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oneforthemunny · 6 months

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blue christmas |older!dilf!eddie munson x reader|

prompt: a look at two very different christmases in eddie's life.

apart of munny's merriest masterlist which you can read here!

contains: sad!eddie. parent guilt. divorce. gina. mainly just very lonely christmas angst but some fluff at then end.

Fourteen Years Before

“Hey, have a good one, Munson!” Phil waved a gloved hand, locking the body shop for the night. “Have a Merry Christmas!” Even Christmas Eve held its fair share of wrecks, cars breaking down in the snow, plenty of business even on the holiday.

“Yeah, you too!” Eddie waved back, hands shoved deep in his utility jacket, heavy and warm for the colder months. His hands fiddled around with the cigarette carton in his coat pocket, pulling out his keys with the cigarette, letting it hang from his lips as he slid into the truck.

The roads were empty, cleared of any traffic on his way to his apartment. The twinkling lights in the yards, strung merrily and proudly for all to see mocked him, a dull reminder of what wasn’t waiting for him at home.

Home. He used that term loosely.

The apartments were cheap for a two bedroom, close to Brielle’s school and Eddie’s work. Gina had got the house in the divorce. Eddie didn’t want it, couldn’t afford it on his own after she’d cleared out what little he had. His thumb rubbed over his ring finger out of habit, meeting the calloused skin there instead of the gold band he wore for eight years.

Eight years. Eight Christmases spent with Gina, with Brielle. They were far from perfect. He and Gina usually fought from Thanksgiving to New Years Eve, but at least he had a tree. At least it was decorated, and there were presents under the tree.

At least he wasn’t alone.

Eddie’s heart ached, a jabbing pain that spread through his chest, leaving his throat stinging with an uncomfortable burn. He knew the divorce was the right thing to do, when your seven year old asks Santa for her parents to stop fighting, it’s time. Still, he didn’t think it would hurt so badly, that it’d be this lonely.

That he’d miss it this badly.

Maybe he should have toughed it out, should have ignored Gina so he wouldn’t be sitting here, in a pitifully empty apartment, in a deafening silence, nursing a beer on Christmas Eve.

Eddie had put up a ‘tree’, a lighted spiral cone shape he found at a second hand store, after Brielle commented on his lack of decor. “You don’t like Christmas anymore?”

She’d made him an ornament in art class, which he couldn’t hang on the spiraled lights of the tree, so he taped it on. She was happy with it regardless, grinning and telling him about how her art teacher let her make two. “Since you and mom are divorced.” Eddie’s stomach turned. There was something so sickening about hearing his little girl say those words in such a cheery tone. Made him feel like a complete sack of shit.

Eddie looked at the clock on the stove, flashing bright, green numbers back at him. He worked later than expected, it was nearly eight, but knowing Brielle she was far from ready for bed- Santa's coming tonight. Eddie’s chest tightened at the thought- he was missing that.

He grabbed the phone, punching in the numbers carefully, he knew them by heart. The phone rang, and rang.

“Hello?” Gina’s huffy voice came over the other line.

“Hey, Gina.” Eddie said awkwardly. “I, uh, I just got home. I was gonna talk to Brielle if she’s still up.”

“Yeah, she’s still up.” Gina huffed, and he could practically see her eye roll, snarled lips. “You were supposed to call at seven.”

“I know, I know. I just- I got busy at work. Had to stay overtime.” Eddie ran a hand down his face, knee bouncing.

“Great. She’s gonna be even more wild now. She’s already losing her damn mind- Brielle, get out of your stocking or I’m throwing it away!” Gina pulled the phone away, shrilling. Eddie’s lips curled, hearing the cackle in the background, she was his daughter.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-” Eddie started.

“-Just, whatever. Don’t get her fucking wild, Eddie, I swear to God.” Gina snapped. The phone rustled. “Here.” Gina’s voice was muffled, before the phone settled.

“Hello?” The little chirp on the other end had Eddie’s heart swelling.

“Hi, Munchkin.” Eddie grinned softly, voice lilting higher. “Merry Christmas.”

“It’s Daddy!” Brielle shrilled. “Hi, Daddy. Merry Christmas.”

“Are you still up?” Eddie sighed softly. “You’re supposed to be asleep. Santa’s coming soon, Brie.”

“I’ll sleep in a little bit.” Brielle huffed lightly, she sounded like her mother. “When are you comin’ home? I saved you one of the Snowman cookies before Santa eats them, and I have reindeer food to put on the roof. It has glitter in it this time so they can see better.”

Eddie paused, words choked around the lump in his throat, heart sinking low into the pit of his stomach.

“Daddy?” Brielle asked, pulling the phone back. “I think it got undone-”

“-No, no, I’m here, Brielle.” Eddie’s voice was tight, hand pressed into his eyes. “Um, I-I’m not coming home tonight, remember?” A ragged breath shook out of his chest, and he hoped she didn’t hear it. “I’m coming to get you tomorrow afternoon, and we’re going to Grandpa’s.”

“Oh,” Brielle’s tiny voice was filled with disappointment, it tore Eddie’s heart right out of his chest. “Even on Christmas?”

“Yeah, baby. Even on Christmas. Remember me and mom told you, you’d get two Christmases. One with each of us.” Eddie tried to keep his voice steady.

“But not together?” Brielle muttered, a complete turn around from her previous excited tone.

“No, not together. I’m sorry, Brie.” Eddie pulled the phone away, taking a deep breath in to keep his emotions in.

“That’s ok.” Her tone told him otherwise.

“But I’ll see you tomorrow, ok? And you can tell me all about what Santa brought you, and then we’ll go to Grandpa’s and you’ll have even more gifts to open.” Eddie hoped his tone was convincing.

“Ok.” Brielle muttered sadly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Daddy.”

“Yeah, you will, I promise.” Eddie swallowed the lump in his throat, nose burning with tears. “Good night, Brie. Dream of those sugar plums, alright? Love you.”

“G'night. Love you.” Brielle repeated solemnly.

The phone rattled for a moment, Eddie clearing his throat lightly. The line settled for a moment and he waited for Gina’s voice. A harsh dial tone came instead.

Eddie tried to ignore the hurt that pounded in his chest. He felt grimy, gross, and disappointed in himself. He felt alone, most of all.

Shaky fingers punched the buttons on the phone, knee bouncing as he lit a cigarette, pulling the ashtray closer to him on the kitchen table. “Hello?” Steve Harrington’s accommodating tone came through the line, a loud screech of children’s laughter in the background.

“Hey, Steve.” Eddie cringed at the shake in his tone, swallowing. “Sorry to bother you, I, uh, I just wanted to-”

“-Daddy! One present, please?”

“Yeah! Just one! One!”

“Hang on,” Steve huffed. “No, ok? Mom said no, and you know she’s the boss. You better stop, alright? It’s not too late to get on Santa’s bad list. I’ll call him right now and tell him to skip the Harrington residence-”

“No!” A chorus of cries in the background made Eddie smile, his chest aching even more with an unfamiliar feeling.

Tiny stampedes of feet cleared in the background. “Sorry, it’s a zoo over here, Ed.” Steve snorted lightly.

“Yeah, no, I get it.” Eddie laughed lightly, stopping himself gently. “Well, actually, I don’t. That’s, uh, that’s actually why I was calling.” Eddie exhaled deeply, rubbing his forehead. “I, uh, I just called Brielle, and she’s-”

“-Steven! I need help in here!” Nancy’s voice pierced through the phone, sharp even in the background.

“Fuck. Hey, Ed, can I call you back? We’re trying to make cookies, and they’re decorating the baby.” Steve sighed. “I’m telling you, these kids are insane. I’m about to rip my hair out, and I still gotta make a fuckin’ dollhouse.” Steve’s voice dropped to a low whisper.

“Yeah, no, I get it. Don’t worry about it, man.” Eddie felt his waterline flood. “Go be with your family.”

“Alright, I gotta go. Merry Christmas, Munson.” Steve hummed over the line.

“Merry Christmas.” Eddie muttered, the dial tone cutting him off again.

He leaned back in the dining room chair, cigarette burning between his fingers. Alone.

Present

“Eddie!” You called, wrangling the squirming one year old in your arms, Delilah was determined to get to the shiny presents, squealing and cackling. She was just crawling, thankfully, toddling but not as sure, but she was fast.

“Ed, get the phone!” You yelled, the trill of the landline Eddie still had around filled the house. Brielle in front of you, in pajamas that matched her little sisters, phone dangling from her grasps.

“She’s gonna open a present tonight.” Brielle giggled, recording her sister happily.

“Yeah, or tear the tree down.” You grumbled, rolling your eyes. “I told you a candy cane was too much.” You glared at Eddie playfully. He’d snuck her tastes of a candy cane earlier at your parent’s house, laughing at how her eyes lit up.

