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tricksters-captain · 4 years

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FP Jones/Andrew’s Family/Riverdale imagines - Oh Dear Part 35 - Final Chapter - A Sore Goodbye

A/N: This is based on the memorial episode for Luke Perry. Watching and writing this was very hard and I miss him as do many fans and everyone who ever knew him. My characters pain here is almost real as it pained me to write about Fred’s death knowing that we didn’t just lose Fred Andrews, we lost Luke Perry. I hope you enjoy this final chapter of ‘Oh Dear’. It’s been a wild ride and I thank every single reader, liker, etc. I love you all.

MASTERLIST LINK (HERE)

Overall Summary: You’re Archie’s older sister and you have a thing for a certain Serpent.

This chapter: Based on Season 4 Episode 1 - (Y/N) has been living away from Riverdale for two years now. Only keeping touch with her family every now and then but (Y/n)’s brother, Archie, and herself never allowed any Riverdale drama to pull her back to the town which held the man she loved but couldn't have. But the sudden death of her father meant she had to finally return...

Pairing: Reader x FP Jones, Sister!Reader x Archie Andrews, Daughter!Reader x Fred Andrews,

Word count: 8,864

Warnings: Very emotional. Loss of a father. Some strong language. Some smut.

“(Y/N).” His voice was like velvet as his arms snaked around you.

You slowly moved in his arms to face him. Your smile widened as you met his eyes.

“You’ve been gone ages–” Fp’s mouth cut your words short as he kissed you deeply and with a hunger you could feel in the pit of your own stomach.

Your fingers tangled themselves in the older man’s hair within seconds, your hips pressing against his as he held you tightly.

You dragged the man backwards to the bed behind you and allowed yourselves to fall down onto it. FP’s hands rushed to rip the clothes from you.

You let your eyes roll backwards at the feeling of his hot tongue against your neck.

His hands left your body for a moment which made you pout and whine in desperation. The empty feeling didn’t last long as hands placed themselves back against your soft skin; but the feeling was different... Not completely foreign but not him.

Your eyes fluttered open to see Malachai’s face. The air flooded your lungs in a sharp gasp but before you could make another sound, Malachai’s hand trapped your lips beneath it.

You screamed into his hand and tried to fight underneath him but his body felt like a deadweight.

You watched him with wide eyes as he moved closer to your face; his lips and eyes blood red.

You squeezed your eyes shut, feeling his fevered breath against your cheeks, trying your best to mentally escape this.

You finally felt the weight lift from you when you snapped your eyes open and thrashed forward, sending your bedsheets across the floor.

Sweat drenched you.

It took you a minute to realise you were alone in your apartment, not in Riverdale.

You shifted your legs off the side of the bed and rested your elbows against your knees with your head low whilst you tried to slow your breathing.

It'd been months since you dreamt of Riverdale; of FP; of Malachai and that night.

You lifted your mobile from the bedside table and a glaring 4:43am flashed back at you.

It was July so the sun was already rising outside.

You pushed back your curtains and opened your window to let some air into the stifling room.

It wasn’t likely you’d be able to sleep against after a dream like that so you just headed to the shower and put some coffee on for yourself.

You kicked some of the dirty clothes from the night before towards your clothes hamper as you entered the bathroom to cool off and clean the nightmare from your body.

Your apartment was small and you hadn’t been there very long but it was perfect for you. No one had been inside it but you since you moved in so you felt like you truly had a place just for yourself.

You let the water cascade down your body and through the tangle that is your hair.

You thought after all this time why would the dreams be coming back?

The dreams plagued you for weeks when you first left Riverdale but after your first short relationship with some barista that you met in your first town, they’d completely disappeared. They’d only ever come back if you had been heavily drinking but you hadn’t gone out drinking for weeks so why would it happen now?

You managed to waste some time in the shower, clearing your head before you slipped into some clothes and went to get your coffee.

You checked your phone again to see that only 40 minutes had passed so you decided to go through your unopened messages.

Archie had texted you last night asking how you were but you must've been asleep when he did.

You had to admit you missed your little brother, you had always been there for each other even when you disagreed with each other. It was hard for you to stay away from Riverdale when he was arrested so soon after you left but Archie had convinced you to stay away. He always convinced you any problem in Riverdale was smaller than it was in order to stop you from leaving your current life to return to one you didn’t really want.

You contemplated calling him but you knew that he'd be asleep. That boy always tended to sleeping if he wasn’t with Veronica or facing whatever problem Riverdale currently had.

You put down your phone and walked over to your small portable radio to switch it on. Your footsteps pattered around the apartment whilst the quiet music began to fill the space.

You had work today but it wasn't until 8, it was a small bookshop a few blocks down so there was no need for your bike. Still you eyed your helmet and keys and wondered where to go.

You downed your coffee as the idea came to mind then grabbed your keys, heading down to the apartment blocks private garage.

The wind challenged you as you rode towards the smell of the ocean. You inhaled deeply as you pulled up to the sand, slowing down to eventually switch off your engine.

You had travelled all over the U.S. and some of Europe too but you always ended up somewhere near the sea. It was calming and even during these hotter months where the beaches became overcrowded and noisy, you somehow always found the most peaceful area or time to just come and sit.

You fought the urge to go swimming over the couple of hours you sat there due to the fact you knew you'd have to head to work shortly.

“Morning (Y/n).” The son of the owners of the book store was sat behind the counter with an open book on his lap. He was about Archie’s age and was very polite and nice enough but you knew that he held a small crush on you which made it a little difficult to converse sometimes.

“Morning Jeffrey.” You smiled as you passed him to walk into the small staff room to place your bag inside.

“That book for your dad arrived yesterday afternoon while you were off.” Jeffrey hopped off his stool to collect the novel for you.

“Perfect. I wanted to write a note inside it before I sent it to him.” You explained to the boy about why you didn't just order it to your old home. It was that and the fact it was way more expensive to order the book to the house rather than the bookstore.

“Well if you need me to run it down to the mail for you, I’m heading there at lunch?” Jeffrey offered as he leant against the counter, close to your side.

“Thank you, Jeff, but I’ll probably write in it tonight and send it off before work tomorrow.” You passed on the offer which made the boy look a little disheartened but you brushed it off and asked what other orders came in yesterday so that you could start on calling the customers to inform them.

A couple hours into your shift you kept feeling your phone vibrating in your pocket. You excused yourself to use the bathroom and checked it to see it had 1 missed call from your Dad, 3 from your Mom, 2 from Archie and 3 from Jughead.

You called Jughead since his was the most recent number and he answered within two rings.

“Jughead? What the hell is going on? I’m at work and my phone’s been exploding with missed calls from you, my mom and Archie?” You didn’t bother with a hello since the calls seemed so urgent.

“(Y/n)...” Jughead swallowed. “(Y/n), you need to come back to Riverdale. It’s your dad...”

“My dad? What’s happened? Is he okay?” You felt your chest tighten.

“(Y/n), he... He died.”

The words spun around in your head like a marble in a bowl.

“Jughead... Whatever you’re playing at...” You started, trying, hoping, that this was some stupid game or prank.

“(Y/n), it’s true. Archie got the call from the hospital. He was in an accident. The details aren't clear at the moment but––” You hung up as Betty took Jughead’s phone and spoke the truth.

You threw your phone across the bathroom which resulted in your screen cracking but it didn't matter. All that matter was that your dad, Fred Andrews, was dead.

