#very good map that i have been putting off because when i played this by myself a year ago i got got by a scare and it pissed me off lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

revasserium · 8 months

Note

can i have one were zoro realises she does things bc of truama (like doesnt speak much etc)

hold me (still)

opla!zoro; 6,680 words; slow!!!!burn, fem!reader, ex-assassin!reader, straw hat!reader, general tragic backstory/trauma, fluff, hurt/comfort, bit of angst, emotionally constipated zoro, communication? what's that?, nami playing therapist bc she's the only one with 1 iota of emotional intelligence

summary: sometimes, stillness is a virtue, and others -- a tragedy. or, in which the straw hats pick up a new member and zoro is equally intrigued and weirded out by you.

a/n: well. you guys asked for slow burn and... the burn is so slow u gotta squint to see the smoke yall. but trust. the burn does get there! pls be patient!! and i tried to combine 2 dif reqs in this one fic :)

You are of the quiet sort. Just a shadow dancing in the periphery of their vision, and when they first met you, you’d told them it was your superpower, a soft, still smile slipping across your lips. Luffy had bought into it immediately, and the invitation was out his mouth before anyone could stop him.

“Come with us!”

“Oh…” your lips pressed into a thin line of consideration.

Zoro’s fingers itched towards his swords because something about you makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. But something else — something uncomfortable and strange, something very much like curiosity — seizes his chest and twists his stomach. Strange, he thinks, too strange.

“C’mon! It’ll be fun!”

And then, you’d smiled wider, and nodded, and that had been that.

It’s been three months since then, and you are still of the quiet sort, though it had receded a bit with time. What with Sanji’s gentle flirting and Usopp’s not-so-gentle stories and Nami’s bright, dry-humored companionship, you’d begun to “open up a bit”, so Luffy observed.

Zoro, for his part, has kept his distance. Because sometimes he still catches you at the bow of the ship, staring out across the midnight waters, still as a stone-carved statue. Still as a wooden beam — stiller, even.

“What’s with that?” he asks one day, strolling up to Nami as she traces a fine line over a new map she’s working on.

“Hm?” is her very eloquent response.

Zoro ticks his tongue against his teeth and casts his eyes about the ship, finding them drawn to the shape of you, up at the bow again, reading in the shade of the tangerine trees. Nothing moves except for the wind as it whisps through your hair and the slow scanning of your eyes as it skates across the page.

“New girl,” Zoro says, crossing his arms as Nami finally looks up at him and then off towards you.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

Zoro lets out a puff of breath, unfolding his arms to glare at Nami. He finds her grinning a lopsided grin as she clicks shut her compass and puts down her pen. She leans a hip on the barrel she’d been drawing on and folds her own arms.

“Oh, you like her.”

“I’m weirded out by her. ‘S not the same thing,” Zoro snaps, but when he tries to leave, Nami blocks him with an arm and pins him with a sharp, leveling look.

“No, no, no — we’re gonna work this through.”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“Uh-uh, you still owe me after that round of drinks the other night — remember when you bet you could drink more than me?”

Zoro narrows his eyes, “I did drink more than you.”

Nami’s grin is gleeful, “No, you didn’t. You had to be dragged back to your room after clogging up the toilet. Or do I need to show you the evidence —”

“Alright — fuck, fine. But really? This is what you’re gonna waste your favor on? You could’ve asked me to —” Zoro gestures around vaguely, “clean the bilge or something.”

Nami shrugs, looking almost too pleased, “Nope! This is what I wanna use my favor for. And, really, you think a bit of bilge water is gonna gross me out? C’mon.”

Zoro heaves a sigh and leans back against the main mast, closing his eyes.

“Fine then. Go.”

Nami sits back on the edge of the barrel.

“No, you go. Admit that you like the new girl.”

“I don’t.” He doesn’t open his eyes.

“I’ve seen you staring at her. We’ve all seen you staring at her.”

“What, that a crime now?”

Nami fights the urge to roll her eyes, “No, but I’ve never seen you try so hard to avoid someone before.”

Zoro lets out a bark of laughter, hard and mirthless, “Yeah, so that must mean I like her.”

Nami cocks her head, “It means you feel something towards her. And I’d suggest you figure it out.”

“And how’d you propose I do that?”

Nami once again waves in your direction, “Go. Talk. To her.”

Zoro lets out another breath, eyes scanning across the ship, anywhere but towards where you’re still sitting and reading, finger flipping a page in a perfect, smooth, singular motion.

And Zoro’s not blind. Blunt though he may be at times and careless as he is about most material things, he can still appreciate beauty when he sees it. And you — there’s no denying that you’re beautiful. Your strange stillness aside, when you do move, it’s with a dancer’s lissome grace, fluid lines, not a single movement wasted. When you smile, it seems to light you up from the inside, and your words, though soft, carries the well-worn weight of river stones, glittering beneath the clear, spring stream of your voice.

There’s a sharpness in your eyes, a straightness to your spine, a way of carrying yourself as if you’re afraid that one wrong move might shatter you and the entire world around you.

Sometimes when he sees you, he wonders at the hands that had sculpted you this way. He wonders at your life before they’d picked you up in Loguetown, when you’d oh-so-silently slipped up the execution platform and helped Luffy down, all the while staying free of Smoker’s watchful gaze.

The few times he’s seen you fight, he can’t help wondering if you’ve eaten some kind of devil fruit as well. No human could be so fast as that. Or be so quiet. But then again, he’d fought Kuro, and they’d seen stranger things. Still, he marvels at the way you flicker in and out of sight, slipping around the edges of battle like a dark, haunting thing, and men would drop like flies beneath your quick, quiet hands. With nary a sound or shout before their eyes roll back and their breathing is no more.

On the instances when Sanji had asked about your past, your eyes had gone misty and dark, unfocused. You’d gone still, freezing for so long that Usopp would cough just to fill the silence. And then slowly, ever so slowly, you’d turn back towards them with a small, sad smile and say:

“There’s… not much to talk about. I grew up somewhere far away, where if you didn’t keep quiet and still, bad things would happen to you. And then when those bad things happened, if you weren’t quick — the quickest of all, you’d die.”

Bad things, huh? Zoro thinks as he makes his way towards you, a hand resting on the hilt of his swords. He comes to a stop next to you and leans against one of the white planters, casually peering over your shoulder at the book in your hands.

For a long moment, neither of you move. Then, Zoro clears his throat and forces himself to speak.

“Is it good?”

It takes you a second, but eventually, you turn towards him.

“The book? Yeah, I suppose.”

“Not exactly a glowing review.”

You laugh, a soft, breathy little thing as you look back down at the page.

“It's about a girl who falls into an enchanted sleep, and a prince who wakes her up with a kiss.”

“Must’ve been one hell of a kiss.”

“Yes, and one hell of a prince.”

Zoro finds himself chuckling, his shoulders loosening as he takes another breath.

“And then what?” he asks.

“And then… he asks her to marry him.”

You run your fingers along the page, smoothing your palm over the ink and parchment. Zoro watches you, wondering, always wondering.

“What’s she say?” and it’s then that he notices his own voice, hushed and low, barely a whisper.

You look back up at him and smile a smile a sphynx would have been proud of.

“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten there yet.”

Zoro takes a breath, and the breath tastes distinctly different than all the breaths he’d taken before it. As if the world takes the breath with him, and some fundamental truth had shifted on the exhale.

The moment breaks, as moments are wont to do, when Sanji calls out for lunch and Zoro jerks out of his almost-reverie. You slowly close your book and rise to your feet, turning back to smile at him.

“C’mon, it’s lunchtime.”

Zoro nods and follows you into the kitchen, where Luffy and Usopp are already digging in, and Nami is pouring herself a drink. She spots the pair of you and catches Zoro’s eyes. A grin ticks at the edge of her lips but before she can say anything, you’re accosted by Sanji sweeping into a deep, flourishing bow, and ushering you towards the table, where he’d set your place in a manner fit for a princess.

“Where’s my setup?” Zoro asks as he drops into the seat next to you, cocking an eyebrow. Sanji shoots him an unimpressed look.

“I’m surprised you can use a fork and knife, moss-head. Just be grateful and eat up.”

Zoro scoffs but digs in nonetheless.

When next they dock, it’s on a rare, peaceful island — an island of light and books and learning, where the air smells of salt and ink and drying parchment, of unwritten words and untold stories. But it smells of a stillness too, and Zoro knows without having to ask that you’d like it here.

And you do.

He’s never seen you smile so much, never seen you so vibrant and full of life. You chat and laugh and read with a voracious hunger, and he finds himself drawn to this new, warm, moving side of you. He finds himself, more often than not, by your side, even when neither of you speak. And he basks in the comfort of the quiet that permeates the air when it’s just the two of you — him hanging in the hammock on deck, you reading by his side.

But now, there’s the soft tapping of your foot, the shuffle of pages when you flip forward to see what’s coming next, and of course the ever-present shush of the ocean as it washes against the Merry’s side.

The Log Pose needs two weeks to properly calibrate to the next island, so they’ve got time to kill.

On the fifth night, over dinner and drinks, Luffy asks the question that everyone’s been thinking since the day they’d all met you —

“So. Why’re you so still all the time? Not that it’s weird or anything — well, actually — it kind of is, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m just asking cause I'm curious!”

You look up from your half-finished wine but Zoro feels it happening, like the hush of a fan blade slicing through air, the gasp before a porcelain vase tips over and shatters. You stop. You stare. You’re frozen in every sense of the word. And he’s known you for long enough to know that you only go still as a reflex, only reach for it as a shield. Against what? He doesn’t quite know.

“It’s… something of a long story,” you say, your voice low and hoarse.

Luffy grins, smacking his lips as he sucks the meat off a chicken leg, “We’ve got tons of time! Right?” he looks around as if for validation, but everyone’s eyes are caught on you and your unnatural stillness.

Zoro shifts slightly in the seat next to you, opening his stance and turning towards you.

“Could do with a good story.”

Your eyes flash in his direction and he offers you the barest hint of a smile.

You relax, ever so slightly, drifting back in your seat, your glass cupped in the palms of your hands. And then, you begin to speak, your voice smooth and lilting, your words washing over them like the faint lull of the tides.

“When I was three, my father sold me for a barrel of beer.”

A dull clack echoes around the room and everyone turns to see Sanji hurriedly righting the thick stein he’s knocked over. Thankfully, it’d been empty.

“Sorry — I just — what?” he sounds furious but Usopp lays a hand across his arm and shakes his head.

You take a deep breath and continue, your voice oddly emotionless as you say, “The man who bought me took me to an island. It was… a dark place. A quiet place. I only learned its name after I escaped — an island called Elysium.”

Nami gasps before clapping her hands over her mouth.

“I’ve just — I’ve heard of that place before, but I thought… I thought it was just a made-up place.”

Luffy swallows hard, frowning, “What’s it like?”

Nami’s eyes flicker between you and Luffy, “Supposedly… it’s the home island for… for the most feared group of assassins in all the seas combined.”

Usopp’s eyebrows jerk up, “The most feared?”

A faint smile seeps across your lips like blood.

“Yes. The Shadows that Live.”

Everyone turns to look at you. Luffy picks up another drumstick.

“Whoa… cool name!”

Zoro hums, “I’ve heard of them before — but mostly, it was just an old wive’s tale about… shadow assassins who hunt in the dark. Mercenaries for hire. But… no one’s ever seen one before.”

“Because… once you see one, you’ll never live to tell the tale,” you say, your eyes now downcast and fixed on the glass in your hands.

“Then…” Usopp’s voice is soft, “What about… you?”

“I… I ran away.”

Silence greets you. But after a moment, Luffy spits out a bit of bone and uses it to pick at the space between his teeth, his eyes round.

“Wow! You must be pretty good to run away from an island full of shadow assassins!”

You almost laugh, his boundless trust hitting you like a punch to the stomach.

“So…” Sanji lets out a puff of silvery smoke, “the staying still thing… that’s just part of your training, yeah?”

You nod, “Something like that.”

Someday, you think, you’ll tell them about the hellscape that was Elysium island, of the long echoing halls, dark and still and silent. Of the mechanical beasts that hunted by sound and movement alone. Someday, you’ll let them know about the poisoned pomegranate seeds that they feed all the “recruits” to keep them hazy, of how you’d kept six of them suspended in your mouth and spat them all out when you’d finally made it far enough from the island to allow yourself to breathe.

“And… are these shadow assassins gonna come after us?” Nami asks, her voice careful and light.

You purse your lips, “I… I don’t know.”

Nami sighs, but a moment later, she moves to refill her drink with a slight shrug, “Well, just one more enemy to add to our growing list. Soon, we’re gonna have to post a sign-up sheet.”

At this, everyone laughs, and the tension snaps like a wounded spring.

Luffy burps loudly, patting his stomach, “I’m not worried — I mean, if you were able to run away from them once, that means you’re stronger than them, right?”

You pause, your hand hovering over the wine bottle. Zoro gently reaches over and refills your glass for you. You shift back into movement, casting him a small smile and taking a sip. The wine is cool and tangy as it hits the back of your throat. You breathe, and the world keeps spinning.

“I… I’m not sure — I’ve never fought… any of… them… before.”

“Guess we’ll find out if they try to come for you then — but you’ve got us now!” Luffy says, reaching for an apple and chomping into it, “ — Sho… you duon gotta wourry —” he licks his lips as he takes another huge bite before tossing the core towards the waste bin, “We’ve got your back!”

Nami makes a disgusted face, “Don’t talk with your mouth full, ugh.”

Sanji chuckles, tapping out his cigarette, “Yeah Luffy, mind your manners.” But his voice is full of laughter and you find yourself relaxing into the sway of the night, the swing of conversation. Beside you, Zoro refills his own glass and leans over to clink it against yours.

You turn, but he only raises his glass before taking a sip.

You mirror his movement, cradling the cup to your chest when you finish.

Later, he finds you by the tangerine trees, ghosting your fingers over their lush green leaves, dark enough to look black in the evening light.

“Hey.”

You turn, “Hi.”

Zoro sighs and looks out over the darkened waves, the moonlight refracted into a million shattered bits of sky.

“Luffy’s right, y’know.”

“What about?” you ask, joining him by the railings. The night air is cool and crisp. Behind you both, the island oozes with lamplight and laughter. Even from here, you can hear the joy, the peace that permeates the air here. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, you think, to stay here forever.

“If they come for you,” Zoro says, “we’ll have your back.”

You let out a small chuckle, looking down at your hands, “I know.”

“So,” he turns towards you, his earrings glinting in beneath the scimitar moon, “you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

You lick your lips, and instinctively, you reach for the stillness. All the days and weeks and months with the people around you have softened you, and for that, you know you should be thankful. Still, old habits die hard, and you have to clench your fists and dig your nails into your own palms to keep from freezing completely.

