Original Work, Casual Sex, Bisexuality, Love and Affection, (a very brief scene of) M/F, (4.5k words worth of) F/F, D/s dynamics, Alcohol, consent is sexy, sober consent is even sexier, a rather unprofessional development in an otherwise professional relationship. WORD COUNT: 11,561 words

Quick note: I’m a queer cis man writing a wlw story, and I’ve tried to portray everything to the best of my ability. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it, and, please, i implore you, correct me if I’ve gotten anything wrong, particularly with the romance scene. Thanks <3

Quick note 2: Getting this to format properly for Tungles dot Bungles was hell, I apologize profusely if there’s anything hideously goofy with it

A Toast to Trouble

“Lady Seneca, may I speak frankly with you?” Bonnie of Braugh sputtered, standing stiffly in front of the mirror as the twin couturiers, Artemis and Apollo, went about their business cleaning up her appearance - perfecting the make-up on her face and making her suitable for the public.

Lady Remadia Seneca, Countess of Chapel Bay, lounged on the gilded divan near the door, idly swirling a glass of wine as she gleefully watched the twins struggle to do their work with the colossal woman, who dwarfed them considerably. “If I said no, would you hear it?” She asked, taking a sip of her wine that was the same deep red as Bonnie's dress.

“Absolutely not.”

“Then why bother asking?”

“Because it bothers you, my lady,” Bonnie said, as she felt Apollo begin to tighten the girdle over the dress. Artemis was making her way around Bonnie, smoothing out the fabric under the girdle where it had started to bunch up.

“Speak away, Bonnie.”

“Why must I wear this horrible outfit?”

Lady Seneca rolled her eyes. “Bonnie, you do a terrible disservice to yourself. You look absolutely stunning. Does she not, Artemis? Apollo?”

“We agree with you, Lady Seneca,” Apollo said, standing on a stool so that he could work at the top strings of the girdle, tying them into place.

“We do, indeed. Bonnie. You look beautiful, love.” Artemis said as she reached up, gently poking Bonnie's nose. Bonnie's face scrunched up in response. Artemis winked up at her and went about her work.

“Please, you two, not this. Why can't I wear my armor? How am I supposed to do my job like this?”

“It is a party, darling, worry not! The only things you should concern yourself with are dancing and being merry.”

“And should there be trouble? You very well won't let me carry my hammer with me.” Bonnie looked to the twins, hoping they'd agree with her, at least on this. Instead, they were busy packing away their tools.

“Bonnie, my beautiful brute, how I do adore thee.” Lady Seneca rose from the divan, her dress flowing behind her, and opened the door.

“That's not an answer.”

“I'm already going out to the party! I can't hear you!”

“Lady Seneca!”

“See you amongst the rabble, love! Ta!”

“Remy!” Bonnie shouted, desperate, to no avail. “Damn it.” Crestfallen, she stared at the door, hoping that Lady Seneca would come back through and tell her it was all some hilarious joke. She sighed and sat down on the stool Apollo had been standing on, slouching as far as her dress would let her. “I really have to go out there, don't I?”

Artemis and Apollo nodded, moving to Bonnie's sides to encompass her in a compassionate hug. “Trust us, love. You'll do fine,” Apollo murmured into her ear. Artemis laid a gentle kiss on Bonnie's cheek. “You are lovely.”

Bonnie sighed dramatically, wrapping a powerful arm around the two of them and forcing them into her lap. “I don't give a shit about that! What I'm terrified of is having to interact with these high-society types as something other than their hired muscle! I don't know how to hold a conversation with these people beyond, 'yes, m'lord,' or 'no, your grace!” She pulled them in so she could rest her chin on both of their heads as they each hugged an arm. “Do any of them know anything about smithing? Perhaps some steel merchant or a jeweller? My hands are too big for such delicate work, but perhaps we'd have some shared appreciation for craftsmanship.”

“You'll never know until you go out there,” Artemis said, resting her cheek against Bonnie's bicep. Apollo muttered, “and you're never going to get out there until you get over yourself. Ow!” Bonnie had dug her chin into the top of his head. “I'm just saying, love, you're going to have to let us free at some point and go.”

“But what if I don't want to let you go? What if I want to smuggle you two in my bustier?”

“Bonnie.”

Bonnie whined and loosened her grip on the twins, allowing them to slip out from her arms. The twins turned, offering their hands to help her up. Though Bonnie didn't need it, she appreciated the gesture, taking their offered hands and offering a sarcastic curtsy to them in thanks. They rolled their eyes and began to push her towards the door. Bonnie laughed, shooing them away. “Leave me alone, you two, I've got this.”

-The Party-

I haven’t got this, Bonnie thought as she tried to navigate the social seas of high-society. Mumbled half-attempts to strike up conversation left her lips time and again, only to be ignored or met with shocked stares. I have no idea how to talk to these people. She could feel every glance being cast her way as she stood easily head and shoulders above those gathered for the Countess's party, too much attention being paid to her scars and her height. She felt her face beginning to flush in panic as she grabbed a carafe of water and found herself a seat on an isolated chaise lounge. On a nearby table sat an unattended glass of wine, which she commandeered, dumping its contents into a potted bush of some sort and refilling it with cool water. She downed the glass and poured herself another, putting the carafe down so she could nurse the glass in both her hands. Contemplating the ripples of the water, she lost herself in thought as she tried to wrap her head around everything going on.

“I'm proud of you, you know.”

Bonnie snapped to attention, the Countess's lips a hair's breadth from her ear. She could smell the wine on the Countess's breath.

“To be quite honest, I thought that I had pushed too far by insisting you attend as my guest, rather than as my bodyguard.”

“I am out of my league here, my lady.”

“Oh I do so love it when you call me that, dear Bonnie, but tonight you don't have to be so formal.” Lady Seneca finally leaned away from Bonnie, and Bonnie felt herself relax. “Come, let us go onto the balcony. The fresh air will do us wonders.”

Suddenly Lady Seneca’s hand was in Bonnie’s and she was being pulled up and away, being led through the crowd, and an invisible weight was lifted from Bonnie’s shoulders as they emerged from the loud claustrophobia of the party into the relative quiet of the night. The balcony they were on was blessedly unoccupied, the nearest group of party goers a stone’s throw away on a balcony of their own, allowing Bonnie to appreciate the view that spread out beneath her. The twinkling of street lamps and illuminated windows from the dark city below captivated Bonnie, her eyes tracing the curve of the city around the bay until it faded into dark silhouettes in the distance. Off on a great rock in the middle of the harbor, the Chapel Bay Lighthouse shone like a bright star against the rippling black water of the night.

“Was I right, dear Bonnie?”

“Very much so, my lady.” Bonnie said, but Lady Seneca coughed expectantly, frowning. “Lady Seneca?” Another cough. “Remadia?” Bonnie said hesitantly, and was met with an excited grin. Bonnie smiled back.

“Close enough, my dear Bonnie. You didn’t hesitate to call my name earlier, though, did you?”

Bonnie felt her face heat with embarrassment. “First of all, my, wait, Lady, no,” Bonnie felt her thoughts twisting up in her brain, “Remadia. First of all, I remained as courteous as I could. Then, uh,” Bonnie averted her gaze from Remadia’s smiling eyes, “I was panicking.”

“You’re not panicking anymore, are you?”

“Not currently, no. I definitely had been until you intervened. So, um, thank you.” Bonnie’s mouth felt dry and tight, remembering the glass of water in her hand, drank the full glass in a single mouthful. She saw Remadia smiling wide again out of the corner of her eye and wished she had another glass of water.

“I dare say, Bonnie; impressive. What are you drinking?”

“Water, m’lady- I mean, Remadia.”

Remadia gave her a playful punch on the arm. “Oh, please, Bonnie, how are you supposed to get into trouble if you’re only drinking water?”

“I don’t like to drink, and I really don’t want to, uh, get into trouble.”

“Nonsense! I had this absolutely wonderful port brought in this morning - though that scrawny weasel Lord McKinsey could barely handle the scent of it, let alone a full glass - I’m sure that it’ll do wonders for your disposition, and-” Remadia had begun to wander away from Bonnie as she rambled, only to be halted by Bonnie’s hand, large enough to almost fully envelop her bicep.

“Please, Lady Seneca.”

Remadia was taken aback by the unexpected desperation in Bonnie’s voice, and turned her head to contemplate the knuckles of Bonnie’s fingers, so very gently wrapped around her arm. She felt the protest she had been going to say melt away in her throat as her eyes followed up Bonnie’s arm to meet her pleading gaze. Her eyes looked golden in the light from the windows behind Remadia, dark eyelashes blending in against the dark eyeshadow the twins had given her. Remadia felt her heart soften and reached up to pull Bonnie’s hand from her arm. Bonnie opened her mouth to say something, but Remadia didn’t hear it as she wrapped her own arms around Bonnie, hugging her tightly, face buried fully in the warmth of Bonnie’s bosom.

Shocked, Bonnie hesitantly returned the hug with one arm, her other coming up to gingerly stroking Remadia’s hair. “Remadia, are you drunk?”

There was a mumbled response, but Remadia’s words were muffled by the fabric of Bonnie’s dress.

“Sorry, couldn’t hear that.” Bonnie stopped petting Remadia’s hair to gently grip it and pressure Remadia into tilting her head back and out of Bonnie’s chest.

“Perhaps moreso than I thought, dear Bonnie, but not hideously.” Remadia’s eyes wandered across Bonnie’s face before they narrowed, darting around conspiratorially, before she said, “Come here, love, I have a secret I wish to share with you and being eye-level with the underside of your tits makes that difficult. Lean down to me.”

Bonnie was confused, and somewhat surprised by Remadia’s bruskness. “Remadia, we’re alone here, you can speak.”

“Yes, but secrets are no fun unless they’re whispered! Come down to my level.” Remadia had a mischievous grin on her face that she was struggling to conceal.

Bonnie rolled her eyes and acquiesced, leaning down to Remadia’s level, before her face was suddenly grasped between Remadia’s hands, and she felt soft lips against hers. In a moment of shock, Bonnie froze, mouth slack and eyes wide, and in that moment she felt fingers cradle her chin and grip the back of her head as Remadia’s tongue parted her lips. She could taste the wine Remadia had been drinking earlier, bittersweet and something she would normally find disagreeable.

In this moment, however, she wasn’t sure if she found it unpleasant.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over. Remadia’s eyes were unfocused as she pulled away, a light flush on her face, before meeting Bonnie’s stunned gaze, letting go of Bonnie’s face with one hand and patting her cheekily with the other. She winked at Bonnie. “I have a party to return to, dear Bonnie. Weren’t you glad you leaned down?” She wiped the sides of her mouth with her thumb, swiping away a smear of lipstick and spittle, before turning the same attention to Bonnie’s mouth with that same thumb. She patted Bonnie’s cheek again. “To trouble?”

With that, she was gone, and Bonnie was left dumbfounded as Remadia disappeared back into the party. Bonnie looked around, still not processing what had just happened. The other balcony either didn’t notice what happened, or had, and were gossiping quietly amongst themselves about it.

“Uh, yeah. To trouble,” Bonnie said to the open air, “I guess.”

-To Trouble?-

It took her the better part of thirty minutes to regain her senses and reenter the party, catching sight of and chasing down one of the men with serving trays of drinks, someone who in any other situation was her peer, and as she approached him, she noticed a change in how she was carrying herself. Her back was straighter, and she felt more confident, no longer shying away from the curious and judgmental gazes being cast her way. She still felt out of place, but no longer did she feel like a sheep amongst wolves. To trouble, she thought to herself as she grabbed two glasses of some sort of foreign juice, confirming with the serving man that it wasn’t wine. She turned around to perhaps find someone to talk to, only to discover that someone had come to her as she nearly walked in to him, managing to keep her glasses of juice steady.

“Forgive me, my lady, I didn’t mean to startle you,” The man said, offering a sweeping bow as Bonnie stepped back from him, eyeing him carefully. His dark, thick lashes lifted to reveal wondrous hazel eyes, which rose to meet her own. He quirked an eyebrow as a playful grin tugged at the corner of his lips, and Bonnie felt her heart flutter. He was beautiful.

“No, please, forgive me!” Bonnie managed to say, panicking. “I should have looked before I started walking.” She was at a loss for words, unsure of how to proceed. She could feel her new confidence fading rapidly. She faltered, stumbling for words. She noticed he didn’t have a drink, and held out one of hers. “Juice?”

The man took her awkwardness in stride, accepting the glass graciously. “Thank you, my lady.” He sniffed it, swirling the glass before taking a sip. “Not wine?”

“Oh, no, I don’t care much for drinking.”

“Do you care much for dancing?”

He asked it so idly, it took Bonnie a moment to pick up on what his question implied, and she felt her face grow hot as she blushed. She stammered, mouth searching for a response, as she watched the look on the man’s face grow concerned.

“Have I asked something wrong? Do I offend?”

“Oh, n-no! You don’t, I don’t, nobody’s ever, uh-” she stuttered, words stumbling out of her mouth, “I’m too big.” The area from her neck to her ears felt as if they were on fire, she was so flushed in embarrassment.

The man grinned wolfishly at her, worrying in its similarity to Remadia’s. “Am I to understand that nobody has ever asked you to dance?”

Bonnie finally managed to get her mouth under control, though it felt dry “I’ve never been taught, and I, uh,” she paused, taking a drink from her glass “most people find my, uh, size,” she paused again, “to be intimidating.” His grin softened, and she couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with him. She finished drinking the rest of her juice.

“I don’t find your size to be intimidating.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly his hand was in hers, and the empty glass was divested from her fingers, and for the second time that night Bonnie was being led away. Before she knew it they were standing on the dancefloor surrounded by other dancing pairs. The music seemed too loud and her heart pounded in her throat. Her new companion, however, remained calm as he took her left hand and placed it on his right arm, placed his right hand just below her shoulder blade, took her right hand in his left, and with a shout of “move with me!” he raised their conjoined hands and confidently began to move them both to the rhythm of the music. Bonnie struggled to keep to the simple steps he was guiding her through, always being led by his assertive but gentle directions. After a minute of stiff shuffling, however, Bonnie began to relax into the dance. Eventually, she became less aware of the loud music, and was finally able to focus on the face of her companion, who was confident and relaxed, despite her clumsy, so-called dancing.

Those enchanting hazel eyes met hers, glittering jewels of amber and emerald set against deep, olive skin; dark, perfectly coiffed hair, shaved down on the sides; a handlebar moustache and the dark patch below framing a pair of impressively shapely lips, plump and dusky pink. Those soft-looking lips lifted into a smirk as her gaze lingered upon them.

“See something you like, my lady?” He said, raising his voice to be heard over the music.

Bonnie felt herself blush reflexively, but there was something in the quirk of his mouth and the words he said that reminded her again of Remadia, and the words, to trouble, floated to the forefront of her thoughts. She felt a rush of confidence and the words, “Maybe I do, little man,” spilled out of her mouth before she could think about what she was saying. Her eyes widened in shock as she realized what she had just said - how she said it like a challenge - and she was terrified of his response.

It was like she had cast chum into shark-infested waters.

His hand tightened around hers firmly, and the hand on her shoulder blade dropped to her waist, pulling her in tightly to him. He began to move their dance between the other couples, twisting and turning, his eyes locked to hers and the intensity between them building as he led them away from the band and eventually off the dancefloor, just as the orchestra finished playing.

“Might the lady tell me what it is she likes?” He said, his gaze no less intense now that they were away from dancefloor. He was still holding her to him.

“How honest do you want me to be?” Bonnie said, raising her eyebrow. She hoped the question sounded confident. She felt reckless. Excited. She felt his hand slide down below her waist, coming to rest at the top of her rump.

“At least as honest as I am.”

Bonnie felt a throb of lust pulse through her. To trouble!

-To Trouble!-

The door hadn’t even fully shut behind them before he had pulled her down into a passionate kiss, and, unlike earlier, Bonnie didn’t just let the kiss happen to her in shock. She bent down, wrapping her hands under his ass, and lifted him, pinning him against the wall. Bonnie could feel his cock through his pants, throbbing against the underside of her breasts as she leaned into him and he wrapped his legs around her. “Just a little further down the hall now, pretty boy.” She said against his lips, her forehead pressed against his. He kissed her again as she pulled him away from the wall and began to carry him down the corridor, his mouth moving from her lips down her cheek and along her jawline. “I don’t even know your name,” she said, kissing the nape of his neck and fumbling with the doorknob to the receiving room she had been leading him to.

“Pretty boy will do.”

“I like it,” she said as she opened the door, following it inwards, thankful that there wasn’t anybody inside. “I like you, pretty boy.”

“Absolutely wonderful. Would you mind if I showed you my own form of appreciation?” Pretty boy asked as he unwrapped his legs from her, lowering himself down her body, laying kisses along the way. Then he reached her waist and one hand began to lift up the hem of her dress as the other cupped her large backside, fingers digging into the dense flesh there. He began to guide her backwards towards the wall, and, when he felt her back connect, disappeared under her dress. She gasped as she felt soft lips greeting her clit, her knees going weak as he sucked hard and his tongue moved against her.

“Oh, pretty boy, I like that,” she moaned hard as he answered her praise with his tongue, penetrating her, licking shallow and and then deep.

He stopped for a moment, and from beneath her dress she heard, “Tell me, what is your name?”

“Bonnie.” She whimpered as he sucked gently on her. He paused.