The events that followed were a blur.

Jeffrey sent his mother into the bathroom, an elderly woman with kind eyes and red hair. She found you collapsed on the floor with tears streaming down your cheeks and tried to help you as you gathered the words together to tell her what happened.

The next thing you knew was that you were at your apartment, packing a small rucksack full of essentials with your bike keys in your hand.

The only moment that became clear in your memory of that moment was when you pulled open your closet door to find your old Serpent jacket.

You held the rough leather material in between your fingers as you reminisced your old life. You ran the tips of your index and middle finger over the embroidered snake but only Fp’s face flashed before your eyes.

You pushed down the memories of the Serpents and continued to pack.

You didn’t know how long it took you to travel home. You knew you didn’t follow the speed limits but you didn’t care. You needed to be home. You needed to know if it were all true. Really true.

You passed the old sign at the border of the town and what felt like a hundred different emotions all seemed to hit you like once.

WELCOME TO RIVERDALE

You hadn’t stepped foot into the town in a couple years now. It felt like a whole new place now.

That is until you hit the top of your road where your old home resided.

You pulled up in front of the house and stared up at the front door with tears in your eyes.

Your dad's truck wasn't here.

“(Y/n)?” The door opened whilst you were lost in your head. Archie must've seen you from the window after hearing your bike pull up.

“Arch?” Your eyes met his with the question you didn’t want answered.

A tear fell from Archie’s eye. You immediately rush up the stairs and took him in your arms.

“(Y/n)?” Your mothers voice crept up behind Archie. It was almost a disbelief in her voice.

“Hi Mom.” You wiped your nose and faced her. In that moment, all hatred and betrayal washed away and you just wanted to be a family again.

The three of you held each other in the doorway, sharing the same pain, crying the same tears.

When you finally parted, Archie was the one to notice his friends had gathered outside.

“It’s good to see you, (Y/n).” Betty was the first to greet you. “It’s been too long. I’m sorry this is why you had to come home.”

You could see the pain in Betty’s eyes, the sadness, the sympathy.

“Me too.” You whispered, returning her hug.

Veronica then hugged you and so did Jughead but when Reggie made some comment about how good you looked you decided to leave them be.

You tiptoed up the stairs to your old room. It was just the same as you left it, not that you stayed in it much towards your final few months in Riverdale.

As you sat down on your bed, you looked towards the door, half expecting to see your dad’s head poke around it to check on you.

You heard commotion in the garden. Archie and his friends were all putting seats around in a circle and chatting.

“When things started getting bad with my dad and drinking, my mom would call up Fred... for help.” Jughead’s voice caught your attention as you sat by the window. “And he would drive to the bar, and he would pick up my dad and he'd lay him on the couch. And he'd always stay a little while... just to talk to me... to see how I was doing in school, and... if I'd eaten dinner. He just wanted to know if I was hungry. I always was.” The group chuckled lightly at Jughead’s comment but the story just reminded you of FP. How you looked after FP when Fred could no longer do it...

You wondered what he was doing. How was he handling this?

You mentally scolded yourself for thinking about him when you were Fred’s daughter. You should be thinking about you and the pain you feel.

You heard a knock at your door. It was your Mom.

“I thought you’d want to know about the accident.” She sniffled as she entered.

You nodded your head. You wanted to know if he died in pain, if it was his fault or someone else's, something else’s...

“FP spoke to the Sheriff at Cherry Creek. He knows all the details. I don’t know if I can––” Your mother broke down in tears once again and you found yourself comforting her with a short embrace.

“FP? Why would FP know the details?” You pulled away, a little confused.

“FP is Riverdale’s Sheriff.” She managed to string together. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You were almost convinced this was all some crazy nightmare.

“Okay. I’ll be back soon.” You hurried past your mom and down to your bike.

You were at the station within minutes.

It took every ounce of energy you had left to walk through those doors at the station. Your feet felt like rocks being dragged through the mud at Sweetwater River.

The station was busy, people rushing around and talking to one another.

You found yourself outside the sheriff’s office, peering through the small glass window at a man you knew you recognised despite the khaki disguise.

He was on the phone, wrinkles frowned on his face and his eyes were glassy but focused.

You watched him put the phone down and pinch the bridge of his nose. He slid off the corner of his desk and moved around to his chair where he finally became horizontal to you.

His eyes finally lifted from his desk and upon seeing you, the colour seemed to drain from his face. It was as if he’d seen a ghost.

Suddenly, your flight mode kicked in and you turned to leave.

“(Y/n)!” FP’s voice seemed to freeze every joint in your body even though your mind was screaming at you to walk away.

“I only came to know what happened. What happened to my dad.” You couldn't stop the tears rising to your eyes but you refused to let them fall.

“Come... Come inside.” FP held his door open for you and you forced your feet to move in that direction.

“It’s, uh, good, good to see you.” FP seemed almost as nervous as you felt.

“It’s been–– Please tell me what happened.” You couldn’t do small talk right now. You were desperate. You wanted to know if it really were an accident.

“Fred was driving home to Riverdale when he pulled over to help someone's car that was stalled on the side of the road, and, uh... Another vehicle... came upon them way too fast and... He was struck by it.” FP could barely get the words out himself.

You buried your face into the palm of your hands as you broke down once again. He just wouldn’t ever say no to helping someone. And now he's dead because of it.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/N).” FP placed his hand on your back and the electricity almost made you jump backwards but you managed to stay sat.

“I kept dodging his calls. I hadn’t spoken to him in three weeks. I was sending him this stupid collectable book to apologise for my distance and now, now he’s... he’s...” You couldn’t help but let the words fall from your lips.

“Hey. Hey, now.” Fp pulled you towards him and you let yourself engulf in the man. His arms felt familiar, safe and warm. His scent flooded your nose which brought you some peace. “It’s alright.” He tried to assure you but seeing you in this much pain only made his pain worse.

You were even more beautiful than ever. His heart almost stopped when he saw your (y/e/c) eyes shining through the window. Sad but still bright.

“Sheriff?” The door swung open which made you pull away from the man out of habit. “Sorry to interrupt but there's a call waiting for you, sir.” The young deputy recognised you as Fred’s daughter and sent an apologetic look your way.

“I should be going. I shouldn’t be bothering the ex-Southside Serpent sheriff anyway.” You laughed a little trying to lighten the mood but nothing could lighten the darkness inside your chest.

You returned home and found yourself in your fathers closet.

You pulled out one of his favourite shirts and pressed it against your face. You hadn’t even gotten the chance to hug him since you last left Riverdale.

You pulled it on and retired for the evening to your bedroom.

Dreaming of you as a little girl in Pickins park with Betty as you took turns on the father/daughter potato sack race with your dad.

You woke in the morning to your mothers stern voice downstairs. She was clearly on the phone with someone who’d upset her.

You pulled yourself from bed and trudged down the stairs. You held on to the banister as you swung around to see your mom at the end of the hall in the kitchen on the house phone.

Your mother hung up before turning to face you. The irritation she once felt from the call had disappeared when she saw you stood at the bottom of the staircase with your father’s shirt on. You look almost as innocent and sweet as when you were a child, a picture image of you 8 years old in your dad's shirt to go play ball in the garden with your father and Archie came into her mind.

But today you were different to that little girl; dark circles clung to your eyes and your skin seemed to dull in colour. You weren’t a little girl anymore, you were a woman, but it seemed that both of you were desperately wishing times were different in this moment.