You take a shivering breath and force it out again.

“Fear’s a hard habit to break.”

At this, Zoro grunts, though it sounds something like consent. The moment stretches, long and soft and taffy-sweet.

He turns back towards the sea, “Yeah,” he says, and then —

“But we can take it slow.”

You swallow hard, passed the broken shards of forgotten words lodged in your throat (you find that they all somehow taste like thank you), and you nod. Warmth tickles your cheeks and you wonder why he’s said we instead of you — and later, lying in your bed at night, staring at the moon-slatted ceiling, you wonder if he was really talking about fear or if it was something else entirely.

You don’t get a lick of sleep that night.

The next few days pass in a light, repetitive blur. You and Zoro are sent on a few short shopping trips in the city, and you’re glad for something to do that involves movement. Shocking how quickly the body adapts once the weight it’d been holding on to is lifted.

You are still quiet, and he, the same; but the silence has shifted around you, and whereas before it’d been solid and steady, it’s now thrumming and charged with some unspoken energy.

Neither of you are blind to it; nor, it seems, is the rest of the crew.

Sanji’s taken to openly teasing Zoro about being with you all the time, complaining loudly that he can’t get a word in edgewise because Zoro refuses to leave you alone. Nami keeps on trying to drag you out for “girl's day” shopping trips, hinting at all the cute clothes you could get and how “green really suits your skin tone, y’know?”

Luffy and Usopp for their part, both just grin whenever they see you together — Luffy stoked at the fact that you seem more happy and talkative, Usopp gleeful at the way Zoro always seems so much softer when he’s next to you.

You’ve taken to watching him when he trains, sitting in the shade of the tangerine trees, a cold drink in your hand as Zoro runs through his katas. You content yourself with watching him flow through the movements, one and then another, and then another after that. He contents himself with your presence, knowing that you’re here, feeling your eyes as they skate down the length of his back or the width of his shoulders.

It’s a peaceful sort of companionship, even if it is living on borrowed time.

When you all wave the little island goodbye, it’s with heavy hearts and tearful smiles. It had treated you well, and you think you’d miss it. But adventure is as adventure does — it calls, beckoning to those with wandering hearts to listen.

The first week back at sea is a strange one, full of a ringing nostalgia. As if you’re simultaneously coming home and leaving one at the same time. Everyone is a bit quiet, except for Luffy, of course, who literally bounces off the freshly waxed planks, humming to himself as he sits on top of the great ram’s figurehead.

“Is he ever still?” you ask one day, sometime in the second week.

To which Zoro makes a sound between a scoff and a laugh, “You’ve been here a while. What’d you think?”

You sigh softly and tear your eyes away from the bright, shivering ball of energy that is your captain towards the far horizon. A sliver of uncertainty twines through you and your breath slows. Zoro glances at you, now long since attuned to your subtle shifts in movement and stillness. He narrows his eyes.

“What is it?”

You shake yourself back into the moment, forcing a smile.

“Nothing. I think…” your words fade as the feeling twists in you again, knife-sharp and stinging. You clear your throat and reach up to brush away a strand of hair. Skin grazes skin as Zoro’s hand meets yours in the same gesture and you both freeze — hands held up, his finger caught against the bend of your cheekbone, your fingers curling over his.

Time slows, slackens around the pair of you, and the moment stays, suspended in space — garnet dark and perfect.

Neither of you dare to breathe. It’s then that you realize how close Zoro is — close enough for you to see the entire ocean reflected in his eyes: big and dark and so endless it nearly unmoors you. Close enough for you to feel the warmth of his skin; his body, emanating heat. You’d often wondered, in the long hours of watching him train, at the glistening copper of his skin and the light-kissed quality, if the sun himself favored Zoro as well.

Like this, it’s easy to believe that beneath his skin, there pulsed something like sunlight.

“Look! It’s an island! It’s an island!”

And just like that, the moment shatters. Time slips back into motion and you pull away from each other, breathless, with warm cheeks and thundering hearts, feeling somehow lightning-touched and static-ridden.

You take half a step back, reaching up to press a hand to your mouth as if to stop something from tumbling through. But what? You can’t really say.

Zoro tips back as well, whipping around to help Usopp and Sanji with the sails as Luffy continues to holler, waving his hat. On the horizon, you see it looming — the silhouette of an island. You lower your palm from your lips to your heart and wonder what kind of island it will be.

Deserted — seems to be the answer when you all make landfall. The island is quiet, but the occasional chirp and cricket staves off your nerves as you all wander cautiously about the beach, squinting into the dense forest that seems to encompass the whole of the island.

“Looks like a good place to camp for the night!” Luffy says, grinning as he plops down on the sand.

Sanji nods, dusting off his hands, “We’ll need some wood for a fire, but I reckon I can whip up some grilled fish from the fresh catch.”

You wrap your arms around yourself and look around, glancing back at the darkening horizon.

“Something the matter?” Zoro’s voice is soft as he helps you carry some of the camping supplies from the ship.

“No… yes… I —” you look up at him, pursing your lips, “I don’t know. I’ve just… this island is…”

Zoro looks around, his dark eyes scanning the thick swath of forest just beyond the beach, “Too quiet?”

You let out a tiny laugh, “Yeah, something like that.”

He nods, “Don’t worry, I’m — we’re here.”

And he leaves it at that, hoisting a stack of wood over his shoulders and going to help Nami with the fire. You watch him with a smile, wondering what on earth you’d done to deserve this level of caring, this magnitude of kindness. Soon, dinner is had and drinks are shared and laughter is spilled like so many silver coins over the white sand beach. The lull of the evening takes over you all, and before long, Luffy and Usopp are slumped over each other, snoring loudly.

You stare into the depths of the fire and try to tamp down the growing dread festering inside your bones. All those years of holding still, of breathing and listening and feeling — you shake yourself — no, not all stillness is a bad thing. Not all silences are made the same.

“You’re doing it again,” Zoro’s voice almost makes you jump. Instead, you turn, finding him next to you as he nurses a half-drunk bottle of wine in his hands. He doesn’t look at you, but there’s a loose grin hinged across his lips.

“Sorry,” you say, ducking your head, feeling a now familiar heat creep into your cheeks that has nothing to do with the dwindling bonfire.

“Don’t be,” Zoro takes another drink, “But I told you… you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“I know… and I’ve said before —”

“Fear’s a hard habit to break,” Zoro echoes back at you, finally glancing over and catching your eye.

You breathe out, looking down at your own hands, “Yeah… but I’m trying.”

You both fall silent, and for a while, the only sounds are the crackle of the dying flames, the shush of the ocean waves, and the occasional snores from the rest of your crew. It’s late — later than you realized.

“Do you… want me to grab a book for you?”

You smile, “No, I don’t think it’s bright enough.”

“I could restoke the fire.”

“No, it’s — it’s okay.”

“Alright.”

A bird coos the distance.

“Why don’t you tell me a story?” you ask, turning to look at Zoro proper, shifting till your body is facing him.

In the faint light, you can see the edge of his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.

“You’re asking the wrong guy — you should wait till the Great Captain Usopp’s awake.”

“Yeah, but I want to hear one from you.”

Zoro sighs, his eyes fixed on the last of the flickering flames. He takes another swig of wine before he starts to speak, his voice low and a bit stilted, but he pushes on. He tells you about his childhood, the village he’d trained in, the doujou in the middle of the wood, his friend who he’d never beat — not even once.

He tells you about he early mornings and the late nights, and how the world had seemed large enough to conquer.

“… And then… there came a morning when she didn’t show up… and sensei came and told me that there’d been an accident.”

His voice almost breaks then, and your eyes catch on the shining white hilt of the Wadou Ichimonji — his thumb pressing against the guard, running along it’s hard metal edge.

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

Zoro shrugs, “Don’t be.”

You nod, “Still.”

Zoro slates you a lopsided smirk, “So. Now you know my tragic backstory too.”

You laugh, leaning back to cast your eyes up towards the sky, “And you know mine — it’s almost like we’re friends or something.”

Zoro lets out a long breath, “Yeah… or something.”

There’s a tightness to his voice that makes your skin tingle and it takes everything you have not to look over at him, to try and see if he’s looking at you, watching you the way you’d imagined him to be. You fancy you can feel his gaze on your face, but you close your eyes instead.

You let yourself fall into the warm haze of sleep, and for a while you drift there, your mind sifting through shards of memories and slivers of sound, casting them against the backs of your eyelids as you slowly slide into the darkness of dreams.

You wake up to a gasping stillness — the silence pressing in on your eardrums like thumbs, the darkness around you so complete it’s almost a solid thing. You freeze, your breath hissing to a halt inside you. Then distantly, ever so distantly, you hear the sounds of battle — metal clashing against metal, the hard thud of boots against flesh. You shake your head and reach up to clap your hands over your ears and only then do your senses return to you, snapping back as if you’d been abruptly shunted back into your earthly body.

“Gum Gum — Pistol!”

“Seize her!”

You whip into movement, fast as a flash, dashing away, hoping against hope that it would draw your attackers far enough from your crewmates.

“No one… ever… leaves us…”

The voice is serpentine and susurrus, sinking into your skin like sharpened teeth, but before it can reach you, it’s cut short by a bright flash of silver.

You gasp, whirling around, reaching for the nearest pulse, instinct taking over as you sink your fingers into muscle and flesh. The rush of blood thrumming beneath your fingertips comes too easy, even as a familiar scent accosts you. A moment later, your hands are being pinned above you, and thick, rough bark is digging into your wrists as Zoro stands before you, a sword in one hand, the other holding you still.

His eyes are a little wild and a lot worried. There’s a ring of red rawness around his neck, thin trickles of blood trailing along his jugular, disappearing into the wide scoop neck of his shirt.

“Hey, look at me.”

You nearly whimper, struggling against him, fear still coursing through you like a drug but Zoro is strong enough to keep you held. Behind him, you can see the rest of the crew fending off several shadowy figures, Usopp waving a torch, screaming at the top of his lungs, Luffy whooping as he whacks another figure with his fist.

“Z-Zoro?”

“Yeah, it’s me — eyes up here.”

You swallow in a breath, and then another, and you feel the bright thrum of urgency leave you as your body slowly falls slack. And then you’re slipping, and he’s looping an arm around you to keep you upright.

“Th-they’re here — they —”

“They’re gone — we got rid of them — hey.”

Zoro takes you by the shoulders and gives you a gentle shake. Finally, your eyes catch on his and your gaze holds. You see yourself reflected in them, stark and terrified, but alive — somehow alive.

“They’re gone,” he says, his voice soft and low by your ear, his arm still wrapped around your middle. Shivers wrack your body as you bury your face in his shoulder. He smells of steel and skin and the metallic tang of blood. It’s then that you remember — the wounds on the sides of his neck. The marks in the shape of your hands —

You jerk back and feel a sticky wetness against your cheek.

“Zoro, I hurt you!”

At this, he scoffs, pulling back far enough to flash you a look.

“This is nothing. C’mon.”

He offers you a hand, and after a second you take it, letting him pull you to your feet. Wordlessly, he presses his palm to the small of your back, his arm extended to keep you steady as you both make your way back towards camp.

“Phew! That was a workout!” Luffy is saying just as you both reach the outskirts of the now-darkened bonfire. Sanji is pulling out a cigarette, striking a match, and first lighting the end before tossing it into the remains of the firewood, fanning it up into a slow flame.

Nami and Usopp both look a bit shaken, but none worse for the wear.

They all pivot to look at you.

You go still against Zoro’s side, uncertainty flooding through you. Faintly, you feel Zoro’s fingers as they press into the bend of your waist, solid and steady.

Then, Usopp coughs, “C’mon y’all — the Shadows that Live? Psh! More like — the Shadows that Fled, am I right? Yeah? Didya see the way I sent ‘em runnin’ with my brand new fire-powered explosion rounds?”

Nami chuckles and Sanji follows suit, shaking his head and letting out a thin wisp of smoke. Luffy’s grins at you, pumping a fist in the air, clapping his right shoulder.

“See? Told you we’d have your back! We are your crew, after all!”

Weakness seeps into your limbs as you nod, hot pin-pricks of tears itching at your lower lashes. You lower your head and rub at your eyes before looking back up again with a smile. Sanji grimaces as he looks over Zoro.

“Got something on your neck, mate.”

Zoro glares but you glance over and feel your stomach twist with guilt.

“Sorry… I can clean that up for you. They’re not deep but they do need to be bandaged up.”

Zoro wipes down his sword before sheathing it and motioning towards the ship. Behind you, you can hear Nami yawning and saying something about catching up on some more sleep and Sanji reassuring her about having the last watch anyway.

The kitchen is still dark, but the dusty dawn sweeps against the far horizon and neither of you bother to turn the lights on. You carefully set the first aid kit on the kitchen counter and collect the supplies as Zoro leans back against the edge and folds his arms. You work in near silence, reaching up to first wipe the thin threads of drying blood before tending to the tiny, crescent-shaped puncture wounds.

You press an alcohol-soaked cotton ball against one of them and feel Zoro wince.

“Sorry.”

“I’m fine.”

You bite your lips, “If this had been a bit deeper or a few inches over —”

“But it wasn’t. So it’s fine.”

You don’t look up at him but you can feel his eyes on you. Your movements are fluid and sure; you’d clearly done this before.

“Hey, look at me.”

You freeze, eyes slowly gliding up the planes and divots of his neck, slipping up the line of his jaw, so sharp it might’ve been turned on a diamond cutter’s lathe. Your breath hitches as you finally meet his eyes, and there’s a dark, knowing glint behind them that makes your stomach flip.

“I’m fine.”

And for the second time in a handful of hours, you’re caught by the realization of your closeness — only a breath of space between you. There’s a crimp at the corner of his mouth that looks dangerously like a smile and then you’re tipping forward, a thumb reaching up to trace the line of his bottom lip once —

The movement acts like a trigger, and suddenly, he is leaning in and the breath of space disappears.

For all your life of stillness, you thought you’d learned to appreciate the depths and widths of movement. But nothing could’ve prepared you for this — for the push and pull of lips on lips, for the force and friction of skin against skin. For the gasp and hiss, for the breath and kiss.

For the feeling of his large palm as it settles along the swallow’s-nest bend of your neck, the way his thumb runs along your jaw like tracing the guard of his beloved sword, tilting your mouth towards him. For the way your heart might flutter like a tiny, caged bird, or the way you might feel his heart thumping like a fist from his chest to yours.

For the way his voice rolls over your name like a ship at sea; for the way it would shake your body from your bones and leave you more liquid than solid in his arms. For how you never used to think your story would be a love story, but then you realize that every story is a love story if caught in the right moment, in the right light.