“The Goliath of Chapel Bay?”

“The very same,” she managed to trill out - a confident, no, a pleased thrill running up her core at the recognition - as he ate at her with renewed vigour. She tried to pull his head into her with her thighs, but she couldn’t regain control of her legs, barely managing to stay upright as she felt the hand on her ass dig aggressively into her flesh. His other hand ran along her skin, gently teasing at the sensitive skin between her pucker and her cunt before his fingers worked their way up, parting her and gently playing at her slick, sensitive and swollen opening.

He pulled away, breathing heavily. “I never thought I’d meet you like this. You’re so much bigger than I could have imagined.”

“You like them big, pretty boy?” she managed to gasp, before suddenly his fingers were inside her, and his mouth was working her clit and her breath was knocked from her as she came, shaking against his face. Her abdominal muscles tensed as the orgasm rocked through her and she lost control of her legs, her hips grinding forward as her hand clamped down against the back of his head to hold him in place. Guttural sounds managed to escape her throat as she choked on air, trying to regain some sense of composure and failing wonderfully. Trembling, she sank against the wall and down to the floor.

As she struggled to lower herself, he remained in this crouched position, and the weight of her body drew her dress off him, revealing his smiling face, moustache damp and unstyled with her juices.

“Like is a bit of an understatement, methinks. A man does not climb the highest peaks for mere like of the mountain.” He said it so earnestly Bonnie felt her heart leap in her chest. She tried to respond, but her mouth was dry and her eyes unfocused. She reached out to drag him in for a kiss, but he grabbed her hand, suddenly attentive to something outside the room. She couldn’t hear anything over her own heartbeat. He leaned in and kissed her, and when he pulled away, her face was sticky with her own come. “Forgive me, Bonnie. My companions call for me.” In a blink, he was standing up and moving towards the door.

“You’re leaving?” Bonnie whined pathetically as he walked away. He stopped before opening the door, and took a deep bow.

“I swear to you, Bonnie, Goliath of Chapel Bay, our paths will cross again.” And with that, he was gone, the door closing behind him with a click!

“Damn it,” Bonnie said, as she began to pull herself together. She stood up, still shaky, and began to pat down her dress, making sure she hadn’t soaked through her clothes. “Oh I bet I reek.” She muttered to herself. Her head was muddled with afterglow, but she felt confident that she at least looked presentable.

Now to do something about the smell, she thought as she left the room, making a stumbling detour away from the party and towards the twins’ quarters.

-Back to the Party-

Bonnie took longer than she had expected to return to the party, and not in the way that she had wanted. She was still horny and had been hoping the twins were amenable to resolving that particular issue, but they weren’t in their quarters, so Bonnie found their perfumes and spritzed herself with one that smelled strongly of roses before she caught sight of herself in the mirror. The careful makeup that the twins had given her was smeared horribly, the color applied to her lips spread about her mouth, so she found a kerchief and set about cleaning up her face as carefully as possible, trying to preserve what she could.

By the time she made it back to the main hall, the party was drawing to a close and Remadia’s guests were filing out the doors. Bonnie scanned the crowd, expecting to see the Countess somewhere bidding her guests farewell, but she was nowhere to be found amidst the rabble. She looked elsewhere throughout the main hall, and almost walked past the door to the balcony that they had gone out onto earlier, when she stopped, turning to peer through the glass. Remadia sat on a bench that hadn’t been there earlier, arms at her sides and feet idly kicking as she looked out over the balcony ledge.

Bonnie pushed through the doors, not acknowledged by Remadia until Bonnie was sitting next to her. “Bit lonely out here, isn’t it?”

Remadia waved off the comment, unfazed by Bonnie’s sudden appearance. “Pshaw, my dear Bonnie. It’s a lovely night in my city, and I knew you’d find me eventually,” she said as if it were a matter of fact, her voice thick and worn from the night. She yawned, stretching herself out before commandeering Bonnie’s arm, pulling it around her like a blanket as she leaned into Bonnie and rested her head fully against Bonnie’s breast. “You stink hideously of roses, my dear, and I know that’s not the perfume I gave you earlier,” she remarked, before cuddling deeper against Bonnie, nuzzling her face against Bonnie’s breast as much as she could from the side.

Bonnie had felt a flush creeping across her face from the moment Remadia had started touching her, but she blushed fully in response to her statement. “I, well,” Bonnie gulped as Remadia looked up from her tit, an eyebrow quirked in curiosity. “I took your toast to trouble to heart, and found myself a little trouble.”

Remadia raised both of her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh really? How utterly droll, my dear.” Remadia purred, only moving her mouth from its position against Bonnie so that she could speak with relative clarity. “Was it a scuffle? A row? Or was it romantic trouble? Did you dance?”

Bonnie smiled down softly at Remadia. “We danced, yes.” Then she smirked, looking out towards the lighthouse in the bay. “Then he ate me out in the receiving room off the back corridor.”

Remadia purred with delight, wrapping her arm around Bonnie’s waist and hugging her tightly. “Nothing further?”

“Left me quivering on the floor. The beautiful bastard scarpered before I could beg him to fuck me.”

“Beg? I think the word you use is too strong, my dear.” She pulled her arm off of Bonnie’s waist and used it to secure Bonnie’s arm more tightly against her. “You were far too much woman for him to handle. I, on the other hand, could show you what begging for a good fuck is really like,” she said, as casually as one would contemplate the weather, “though I would never dream to be so rude as to just abandon you on the floor.”

Bonnie choked, sputtering as her heart ground to a halt in her chest, her entire body tensing. She could feel lustful warmth resurging back into her loins, but her brain was frozen in panic. When Remadia spoke, her words were too loud, startling Bonnie.

“You know what I absolutely adore about you, dear Bonnie? How honest you are. Sometimes you talk yourself in circles, but your face and your body always tell the truth.”

Bonnie remained still, unable to move. Remadia let go of her grip on Bonnie’s arm and moved her hands instead to and around Bonnie’s waist, turning her body in to Bonnie’s. She hoisted one leg dramatically in the air, twisting herself further so that she could straddle Bonnie’s lap with it, supporting herself almost entirely against Bonnie’s sturdy frame. Then, once that was settled and her leg was locked firmly around Bonnie, heel digging into the cleft of Bonnie’s butt, she used it as leverage to awkwardly lift her other leg so that it could be wrapped around Bonnie’s waist as well. Her face never left Bonnie’s chest, and Remadia had situated herself in such a way - arms slung under Bonnie’s bust and around her waist, with her hips cocked upward against Bonnie’s stomach - as to allow her face to now be fully buried in the fabric of Bonnie’s bosom. Bonnie hadn’t budged an inch throughout the endeavor, and Remadia began to moan, her head lolling from side to side.

“Remadia, are you okay?” Bonnie asked, concerned.

Remadia rolled her head against the top of one breast, so that she was peering up at her through a heavily squinting eye. “I’m drunk and the world has begun to spin, and all I want,” she was interrupted by a yawn, “is to use these big, lovely tits of yours as my pillows so that I may regain my composure and fuck you silly.” She returned her face to the crevice she had burrowed into the fabric of Bonnie’s bosom, lifting her arms to squeeze Bonnie’s breasts around her ears.

Bonnie felt her face heat up for what felt like the hundredth time that night, but felt the need to take control of the situation. “Let’s get you to bed, then.” Bonnie could hear Remadia’s muffled response of “yes, let me bed you,” and sighed.

Bonnie had had enough.

“All right, you foul fuckin’ mess, let’s go.” Bonnie wrapped her arms underneath Remadia’s rump, lifting her so that Bonnie could stand up. Remadia squealed, briefly lifting her face from Bonnie’s cleavage to speak, eyes and smile excited as she kicked her feet gleefully against Bonnie’s butt.

“I feel like a child in your arms, this is wonderful!” and then her face was buried away again. Bonnie could barely make out her continuation of, “Why haven’t I had you do this before?” as she walked back to the door.

“Because, you embarrassment of a woman, I’ve been your personal bodyguard, and we have had an otherwise professional relationship.”

“But I don’t want that now. I was a fool!”

“Was? Are.”

“Bonnie,” she whined, drawing it out as long and as pathetically as she could and flailing her heels ineffectually at Bonnie’s hips.

Ignoring her, Bonnie made her way through the hall, paying no attention to the curious looks of the people cleaning up and making her way towards the corridor that would lead to Remadia’s quarters.

As she walked through the corridor doors, Remadia squeezed Bonnie, both hands slapping her back in urgency. “Wait!” she cried out from Bonnie’s chest, with a tone of panic so intense that it stopped Bonnie in her tracks.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

Remadia loosened up. “Privy. Hurry.”

“You wretch.” Bonnie picked up the pace. “Are you going to hurl all over me or do you have to piss?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Bonnie hurried to the privy as quickly as possible, being careful not to jostle Remadia more than necessary. She threw open the door and - gently - deposited Remadia on the burnished wood of the privy, quickly turning around and leaving her to do her business, despite Remadia’s mournful whine of, “Don’t abandon me.”

-She Doesn’t Abandon Her-

“You do know that if you don’t cuddle with me, I’m going to follow you to your room.” Remadia sat, now naked, on her bed, patting the space next to her. Somewhere between the privy and her quarters she had managed to regain a modicum of composure, though she had a tendency to overbalance from one side to the other as she attempted to maintain her posture.

Bonnie, still fully dressed, groaned, frustrated and refusing to look at her. “You petulant brat.”

“I told you my plan on the balcony, Bonnie. You have yet to tell me no.”

“We’re not,” Bonnie spluttered, “I am- you,” too many words tried to make their way out of her mouth at once. “You’re drunk.”

“Is that your only complaint?”

“Well-” Bonnie hesitated.

“Speak frankly, if you’re looking for permission.”

“I wasn’t, but-”

“Then we can cuddle ever-so-chastely tonight, and tomorrow I can fuck you in the way your beautiful companion was too cowardly to.”

“Remadia, I keep saying this: I am your bodyguard,” Bonnie shouted. She could see Remadia out of the corner of her eye. Remadia clapped her hands over her mouth, and Bonnie turned, finally looking to meet her eyes. She hoped that Remadia finally understood the predicament Bonnie was in.

Bonnie was taken aback by the fawning adoration in her eyes, like how a child looks at a newborn puppy.

“Oh Bonnie, is that truly it? Truly?” she clapped excitedly, like a child receiving a gift. “Oh how I adore you! It’s no wonder the twins are so infatuated with you, you’re so earnest.”

“I- what? You know?”

Remadia callously waved away Bonnie’s shock. “Oh, of course I know, dear, the twins tell me absolutely everything, and it is the absolute sweetest thing. They’ve never been so enamoured with a person before, let alone the same person. Their infatuation with you is so thorough as to be infectious!”

Bonnie was at a loss for words, her mouth stuttering out, “propriety!”

Remadia gave Bonnie a withering glare. “Bonnie, propriety has its place, and that is with those who make it their life. If I were a woman concerned with propriety, I would have married some petulant merchant skunk and left my own desires to fall to the wayside instead of becoming one of the most powerful women in the country.” Remadia stood up, suddenly full of fire, marching up to Bonnie. “If I were a woman concerned only with propriety, I might have married the Duke of Braugh instead of throwing his letters into the cesspit where they belonged, and he may never have tried to wage his foolish war on me, and he might have been sitting here, in my manor, this very night, instead of cowering in his shit-caked castle in the muddy lowlands with half his land given to me in surrender. And you,” her finger delivering a vicious tap to Bonnie’s sternum, “would never have become the oh-so infamous Goliath of Braugh, and I would have never shown up in your village after hearing of your exploits, and I would never have asked you to serve as my bodyguard, and claimed you as my Goliath, the Goliath of Chapel Bay. My Bonnie. Do not speak to me of propriety!” Her voice had become unexpectedly shrill.

Bonnie, overcome with emotions too conflicted and struggling against each other that she couldn’t put words to how she felt, wrapped her arms around Remadia tightly in a hug. She understood Remadia’s passion, but Remadia couldn’t understand what she’d lost, especially as she was now, and she didn’t want to spoil it with any of the grim thoughts that came to mind. Remadia’s fists were balled, arms tight to her sides, before reluctantly wrapping themselves around Bonnie and returning the hug. Bonnie rested her chin on Remadia’s head.

“Perhaps I’ve been going the wrong way about it, because it’s never something that I’ve consciously given thought to.”

“What’s that?”

“My overtures towards you, maybe I’ve been too unthinking with them, drink and lust clouding my mind, instead of me trying to be as honest as you are with me.”

“How do you mean, Remadia?”

Bonnie could feel Remadia swallow against her before she spoke, her voice soft and croaking, worn from the night and the sudden rush of emotions. “What I’ve been trying to say with so many words is, Bonnie, that I’m very lonely, and I’m very tired, and the year you’ve been here has frankly been the most wonderful - no, memorable part of my life. I went to war against so-called propriety, my Bonnie, and I got you in return: something, someone, so much more valuable than any land or titles given to me by that reprehensible waste of human existence. I want you to spend this night with me because I want to feel comfortable in someone else’s presence, truly comfortable with someone for the first time in my entire life”

Bonnie’s hummed reassuredly, tightening her arms around Remadia as she rubbed her cheek against the top of her head. She pressed her lips and began to rock softly from side to side. Moments passed and she felt a single, silent sob rack Remadia’s body. She slowly loosened her grip, rubbing her fingers gently into Remadia’s back as she allowed herself be pulled away. Remadia attempted to maintain her facade of composure in vain as her arms fell limply to her sides, her reddened eyes locked to Bonnie’s chin to avoid looking at the soft smile on her lips. Bonnie’s hands still rested on Remadia’s shoulders as they stood there in a comfortable silence. Bonnie sighed and leaned down so Remadia was forced to look her in the eyes, giving a cheeky grin as Remadia gave a single, defiant sniffle.

“Okay, you needy bitch, get this girdle off me. I’ll hold your wee, simpering form in my big strong arms and whisper sweet-nothings in your ear.”

Remadia’s facade broke, a wide grin splitting her face as she slapped Bonnie’s arm. “Oh, why thank you, my big, strong knight.” She giggled gently, her hands wiping the sudden tears of relief that had welled in her eyes. “Whatever would I do without you?”

Their laughter continued, growing, as Remadia moved behind Bonnie and began to untie the lacing of her girdle. Bonnie relaxed as the pressure of the restrictive garment was relieved, her skin prickling where the girdle had been. The lacings holding up the dress came off next, and Bonnie felt freed as she let the dress fall from her shoulders to her waist, and she heard a soft gasp from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and caught Remadia’s eye, smiled cheekily, then brought her arms above her head and flexed, causing the muscles of her back to bulge.

Bonnie had never seen Remadia blush before.

Bonnie pulled the dress off her waist and down her body, slowly, deliberately; milking the attention she was being given for all it was worth as she showed off her powerful build for Remadia. She pulled the dress tight so that it bit into her thick, muscular ass, slowly dragging it down so more and more flesh muffined out over the top of the fabric before it all popped out, flexing each cheek and dancing her hips from side to side as she pulled the dress down her corded thighs; her thick calves. She turned to face Remadia with a confident grin, hoping that she had enjoyed the show.

Remadia looked like a cat who had just discovered a bowl of rich cream.

“Shall we retire?” Bonnie gestured towards the bed, raising an eyebrow as suavely as she could muster.

“Oh,” Remadia purred, “my dear, I have been waiting for you to ask me that all night.”

Remadia didn’t move, however, and Bonnie was confused. Guessing that Remadia was waiting for her to go first, Bonnie crawled onto the bed, and was rewarded with an appreciative hum from Remadia. As she had with the dress, she crawled across the bed deliberately, stretching out her legs and arms and moving so that her muscles rippled and bulged with the shifting of her weight, prowling across the mattress. She reached the pillows, finishing her show for Remadia with a wink, and gracelessly flopped onto the bed.

“All right, my lady. Time for bed.” Bonnie turned to find Remadia staring at her, eyes barely focused and doing nothing to hide the lustful delight on her face as she bit excitedly at her lower lip.

Bonnie’s words snapped Remadia out of her thoughts. “Oh, right. Bed.” Remadia crawled hastily onto the bed, before she stopped. “I forgot the candles,” she muttered, turning around and busying herself snuffing out the lights around the room. Bonnie had seen Remadia in various states of undress, but had never really appreciated Remadia’s body until now.

She paid particular attention to how Remadia’s pear-shaped backside, broad and dimpled, jiggled with every step she took, rocking from side to side with the movement of her hips. Bonnie watched as the orange light of the candles played against Remadia’s pale skin, following the curve of her body up her arm to her delicate fingers holding the snuffer.

The last candle went out, and Remadia made her way back onto the bed, where Bonnie was waiting for her eagerly on her side, waiting to play the big spoon. She felt the shifting of the mattress as Remadia moved, but instead of crawling inside Bonnie’s embrace she pushed Bonnie over onto her back, and sprawled herself on top of Bonnie, her face resting on the soft skin of Bonnie’s sternum.

“Is this uncomfortable for you, dear Bonnie?” Remadia whispered, laying a small kiss against the inside of Bonnie’s breast. “Gods, you are so warm.”

“It’ll do, seeing as I doubt I have a say in the matter.”

“Good girl,” she said, shifting her head and kissing the inside of Bonnie’s other breast.