Eddie grinned, snagging the phone off the hook. “Hello?”

There was a silence, the tiniest hitch of a breath on the other line. Eddie frowned, looking down at the caller id. “Hello?”

“Is Brielle there?” The huffy, snide of a tone that he’d know anywhere. Gina. Why she was calling him on Christmas Eve, he wasn’t exactly sure, but he had an idea that it was due to Brielle’s silent treatment towards her after Gina’s rage filled rant about Lilah’s birth.

“Hello, Gina. Merry Christmas to you.” Eddie clipped, eyes rolling. “Yeah, she’s here.”

Gina paused, and Eddie could picture her even now, nails tapping against the table furiously, anxiously. “Well, can you- can I talk to her?”

Eddie’s head turned, his gaze meeting Brielle’s. She shook her head, brows raised nearly in offense at the suggestion. “Uh, Gina, she-she’s kinda busy right now-”

“-Right.” Gina scoffed, tone harsh but Eddie could hear it, the traces of hurt lingering in the defensiveness. “Guess she likes the child bride more than her actual mother-”

“-Alright, Gina.” Eddie huffed. “You have a good one. Merry Christmas.”

“Wait!” The shrill in her tone, desperate and alarming.

Eddie waited, holding the phone back to his ear. Gina huffed, taking in a deep breath. “Can you… Can you talk to her?” Her voice was small, quiet. “Just-Just tell her I want to see her, and I have gifts for her, and-and,” There was a pause, a shaky breath. “Tell her I miss her and I love her?”

Eddie’s chest ached for her sympathetically. He knew she deserved it, that Brielle was probably in the right with her cruelty. Still, Eddie sympathized with her. The bitter loneliness of being alone during the holidays.

“Yeah, Gina. I can do that.” Eddie nodded slowly, his voice dropping. “I’ll, uh, I’ll tell her.”

“Thanks.” The word was clipped, drowned in disdain and followed with a sniffle.

“Have a Merry Christmas, Gina.” Eddie sighed softly, hanging up the phone with a final click.

He turned back to the living room. You and Brielle were still desperately trying to distract Lilah from the shining ornaments with her toys, rattling and shaking them in front of her so she squealed, only to turn back to the tree.

Eddie smiled, scooping up the baby, tossing her in the air gently so she screeched in laughter. “She’s never going to sleep.” You grinned warmly, starry eyed watching Eddie cuddle your baby.

“Nah, she’ll sleep in a little bit.” Eddie shrugged, snuggling her close to his chest. Delilah turned into his touch, face pressing into his chest, rubbing her face sleepily into the soft cotton of his Christmas pajama shirt that matched with his girls.

His brows shot up, grinning triumphantly. You snorted, rolling your eyes lightly. “Alright, Santa. What kind of cookies do you want?”

“Whatever kind you wanna make me, bunny. ‘M not picky.” Eddie hummed, rocking Delilah against his chest gently.

“I bought the Snowman sugar cookie ones.” Brielle smiled brightly. “I can make them.”

Eddie’s chest filled with warmth, looking down at the tiny girl in his arms, heavy lids pulling shut with sleep, knuckling at them. The lights on the tree seemed brighter and brighter as the years passed. A real tree this time, filled with ornaments and memories hanging on the branches, room for more as the years went on.

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russellsppttemplates · 19 days

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Hii I just saw a video of Charles walking around with a dog like a purse, soo I was thinking maybe he and the reader decided to adopt a dog

Note: this has made my day, he's so tiny and cute and fluffy 🥹

"Are you saying we think we should adopt a dog?", you checked to make sure you heard Charles right.

"I'm not saying we should, but it's something I've been thinking about - it would be nice for you to have company when I'm not home, and we saw how big Mimi gets, so obviously it's easier to travel with a dog like that, and- and I don't know, I think it's a good step in our relationship, I think it's the next one", he smiled.

You already lived together - had for two years -, and the marriage conversations had been clear enough that you knew it would happen. You didn't know when, but the day where he got down on one knee and proposed would happen. The ring was in his sunglasses drawer.

"I think it's a good idea", you smiled, lacing his hand in yours.

The moment you saw the little puppy, you were sure your heart melted and all reason and logic left your brain as you cooed at the furball on your lap, "you are such a cutie, aren't you? Yes, you are, look at these little ears, and this cute tummy - yes, it's such a cute tummy, isn't it?", you spoke in a baby voice much to Charles' and Nahmias' amusement.

"I think she's just fine - they're falling in love with eachother, which also means you'll have to fight a sausage for your girlfriend's attention now", he patted Charles' back as he went back to the other room, gathering the small food doses so you could have some until you were able to go to the shop, given that it was already late, the dog's passport and health bulletin.

"Is he coming home with us?", Charles asked as he crouched down next to you, scratching the puppy's head as he curled up on your arms.

"He's so perfect, and he's so little, Charles!", you cooed, "we're dog parents now!", you kissed your boyfriend's lips.

On your way home, something dawned on you, "Oh, what if I don't notice he's under the blankets and sit on him? Charles, we need those traffic cones for anyone who comes into the house and a little warning sign because they can just miss him!", you worried, "I never had a puppy as small as you, no I haven't, Leo", you cooed, bringing the puppy up to your face and getting your nose licked by him, "Oh, so many kisses, so many kisses from our sweet boy", you cooed.

(Thank you for sending this in ✨️)

#charles leclerc blurb #inês writes blurbs #f1 blurb #f1 x reader

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jazzmasternot · 1 month

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Hazbin hotel college AU head cannons

Note: decided to write these out after reading @sprainedwriting’s fanfic about Adam being a frat boy and I took that concept and ran with it.

Obviously this is based off of my own university experience where I attend a really big public university in the southern US. so that’s where my takes are coming from.

This is also my first time writing anything on here so there’s that aswell.

Charlie

Majors in musical theatre, but not performance education. She wants to be the unhinged theatre teacher that everyone loves. Lives in one of those really fancy student apartment lofts with keke. And is part of the cat club where she feeds the cats on campus

Vaggie

She probably does something super hard like biomedical engineering (let’s go women in stem!) which takes up allot of her time already. Is also an RA for one of the dorms on campus which is good for her bc free housing and gets paid to do her homework at the front desk. Met Charlie in an English class and have been together ever since. When she’s not on call she’s spending the night at Charlie’s and Charlie’s almost always sitting at the front desk with vaggie even tho she doesn’t work or live at the dorm and no one says anything bc it’s just not that deep.

Alastor

Majors in audio engineering and runs the campus radio station that people definitely still listen too. He went to community college first then transferred to a four year (to save money ofc) and is a commuter where he still lives with his mom. Does work study where he works the front desk of the library where he does his homework and works on his scripts for his radio show. Has no interest in working with Vox since he runs the tv channel simply bc he doesn’t want all that extra work. Still takes his notes on pen and paper and still has a nightmare of a time figuring out to electronically submit all his assignments and take his tests.

Angel dust

Okay so hear me out he majors in math ikik it sounds crazy but every gay math major I’ve ever met acts just like Angel dust. Goes to raves and frat parties even tho the guys don’t want him there but he always brings girls with him so the kinda have to let him in. Does nude modeling for extra cash at the art school so he’s kinda a celeb over there even tho he’s not in anyway related to that major.

Husk

Majors in Restaurant and hotel management and is one of those college students that are in their late twenties so already has more life experience than most other ppl here so he doesn’t do allot of the stupid college that allot of other ppl do. Lives in some off campus apartment that’s just a large house rented out to students made to look like a apartment (yk the ones in talking abt) works at the dive bar located just off campus that everyone goes to atleast once in their four years.

Sir pentious

Majors in mechanical engineering or industrial design I can’t really decided. Definitely uses the 3D printer all the time and is on the robotics team, which wins every competition they go to.

Nifty

She’s changed her major so many times nobody knows anymore. Is part of the kpop club and has biases complete with intricately decorated covers, like she has so many photo cards. Also runs the campus hotties account where it’s just a bunch of candids of cute guys taken from far away. Will also get really pissed if you don’t wash your dishes bc it will attract bugs so if ur her roommate you better do the dam dishes.

Cherry bomb

Art major and is the one who got Angel the nude modeling gig. Is always pulling all nighters bc she kept postponing the assimgment till the last minute. Has probably vandalized a couple buildings surrounding the university but hasn’t been caught. Goes to raves and the aforementioned frat parties with Angel. Also has a traffic cone in her dorm room for no other reason than just bc.

Vox

Majors in multi media marketing, runs the campus tv and YouTube channel. Definitely the president of a frat that inflates his ego more than it already is. Always at sporting events at the front row with all the frat guys giving everyone the inside scoop and game commentary. Is very pissed that alastor won’t work with him. Treats himself like a campus celebrity even tho ppl could care less and are just trying to get their degree.