And here, breaking apart from Zoro, with a thick, stolen streak of lemon-yellow sunlight leaking in from the kitchen window — that’s exactly what it feels like.

“Oh,” is all you have the strength to say.

Zoro, in all his solid brilliance and quiet audacity, laughs.

You taste the smile on your own lips before you realize you’re smiling. But when you try to bury your face in his neck, he winces slightly as you brush his still-fresh wounds.

“Crap, I forgot about these.”

Zoro chuckles as you hurry to press a few small bandages to the wounds.

“It’s okay. So did I.”

You finish dressing his wounds in silence, though this silence is markedly different from every other silence that had ever existed between you. There’s ease and tension, both, and when you’re finally finished, Zoro takes both your hands in his.

“So…” you say, unsure suddenly of where to look.

Zoro’s laugh is just as soft, just as uncertain.

“So.”

You try to look out the window, but by now, the dawning sun is so bright that it temporarily blinds you and you jerk back. Zoro smiles, reaching up to run his thumbs along your closed eyelids before dropping them to hook around your wrists again.

“Do you… wanna talk about it?” he asks, quiet as always.

You purse your lips and let your lashes flutter open. You find him watching you. Heat crests up your shoulders and into your cheeks, and suddenly, the exhaustion of the night before saps at your limbs. You sigh.

“Right now? Not really.”

“Yeah, neither do I,” he says, sounding as relieved as you feel.

You bite your lips and cast your gaze shyly across his face, your bird-wing heartbeat still flapping in your chest. You fight the urge to go still, to reach for that shield that has always protected you before. Faintly, you feel Zoro’s thumbs tracing circles along the insides of your wrists.

“Can I ask for something else, though?”

“What is it?”

You reach up a finger, nudging one of his golden earrings. You don’t miss the way he shivers, or the way his breath quickens in his chest.

“Kiss me again.”

Zoro grins, tugging you towards him, leaning into the curve of your palm as he does.

And does.

And does again.

reqs are: temporarily closed

but feedback is much loved and appreciated!!!

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rhiaarrow · 3 months

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Honestly I think Bad and the Late Night Trio is my favorite dynamic that's come out of the QSMP.

And I'm not just talking about qBad, Dapper, Pomme and Richas I'm also talking about ccBad, Dappmin, Pommin and Ricardão.

It's just the little things they do, because they're just so used to each other by now and the adms have become such good friends because of the amount of time they spend together on and off the server.

There's just so many examples that stick in my head because they're just so sweet when you realize that none of this people knew each other this time last year.

Like the time when Richas just showed up in front of Bad randomly one day after the reset (the day that Dapper set up the magnet mining machine) and just went;

"Dapper told me through the magic of discord to come see the cool stuff you've been doing, what am I here to see tio?"

Or when Bad and Dapper were out investigating and Dapper puts down a sign saying;

"Richas won't stop telepathically asking if he can come visit."

To which Bad just offhandedly replies

"If he can Dragon Magic his way here then sure, but I am not walking all the way home already."

And sure enough, a few minutes later we hear Richas' horn sound out as he appears out of the blue, having finally been given permission by Dappmin to join their exploration

Not to mention the amount of times we've arrived and been told by Bad; "So heres what [Richas or Pomme or Dapper or any combination of those 3] and I did off stream. "

Or "No Richas I'm not leaving I'm just sending the Ghosties off."

Or when Bad was attempting to figure out how to bribe Richas into keeping his armour on in Lucky Ducks by figuring out what he loved the most before going

"If you don't put your armour on I'll take away fofoca time."

And then explained to the chat that 'fofoca time' is what Richas calls it when he and Bad hang out after stream and that got Richas to put his armour on immediately.

Or even today when Bad threatened to end stream in order to make Richas use a heart container.

Not to mention the night Pommin and Ricardão spent with ccBad training him in battleship before that day in Purgatory 2 or the night they spent modifying the egg signs together.

My favorite example of how close they are even outside of their characters will still forever be the night when Bad, Richas and Pomme were collecting ice together to cover the favela ocean and Ricardão and Pommin were very obviously sat in a vc together while the mined.

They spent a while teaching Bad and the other how to pronounce certain sounds in their native languages.

Then Richarlyson asked Bad about a sound he struggled with in English so Bad taught Ricardão how to make the 'th' sound in the English language correctly while Pommin judged the noise they were making because Bad obviously couldn't hear.

Then later Bad asks Pomme where Richas went since he wasn't visible on the map and she just stands there before telling him that she knows the location and taking him to the exact coordinates.

And they do that a couple times until Bad finally decides to sneak up on Richas and scares Ricardão so bad that he stops moving completely in game for a solid minute and Pommin is just keyboard smashing on signs because she's laughing too hard at how loudly they screamed.

And then Ricardão had to go afk for a couple minutes later on because someone had come to check on them since they'd screamed so loud so early in the morning and they had to tell them that they were, in fact, fine.

Sure right now the way they interact with each other definitely slightly breaks Bad's rp of not knowing each other, especially with Richas.

But at the end of the day when they hang out together it's not just qBad and Richarlyson, it's also Ricardão & ccBad who have spent a frankly ridiculous amount of hours playing together in the less than a year they've known each other (not counting the time Ricardão admitted to being a fan of BBH for).

In fact Ricardão confirmed to Foolish today that since the reset they're the player with the second highest playtime, after Bad, but only by a little bit, and I just think that's very fitting.

Long story short, I LOVE the late night trio and Bad's dynamic because they're just such a chaotic mess who are all willing to do anything and everything that one of them wants to do, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

It's soooooooo hard to believe they've not even known each other for a year yet because they just all click so fucking well that it's insane.

People from 4 different nationalities, 3 of them playing speechless eggs, and they've become so close thanks to this server. I just think it's beautiful :')

(It is also 3am so I may just be rambling nonsense, so if this makes no sense forgive me xD)

#qsmp #qsmp meta #qsmp admins #qsmp badboyhalo #qsmp dapper #qsmp pomme #qsmp richarlyson #3am thoughts #late night trio #rhia rambles

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heliads · 1 year

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ok so… i’m totally obsessing over Newt from TMR rn but i’m not sure if u still write for him🤧 but if u do i was thinking maybe something like during bonfire night the reader has had too many special drinks from Gally, accidentally confesses to Newt and lists everything she loves about him and then Newt gets all flustered and stuff (he’s so cute omg) but the reader is too drunk to go back to their own hammock so then Newt carries reader to their hammock but ends up sharing a hammock and then the reader doesn’t remember anything the next morning and then i’ll let u decide the rest😭

gally's special brew as a plot device >> it will always be famous to me

masterlist

In roughly thirty seconds, you’re going to reach a milestone you never thought possible. You’ve been waiting for this for a while now, counting down the days and hours and minutes like you were going to find yourself anywhere other than right here when your self-imposed timer went off. All you’ve got to remember the date is a memory, but given the fact that you only recall so many of those, it was easier to place than one would expect.

An alarm goes off across the Glade, ear-piercing klaxons rattling off of the high stone walls surrounding you. The rest of the boys around you start to amble towards the source of the noise, the Box newly arrived from who knows where, but you stay put for the time being, just breathing in the moment.

One blond boy next to you, your closest friend and favorite person here, nudges you in the leg with his foot. You’re both sitting in the unruly grass, ignoring the press of the green strands against your arms and calves. You have a habit of always wanting to keep him within reach.

“Why aren’t you racing towards the Box?” He asks.

You tilt your head to the side, staring up at the sky. Robin’s egg blue dappled with clouds, it’s the only pocket of space outside the Walls that you’ll likely ever know. “Today marks one year since I showed up here for the first time.”

Newt whistles through his teeth. “Shoot, already? Feels like time has flown. I swore you came up just last month.”

“No, I’ve been keeping count. Twelve months and I’m still here.”

Newt winces. He made a promise to you at the very start that he would get you out in six months, then, when that deadline came and went, he lengthened it to a year. The oath was only sworn because you were nervous about this place when you were still a Greenie and unused to the idea of living and dying here in endless repetition. You’re no happier about that fact now, but you are more used to it, at least.

“Well,” he starts off, “maybe you’re still here, yeah, but Minho and the other Runners are getting closer to finding a way out, I swear. Minho says they’re this close to having mapped the whole thing, then we’ll have an escape route for certain. Just give it another year. You won’t even notice the time passing, I promise.”

It’s kind of Newt to try to distract you again, even though you both know by this point that it’s useless. Minho is getting closer to traveling every pathway of the Maze, yes, but what Newt isn’t mentioning is how little the Keeper of the Runners actually is to finding something useful. Whenever you ask Minho what he’s learned about how to get out of here, he only ever comes up with a blank slate.

Still, harping on that doesn’t exactly make for a good time, so you’ll let yourself play along with Newt’s idea of your inevitable escape from this place for now. He’s losing hope even faster than you, even if he doesn’t tell anyone. It would be good to keep up the pretense.

You eye his leg, the one with the limp, and nod. “Yeah, next year for sure.”

Newt sits in silence for a moment or two longer, then stands up carefully, offering a hand to you. “Come on, then. We’ve got a Greenie to stare at and stuff to unpack from the Box, no time for musing. Besides, we’ve all got to get ready for the bonfire later tonight.”

You accept his offer of help, and when you’re on your feet once more, your smile is back. “I forgot about the bonfire! Oh, that’ll make everything better. Always does.”

Newt grins. “You’re just saying that because it’s the one time a month Alby will let all of us get proper wasted and skip work for the afternoon.”

“Of course I am,” you laugh, “I want to have fun! Is that such a terrible thing?”

Newt slings an arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to his side as the two of you walk lopsidedly over to the Box opening. The other Gladers have already crowded around the opening, but there’s enough space for the two of you to peer in at the befuddled newcomer inside if you squeeze past a few Track-Hoes.

“No,” he murmurs later, once you’ve almost forgotten what you were talking about, “I don’t think it is.”

Damn right. You’ve looked forward to each Bonfire Night of your full year here with just as much excitement as everyone else. The soaring flames, the delighted shrieks and shouts of your friends, plus Gally’s special brew, everything about the celebration is a joy to behold. You can watch Gally kick the asses of people who should have known better to challenge him, or observe the Greenie as he tries to figure out his name.

Or, better yet, you can sit in a circle of your friends and tell jokes that get progressively worse as the lot of you get progressively more tipsy and tired. The night wears on, the stars burn themselves out above you just trying to catch a glimpse of your magnificently roaring fire, and all is well, as much as it can be around here.

At some point, you look up and you’re sitting alone with Newt towards the outskirts of the gathering. You don’t remember quite when that happened, but you’ve refilled your glass enough times that the memory loss sort of makes sense. Does anything here, though? No, not at all. Not ever.

Newt’s grinning over at you, saying something that you have to focus extra hard to hear. “Are you lucid again?”

“Not entirely,” you beam up at him, “Have I had a lot to drink tonight?”

Newt grimaces. “Probably more than you should have. You’ll be regretting it tomorrow, I can promise you that. Sorry for not cutting you off earlier.”

You shake your head a little too wildly and have to pause for a moment to blink the stars out of your eyes before continuing. “No, that’s not your fault. You don’t have to watch out for me all the time.”

Something almost like hurt plays upon Newt’s features, mixing with the warm glow of the firelight, and it makes you rush to say something so he stops looking so unhappy. “Only if you don’t want to watch out for me, that is. I like having you around. Makes me feel better.”

“Really?” Newt asks, amused.

“Really,” you confirm happily. “You’re my favorite person here by far. Minho teases me about that a lot, actually. He says I should soldier up and just tell you that, but he can’t bully me anymore, because I’m talking about it right now, aren’t I? He’s right, though, I do like you. Oh– I was thinking, Newt, and– and I think I’m okay, staying in the Glade forever, if I’ve got you here with me. You’re the best thing about this place.”

You hadn’t meant to ramble on like that, but the words came easily enough from your throat, and Newt seemed like he really wanted to hear what you were saying, so you went ahead and let him.

Newt sits for a few minutes in stunned silence before clearing his throat a little too loudly. “Um. Well, I think you should get to bed. Like, now. I think you’re drunk.”

“No,” you protest, “well, I am drunk, yeah, but I’m not just saying that because I’m drunk. I mean it, Newt. I really do.”

Newt’s expression softens. “I know you did, sweetheart. Let’s go to bed anyway, though. I think some rest would be good for you.”

“Alright,” you decide.

Newt stands up. You try to start walking back with him, but your feet refuse to cooperate on the uneven ground and you end up tripping more than you should. Eventually, Newt laughs quietly and picks you up, easily carrying you back to your hammock. He tries to set you down but you’re seized by the overwhelming panic that he’ll leave you here alone and you complain vehemently.

He’s still in a good temper, though (is it not wonderful to be needed?) and instead shifts so he’s lying down in his hammock instead, you on his stomach. You whisper goodnight to him and he says goodnight back, then a beat and a half later, did you really mean what you said? About me, that is? About how you–

You can’t really pick up what he’s saying, though. He was right about you needing rest, because the gentle swaying of the hammock and the soft beat of his heart under your head is just enough to send you off to sleep. Darkness pulls you under in an instant, and you’re rocked away to the tune of the crickets chirping somewhere in the distance and Newt still mumbling questions against the top of your head.

You can sense your hangover looming like dark clouds on the horizon, signaling a true storm of a day about to wreck you for good, but for now it’s just in the distance, not quite yours, not yet. The terrible feeling is warded off by an odd sense of calm and quiet. It’s warm now, warm and comfortable in your hammock, which is strange. Usually, you wake up cold on mornings in the Glade, but not today. It makes you want to snuggle down further, push off consciousness just a little longer.

Then your hand connects with something that isn’t one of your few allotted threadbare blankets or the knots of your hammock, something soft, like skin. A hand, one that isn’t yours. Your eyes fly open and– well, you don’t remember this, but you’re not exactly going to complain.

Newt is lying next to you, still asleep. You are curled up beside him, must have fallen asleep with your head on his chest. One of his hands is just touching yours, the other is cupping the back of your head to pull you closer to him.

Immediately your brain splits into two warring factions. One half wants to run away quickly, figure out what happened and why you’re here. This isn’t what you’re supposed to be doing, you know. Shuck, Alby would have a fit if he saw the two of you like this. Probably enough to throw you in the Slammer for a couple of hours.

The other part of yourself wants to stay here forever, to close your eyes and make Newt wake up first and handle it. You haven’t felt peace like this in a while. It’s just the two of you, soft and sweet and mostly folded over in sleep. Why should you disturb this? Disturb him? He’ll just be unhappy if you wake him and force him to realize that you’re here. Probably. Unless he’s the one who let you sleep in his hammock, which is more likely and far more terrifying.