Bonnie had to restrain a giggle as she felt Remadia’s arms come up along her sides and around each breast, hugging them together to smother her head. “You like those, don’t you.” Remadia squeezed her arms tight several times in succession, jiggling Bonnie’s breasts so they slapped against her head, before letting them fall to the side.

“They’re quite nice, yes,” she mumbled. Bonnie brought an arm up to gently stroke Remadia’s head. “That’s quite nice, too.”

“Mm,” Bonnie hummed, taking long, slow breaths, her hand stroking Remadia’s hair and down her back, rubbing small circles with strong fingers. Remadia let out pleased hums when Bonnie rubbed in the right places. She felt Remadia beginning to relax, her head rising and falling on Bonnie’s broad chest. Soon Remadia’s body was slack with sleep.

Bonnie stared into the darkness, mind still whirling from the night’s events.

To trouble, she thought, as sleep began to take her.

-To Trouble! This Time, with Feeling-

Bonnie awoke to the sounds of drawers being shuffled through.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying on her side, and partially under the covers. Beyond the bed, she could see Remadia busying herself with something in front of the mirror, clad only in a garterbelt and stockings, eliciting a small, “oh!” of appreciation from Bonnie. She watched Remadia’s shapely behind as she bent over to pull something out of a basket next to her. Remadia, hearing Bonnie, snapped upright, excited.

“Bonnie, you’re awake. Are you ready, my dear?” she asked, slapping something against her palm. It took Bonnie a moment, and sitting upright, to recognize that Remadia was holding a riding crop. “I have already cleared my morning plans, so we have some time to ourselves.”

“O-oh,” Bonnie stuttered, feeling a thoroughly surprising, but not unwelcome, thrum of lust roll through her body. Her eyes wandered from the riding crop to her narrow shoulders, across creamy skin to the pale areolae of her gently-sloped breasts, and down Remadia’s stomach, soft handles hugged tightly by the black lace of the garter belt, stretched over broad hips. The straps that held Remadia’s stockings up framed her coppery bush. “I wasn’t, uh, expecting this to happen so quickly.”

“I remember being quite forthright with my intentions, dear.” Remadia looked at the riding crop in her hands. “Is it the crop? Is that too much?”

“Oh, uh, no. I don’t think so. You’re just, um,” Bonnie struggled to find the words to the feelings of arousal and intimidation she was experiencing. She felt like the emotions should be at odds with one another, but instead they fed into one another as she stared at Remadia in her scant lingerie. “You’re more, well, dressed up for this than I guess I’d expected?”

The clear ring of Remadia’s affectionate laughter reddened Bonnie’s ears in embarassment. “Oh, Bonnie. Dear Bonnie. I adore every innocent fiber of your pure and earnest soul.”

She spoke with such fondness Bonnie couldn’t bear to look at her. She felt like a child being condescended as she contemplated the edges of the woven rug behind Remadia’s feet. “I don’t see what’s so innocent about fucking,” she muttered, her mouth pursing into a pout.

“Oh, my love, I didn’t mean to embarrass you, please!” She took a few soft steps towards the bed. “I just enjoy the presentation of it all. The showmanship sets the scene, my dear. Forgive me, my love, and come sit closer for a moment?”

Bonnie sighed apologetically as she released the petulant anger she’d been holding, her shoulders relaxing as she nodded in assent and scooched herself along the bed so that she was sitting on the edge closest to Remadia. She couldn’t bring herself to actually look at her, because now she was embarrassed over how she reacted. She wanted to do this, she just was not used to this level of ceremony in the bedroom. Bonnie was used to more carnal, base affairs; or, preferably, gentle, loving intimacy. Never something so directed.

Remadia strolled towards Bonnie with hard, deliberate steps, swinging her hips with every movement, and snapped the riding crop up under Bonnie’s chin. With gentle pressure, Bonnie let her chin be lifted ever-so slightly and turned so that her eyes were level with Remadia’s. “Am I forgiven, my Bonnie?”

The look she was being given sent a trail of liquid fire through her, melting her insides, pooling in her loins. Her mouth was dry, but she managed to voice a soft, “yes, of course.”

“Then, tell me, love, is this all right?”

Bonnie nodded, slack-jawed.

Remadia leaned forward, lips barely touching the shell of Bonnie’s ear. “Tell me, my dear, what it is that you don’t want me to do,” she whispered.

Bonnie struggled to collect her thoughts, her mind forgetting its previous embarrassment and now racing with lust. Her hands were balled in her lap, and with Remadia’s shoulder just in front of her face, she was having a hard time resisting the urge to kiss the base of Remadia’s neck. “I, uh, can’t seem to think of anything that I’d say no to at the moment.”

Remadia laid a kiss in front of her ear. “Then I’ll be very gentle with you, my dear,” she murmured against Bonnie’s skin, laying a soft trail with her lips towards Bonnie’s mouth before capturing it in a passionate kiss. When she pulled away, Bonnie’s skin was flushed and Bonnie was left with a lazy grin. “I know what I like, but I don’t know what you like, beyond what the twins have told me. Do you like tender?”

Bonnie could feel the tip of the riding crop sliding down her neck. She swallowed dryly. “I do. Definitely.” The wide leather piece tickled at her throat before sliding between her breasts, causing her skin to prickle with gooseflesh and her pectoral muscles to spasm. The piece trailed across the heavy curve of one breast, and lingered at the sensitive ring of her areola before giving a sudden, stinging flick across her perked nipple. Bonnie gasped.

“How about that, my dear?” Remadia said as she kissed Bonnie’s lower lip, taking it between her lips and gently sucking on it. Bonnie moaned as the crop continued to gently play with her nipple. Remadia pulled away, pulling Bonnie’s lip as far as it could go before it slipped from between her lips with a wet pop!

“I,” Bonnie stumbled, “wow.”

“Talk to me, my dear, tell me what you’re thinking.” As Remadia spoke, the riding crop had resumed its trail south, tickling at Bonnie’s stomach, and Remadia licked her lips as she watched Bonnie’s powerful gut muscles twitch and dance under the crop. Then, Bonnie’s muscles still tense, the crop teased down lower, slipping behind where Bonnie’s balled fists had remained in her lap, not knowing where to go.

Bonnie could feel the crop playing at her bush, and then with a gentle push from Remadia, she felt the broad, flat leather of the bit rub slickly down her mound, the rod of the crop cool and hard against her clit. She hissed between clenched teeth, shuddering as she unclenched her hands to grip her thighs. “Sheesh,” she paused to take a breath, “wow, you really, uh-” Bonnie was at a loss for words.

“I what, darling?”

“You put much more showmanship into this than the twins do,” Bonnie said. “Artemis and Apollo are much more about throwing themselves at me and figuring it out from there.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, dear. Those two are very,” she took a moment, toying with the crop against Bonnie’s crotch, making Bonnie shudder against it, before finishing her statement, “impatient.” Remadia gripped Bonnie’s chin firmly before kissing her again. “Now, my dear, I need you to turn over onto your knees and present your lovely fat ass to me.” She withdrew the now-slick crop from the crevice of Bonnie’s thighs.

“Yes, my lady,” Bonnie said as she began to turn, moving around so she was on all fours.

“I’m so glad you’re getting into this, my dear Bonnie, but I must ask, how do you feel about being lashed with my crop?” Bonnie could hear the crack of the crop against Remadia’s hand.

“What? Why?” Bonnie looked behind her to find Remadia with a look of disappointment on her face.

“I ask because, although I adore your sense of propriety, I thought I was quite clear last night with how I want you to address me when we’re not bound by formalities,” she said, before she began to play at Bonnie’s exposed sex with the crop.

Bonnie understood that it was intended as some sort of punishment. “Oh.” She let out a moan as the leather danced between her sensitive folds, “I guess give it a try and I will, uh, let you know, Remadia.”

Crack! Bonnie gasped as her body rocked forward involuntarily away from the blow, happening so much more quickly than she had been expecting. Tingling waves of pain and pleasure blossomed from where the rod had connected at the bottom of her raised rump. “Are you alright, dear?” She heard from behind her. She was still reeling from the blow. It stung, and the lingering pain was beginning to overtake any pleasure she might have felt from it. It stung in a way that hurt differently from any blow she’d ever weathered. It was humiliating.

“Can we, um, maybe not with the rod?” she said, sheepishly. She tried to control the hurt in her voice, and she didn’t know why there was suddenly tears in her eyes. Immediately, the riding crop was gone, and there was movement on the bed as Remadia climbed onto it and around to Bonnie’s side, pressing her full body against her in a hug as she shushed and apologized to Bonnie. She leaned down to Bonnie’s face, gently kissing her.

“I’m so sorry, my dear, it’s all right. It’s all right.” Soft, gentle kisses from Remadia between each word. “We are here for pleasure, our pleasure.” More soft kisses as Remadia stroked her hair and hugged Bonnie’s head to her. Remadia tipped Bonnie’s head back, and peppered her mouth with apologetic pecks, her lips moving to kiss the small tears of shame that had beaded on Bonnie’s eyelashes. She mouthed her way down Bonnie’s cheek until she found her lips again, moving against them and feeding into more passionate, longer, slow kisses as their mouths opened against each other, her tongue playing softly with Bonnie’s.

The stinging of the welt on her backside faded quickly from Bonnie’s mind as she lost herself in the kiss, one hand moving to cup the back of Remadia’s head, the other coming up along her side to cup Remadia’s hip, large fingers digging into the ample flesh of her backside. Bonnie massaged Remadia’s butt, earning a series of small moans from Remadia as she leaned into the kiss.

After a moment, Remadia broke the kiss, panting. “Do you mind, my dear, if I spank at your ass with only my hands? Not as punishment, but because I wish to play with it.”

“That’s,” Bonnie paused, considering it. “That’s fine. I don’t know why I started crying like that, I’m sorry.”

Remadia put a finger against Bonnie’s lips. “Shush, now, dear, you need not apologize. Sometimes you do not enjoy a thing because it comes with emotional baggage, and sometimes you do not enjoy a thing simply because you do not find the thing enjoyable.” She laid a gentle kiss to Bonnie’s forehead. “You do not need to explain yourself, either, just tell me when I’ve crossed the line.”

Bonnie was grateful for that. She didn’t know how to explain the pain to Remadia, because she herself wasn’t sure why it had affected her so much.

“Now, if you would lie down so that I might play with your butt, my dear.”

“Oh, right.” Bonnie said, stretching herself out and propping her head up on her arms.

Remadia moved herself so that she knelt at Bonnie’s hip. “You have such a lovely, powerful ass, my dear,” she purred, taking a cheek under each hand and squeezing hard before massaging them firmly. “I wish you could see it the way I do, Bonnie. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

Her heart swelling in her chest, Bonnie moaned as Remadia dug into her flesh, working it with gentle force, pushing and pulling, kneading her meaty ass with practiced care. Bonnie felt like so much dough beneath Remadia’s skilled fingertips. She imagined Remadia could feel the intense heat radiating from between her thighs, and as she relaxed even further into Remadia’s ministrations, she imagined those fingers sliding between her cheeks to explore the slippery heat building there.

“My dear, I’m going to smack your ass now so that I can watch it ripple and redden. Is that okay?”

Bonnie nodded, brought back from her fantasies, and hummed her assent as she braced herself.

Smack! Bonnie felt her butt move under the blow, but it didn’t sting like the riding crop had; Remadia’s hand was much softer and lacked the whip of the crop’s flexible rod. Without the weight of punishment, her mind didn’t lock itself up lingering on the blow. She could feel Remadia hesitate beside her, waiting for something.

“Are you alright, love? May I strike again?”

Bonnie hummed her assent again, more confident than before, anticipating and even looking forward to the spank as Remadia’s hand smacked down. Remadia hesitated again, and Bonnie just nodded, arching her back and lifting her butt to meet the next blow. This is almost fun, Bonnie thought, as another spank rang out, this time on the inside of her cheek. Then another, and another, and then another. Each smack began to sting more and more, until after one blow Bonnie shifted her hips to avoid it. Immediately, Remadia began to massage her reddening, swollen skin, and Bonnie moaned. Her moans grew louder as Remadia poured some sort of oil on her sore skin, her busy fingers continuing their ministrations as Remadia whispered loving sweet-nothings to her.

“You are so beautiful, Bonnie; you’re so big and so beautiful,” Remadia murmured. Her praise comforted Bonnie, warmth flooding her chest. “I adore you so much, and you’re doing so well.” Remadia laid a kiss on Bonnie’s butt, and then another, her fingers sliding from the cheeks of Bonnie’s ass and down in between them, pushing and rubbing and kneading. “Thank you,” she murmured against Bonnie’s skin. Then her fingers, well-oiled, slid between Bonnie’s thighs, and toyed with the damp hair they found there, fingertips lightly tickling Bonnie’s folds.

Bonnie had a moment to realize what Remadia was doing before Remadia slipped her fingers inside her, forcing Bonnie to cry out, “Remy!” as pleasure flowed through her body.

“Yes, my dear, finally!” Remadia purred, working her fingers inside Bonnie.

Bonnie gasped and struggled to regain her senses as every thrust of Remadia’s fingers made her squeak and moan. “Please, Remy. Please,” she whimpered. Begged. “Please fuck me.” Then she was empty and Remadia was pulling on her hips and she mindlessly raised herself back onto her knees, obeying her silent commands, and she could feel Remadia moving around behind her. She moaned at the loss of Remadia’s fingers inside her, only to cry out as they were replaced by Remadia’s eager tongue, dancing across her folds with practiced care before diving inside her with long, passionate strokes. Bonnie began to lose focus, her world becoming Remadia lovingly devouring her cunt, her mouth hanging open mindlessly as Remadia began to work Bonnie’s clitoris with her fingers. She squeezed her eyes shut as every muscle in her abdomen twitched in sporadic spasms, before everything tightened at once as she came screaming against Remadia’s face. Remadia didn’t pull away from Bonnie’s orgasm, prolonging it with her expert tongue and gentle fingers. It pulsed through her in waves, and every time Bonnie thought she was done, another pulse would roll through her core, guided by Remadia. A sob escaped her mouth and her arms gave out as yet another wave of soul-shattering pleasure coursed through her, tears welling in her eyes; her mind going blank as Remadia pushed her over the edge and so much further beyond, eyes rolling back into her head as she lost herself, only knowing overwhelming pleasure.

When she was allowed to finally rest, she sobbed in relief as her brain began to reassemble thoughts, piecemeal, and she was able to make sense of her surroundings again. Her upper body was being cradled in Remadia’s lap and sweet words were being whispered into her ear. She could feel Remadia’s fingers tracing gentle circles across the soft muscle above her breast; a mindless, soothing motion.

“You did such a wonderful job, my dear. Thank you.” Gentle kisses were placed along the side of her face. Bonnie leaned into them, turning her head so her lips met Remadia’s, and let their tongues twist together in a languid dance. Remadia pulled back. “You’re so good. You’re wonderful.”

Bonnie grinned, her eyes struggling to focus on Remadia’s, her breathing still shaky. “So, Remy.” Remadia beamed at her, and Bonnie could see a tear well in Remadia’s eye. “How can I return the favor?”

Remadia wiped the tear away with her knuckle. “Oh, well, I can think of some ways, but I think the quickest would be for me to mount your face.”

Bonnie’s brow furrowed in confusion, not expecting such a blunt answer after being given such a thorough fucking. She couldn’t stop herself from pouting. “It doesn’t have to be the quickest, you know.”

“Oh, but dear,” Remadia laughed, “your enthusiasm is wonderful. I do, however, have to return to my duties as the Countess of Chapel Bay at some point today.”

“Oh,” Bonnie huffed, “I guess we can do that. But why ride my face? Why not let me use these big meaty mitts on you?” She cocked an eyebrow, wiggling the fingers of one hand. “I’ve got more in two fingers than most men do in a whole cock.”

Remadia’s laugh was hearty and pure. “My dear, I do so love your way with words.” She caressed Bonnie’s cheek, still smiling. “You might be able to devastate me with those so-called meaty mitts of yours, but me riding your face offers me much more,” she leaned in to whisper in Bonnie’s ear, “control.”

The word sent tingles of warmth fluttering through her loins again. “You do like control, don’t you, Remy?”

“I do so like control.” Remadia began shifting herself out from underneath Bonnie’s shoulders. “Now, on your back and face up, love. Time is of the essence.”

Bonnie complied, rolling over, face up and expectant. Remadia was on her knees above her, and Bonnie was staring up at Remadia’s coppery bush and big, soft thighs that led to the curves of Remadia’s fat ass.

Remadia balanced herself with one hand against Bonnie’s heavy breast, her rough grip making Bonnie gasp, as she spread the lips of her cunt above Bonnie’s eager face. “Bonnie, tongue out and working efficiently. One hand dug firmly into my ass, the other toying with my tit. Your nose might be sore, but I won’t break it, I’m sure.” She looked down between her legs at Bonnie, waiting.

Bonnie felt her heart race as she moved her hands into their prescribed positions. Remadia’s nipple hardened against her palm, the breast weighty and soft against her rough skin. I wonder, Bonnie thought as she gazed at Remadia’s other breast as it hung, heavy and free, pinching the tissue around the areola with her thumb and forefinger and stretching out her pinky and ring finger towards the other areola, capturing it between the first knuckles of her fingers. Nice, she thought, bringing the two breasts together.

Remadia slapped her hand. “I love your proactive attitude, but you can play later.”

Bonnie readjusted her hand so that she firmly gripped only the one breast.