“Who was that?” You asked, you didn’t realise how hoarse your voice was until you spoke, it must've been from the crying during the night.

“Your brother. He went all the way up to Cherry Creek to fetch your fathers body.” Your Mom sounded almost as shocked as you felt by the news.

With that, you darted back upstairs and grabbed your cell.

“Archie?” You were fuming as Archie answered your call.

“(Y/n)?” Archie responded.

“Why did you go to Cherry Creek? Why didn’t you say anything? Why have I travelled all the way back to Riverdale just to be alone?” The questions seem to leave your mouth like a flood. “He’s my dad too, Archie. You didn’t think I’d come with you to bring him home? I waited so long to see him and now it’s too late.”

“(Y/n), I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d want––”

“––want to travel hours away to bring dad home? Want to see him as soon as possible?” Your voice broke as tears flowed from your eyes.

“I’m sorry, okay?! I had this nightmare and I left as soon as I woke up. I just couldn’t leave him here. I didn’t want you or Mom questioning or dictating to me about this journey. I’m sorry, (Y/n).” Archie sounded emotional himself. You wondered if he had seen your dad yet.

“What if I get on my bike and come up now? I’ll leave within minutes.” You suggested.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, (Y/n). It’ll take you a few hours to get here and by the time you arrive, we’ll be allowed to take dad and leave. You might as well stay there and make sure Mom’s alright. We’ll be back as soon as possible.” Archie discouraged your idea and as much as you hated it you knew it was best if you stayed and waited with your mother.

You heard the doorbell go off downstairs by the time you hung up the phone and got dressed for the day. You knew you had slept in your dad’s shirt but his scent clung to it so strongly you didn’t want to take it off.

The sound of high heels downstairs gave you an idea of who might have arrived so you weren’t surprised to see Cheryl and Toni in the hallway, embracing your mother.

“(Y/n)! Oh my god! Wait ‘till the Serpents hear your back!” Toni almost ran towards you when she saw you. You hugged the girl back and smiled at how grown and beautiful she’d gotten since you left.

“I’m terribly sorry for your loss, (Y/n), but I must admit seeing your face has made it a happier time for Riverdale.” Cheryl hugged you once Toni finally let you and all you could do was force a smile onto your face as you tucked your hands into your back pockets.

“The girls say they’ve come to ask us something.” Your mother chimed in.

“Actually I’m going to head out and look around town. It feels too heavy in this house without dad.” You admit, sending an apologetic look towards Toni.

“It’s alright. Maybe you can stop by Pop’s later and we can get some food and catch up?” Toni asked,

You just nodded before taking hold of the front door handle and escaping.

Just as you looked up from the concrete floor, leaning against the house door whilst letting out a deep breath of relief, there stood at the bottom of the steps on the sidewalk was FP.

You watched him remove his hat before stepping towards you.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his face full of concern.

“Just feeling a little claustrophobic.” You admitted you felt a little closed in with the visitors this morning.

“I see you kept your bike.” FP gestured to your motorbike on the side of the road.

“She took me all around the country. Broke my heart to leave her here for a while when I travelled Europe. I plan to take her to Italy in the future. I rode a bike there but it just wasn’t the same.” You found yourself talking about his gift to you with ease. It was the first conversation you had that wasn’t about your father.

“Wow, Europe? That’s further than most people from Riverdale get.” FP saw how you gushed over your bike and it made his heart squeeze knowing he was the one who got it for you.

He still couldn't believe you were stood in front of him. When you rode off and out of Riverdale he figured he wouldn’t be seeing you for a long time. Perhaps ever again.

You had grown in more ways than one. He could see the travel helped you find yourself or at least figure out yourself a bit better than Riverdale could ever do.

Even though you looked worn from the news of your father passing, he could see that you were comfortable in your skin, any insecurity you had previously shown was gone or hidden. He admired you from afar.

“How are you? How did you even become Sheriff? Are you seeing anyone?” You couldn’t help but let the last question be spoken aloud.

“Uh, it’s complicated.” His response seemed to answer every question. You noticed his eyes flicker to the Coopers household.

Alice.

“Do you, uh, do you want to get out of here?” You pointed your thumb down the direction of the street as you looked around.

“Um, (Y/n), I––” FP started, tugging on his belt loops with his thumbs as he too looked around but his answer only began to panic you.

“––No, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have asked. Things have changed, I get it.” You rambled on, hugging your arms around yourself as you retreated.

“I’d love to.” FP cut any more rambles from your mouth off.

“Your ride or mine?” You asked, nodding towards the sheriff wagon across the street.

FP chuckled and shook his head,

“Mine.” He made his way to the car, and opened the door for you.

The gesture was so small yet so large. Who was this man now? Has he changed much? His smile hasn’t changed. It never has.

He had his radio on quietly, probably so he wouldn't miss any calls on the police satellite. You tend to be busy as the sheriff of the town called Riverdale. This crazy, surreal like town.

“How’s Red handling it?” Fp asked,

“He, um, he went up to Cherry Creek last night. Arrived this morning to collect my dad. He didn't tell me or our mom. He just went with Jughead, Betty and Veronica and left. Called Mom this morning asking her to sign some paperwork so that dad could be released to Archie.” You stared out of the window as you spoke. The town floated by as if it hadn’t been bothered by Fred’s death.

“He what?” FP furrowed his brow as he looked over at you for a moment. “That boy...” FP started but you finished it with a light chuckle and a ‘I know’.

FP pulled off the main streets of Riverdale and toward the river.

“So, what happened the last time you spoke to your old man? You said you didn’t speak to him for three weeks after that.” FP was careful to poke due to the sensitive topic but for some reason, you felt calm enough with him beside you.

“Nothing. The usual, asking questions where I'm living, if I’m eating, have I met anyone? Have I got a job? But he kept talking about me coming to visit Riverdale now I was a little closer. He kept on about how much my Mom wants to see me and how happy it’d make Archie but... But I just didn’t know how to say that I didn’t want to come back yet.” You admitted honestly.

FP’s car wheels came to a squeaky stop as he pulled into Sweetwater River.

“I know it’s stupid and selfish and I should have come back when he asked. I mean he only wanted me to visit and now it’s too late. Now I can’t... He can’t... He’s not here.” You felt yourself crumble throughout the sentence and FP watched with tears in his own eyes.

“Hey.” He pulled you towards him, hugging you tightly. “It’s not your fault. You had only just got the hell out of here.” FP tried to comfort you.

You gripped onto his shirt as you buried your face into him.

“We all should have spent more time with him. Life likes to play these dirty games with us.” FP could feel the pain radiating from your body.

You seemed so small and fragile in his arms. You felt like the person you used to be right at the beginning of your relationship, when all you wanted to do was look after him and make sure he was alright. Now, he just wanted to make you feel alright.

“I remember when Fred found out that he was having a baby girl. He couldn’t have been more excited and terrified at the same time.” FP laughed softly, “Little did he know that little girl would grow up to be one of the kindest, strongest and damn-near smartest women in this town. Fred knew you were beautiful in and out, (Y/n). He believed you could do anything you wanted to.” FP explained, trying his best to bring some happiness to the memory of your father.

You pulled away slowly to look the man in the face. He took hold of your cheeks and tried to smile but you could see the sadness in his eyes.