Your issue is solved when Newt shifts slightly, rocking the hammock, and wakes up at last. You quickly shut your eyes and feign sleep, but judging by the movement of his chest as he laughs, you were caught in the act.

“I know you’re awake, Y/N.” He says.

You reluctantly open your eyes. “Maybe. By any chance, do you know why I’m here and not in my own hammock?”

You might just be kidding yourself, but you swear something almost like disappointment crosses Newt’s face. “You were pretty drunk last night,” he says at last, “I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

It’s a decent explanation, but that doesn’t explain why he’s looking at you like he really, really wants you to remember something about the events of the most recent Bonfire Night. “What did I do last night?” You ask slowly.

Newt shakes his head. “You didn’t do anything, trust me.”

“Then what did I say? You’re looking at me like you’re going crazy.”

Newt furrows his brows in a moment of indignation. “What? I’m not– I’m not looking at you like that. Anyway, you might have said a thing or two. Maybe.”

You stare at him in disbelief. “Newt, if you keep withholding information from me, I’m going to rock the hammock so much you fall on the ground. What happened?”

He has the audacity to laugh at your threat, as if you weren’t completely serious about it. “Alright, alright. You might have told me that you liked me.”

Your sense of terror, which had faded briefly after Newt woke up, is back in full force. “I did what?”

“You told me you liked me,” Newt repeats, “and I thought– well, you were drunk, so I thought you didn’t mean it, but–”

“I did mean it,” you whisper.

Newt’s eyes are wide when you dare to risk a glance back up at him. “Oh.”

That’s a bad oh. Has to be. You move to get up and try to run away before he can look at you like that anymore, but Newt tightens his grip around your waist, forcing you to lie back down. “Wait, wait. Don’t go. I like you too.”

Now it’s your turn to be surprised. “You do?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling, “Have for a while. Minho teases me about that too, by the way. No wonder he seems so frustrated about it, he has to listen to both of us moping around even though we both like each other.”

You laugh. “That would be annoying, yes. He has to be happy now, though, we finally told each other about it.”

“That we did,” Newt says, and you can feel the upturned crescent of his lips as he presses a kiss to your forehead.

Maybe you spent a whole year in the Glade without ever seeing rescue. Maybe another year will pass without anything, or maybe five, or ten. Maybe you’ll never leave at all. Still, you’ve got your reasons to be happy after all. They start with him.

maze runner tag list: @rogueanschel, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @neewtmas, @mayfieldss, @hiya-itsamber, @gods-fools-heroes, @hope92100, @w1shes43, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @fadedver

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heleentje · 1 year

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So there's a take that crops up every so often in the Breath of the Wild fandom, and it goes something like this:

Windblight Ganon is such a piece of cake! If Revali were as talented as he claimed to be, he wouldn't have been defeated by it, so clearly he's just an arrogant blowhard.

I disagree. Because while Windblight might have been relatively easy for the player to defeat, circumstances conspired against Revali in every possible way.

Strike 1: The Blight Ganons were tailor-made to defeat the Champions

While it's not stated outright, the Blights seem to be custom-made to put their respective opponents at the worst possible disadvantage. So while Link can avoid the whirlwinds on the ground, they would be very disruptive to Revali's Gale (something he's only been able to do consistently for a short while). Arrows, too, can easily get blown off course by the wind even when using a heavy bow (so can a Rito, who is presumably lighter than a Hylian).

If, on top of that, it was raining (implied by memories #16 and #17), then Revali's favoured bomb arrows would have been useless. Not a great recipe for a fight.

Strike 2: Rito don't see well in the dark

Botw is a game that doesn't tell you a lot upfront, but you can find a wealth of information in every little corner. Case in point, in Gerudo Town there's a Rito named Frita. And she has a very interesting tidbit to share if you talk to her at night.

[Image ID: A Rito named Frita in Gerudo Town says: "Us Rito... We haven't got the best night vision, to be honest."]

When the Calamity emerged, an unnatural darkness blanketed the land. A darkness that persists from its appearance all the way through Link and Zelda fleeing and their final stand at Fort Hateno, up until Zelda temporarily sealed the Calamity (memories #15, #16 and #17).

That’s without even mentioning the laser show Windblight Ganon puts on. Ever encountered a car with LED lights on a dark road? Now imagine how Revali felt.

Strike 3: Revali had to fly non-stop for hours to get to Medoh

After sinking some hours into playing botw, you probably get used to warping all across the map via the shrines. Going from Lurelin to Rito Village is a matter of seconds. And if the Sheikah had been able to unlock the Sheikah Slate fully in the past, that would have been a massive boon to the war effort.

Unfortunately, they didn't. Which means that, when Calamity Ganon emerged, all the Champions had to take the long road to their Divine Beasts.

Now what does that mean for Revali? We can hazard a pretty good guess, but we don't have to, because the art book tells us: Revali flew straight from Lanayru East Gate to Rito Village. It's hard to tell exactly how long that would have taken him, but I'm estimating that would be about 8-10 hours flying non-stop.

[Image ID: A map of Hyrule showing the presumed routes the Champions took to get to their Divine Beasts. Revali's is a straight line across Hyrule.]

Which means Revali (like the other Champions) was probably already exhausted by the time he got to Medoh.

Aaaaaand that's three strikes, he's out!

But if that's not enough for you yet, here's one more thing. Admittedly, this is less solidly canon than the previous parts, but it's conjecture that, in my opinion, is backed up by the Champions' Ballad DLC.

Strike 4: Revali lacked his best weapon and may have been injured

The artbook shows us another salient tidbit. Revali could have detoured if he wanted to, but he didn't: he flew in the straightest possible line across Hyrule Field.

Hyrule Field, better known as the center of the chaos at the time.

Can we really expect a Champion, especially a Champion who's so eager to prove himself, to not stop and at least try to help? And while trying to help, what might have happened to him?

When you fight the Blights in the illusory realm, you gain a set amount of equipment, implied to be what the Champions carried with them at the time. And with Revali, something's missing.

[Image ID: The bow inventory during the DLC fight against Windblight Ganon. It includes a Falcon Bow, Duplex Bow and Phrenic Bow.]

Where's the Great Eagle Bow?

Would Rito Champion Revali, greatest archer in known Rito history, really not be carrying his signature bow, when every other Champion carried their favoured weapon?

This, combined with his route straight across Hyrule Field, makes me suspect that he did engage the Guardians, lost his bow, and may even have gotten injured in the process.

So there you have it. Just about everything was against Revali in that fight. And while Link, and by extension the player, may have had an easy time of it, they went into it at full health and with all the advantages of the Sheikah Slate.

Meanwhile, Revali arrived at Vah Medoh after a frantic hours-long flight only to be thrown into a fight he didn't expect against an opponent tailor-made to counter his every move, while he was unable to see properly and lacked his best weapon. And he still managed to put up one hell of a fight.

#botw #revali #meta #look I didn't write my first botw fic about this very thing just to have this nonsense persist #Revali is exactly as good as he claimed to be #and the Champions were thrown into a fight that had them at a massive disadvantage #(sidenote: Urbosa doesn't have the Thunder Helm either even though it probably could have saved her)#(Presumably she didn't want to detour when they were so pressed for time and she didn't expect a fight on Vah Naboris)

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the-froschamethyst4 · 7 months

Text

When you meet his kids

John Price Headcanons

——————

You were definitely nervous to finally meet Price’s children

When you both started dating he didn’t want to share that he had kids till he knew she was the one for him

He has a son named Beau and a daughter named Iris

Iris is a sweet and kind girl who did t care if someone wasn’t her mom as long as he daddy was happy

Beau was very much skeptical about Y/n for the first time. Price has been with other women before Y/n and every time it never ends well

Price was nervous as well on how his kids will act around his now soon-to-be wife

“Hi, Y/n,” Iris said with a soft smile and putting her hand out

Y/n took it and shook it. “Nice to meet you too, Iris. I’ve heard so much about you, you’re so lovely,” Y/n said.

“You’re just trying to get on her good side because you want something,” Beau said but he got smacked upside the head by Price.

“Be nice, Beau,” he said in a low voice.

“Why are you with my dad?” Beau asked.

“Because I love him.”

“Him or his money?”

“Him and only him,” she said being calm.

“I’m not buying that…every women he’s been with wants his money…I know you want it.”

“With respect Beau…I have my own money, I don’t need your father’s money,” Price smiled at Y/n.

Beau was slightly impressed that she was standing up for herself the others would have crumbled knowing they’ve been caught

Y/n had dinner with Price and his kids. Iris was already attached to Y/n and doesn’t want her to go, after dinner Iris showed Y/n her room and showed her the toys Price has brought her from his missions, Y/n smiled at the toys

Iris gave Y/n a toy that Price brought from China and Iris said it's one of her favorites. Price leaned against the doorframe watching Iris tell Y/n about the 'adventures' her toys went on

Beau rolled his eyes when he watched Iris and Y/n play together

Iris kind of seeing Y/n as a someone she could play with instead of a mom and that's fine with Y/n as long as everyone is happy

Price held Y/n's hand as they sat on the couch watching TV together, Iris was in bed due to her early bedtime and Beau played video games in his bedroom for the rest of night till Price wants to go to bed

Beau was playing a 1st person shooter game and Y/n went upstairs to go speak with Beau to let him know everything will be okay

She knocked before she entered his bedroom, he removed one of the headphones covering his right ear and looked at Y/n, he groaned, rolling his eyes and focusing back on his game

"I know you don't like me and that's okay, I'm not here to replace your mom in any sort of way-"

"But you are or else you wouldn't be here," Beau said.

"You...You might have a point...but...I will only love you as much as I can even if you don't like me...I've never been a mom before let alone a stepmom before and...I know you don't like me and you have the right to never ever like me-"

"Right, can you go now, I want to play my game," Beau said, placing his headphone back on his right ear.

"Oh, I know this game...my brother played it all the time," she said, sitting next to him on the bed.

"Did you play it?"

"Every now and then but I'm not that good," she said as an idea popped in Beau's head.

"Here...you try," Beau pushed the controller into her hands.

"Okay..." Y/n was flipping through skins and guns, ammo, and upgrade the skills. Beau was kind of impressed, she was fast, and her character looked amazing.

Y/n then started to game, and she was dropped into a random part of the map, he passed her his headphones and immediately shot at an opponent.

Beau was impressed with how she played, she didn't hesitant to shoot some opponents and collected some new guns that even Beau has never collected before

Beau was stunned when Y/n was in the top 5 with the most kills in 1 round

"Wow," he said, she took off the headphones and gave him the controller back.

"Yeah...I'm not that good-"

"NOT THAT GOOD! THAT WAS AMAZING!!"

It's been close to a year now. The kids love Y/n, and the kids and her now have days where they do mother and kids bonding time together.

Iris and Y/n every Friday night will play 'Iris's dolls adventure'

And every Saturday night, Beau and Y/n play the video game that Y/n was 'bad at'

Price and Y/n also spend every Thursday night as a 'date night' because their mom gets them every Tuesday and Thursday

Their mom...hates Y/n...because she's young and has more attention from her kids and her ex-husband. Why does she care about her ex-husband? Because she was told by him that she is his one and only but not anymore

They got the divorce because Price's ex-wife was a workaholic constantly working and not spending time with the kids or her 'husband'

Beau and Iris came running into house excited to see their stepmom, Y/n bent down and hugged the two kids, she kissed their temples

"How was school?" She asked them.

"Good." Iris said.

"Boring," Beau said, his usual answer when he came home.

"Well go get cleaned up, and get you things together, your mom is coming to get you two," Y/n said as the kids groaned and headed to their rooms.

Price walked through the door of his home seeing Y/n fix them some food. Price has to be home when his ex-wife comes to collects the kids.

He knows Y/n is capable of making sure everything goes smoothly, it's just the fact of his ex-wife hating Y/n and she tries to start things with Y/n.

“Daddy, I don’t want to go,” Iris groans as she came downstairs.

“I know, baby, but it’s part of the court, it’s just for today and you come home to us tomorrow afternoon,” he said, kissing her forehead.

They waited on the porch for their mother. Y/n stood close to Price and the kids sat on the porch stairs and played with the rocks, then they saw their mother car pull into the driveway with music blasting mainly 'heartbreak' songs.

Happier by Olivia Rodrigo, Good in goodbye by Madison Beer, Online Lovers by Conan Gray, and Backstabber by Kesha

Price rolled his eyes at her being dramatic.

"Come on, kids," she yells. Beau got up first and Price picked up his daughter taking her down the porch stairs and placing her into the backseat. "Does she really have to watch?"

"Yes...she's a witness in case anything happens," Price said.

"Like what John? You afraid I might call the cops again?"

"You called them because the kids told you no on a visit and you calmed, I was holding them hostage...I'm not putting them through that again, I almost lost them because of you and reckless behavior," Price said as she smirked and pulled out of the driveway.

"Price?"

"I fucking hate her," he said as he walked towards her and moved her inside.

"Do you think everything will be okay?"

"I'm not sure...Beau knows my number that if anything happens, he can call me and let me know," Price said.

Price and Y/n tried to get over what had happened, Price picked at the food and Y/n placed hers down.

"Did I not make it right?" She asked.

"No, it's good, love...I'm just worried about the kids."

"I understand, Price...we can stop eating and you can call them."

"I can't, she has the right to decline my calls...so I can't even reach them."

"We can get Beau a phone."

"He's too young," Price said, leaning back.

Price and Y/n cleaned up around the kitchen and Y/n was dancing to a random beat in her head. Price was confused and watched her do some small random dances

"What are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh, I don't know, it's just a random tune in my head," she said as she turned to him still doing those small dances

"Are you trying to cheer me up?"

"A bit..." she said.

Price smiles and joins in on the small dances

#cod modern warfare #cod mw2 #cod mwii #cod x reader #fandom #fanfic #call of duty #mw2 #cod #price x reader #cod price #captain john price #john price #captain price #price

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turbulentscrawl · 7 months

Text

Identity(V) Headcanons: Norton Campbell

I'm starting off the writing blog with some of these character analysis-esque headcanons! (Starting with Norton bc he's honestly the reason I made this blog.) They'll serve both as practice for me, and examples for any readers on how I write different characters.

Again, I am new to the IDV fandom, and I have never played the game. These headcanons are informed by ongoing lore dives sourcing the wiki, japanese twitter responses, comics, stageplay, and more! Some of these may relate to or even contradict character backstory, and some of them are just pure vibes for me. If you like it, consider shooting a request ;)

-Norton had always been a moodier guy, but the mining accident (and the lack of mental and emotional support he received after it) resulted in a much more obvious split of his temperaments. Without trying to put a name to something I’m no expert in, Norton has two distinct personality states which are both aware of and inform one another. The First is the more common state, wherein he is more level-headed, but prone to melancholy and isolation. His melancholy tends to be more intense after an episode with his Second state, wherein he is very likely to exhibit anger, mania, and cynicism. Likewise, his Second state tends to be more critical when he’s been uneventfully mellow for a good while. He tries his best to balance and regulate the two, but this particular emotional roller coaster is one he never had any say in getting on and has never had any assistance getting off.