Valentino

majors in film and media productions yeah he’s one of those. Always asking if you’ve seen pulp fiction and telling you that you need to watch some random black and white movie that’s only in French. Will definitely invite you over to watch something with you but we all know that’s not the case. Also all his film projects has allot of unnecessary nudity and sex under the guise of artistic expression, even when it’s so not relevant to the plot. Unless it’s a film that he’s making for the university in which case Vox is controlling every aspect of it which in this case is a good thing. Smokes in his dorm room without a care in the world and has really loud inconsiderate sex at any random point in the 24 hour day cycle.

Velvette

Majors in public relations and runs the university’s Instagram account. She’s always walking up to ppl with a lil microphone to ask you to tell us what you’re wearing. Speaking off she always comes to class dressed up (like the international students) no leggings and tennis shoes for her. Also is definitely in a divine nine sorority, and runs their insta too.

Carmilla

She’s a professor for the aerospace engineering dept and shes here bc she got sick of making rockets for Lockheed Martin and reatheon. Hella smart and ppl are baffled that she chose to give up a seven figure job to teach a bunch of college kids but she’s so chill abt it tho.

Zestial

Definitely English lit professor, makes you read the books no one’s heard of and not the classics. Always brings his own open regular coffee mug from his house to sip his tea from instead of a thermos, everyone asks how he doesn’t spill it on his ride to work. Also just straight up has an electric kettle in his office so he can have tea whenever he wants. Takes turns with carmilla eating lunch in each other’s offices.

Rosie

Studies agriculture sciences and food processing. Will probably run a slaughter house when she’s done with her degree. Hangs out with Alastor in his radio booth from time to time just to gossip about whatever drama is going around lately. Wears long skirts and a tote bag all the time. Is always sweet to Charlie and Emily, also loathes Vox just as much as Alastor she just finds him annoying.

Lucifer

Is probably a religion professor that’s not religious at all and is super laid back in his class like one easy discussion board post a week. The kinda guy to be like “it’s so nice out let’s have class outside today guys” or “if I make this shot ur all getting extra credit on the quiz this week”.

Adam

Definitely majors in finance and is a frat boy. And his band plays at all the said frat parties. Is very insufferable to talk to at parties will try tell you how crypto is the currency of the future and how wolf of Wall Street is his favorite movie. Has a Saturdays are for the boys flag in his room and navy blue sheets. Oh did I mention he vapes he definitely vapes those Mike Tyson ones that taste awful and look like bricks yeah those. Always gets drunk at the tailgate way before the game is even started.

Lute

Yeah she’s in premed and wants everyone to know she’s better than you bc of it. Everyone else’s major is easy compared to hers so don’t you dare complain about all your assignments in her vicinity. She’s basically made it her whole identity like she’s in the premed honors society, future doctors of America. Types her notes on her laptop and then rewrites them with all her gel pens and fancy highlighters, like thee be so colorfull and pretty then the title would be something like blood clots. Still friends with Adam bc they went to the same highschool together and always helping him with his homework in turn he gets her into the tailgate tents and frat parties so she always gets free alcohol.

Emily

Majors in Elementary education and looks like it too, with the Stanley cup, James Avery charm bracelet, and all. She also takes super pretty notes but she does them in class which is super power all in itself, like her desk is scattered with gel pens and highlighters of every color and swears by her bullet journal. She also feeds the cats on campus with Charlie and runs the arts and crafts club on campus where they always host events like tote bag painting in the grass area of the university. Also doesn’t drink bc she’s not twenty one yet even tho she’s in college and definitely won’t smoke even tho most of the ppl that show up to her events are total potheads

Sera

She’s like the university president who doesn’t actually GAF abt the students and just fund’s athletics and raises tuition every year under miscellaneous fees. She tries to come off as supportive when she’s out in public but no one’s buying it.

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kivino · 6 months

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KIVI, YOU SWEET ANGEL YOU.

can you write a price x gn!paramedic!reader where price is on leave, and maybe he gets into a car accident that isn’t too bad so he refuses to go to the hospital, but the cute paramedic keeps insisting on at least checking him out in the ambulance……….. 😋

DOUBLE VISION || JOHN 'BRAVO 0-6' PRICE X PARAMEDIC!GN!READER

Word counter – ~1.9k

Tags/Warnings – mentions of car crash, intoxication, medical examinations, fluff, first meeting, and lack of medical professionalism, lmao.

A/n – PLSS I HOPE YOU LIKE IT POOKIE, IT TOOK ME A HOT MINUTE TO GET TO THE REQUEST I’M SORRY MWAH. also credits for the name go to @mockerycrow as well, they’re a genious and have the biggest brain out of the two of us.

ao3 link for this fic

It’s always a slow process for John - getting used to the slow, civilian ways when he finally gets his leaves approved. When he spends so much time on the field, more often than not he starts to forget about “the other side” of life. Lack of noise, mundane mornings, and silent nights come and with them, the all-encompassing feeling of loneliness starts to set in his gut. John gets reminded about the lack of anyone’s presence in his life. No one is waiting for him back home, and no one will probably be any time soon, with how work takes over most of his free time. And then the captain remembers he’s not getting any younger.

Of course, he had plenty of experience and relationships before, but none of them lasted until now when his hair was already graying and wrinkles were starting to riddle his face here and there. John wasn’t insecure about his age, no, because that would be foolish, really, rather it was the fact that he had no one to share with all the years that were ahead of him.

What John also had a hard time getting used to was driving the busy streets of London with its crazy drivers after months of not getting behind the wheel, which brings him to this moment. Well, it really was on him for trying to get somewhere after happy hour in all the pubs in the area ended, he should’ve probably anticipated some drunk idiot would want to drive back home today. John wasn’t in the right headspace at the moment to fill out all the paperwork and figure out who was in the wrong. His thoughts were far away from here. Probably all the impact from the airbag and the hit.

He’s had it worse before, of course, so some bruises and scratches here and there wasn’t something he couldn’t handle. John felt some pulsing pain in his knee, making it harder to stand upright, and a bit of an ache in his neck from the whiplash, but again, it wasn’t as bad as getting thrown into the wall by an explosion or falling out of a damn helicopter.

So now he has to spend the whole evening working out things with the police and that drunk idiot who bumped into him, freezing his ass off in the rain. Just perfect. John feels a surge of annoyance and exhaustion wash over him, he pinches his brow, letting out an impatient sigh. Cops have arrived on the scene already and started examining the two collided vehicles, after putting around some traffic cones so some other lucky fellas don’t decide to join in on the fun. From his spot on the sidewalk, John can also see the paramedics, who had to get involved because as soon as cops started questioning that drunk guy, he decided to scrunch into himself and show the world all the contents of his stomach. As if it needed to get even more complicated than it already was.

“Excuse me, sir? You’re the other…driver involved in the accident?” John suddenly hears a voice, a bit on the quiet side, which brings him out of his thoughts that involve strangling somebody in a variety of different ways. And oh, his nights instantly become tens, if not thousands of times better when he sees the owner of said voice.

Judging by the identifying markings you were a paramedic, and a very cute one at that, with your dull green uniform and a big jacket on, brows tied together in a concerned expression. Oh, and your eyes, they looked absolutely lovely in the low streetlights. Price is taken aback for the moment, forgetting every word in his vocabulary. He feels his heart starting to beat faster, blood flowing through his veins so fast he’s sure if it wasn’t for the evening darkness he’d most likely resemble a tomato. But then John realizes he must say something because just staring at you would just make him seem like some old creep. And he absolutely didn’t want that.

“Yes, that would be me.” He speaks up after clearing his throat. You nod to that, attentive gaze still on him. John then adds on after a short pause, which took him to let out a deep sigh. “You need me for anything?” Anything. Something. Please.

“Just checking up.” John feels his heart melt at that small smile that grazes your lips, making it obvious you’re satisfied with his answer. “You seem to be holding up better than the other driver.” You joke in an attempt to either lighten up the mood, which John appreciates, or to calm yourself a bit. It didn’t escape him how you seemed a little shaky. It was Friday night, so today’s shift might have been rough on you. Always the Friday nights.

“Well, anyone would hold up better than that bloke.” He jokes with a bit of abandon, a low chuckle escaping his lips, as he starts to overthink himself. John suddenly feels like a dumb teenager, which is never a good sign, especially when there is someone he’s interested in right in front of him. Price feels like his laugh is too rough, stance is too relaxed and everything is just a bit too much when your eyes are on him. Oh, he’s so going to embarrass himself.