“And I can’t believe that little girl grew up to change my life. She used all of her kindness and strength on a hopeless drunk who couldn’t hold down a job.” There seemed to be a hint of regret in FP’s eyes. Not regret for the relationship but perhaps regret that he had dragged you alongside him for so long.

“That man has turned out to be the sheriff today. Ex-king of the Southside serpents and sober. He helped me find a backbone and gave me something to fight for.” You argued with his negative outlook. “My dad must've been so proud to see you as big dog in Riverdale.”

FP lowered his eyes and shook his head with a smile.

“He wouldn’t have been proud much longer if he found out that his best friend had been in love with his only daughter.” FP’s words seemed to fall from his lips in slow motions as you processed what he had said.

You had no control over your body when you found your mouth meeting his, lifting his head back up.

FP didn’t expect the gesture but welcomed it as one hand found the back of your neck and the other squeezed your waist.

Your tongues danced together like two lost lovers had finally found each other again.

You tried to lean forward to press your chest against his but the position of the car seats wouldn’t allow it.

It was the police radio that interrupted you both, a deputy calling for ‘Sheriff Jones’ to return as there was new information on the Fred Andrews case.

You fell apart as quickly as you came together.

You shot your eyes down to your feet as you tried to catch your breath.

Fp stayed silent as he panted beside you.

The car came alive as he cleared his throat, pulling out of the famous riverside and back onto the main road.

You both remained silent until you pulled into the station.

Your skin felt like it was on fire from the passionate kiss but the news about the case overtook your thoughts.

You both rushed into the station and to the sheriff’s office where FP picked up the phone, dialling the Cherry Creek police.

You sat in the rigid uncomfortable chair opposite FP’s desk and bit down on your thumb nail as you waited anxiously.

You sat up in anticipation as FP hung up the phone.

“So?” You asked, your voice was soft, almost a whisper.

“The guy that hit Fred. He turned himself in this morning.” FP informed you, dialling a number on his cellphone.

“So they’ve got him? He’s off the roads?”

“He, uh, he made bail. He’s been released. It’s just how these things go sometimes.” FP could see the anger on your face when he said that the guy was released.

“But he killed my dad.” You felt sick knowing the man who killed your father was out walking around.

“And he’ll get justice for it.” FP said it in a way that you immediately it was a promise than a statement.

“I’m gonna call Red. Go ahead and inform your mother.” FP instructs you and you do as you’re told. Telling her only what you know.

When you returned to the office from taking the call outside, you could see the worry on FP’s face.

“What’s wrong?” You asked,

“Your brother. I think he’s gonna try and take justice into his own hands. I’m trying to get through to Jughead now.” FP held up his phone.

When Jughead finally answered, FP told him everything and Jughead said he’d take care of it.

“Jug will get to him. Archie might be mad but if they get to him first then no one should get hurt.” You tried to be optimistic. You didn’t want Archie starting a fight he might not win. Who knows who this guy is!

FP leant back in his chair and ran a hand over his face the way he usually does when he’s stressed.

“For some reason, it doesn’t feel real.” You murmured as you folded your arms across your chest and moved yourself in front of FP. Leaning back against his desk, standing between his legs.

“I keep thinking that I’ll go home and his truck will be there. He’ll be stood in the kitchen, buried in some paperwork with a beer bottle in his hand. He’ll moan at me for staying out so late and we’ll argue about how I’m an adult. But at the end of the night, he’ll still be leaning in bedroom doorway to say goodnight.” You didn’t realise you were crying against until the salty tears found your lips.

“This town’s not gonna be the same without him.” FP met your eyes with his own glassy ones.

“I didn’t tell him I loved him in three weeks.” You broke.

Fp rose to his feet and his hands squeezed your upper arms as he tried to get you to look at him.

“You didn’t need to say it. He already knew.” FP embraced you once again and you relaxed once more.

“Look, while you were on the phone to your mom, I got a call from Cheryl. She has this whole parade planned for when Archie returns with Fred. A special way to honour him and I gotta be the one to stop Archie from going straight into town. We’re gonna give him a police escort and let the town say goodbye.” FP thought the idea would give you something to look forward to. Something to be apart of.

“This town really loved him, huh?” You wiped at your nose and smiled sadly.

“Yes, they did. Now, if you’ll have me, I’d like for you to ride in the wagon with me out front.” FP knew it was a risky move but he knew you’d appreciate it.

You nodded your head, letting another tear slip from your eye.

FP caught it with his thumb.

The next thing you knew your lips were gently pressing against his.

Fp nor you could fight these feelings. Fp knew that if Alice or Jughead’s mom found out.... His thoughts seemed to disappear when your hands caressed his arms, leading up to your neck.

He deepened the kiss, closing the small space between you by lifting you up onto his desk. He fitted nicely between your legs and you arched your back against him as he kissed down your neck.

You internally rejoiced when you noticed the blinds on the office door were shut. Hopefully prompting anyone who needed to enter to knock.

You straightened back up to reclaim his lips as his hands moved up your shirt to your chest.

“FP.” You whispered, your hands were on his belt buckle but you didn’t make any movements to loosen it yet.

The pain of the past couple days seemed to melt away at the touch of one another. You were like each others morphine.

FP took the hint and yanked at your jeans, pulling them down your thighs to your ankles. You clawed at his belt, hissing when he brought you forward and sank his teeth into your shoulder.

You threw off your top and fixated your arms around the older man.

He could feel your want on the outside of your panties.

A moan escaped as his fingers brushed your sex as he moved your panties to one side.

“You have no idea how much I’ve needed this. You.” FP spoke against your skin as he pressed himself inside you.

You threw your head back for a moment before resting your forehead on the man’s shirt.

Fp lifted you slightly to get a better angle as he thrusted in and out of you.

He felt so good that the world around you seemed to become white.

“Fuck.” FP snarled as you rolled your hips against his.

His name left your lips as you both picked up the pace. You could feel yourself drawing close to climax already.

His hand buried itself in your hair and tugged as you bit down on your lip to stay quiet. Your cheek burned against his with the friction of his beard and the heat from you both.

With your bodies moulded together, the desperation of a release built.

You bit down on his shoulder as you unravelled, throbbing around him which only brought his release closer.

You let go of his shoulder and silently cursed at the wet teeth mark you left on his khaki shirt but you quickly forgot as he pulled his length from you and emptied his seed over your thigh.

He rested his forehead against you as you both caught your breath. You were glad you tore off your shirt as you were coated in a thin layer of sweat.

FP reached over to the box of tissues in the office and began cleaning up his mess.

He looked up from your thighs to catch something he had forgotten about on your shoulder.

A very obvious ‘M’ was scarred in your beautiful skin.

You watched him stare at you with a twisted look of pain. His thumb ran over the mark which made you flinch away slightly.

It was just a horrid reminder of what nearly happened that night. However, you refused to cover it with a tattoo as it also reminded you that you survived it.

You slid off the desk to tug up your jeans and scoop up your t-shirt.

You cringed slightly as you realised what you had done. You had thrown away your dad’s shirt to fuck his life long best friend on the sheriff’s desk.

FP must've noticed your face pale as he asked if you were okay.

You could hear his belt being done up and you muttered a swift apology about his shirt before turning the handle on the door.

“Hey! Wait!” FP called after you but you tried to escape the building as fast as you could.

As soon as you were out the station doors and the warm summer air hit you, you started sprinting.

You ran until your legs ached and when you finally stopped.

You were at the play park.

It wasn’t too busy considering what the day was.