-The First state typically lasts longer than the Second, sometimes stretching several days at a time. During the First, he’s at his most amicable and chatty. This is the best time to get to know him as a person.

-When in his Second state, which is usually triggered by something that reminds him of the accident, it’s better to give him a wide berth. Even in the case of a friend or partner who has thick skin and handles harshness well, Norton can become hypercritical of himself for being cruel to them.

-His mother died in childbirth, leaving Norton with only his father, who also worked himself to an early grave. Norton had to start working immediately to keep himself fed (and sometimes didn’t even manage that) so he has next to no education. He does not read or write especially well. He is also not particularly tech savvy and struggles with new concepts. That said, he's never been one to back down from a chance to improve himself, difficult or otherwise.

-Norton was mostly genuine in his visits to the elderly and sick. Many of them were other miners and laborers who helped him find his footing after his dad died. Their help may not have amounted to much in the long run, but they didn’t just look the other way and he understood the loneliness they felt on their deathbeds.

-The one exception to this was Benny, who Norton had also once looked upon in an appreciative light…until he learned how to read. It was then that he scoured his father’s old letters and discovered an infuriating truth: after the birth of Norton and the death of his mother, his father had been about to leave the mining industry. Benny was the one who convinced him to stick around and join the obsessive hunt for gold. It was through a mix of spite and desperation that Norton decided to swindle Benny out of his maps and take the chance at riches for himself.

-Norton does not talk about the mining accident. At all. Not even if he’s paid. Part of it is self-preservation—since he IS the one who stole and illegally ignited the explosives. The other part is that he is well and truly wrecked with guilt. Norton did not get along with most of his coworkers in those final days, was bullied and harassed by them, but he wanted to get ahead of them, not kill them.

-Because he’s been self-reliant from such a young age, he’s naturally distrustful of other people. He has trouble accepting people at face value and often rejects compliments, and other words of affection. He’s the embodiment of “actions speak louder than words.” In general, if someone wants to get closer to Norton they have to put their money (and their labor) where their mouth is and show a lot of patience. Any genuine relationship with Norton is hard-won.

-In line with the above, the best love language to give Norton is Acts of Service. Physical Affection would also work well once you reach a certain threshold in his trust. Gift-Giving is a decent third, but you would need to tread lightly here, lest he start to see the budding relationship as purely transactional. Holidays and birthdays are the best time to really go in on gifts for Norton, since he has a harder time arguing bribery with culturally dictated gifts.

-He genuinely does not find himself to be attractive. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s insecure, as he really doesn’t think about it much, but he’s least likely to accept compliments about his appearance. The burn scars certainly don’t help. If you do compliment his appearance, it’s better not to mention the scars at all than to try and make him feel better about them.

-He wholly, genuinely, hates the rich. Which is obvious enough, I suppose, but I think it’s more extreme than people give him credit for. And really it just comes down to unadulterated jealousy and bitterness, which are not easy feelings to overcome.

-Norton is of the opinion that all life is equal—and when he’s at his most cynical, this means he’s willing to take the balance of “an eye for an eye” into his own hands.

-His sweet tooth is limited to donuts and a few other carb-y baked goods. He prefers savory flavors, or sometimes bitter, such as in the case of his black coffee. He doesn’t eat as much as you might expect for his size, but he always eats quickly, and hunched over his food like it’ll be taken away. Old habits die hard.

-He has a terrible sleep schedule, due in part to frequent nightmares about the accident. He’s also somewhat claustrophobic and dislikes pitch-black spaces, so a window is a must in his bedroom. He prefers to have it open whenever reasonable.

-He doesn’t do well with thunderstorms, as the rumbles of thunder sound too much like the beginnings of a cave-in.

-If he has one singular strength, it’s perseverance. Hardships don’t deter him because he’s seen and overcome plenty. He’s a loyal friend as well, once completely won over. If he cares for you, you’ll never have to tackle a hurdle alone.

#identity v #idv #idv prospector #norton campbell #norton campbell x reader #idv x reader #turbulentscrawl

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luffyvace · 5 months

Note

Heyooo :D

Robin's anon back (ngjfnjff this is so funny to type I hope you don't mind 😭😭), could I request Robin with a male s/o who always take care of the crew ? (He's either like a big bro or a father for some of them) For example : He always makes sure Zoro sleeps in a comfortable position whenever he suddenly takes a nap after training, he always brings to Nami new inks, maps, pens..., candies for Chopper (just like Robin hehehehe), food for Luffy... but in process he kinda neglects himself because he prioritizes the crew above all.

Thank you again for your kindness and I wish you an amazing day/night. ❤️😊

OH HIII ROBIN’S ANON!! i don’t mind you addressing yourself as that at all it’s how i remember you:) 😭!

AWW male s/o sounds so sweet! of course i’ll do this request!!

anytime anyday anon💗💗 you have a wonderful day/night as well <3

YIPPIE I LOVE THIS GIF OF ROBIN<3

ENJOY YOUR HEADCANONS LOVELY ANONYMOUS!!

sooo!

your so helpful!!

“SNACKS! oh gee thanks m/n!”

-luffy

”mmmm…huh? PUT ME DOWN?! oh..hmm…zzzz”

-zoro

”come in! oh m/n, what’s up? is that for me?! thanksss m/n!! your the best! i was running out of paper actually!!….just for the record i don’t owe you any beri for this you know..😗”

-nami

”ahh! m/n! actually i need your help with something…i had usopp to build this shelf for my books only to realize it’s too high..could you get that red one down and..maybe make it lower? hahah 😅”

-chopper

”ohhh! m/n! look! it’s my latest invention!! the only problem is..i’m missing a key piece…see here? it needs something to generate it! could you go back to the island and find something for me?? thanks a lot! i knew i could count on you!”

-usopp

”MMMM/NNNNNNN!!!! MOOOORE SNAAAAAAAAACKS!!”

-luffy..again

”m/n! i’m trying to cook dinner but luffy keeps pestering me! think you could wrestle luffy to go play outside or something?!”

-sanji

”oi! m/n just in time! i need you to go help me test out this SUUUUUUPERRRRR new upgrade i’m making to the sunny! go unfurl the sails!”

-franky

”WHAT IN THE WORLD?! THE LOG POSE IS FACE A COMPLETE 180!! WERE GOING THE WRONG WAY!”

”oh! whoops! i asked m/n to unfurl the sails so i could-“

💥💥 😓 😬 😡✊

(yes this sequence again)

”M/N FIX THIS NOW”

-nami

”m/n!! how very good to see you! i’ve come up with a new song! would you like to hear it? very well—i shall play!”

-brook

you ran to the library as soon as you could and flopped into one of the chairs

a hand touched your shoulder and you wanted to just completely melt away from how tired you were

and yet you were gonna have to help another person

nope!

just robin:)

i mean you didn’t mind helping but…today’s been a long day

robin sits next to you

you air your complaints and get a lot of much needed stress off your shoulders

she sprouts two hands from your back to massage your shoulders and it felt really good

she gives you advice to start saying ‘no’ a little more and that it’s okay to take some time for yourself

she scolds you only a bit when you do this but only because she cares

and especially because she loves you

💗

robin had a hand in the bathroom preparing you a hot bath while you vented to her

after you were done she told you about the shower

and boy it was a real steamy one

just what you needed

robin always knows just what to do when your exhausted

but would prefer if you’d simply solve the problem at hand

LOL

she lectures you about this and man does it drag on

oh well you’d much rather hear her soothing voice than overexert yourself

she recommends you things like meditation and reading

and maybe even to go to chopper about it

especially if things get physical like your back or arms hurt

zoros’ heavy ok?

spawns a bunch of arms to chop your back if that’s what you need

shes the best really

brings you drinks and honestly just caters to you until your feeling better

by then your ready for a hot meal and some sleep

which is exactly what happens thankfully

you two holds hands in your sleep and cuddle a little closer that night

SO SWEET 🥲

these were shorter than my norm

it’s ok bc quality over quantity right?? you can always request more i’m just sleepy rn 😋

also this was in a slightly different writing style than usual so i hope you like!! it’s not permanent tho

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 26 days

Note

Aita for telling my mom not to invite grandma to my dead dad’s birthday dinner?

For context, my (19M) dad (44M) died in January of ‘24. He was a dick and I don’t miss him, but he was my mom (46F)’s husband and I’ve been there for her through the grieving process. Unfortunately, Mom’s mother (80F) has taken over my mom’s grief and has made it about her.

For what I mean, it’s that Grandma wouldn’t let my mom stand next to my dad as he was dying in the hospital bed from jaundice and cancer, was praying very loudly that her son-in-law would get better and putting her hands all over my dad’s chest, kept comparing what my dad was going through to how her 7th husband died back in ‘09 (also cancer but not the same), and overall was just obnoxious during the worst moment of my Mom’s life.

This isn’t a new thing for grandma to do. Grandma is just a dick. She’s openly racist against Asian people, she’s stupidly Homophobic (but not towards me because I’m family and I’m ber favoritr grandkid because I’m not afraid to talk smack about people who get on my nerves. barf.), and any achievement that my Mom receives, Grandma has a story about how she won something even better.

It has gotten worse when my Mom’s dad (85M) moved in with us for health reasons. Grandpa was Grandma’s 3rd husband and their marriage didn’t end amicably. Still, it’s been 40 years and Mom wants a relationship with her dad. Grandma HATES him. Constantly yelling at him for forgetting things when she comes over, brags about being there for us grandkids (I have two younger sisters) when we were little, and overall is just plain rude. My dad used to be able to just tell her to leave, but now that he’s gone, he can’t.

Well, last week would have been my dad’s 45th birthday. Mom wanted to celebrate by taking me and my youngest sister (the older sister just moved out for college and is across the country) to Dad’s favorite restaurant. As we were leaving, Mom was stressing very heavily about not inviting Grandma or Grandpa. She stressed about Grandpa because he often forgets to eat dinner and she stressed about Grandma because the old bitch has flamed my mom on Facebook for not being invited to events before, even though my mom knew that Grandma wouldn’t like those events (think late night soccer games, plays where I’m not a main role/has an 18+ theme, etc. stuff an old Christian woman who hates driving at night would hate)

I told Mom not to invite either grandparent and that the three of us (me, Mom, and little sister) should just go alone and enjoy some immediate family time. We did and we had a great time, talking with my little sister about her high school classes, talking shit about my mom’s coworkers, and me getting to infodump about Fallout because my mom just watched the tv show.

Towards the end of the night, my Mom gets a text from Grandma asking what we were up to for Dad’s birthday. I tell Mom not to answer and she doesn’t. Grandma then sends Mom a screenshot of the family Life360 map and starts sending walls off texts saying how hurt she is that she wasn’t invited, how neglected she is, how awful it is that she can’t spend time with the grandkids anymore, how Mom always prioritizes Grandpa over Grandma (he wasn’t even with us?) and shit like that. I take Mom’s phone and block Grandma for her since she’s sitting next to me, frozen and locked-up.

It’s been a week now and we haven’t spoken to Grandma. That’s fine by me, but I can see that my Mom is upset and regrets how the dinner went.

Here’s where I may be the asshole:

I was the one who said not to invite Grandma

I was the one who blocked Grandma

I butted my head into my Mom and Grandma’s relationship

Here’s why I think I’m not:

My mom has never been good at standing up for herself

My mom shouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit while grieving her fucking husband of 22 years

Not everything is about Grandma. She inserts herself into everything needlessly

TL;DR: Dad died. Went to dinner with my mom and sister to celebrate his birthday. Grandma found out and bitched a fit that she wasn’t invited. I took mom’s phone and blocked her. Now mom is stressing about losing her relationship with grandma. Aita?

#aita #am i the asshole

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vicsbasement · 2 months

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Do you think Charles and Carlos will stay friends after 2024? I know they are not gonna be as close as now but I fear that their friendship is gonna sideline like Carlando when Carlos gets a new teammate. 😭😭😭 Carlos is very friendly with his teammates (versainz/carlando/charles) but I feel he has a different bond with charles. A soft spot in his heart. So I don't think I can handle him being all lovey-dovey with another teammate. 😭😩

Oh, I absolutely think they will remain being good friends after Ferrari. Look, I'm not a Carlando girlie, but I've seen Carlando girlies spiral about divorce rumors as often as a person can tolerate, yet, to be frank, I feel this is overly dramatic. Carlos and Lando hang out outside the paddock all the time. And to talk about Charlos, Carlos has been very open about his liking of Charles, even saying just yesterday that him and Lando are both his favorite teammates. Yet, his situation in Ferrari sort of prevents him to air out his location whenever he's with Charles. They're extremely private with their off-track friendship and Charlos girlies have been fed crumbs for years at this point, just putting together dots on a map whenever someone posts a separate selfie of Carlos with a fan and then Charles with a fan in the same location.

Carlos, still, has said very openly that he thinks that him and Charles will be even *better* friends when they're in different teams. I mean, we've seen it, there's a rivalry there, and I'm the first one to see Charles get bitter over Carlos besting him at anything in the same machinery. Still, he does admit (as he did yesterday) than when Carlos does everything better than him, Carlos wins. And funnily enough, even though I felt that Charles was a little bitter in the interviews immediately post-race (the ones with Guenther), it's not the same as before. Because their friendship reached a different level altogether, and the respect they feel for each other is even more palpable now. I really do think that Charles has matured a lot.

And see how Carlos was so excited to celebrate with Charles that he asked Ricky to tell Charles to come closer so they could celebrate their joint win at Australia? That's love. That's devotion and that's friendship, right there. That's respect. Carlos does, absolutely, have a really soft spot for Charles. He followed his career in F2, for crying out loud. He admires him as a driver, he respects him as a competitor and he likes him as a person. That's the most fundamental part of their relationship. And I think it will definitely get better after Carlos leaves Ferrari, because he will be even more open with his affection. We might even see them off track together, finally! Sharing car rides and meals and probably even playing golf with Lando, like we've seen Carlos do before.

Do not fret! The relationship between Charles and Carlos is only getting better this year. I can feel it.

And about the other teammate... it really does depend on the other teammate, does it. Because we know Carlos to be an affectionate man, a tactile person. But if the other teammate doesn't like it, then, well. We might just not see it. He might show his affection other ways, like simply being verbal about it. I don't know. It just depends in whether he knows the next teammate and has a good relationship with them or not.