“Ready?”

Bonnie stuck her tongue out so that it laid broad and flat against her chin, upper lip curled over her teeth. “Ready,” she struggled to say with her tongue out.

“Let us begin.”

Bonnie was not as ready as she had thought when her entire world became the soft, hot, damp dark of Remadia’s thighs. Remadia rode hard, driving the wet mouth of her opening against Bonnie’s tongue. Bonnie recovered by arching her tongue into it, firming it so that it drove itself inside Remadia as she ground against Bonnie’s face, and Remadia froze, hands gripping Bonnie’s breasts too hard as she took a second to readjust before bouncing against Bonnie’s stiffened tongue. Suddenly the world was bright as Remadia adjusted herself again, turning herself around so that Bonnie was looking up the front of Remadia’s body. They locked eyes.

“Tongue hard. Suck clit. Hand: thigh. Support me,” Remadia commanded, her gaze unfocused and her mouth open, breath quickened.

Bonnie didn’t bother attempting to reply - and wasn’t give time to - as Remadia picked up right where she had left off. Bonnie complied as best she could as Remadia fucked herself on Bonnie’s tongue. Remadia managed between thrusts to cross her feet beneath Bonnie’s head, and Bonnie lost the ability to breathe as her mouth and nose were sealed against Remadia’s loins. Bonnie, being proactive again, loosened her tongue and began to let it play inside and and against Remadia, licking eagerly at Remadia’s wet hole.

“Gods, Bonnie,” Remadia cried out, “your tongue - fuck!” she bit her lip as she continued to grind against Bonnie’s face. “I don’t think I’ll need your fingers, Bonnie.” She choked for a moment as Bonnie’s tongue dove deep and hard. “Fuck, Bonnie, why’s your tongue so big?” Remadia’s face was red, eyes crossed, and loud, erratic gasps escaping her slack mouth.

Bonnie kept trying to catch breaths through her nose, but Remadia locked her legs behind Bonnie’s head and sat back on her chest, her eyes squeezed shut and mouth hanging open in a silent cry as she curled herself around Bonnie. Slick juices filled and spilled out of Bonnie’s mouth, but she obediently kept working at Remadia, as Remadia had done for her. When she was allowed to pull her head away, she realized just how soaked she was, her hair matting and stuck to her face and the inside of Remadia’s thigh. The mattress beneath her was not spared, dampened by Remadia’s passionate flood. Shaking, Remadia unhooked her legs from behind Bonnie’s head and stretched them out as she laid backwards atop Bonnie, the joints of her knees cracking harshly in her ears. Her arms fell bonelessly to her sides, resting atop Bonnie��s breasts as she languished in the afterglow of her orgasm, panting heavily. She toyed limply with Bonnie’s nipples, weak fingers pulling at them and slapping at the breast, letting them bounce and jiggle in idle, giggling amusement. Bonnie tried to return the favor, taking Remadia’s breasts roughly in hand, pinching the areolae beneath the nipples and squeezing the whole breast tight. She could feel Remadia spasm against her in response, Remadia’s ass clenching and abdomen tightening as she drew her legs back in against Bonnie’s head. Bonnie was intrigued.

Remadia slapped Bonnie’s hand, hissing, “stop it,” startling Bonnie.

Bonnie let go.

“Thank you,” she said. “Sorry to snap, I get very sensitive post-coitus, and I’m a touch overstimulated, dear.”

Bonnie nodded though Remadia couldn’t see her, and gently massaged the tissue of the breast instead.

“Much better, love. Thank you.” After a moment of enjoying the massage, Remadia lifted Bonnie’s hands off her and had Bonnie readjust herself as she clambered gracelessly around her, so that Bonnie was on her side holding Remadia against her, and Remadia had her head buried into Bonnie’s sternum, sandwiched between her breasts.

Bonnie sighed, tolerating the uncomfortable heat as she started tracing circles against Remadia’s back.

Bonnie had no frame of reference for the time, but the sun seemed like it was getting very late in the morning. She craned her neck down to an uncomfortable degree to put her lips against Remadia’s scalp. “Remy,” she mumbled, kissing her head and pulling back before she strained her neck, “as much as I love cuddling with you, you did say time was of the essence.”

Remadia - who had started drifting in and out of sleep in Bonnie’s warm embrace- stilled, fists balling themselves up against Bonnie’s side. “Damn it,” she muttered, glaring up at Bonnie from between Bonnie’s tits.

Bonnie couldn’t help but to laugh at the sight, letting her go and rolling away. No longer in the moment, Bonnie became aware of the strong and distinct reek of sweat and sex. She stood, stretching her tall body out and groaning with every pop and crackle of her spine. “Let us get going, my lady,” Bonnie said, a cheeky smile on her face as she turned and bowed low, “your Countessness is needed.”

Remadia chucked a pillow at Bonnie’s head. Bonnie laughed as she caught it, throwing it back at Remadia, guffawing as the pillow caught Remadia across the face, knocking her over and making her cry out in surprise.

“Fine!” Remadia laughed, pulling the pillow off her face and making a noise of mock disgust. “I’ll bathe and let my couturiers make me presentable to the world.” She rolled off the bed, turning to consider the dark, damp spots across the mattress left over from their lovemaking. “I’ll have to have this cleaned thoroughly, as well.”

“Indeed,” Bonnie said.

They stood there. A minute passed and Bonnie shuffled her feet, not sure what else to do. Remadia opened her mouth as if to speak, and then closed it. Bonnie curled the toes of one foot, cracking the joints.

“Bonnie, I-” Remadia started.

“Remy, that was amazing.” Bonnie interrupted. “That was incredible. I, uh,” Bonnie was reaching for words to say, “well, that is, I’d like to maybe-?”

Remadia smiled. “Oh, absolutely, Bonnie.” Remadia moved around the bed, closing the distance between her and Bonnie. She reached up and caressed Bonnie’s cheek. “Did you honestly think after all that, I didn’t intend for this to be a regular occurrence?”

Bonnie blushed, embarrassed. “I hadn’t been sure what to to think.”

“Bonnie, I told you I wasn’t going to just abandon you on the floor - the floor being metaphorical in this case,” Remadia stroked Bonnie’s lip with her thumb, “and, anyway, it’s not like I could piss off and away from you, anyway. You are my bodyguard, afterall.”

Bonnie beamed, and Remadia beamed back. “Oh, yeah. I guess I am that, yes.” Bonnie leaned down to Remadia, and Remadia rose to meet her in a soft kiss.

“Okay, my dear, go on and see about cleaning yourself up,” Remadia said, pulling away and giving Bonnie a playful swat on the rear.

“Can’t I see about bathing with you instead?” Bonnie joked as she picked up her dress, still kicked to to the wayside in a careless pile from the night before.

“Please, Bonnie, it’s hard enough to keep my hands off your skin as it is. On! Away with you!” Remadia kept swatting Bonnie’s butt, pushing Bonnie towards the door as Bonnie was scrambling to slip her arms inside the sleeves of the dress.

Laughing, Bonnie managed to get her arms into the dress and over her bust, Remadia unrelenting in her jovial assault. Bonnie turned away from Remadia so that she could wrap the train of the dress around her waist, providing mild modesty down to mid-thigh.

“Bonnie,” Remadia groaned, “if the twins catch sight of you-”

“If they catch sight of me.”

“Take a moment to put the dress on at least somewhat properly, Bonnie. You look like a fool.”

Bonnie gasped in mock horror. “My lady, do you-?” She interrupted herself with another gasp. “Do you presume to lecture me on - dare I say it? - propriety?”

Remadia pursed her lips and made a sound somewhere between a shriek and a strangled roar as Bonnie laughed herself out of the room.

#writing #fantasy #romance #original characters #original work #bonnie of braugh #queer romance #wlw romance #consent is sexy #a toast to trouble

65 notes · View notes

callioope · 5 years

Text

Questions Meme!

Hello, yes, this HAS in fact been sitting in my drafts for ages and ages. Thank you to both @crazy-fruit and @ruby-red-inky-blue for tagging me and for waiting forever for me to answer (oops)! I’m sorry I took so long, but y’all ask really good questions and I had to think about some of them!

Question Set 1

1. How are you?

Oh, I’m doing alright! Thank you for asking. The earlier part of this year was rather rough, but therapy has been helping. I’ve been rather busy these past few weeks with traveling, and my schedule going forward is rather busy, too, so while I’m excited for those things, I’m also excited for the eventual moment I can just relax.

2. What would you say are your talents?

Writing. Making fancy color-coded spreadsheets. I’ve been told that my super power is getting random (annoying) songs stuck in other people’s heads. Does that count as a talent?

3. If you had the chance to start your life again, would you take it?

NOPE. No thanks. I like where I am at right now, and I would not want to relive my awkward years. Er, at least, my more awkward, younger years. Cuz I’m totally still awkward. Just less awkward. I hope?

4. Which language would you like to speak instantly?

HMM. ALL OF THEM. It’s really hard to choose!

Language fascinates me, and in another life I feel like I would have devoted a lot more time to learning more of them. Unfortunately, I really hated German class in high school because of the teacher’s tendency to put people on the spot -- I think that is sort of inherent in a language class, but I get anxiety speaking in public.

Anyways, I suppose I’ll answer Turkish to this question, since spouse and I keep saying we’re going to try to learn Turkish via Duolingo. For the record, my HS offered six languages, which was the most I’ve ever heard of an American school offering, and I was always quite happy with my choice of German. (The others were Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, and Latin.) I do wish I had maintained my German better, and I that I had more time to learn Spanish.

5. Where would you like to be right now?

Honestly? I’m pretty happy when I’m at home. But if I had to answer where “else” would I like to be right now, out of the whole world? Being back on safari in Botswana is a top contender, as are a variety of places in Turkey, and also Munich.

6. What name would you give yourself?

I’ve always liked my actual name (Elizabeth). I know I go by Liz; one of my HS friends was quite stubborn and I’m a bit stuck with it now, but I don’t mind it. There are worse nicknames that come from Elizabeth. I used to go by Fiona online; I’ve always been fond of that one.

7. What is something you’re currently learning?

OOF, what a good question. I sorta blanked on this at first, and my first thought was uhhhh learning how to cope with my OCD??? I’m doing exposure therapy right now, ish. Emphasis on the ish. Also mindfulness. Does that really even count? I started a beginner’s knitting project several months ago that I never finished, does that count? (I just need to seam it, that’s what I’m putting off. I have knit plenty of scarves; however, this is my first hat.) I’m sort of teaching myself ukulele although I haven’t really learned any new chords or songs in awhile. I would very much like to take more photography classes with a focus on wildlife photography. That involves buying a new camera and... signing up for classes.

Question Set 2

1. What is a detail in a piece of art/a text that you like that you really admire?

This was very difficult, at first because it was like looking at a bin full of loose things and just seeing an assortment of color and being overwhelmed by it all, and then because once I did start digging around, I kept finding different ideas and it was too hard too choose.

Character-building: In the A Song of Ice and Fire series, when Arya starts working for the House of Black and White, Martin stops using the name “Arya” as she dons different identities. For example, he uses “Cat” for a bit, among other names. It shows she’s trying to be someone else, but the caveat is that there are still little mannerisms and such that show she hasn’t really left Arya behind (I think maybe she bites her lip or something? I don’t remember specific examples because it’s been over 5 years since I read these books, but I do remember really appreciating the general technique at the time).

Music: In The Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” I love those repeated arpeggios, over and over, building, intensifying, as the white noise comes in and you can just feel the heaviness of desire, of want... (and then I love how it just breaks so suddenly! And I know it wouldn’t have been intended this way because that’s the end of side one, but since I listen to the whole album on spotify, then those bright chords of “Here Comes the Sun” come in and god Abbey Road is the best Beatles album)

Writing: the poetry of Florence + The Machine’s “All This and Heaven Too,” obviously, since literally the title of my blog comes from that. I’d quote that whole song honestly. There’s something that speaks to me about the incapability of language to fully encompass just... everything. I mean, love in specific here, but also just everything. Words are just these little boats we put meaning on and we hope they make it to the other side but everyone takes ‘em a little differently.

Like, look at this:

And the words are all escaping, and coming back all damaged And I would put them back in poetry if I only knew how

And this:

Words were never so useful So I was screaming out a language that I never knew existed before

Anyways, there’s also something just incredibly soothing about the music, too, and how she sings the song. There’s another line, from Sara Bareilles’ “Miss Simone” that goes “How does she know what a heart sounds like?” which pretty much sums up how I feel about “All This and Heaven Too” (and also many of Sara Bareilles’ song, especially that particular album, but I digress).

Anyways I did have some art examples, but I think I’ve rambled long enough.

2. Is there an idea that you really liked but had to discard because you couldn’t get it to work?

If I really like an idea, I don’t really “discard” it so much as put it on the shelf to attempt later. Out of recent fic ideas, I’ve really struggled with “How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days.” I first thought of this in late spring 2017, and for awhile I couldn’t stop thinking about it, but I was working on Whatever I Do at the time, and wanted to wait before starting another WIP. By the time I got to writing this, the inspiration well had sort of dried up.

I really like the idea of a fun cat-and-mouse rom-com idea where Jyn and Cassian keep outsmarting each other, with a whole lot of competency kink, some “oh shit we actually work well together!” and maybe some battle couple. And I was really looking forward to both the moment when they both finally let their guards down around each other and the big confrontation when they actually find out each other’s identities. But it involved more mission writing than I was prepared for, and I really struggled with it. I think I need to start over but that involves a lot of working, so it’s unfortunately shelved for now, and I’m working on a “You’ve Got Mail” concept instead.

3. Is there something fandom-related you would like to be able to do (i.e. I’d like to be able to make gif sets but can’t)?

Oh, yes, absolutely! Really anything that’s not writing related, lol. Gif sets, art, etc. But most of all, I have a music video idea for the song “So Close” from Enchanted--like I have a whole story board plotted out in a google doc. But I don’t have any video editing software, don’t even know how you get the scenes for a music video, etc. I have made videos before, but not since high school, and I don’t even have the cheap, basic video editing program I used back then. Sometimes I think I should just attempt make a gif set instead, but there are so many lyrics! and scenes that go with the lyrics! that I don’t know how to consolidate it into that format anyways.

4. What is a skill you’ve acquired through fandom work?

Hmm, this was tough. I’m going to say HTML. I’m not up-to-date on webdesign at all, but back in my early fandom days, I ran a few fansites. I still sometimes use HTML while leaving comments or to edit posts on dreamwidth or w/e. It’s super basic, but it has helped me at work at a variety of jobs. I take it for granted that people my age should know basic HTML, but a lot of them don’t, and then a lot of people I work with now are older and definitely not tech savvy.

5. Do you think anyone can learn to create great art, or does it take talent?

Well, I’m going to cheat a little. I do think think that anyone can learn to create great art, but I also think that everyone has a talent at something, and part of learning to create great art is recognizing your skill sets and honing those. If that makes sense? I’ve sort of seen both sides to this. I’ve seen naturally talented people create great things, but I also think that they’re probably cheating themselves if they’re not learning and honing their craft and trying to get better. But I’ve also seen people who started out making things that maybe you wouldn’t call great, but they worked hard over and over again, and looking at their work now, you’d say they were talented without ever knowing the difference. Great art = talent + learning + passion. Did that even answer the question? ...moving on

6. Do you prefer AUs or in-universe? Why?

I prefer to write in-universe, for sure. I find modern AUs more challenging, mostly because--and I feel kinda bad saying this--it’s very difficult for me to tap into Jyn and Cassian’s characters without some kind of tragic background. Their experiences and how they coped with them shape their personalities, and it’s really hard to separate them from those. My WWII was easier because, hey, it’s war, not so different from in-verse. But I initially tried to write Learning Curve in a modern AU and I was just totally bored. Putting it in universe made it more interesting to me, especially having to finagle a happier plot inverse. IDK, it might even be that I generally struggle to make up any conflict in modern AUs that feels interesting.

THAT SAID, lol, I definitely read either. So it’s probably strange for me to be hung up on it because I’ve read nice fluffy modern AUs and found them perfectly engaging.

Tagging: @theputterer, @magalis, @allatariel, @mythologicalmango, @threadsketchier MY USUAL DISCLAIMER APPLIES: no pressure if you just don’t wanna, AND if anyone sees this and was like “aw hey i wish she’d tagged ME” well guess what, I wish I did too! so go ahead and do it and let me know and then i’ll know to tag you next time, too :-)

Questions:

When you suffer a setback or a series of setbacks when creating (writing, drawing, knitting, any kind of crafty project thing you work on... even work), what are some strategies you use to cope with that stress and move forward?

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to create/make and what did you learn from it?

What part of a bicycle would you be?

What’s a helpful writing (art/crafting/work) technique you’ve learned?

What’s a piece of art that made you see things differently?

You’re a new addition to the crayon box. What color would you be and why?

What was the last board game you played and what did you like or not like about it?

*sorry these came out rather writer heavy!

#about me #tag meme

4 notes · View notes

summerspn · 5 years

Text

Captain Marvel (2019)

Random movie review...(and rambling)

(Minor Spoilers)

It was great!

I can’t tell you how it feels to have a movie resonate so much with me... I suppose this is what it felt like for many people watching Black Panther.

It just...it was kind of beautiful.

People talk about representation but that’s only part of it.

It’s about getting it right.

I was lucky enough to have some strong role models growing up. My parents were/are great. My mom is independent and strong and vulnerable too. She shows me being strong can mean many things.