You sat down on an empty swing and took a moment to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” You looked up at the sky as you spoke. You didn’t know whether you were happy he never found out about the affair or sad because all you did was lie to him for years.

The internal conflict you had only worsened the pain you felt.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.” The voice was enough to almost make you groan audibly.

“Don’t think anyone did.” You pressed your lips into a thin line as Alice approached you.

“No. I mean in the park. Of course, you’d come home for your fathers funeral.” Alice looked like she had been crying but her words were stable enough.

You didn't respond.

“I’m sorry for your loss, (y/n). Fred Andrews was one of the best men this town ever knew.” Alice stated.

“Yeah, thanks.” You pushed yourself off the swing and started to stride away from the woman when she caught your wrist.

“Hey, you need anything you let me know? You and Archie are as much family to me as my own.” Alice sent you a sympathetic smile and you couldn’t help but remember all the times you’d play with Polly and Betty at their house.

“Thank you, Alice.” You softened your words before turning to leave again.

“(Y/n)! (Y/n)!” Not long after you left the park you heard a man calling your name.

You faced the direction of the call to see FP shutting his car door to come towards you.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Archie’s almost back.” FP announced.

“We better head to the edge of town then.” You brushed past his shoulder to enter the car.

“Hey.” FP took hold of your wrist and made you look at him. “What happened?”

“I just... I’m wearing my dad’s shirt today. It smells like him. I threw to the side to be close with you and when I picked it up... I couldn’t help but think about how much I’ve lied to him. How many lies I told and how many secrets I kept.”

“Sometimes we have to keep things from others to keep them from getting hurt.” FP’s eyes darkened at the mention of your secret relationship.

“There’s just so much I never said.” You sighed, closing your eyes to prevent any more tears.

“Fred knew all of the important stuff you needed to say. We all kept a few secrets and lied to your old man, that’s the way it is in this town. We can forgive ourselves for it or we can let it turn you into a sour old drunk that can’t even feed his kids.” Fp’s eyes flashed with regret and sadness from his past mistakes.

Your throat was locked shut so you just nodded your head.

“Let’s go get your old man.” Fp opened the car door and you followed.

You didn’t have to wait long on the side of the road before Archie emerged in a hearse with your dad’s truck, driven by Betty and Jughead, behind him.

Fp pushed himself off the front of the car where you both had sat to wait, you lifted your head from his shoulder to watch him stand and raise his hand to slow Archie down.

“Everything all right, Mr. Jones?”

“Everything's good, Red. I, uh, heard what you, and Jug, and the girls were up to, and I wanted to be a part of it. I'd like to give your dad a police escort the rest of the way home, if you're okay with that. He deserves it.”

“Yes, sir.” Archie looked past Fp to you. You smiled as much as you could manage and quickly wiped away any water escaping your eyes.

“All right. Follow me then.” Fp leaving Archie’s side gave you the signal to climb into the wagon.

As you drove towards town, you couldn’t help but hold FP’s hand. He held onto you tightly and gave your hand a tight squeeze here and there when he caught you getting emotional again.

“He’d be so happy to see you home.” Fp told you.

“I know.” You agreed.

That's when the parade became clear ahead.

You smiled as you cried silently to the cheers and appraisal your father was getting.

You couldn’t help but laugh as the Serpents all cheered loudly as you passed. You blew them all a kiss as a thank you.

You didn’t stop crying until you pulled up in front of the house.

All the signs and familiar faces tore at your heart and made you think about how well known Fred actually was.

He changed a lot of people’s lives and you were so thankful he was always apart of yours; as your father.

As Archie exited the hearse, you opened your own door.

You rushed to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist as he approached your mother.

“I couldn't leave him there, Mom.” Archie confessed, taking both you and your mom into a tight embrace

“I know.” Your mom said as she snivelled repeatedly.

“I brought Dad home.” Archie looked between you and your mother. You only smiled and tucked yourself under his arm.

“You did. You sure did. I'm so proud of you. I know he would be, too.” Your mom gushed, Archie pulled her back into the group hug and you all just stayed there for a minute.

Fp watched from a distance as you hugged your family and he knew that things would never be the same in Riverdale ever again. He once thought that when he saw you leaving but now, now he knew that he truly meant it.

“Hey, I found something in Dad’s truck.” Archie parted from the hug and dug into his pocket.

What he pulled out was a photo of you, Archie and your dad. All together. Happy.

You laughed weakly as you stepped towards your bike, pulling up the seat to get into the under compartment.

You put your hand into a small bag inside and out came the exact photo but more crinkled and torn. It has travelled with you always.

“I can’t believe he’s gone, Arch.”

“I know. Me either.” Your brother buried you in his chest and it wasn't the first time you felt like the younger sibling between the two of you.

The funeral didn’t take too long to put together and before you knew it, the casket was being walked towards you and your mother at the graveyard.

You watched your mother press a kiss against the closed casket as she lay her rose on top.

You were shaking when you found the courage to step forward yourself.

You wrapped your arms around the casket and pressed your cheek against the cold wood, letting your tears hit it below.

“I love you, Dad.” You were heartbroken. Here lay Fred Andrews, never to be seen again. Not outside of pictures or videos.

Archie had to be the one to come forward and move you along as the crowd watched with agony in their hearts.

“And now... Fred's son, Archie, would like to say a few words.”

You watched Archie take the podium with more strength than you could even muster that day.

“‘Uh, earlier I was thinking... on the drive over here... how much of Riverdale my dad built... or just fixed up. Houses, office buildings... A bit of everything. He helped build this town. And one day if I'm lucky enough to have a son or a daughter of my own... I'll be able to point to a building or even just a brick in the building, and say, "Your grandpa made that... with his hands."” Archie paused, you smiled at the idea of a little Archie running around Riverdale.

“It's the 4th of July. I remember this one th... it was raining. The fireworks show was canceled, and, uh, I was so bummed, I remember sitting in the backyard just bawling... Until my dad came home with all these fireworks. I mean, enough to burn our house down, you remember that, (Y/n)? Mom?”

You and your mother nodded with a smile as she took your hand.

“And, uh... we lit them in the backyard, it was just... it was the best night. My dad was here for every high and every low. He's the greatest man I've ever known. It hurts me that I never got to say goodbye. That I won't get to see him again or talk to him. But his spirit and his memory lives on... in this town, and in everyone he's met. Fred Andrews will always be a part of Riverdale. I love you so much, Dad.” Archie finished his speech and you felt like you couldn't even move.

You felt horrible that you couldn’t say anything but you could barely get a word out without breaking down completely.

Once the funeral was over and you had returned to your childhood home, you went upstairs and draped one of your dad’s flannels over your shoulders and your dress.

“I miss you, Daddy.” You curled up on his side of the bed and buried your face into the sleeves of the flannel.

Archie could see you from the hall and he considered comforting you but the sight of you so broken was too much for him to bare at that moment.

You knew you couldn’t stay in Riverdale without Fred being there.

You knew you couldn't even stay a week just to stay with Archie.

You had spent so much time in the past fighting to stay in the town but now all it held was memories of your pain.

You returned to your room after what felt like hours, you must’ve fallen asleep at some point as you felt groggy when you finally lifted yourself up to gather your things together.

“You’re not staying for the fireworks?” Your mom appeared at your door.

“I can’t.” You tried to keep yourself composed. “I can’t, Mom. I can’t be here without him. He was always there. Always. When you left, when I'd fight against him, when I left. He was always right here.”