#charlos #carlos sainz jr #charles leclerc #ask #anon #vic talks #charlos thoughts

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animasola86 · 2 months

Text

News travels fast in Hogwarts - Option 2

Notes: This is one of the options you have at the end of this oneshot.

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!reader Genre: Fluff/Angst // Words: 1.1k // [READ ON AO3]

Synopsis: You wake up from a weird dream (or do you?) and find yourself in the arms of this freckled boy.

WARNINGS: Angst? Implied infidelity? A tiny bit of spice, nothing to worry about.

You stirred, tossing and turning, moaning and groaning, your body on high alert. It was when two arms wrapped around your middle and pulled you against a warm body that you slowly relaxed, your thundering heart calming, your breaths easing until you sighed deeply.

“Are you okay?” a soft, low voice rang in your ear, and the sound of it made your eyes flutter open.

First you blinked in confusion, then you furrowed your brows before you followed the sudden urge to turn around and stare at whoever had asked you that. Your heart jumped back into terror mode when you noticed two brown eyes looking at you in the semi-darkness of the room, warm and deep and twinkling, and a playful smirk playing around a very inviting mouth.

“What's wrong, love?” Sebastian asked quietly, his arms tightening around you, his freckled face slightly concerned now as you kept staring at him.

“I... uh...” you stammered, your body stiffening in his hold. “B-bad dream, I suppose...” It had been a dream, right? Confusion washed over you as if you'd put your head in a cloud, rendering you completely speechless.

He raised a hand and caressed your cheek, smiling softly. “Well, you're awake now, it's alright,” he whispered, slowly scooting closer until his face was barely an inch away from yours. He felt so familiar, and you felt so warm and safe in his embrace, and yet it was all strange, as if something wasn't right. Something was off. Were you still dreaming?

Your hand almost moved on its own as it slid over his warm chest, up his throat, around his jaw, your fingertips gliding over his freckles as if they wanted to connect the dots, mapping his face in gentle motions. Your fingers dug into his messy hair, your thumb tracing the shape of his lips. He watched you patiently, unmoving, curious.

“Is this real?” you then breathed, slowly leaning in, your hot breath ghosting his chin.

His thick eyebrows furrowed slightly before one of them arched up in confusion. “Do you think this is a dream?”

“It feels like one,” you whispered, tilting your head, staring into his dark eyes, your lips almost brushing against his.

“I'm not sure if I should be flattered or concerned,” he replied with a smirk, his low voice vibrating through your very core.

You blinked slowly, your tongue darting out of your mouth to wet your lips, brushing against his in the process. He took the invitation and pressed his mouth to yours, his hands on your back pulling you even closer. You gasped into the kiss, but quickly indulged him and met his eager tongue, your eyes fluttering shut as you let yourself fall into his touch.

It felt like old times and new adventures all at once. So familiar, like a comforting cup of tea, a taste you were so used to, but then also like a box of Bertie Botts Beans, every twist of his tongue against yours like a new flavour you had never experienced before, luckily only the good ones. You gripped his hair tighter as you deepened the kiss, and he groaned quietly into your mouth.

The noise made your eyelids flutter, and when you looked at him, he was watching you too, his motions growing slower before he gave you a peck and leaned away slightly, breathing just a little bit rougher, as did you. Your fingers eased over his messy locks, while his hands rubbed soothing circles into your back.

You were still confused.

“What was that dream of yours about?” he asked softly while you settled your head back into the pillow.

Biting your lip, you stared into his eyes, quickly getting lost in their warmth. “Us,” you whispered then.

He raised an eyebrow. “And why was it bad?”

“Because we were... not like this... not together...” you stammered, trying to make sense of the conflicting emotions and memories in your heart and mind.

A shadow crept over his freckled face. “Well, love, we're not,” he then said darkly.

“What?” you breathed in confusion, your lips tingling.

“We're not together,” he stated, his voice low, a hint of sadness clinging to his words.

“But... we're... here...” you breathed, frowning deeply, your hand pressing against his warm chest, your own heartbeat echoing loudly in your ears as you felt his thrumming against your palm. “Together in bed...”

A sigh escaped him. “Well spotted, but it's not like you think...”

You didn't know what to think anymore. None of this made any sense. “What are you saying?”

One of his hands cupped your cheek, his warmth seeping into your skin. “You're with somebody else.”

His words made you stiffen immediately. Your eyebrows furrowed so much you felt your head starting to hurt. Your mind was racing, head spinning, thoughts tumbling over each other, various emotions colliding violently. “What?”

He sighed loudly, his breath ghosting your trembling lips. “You changed your mind, love. Can't you remember?”

You stared at him, feeling hot and cold at the same time. Something vile crept up your throat. “It... wasn't a dream?” you managed to croak out, your voice breaking in disbelief.

His eyes wandered over your face, he neither confirmed nor denied it, he only grabbed your face and pulled it towards him, his nose nuzzling against yours.

“Play along,” he whispered, like an echo of whatever happened earlier, dream or not, and then his lips were on yours again, his kiss as desperate as you could remember, intense and hungry, so passionate you quickly felt light-headed as you forgot to breathe through it.

Your eyes fluttered shut, and the world blurred at the edges. All you felt was his warmth, his eager mouth and tongue, his arm pressing you against his hard body. His hand moved down your front, and you only noticed the bold move when his fingers pressed between your thighs. A surprised moan escaped you.

“Yes, love, be as vocal as you want, let them hear who you really belong to,” he breathed into your mouth.

You couldn't move, you couldn't do anything, and frankly, you didn't want to. You wanted him to kiss you breathless, touch you like he used to touch you, and you wanted to show everyone how lucky you were. The thought of holding hands in public brought the image of another face into your clouded mind, and a sudden cold washed over you as two dark eyes stared at you, creases deepened in disappointment.

Your confused whimper was swallowed by a captivating mouth before the world stopped spinning, and you fell into deafeningly quiet darkness.

End notes: Aaaand are you any wiser now? Or is this just another dream? A dream within a dream? Was it real all along? (I honestly could keep the loop going, and IT WILL ALWAYS BE TUESDAY! But I'll leave that up to you!)

Do you want to go back to the first option? Do you think she'll wake up in somebody else's arms again?

And if you read this in succession: were both correct? What was a dream and what not? Again, that is totally up to you!

Original post - Option 1

[ MASTERLIST ] [ AO3 ]

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow fic #sebastian sallow fanfic #sebastian sallow oneshot #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow angst #angst #drama #reader insert #fem reader #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fic #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy oneshot

54 notes · View notes

pickles4nickles · 2 months

Text

So I’ve been watching playthroughs of Yakuza games for a while now, but when I saw that the newest game takes place in Hawai’i, the place where I was born, raised, and have lived in for nearly 30 years now, I knew that this was something I had to have first-hand experience with and not let some guy tell me how to feel about it, to put it bluntly.

I went on a month and a half long journey to finish this game, so I sat around for a bit like

Jesus Christ I should write a review on it.

So if you’d like to read about 5k words on what I thought about The Video Game™, here you go.

Overall, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a really really good game. However, as Hawai’i local it was kind of hard for me to turn my brain off to some of the cultural inaccuracies and as someone who tends to play smaller indie games, I clocked in about 110 hours on this and I burned out a little towards the end.

GAMEPLAY

Let’s get into Gameplay first because I think I have the most positive thoughts about it. If you haven’t heard my thoughts about Pokemon lately, it mostly boils down to “It’s the only RPG I’ve really been playing in recent years and the gameplay has been very watered down and I yearn for a decent PvE experience.” This game definitely scratched that itch in more ways than one.

Infinite Wealth’s turn-based combat system revolves around positioning. Some moves have an AoE of either a straight line or a circle. Positioning a character next to an ally will proc a combo move with them and positioning them near items will proc an item attack where you can beat a guy to death with a traffic cone or something.

The job system is robust. Every character starts off with a default class- Ichiban’s is Hero, an all-rounder that can pretty much do anything; characters like Nanba and Eric (I know the game calls him Tomi or Tomizawa, but I’m not the game and “Fuckin’ Eric” sounds way better than “Fuckin’ Tomi”) are magic-oriented, so they’re basically wizards by default. You can change their class to other jobs (Desperado is my favorite because it’s basically gun mage), which unlocks new skills as you level them up. You can also change jobs as much as you want and skills carry over between them, so there’s a bit of moveset mixing and matching that makes my brain feel good.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, (the Yakuza devs, which we’re just gonna abbreviate to RGG from here on out) have always been REALLY good at asset reuse (again, I cast a dirty look to Game Freak). They’ll make a whole-ass map of a region and reuse that same map for several games down the line. Not only do you spend a significant time in Ijincho again and not only do you go to Kamurocho for little bit… AGAIN, but there are two… what I can only call “macro” games that have the best asset reuse I’ve seen in, like, maybe anything ever.

DONDOKO ISLAND

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth comes with a whole-ass Animal Crossing clone that’s also kind of The Sims called Dondoko Island. In this, you rehab an island that’s being used as a dump for some trash pirates (no, seriously, they’re actually pirates, yar har and everything) back into a five star resort. There’s a whole-ass crafting system where you go around the island, harvesting resources, to build furniture and facilities, which include whole-ass buildings which have appeared in past Yakuza games. The crafting system is GREATLY improved over Animal Crossing: New Horizon in that you can skip the goddamn animation and craft multiple of the same items at once. You don’t even have to have all the materials in your inventory, it’ll take it from your storage. Placing items in the world is also in an overhead view and the only grievance I have with the system is that placing paths is really weird and you can only place a limited number of them. But overall, Nintendo, was it really that hard to put into the video game. Why did you make AC:NH disrespect my time in that way?

Once the island has been cleaned up enough, you can start inviting guests over, which all have their own set of preferences for the vibe of your island (rustic, pop, sleazy, etc), their lodging quality, and how much of the island’s flora and fauna (and minerals, I guess??) you’ve discovered.

I really really liked Dondoko Island because who am I to say no to a management mini/macro game with decoration elements. I mostly really appreciate that it doesn’t waste your time. I wanna say I finished it in like less than 20 hours… which is not short for a game within a game (actually, that’s insane for a game within a game), but for a game of this genre, it’s pretty short.

There’s also an entire separate mini-island that further helps you with efficiently running your island by passively collecting resources over time and just being a general stockpile of bugs and fish to catch. But I can’t talk about this part without talking about…

SUJIMON

A returning character voiced by Keith Silverstein in the English dub – yes, that Keith Silverstein, who voices Masayoshi Shido of Persona 5 and Zhongli of The Genshin Impact™ is a professor who documents the behavior of weird and often hostile middle aged men, called Sujimon. When Ichiban goes to Hawai’i, he asks him to also document the native Sujimon there as there’s a prominent Sujimon scene there. Mans wasn’t kidding as there is an underground, more or less ilicit Sujimon fight club called The Sujimon League with its own Elite Four called The Discrete Four.

In the previous game, Sujimon was just your bestiary (literally called the Sujidex), but now it’s a whole-ass game, which I can mostly only describe as simplified Yokai Watch, but a glorified card game. Just so we’re not here for forever talking about middle-aged men cockfights… because I can talk about the mechanics and inner workings of middle-aged men cockfights for a hot minute, Sujimon League basically operates on a 3v3, with an additional bench of 3, rock-paper-scissors kind of system. You’ll need strong Sujimon to get through this macro game and you’ll recruit new guys through four ways- through random fights on the map, through literal Pokemon GO raids, through a gacha system, and through combining Sujimon of the same type into stronger Sujimon (don’t think too hard about that one). I had a LOT of fun with this and, again, it scratched an itch I’ve had for a while. Almost all of the Sujimon are just guys you’ll fight in-game, so, again, an excellent use of asset reuse.

Sujimon smoothly integrates into Dondoko Island in a way that makes Palworld look even more balls-less than it already is. You know that little island I was talking about a few paragraphs back? That’s Dondoko Farm. You can put your Sujimon to work on it! As you’re running around on Dondoko Island, letting it consume your life, your Sujimon will grow crops, scrounge around for resources, and earn some cash for you. The island also has some resources to help with Sujimon League by leveling them up with a small investment of some dondoko bucks and your time, but also a Pokemon-Amie type mini-mini game that helps strengthen the friendship of your current Sujimon team.

Yes.

This game lets you pet-

The sweaty, weirdo middle-aged men.

Don’t think about it too hard.

Especially don’t think about it too hard when you have a Sujimon on your team that uses Xander Mobus’ voice clips.

Anyway, there’s also another minigame called Sicko Snap, which is basically Pokemon Snap with Sujimon. It’s a good one, too.

STORY

I guess… the best way I’d explain my feelings on Infinite Wealth’s story is

Objectively, this is an okay story. Like, it’s par for the course for a Yakuza game. I have a lot of personal grievances with this plot which I’ll fully unsheathe my blade for in the next section, but for now I’ll just say… this game is basically Hawaii Five-O crammed into a Yakuza game and that was an emotional rollercoaster ride that I’m not sure I enjoyed.

Like a Dragon’s main theme is “Even if you hit rock bottom, it’s never too late to get back up again” and that’s something I hold near and dear to my heart.

They have used this theme to my benefit and to my dismay as this also apparently means it’s never too late for ~*Romance*~ which, sure, yeah, okay, true, but did it have to be Ichiban and Saeko?

I’m trying to give the game the benefit of the doubt because… to me, it’s mostly one-sided (as in, like, Saeko’s willing to give him a chance, but isn’t as crazy for Ichiban as he is for her) and, like, dude is allowed to have a crush. But from what I have seen… because I never got around to finishing her Drink Link (I was gonna but I’m like really burned out on the game), they kinda strap C4 to the Bechdel Test and raze a village to the ground with it when it comes to Saeko’s character arc because most of her dialogue and interactions are about The Incident with Ichiban, which sucks because she had more character than just a romance interest for the protagonist in the previous game. If you’re also REALLY not into this plot point like I am, the story DOES NOT let you forget that this indeed happened as it seems to be a plot thread that might continue into the next game as well.

Needless to say, I don’t ship it, and I don’t get to block tags and just walk away from this one.

The game also kinda keeps nudging at, “Hehe, Chitose’s pretty cute too, right?” to which I say

Yes I understand she’s of legal age but she’s only like 21 AT MOST and Ichiban’s like 40-something you stop with that.

It doesn’t feel like Ichiban really had a character arc in this… unless you count “proposing on the first date” to “saying I love you on a redo and then being weird about it again” as character growth. He went to Hawai’i, had some shenanigans, found mom, got backstabbed again, fought the cult (which I’ll be really salty about in the next section), went back home to help Eiji’s character arc. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just… Ichiban went on another adventure. And it was ok. I think maybe the game was sizing him up to, again, take Kiryu’s place and be The Hero, but… we already did that already? And I’m not even sure if the game was able to complete that message by the end of the game.