“True, but let’s not tell him that.” You give a quiet laugh and John’s worries die down a little. Not completely, but enough to let his eyes get glued to your face. “How are you feeling? Is there any abnormal pain, anything unusual or out of the ordinary?” Oh, so you’re the type to get straight to business, huh? Interesting. Price liked that. “If there’s anything wrong we’ll get you right to the hospital.” Price declined when he got asked about the hospital before by another paramedic because there was no way he was going to spend even more time out of his house because of some minor scratches. But if it meant you’ll be there, he’s calling dibs on the seat beside you in the ambulance truck, dear lord.

“My knee’s complaining a bit, love.” John can see your eyes going as big as two shiny coins when you hear that pet name, which, to be fair, slipped out completely unintentionally. However, by the way you instantly light up in another shy smile, he can tell you don’t really mind it, so his nervousness caused by this… “happy accident”, comes down again. “Some bruises, but I’m not about to hold you up because of those.”

“Oh, well, that’s alright, come with me and I can check you out…” You stutter over your words while talking a bit too quickly and once you understand what you said, an annoyed groan comes out of you. Way to embarrass yourself. “I mean, check your knee out in the ambulance, alright?” You again shoot him a smile. Which probably is in vain, since he’s a patient at the moment, and you’re at work, and that’s very much frowned upon, but what can you do? You don’t meet a man like that everywhere. He looks a bit rough around the edges, but that’s part of the charm.

“I’m sure your hands are already full with that hero of the day over there, I’m good.” What. The fuck. Are you doing. John. The only chance he gets to talk to you and he’s blowing it, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know why he said that. Maybe not to seem desperate in a very self-sabotaging way, but that’s just. Oh, John, you’re too old for playing some damn games with someone you like.

“You know what? I insist.” Your voice is lower and rougher. And when you top it off with another one of your sweet smiles and a gentle touch on his shoulder? John is a gone man. Turning into a much, a putty, if you will. God, for this perfect smile he was ready to smash and repair every single house appliance and pipe in your house.

“Alright then. Anything for you, love, lead the way.” And you did, with your hand resting softly on his back, helping him forward. John wished you would’ve been bolded with your touch, so he could feel more than just a light graze, but still. It felt good.

And then he finds himself in the back of the ambulance truck, this cramped, tiny space making him hold his breath from being so goddamn nervous in your presence. You told him to take a seat while rummaging through some cabinets and various medical bags for something. Seemingly not finding anything that you needed you spoke up to him again.

“Okay, now let me see your knee, sir.” You mumbled while kneeling in front of him, your eyes concentrated on the man. He didn’t mind you calling him sir at all. John was so used to being called that, but right now it just spread that very pleasant warm feeling inside of him.

“Well, I’m not taking my pants off. Not without a dinner first.” Price chuckled, as he tried rolling up one of his pants legs. And, well, his statement wasn’t that far from the truth. The whole deal with examination was a bit awkward to begin with, so he didn’t want to make it even worse.

“I’ll think about it, big guy.” You chuckle, as you finally start looking at his knee, small, feather-light touches sending sparks over Price’s skin. So, you enjoyed teasing him like that, huh? In combination with that nice, sweet smile? Oh, John is sold. He definitely should you invite somewhere while he still has time on his leave. But before he can open his mouth to make a brave offer you speak up again. “Looks like you have a minor sprain in here, your knee’s all swollen. I’ll apply some elastic bandages, that you’re going to have to wear for some time and redo yourself. But overall you seem to be doing good” Price couldn’t help but feel like that last remark wasn’t about his health.

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s all fine with me, love. Do what you have to.” You only nod in response, spending some time rummaging in the cupboards once again and emerging victorious with a roll of elastic bandages in your hands. You return to your previous position in front of John, and adjust his knee with a firm hand, mumbling a quiet “Hold still, please”. Oh, he’d freeze for centuries if you had asked him to. But he does, and as you wrap the bandage around his knee, which just kept pulsing with hot pain, he couldn’t help but admire you. The trained movements, the concentrated gaze, the warm touch…Maybe he really should act on his thoughts. Maybe it’s his chance. Maybe something can work out and this accidental meeting will become…something more.

Price wanted it to become something more.

His imagination ran rampant, picturing you wearing some nice and fancy, in case you do agree on a date. John totally should not be thinking this when you were right there, finally putting some finishing touches on his knee bandaging, so he forced them out of his mind and cleared his throat. Here goes nothing. But before Price can even utter a single sound you’re already being called over by your colleague. Guess he’ll just have to wait until you’re free of your duties, huh?

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swordy-da-goat · 1 month

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(last ask for a while bc I feel like I'm nagging you sorryy)

I thought road wiz was like an scp, and now we have hazard monster.

Anyway I wonder how either of them would react to being treated like scps? Hazard would be a keter for sure.

Also if you made a road wiz plush I'd 100% buy it I love him sm

got carried away my bad

The Road Wiz

Item# : SCP-████

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Contained within a Standard Secure Humanoid Containment Cell in ██████, Sector-██ at Site-██. SCP-████ will often teleport out of their containment cell for an unprecedented amount of time before teleporting back. They are allowed to freely walk around the foundation as their skills and “magic” are very useful in securing anomalies, reducing injuries and casualties, and dealing with containment breaches.

Description: A humanoid entity (hard to distinguish if SCP-████ is a human or some other entity due to their hat and scarf obscuring facial view. Request to remove hat was met with opposition) wearing a hat resembling an orange traffic cone with one big and small white, reflective stripes, an orange safety vest with a long cloak attached from the backend, a yellow and black safety coverall, and long black leather and rubber gloves and boots.

SCP-████ is also in possession of a long black staff with a ring on the tip of unknown material. This staff is able to produced anomalous properties which can be better described as “magic.” Their “magic” seems to be a parody of signs, spells being correlated by the top of their staff in a hologram visual. One example being the staff projecting a deer sign when generating a glowing holographic version with mass of any of the Cervidae family.

Addendum 1: Discovery

SCP-████ was first captured near American state highway ██. The foundation was alerted when nearby police claimed that quote, “a portal just f█cking opened in the middle of the lobby where then a weirdly dressed guy wearing a cone on their head kicked a guy through saying to arrest him for drunk driving.” All personnel in the police station were given Class A amnestics. Foundation personnel were then deployed to the last place SCP-████ was spotted. Foundation were able to find SCP-████ feeding some stray dogs under American state highway ██. SCP-████ willingly agreed to come with the foundation for questioning.

Addendum 2: Interview

The following interview was conducted by Dr. Richards

Dr. Richards: Good afternoon SCP-████, I hope you’re feeling comfortable right now.

SCP-████: No, no, I’m fine thank you. Though I would prefer if you addressed me by “Road Wizard” or just “Wiz.” SCP-████ sounds a bit degrading.

Dr. Richards: …Noted. Anyways the foundation would like to ask you questions regarding your… job.

SCP-████: My job! Well you see Dr., as my name suggests, I am a wizard. My job is simply to keep everyone safe and responsible. The world is a very dangerous place, you SCP foundation folks would know that better than anyone about that fact!

Dr. Richards: You know of the SCP foundation?

SCP-████: Of course I do! Very big fan of your work! Trying to keep the everyone safe from all these dangerous anomalies. Kudos to you guys, kudos!

Dr. Richards: Uh, thank you? Anyways, can you detail how you usually preform your job, or keep people “safe?”

SCP-████: Uh… I guess lecturing people on the rules and importance of road rules, filling up potholes, sticking reflective poles near edges, stuff like that. Pretty mundane huh?

Dr. Richards: What about your staff? What do you use that for?

SCP-████: Oh my staff! Well, I use it to channel my magic for the more dangerous part of my job. Magic can be real dandy in a rock slide.

Dr. Richards: I see.

Room is silent as Dr. Richard pauses to write notes.

Dr. Richards: *coughs* Um, SCP- sorry, Road Wizard. If you don’t mind me asking, I know you dub yourself as the “Road Wizard,” but is that the only safety concern you have? Or are there others like you that specialize in other hazards?

SCP-████: Funny you should ask that Dr., my real name’s actually the Safety Wizard. I just go with road because America has a crap ton of cars you know? And no, there's no one else like me so far that I know of.

Dr. Richards: So do you specialize in anything else then?

SCP-████: Sure I do! Let me just-

SCP-████ then manifests their staff from their hand which starts to emit a blue glow. A train sign then projects at the tip.

SCP-████’s outfit then suddenly shifts into a mock version of a steam engine engineer of their outfit, complete with a cap, denim overalls, vest-cloak and a yellow and black striped bandana.

SCP-████: Trains! Guess you could say I’ve become the “Rail Wizard!”

Silence.

SCP-████: Haha, sorry. There are other specialities too, but it’d probably take a while to show you all of them.

Dr. Richards: So are you able to switch forms like that?

SCP-████: That’s right miss! It’s very important to be dressed proper for any job!

SCP-████’s staff projects a car sign and outfit returns to previous description.