“I understand.” Your mom surprised you with her answer and even more with her hug. She kissed you on the cheek and pressed a smile onto her lips.

“I love you so much. Please don’t be a stranger in the future.” She begged,

You kissed her forehead as she lowered her head.

“I promise I won’t.”

As you moved away, you noticed she had changed and redone her makeup.

Archie was downstairs from what you could see from the top of the stairs and he too was dressed up.

You descended with your mothers hand in yours and your bag in the other.

“We’re about to start...” Archie’s words trailed off when he saw you were holding your bag.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll visit you real soon little brother.” You placed your bag down as Archie watched.

“Already?” Archie pouted,

“I have too. We all have our ways of coping. I can’t move past this if I stay here. I can’t stay here without him.” You were honest with your little brother.

You awaited an explosion but Archie followed in your moms footsteps and simply hugged you.

“Promise me this isn’t the last time I’m going to see you.” Archie whispered against my ear.

“I promise.” You kissed his cheek and pulled away. “Tell the others it was good t see them.” You didn’t want to deal with any more goodbyes.

“I will. You ready?” He turned back to his mom and she said she was.

You didn’t stay to watch them head out to the garden to watch the fireworks.

You put on your helmet and mounted your bike.

As you drove away, you smiled as you saw the fireworks in your wing mirror.

At the end of the road you noticed FP’s sheriff car parked and FP dressed in his usual get up of jeans and a flannel.

“Didn't think you could skip town again without a goodbye.” FP smirked as you stopped your bike.

“How’d you know I’d leave tonight?” You rose your voice enough to be heard over the fireworks.

“’Cause...” He shrugged and swaggered towards you.

“You think you can just smile at me and everything will be alright?” You removed your helmet as you spoke.

“I wanted to tell you something. Something I should have said a long time ago.” Fp only grew closer to you.

“I’m all ears, Sheriff Jones.”

“I loved you, (Y/n). I always loved you. You were this unexpected gift that came into my life and kicked the crap out of the old me. You taught me what it was like to feel again. You were better than any drink I had ever had.” FP began to confess to you. “I know I didn’t deserve you and I know we can never be together in the way I wanted to but those many months of my life with you by my side. My Serpent Queen. They were some of the best days of––”

You kissed the man after hearing the words you had always wanted to hear.

You knew he loved you that time ago but he never said. Never told you.

“I loved you too, FP Jones.” You let your lips part from his slowly as you breathed out the words.

“Keep on fighting. You’re stronger than you know.” FP pressed his forehead against yours as he looked into your eyes.

Those eyes. Those hypnotic eyes.

“Stay out of trouble. Don’t make me come back and kick your ass back into shape.” You half-kidded.

FP sighed and kissed you once more.

“I’m forever yours, FP Jones.” You let the man know as you backed away from him back towards your bike.

He watched you climb back on but before you replaced your helmet he remembered something...

“Wait.” FP pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and as he got closer with a slow jog, you realised it was the polaroid. “It’s your turn to keep it.”

You took the photo without any fight and tucked it into your jacket.

“Look after yourself, Jones.” You brushed your lips against his as you held his cheeks between your fingers.

“Don’t break too many hearts, (Y/n) Andrews.” FP took a step back.

“Can't make that promise.” You winked. The only heart that ever mattered to you was his.

You revved your engine as you finally rode away.

Watching the man only disappear in your mirror as the fireworks only continued.

The End.

AN: That’s a wrap folks. I hope you enjoyed this story and I hope this ending wasn’t too awful for you all. I want to say that I hope all of you are safe and doing well. I hope those who are rioting are staying safe and protecting themselves. This chapter is dedicated to Luke Perry may he rest in peace. Goodnight my lovely readers and thank you once again for reading.

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boogiewrites · 4 years

Text

Rosie & the Road Less Traveled

Characters: Declan Harp x Rosie Anderson (OFC)

Summary: Declan Harp 1970s Hippy/Roadtrip AU Rosie has made a bold decision and decided to leave her monotonous life. She sets out to create her own with a group of misfits traveling across America, post-Vietnam during the 1970s. She breaks out of her shy and insecure, sheltered shelf to have an adventure where she learns the realities of life outside her former cookie-cutter existence. She experiences, a year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll as the group of ex-soldiers and free spirits change her worldview and show her another way. She meets the charming but damaged Declan who takes her under his wing. Will a budding romance for this blossoming Rose prove to be her gift from the universe for making the hard decision to be her own woman?

Warnings/Tags: Talk of emotional abuse by family.

Click on my screen name then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. Please leave a like, reblog or comment if you enjoyed this! It makes me want to write more of what you want if you let me know!

Rosie awoke in the same pink and frill filled bedroom she had every day of her life so far. She could smell the same coffee she wasn’t allowed to have. The scent filled up their Better Homes and Gardens modeled modest family home settled in a suburb full of pastel houses with the same pastel cars in their driveway. It was polished and performative, just like Rosie’s mother who was standing in her doorway looking like a copy of June Cleaver.

“You’ll be late for John to pick you up! Don’t keep a man waiting! A wife must be preemptive and pretty dear.” She exits as quickly as she’d entered. Rosie is left looking to her favorite childhood toy and only friend, Booger Bear, with a sigh before starting her day. Not much had changed in Rose Anderson’s life since she was a child. She was raised by older parents, very strict and traditional. Which would explain why they’d agreed to her engagement so fervently. She was 24 and unmarried and being a spinster was not an option according to them. So she was having yet another huge life decision made for her by someone else. She couldn’t remember the last time she had held her own opinion or made up her own mind. She had fear instilled within her from a young age that she was less than and this was used to keep her under control. Being different as she was with her ghostly white skin and pale blonde hair, her albinism stood out among her peers. She wore glasses and a constantly apologetic look on her face. Her childlike treatment was clear on her face as her features were baby round. A button nose and large light blue eyes with cheeks that always had a flush to them showed her softness unwillingly. She truly did look like a baby animal, naive, and easy prey.

This was a common theme among the treatment she’d had from men so far in her life. She didn’t expect any different. Her mother had cried tears of relief when George had asked for her hand. She would finally be able to tell her bridge club that her daughter had at least something normal going on about her. The cruel and belittling words she’d heard her whole life only made sense to continue hearing from this new person that would now be in charge of her she was told. If nothing had changed in her life up to this point, why would it ever?

The fact that George never showed didn’t surprise her. So when she went into town to run wedding errands on her own she wasn’t surprised. Wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last. He usually disappears at night and not in the morning so that was unusual but she went through her day with the same polite smile she always did. A smile that said sorry for existing. She called her home from the library, offering to see if her mother needed anything for supper. She hadn’t but she had heard from George’s mother, and she hadn’t seen him either. So it was now Rosie’s job to find him, as they’d be married soon.

She sat defeated on a bench to rest as the sun started to set. She’d asked at the stores on the square and no one had seen him. Luckily for her, she’d sat down in front of the Beauty Parlour and it being a small town, everyone knows everyone, one of the ladies there knew who sweet little odd Rosie was and took pity on her.

“I know it’s not my place to say so baby but that man of yours is no count. You know that right?”

“I’m sorry ma'am?”

“You were in town all day today alone, doin' your dress and all that right? For the wedding?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And he’s been across county lines getting drunk as a skunk.” She shakes her head. “Again.”