Kiryu probably got the most character development out of this game and talking this over with my friend Andrew, he brought up that it kinda wasn’t fair that this is supposed to be Ichiban’s game, but he had to share half of it with Kiryu. And I agree. His sections were also really hard to get into if you haven’t been a longtime fan. Again, I have a decent amount of Yakuza knowledge, but with Kiryu’s memories, a LOT of it went over my head. It seems like RGG’s been trying to retire him as a protagonist for like three games now and MAYBE this time they’ll actually do it after this victory lap they’ve given him. But he did learn that “my friends are my power” and “never ever give up, you still have time to do better.” And you know what, that’s rad.

As far as the villains go, just, I dunno, they’re fine? Ebina and Eiji are very “okay bitch, stay mad, then,” and it’s. Fine? My only complaint is that Ebina’s arc felt like it was under-seasoned before they put it in the oven to cook and they could’ve peppered it on a little earlier in the game or something. Bryce’s entire deal I may have taken a little too personally, but that’s for later. Dwight was literally just Danny Trejo doing a villain role and I have absolutely no qualms with it. He was fun to watch.

The supporting cast was fun as always. Eric I hated at first, but he grew on me in the same way that, like, I’d bully a friend. Chitose I also kinda hated at first, was very sus of, but then she had a character arc that was pretty good. The Yokohama gang didn’t really have character arcs to them, but they were still fun to hang out with nonetheless. We got to learn a little bit more about Seonhee and she’s really fun. Both her and Zhao, who is my favorite for several reasons, are really really fun characters as they are both crime bosses (former, in Zhao’s case) who are BIG FUCKING WEIRDOS and I love them for it.

Joongi Han becomes a party member WAY too late in my opinion that, in a way, he’s technically an optional party member, or at least like getting a Dratini right before the Pokemon League in Gold/Silver/Crystal. He had some fun character moments, but felt kinda like an afterthought.

But also, ain’t no way he got his Hawai’i clothes at Hilo Hattie. There’s no way.

To wrap up my thoughts on the main story, I’d just like to say: the plot point that they sailed to Japan on a little tugboat in a handful of hours as opposed to WEEKS is peak Hawaii Five-O vibes and it infuriates me, but everyone kept telling me “it’s okay, the coast guard picked them up, like, halfway” and I will sit down and not start a fistfight over it. And just. That was the vibe of the game for me. Just… alternating between a J-Drama and Hawaii Five-O.

I don’t really have much to say about the substories except that they’re either almost Oscar-worthy material or they’re a snoozefest that I just tabbed through. I can really only think of three substories off the top of my head that were EXCELLENT, though - Nancy and Olivia, the artificial snow quest (THIS ONE IS EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH), and the traveling aquarium one. The rest I mostly just tabbed through because they were just……. Eh. But I think I’m okay with that since we have Sujimon and Dondoko to make up for it.

THE CULTURAL GRIEVANCES

So as I type this section out, I run my hands over my face to remind myself and say

This is a game that takes place in Hawai’i from a Japanese perspective, written primarily for a Japanese audience and I assume that certain things may come from a place of ignorance, but not maliciousness.

Hey Tumblr.

I want you to read that first bolded sentence again.

Because I know how you guys are with reading comprehension.

But that being said, as a Hawai’i-born Chinese person, there’s quite a lot about the Hawai’i cultural aspects of this game that I have problems with. If you wanna see me roast this game, you can stick around, but if not… Here is your chance to bail.

I’ve tried my best to write this in a way where I look at the thing that pissed me off and ask myself, “Am I taking this too seriously or do I actually have a problem with it?” and write more or less objectively, but some of it might still come off as overly caustic. Just. I tried.

And after a deep breath,

Ho brah,

We go.

WHAT IS HAWAIIAN CULTURE, ANYWAY?

To start off, I’m not sure if RGG knows the difference between being a Hawai’i local and actually being of Hawaiian blood…? The game mentions at the very beginning that Akane is half-Japanese… and half-Hawaiian, which makes Ichiban one-fourth Hawaiian, which makes ME kinda… squint. Like, we’d need to know more about Akane’s backstory, but if you know anything about indigenous cultures, finding someone who’s half native is HARD nowadays. Akane also looks pretty light skinned for someone who’s allegedly half-Japanese, half-Hawaiian but that’s just my tiny nitpick?

I’m also… not sure what kinda research RGG did on Hawaiian last names because some of the ones I see on random enemies are kinda…

Who is that

What is that

I have never seen anyone named that in my entire life

Sure, my worldview is a little shut in, but, no, what IS that?

Mililani is not a last name, that’s a neighborhood, why’s she Lani Mililani?

WHAT IS THAT?

The pidgin in the game is also there, but… small kine hit or miss. For those of you who don’t know, pidgin is Hawai’i’s creole, which came from a bunch of cultures who don’t speak the same language eventually falling into a kitbashed language system that works for everyone. Looking at the VA listing in the credits, they did hire some local people (they have Hawaiian names) and some of the VO performances work really well like Obispo in the restaurant side story and the cab driver dialogue that ONLY comes up in the Japanese audio version of the game for some reason. Others… are… hm (I don’t know what’s going on with Jeff the taco truck guy). I feel like the voice director got the intonation on the line reads down pretty well, but on the localization side, the syntax and grammar are a little off. Pidgin tends to come off as “broken english,” but it’s technically not since it’s its own language system with its own rules. So you have a lot of line reads that are in the right inflection, but the way it’s written is wrong for pidgin dialogue.

And it just doesn’t sound 100% right to me.

There’s also some… small pronunciation nitpicks that I have. Ukulele is pronounced the white way - it’s not Yooka-Laylee like the Chameleon and Bat, it’s ook-oo-leh-leh like Tapu Lele, the Pokemon. Some characters pronounce Hawai’i as huh-why and not ha-wuh-ee, which is more right (it’s SUPPOSED to be ha-vai-ee but I’m not native Hawaiian and this is kind of an axolotl situation so, y’know).

But shout-outs to the “Whatchu lookin’ at?” line guy.

Because that one is just, no notes, perfect.

NOTHING CAN BE NORMAL, I GUESS

Something that rubbed me the wrong way in this game is the mystification of a culture that’s foreign to you, that is, taking a culture that’s not yours and describing or representing it in such a way that it sounds so deviant and hard to comprehend compared to the one you’re used to. Think of that one tweet where someone describes hamburgers like a white person would describe asian fruit.

There's the lei substory where the girl needs to make a lei with blue plumerias (which does not exist by the way) because there’s an urban legend that if you give a blue plumeria lei to someone, it’s a way of confessing your true love. Lei are just… things you give as, like, a “congrats!” kind of a thing. Or if you wanna be touristy about it, a “welcome!” kind of gift. There’s nothing mystical about it, most grocery stores stock a few that you can just pick up, grab and go style.

The entire game mechanic of “shaka to make friends” was so?? Like maybe after 8 hours into the Hawai’i map, I was like, okay, I’ll just… fine. I’ll accept it. But my god did I not appreciate it when Kson came up to me and was like “what’s a motherfucker gotta do around here to make some friends” and told me how FRIENDLY the Hawaiian people were and how you can just throw a shaka to make friends; while me, probably the saltiest, introverted Hawai’i local that throws stink-eye at tourists who can’t watch where they’re going, playing the video game on that day was like, “We don’t fucking do that, hello??” I don’t even know why we shaka?? Most people you ask that question will just be like “idk it’s the local thing, they do it at the end of the 5pm news on KHON2.”

There’s a substory in this game with a character named Nathan, but we were all calling him racist Alpharad because he kinda looks like him (ALPHARAD HIMSELF IS NOT RACIST OR IN THIS GAME I WANNA CLARIFY THAT) and he’s basically, like… a weeb. He’s recording what seems like a PBS special on Japanese tourists in Hawai’i, but he’s kind of a shitter about it. He makes Ichiban choose between local foods and cold-ass rice and becomes upset when he chooses kalua pork over the rice since it wasn’t The Japanese Option. It escalates to making Ichiban play darts with shuriken and when he loses, he tells him to “live up to his dishonor,” slides him a knife and board, and asks him if he wants to take a finger or hara-kiri. To which Ichiban goes “dude, I get you like Japanese culture, but you can’t treat people this way”

To which I look back at the game like

You clearly understand how this feels, so why are you doing this to Hawaiian culture?

Again, I understand that a lot of this game was written with maybe just ignorance, and not malice, and this isn’t really a call-out post to RGG or anything, but BOY…

Okay.

Now we get to my biggest gripe with this game.

PALEKANA CAN SUCK MY NUTS

I’m kinda disappointed in their choice to use a Hawaiian cult as a plot point. It’s not quite a native savages kind of a vibe, but… In the year of our lord 2024, I thought we would know better than to portray an indigenous religion as a bloodthirsty cult? I also don’t like how they’re conflating the Hawaiian religion with what’s more like a Christian/Catholic cult in this.

Palekana is portrayed as “cultists who worship a goddess who lives in a mystical land, forbidden only to her chosen and maybe one day we’ll be worthy of her blessings.” Hawaiian religion is… not… like that at all? They did get the part about “giving back to the community” correct as a part of Hawaiian culture is mālama ‘aina, meaning, you need to care for the land you live on, which is… reasonable? I guess the other basic idea of Hawaiian religion is that certain places, things, and times that are important, and you shouldn’t touch it unless you wanna fuck around and find out. But the game just kinda wildly overboils this.

Like, I don’t claim to be an expert, I’ve only scraped the basics from what I learned in school (a year’s worth of Hawaiiana lessons in middle school, a semester’s worth in college; went to a private Catholic school, took two world religion classes in college), but Palekana has a very Catholic European religion kind vibe instead of a Hawaiian one. And I really, really don’t like that the game conflates the two. The Palekana cultists wear hoods, which is a distinctly European thing (it’s too hot for hoods here!). The beaded necklaces also seem more like rosaries, which, again, very Catholic. The idea that a god-figure will save you is also a VERY Catholic idea. I’m also assuming the goddess Nele that they use in the game is an expy for Pele, which… okay, like, you can do that with locations. Ala Moana Shopping Center represented as Anaconda Mall in the game hurts me a lot, but… to change up the name of the most prominent deity in Hawaiian religion is like

Dude, I’m not Hawaiian, but I know better than to shit on Pele?

Maybe I’m taking this a little too seriously, but it comes off as a little(??) disrespectful.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe RGG wrote this plot point in this way to be like, well, they’re the villains, so we’ll write them so hyperbolically evil and wrong so people won’t mistake that for the actual culture? But my gut reaction is that they’re only writing from what they’ve seen in the movies and they wanted to make a story like that.

This was my least favorite part of the plot because not only does the cult aspect feel like it’s in bad taste, but it’s SO MUCH of the story and you REALLY can’t get away from it.

Alright. So now that I’ve aired that out of my system, I’m finally capping off this section with the part of the game that hit the closest to me and that is

CHINESE IN HAWAI’I

Listen. Again.

This is a story about Hawai’i, written by a Japanese team, for a Japanese audience.

Yakuza is a series that often talks about the racial conflict between the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. And I don’t expect them to portray any of these groups in anything more than a neutral light in this game about Gang Crime.

But ohhhhh my gooooood did they get the Chinatown section so wroooooooong.

Right off the bat, the big glaring problem I have with this game is. All the guys speak Mandarin. I think they might just be reusing voice clips from Yakuza 7, which, sure, fine, I understand that video games are hard to make and expensive.

In Hawai’i, like, real-world Hawai’i, not the bizzaro Hawai’i this game takes place in, we’re definitely starting to see more Mandarin-speaking immigrants show up, but most of the town speaks Cantonese.

Most of the people here a generation or two above me come from Guangdong or Hong Kong, which are Cantonese-speaking areas. It’s an entirely different dialect that’s really only been represented in small bits in media I’m familiar with, like in Jackie Chan Adventures (the uncle’s chant is basically “no more ghosts, get out of here” in Cantonese) and Digimon Tamers (“Moumentai” is “it’s okay/don’t worry about it” in Cantonese), and it seems really hard to get VAs that speak it, so I’m not… really that mad about it.

BUT. Then there’s Wong Tou.

Wong is the Cantonese pronunciation of 黄 , Huang or Hwang in Mandarin.

So like… clearly they knew?? But?? Decided not to go all in on it??

(And then Daniel Dae Kim is his face model and I just??? Bro’s Korean, hello?????)

And then there’s the name of Wong Tou’s gang. The Ganzhe.

Which is a stupid name.

The Chinese dictionary gives me 甘蔗 which translates to sugarcane, which. I get it. The plantation times. The Chinese and the Japanese and the Filipinos and the Portuguese and whatever all used to work on the cane plantations.

…But you’re out here calling your BIG KNIFE GANG “Sugarcane??”

My guy, you could start a reggae band with that name instead.

SPEAKING OF REGGAE-

No one knows how to pronounce Ganzhe properly besides Eric’s VA apparently? All the other VAs pronounce the gan closer to “van” when it’s supposed to be more like a “gone.”

Yes. That’s right.

Ganzhe is pronounced more like ganja.

You know.

The Marajuanas™

I’m a Hawai’i-born Chinese, first-generation local on my mom’s side and third-gen local on my dad’s. I grew up in Chinatown, so this was a section of the game that was near and dear to my heart. So I THINK and HOPE you’d understand my frustration to see that work needed to be done on the representation of my culture in this game. It was definitely a little fun to see my hometown modeled in this game- they got Maunakea Marketplace and Keikaulike Mall down pretty accurately and some of the motifs on the buildings made me do a double take because they were so familiar to me. BUT, man, this cultural aspect of the game needed A LOT of work.

SO TO FINALLY CLOSE THIS OUT

Japanese people love Hawai'i a lot.

I think Japanese people love Hawai'i more than Hawai'i locals do.

But as for portraying it accurately, I understand that no one can do it as well as a local islander can. Did I personally think they did the best they could?

………………ehh

Like, if you turn your brain off, it's fine??

If you turn your brain off and not let Palekana get to you, this game is fine.

It can be a little campy.

It can be a little Hollywood.

It can be a little Disneyland.

And despite my four pages of bitching about it, at the end of the day. It is fine.

So with that, I’ve hit like ten full pages on this Google Doc. Despite half of this review being me complaining about what they got wrong about Hawai’i culture in this game, I liked it a lot! When the game didn't have me strapped down for an episode of a J-drama or Hawaii Five-O, I liked running around town, fighting guys, making other guys fight other guys, and managing a resort island. If anything, this game actually motivated me a little to make more local-themed stuff, because as I notice people getting older, there’s less and less people to correctly preserve highly specific culture stuff like this. So a lot of that responsibility falls on me, y’know?