However, when see movie after movie of women being assistants - helping men & being secondary characters it does put a little nagging voice in the back of your mind that makes you questions things.

If in life women’s jobs are mainly second fiddle to men...and if they’re like that on tv & in movies then it must mean something. Right?

Growing up I’ve always been told what I can’t do - MOSTLY by men & boys. Women usually told me to ‘give it a shot’.

I guess these are some things I started thinking about after the movie. All the times I’ve been told I can’t do something just because I’m a girl.

I couldn’t play baseball. I wasn’t allowed to play with my brothers friends (my brother didn’t mind) because their parents forbid them from playing with girls because we’d get hurt. Never mind I later ended up on the school baseball team...

I was encouraged by high school guidance counselors NOT to go into design & technology despite the fact I had an A average and my highest grade was Drafting (at 98%).

I’m always told by random strangers to smile because it makes THEM feel good.

I’m always told that I need to help male coworkers out but they don’t help us. They talk over women all the time and don’t even realize it. Meetings go on for hours and we can’t take washroom breaks because the (male) bosses don’t need them (FYI women have 1/3 the size bladder than men do and holding it can result in various health issues...). Getting up and leaving the room would make us look weak and we could miss important information...

I’m not saying this to bring up a debate or to annoy. Simply that there are countless frustrations we go through our lives as women on a daily basis on top of the everyday frustrations everyone goes through.

One of these frustrations is that there was very little attention paid to the idea that a woman could be strong and even less that she could be a super hero. The past ten years things have been improving but at a slow rate.

I was lucky enough to have seen some female characters that are strong and intelligent on screen when I was in high school but I don’t remember any before that. Unless you count The Care Bears(but I never thought of any as having a gender) or Miss Piggy from The Muppets. But humans? I can’t think of any.

However, even in the 90’s these strong women often become damsels around men or have to have a romance going on. Why? Tons of movies with male leads don’t have those.

Even the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer (I still love it) had a massive focus on romantic relationships. It was forward thinking and progressive in many ways but it too had some flaws. It took several seasons for Buffy to show her intelligence and for the women on the show to stop competing for a mans attention (Buffy & Cordelia). Don’t get me wrong it was for the part really well written but I could never understand why there weren’t female characters that were smart AND strong. It was either nerd or soldier (slayer).

- While I am grateful for all the complex, layered & strong female characters out there they often fell short for me. Even back then...Decades ago.

- Why didn’t anyone do Wonder Woman until a couple years ago? The tv show tried back in the day but then there was very little effort until recent years. Why? And why were there no attempts at Captain Marvel before? I mean, how many attempts at Spider-Man have their been? Or the Hulk? Are there even female characters in the cartoons? (I literally have no idea but the commercials never show them...).

So, seeing this movie tonight I went in expecting the same entertainment as all the other Marvel movies and by the end I was thinking...

FINALLY!!!

Finally they get it. The creators, the powers that be, everyone who put this beautiful movie together. They get it.

From the subtle facial expressions that Brie Larson & Lashana Lynch has to the more obvious snippets showing the sexism women experience... to how the girl (Akira Akbar) tries to lift up & encourages her mother and embraces someone different. Showing the nurturing side of being a female as well as being brave, strong, intelligent & complex. It was done wonderfully.

Showing a few instances of Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel) rejecting the idea of being put into a box while trying to discover who she is can resonate with so many people.

I love how Danvers discovers she has power instead of being a tool to be used by someone.

And the fact that women can be strong, intelligent, brave and a million other things is great. But what many...many...MANY shows & movies have done lately is take power FROM men. They say they’re feminists and bash men. They become just as cruel as the people they want to take down or be equal to. That’s not right. This movie does not do that. It’s about discovering your OWN power with or without magical abilities!

I absolutely hate when I hear people say they’re for equality and women’s power but then bash men. I have a lot of great men in my life and I’d never want anything to happen to them. It’s unfortunate there are still old fashioned ideas that people have (even by men that love us) but hate is not going to lead to change.

I love how this movie treats the male-female interactions and relationships. After I saw this I let my brother know he should take both his kids to see it. My niece would love the strong female super hero since she hates the princess type movies (which at her age is about 90% of the movies female-led characters). And my nephew would find it funny and cool. He loves super hero’s. Plus it won’t make him feel bad.

Many of the so-called feminist stories/programs I’ve seen in the news, on TV, and even movies say men are the enemy. They’re not. My biggest pet peeve with that is...well, just think about it. How would you like to be watching a show and have the women bashed and told they ruin everything and that they’ve caused all the problems in the world? ...right...there’s an entire movement to stop that. So don’t do that for men either. Just lift each other up and pursue equality without trying to take power from anyone else. I’m very happy to say my nephew can watch something like Captain Marvel without having to feel any shame about his gender - and the EXACT same can be said for girls or any other pronoun one chooses to go by.

As far as plots go, it was good. Acting was good. The writing was good. It was entertaining and fun. The special effects were great.

I heard some bad reviews about this movie but that’s total BS. Ignore those. I find movies like this some people go in thinking it’ll make then run out of the theatre going ‘its the best movie of all time’ and it’ll never hold up to that hype. So some people will simply like it but still not consider it good enough 🤷‍♀️

As far as comparing this to other Marvel movies, yes you will enjoy it just as much, if not more than some of the others. It’s fun, entertaining, and has a couple twists. Don’t go in thinking it’ll change history or anything. It’s just a movie but it is a good one. Yes it resonates with me but that’s because the world was overdue for stories like this. Go into the movie to simply enjoy it.

I do however, recommend this to people with daughters & nieces especially. Especially if they don’t get exposed to strong intelligent and complex women or watch a lot of strong characters.

Do you have any idea how many shows are out there where the girls (characters) are idiots? Too many. And trying to buy toys for them - almost every box for toys about building, engineering, technology or science have boys on them. Boxes with girls are only for jewelry & perfume making. Hopefully this Christmas there will be Captain Marvel action figures instead.

So think about it. Why does girls’ confidence level dip as they get older? Maybe because a million messages telling us we shouldn’t do this or that while internally we want to. It’s an internal struggle that gets exhausting.

What am I trying to say?

Girls need to be exposed to good characters in different formats.

But seeing an intelligent, funny, female super hero right there on the big screen - magnificent and powerful...it’ll make girls feel powerful! It’ll give them ideas. Inspire them. Maybe they’ll want to be a pilot like Carol Danvers...maybe a soldier. Or maybe it’ll simply make her feel like she can go off and climb Mount Everest because she can do whatever she wants. She doesn’t have to listen to everyone telling her she can’t.

Seeing this as an adult I loved it because it was entertaining. My best friend also loved it but afterwards she said to me that it felt like they ‘got it right’ and she didn’t have to explain anything to me. I get it. For a thousand reasons I can’t seem to put into words.

One part of the movie near then end, I got teary eyed. I just felt a strong sense of pride. Not at the movie but at myself. After everything I’ve been through in my life. All my struggles - big and small - I’m still here. I get knocked down but I get right back up. I may not be a soldier, a pilot, or a super hero...he’ll, I’m terrified of spiders. But I am strong and I’ll always get right back up. Because I’m human. It’s what we do - all of us. And this movie is the first time in a very long time where it made me feel proud to be a woman.

And THAT is why Captain Marvel is going to resonate with girls & women everywhere.

Thank you to everyone who worked on this movie to make it happen. All the actors, the crew, & Mr Stan Lee (RIP).

FINALLY another step forward.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

5/5

8 notes · View notes

detroit-become-hurt · 6 years

Text

More Than Enough

Sorry this took me a while to get to!

Requested: Yes

Summary: Reader is very strong mentally, always helping others around her and listening to their problems. One day at work, when the paperwork piles up to high, she looses her cool, storming out. Connor goes home and finds her upset and drinking

I hope this was okay, enjoy!~

(Gif does not belong to me)

You were a strong person, mentally that is. Perhaps your physical strength was lacking slightly, but that was alright. Mentally, you were able to handle a lot more than others around you. In a way, you took pride that you were able to handle tense situations calmly, to be able to tackle pretty much any problem that was thrown your way. The words of praise from co-workers and your boss fueled you on. However, you had been struggling lately. Everything was just starting to feel like it was...too much. But instead of stopping and acknowledging the problem, you forced a smile on your face and made yourself continue with your work.

Walking into the precinct you waved at some of your friends, eye’s searching for a certain android as you placed your belongings at your desk. You didn’t spot him, so you supposed he was either not here yet, or looking for his partner. Sighing you briskly walked to the breakroom, grabbing a cup of coffee and making your way back to your desk. You groaned out loud seeing the stack of file reports you had to go through. “Some days I wish I had my own partner to help with these.” you grumbled while taking a sip of your coffee. Cracking your knuckles you get to work, eye’s scanning and searching for mistakes or errors. Each file was several pages long, and then you had to go and retype them in the correct format, so this was going to take a while. When it was lunchtime you had managed to make it through only two reports, still having three more to read, and then you had to retype them all.

Pushing work out of your head for the time being you cracked your back, smiling when you felt a pair of hands begin to rub your shoulders. There was only one person who did such a thing at work. “I missed you earlier.” You say looking up. Connor’s brown eyes stared back as he stopped rubbing your shoulders, “I am sorry. Lieutenant Hank and I had a case earlier we had to investigate.” Nodding you stand up smiling, “That’s alright. Want to join me for lunch?” You asked hopefully grabbing his hands. Connor’s LED blinks yellow a few times before he answered. “Unfortunately, Lieutenant and I have another case to go to in a few moments. I was just notified.” He says. You feel your shoulders slump slightly in disappointment. “That’s okay. I’ll see you later then.” Before you can pull away Connor speaks again, “I should be around the precinct later before it’s time for everyone to go home. We can leave together.” He suggests, making you feel slightly better.

Giving him a small smile you press a quick kiss to his cheek before grabbing your bag. You’re walking out of the DPD to grab some food when one of your co-workers stops you. “Hey y/n! Some of us are going to grab some lunch, want to tag along?” Jack asked. “Sure!” You reply walking over to him and some others. Together you all head to a small pizzeria that was just down the block. You thought this was going to be a pleasant lunch, but in all reality it was more of a therapy session. It seemed that everyone at the table with you had some kind of problem, and they didn’t know how to deal with it. Now there was nothing wrong with just venting about things, however your co-workers weren’t doing this. They were specifically asking you for advice.

There was Jack who had a problem with his wife at home, something about her being clingy. “You’re a woman y/n, what would a guy have to do to get you to give him some slack?” He joked, causing a chorus of chuckles from the table. His comment irritated and hurt your feelings a bit, but you just shrug it off. Another co-worker, Mary, was getting to in depth about her relationship problems, and was trying to pry into your own relationship. “So tell me, how does...you know….work with Connor?” She asks making gestures. You weren’t entirely sure if she was serious, or just kidding. And the gestures she was making wasn’t helping either. By the end of lunch you were pissed off, and annoyed. You walked ahead of everyone, making it back to the DPD before all of them. Arriving at your desk you stop seeing more files piled on top of the ones you had yet to touch.

You were just about ready to scream in frustration, throwing your bag on the ground and ripping your jacket off. Everything was beginning to feel overwhelming. You didn’t know what to do anymore, both in terms of doing your work and trying to take care of yourself. For a while you had been aware that you were putting to much pressure on yourself. Trying to be there for everyone around you, and volunteering to help out with specific tasks. In your mind you thought you could handle everything and still get your work done on time. But that wasn’t the case right now. You knew that it wasn’t healthy to take on other people’s burdens, their problems. And it also wasn’t right to practically do someone else's work when you had your own to do (you immediately think of Gavin). However, you weren’t sure how to tell everybody around you that you now needed a break, without sounding like you didn’t care at all.

Dejectedly you grab one of the top files, beginning to get back to work. You weren’t even done with the first page before Gavin showed up, sitting on the corner of your desk. “What do you want Gavin.” you asked, attitude apparent in your voice. “Ouch, what’s got your panties in a twist?” He jokes. When you don’t reply he keeps speaking, “So hey uh, remember how you helped me with those reports a few weeks back?” He asked. You hummed not really paying full attention to what he was saying, “Well...something happened, and I kind of uh, need your help again.” he says rubbing the back of his neck.

Slamming your hands down on the desk you startled Gavin, causing him to fall onto the floor. “No. You know what? I’m done! I’m fucking done, helping you do something so simple! Every time we talk it’s always about me helping you, what do I get in return? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I’m so sick and tired of being everyone’s therapist, and doing everything for everyone! I’m sick of it!” You shout, gripping your head in your hands. By now the entire precinct was quiet, everyone watching you as you grabbed your stuff and storm out of the DPD. No one moved or said anything for a moment, before returning to their jobs, quietly discussing your little outburst.

Walking through the front door you slammed it shut, before going to the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of wine. Opening it you take a swig straight from the bottle, before going to your bedroom, falling onto your back. You couldn’t keep the tears in anymore, they began to fall and soon you were a sobbing mess, drowning yourself in the bottle of wine. Meanwhile back at the DPD, Connor and Hank walked in, having returned from their most recent case. Connor’s eyes looked for you, but found your desk empty. He assumed you were probably in the bathroom, so he went to the archives to log in all the data he had from the case. Coming back he saw that your desk was still empty, so he decided to wait for you by it. However, seeing that your belongings were gone he asked around if anyone had seen you.

“Excuse me, have you seen y/n?” He asked someone sitting nearby. “Yeah, she stormed outta here after blowing up on Gavin. Seemed really upset.” They say before going back to work. Connor’s LED blinks yellow before he started to briskly walk out of the DPD. When he arrived at your home, he knocked several times calling your name. “y/n, it’s me Connor. Open up.” He says, knocking several more times yet still receiving no answer. Looking around the front of your house he found a spare key, using it to enter the house rather than break in. After being yelled at by Hank he learned that breaking people’s windows to get in was not a good idea. “y/n?” He calls out looking around the house. He saw your stuff thrown on the ground, and the open cupboard, and wine cork. Going to the bedroom he saw you lying there, an empty bottle of wine on the floor.

“y/n, are you alright?” He asked kneeling down to look at your face. You turn your head to face him, eyes bloodshot and puffy. “Connor, when you get ‘ere?” You slur your words slightly, rolling over onto his side. Connor brushes some hair away from your face, “Just now, I came to check on you after not seeing you back at the precinct. Why did you leave?” He asked. Closing your eyes you can’t help but shed a few more tears. “I..I don’t know. I just, I feel like everything I’m doing isn’t enough. Everyone expects so much of me, and they want so much from me! I can only do so much Connor, I’ve tried my best. There’s so much that people want from me, a therapist session, filing their paperwork, answers on my personal love life! It was just to much!” You ramble on, rubbing your face with your hands.

Connor takes your hands in his, rubbing his thumb over them. His LED is blinking yellow as he’s silent for a few moments. “Y/n, I believe you are to harsh on yourself.” He says getting your attention, “You do more than enough, helping others before yourself.” You stop your crying, looking at him through watery eyes. Hearing those words made you feel immensely better, as stupid as that sounded. Right now you just needed to hear something...positive about yourself, something that didn’t tear you down and wear you out. Wrapping your arms around Connor you hug him as best as you can in the position you two were in. His LED spins yellow for a second before returning to blue, both his arms wrapping themselves around you. “Thank you.” You whispered against his neck holding him as tight as you could. “Of course. I love you y/n.” He says. Smiling you bury your face deeper into his neck. It was moments like these that you were glad Connor was by your side.

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh imagine #dbh x reader #connor rk800 #connor x reader #dbh connor x reader #rk800 x reader #dbh connor imagine

258 notes · View notes

neruran · 5 years

Text

Kippou

Series: Boku no/My Hero Academia Rating: T (for language mostly) Genre: Fluff Relationships: Bakugou/Kirishima/Uraraka [Kirikacchako] Characters: Uraraka Ochako, Bakugou Katsuki, Kirishima Eijirou, Bakugou Masaru, Bakugou Mitsuki, Uraraka Ochako’s Parents, Kirishima Eijirou’s Parents, OCs, minor characters created for the story Other Tags: Established Relationship, Polyamory, Future Fic, Pregnancy, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, probably a little OOC Summary: Informed that all is well and healthy so far, Ochako, Eijirou, and Katsuki decide to tell their parents the happy news; that they'll all be grandparents in a few months.

Check notes for AO3 link, because this hellsite has a vendetta against links within posts and I hate the link post format, so I gotta make a workaround.

(Title means "good news" in Japanese)

Remember when I said “famous last words” regarding not writing a continuation to Tsuwari? Yeah I was right. I also told myself when I started writing this “oh this’ll be short, just a couple snippets from different points along the timeline of Ochako's pregnancy and their forays into parenting” - you know, like a fool - then 2k later and I still hadn’t gotten to the main point of this so-called snippet, and I finally accepted that this was going to be its own oneshot. Sometimes I hate being so rambly. I admittedly struggled with this more than Tsuwari for various reasons, and I've also done further research and found a couple minor things in Tsuwari aren't quite correct, largely with how Japan deals with pregnancy and childbirth, but it's ultimately relatively minor stuff so I'm not arsed to correct it. It's actually been a little fascinating reading up on the official (as in government-related stuff such as paperwork and healthcare) and social/cultural differences between Japan and North America, so I tried to incorporate hints to some of what I learned, and if I can wrangle my focus and inspiration to write more about Kirikacchako's adventures into parenthood, I'll try to show the differences in those fics/snippets as well.