“Oh.” Rosie sighs and looks to the ground. “Do you know where he is?” She asks reluctantly.

“No where no sweet thing like you needs to be goin'.”

“I need to get him home. His mother’s worried.”

“She should be. Ain't your mama worried about you out here alone?”

“She said I have to do real women’s work and take care of George as best I can. He’s mine now and I better start acting like it and go… find him.”

The kind woman sighs and feels bad for the poor thing. But it wasn’t an uncommon story. “He’s out at the bar past the county line. Neon sign, bikes out front, can’t miss it. It’s on the right.” She says with a groan.

“Up 25E?” She asks already getting to her feet.

“Yes, baby now be careful. I’m only telling you this because someone’s gotta help you out, honey. Maybe it’s time you helped yourself huh?”

“I’m doing what any good wife and daughter would do ma'am.”

“Life’s not about being good for other people. You have to think about what’s good for you. What do you want? Do you want to marry George?”

“Ma'am what a silly question.”

“That’s not the enthusiastic YES I should be hearing from a bride to be is it?”

Rosie doesn’t know how to reply and just looks worried for a moment with her wide eyes.

“Go before it gets darker baby. Be careful. Take care of yourself.” She says as Rosie scurries across the square to the car.

She did love getting to drive around. Something she’d not been allowed to do until recently. So a trip out of town on a lovely evening was something that got her very excited.

She had held onto that moment of happiness as she drove out of town. A perfect evening with a chill after the sun went down. She could hear frogs and crickets as she left the roads full of cookie-cutter homes and drove into a more forested area.

She had a comfortable smile on her face until the trees cleared for a patch and showed a roadhouse. This had to be the place. She pulled in with a mix match of very nice and very beat down cars. Some buses and small caravans lined along the perimeter. She could hear music coming from inside the metal and wood walls. There were men three times her size all around. They were an odd mix of trendy sleazy men with feathered hair and grizzly biker men and they were all chain-smoking. Everyone looked as confused as she did as she entered the building. If she was polite and direct there was no reason these gentlemen had to give her any trouble. She’d heard about these sorts from her mother. Bikers, greasers, all sinners, and a dirty lot to associate with.

But Rosie had always seen glimpses of people in the magazines. The intense men on their bikes with a scantily clad woman who looked both elated and aroused clutched to his back as they rode through the great American Route 66. They looked like they were having fun, she thought. She thought they looked free and those were things she longed to know how they felt. But there was no room for these things in her life. So although she should be afraid to be around these people, she was actually quite excited. She fantasized with already blushed shy cheeks about striking up a conversation with one of them and finding out what they were really like.

“You lost sweetheart?” The man in glasses with his arms crossed at the door asks her.

“I’m here to fetch my husband- my fiancé.” She corrects herself.

“You with a man that comes to a place like this?”

“His name is George. He is a fan of a strong drink and a cigar. And apparently, his frequenting of this place is something everyone in the town knew about but me.” she admits freely as she wasn’t one to have any reason to hide bits of herself. Everyone could be a friend in her eyes. She entered every interaction with a genuine curiosity it was honestly a bit hard to be rude to her.

“Ah.” He nods and understands. “Go on in, sweetheart” he holds open the door for her and watches her stand and take it all in for a moment. He chuckles and then sighs, “Poor little thing.” he mutters.

Through an old western saloon style inner door she enters with a delighted smile. “How charming!” She says to herself. She walked into a rather large room full of gambling tables. A bar on one end and a stage on the other. Panning over to meet the stage last, she’s hit with a thump of bass in her chest by way of her feet. It rumbled into the floor as she tentatively approached. She’d never seen live music before. She supposed choir and church and talent shows didn’t really count. There were electric guitars and men with no shirts and girls without bras and she was enthralled. She had heard a few rock songs by way of sneaking into a poor reception radio station when she was left alone in the car. She loved it. But it was something only classless people were apart of. Or so she was told. But these people looked the same as those in the magazines. A very tall and dark man played the instrument causing her to experience a very pleasant vibration through her body. He was shirtless and sweating and had a large tattoo on his arm. A chain from his worn dark jeans that bounced with every pluck of his long fingers. Next to him a smaller man, pale and singing with delightfully large blonde curly hair. He sang beautifully she thought. He wore a shirt unbuttoned and tucked into pants so tight she could see a bulge that ripped her from her fantasy of being as cool and free as they were. She turns around quickly and moves towards the bar.

She finds George in his work clothes, the navy not being blotched by black oils and spills told her he also hadn’t been to work. She wears her disappointment in her face clearly for a moment before trying to put on that mask her mother taught her to wear. Never show him that you’re upset. Anger is unseemly on a lady. But this did make her angry. Her red face made it obvious she was holding in red hot emotion. Her smile was hollow and her eyes gave her away.

“Hello, George. I believe it’s time we got home.” She says with a hand to his shoulder.

“How’d you find me here?” He asks with a dramatic turn on his bar stool, and he was in true skunk form.

“A person in town suggested it. Your mother is worried about you. Can we please go home?”

“You can. I’m staying here.”

“Please George I have to get you home. Both our parents expect me to take care of you and that’s what I’m doing.”

“What if I don’t want you to take care of me? Huh? What if I don’t want anything to do with you?”

Her throat felt tight. She was not accustomed to being spoken to in such a way since she was bullied when she was young. The eyes she could feel on her from a growing audience he was causing made her feel all tingly and nervous. He looked at her with disgust and the shame she usually felt was quickly turning into anger in this new over-stimulating environment.

“Do you think I want to be here?”

“Huh?”

“Do you think I wanted to run all the errands myself today for my own wedding? And make excuses for your absence all day and have people look at me with pity. Because they knew you were here. Again from the looks of you.”

“Well, I’m only here because of YOU.” He spits back.

“Me?” She squeaks with growing confidence that makes her take a deep breath and steady herself. “I have been nothing but an ideal fiancé from the beginning of this. YOU asked for this. Not me.”

“I didn’t ask for it! You did!”

They both looked at each other confused. “I was told you asked for my hand.”

“Hell no my parents told me I had to say yes to your parents offer or they’d cut me off and send me to the army.”

They both blink at each other for a moment. “This is…” she takes a shaker breath. “I’m in an arranged marriage.” She whispers and feels a betrayal deep in her chest. She’d been lied to. Her parents lied, her fiancé lied, the whole town and only one person has the decency to tell her where George was. It hurt like a knife might she thought as her hands held fast to her stomach.

“Are you like...retarded too? Ugh geez. Of course, it is! Why would I want to be with a freak like you?”

It’s as if he’d culminated every fear she’d ever had into a single sentence. All her thoughts of not fitting in, of something being wrong with her. She’d been right all along. “Well, I don’t want to be with a mean drunk like you!” She says back with a face that showed her first real emotion in years.

“I am not a drunk.”

“Yes you are! The whole town gossips about it behind your back. Your parents threaten to send you off if you don’t start acting like an adult. You try to take advantage of ME when I’ve never been anything but nice to you! You are MEAN and you are a DRUNK!”

He moves fast and grabs hold of her arms tightly. Enough to make her cry out and wince. “You listen here you little freak of nature. If you’re gonna be with me you’re gonna respect me as a good wife would.”

“Is there a problem here?” The same tall man from the stage asks, towering over George.

“Buzz off bud. This is between me and my girl.”

“It’s not when you talk to her like that, loud enough for whole damn bar to hear and then put your hands on her.