Thank you for making it to the end of this review! I know it was a lot. I don’t know what happened. I do recommend this game, but I ask that you do NOT finish the game with the takeaway that you have learned everything there is to know about Hawai’i.

I’ll fight you with a lawn chair (in Minecraft, for the FBI agent reading this) if you do that.

Other than that, I think you’ll have a lot of fun but also take your time because this game is, like, a 100 hour commitment. Not Persona 5 Royal long, but a commitment nonetheless.

#like a dragon #like a dragon infinite wealth #pickle art #sure uhh I guess I will put this in the tag #IF YOU FOUND THIS VIA THE TAG AND YOU REALLY LIKE THIS GAME #HI HELLO I DO TOO I JUST HAVE SOME STRONG OPINIONS ABOUT THE CULTURAL ACCURACY OF MY HOMETOWN #PLEASE DON'T YELL AT ME YOU CAN STILL ENJOY IT #anyway I've had this sitting around for like... most if not all of march #and I finally got the spoons to put the finishing touches on it #and come to terms that I'm probably not opening the game back up anytime soon

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ideas-4-stories · 3 months

Note

Silly fanfic idea I wanna drop here -

Everyone thinks out if the cross guild throttle, Mihawk is the only one who can cook. This is a fair assumption, but it's most definitely not true in the SLIGHTEST.

Buggy was a cabin boy and apprentice. His whole role on the Oro Jackson was to learn, and whereas Shanks took to the battle prowess with flying colors, Buggy's talents lied elsewhere. The likelihood of them both having menial chores to do, both as a "cabin boys do this" and "Oh we need to give the kids SOMETHING to do to burn energy", is very high. Buggy would bitch and moan about it, but would put genuine effort into it if only to do it better than Shanks. At some point it is discovered that Shanks could quite literally set water on fire. He is forbidden from the kitchen. Buggy is not. He can and WILL lord that over him for all time.

As a result, Buggy is the one to handle the kitchen chores - and eventually he asks questions of the cook(s) and helps out there too. He learns cooking and baking, and actually.. really enjoys it??

When time passes and he has his own crew, at first, he is the one making their meals. He teaches Mohji and Cabaji to cook some simpler dishes, and moves on from there. He enjoys it - it's Fun, Flashy, and Delicious. Plus, he is damned good at bartering, which saves him money and he does love money. This is simple math.

As the crew grows, he does get cooks on board as well. They all know that sometimes the captain will swing by, hair in a bun, bandana on, grabbing an apron, and they just wordlessly make a space for him to join.

By the time Cross Guild forms, Buggy has been a busy little bee. He hasn't had a chance to go get elbows deep in flour, meats or veggies in a very, very long time, but he's been able to slip off after nightfall to whip up some little treats when the urge hits. He misses the hustle and bustle of a kitchen sometimes, but this... this is nice, too.

Crocodile and Mihawk are surprised when one morning Buggy shows up to a meeting, sets down a plate of pastries, and gets to it. They tentatively take one and are flabbergasted by how good it is. Neither are much for sweets, just these are actually a perfect mix of buttery, warm, flakey goodness with just a pop of natural sweetness from the fruit. Crocodile makes a semi-snide comment on how "I didn't think your little carnival cooks could make anything that didn't induce tooth rotting."

Buggy doesn't even look up from the map he's using to plot a course. "Oh, I made those. The others tend to over sweeten the fruit filling, and you guys don't really like sugary stuff, so I made this batch the way Ray-san liked them. Hey, if we shift our shipment from Allena to the 17th, we may be able to mitigate a need for a second ship heading out-"

Both warlords are gaping - in their own ways, of course.

This is the first of many, many little factoids about Buggy that they learn during this business venture.

It's also the beginning of interest in him beyond a means to an end.

I would think Mihawk is the best at cooking with mostly anything, I like that Mihawk is really REALLY good at cooking. Crocodile would know how to do some because if one wants to survive, they need to know how to make sure somethings good to be eaten. Cooking is a good skill to have while surviving the world.

Definitely Shanks and Buggy has menual chorse to do around Oro Jackson. Buggy would complaint after finding out the new chores placed on them are mostly because the other crew members don’t want to do them, and yes Buggy does them with efficiency and genuine effort as Shanks stares in the corner whining about the chores as much as Buggy does. I can sees Buggy making a game out of cleaning the deck, so Shanks actaully helps him. By strappying cleaning brushes to their shoes and using mops as like hockey sticks. Buggy has a soap bar as the puck and they start playing. I would clean a deck if I could do that as well.

Peeps, I beileve Roger, Buggy, and Shanks have set water on fire before and maybe have burn down a island because they tried to cook. I doubt it’s only a Shanks thing… but I can say that it’s only 25% of the time for Buggy to burn something as Shanks is most likely 75% of the time. I beileve both cabin boys can go into the kitchen… just only with adult supervision. WHO IS NOT ROGER! It would be really cute if both tried their best wth the help of the cook(s) to make things for the crew… good thing they have iron stomachs… right?

I beileve Buggy is flashy great about making things that don’t need the stove or oven. I can see Buggy making little animals out of fruits and vegetables for fun, Roger and Shanks loves them.

Awwwwwwwwwww with Buggy helping Cabaji and Mohii how to cook and bake, I like to think Buggy met Cabaji way before becoming a pirate again. I have an idea about, I might write a story or stories about it or just write about on Tumblr… I don’t know yet. I love how whenever Buggy wants to cook or bake, the chefs on board will make room for their captain, that’s cute!

Then Buggy with bartering? Hell yeah on the fact Buggy is great at bartering with people, even when he isn’t trying. Money is a great thing to have, it’s truly simple math.

Buggy being a busy little bee even before the formation of Cross Guild, having some time since the last time he bakes or cook something. I want to make a fic about this! Thank you Anon for giving me a ask. I don’t when it will be done, but I want to think Buggy had another long stressful day and cannot sleep well. So, the Genuis Jester had a genius idea to destress by making some treats into the night. So, when in the next meeting, as Buggy comes in with apologizes for being late. Having notebooks filled with meeting ideas and things they need to discuss as well as a plate of like three-types treats.

Damn right Mihawk and Crocodile are flabbergasted by how good it it, Buggy is great with surpsing people with his hidden talents (well more like people don’t bother to ask about what Buggy can do, until he does them) Makes sense that both don’t really care, but I see Mihawk liking chocolate and candy canes (this is from a fic that stated that Mihawk likes them becuase they can be shaped into a deadly weapon) more than any other treats.

Not Crocodile making a semi-snide comment, problay wondering why the cooks can’t make treats like these and Buggy shoots back with oh becuase they didn’t make them, I did. I love both are shocked to the core for different reasons. Then having Buggy just think it’s no big deal and haven’t even looked up from the map. Still working as Crocodile and Mihawk have stop doing so from what Buggy said.

Awwwwwwwww, Buggy making treats like what Ray-San likes it. It’s so sweet and sad to me.

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bigtreefest · 3 months

Text

Chapter 2: Heartbreak on the Map

From: Bigger Houses Series

Pairing: (Future) Mountain Ranger! Ari x Reader, Ari x his ex mentioned

Summary: It’s okay to grieve and sulk after a breakup, but at some point, you need to gather yourself together and find the things that make you the happiest, best version of yourself. This is Ari trying to do that, but not perfectly.

Word Count: 1,643

Content/Warnings: Mentions of excessive alcohol consumption, heartbreak and descriptions of how it’s dealt with, Ari being reckless but lucky, lovesick/hopeful thoughts despite a previously broken heart, angst high key stress me out, but did I just write some???, lmk if I missed any

Author’s Note: I honestly like this chapter way better than the first one. I’m not sure why it just flowed better and was way easier to write, despite being shorter. As always, likes, comments, reblogs, and asks are very appreciated. Please send me an ask, I’m begging.

Dividers by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

Below is the song this is based off. I strongly suggest you listen, not only because it helps give vibes, but it’s also a really good song with creative lyricism.

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Ari’s breakup

This barstool knew his name by now, as he sat there sometime around midnight nursing another longneck beer, alongside a couple abandoned whiskey glasses. He’d asked around town if anyone had seen her. That girl. The one that did him wrong, left him here sitting like an old, sad country song. That kind that bars play all night long on the jukebox. He’d know that’s what they play, he was there every night. He didn’t know where to look anymore.

Ari had no idea where she could possibly be at this point. Could have been west of Texas, east of Tennessee, but he didn’t care. Because all that mattered was that she wasn’t here with him anymore. It all went south, and maybe she did, too, as he watched her taillights fade in a dust cloud. No goodbye kiss. Ari was left to wonder, with only whiskey on his lips.

He had hardly slept in weeks. The beer and whiskey sometimes had the opposite intended effect, not aiding his sleep, but keeping him up to overthink. The truth was, he knew why the relationship ended. It wasn’t his fault, and he could tell it wasn’t meant to be from the start. But he was mostly happy, and he thought that’s what he deserved: to be mostly happy and to settle down because it seemed that was all she wanted. But that’s all he was doing: settling. She never pushed him, unless it was to find a way to make more money and support her, but Ari didn’t truly want that life. He didn’t want to come home to a perfect little housewife. But she wanted that. And she kept pushing, and he kept molding himself to her demands, because love is compromise, right?

No. Not if it’s only on one side.

Despite knowing better in the back of his head, Ari convinced himself there was something he could do. Making use of another restless night, he threw the covers off and shuffled out of the bedroom and into the rest of his small shack of a cabin provided by his ranger job. He found himself sprawled at the dining room table with papers scattered all over, a magnifying glass in hand. He had looked through his old maps, trying to find all routes she could’ve possibly taken, but instead, all that he saw was heartbreak. She put it there. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, letting out a deep sigh in frustration. Frustration of wasted years, frustration at himself for trying to talk himself into something he knew was wrong. That’s why he never got a ring, even when she pushed. He knew it wasn’t meant to be. So she left, for someone who had her ring waiting.

Losing her was heart wrenching, but also, a relief. Slipping out of your uncomfortable shoes and unbuttoning your pants after a six-mile hike kind of relief. Ari knew the one for him was still out there, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still hurting. He needed to recover the places she’d been with new memories: starting with the living room. No need for the bedroom, at least. (Another product of the voice at the back of his mind that knew she wasn’t right.) So he flopped down on the couch, tv low in the background, staring up at the ceiling, humming one of the heartbreak songs from the bar until sleep embraced him.

Ari woke up with cramps in his back and a sore neck from curling up on the couch that was just barely too small for his tall, broad frame. It was still dark out. His phone was plugged in at the night stand by the bed, so he walked over to the kitchen. The clock on the stove read 5:48 am. Might as well start getting ready for the day. He put on a pot of coffee and opened the fridge to look for leftovers to heat up. While that was going, he shuffled back to his closet and slipped on his uniform, ready to start another day in the only place that gave him true peace: the mountains. (Luckily, the only other place she hadn’t tainted. She hated the out doors.)

Ari’s days carried on like this for weeks. Wake up too early. Make coffee. Go to work. Come home. Try and sleep. Look through old paper maps. He loved routine, it often kept him sane, but he was spiraling. He needed to figure out a new one. He was sick of moping around and he was sick of putting himself down like he had done something wrong. How was she still able to hold him back after being gone? He was going to start living his life for himself again. He needed to find the schedule and the things that truly made him happy. But first, dinner.

A few months later

One of the routine things that kept Ari sane now: cleaning the house. He needed a true, clean slate, so we went and cleared off the dining room table, nicely refolding the maps which had laid there for months. Despite him having been single for so long now, he kept them there. They used to give him peace and comfort. Ari liked his old, paper maps. It was easier to see it all laid out instead of crammed onto his tiny phone. His place was a lot like that: full of things he could do with his hands, like mini projects, instead of being glued to a screen all day. But she had tainted it: she tainted his favorite things. It wasn’t as bad now, but his nervous evergy kept building up and he needed to get out of there so he didn’t scream.

Another aspect of Ari’s healing: working out. Any time he got like this and couldn’t stand being in the small space anymore, he ran. He ran until he drove all those what-ifs and doubts out of his mind, along the mountain trails and out to the cliffs where it was just him and the sky, overlooking the small town below, dwarfed even more by the mountainous elevation. He slipped on his tennis shoes and bolted out the door as quickly as he could. The mid-week afternoon air was refreshing. All he could focus on was go farther. Go faster. He kept running and running, through the trails, and didn’t even have a second thought to look when crossing the road, the music blaring in his headphones making him unable to hear any cars approaching as they went along the mountain path. As he stepped out onto the road, Ari saw movement out of the corner of his eye and his head snapped. Before he knew it, anhorn sounded and a car swerved around him, skidding to a stop as it pulled over on the narrow mountain pass. Ari jumped back into the greenery lining the road, surprised at his own recklessness that he usually preaches against. Another SUV pulled over right behind the first as he heard a driver’s side door slam shut. He could faintly hear a conversation between two women, followed by one of them emerging from between the cars.

“Oh my gosh! I thought you were a bear! I almost hit you!”

Ari was in shock from how careless he was and how he watched his life flash before his eyes.

“I-it’s really my fault. I’m not sure what I was thinking.”

He stood there with wide eyes, hands on his hips, shoulders rising and falling quickly with heavy breaths, truly in bewilderment at what had just gone down, as well as bewilderment at the woman standing before him. Something about her was so captivating that he had to force himself to look away after taking her in, hoping she didn’t think he was a creep from his reaction.

“Um, it’s ok, I just think you need to be more careful. Listen, I don’t wanna be pulled over on this stretch of road for too long, God forbid a real bear, or someone without good reflexes comes around, but, I’m glad you’re not hurt. Take care.”

And with that she rushed away, leaving Ari standing there in shock before he could even squeak another word out. He watched her and the trailing SUV until they rounded the bend and went further up the mountain.

Huh, there was only one house Ari knew of up there. It’s where an older couple used to stay during the summers, and he had only been inside once to help fix something after they sought out the ranger in his cabin, but he remembers it having the best view he could imagine, despite the cabin’s modest size. It was pretty much the perfect home. What a was she doing going up there?

Realizing he had stayed standing eerily close to the road for too long, Ari decided it was probably time to head back since the sun had started to set. He trudged through the tall trees and deeply inhaled the sharp pine scent that opened his airways and comforted him as it wrapped around him like a blanket. This was his domain, and he truly enjoyed the sanctity of his environment, but he still wished he had someone to share his favorite things with. An equal partner who appreciated this environment as much as him, but still had their own wants and didn’t force him to be what he wasn’t.

As he made his was back to his front steps, Ari looked up at the unobstructed stars that danced into the sky during his long walk home, shining brightly like every night. He couldn’t help but wonder if the one for him was looking up, sharing the same sky as him. The one who could one day share his heart.

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