Once again I have footnotes, which are not really necessary to read to enjoy the story but add flavour, you could say.

As always, comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated, but likes, kudos, and bookmarks are nice too! Hope you enjoy!

The day after her little discovery, Ochako books an appointment for that week with her ob/gyn. When she goes in a couple days later and relays the story to Dr. Houkou, they laugh heartily for a good five minutes, much to Ochako's embarrassment. [1]

"I'm terribly sorry for laughing, it really is a little amazing you didn't put the pieces together until now,” they say once they've calmed down, dabbing their eyes with a tissue.

"You can't entirely blame me," Ochako mumbles, hiding her red face. She knows Dr. Houkou doesn't mean any insult, and honestly it is a little funny, but still, she can't help but feel embarrassed for herself.

"That's true, and to tell you the truth, this is not the biggest case of lack of observation; I've heard stories of people who didn't realize they were pregnant until they went to the hospital complaining of stomach pains, when it turned out they were in labour!" [2]

"Oh gosh, I hope I would've noticed long before then!" Uneasily, she rubs her belly. "If not me, one or both of my partners.”

"I'm sure you would; from what I know of those instances, there were certain factors that led the parent-to-be to not recognize the signs, or made the signs less than obvious, which while that's evidently somewhat applicable to you, those situations were more...extreme, I suppose you could say?"

"I'm just glad the worst that's happened to me is this broken wrist," Ochako says, lifting her cast. "I forgot to ask at the hospital, but will this affect the baby at all?"

"No, it should be fine. At worst, it'll be a little slow to heal as most of your body's resources are focused on what's in your womb rather than healing your injuries, but I'm sure the extra downtime will be good for you. Oh don't pull that face, you workaholic," Dr. Houkou scolds, rolling their eyes at the poorly concealed pout Ochako has. "I know you're a busy hero, but it's important you take time to recover, especially now it's not just yourself that you need to look out for.”

"I know, it's just going to be tough," sighs Ochako. "I love helping people! After being in this field for so many years, I feel restless at the idea of not doing anything more than paperwork or small tasks, but I'll have to get used to it for the next while."

"Don't worry, before you know it, you'll be having your baby and jumping back into the fray. Now, let's figure out that due date."

~~~

"We're home!"

"Welcome back!" Ochako calls back, peeking her head over the back of the couch to smile at her partners as they make their way into their apartment. "How was work today?"

"Nothing super exciting on my end, just broke up a scuffle between a couple of rowdy yankii while out on patrols," Eijirou reports.

Katsuki huffs, evidently jealous. "Boring as shit."

"Oh calm down, you got to stop a robbery last week."

"Doesn't make this week any less boring."

Rolling his eyes, Eijirou picks up a meowing Hotaru, placing her on his shoulder as he plops down beside Ochako. He peers curiously at the various booklets and pamphlets she has scattered around her. "How about you? How'd your appointment go?"

"Well, besides giving them a good laugh when I told them how I hadn't noticed I was pregnant"—she shoots a pouty glare towards the kitchen when Katsuki snickers, but he ignores her as he starts on dinner, so she continues—"they confirmed everything's going well and that I'm probably on the tail end of twelve weeks, and we worked out my due date."

"Oh, that's awesome! When is it?"

"February 20th!"

"February, huh," Eijirou muses aloud. "We're just at the beginning of August; February seems so far away...The due date's just a guesstimate, right? So it could be born on a different day. Think it'll be a Valentine's baby?"

"I fucking hope not," Katsuki gripes. "People would probably only give them chocolate and Valentine shit for their birthday, I sure as fuck don't want our kid subjected to that."

"Hey Eiji, you think we'll have to implement a swear jar when the baby's born?" Ochako says teasingly. "Or do you think Katsuki'll manage to get his language under control before then?"

"Shut up, my language is fine."

"Sure, sure, I'm sure all of our mothers would appreciate it when one day while babysitting, our kid says ‘fuck' out of nowhere, and I'm sure it would not be much of a mystery as to who they learned that word from," Eijirou replies. [3]

The noise of Katsuki preparing dinner pauses for a moment. Ochako and Eijirou exchange knowing looks.

"...I'll work on it."

"Wary of what Mitsuki would say?"

"Hell no, that old hag can nag all she wants, she's not much better. It's your mom's disapproval I'd rather avoid," Katsuki answers, pointing at Eijirou.

"Mine? Do you mean Mom or Mama?"

"Ikane."

"Really?" Ochako questions, giving a little laugh in disbelief. "But she's such a sweetheart like Eijirou here." She reaches up to ruffle Eijirou's hair, earning a half-hearted complaint about his drooping hair spikes being messed up.

Eijirou chuckles as he gently swats her hand away from his head, petting Hotaru when she meows at him. "You haven't seen her in full mom mode. Once when I was in middle school, I said something crass without realizing while Mama was babysitting some neighbour kids, and the look she gave me could've pierced right through my Unbreakable state. Not to mention the ear twisting I got shortly after." Absently he rubs his ear, recalling the pain.

"I...suppose I can see that. If it's anything like the expression you make at villains that make you angry, it must be something."

Katsuki mutters a "you have no idea" unnoticed. For the best; he doesn't care to explain to Ochako the incident that lead to him earning Ikane's ire, however brief it was.

"Mama does like to say I inherited her passion instead of her quirk," Eijirou says with humour. "Though, speaking of; do we want to start telling people we're expecting? I mean, I know some people wait until the end of the first trimester anyway since the chances of miscarriage are pretty low after that point, so then it's pretty set in stone that a baby's on the way."

Ochako hums thoughtfully, drumming her fingers absently on Eijirou's knee. "I think I'd like to tell my parents first, but I'd prefer to do it in person or on video call. It seems impersonal to give them the news any other way."

"I wanna tell my moms right away; I just know Mama's gonna love hearing that she'll be a grandma. But I'm also excited to tell all our friends.”

"Why don't we just conference call all our parents and tell them all at once?" Katsuki proposes, scraping some vegetables he just cut up into a pot. "I know the hag'll complain if she's one of the last informed, so if we do it that way, it gets it all out of the way at the same time and I don't get my ear nagged off."

"That's...not a bad idea," Ochako says, blinking in mild surprise.

"Of course it's not, I came up with it. You make it sound like I come up with bad ideas on the regular basis."

Eijirou smirks slyly. "You mean ideas like putting too much hot sauce in your food just to prove you can take it, only to get hit by the consequences later in the bathroom, Kacchan?"

"Shut up, at least I can take it!"

"Now, now, your unfortunate dietary decisions aside, I didn't mean to imply you don't have good ideas," Ochako interrupts. Katsuki grumbles, but puts up no further argument. "I was just surprised I hadn't considered it. Since I have the next couple days off to give my wrist a little more rest, why don't I contact everyone and coordinate it?"

"Sounds like a plan! And then we can start telling all our friends and stuff!" Eijirou giddily hops in his seat, which of course disturbs the cat on his shoulder. She lets out a growl and bats at his head. "Ow, yeah, sorry Hotaru, I deserved that." He sets her down, letting her stalk off to cuddle up with Kyou who's laying in her doggie bed in the corner, touching his ear to check that she didn't scratch him.

Ochako giggles at him. "You think everyone will assume we're adopting another cat at first?"

"I mean, they might, but we only did that once with Hotaru and it was funny! I think in this instance though, I'd prefer to tell some people face-to-face first before announcing it on our social media. Mostly I wanna see Denki, Mina, and Hanta's faces when they hear the news.”

"Yeah, Dunce Face will probably flip his shit, it'll be hilarious."

"I'm excited to tell Tsuyu-chan, Tenya-kun, and Deku-kun. Oh, stop making that face, Katsuki."

"What face? I'm not making any face," Katsuki replies petulantly. "I'm not even facing you."

"Yeah, but I know you and I know you're pulling a face at the idea of involving Deku-kun, because you always do even though you two are friends now," she says, rolling her eyes. Eijirou snickers to himself.

"We are not friends, I just tolerate the stupid nerd enough to work with him on occasion."

Once again, Eijirou and Ochako exchange looks then simultaneously roll their eyes affectionately, fully aware that whatever bad blood the two had as children has long been resolved enough that they frequently trade spots on the hero rankings and collaborate on missions, all the while throwing harmless barbs and challenges back and forth. The relationship is complicated, as "friends" doesn't quite describe them, but "rivals" or "frenemies" doesn't seem right either. They're just "Deku and Kacchan", a category of their own.

"Point is," Ochako continues. "Deku-kun is my friend, and I'm looking forward to sharing the news with him. I know he's going to be very happy for all of us."

"Think he'll cry?" Eijirou asks.

"Definitely," Ochako and Katsuki answer simultaneously.

Eijirou laughs, leaning into Ochako. "You're right, dumb question. He may be better than when we were first-years, but I should know better than to underestimate the secret Midoriya secondary quirk. Now, what's all this you got here, Chako?"

Lighting up, Ochako eagerly explains the various pamphlets that cover things like her recommended diet, the baby's development, and what sort of information she needs to submit to the Health Office. Eijirou just as eagerly listens, nodding his head and asking questions, and though he's busy making dinner, she knows Katsuki has an ear on the conversation so she makes sure to talk loud enough for him to hear as well.

~~~

Coordinating the conference call with their parents ends up being a more difficult task than Ochako expects; each set of parents has different schedules and events, not to mention there's Eijirou and Katsuki's schedules to consider, so it actually takes several phone calls and emails to figure out a day and time that works for everyone. The entire time Ochako also finds herself dodging the question for why this is so important, merely explaining that their triad had some good news for them and wanted to announce it to them all at the same time. She admittedly flushes when Mitsuki teases that perhaps one of them proposed to the other two or vice versa—the idea of getting married to Eijirou and Katsuki flustering her even if they're already expecting a child—but clumsily acts coy to keep her from guessing the actual news.

After two days of back-and-forth, they finally all agree that the upcoming Friday after dinner will work for everyone, barring any emergencies. Which gives Ochako several days time to build up her excitement, but also her anxiousness. What if any of their parents don't approve? Her own parents had been rather apprehensive about her being in a poly relationship back when she first told them, but now that it's been several years with only a couple hiccups, they're happy for Ochako's happiness, but what if this changes their minds again? Sure she's a grown adult capable of making her own decisions in life, but she's always been close with her parents so she'd hate to lose that relationship over this. Mitsuki's reaction also worries her a bit, as while she does like the woman, she can be rather brash and critical like Katsuki at the most unpredictable of times.

She quietly admits this to Katsuki as they're snuggled up on the couch waiting for Eijirou to get home from a late-running patrol shift; he gruffly assures her that both his mom and dad will be ecstatic at the news, so her parents will surely feel the same, which means she has nothing to worry about. In return, he confesses feeling a little apprehensive himself regarding her and Eijirou's parents reaction to him being involved, but Ochako's quick to tell him that if she's fine, then he's fine as well because their parents all know what a good person he is and seen how wonderful and loving a partner he's been, so they should have no qualms.

Eijirou, on the other hand, seems to vibrate with anticipation with each passing day, as if the information that they're expecting is waiting to burst out of him like an explosion from Katsuki's palms. It even seeps into his aura while out doing hero work, enough that one of Ochako's sidekicks happens to take notice.

"Red Riot-san was more energetic than usual when I happened to pass by him doing patrols on my way home yesterday," Subspacer muses when Ochako stops by the office to pick up more work to do from home. "When I asked him if something good had happened on patrol, he grinned and said no, but he did get some news that made him really happy recently, but didn't elaborate further." They turn to her, head tilted curiously. "Any idea what that's about?" [4]

Ochako gives a chuckle that she hopes isn't as nervous-sounding as she feels. "Oh, I wouldn't think on it too hard...You've seen him in casual work settings, he gets excited over the smallest stuff." She does her best to maintain a smiling poker face as they eye her a moment, before they let whatever it is they're thinking go, going on to fill her in on what's happened at the office in her absence. Ochako knows they're suspicious, but mentally thanks them for not pressing the matter.

The days pass and Friday arrives without much fanfare. All three of them are antsy in their own ways during dinner; Eijirou can't seem to sit still at all, Katsuki's foot bounces restlessly, and Ochako frequently slips into her natural Kansai accent as she talks, excitement and anxiousness starting to come to a head as the promised time ticks closer. Soon enough, their dinner is eaten and cleaned up, their pets are fed, and then they're sitting on their couch with Eijirou's laptop opened up on Ochako's lap.</p>

On her right, Katsuki's phone makes a little ‘boom' noise to indicate he has a new message. "My old man says he and the hag are ready when we are," Katsuki says after checking.

Eijirou's phone dings to her left a moment later. "My moms are good to go!"

Sure enough, hers buzzes less than a minute after, and a quick glance tells her that her parents are also ready. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she smiles at both her partners, then clicks the button to start the conference call.

Eijirou's mothers are the first to pick up, but her parents and Katsuki's follow suit seconds after. It's almost overwhelming seeing six faces on the screen, but besides the big news she intends to drop during this call, this is something they've all done before in lieu of separate phone calls and emails. Besides, it's been weeks since she's seen any of them through anything besides social media, so it's nice to be able to talk to their families face-to-face, even if there's a screen separating them. Smiling brighter, she gives a little wave, Eijirou doing the same. "Hello everyone!" she greets. A chorus of greetings echoes back from their parents. "I'm glad this worked out, it's been so long since we've been able to do a group call like this!"

"The woes of adulthood and having busy jobs, right hon?" Mitsuki turns to Masaru, who nods in agreement.

"How is that new line coming along, Masaru-san? I recall Mitsuki-san mentioning before you two had a deadline this week," asks Karuko. [5]

"I've finished everything that's within my control, so now it's just a matter of waiting for the samples to see if there's anything that needs adjusting before going into full production." [6]

"That's good to hear! Considering your other work, I'm sure it'll be a success."

"Not that I don't want to hear how the rest of you are doing," Tomoe interrupts, blunt but not unkind. "I think I'd like to hear from our children, since it's often so hard to get a hold of them with their unpredictable jobs." Ikane smiles a little, apologetic for her partner's abruptness. [7]

"Aw, but we wanna hear what you're up to too, Mom!" Eijirou jokingly complains, grinning.

"She does have a point though," Saburou says. "Ochako, how's your arm? I hope you're getting proper rest so it heals properly."

Katsuki snorts. "As if either of us would let her do anything reckless on our watch."

Ochako shoots him a sharp look hidden behind a smile that says “be glad you're sitting on my injured side, because I would be giving you such a pinch right now if I could”; Katsuki simply smirks back at her. Huffing, she turns back to their families. "I promise I'm getting plenty of rest; all I've been doing the past week is paperwork, which I'm glad I can do on my laptop because it's difficult writing left-handed! I feel so antsy sitting around barely doing anything though, so at my next check-up I'll ask if it's okay to go out for runs or something."

"I understand feeling restless, but please be careful, Ochako," her mother chides worriedly. "We wouldn't want you to get hurt further."

"Agreed!" Ikane cheerfully pipes in. "As amazing as that takedown was, it wouldn't do if you were out of commission for months instead of weeks."

The trio shares a glance at that, which doesn't go unnoticed by Mitsuki. "Now what's that look for? Is that related to whatever news you had to share with us?"

"Oh that's right, you did mention having some sort of good news. Did one of you go up in rank?"

"Did you get new sidekicks?"

"Are you being recruited for another overseas assignment?"

"New sponsors?"

"Whoa, whoa, one at a time," Eijirou laughs, holding up his hands. Once their parents settle a bit, he continues, "It's not anything related to our jobs, though it will kinda affect them."

"Particularly for Ochako here," Katsuki adds, nodding to her.

Confused and curious faces stare at them, bringing Ochako's nerves back, but she steels herself; after all, what do any of them have to be unhappy about? "So, when I had told you that they didn't have anyone with a healing quirk on staff at the hospital to heal my wrist, I wasn't being honest with you. Truthfully, they did have someone there, but because of some tests they ran, they were hesitant to use the quirk on me as they weren't sure how my body would react."

In the corner of her eye, Eijirou's grin gets steadily wider, his hand gripping hers as he tries to contain himself from bouncing in his seat. With a roll of his eyes, Katsuki reaches behind her and gives his arm a gentle swat, but it does nothing to hinder Eijirou's energy. On the screen, Tomoe's eyeing them intensely, to the point that if Ochako wasn't absolutely sure her quirk doesn't work through screens or cameras, she'd almost think that she's reading their auras to try and get a bead on whatever it is they're building up to. Not for the first time, she finds herself glad she's never considered going into business law, as she'd hate to be stared down by Tomoe during negotiations or prosecutions.

"Why is that, Ochako-san?" Masaru inquires. "What did they find?"

"Well, turns out that I—"

"You're going to be grandparents!" Eijirou blurts excitedly, unable to hold himself back any longer. When Ochako and Katsuki both turn to him with fondly exasperated expressions, he at least has enough awareness to look sheepish at his outburst. "Sorry, I just couldn't wait any longer."

All their parents are quiet, faces in various levels of stunned and surprised. It's Saburou that speaks up first. "Pardon me, what?"

Shaking her head at Eijirou, Ochako turns back to the laptop. "Turns out I'm pregnant, nearly fourteen weeks now. We're having a baby!"