SCP-████: So any other questions for me Dr.? I’d love to stay and chat, but I need to be going soon.

Dr. Richards: SCP- I mean Road Wizard, you are aware that we can’t just let you go out.

SCP-████: I understand your concerns Dr., seeing what kind of place you guys run. But believe me, I’m not a dangerous guy! And it’s not like you folks can keep me in here anyways.

Dr. Richards: What do you mean by that?

SCP-████: Oh nothing. Anyways, it was nice chatting with you Dr. Richards, but I really must be on my way. See you later!

Dr. Richards: Hey, wait!

*SCP-████’s staff projects a Two Way Traffic sign and a glowing, yellow portal appeared to the right of SCP-████. SCP-████ then enters through the portal which disappears.

[END LOG]

——————————————————————————————————

The Hazard Monster

Item# : SCP-█████

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-█████ should be contained within a 5 m x 5 m x 5 m chamber of reinforced concrete. Door and windows should be tightly sealed to prevent SCP-█████ from escaping through any cracks.

Description: SCP-█████ is an amorphous, black blob which can change its mass, texture, shape, and composition through anomalous means. SCP-█████’s face appears to be an NFPA 704 Diamond symbol. Each section of diamond can open up to reveal a set of teeth or eyes (amount varies). SCP-█████ normally uses its anomalous abilities to inflict injuries on people. The relationship between SCP-████, or as they dubbed themself, the Road Wizard, is very negative.

Addendum 1: Discovery

Foundation was first alerted of SCP-█████ when reports of multiple incidents were reported by the people in the town of █████████. Residents were reported being injured by a black shapeshifting blob. Foundation, with the help of the Road Wizard, were able to track down SCP-██████ and capture it. All town residents were given Class A amnestics.

#the road wiz #hazard monster #myart #sqwonks #this was fun to make #long post #the numbers are blocked out because they’re not official

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eiraeths · 5 months

Text

do you guys want some of my cod 141 headcanons you’re getting them anyways

SOAP

-puts stuff in his mouth a lot to hold it when he runs out of hands (this includes when he’s making explosives, it stresses everyone out)

-gets cute aggression and bites people

-will also bite in a fight

-has bits and pieces of rubble from explosions that he thought looked pretty

-is feral, like he takes a hit to the face during a spar and grins with blood trickling into his mouth

-had a graffiti phase as a teen that never fully left and because of it he writes in all capital letters. this is great when they need something written down where no one can read it. (the 141 probably had a meeting where they went over how to read his handwriting)

-has dreams so realistic he wakes up confused wondering if it was a memory he forgot about even if it didn’t make sense

-military grade anger issues

-never fully grew out of his punk phase

-his childhood room was full of road signs and traffic cones

-is actually a hardass when it comes to training recruits (i think the proper term for privates in the sas is troopers but im calling them recruits cause that seems to be the term everyone uses)(everyone thought his bright attitude meant that he’s laid back and easygoing. no. he’s not. yall ever seen those videos of drill sergeants coming up with the most creative insults? thats him)

-randomly says “i am normal and can be trusted around military grade weapons”

-his journal from the og games is a must in the remaster sorry i don’t make the rules

GHOST

-can play guitar super fucking well, im talking full on fingerstyle ballads

-major staring problem, if he doesn’t want to talk to someone he’ll stare until they go away. sometimes stares at people for no reason. also stares when he wants something. he’s always watching.

-would be interested in getting into blacksmithing if he didn’t grow up poor and hates spending money on himself that isn’t out of necessity (seriously you need like 30k to start a forge)

-can and will obsess over damascus patterns in blades (i feel like his favorite pattern would be fish bone or those really complicated mosaic patterns. he gets soap into it too by showing him fireball patterns)

-never grew out of echolalia and because of this is amazing at mimicking noises (he mimicks smoke alarm battery low noises and phone chimes to troll people sometimes.)

-road rage, but its quiet fuming comments that make you grip the oh shit handle for dear life (“you better turn off your fucking highbeams or i can’t be blamed for the head on collision that’s about to happen”)(no one can tell if he’s serious or not)

-hates tin foil, hearing it or touching it makes him clench his jaw because it feels like he can feel it in his teeth

-secret sweet tooth, but it comes and goes. sometimes he’s disgusted by anything sweeter than white bread and other times he can fuck up an entire box of lil debbie cakes

-can hand sew efficiently and fast as fuck

-his favorite type of blanket is a heavy quilt

GAZ

-is aggressively hydrated and is one of those people who carry around those big 128 oz water bottles

-gets competitive over karaoke (it took him months to convince everyone to join and he only got the idea after finding out soap wanted to be in a band as a teen and that he spent days learning how to properly vocal fry)

-says WOO! when he’s super fucking excited (will throw his arms up as well if soap is around because the two of them are an echo chamber of emotion)(the WOO! might actually be canon theres a voice line in warzone)

-probably the most up to date on modern fashion trends (get this man a long cashmere coat he deserves it)

-he does own a bedazzled cap he found at a gas station though (it’s hideous)

-elaborate skin care routine (he’s conned everyone to have some sort of routine. especially ghost. he got so concerned when it hit him that ghost was always wearing the eyeblack)

PRICE

-listens to black label society (i won’t budge on this its not even a head canon to me anymore its fact it was revealed to me in a dream)

-plays solitaire (he’s a very high level and it took him less than a year to get there. no one knows where he found the time to play for that long)

-drives a manual and shames people who don’t know how to work a stick

-literature nerd (im talking all the classics and philosophy books this man can get his hands on)

-discovered tennessee moonshine and has thought about it ever since

-smacks people on the back of the head when they’re doing something stupid

-if anyone makes a negative comment on his facial hair he gives them the dirtiest side eye

GEN/MULTI

-gaz and soap carry those big contractor waterproof sharpies and leave gaz was here or soap was here everywhere they go (this stemmed from soap’s graffiti phase and gaz turned it into a competition. they once got into a competition on who could leave the most signs until price called them muppets and confiscated their sharpies)

-ghost put soap in air jail once, it was very effective

-gaz and soap go to the gym together and take photos in the mirrors after they’re done (somewhere there’s a photo of the time they got ghost to join and they even got him to flex an arm)

-ghost and soap are professional assholes to each other.

-none of the 141 are allowed play card games and gamble with each other because they’re all dirty charlatans

-price tried to stop smoking only once and carried around gum and peppermints. ghost stole the peppermints and soap wouldn’t stop asking for gum

-gaz and ghost are the only ones who really try to adhere to the lights out rule. price and soap can be seen drinking coffee throughout the day

-all of them can hold a grudge for life

-ghost clears his throat loudly when any of them smoke by him. or stares. depends on the say

-if any of the smokers see another outside smoking and decides to join them it turns into a drawn out conversation about the most mundane topics

-the 141 can have full conversations of pure sarcasm nons

#task force 141 #cod headcanons #call of duty #modern warfare 2 #cod modern warfare #modern warefare ii #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #john soap mactavish #soap cod #kyle gaz garrick #gaz cod #cod price #john price #i need more gaz headcanons #modern warfare headcanons #cod 141 #141 headcanons #ear headcanons

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pickles4nickles · 25 days

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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scoops-stevie-archive · 1 year

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the "eddie feeds trailer park raccoons" posts made me remember my tags on this post so i cleaned them up and made this ✨

wayne takes him hunting one season and while eddie doesn't particularly enjoy waking up before the sun and bundling himself in camouflage and traffic cone orange on a saturday, he does enjoy a good homecooked meal made with meat you hunted yourself. makes him feel good about what's going into his body (though you'll never hear him pass up burger king, especially if someone else is paying.)

eddie's got himself a hefty prize pile going in the sled they brought, made up of smaller game.

(he's only a little disappointed it isn't deer season.)

wayne's grumpy about it and says eddie's got an advantage because of his age and his eyesight being better. normally, they'd be in the woods from sunup to sundown, but wayne's gotta work the next day, a rare day shift, so they call it quits around three pm. wayne gets his last shot in and he goes to pick the animal up, lamenting the lack of a retriever dog as his knees crack and pop, when he hears a rustling in a nearby tree trunk.

ah shit.

a tiny, furry grey head pops up and wayne doesn't figure it's old enough to fend for itself yet. he motions for eddie with a flick of his fingers and puts them to his lips. he drops the body in the sled as eddie scruffs the raccoon kit and lifts it from the tree so it doesn’t put up a fight and scratch or bite him. they're strapped for cash enough as it is and rabies shots are expensive.