"Wait, really?" Mitsuki exclaims, and it seems the Urarakas are about to speak as well, but everyone's interrupted by a joyous scream that makes them all jolt.

On the Kirishima-Keshiki part of the screen, Ikane's leapt from her seat and started hopping around, still squealing happily. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I'm going to be a grandma! Tomoe we're gonna be grandmas! Oh my god!"

"You really did get your passion from her," Katsuki observes dryly, earning a giggle from Ochako.

"She's going to be like this for a minute or two, so I'm going to mute us until she calms down so the rest of you can talk," Tomoe says, rolling her eyes fondly before Ikane's happy screams go silent, though she's still jumping around on screen.

"Your mother really does love children, doesn't she, Eijirou-kun?" teases Mitsuki.

"Oh you didn't see his reaction when Ochako told us the news, he did pretty much the exact same thing as Ikane."

"Katsukiiiii, they didn't have to know that!" Eijirou complains, flushing a bit.

"You literally just shamelessly blurted out the surprise, you have no right to be embarrassed now!"

"Boys, play nice," Ochako chides playfully, patting them both on the leg.

"While I am happy at this news," Karuko butts in, expression stuck between elated and concerned. "You said you're close to fourteen weeks along, right? That means you've been doing all that strenuous and stressful hero work. Are you sure everything is okay?"

Ochako nods, turning her gaze down and placing her uninjured hand on the bump that's become a little more prominent in the past week but is still easily hidden by her clothing. "I was really worried when I first heard the results for that exact reason, but I got a check-up at the hospital and have had two appointments with my doctor since then, and they've said I've got a healthy and hardy baby growing despite all the factors that could have made it otherwise."

Sound returns to the Kirishima-Keshiki feed, with Tomoe and Ikane settled back in their seats. "Whew, I'm sorry for my outburst, everyone," Ikane says, looking a little out-of-sorts and somewhat teary-eyed, but still positively glowing from joy. "I got a bit overzealous. But still, I'm so happy and proud of you three! To have a baby that's managed to hold on and stay healthy without you being careful means it must be fate for you to have it. Do you have an idea on which of you is the father?"

"No," Ochako's quick to answer before either of her partners could. "And I don't think we'll really know until it's born, but to be completely honest, if possible I don't think I want to know at all, because even if only one of them will be related by blood, both Katsuki and Eijirou will be raising them with me together, and I think that counts just as much if not more than whoever contributed chromosomes." She looks up again, and her eye strays over to Tomoe. There's a subtle expression of understanding and gratitude on her face, and her hand's wandered to grasp Ikane's, and Ochako knows that she sees her point more than any of the other parents on this call. "No matter what, they'll both this baby's father. No ‘real' father or bullshit like that."

Everyone's silent for a moment, stunned by the sudden conviction and seriousness in her words. She knows her partners are both staring at her, but she stays looking at the screen so that she doesn't lose her nerve. It's only when she hears a quiet sniffle beside her that her concentration breaks, but before she can turn to see what's wrong, Eijirou's got his arm around her and pulling her close, face buried in her hair.

"That was so manly," he whispers, voice a little choked up, and he presses a soft kiss to her head. "You're the best, I love you so, so much."

On her other side, Katsuki all but shoves his face into the space between her neck and shoulder, his hand gripping her bicep. He murmurs something, but she doesn't really catch what it is. While she appreciates the sudden affection, she's a bit embarrassed that it's happening with their parents right there, and she's not really sure what's brought it on. "I— Uh— What—" she stammers, stuck between looking for help from their onlookers and avoiding eye contact with them. On screen, her parents and Masaru have politely chosen to turn their attention elsewhere while Mitsuki grins, unbothered by the PDA and in fact looking oddly proud. [8]

"You're right." Ochako turns her attention to Ikane and Tomoe's feed, where Tomoe seems to be holding back giggles at Ochako's predicament but also looking away politely. Ikane, on the other hand, is watching their triad with fondness, gaze soft. "That was rude of me to say, especially when I'm fully aware that love and family aren't defined purely by blood." Her hand finds Tomoe's, and she gives it a gentle squeeze in apology. "You're going to be a wonderful mother, Ochako-chan, and I'm glad my son has such loving partners in you and Katsuki-kun."

Eijirou whines, ears turning pink as he hides his face further. "Mama, don't say things like that, I'm gonna cry more! And then Ochako will start crying because hormones, and I'll feel bad for making her cry, and then Mom might get involved—"

"Hey now."

"—and maybe Katsuki will get overwhelmed—"

"Oi, don't just assume things—!"

"Nothing wrong with some manly happy tears, Ei-chan; I know we taught you that!"

"I know, but it's still a bit embarrassing to do it in front of everyone!"

"Says one of the two currently clinging to me without shame..." Ochako mumbles.

Both Eijirou and Katsuki stiffen, realizing that yes, they're practically smothering Ochako while their parents are watching; Ochako can't move her head much in this position, but she's sure they're both starting to flush. After a moment, the two finally pull away, their heads turned to avoid eye contact with everyone.

Eijirou lets out a sheepish chuckle, ruffling his hair. "S-Sorry about that, I guess we got a bit overwhelmed and forgot about our company."

"No harm, no foul," Saburou assures gently, waving off the apology.

"Besides, it was kind of cute. It's not often I get to see my Katsuki get so emotional," Mitsuki teases.

"Shut the fuck up, old hag," Katsuki grumbles, flushing more and sinking a bit into the couch.

Masaru puts a hand on Mitsuki's shoulder when it seems like she's about to scold their son. "Be nice, you two," he chides, waiting until Mitsuki's hackles lower before looking to Ochako. "Really, we're delighted at this news, and we're happy that you've shared it with us all. I'm sure all of us parents can agree that it's not always an easy road, but we're all here for you if there's anything you should need along the way."

"Of course!" Karuko pipes up. "We'd be happy to give you advice and help whenever you need it. Now, tell us more about everything, like when are you due?"

From there, the conversation flows smoothly, starting at talks about Ochako's pregnancy and what the three of them are to expect in the future before eventually moving on to general life updates such as new projects at work or what their neighbours are up to. As the group call edges towards the two hour mark, everyone notes with amusement that Ochako's eyes have begun to droop. Ochako tries to insist she's fine when Saburou points this out, but before long her head is leaning against Katsuki's shoulder, barely able to stay up. The families all say their goodbyes, promising once again that the three of them are welcome to come to them for anything and kindly demanding to keep updated, then the call ends. Eijirou reaches over to close the laptop, taking it from Ochako's lap as he stands and chuckling when Ochako shifts to sleepily cuddle with Katsuki now that she's free to move.

Katsuki, on the other hand, rolls his eyes, though it does nothing to diminish his affectionate smirk at Ochako's drowsiness. "C'mon Ochako, let's get your ass to bed."

"Nooooo..." Ochako tiredly protests. "'m fine, yer just"—she yawns—"just warm and cozy..."

He snorts. "It was fucking thirty degrees outside today and it's not even that cold in here with aircon, why the hell do you want to be warm?"

"Shhhhh..."

"Alright then." Despite her protesting, he stands, scoops her into his arms with no more than a quiet grunt, then saunters off towards their bedroom even as she half-heartedly wiggles about. "If you behave and go to bed, you can cuddle me all you want."

"But I dun wanna go to sleeeeeeep," Ochako whines, pawing at his chest in a lazy effort to get away.

"Oi, if you don't stop wriggling around, I'm gonna drop you and it'll be completely on purpose," he warns.

"No you won', 'cause 'm pregnant, injured, 'nd cute, 'nd I know ya love me too much to drop me..."

As they enter the room, Katsuki hears Eijirou—who's getting changed into his sleepwear off to the side—laugh at Ochako's sleepy retort, so he levels a frown that says "don't encourage her" at him, even though he knows that she's completely right in that statement. He would maybe consider dropping her on her butt just to show that he won't put up with her being a little shit if she wasn't pregnant, but circumstances are not in his favour, so instead he unceremoniously deposits her on the bed, earning a squeak.

"Uncalled for..." she grumbles, pouting petulantly as she rolls to the side and hugs her pillow. "What if I hurt my wrist more?"

"I know you're not that fragile, Round Face, so don't try to guilt me."

"Eiiiijiiiii, Kacchan's bein' mean to meeee..." Rolling his eyes again, Katsuki goes to change into his own sleeping clothes.

"There, there, if you really don't wanna sleep, you can cuddle with me and watch me play some Street Fighter," Eijirou says as he slides into bed, handheld console in hand. "Do a bit of backseat gaming. How's that sound?" [9]

Ochako hums, her tired brain considering the offer. "...'Kay..."

"But first, you're getting changed out of your day clothes," Katsuki announces, tossing a set of her pyjamas on the bed. When Ochako makes no move to do so, he huffs, then reaches over and pulls her towards him, tugging gently but forcibly at her clothes. "C'mon, you're not going to be comfortable sleeping in those shorts, let alone your bra."

"Whoa, getting frisky, are we?" Eijirou teases, waggling his eyebrows with a sly grin. Katsuki responds by throwing a pillow at Eijirou, who cackles even as it hits him in the face.

Before long, Ochako's changed into her pyjamas and curled into Eijirou's side, her head resting on his chest so she can watch the screen, her cast wrist pillowed carefully. Katsuki slips in on her other side after finishing his nightly routine; instead of cuddling, however, he chooses to sit up against the headboard, reading glasses perched on his nose and a book open on his lap. Eijirou's game and the occasional turning page are the only noises in the room, until barely half an hour later, both boys glance up at a quiet snore, smiling upon seeing Ochako out cold as predicted. Eijirou lets her continue sleeping on him for a little while longer, then carefully shifts her to sleep on her proper pillow, kissing her brow softly. Katsuki sets his book and reading glasses aside as Eijirou gets up to finish his own nightly routine, shuffling down under the covers and putting an arm around Ochako, who shifts closer to his warmth in her sleep. When Eijirou returns to the room ten minutes later, he's greeted with the sight of Katsuki spooned protectively against Ochako and just as asleep as her. While not a new sight, it's one that Eijirou can never get tired of, and he can only imagine how much better it will get as Ochako's belly grows, and then when their new addition comes into the world. Quietly, he takes a picture to appreciate later, then goes to join them on the bed, leaning over Ochako to peck Katsuki on the cheek before turning off the bedside light and settling in to sleep himself.

Footnotes: [1] - This time the doctor is not named for their profession, but still named for their quirk; I had a thought a little while ago that went something along the lines of “you know people probably take on jobs that have nothing to do with their quirk all the time, why don’t we see more of that in the HeroAca world”, and so we have Dr. Houkou. Their quirk basically makes them a human GPS; their name is made up of the kanji for “direction” and “navigation”.

[2] - This is apparently a thing that has happened to some people, believe it or not. Not something that happens often, mind you, but it happens. Factors for why the pregnancies go unnoticed include the person’s weight, the size and position of the baby, and things like spotting being mistaken for light periods. Which is why if you thought I was stretching the truth too much by having Ochako not notice for three months, surprise! Reality is weirder than you think.

[3] - Me: You know Bakugou’s language in Japanese isn’t really full of swearing, it’s just very blunt and rude because Japanese doesn’t have the same equivalents to curse words so the likelihood of a child imitating his speech is unlikely.

Also me: Meh who cares, gonna write it like that anyway, it’s funnier to think about it this way.

[4] - Unlike the doctors I’ve named in this story and Tsuwari, Subspacer is a full-fledged OC of mine! I’ve given careful thought into their quirk, name, and personality, though I’ve been undecided on their age and professional status for a while. I decided to add them in as one of Ochako’s sidekicks for giggles, but if I do get around to writing more of this storyline, you’ll likely be seeing more mention of them!

[5] - Since Ochako’s parents don’t have names (truly a travesty; they’re an important part of her motivation, but they have yet to get profiles like the Bakugous or Jirous? I call unfairness), I decided to give them names. Following Horikoshi’s current naming conventions for parents—which involves separating the kanji in the children’s names and giving at least one to each parent as part of their names (i.e. Katsuki “勝己” separates to get Masaru “勝” and Mitsuki “光己”), the only exception so far being the Midoriyas as Izuku “出久” only shares kanji with his yet-to-be-seen father Hisashi “久”—I took the “茶” and “子” from Ochako’s name and searched through various kanji readings and meanings to get Saburou “茶奉郎” and Karuko “軽子”. The sa in Saburou means “tea” and an alternate reading of the kanji, while bu means “offer, dedicate” and rou means “son” (this same kanji is in Eijirou’s name; it’s a relatively common kanji for boy names). Karu means “light (opposite of heavy)” which is supposed to reference what I can only assume is the family quirk (again, we have no idea what her parents’ quirks are; I DEMAND TO KNOW HORIKOSHI), and then ko means “child” and—similar to rou being common for boy names—is pretty common for girl names.

[6] - I will admit I have no idea how the production of fashion lines work, and unlike many other things, I’m not arsed to research it for a single line of dialogue (I do that enough as it is...I’m very easily distracted) so if I’m horrendously wrong on how fashion designers work in a company, please ignore it.

[7] - I actually have come up with entire profiles for Eijirou’s mothers, but I do not have the room in the notes to go into complete detail on them on here, so feel free to read about them here instead. I unfortunately don’t draw so they don’t have ‘official’ appearances, but I’ve tried to describe them as I see them in my head as best I can.

[8] - I think it’s relatively well-known that PDA in Japan tends to get the side-eye if it’s anything more than holding hands, and while Japan as a culture does seem to be slowly getting laxer about it and this fic is set in the hypothetical future, I doubt there would be significant change, plus I’m sure they’ll still think PDA in front of one’s parents is pretty taboo. Personally I’d feel a bit shy about hugging/cuddling with my S/O in front of my family, but I’m also aroace af so what do I know, hahaha.

[9] - Just imagine the gaming console Eijirou’s using is similar to the Switch, but like...a future version. Maybe it’s not even a Nintendo product, who the heck knows what game technology is gonna be like.

I considered also writing about the trio telling their friends the same week in-universe, but all the ideas I have for that are kinda vague and I’m not really sure how to write the scenes out without seeming repetitious, or how to keep them interesting to read, so I nixed that in favour of ending at this point, especially since I’ve struggled so much to get here. Maybe that’ll be an actual snippet, but no promises, hahaha.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #kirikacchako #katsuki bakugou #kirishima eijirou #uraraka ochako #kiribakuraka #nerufic #once again this is queued up to post during the day

3 notes · View notes

pyre-prism · 6 years

Text

Pyre’s Tips for ‘One Piece’ OCs...!

Complete with a sample character bio template, at that! (*A*) Just remove all of my rambling, and you should be nice and peachy. If anyone wants to discuss things on the topic of 'One Piece' characters (fan-made or otherwise), then I'd be happy to oblige. This series is my happy place, more often than not... well, one of them. Also, I'm open to doing this for other fandoms as well... so long as I know enough about it... Any suggestions for me to consider? In short... I'd love for people to talk to me about this kind of thing. (T^T) I don't bite, I promise...! You can even do it privately, if you want~? Righty, one last thing before getting into this properly... I do use rather... 'colourful' words with topics I'm invested in, and there are potential spoilers in what I say, if you've only been following the English release. (^u^'') I couldn't stick to the English release if it killed me, I love this stuff too much. Anyhoo, onto the actual meat of this thing~!