"what do we do with it?" he asks, holding the thing up to eye level. it can't be more than a couple months old, still completely dependent on its mother for survival.

wayne sighs and starts packing their gear. "got a buddy who works at the rehab center. we'll take it there and see if they can do anything."

the drive there, eddie keeps the little thing tucked into his coat. the middle of january still brings cold snaps and snow and the animal is shivering despite its thick winter fur. eddie thinks it's kind of cute.

they were right about the raccoon's age; around three months, wayne's buddy estimates from her weight. she's a female, which delights eddie for a reason he can't explain. after she's got her shots, he tells them that, legally, they need a permit to keep her, but since he and wayne go back a ways, he can let a few things slide.

so they go home and dig out an old cage to keep her in until she stops growling and hissing at them when they get close to her. she lives off a diet of eggs mixed in milk and has to be bottle fed. it's eddie's favorite part of the day because he gets to hold her and he thinks she's getting used to it because she stops trying to squirm out of his arms and doesn't bite him as often.

he calls in a favor to nancy and asks if her mom has any of holly's baby onesies and she is rightfully curious.

"it's for a raccoon."

"....right."

he dresses her up and thankfully, nancy brings diapers (he doesn't ask how awkward that particular shopping trip was) because the baby has started treating the trailer like her bathroom and wayne's already threatened to throw her back out into the woods if he has to clean up another mess. so she walks around the place in her little onesie and diaper like the little trailer park princess she is and everyone knows who she belongs to. max has already claimed the spot for cool aunt.

eddie has to stop himself from buying a secondhand stroller.

unfortunately, eddie's spent the last couple weeks so caught up in the thrill of being a single parent, he forgets that he's not actually single at all.

steve pulls into the trailer park on a cold, cloudy day and before he can even get a foot out the car, he's greeted by a raccoon wearing a pastel pink baby onesie with white lace frills that's clearly meant for a human baby. he blinks down at it, visibly confused, and looks around to see where it came from.

the trailer door opens and his boyfriend is yelling with all the energy of an exasperated parent, hands on his hips and a dish rag thrown over one shoulder, a baby bottle in one hand,

"jezebel munson, you get your furry lil hind end back inside this trailer right now!"

as if the raccoon understood, it toddles toward the porch steps and eddie moves aside to let it pass, pointing inside. "straight to the couch, little missy!"

steve slowly follows behind her and stops at the last step, watching as the animal climbs a jerry rigged set of steps next to the couch.

"eddie. what the hell."

eddie turns to grin down at him, hands still on his hips. "stevie, we're parents now! meet your daughter, jezebel."

steve can only sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose before accepting his fate and going inside for father daughter bonding time.

#cj talks #cj writes #eds #eddie munson: trailer park raccoon feeder #eddie munson #steddie #i know nothing about raccoons other than they eat cat food #and are mostly nocturnal (unless they have nursing kits)#i loved writing this so much #jezebel munson #steddie ficlet

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eightstarr · 6 months

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Hey Zoe!! It’s the girl who cut her fingers lolz tho I don’t want you to only know me by that so if it’s ok I’ll start using the swan emoji :D 🦢 Or the kiwi 🥝 idk. Anyway, since Halloween is tomorrow I was wondering what you think Abs and Ellie’s costumes would be and if they would be into the idea of couple costumes. Don’t know if you’ve already been asked this but just wanted to know your thoughts 🙏🏻 also, how are you?! Hope you’re having a good week and have a fun Halloween if you celebrate :D <3 🎃

hey!!! omg you can use any emoji you want, both the swan and the kiwi are so cute! i'm doing okay, thank you for asking <3 we don't really celebrate halloween in my country but if you do, i hope you have the best time!! ily

i'm no expert but this is what i think!!

if they did individual costumes, i think ellie would either do something hyper specific that like maybe one person gets (film bro tendencies) OR she would be like… a traffic cone. something very silly that somehow still works for her. but me personally? i would dress her up as jim from treasure planet. if you get the vision i love you

i can see abby saying that she doesn't care but as soon as she picks a costume and gets excited about it, it becomes unacceptable for it to be anything except perfect. she has to get every detail right!! goes out of her way to get a realistic firefighter jacket and is so offended when you wanna take it off of her (she'll do it of course, she just needs a little coaxing! and perhaps a kiss or two)

as far as couple costumes, i think ellie would pick yours! she gets ideas all throughout the year and writes them down in her notes app. it's a yearly tradition for her to sit you down and go through all of them asking for your thoughts (and maybe softly guiding you to pick the one she happens to like the most) (they're all some guy and his cool hot girlfriend but that's what she loves). please please please be jesse and jane from breaking bad with her, she'll be so happy <3

abby, however, will literally be whatever you want. she completely lets you take the lead. doesn't care about the details because she doesn't mind looking silly if it makes you happy! how can she feel stupid when you're so excited about it? i think she would have fun literally just being your accessory, like if you're a cute mushroom fairy she'll be the moss. and if you wanna do mia from the princess diaries, she'll look hot in any of chris pine's outfits <3 abby would also slay as emmett from twilight if you wanted to be rosalie!! she's got the built for it and she basically already dresses like him

#modern!ellie #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams headcanons #modern!abby #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson headcanons

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anya-anya002 · 6 months

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𝑶𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒍𝒖𝒆 (ⅈ)

PastTeacher! Alex Turner x PastStudent! Reader

Summary: You decide to return to your high school, just to look around when you find a familiar friend…still there.

(So I basically got stuck mid story and feedback would be lovely 🧍🏿)

The frigid air kept your cheeks tingly as you walked towards the familiar block. Your heart thumped loudly; you crossed the street you’ve traveled thousands of times before.. Who was still there? Did they even remember you? Were you even that memorable?

Suddenly, you stopped; the big brick building was only an alley away, thinking it all over. You just leaned against the wall of a café for a second. The air-nippy crab apples lay on the sidewalk rotten, half-eaten by insects as their trees stood bare. Windows of nearby houses now closed, no longer friendly to the cold air, and your heart still thumped. What would you do if all your teachers had quit? What would you do if he left? And that's what got you to keep walking.

Your boots clacking against the sidewalk replaced the maddening banging within you. Everything was just how you left it: the uneven pavement, the traffic cone that sat since freshman year still lay broken and scuffed, the reflective tape now gone.

'The Marligian High School for Integral Art,' such a pretentious name, you still cringed, realizing this was your school. You climbed up the stairs and, with a deep inhale, entered.

At the front desk sat the same security guard, except gray and wrinkled. While he drank his coffee idly, you approached.

"Uh, hi," you smiled awkwardly, mind zipped with all possibilities as you watched him look up at you with wide eyes.

"Y/N! Look at you!" he smiled.

The two of you conversed while discussing your reason for being there: just visiting some old teachers and getting a bit of a look at the place while you're here. The security guard smiled, writing out a visitor pass.

"You remember how you were always ringin' that doorbell?" he joked; your cheeks tingled again as you smiled brightly and giggled in embarrassment.

"Stop! Y'know traffic here's ass, and I took the bus with Fredickson, Doogan, and Harrison kids...being early was a mission," you quipped, your smile growing ever so vast, scratching the back of your neck. He chuckled and shook his head.

"You still talking to Sofie?"

"No sir,"

He nodded in response, handed the pass to you, and sent you on your way, at least without worrying about being late like you used to be. Yet, something from here still gnawed at you.

"Uh," you stopped, turning back to the security guard.

"Is Mr. Turner still here?" you asked, hope sprinkled throughout your words. You saw him think about it momentarily. Your cheeks hurt from trying not to smile so hard.

"He's teaching 4th block... The bell ends in like a couple of minutes," he said. Your smile dropped slightly.

"Well, I'll just hang with Mrs. Theroux-" you said, turning the corner, down the long hall towards the music rooms, pass in hand. Pass the walls lined with paintings, the artwork was drawn by students; this time, it was still lives of the city, and the kids today were damn good compared to your friends. You moved closer to even one of the paintings of the train line, and damn, the sunset looked so real. The shades of orange, blue, and purple were blended so well that another smile snuck onto your face. The more you stare at the painting, the more you remember your adolescence, the more you remember him.

Examine the art a bit more, the bell rang. The monotonous, robotic 'beeeep' of it gave you flashbacks of running through those same halls to get anywhere. You shuffled quickly back around to Mr. Turner's room, heart revving up once more.

Your relationship with Mr. Turner was...confusing. You'd heard of him before when you were a freshman; you assumed he was an "arts" teacher with a name like that, but alas, he was just an English teacher with a 'cool' accent.

#alex turner x reader #alex turner #anya—anya #arctic monkeys #snippet #hometown AU #teacher x student #teacher au #my fics #outoftheblue❄️#alex turner x y/n #alex turner x you #is this angst #angst

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missvelvetsstuff · 9 months

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The Wrong One

Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader

Reader met Steve while he was on the run and stuck by him through everything. Until he saw Peggy Carter again.