Name: Any name will do, really… ‘One Piece’ takes place in a world where both perfectly ‘normal’ names and completely ridiculous ones coexist in harmony. The only caveat is that you should be very restrictive with middle initials, as they aren’t a particularly common thing… and you should be especially careful with ‘D.’ as a middle initial, as it means something special and carries a selection of traits alongside it. It is possible to create a character who bears the ‘D.’ initial in a way that fits the world, but you certainly shouldn’t overload your personal cast with them. On a side note, I find that it’s a real help to also note how the name is meant to be pronounced, as best as you can. It saves some potential confusion later down the line. Nickname: So long as there is a reason behind the nickname, and you don’t give them… say… ten completely separate ones, anything goes. It also helps to put down not only who calls them that, but also why. Again, pronunciation notes also helps. Epithet: An epithet in the ‘One Piece’ world is usually given by someone who does not like the character, and so you should be careful to make sure that it doesn’t sound too flattering for no real reason. Epithets are generally meant to describe either the character’s physical traits, something about their history, or something about their abilities. Often, they are meant to inspire some sort of fear, so as to urge civilians to stay out of their way. However, it should be noted that even Marines can get epithets, and even theirs aren’t generally particularly flattering. All that being said, it is possible to have a fancy or even ‘pretty’ epithet, but there needs to be a really good reason for it. It helps to explain what prompted that particular epithet to be given to them, as well. Also, almost every character who gains an epithet will only get the one, so make sure you don’t overload them onto the one character. Bounty: One thing that many people seem to forget about bounties in the ‘One Piece’ world is that they are not a ‘one-for-one’ indication of the character’s strength, or even how dangerous they are to the general public. What they are, however, is an indication of how badly the World Government wants them to be taken down. Each part of the world also has certain ranges that are ‘typical’ for a starting bounty, but unfortunately we don’t have proper examples for what these are, in most cases. What we do know is that a starting bounty of 30 million in the East Blue is astonishing, while a (presumably early) bounty of 85 million in the first half of the Grand Line is… negligible, really… and bounties in the range of 300 million to half a billion seem to be fairly normal in the second half of the Grand Line. When putting together what sort of price is on your character’s head (assuming that they are a pirate or other such kind of criminal), it helps to list out what they’ve done or been accused of that actually earned them that sort of infamy. It also helps to bear in mind any increases they’ve gotten over the course of their ‘career’. Oh, and… despite what many people seem to believe, a rookie pirate with a bounty of 100 million or more is not necessarily a Supernova! They will be part of ‘the Worst Generation’, but the Supernovas were a specific group for a very particular reason; they were the rookies with a minimum of 100 million on their heads, who were at the Archipelago at that particular time. Nothing else. There is nothing wrong with having your character have a bounty that is ‘Supernova level’, so long as there is a valid reason for it. Heck, if you can explain it well enough, you could even have your character be a Supernova… as in, the legit was-actually-at-the-Archipelago-at-the-time type. The ‘number limit’ on Supernova is nowhere near as important as the number of Warlords or Emperors, after all. Rank: For a pirate, bear in mind what they do on the crew. It helps to have some knowledge of what roles would be legitimately-needed on a sailing vessel when making this decision, as well. Age requirements are less strict for pirate characters than they are for many other subsets of your cast, so one of the best things to say here is ‘have fun but do your research’. As for Marines, age starts to become a primary point of concern. There is a limit to how young a character can be when they join the Marines, and there is also a certain air of ‘the old guard’ when you start to look at the higher ranking characters in the canon material. A Marine Captain who is in their teens or early twenties had better have an extremely mind-bogglingly-good record or power to have that rank, and when you start getting towards the rank of Vice-Admiral, then it would be best for them to be at least in their late thirties… While I’m on the topic of Marine ranks, it’s a good idea to look up the ranks used in the Japanese Navy, as that is what is used in the series. Age: The only advice I can give on this topic is to be sensible. Consider what you have in mind for them to know, what skills they possess, and (for a Marine) what rank they have. No adult or teenager is going to take a preteen captain seriously, even on a pirate crew, and those who are particularly elderly will be faced with some issues as well. On a side note, if you plan for the character’s storyline to have any correlation to the canon events, then you should probably make sure to note how old they are at the beginning of the story, and at the beginning of the two-year timeskip. Gender: I use ‘gender’ as the primary question here, and I always make certain to note when there is any form of disconnect between the character’s gender identity and their biological sex. Although, to help other people take your character more seriously, please don’t use phrases like “Female, duh”. Race: There are so many options for what race your character can be, that there’s very little reason to even try coming up with your own race ideas. That being said, however, that’s not to say that you cannot create your own race… just make sure that it makes sense in the world and has both upsides and downsides ‘built in’ to the race, and you should be good. However, it may be better to refrain from doing this until you’re reasonably practiced with not only coming up with races, but also until you’re very familiar with the world you’re putting it into. If you do choose to create a new race, you will need to explain it fairly thoroughly to other people, as well. As for the canonical races, it’s best to be aware of the types of interactions between them as much as you can, as this will help to make the character feel more ‘complete’. Humans are very common, but there’s also Fishfolk (Fishmen and Merfolk, I combine them due to their exceedingly-negligible differences), Skyfolk (the three races of Sky Islanders with wings), Giants, Dwarves, Longarms, Longlegs, Snakenecks, Minkmen, Triclopes (what I currently call the three-eyed race), and even Birdfolk (what I currently call the race Morgans belongs to)…! Heck, even hybrids are an option, but don’t go too overboard with piling on the fractions for this, else it will come across as nothing other than ridiculous. Eyes: One of the things that, as an artistic OC-creator, I really love about ‘One Piece’ is the fact that they can look like almost anything, and still have a chance of fitting in, just fine. There are no restrictions on what your character’s eyes can look like other than two points… Number one, be extremely sparing about the sclera (the white of the eye) being a different colour, as we don’t actually have a canon example of this as-yet. Number two, if your character’s eyes are yellow, then you shouldn’t have them be described as being ‘hawk-like’ as well, because that’s a trait that is so-far unique to Dracule Mihawk. It might be wise to be sparing on rainbow-coloured eyes, as well, for ‘safety’s sake’… Other than that, however, go wild! I personally don’t even care if your character has heterochromia, in any format or arrangement. Hair: Literally any colour is a possibility in the world of ‘One Piece’, and I love it. White or silver for someone from a very young age, canon compliant. Purple or blue or green or pink, canon compliant. It is so liberating to be able to apply any colour you want to something that is so frequently restricted in other universes, and, unlike what many people may try to tell you, even naturally-bicoloured hair is plausible. We have yet to see naturally-tricoloured or more, so it may be best to limit it to two colours at most. As for length, however, it is best to bear in mind what they do, although significantly-longer hair is still viable for a fighter if they either have an ability that uses it in battle or if they tie it up somehow. Or, you know, they’re a ranged-fighter. Skin: In the world of ‘One Piece’, even humans can have some pretty weird skin colours, so it is possible to go a little ‘nuts’ on this topic. So long as there is either canonical proof for that sort of colour for their race, or a viable explanation, then there is literally no rules on this. This category is also where I like to list out any notable scarring or tattoos that they may have. Build: Other than the basic descriptions of what type of build they have, you should also be certain to mention their height… and remember that even humans can be ludicrously-tall in this universe. If they aren’t finished growing yet, it may be useful to note how tall they are ‘at the moment’ as well as how tall they’ll be when they’ve finished growing. Typical Clothing: This is more for keeping in mind the sorts of outfits they might wear at various points throughout their story. Do they like bold patterns, or are they a more plain-clothes kind of person? You should also be aware that, despite taking place in a world that mirrors a lot of things from the early 1700s of our world, there are many much more modern pieces of clothing that we see throughout canon, so don’t feel the need to restrict yourself to ‘classic pirate getup’, although there’s also nothing saying that you can’t choose to do just that. Oh, and… if there’s any traces of a uniform or ‘theme’ with the people your character is associated with… stick with it. Marines will wear the uniform, in some way. Themed pirate crews will have certain ‘looks’. This is inescapable and inexcusable if your character breaks it, especially for no damned reason. Personality: This is one of the categories where the bulk of your character will shine through. While a dot-point list will work for the initial idea, eventually you will need to expand upon it. Make your character feel like a real person, in and of their own right, and you won’t generally have any issues. A character’s personality will be about half ‘ingrained’ and half ‘learned’, and these two things must not contradict each other without extremely careful and detailed reasoning… and an acknowledgement that the character is not mentally-stable. It is infinitely-important that you bear in mind what they went through up until the point you’re starting their story, because that will influence how they turned out. Don’t be afraid to give your character ‘undesirable’ traits, either, because that will actually make them seem more ‘real’ and generally more entertaining to deal with from a writing or roleplaying perspective… in fact, some of the most fun characters in my own cast actually have more ‘undesirable’ traits than they have ‘desirable’ ones! Also, it should be said… there seems to be some unspoken ‘rule’ about those to take to the seas in the world of ‘One Piece’… and that is that, to survive in that universe, you need to have some traits that would be considered ‘crazy’ in our world. So have fun! That is, after all, the primary point behind making an OC in the first place, isn’t it? Abilities: Each race, other than Human, has its own inbuilt capabilities, and you should list them out, along with any learned skills that your character has. Haki can be learned by any race, but you should be aware of the requirements for having unlocked it… some form of immense physical or emotional trauma seems to be the universal checkbox. If your character is a hybrid, then you can get a bit more creative, as well, although while it is viable for a hybrid to carry traits and abilities from each source, they shouldn’t have the full range of everything, and they must have at least some of the built-in caveats as well. Back on the topic of Haki, however… while I have no issue with having OCs with the incredibly-limited Haoushoku Haki, you should be careful to not overload your cast with those who have it… and there seems to be a potential connection between having that form of Haki and being a ‘D.’, as well. It helps to mention whether or not your character has eaten a Devil Fruit, as well, and how long they’ve had it for… more details on the Fruit in question can come in the next category… Devil Fruit: For starters, you need to know what the Fruit is. Is it a Paramecian, a Zoan, or a Logian…? Canon has introduced some Fruits in the most recent arcs (as of September 2018) that appear to blur the lines, but it’s best to try to stay away from such things until we’re told more about it. That being said, the Fruit’s ability will influence what its name is, as well… You should do your utmost to make the name suit the naming system that is presented in canon; the English name is short and to the point, and the Japanese name is always two syllables and tend to be onomatopoeias (‘sound words’). Also, and this is very, very, very important… unless you are dealing with an alternative version of the universe or a substantially-different time-frame, do not use a Devil Fruit that is in use by a canon character, with the only possible exceptions being those who are known to be dead at the time. Characters who show up in filler arcs or extra material, however, as far as I’m concerned, are fair game unless the storyline they appear in has been directly influenced by Oda for more than just character designs… Even SMILEs, until we know more about how they operate, should not be ‘doubled-up’ between canon and your character. There are also some abilities that appear in other universes that should be avoided in ‘One Piece’… Any ability that, by its very nature, requires the input of another person is treading on incredibly-thin ice, if not an outright no-go. Same with any ability that manipulates reality… although probability is a slightly different story… and is in-use in canon, so… yeah. Illusions are viable, truly warping reality is not. There is also another thing that should be avoided as much as possible… don’t make a Fruit that enables transformation into any kind of explicitly-water-based creature. No Devil Fruit user can swim… not even Fishfolk who have eaten one. However, even with that, it is possible to create a water Fruit, even a Logian, so long as you are extremely careful about how it works. With that out of the way, I have only one other ability-related note to make… If you create a Mythical Zoan Fruit, you can give it an additional ability, but make certain that it makes sense for that mythical creature to have that ability. Do your research on the stories about the creature, and you’re bound to be able to come up with something. You should also remember that every single Devil Fruit, even the ‘joke’ ones, have battle capabilities if you’re imaginative enough… And, last but not least… no Devil Fruit is without weaknesses. None… At all. At the very least, being submerged beyond a certain point will sap your character of their strength, seastone will nullify their ability and do something of the same, and it’s always wise to have at least one other thing that the Fruit power itself interacts poorly with. The key here is ‘balance’. Notable Attacks: ‘One Piece’ is one of the universes that seems to use the rule of ‘named attacks are more powerful’, if only as a focusing technique… as such, you can have fun with this. Make certain to have at least two or three things listed if they’re a combatant, as that guarantees that they have some variety… and, don’t have everything be the equivalent of a ‘one-hit-K.O.’ sort of thing, as that’s not only unrealistic in so many ways, but also generally lazy and boring. You shouldn’t just list the names, either, but make certain to describe how the move takes place and functions. It helps to note down any effect radius, additional effect, or extra requirements for using it, as well. From: Where in the world are they from? Where were they born? Where did they grow up? It’s best to make certain that you list the island and where in the world that island is, at the very least, but it also helps to include the settlement as well. Making up your own islands is fine, too… Heck, you can even have characters from Mary Geoise, if you want… so long as you make it make sense. Family: Unless there is something special about generations further back than your character’s grandparents, there’s little reason to bother listing them… unless you really like genealogy, I suppose. Grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, and any offspring is about the furthest you’d likely need to put down. Include any details about how these family members may have died (if they’re dead), or maybe even how their relationship with your character is. You can even include ‘found-family’, if you like… And heck, I for one don’t give a damn if your character is related to (or in love with) a canon character, so long as you make it make sense and you don’t warp the canon character into something that they are not… especially without a fucking good reason. Relationships: It helps to also figure out at least the basics of relationships your character has with those who aren’t in their family. Who are their friends, where friends and family are actually separated in your character’s views? Who are their acquaintances, friendly, neutral, and otherwise? Who are their rivals or their enemies? And, most importantly, why? Everything of that sort needs a reason, and it can’t just be ‘such-and-such person doesn’t like my character because they’re jealous of their beauty or skills’. Give both your character and the other character some depth to their relationship. You can even mention any specific love interests, so long as there’s a valid reason behind why they’re an item. I hope you’re seeing a basic trend, here…? Sexual Orientation & Details: Don’t be afraid to play around with various orientations in your cast… it can make for some intriguing character interactions when there’s some tension in the air, to say the least. That being said, there’s no real rules on what your character should like, but it definitely helps to have some idea of it, even if you don’t decide to share. It also helps to know what sort of thing your character likes in a partner… Are they a butt person? Do they like boobs? Big dicks? Do they have a particular fetish? What about how they go about making their interest known? Do they want just one person, or are they hoping to have multiple partners at once? Are they prone to cheating? You know, all that prime-time soap opera shit. Dream: Everyone who sets out for a journey must have some reason to have left their home… even if it’s because they have no home. These don’t need to be deep, or complicated, and sometimes the most simple and plaintive goals are the most heart-wrenching. History: Here is the other primary part of any character’s information where they really shine… A character’s history will guide and shape at least half of who they are as a person, so you should make certain to do a decent job. As with personality, a list of dot points is fine to start with, but you’ll need to go more in-depth eventually. Something about their childhood, something about their adolescence, and so on. Whether or not you share a character’s history, you need to know it… Even if they have complete amnesia, it will still shape them. One thing that you may find liberating is that almost any type of backstory is plausible in that universe, even the really traumatic and ‘angsty’ ones. Despite the cheery and colourful veneer of the art-style, the world is actually incredibly-dark, just below the surface. It is advisable to try to avoid giving your character the exact same backstory as a canon character, though, especially a prominent one, but there are actually ways to make them work regardless… so long as you’re willing to put in the amounts of effort required to make it personalised to your character. Be reasonable, but have fun at the same time, basically. Colour: A representative colour can be an interesting way to say without so many words what your character is all about… and it makes for a fun artistic exercise, as well. Try to either make it their ‘most prominent’ colour, or a colour which has meanings and symbolism that suit your character’s personality. Real-World Nationality: As Oda has listed some of these, I think it’s only right to include it with my character sheets… While it may be easy to go with stereotypes, I find it rather interesting to really dig in to the culture of the place when answering this part. It also helps to explain why your character would be that particular nationality. Animal: Being an artist who sometimes draws animals more than humanoids, and who loves making comparisons between my characters and animals (and other people’s characters, while I’m at it), this is something that I really love to do. Behaviours and even physical traits that are in-common can be a good place to start… and be honest. Not every character is going to be comparable to something cute or ‘cool’. Smells Like: If a person spends a lot of time around something with a particular scent, it tends to ‘sink into’ their bodies. What a person smells like can even be used to make a comment about them as an individual, as well… If your character smells like sweat, then they either don’t bathe very often or they spend a lot of time working out. If they smell like soap, they are probably rather fastidious about their personal hygiene or are quite well-off… Stuff like that. Theme Song: Some people will tell you “never give your character a theme song, it’s stupid and cliché and obnoxious”… I say fuck ‘em, do it if you want to. It can be a really fun way to give just that little bit of extra flair to your character, and don’t be afraid to go with instrumental pieces, as well. Some of my cast have been conceptualised while I was listening to a particular piece of music, and it just makes sense to have that be their theme song… doesn’t it? Although, one thing that is good to bear in mind is that you shouldn’t have all of your cast have their theme being music by a singular person or group… vary it up a bit, and it will help your cast feel more alive than ever before. Oh, and be sure to specify who did the piece you’re thinking of, too, because there are a whole heap of pieces that have the same name but are entirely different. That goes for any specific cover or remix, too. Laughter Style: In the world of ‘One Piece’, there is a trend… Most of the cast have a particular way of laughing, a specific sound that indicates them even when they’re off-screen. To help make your character ‘fit in’ even further, it may be a good idea to give them something of the same. You should also remember that you can have a different sound to your character’s ‘full belly-laugh’ and their ‘chuckle or giggle’. Voice Actor/Seiyu: Another thing that many people may say to not bother with is an ideal voice actor, but I find it helps to set how my character sounds down in writing. This goes for both an English voice actor and a Japanese seiyu. It’s really up to you as to whether you want to go the full way and do both, but I highly recommend doing it for one, at least. Be sure to note down what role and source you’re referencing for the sound, as well… Many of the best voice actors have immensely-versatile voices, after all. Favourite/Least Favourite Food: Something that I find to be an interesting tidbit to include is what my characters particularly like to eat, and conversely, what they try to avoid eating. Maybe your character has an allergy to carrots? The possibilities are endless, really. Japanese Pronouns/Manner of Speech: Another thing that I like to put down is how my characters refer to themselves and to others… In Japanese, it can give really useful and subtle insights into how they think, as each of the forms of address lend themselves to a particular ‘flavour’ of person. If you don’t know enough about the pronouns used in Japanese, then try putting down how they speak to others… Are they arrogant and crass, or are they more reserved and polite? Do they hide any hostility behind a mask of polite words? Do they speak in a way that is geared to spark a fight, or do they prefer to avoid arguments wherever possible? Is there any difference between how they speak or refer to various types of people, such as a pirate speaking to another pirate or a Marine? If there is any ‘type’ of person your character particularly dislikes, it really helps to know whether they’ll make it clear or not, and if they do… how. Trivia/Other: Is there anything that doesn’t fit in any of the previous categories? Make sure to list it in one like this. Because of the ambiguity of a category like this, there aren’t really any rules for it… just… make it fit the universe, and make sure it doesn’t completely contradict what you’ve already put down.

There is one last thing I have to say… Don’t just take what people online (let alone the wiki) say at face value, and remember that even the characters in canon can give the reader/watcher false information… Use your brain, basically.

#One Piece #OP #OCs #OC Tips #Don't trust the wiki it's biased as fuuuuuu--

4 notes · View notes