6. Real Life

Warnings: swearing, angst

A few months after she left the compound Y/N was settled into her Queens brownstone that Pepper helped her buy. They had kept in touch but Y/N made Pepper promise not to tell Steve, Bucky or Sam because she knew that the first would find out if the latter two did. Pepper and Morgan were all that she had now, except for the life quickly growing inside her.

Helen Cho was her doctor since the baby was half super soldier and she had experience with the enhanced.

Y/N looked like she was near term even though she was only 5 months and they were expecting to have to perform a c-section well before her 9th month.

Y/N went to her favorite ice cream parlor in Brooklyn, annoyed that it was their only shop. Steve had taken her there many times when they lived in the compound and while the memories made her sad, she'd been craving their ice cream for weeks and couldn't stand it any more. She tried other brands but none of them lived up to this shop. Unfortunately she was too far away to have it delivered so decided to take the train instead of dealing with traffic and parking. At least it was mid day so the subway wasn't too crowded and she was able to sit comfortably.

When the train made it to her stop she slowly climbed the stairs up to the sidewalk and stopped for a minute to catch her breath then went 2 blocks to her destination.

The owner welcomed her back, made a cone for her to sit and enjoy while they packed her half a gallon of their ultra chocolate decadence, into her insulated bag. They chatted for a bit about nothing important until some customers came in and they said goodbye.

When Y/N stood up to leave she grabbed her purse and her ice cream then turned around and bumped into something solid. She felt strong hands hold her upper arms to steady her. One of those hands was cooler than the other but it took her a minute to process that.

She shook her head "I'm so sorry, fuck." Mumbling "so damn clumsy anymore, I-"

"Y/N?"

She jumped hearing her name in a familiar voice, then cussed softly "fuck." and cleared her throat, forcing a strained smile before she looked at him

"Hi Bucky, how have you been?"

Bucky nodded "I've been good." He looked her obviously pregnant body over, then looked her in the eyes with his brow raised questioningly "So, uh, what's new?" He chuckled

She felt her face heat up "Oh, you know just had a craving so had to run to my favorite ice cream shop. He used to bring me here."

"Yeah, it's still owned by the same family we knew as kids." Bucky rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably

"You know, He still talks about you a lot. Keeps asking me to bring you to visit but yeah." He smiled sadly at her "You changed your number?"

"I'm sorry Bucky, I know he's your friend but I really don't want to talk to or about him." She sighed "I needed some space."

"I understand but is it his?"

She snapped at him "She is mine. He made his choice to desert me. To be nothing more than a sperm donor." She took a deep breath and fixed her smile "I need to get home before my ice cream melts."

She sighed "I'd rather you didn't mention that you saw me to Steve but I know that's unlikely. I know you guys can probably get my information with a couple of key strokes but before you do please consider that I left and changed my number so maybe some respect for what I want or need is called for. See you around Barnes."

Bucky felt awful for what she was going through, all alone. He just stood there watching her walk away, admiring her curves. He didn't understand how Steve could leave a woman like that, even without a kid, but Steve was never logical when it came to Peggy Carter.

Bucky knew he probably shouldn't but looked her up and checked out the neighborhood where she lived. He told himself that it was just because Steve asked him to keep an eye on her, that he just wanted her to be safe and happy but he knew better. He knew he should tell Steve, he knew his friend had a right to know Y/N was pregnant with his kid but was conflicted. She had been through enough thanks to Steve and Bucky didn't want to be one more person who betrayed or left her.

Bucky had been jealous of the woman Steve was always talking about on the phone, when Bucky was still in Wakanda.

He was a little in love with her based on Steve's descriptions alone. The stories of how she helped Steve after the Snap were heartwarming and Bucky wanted someone that made him feel that way.

Y/N had definitely made him feel some kind of way the day they met but with the fight that was barreling down at them he brushed it off so he could focus.

He was losing that focus.

A couple of weeks after Bucky saw Y/N he still hadn't figured it out and was aimlessly flipping channels when he came across the story about the new Captain America, holding the shield that Sam had 'retired' and thoughts of Y/N were pushed out by his anger.

While Bucky was arguing with Sam about the shield his phone rang, Steve. He sent it to voicemail and put the phone back in his pocket.

Sam looked at him "Steve?" Bucky nodded. Sam shook his head "Since when do you reject his calls?" Bucky shrugged.

Sam shook his head "Well, he's worried about you. Told me it's been more than 2 weeks since you spoke. So, what's going on?"

Bucky sighed "I saw Y/N. A couple of weeks ago."

Sam looked at him "And?"

Bucky huffed "And she asked me not to tell him. He asks about her every time I talk to him and I don't like lying to him." He paused, thinking.

"I get that you're trying to honor her wishes but just telling him you saw her and she's fine isn't a betrayal. She is fine, right?" Sam thought for a moment "Shit, she has a new boyfriend, doesn't she? Look man, it's great that you want to spare his feelings but he knew it would happen, he made his choice."

Bucky shook his head "No she doesn't have a boyfriend."

Sam raised his eyebrows and grinned "She got a girlfriend?"

Bucky scoffed "Jesus Sam are you 12? No she doesn't have a girlfriend. At least not that she told me about." He sighed "Look, just drop it."

Sam's smile fell "sorry man but you know you can talk to me if you need to. Anytime." He pushed a little "Like right now is good, I'm all ears because I-"

Bucky shook his head "She's pregnant ok! You just keep going until I want to hit you."

Sam's eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped "What do you mean she's pregnant? How-. Is it?"

"I'm pretty sure you know how and yes, she said it's Steve's. She is Steve's."

"Buck, you gotta tell him. He has the right to know about his kid."

"Yeah and then Steve will stick his dumb ass into things and put her through more drama which is bad for her and the baby. We should just leave her alone."

He declared confidently when he wasn't sure he could do that.

He wanted to take care of her and her baby. Then get married and make more.

That thought hit him upside the head.

That's when he realized he was in love with her.

Y/N on the other hand had been in a near constant state of anxiety after seeing Bucky. If Steve found out she was pregnant he would try to force his way back in her life and if he pushed the issue no judge would rule against Captain America. She'd be lucky if she ever saw her baby again.

She started looking into moving somewhere else, somewhere far. She thought about going back to Ireland but he would think about it too.

After scouring the web for ideas she realized she couldn't go very far. Her baby could show up anytime now and she was a higher risk for complications with a super soldier baby. She needed to stay close to Helen Cho and Starks state of the art med bay.

After all those years moving about the world she was stuck here. At least for now. Even if Steve found out, she wasn't going to give up her baby, not without a fight.

Sam was stressed. Besides all the bullshit with the Flag Smashers and faux Captain America, he still wasn't sure what to do about what Bucky had told him.

He had plans to have lunch with Steve but didn't know how to get through that without Steve realizing he's hiding something.

A few hours later and Sam was pissed. At himself, one damn beer and he's spilling secrets like a mean girl.

Steve was angry too "What the Hell do you mean she's pregnant?" He shook his head "Doesn't matter if she is, can't be mine."

He thought for a minute "When did Bucky tell you?"

Sam looked away from Steve's accusing eyes "last week."

Steve clenched his fists "And when did Bucky see her?"

Sam sighed "a couple of weeks before that."

Steve's face hardened and his voice, cold "I want her contact information yesterday!"

Chapter 7

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky barnes x reader #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #angst with a happy ending #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x reader #the wrong one

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ggomos-maribat · 6 months

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7 | the heroes of Paris

Part 7 of Marinette Dupain-Cheng is Dead | Masterlist

Something was different about Adrien now, something that was telling Tim that he wouldn't be as generous as the last time. If he really wanted to find the truth about Marinette's death, he thought, he wouldn't have kept things from us. He had a hunch on why Adrien called off the investigation, but he needed to confirm it first.

"You wanted to see the box?" Adrien slipped his hands into his pockets. "Be my guest."

"You're letting us look just like that?" Tim stood up and headed for the dusty memento on the shelf.

"If Marinette were alive today, she wouldn't deny you the chance."

Does he know what we know? Tim wondered. No . . . he knows. He definitely knows. Adrien was observing them carefully, as if they were his prey. He didn't even try to mask it under some kind of warmth—he knew he had all the answers they needed.

Okay, now I kind of don't want to open it, thought Tim. But Jason went ahead of him, opening up the lid to reveal spools of yarn arranged into a spectrum. The pink box looked pretty mundane until Tim caught sight of a string peeking out from the side. With a pull, everything unfolded to reveal a secret compartment.

Tim slowly picked up one small figurine from inside: a small wand with a golden star on top. The knick knacks inside seemed to have two categories, ones that looked like everyday objects and ones that were painted red with black spots.

Jason picked up a piece that looked like a power strip, but with the Ladybug pattern on it. "What are these?"

"Some kind of mementos of akuma attacks." It just dawned on Tim. "Half of these are the akumatized objects, and half are the lucky charms Ladybug used."

His sleep-deprived self had seen files on these a couple years ago, when the situation in Paris had been revealed to the world. There was a figure of Alix Kubdel's rollerblades, which led to her akumatization to 'Timebreaker', and a patterned traffic cone, which Ladybug had summoned as her charm for the fight. Even a replica of the Bee Miraculous was there, which contained Chloe Bourgeois' akuma when she was Queen Wasp. Almost every object was in that box, each one extremely detailed in its crafting.

Almost like the one who made this had seen the objects up close . . .

Tim noticed something else buried under the mementos—he picked up a hardbound book of sorts, pink with no words on the cover. They opened it up to find nothing but photos inside, ones taken from a certain perspective, depicting views that Tim was quite familiar with from his vigilante life. There were photos taken from rooftops, ones looking down from the top of the Eiffel, many of Chat Noir up close, even a couple that seemed like they were taken from outer space. Obviously, the photos wouldn't be easy to take without the possession of some kind of power. After flipping through, there was a wax-sealed envelope attached to the last page, along with a pressed red rose.

Tim glanced at Adrien. That just about confirms it, he decided.

They returned the box back to its original state. A heavy feeling settled on Tim.

"Will you hear me out a second time?" Adrien asked.

Tim nodded. "Of course."

The second talk with Adrien was a far cry from the first. The air was thick, and the dark clouds outside cloaked the room in gray.

"As you've found out . . . Marinette was Ladybug," Adrien began. "She was the beacon of hope in Paris. She was the one person who could never be akumatized under all circumstances. But she was too young when she was entrusted with a power she couldn't even understand back then. In fact, in her first battle as Ladybug, she almost passed on the Miraculous to someone else because she just didn't have enough confidence in herself."

A young hero, Tim swallowed down the lump in his throat. But unlike us, it wasn't entirely her choice.

Adrien's shoulders sagged. "So on top of her responsibilities, she had that burden to carry. She could never tell her parents or friends, because associating with a Miraculous was like putting a target on your back. She was victimized by Lila, but she could never let her emotions out because Hawkmoth might put her under his control at any time."

He laughed a little. "To this day, I still can't understand how she did it. Akumas would come to her, but she'll just close her eyes and they'll fly away. The things Lila did put her close to tears, but she just wiped them away and continued with her day like nothing happened. Sometimes Hawkmoth came close to winning, but she'd take just a couple minutes to pick herself back up and think of another way to defeat him."

The diary. Tim's thoughts flashed to the entries he read. Putting into the missing context, the words became heavier, deeper. A pit slowly formed in his stomach, coaxing out a feeling of nausea. She was so young, and yet she carried all that with her. No wonder she wrote like a traumatized fighter—she had seen too much.

He recalled helping Bruce analyze the akuma attacks recorded in Paris' history with Hawkmoth. There were a handful that even destroyed the world, others opening up destructive alternate timelines. She lived through it all. She saved everything but had to suffer through those memories . . . oh god. If Bruce were to find out, he'd be devastated—the world's betrayal of Paris left everything at the hands of one girl.

Looking at Jason, Tim could see that he was pale-faced as well. If only we found out earlier. If only we could've done something . . .

"Why did you call off the investigation then?" Jason finally spoke. "What about justice for Marinette's death?"

But Tim replied instead: "No, it's exactly for Marinette's sake when he did that." He looked at Adrien. "You're Chat Noir, aren't you? You knew all about Marinette's identity, and you had to stop the investigation to keep the police from finding out."

Adrien cracked a smile. "As much as I want to find answers to her death, I can't let her secret be revealed to those who shouldn't know it. It's the one thing I can do for her, to protect her and the Miraculous."

"So when Ladybug also disappeared . . ."

"It was because Marinette chose to, and then she died."

"Then isn't it Hawkmoth who killed her?" Tim pressed on. "It's a direct motive."

Adrien shook his head. "It can't be Hawkmoth . . . Hawkmoth is dead."

Jason's jaw dropped. ". . . What?"

"It was in our final battle with him," Adrien recounted, fiddling with his thumbs. "He successfully took my Miraculous, the ring, and a couple other ones from the box but his body gave in under the strain from using multiple Miraculi at once."

There was a harsh contempt in his voice, deep bitterness seeping out. "Hawkmoth was a despicable man. He became addicted to the power of the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculi, and then to the promised power of the Ladybug and Black Cat combined. What he wanted was to rewrite reality to bring his wife back and he wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of anyone's negative emotions just to make them disposable pawns."

Adrien's jaw clenched. "He didn't even care about what his son felt the whole time."

It all clicked in Tim's head. "Hawkmoth was . . ."

"My father," Adrien confirmed. "Gabriel Agreste."

It fits . . . Gabriel Agreste's death was announced around the time of the supposed 'final battle'. It was never publicly announced what the cause of death was.

The model heaved out a sigh. "Marinette and I actually argued over what to do afterwards. She didn't want to expose him as Hawkmoth and said that his death was his repayment. I thought that was too light of a punishment for him, nevermind that he was my father. We faced backlash when we announced our decision. The people of Paris wanted to condemn him but . . . there was no one to condemn anymore. Because of that, Marinette was convinced that I would be the one receiving hate if we revealed his identity, and anyone affiliated with Father's brand even if they were innocent."

"But to be honest, I wouldn't mind being hated." His gaze lowered. "All those people who suffered because of him deserve the truth. But Marinette was more stubborn."

It was a conflicting situation, Tim agreed that Gabriel Agreste went away too easily.

"If Hawkmoth's dead, then what happened to Marinette?" asked Tim. "Is there anyone else who has a vendetta against her?"

Jason answered, "That just leaves Lilia Ross."

"Alibi, remember?"

"Outside help."

Tim huffed out. "So we're back to square one." He turned back to Adrien. "Is there anyone else who knows about Marinette's identity?"

"There was one, but she passed away from old age before Marinette's death and Hawkmoth's defeat."

Tim leaned back. They had two ways to look at it—either Marinette's death was linked to her identity as Ladybug or her civilian persona was targeted instead.

"What about the box? What's in the envelope?" Jason pointed out, gesturing to the shelf behind them.

"It's related to our responsibilities as holders, so I can't tell you about it. I've actually told you more than you should know," Adrien replied, "But I assure you, it has nothing to do with her death."

"You won't tell us about it, but you trust us with your identities?" Jason cocked an eyebrow.

A cryptic smile stretched on the Parisian's face, one that looked unsettling on him. "It's because I trust that you vigilantes would know the importance of a secret identity."

Tim stiffened. He figured us out in more ways than one. "You know?"

"I wouldn't be giving you so much information if you were just strangers." He shrugged. "I may be retired, but I still have magic after all. I understand that you have the capabilities to look into this so I'm helping you as much as I can."

It was a delicate balancing game. They had a hold of Adrien and Marinette's identities, while Adrien potentially held the truth to the whole family's. Bruce is going to kill us when we get home, Tim shivered slightly.

"I'm not blackmailing you or anything—please think of it as a safety precaution," Adrien clarified, "You can still ask more questions and I'll try to answer them."

"Fine," Tim conceded. They had just learned more of the truth in exchange for their identities . . . maybe it was worth it. "As Miraculous holders, you have those creatures—your 'kwamis', right?"

"Yes."

"Was Marinette's kwami not with her that day?"

"Marinette stopped wearing her earrings after Hawkmoth's defeat."

Jason took his turn. "Is it true that Marinette, Ladybug, was the Guardian of the Miraculous?"

Adrien paused for a moment before saying, "Yes, she was Guardian at that time."

"Who's the Guardian now?"

"Ah, that's confidential."

Tim frowned. No, this won't work. We need every detail we can work with to solve the mystery. Is there anything we can do to make him talk?

"Is there a chance someone found Marinette out after the last battle?"

"I think it's unlikely—she was always careful about her identity. If someone did, then she didn't tell me."

Tim thought back to the small knitted pouch. "There was a drawing of that box inside a pouch that Marinette gave to Luka Couffaine. Did he know anything about her identity?"

Adrien shrugged. "It's not much of a clue without proper context, and as far as I know both Luka and Kagami don't know."

With so many secrets and so many factors, plus the involvement of magic, Tim could only sense the case getting more complicated. They needed the full dynamics of how Miraculi worked, and not just bits and pieces that concealed the whole picture.

"There's one more thing we want to ask," said Tim, "Felix Fathom. Was he tied in any way to this case?"

Taglist: @hammalammadamdam @toodaloo-kangaroo@missmadwoman@afanofmanyships@atomicherringpersonjudge-blog@wheredostarsgowhenyoudie

#maribat fanfic #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #maribat #maribat fic #character death #major character death #angst #MDC is Dead #dc x miraculous #tw mentions of suicide #tw mention of death #maribat mystery

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