“Why don’t you go and fuck your cousin, you dirty ass hippies.”

The man meets eyes with Rosie and he immediately knew he had to help her. She looked defeated, but a shine of hope that someone, anyone would ever help her out. He knew one of their kind when he saw that look. Just like the group of outcasts he’d gathered over the years since returning home.

“You’re a…” he glances to Rosie who beams innocence in such a way a man like him is forced to protect it. “Jerk.” He decides instead of saying words that might make the victim feel embarrassed.

“He’s an… asshole.” She spits out and feels a wave of rush over her as she curses.

George flinches to hit her and that was enough for the tall stranger. “Alright, you’re killing the vibe, man.” He wraps his neck in a headlock and drags him out of the bar with a shocked Rosie froze for a moment.

“‘Ello there, love.” The singer from before came in. With gentle hands to her shoulders. “You alright? Hurt?”

“N-no.” She stutters.

“Ya sure you’ve gone all rosy in the face.” He fans her with his hand.

“I always am.” She excuses quickly. “Sorry..I-“

“No apologies, let’s get you into the fresh air eh? Don’t worry I’m with the big guy what dragged off that unpleasant twat you were dealing with.”

“Okay.” She says breathily and a little dazed. “Thank you.”

——-

“Well, he’s gone.” The tall one says proudly, clapping his hands.

Rosie stands and looks at the spot where her car had sat. Now empty. “Did he take that yellow car?” She points to the space.

“Yeah, he headed right for it, had the keys.”

She nods and sighs. “I’m afraid that was my car he took.” She looks down the ground to figure out her next move from here, now stranded.

“Oh shit. Oh no, I’m sorry.” The tall man says putting his hands to his mouth. “Ah. Well fuck, honey I really screwed you there didn’t I “

She blinks with her large pale blue eyes at him with tears withheld. A cherub round face that struck a deep nerve as she tried to hide her upset. “You didn’t mean it. You were trying to help.” She says with a slow nod and inhales.

“Bad luck innit.” The other rubs her back comfortingly and she didn’t mind it. He seemed like such a nice man. They both were.

“Can you get a ride home? Call your parents or… something? Or did he just... steal your car?” He towers over her but she doesn’t feel afraid. He rubs his head in thought as he bit his lip.

“I’ll have to call my mother. He’ll go home to his mother I presume.” She nods. “I can retrieve my car tomorrow. Unless he crashes it.” She sighs. “He was terribly drunk.” Her shoulders sink in disappointment.

“Look, we’ll get ya home...what’s your name love?”

“Rose.”

“Oh, that’s a beautiful name innit? For a beautiful girl.” He holds no ill will as he says it and the compliment hits her hard in her emotionally unstable state. Tears well up for someone, a man, a nice man to be so kind to her to say such a nice thing. “Oh no, don’t cry. We'll get you a cab home. It’s no trouble love. Don’t worry ya pretty little head about it eh?”

“You’re so nice.” The tears fall fat over her flushed cheeks.

“Now there’s a good girl.” He brings her in for a hug. “Go call her a car, mate.” He nods away the other fellow.

“I’m so sorry. I’m not usually like this. I’ve had such a bad day.”

“Now let’s sit down here and you can tell Danny all about it now little Rosie.” He shoos some men off a nearby bench to sit her down.

“That your name?” She sniffles

“It is. I’m Danny and that big man was Declan. You’ll be safe with us. Don’t worry. We are protectors of the oppressed.” He chuckles as he puts an arm on her shoulder as she hides her face from the eyes watching.

“Oppressed?”

“Yeah. You know, women… people that are... various beautiful shades of brown, black yellow..." he spoke dramatically with an outstretched hand that captivated her " … homosexuals. You know how it goes, the bad ones yeah? The rebels, the outcasts, lost children who come across our path.”

“You’re making us sound like a cult man. Don’t scare her.” Declan laughs and stands guard at her other side. “Taxi’ll be here within the hour.” He gives her a warm smile that crinkles around his eyes. Half of it coverd in a beard that was pointed and a bit fuzzy. His hair was like a dark lions mane around his face and shoulders.

Rosie contemplated as she looked up at him and wondered if she’d ever seen a man so tall before.

“He only looks scary,” Danny assures her. “Declan this is Rosie.”

“Pretty name for a pretty girl.” He gives a gentle nod down at her.

“Almost exactly what I told her.” Danny beams.

“Hey Rosie, I’m Declan. Nice to meet you.” He spoke softly and gently as if she might startle if he spoke too loudly at her. “We’re in a band. We travel around. Play music and just...living life y’know. Being free with the life we’ve got.” He spoke proudly as he explained. “We’ve heard a lot of stories. So you aren’t going to tell us anything we’ll judge you for.” He laughs.

“We’ve all done far worse than whatever spot you’ve got yourself in angel.” Danny joins in the laugh.

“I’m sorry to cry I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed.” She wipes her cheeks. “As I was telling Danny I’ve had a very bad day.”

“Tells us about it then love. Let the evil out.” He motions with his hands as if he were vomiting and it makes her have a soft little giggle. “There she is.” He pushes her chin up gently. “Go on then…”

Her blubbering story hurt them both as she told of isolation and now betrayal and forced marriage to a terrible man. They’d seen it and heard it before, many in their group had a similar past.

“You deserve so much better Rosie love,” Danny says with a broadly shaking head. “You are clearly such a bright and lovely girl with a pure heart and you deserve the same given back to you.”

“I do!” She whines.

“You can change it all. You’ve got the power. They tell us we don’t. That we can’t. But it’s because they’re afraid of us. Afraid that if we knew what power we had as a collective, as they’ve made us all feel so isolated you see? You can have whatever sort of life you want Rosie. You just have to take it.” Dany speaks intently to her with unwavering eye contact.

“Take it?” she sniffles.

“Make the hard choices. You want things to stay like this forever or you want to take a chance and be your own person?” Declan asks with high brows. He had the tougher approach and Danny handled the whimsy of things, it suited their personalities.

“Like...refuse to marry him?”

“Not just that. You can refuse to stay with your parents.”

Rosie laughs as if he’s joking.

“I’m serious. You could go and live anywhere you wanted. Did you even know that?”

“No. I thought….”

“You can make your own choices Rosie,” Declan says as he sees the cab arrive. “You could see the world. Meet anyone. Do anything. ”

“That… sounds too good to be true.” she looks down at the ground as they walk her towards the car.

“It’s what we did,” Declan turns to face her. “We didn’t like our lives so we just...changed them. I wanted music and freedom and to be around people who understood me.”

“We eventually found each other. And our little family has grown ever since.” Danny holds his home like an adoring mum seeing away their daughter on the bus.

“Family?”

“We’re just a bunch of misfits that are trying to find our place in this crazy world.” Danny shrugs. “Some of us play music and some just follow us in the summertime to escape their lives. Some just like life on the road. We’ve got all sorts. Certainly had a few girls with stories like yours.”

“Really?” she rubs her cheeks.

“We aren’t saying you have to join us. We’re just saying you can make your own choices... have whatever sort of life you want. That’s all. You seemed like you could use the help.”

“I could.” she lets out a heavy, thoughtful sigh. “Thank you. Both. You were very helpful. I can’t really repay you.”

“Start making YOURSELF happy Rosie. That’ll be payment enough. You deserve it, pet.” Danny waves her goodbye.

“Don’t let the man get you down little Rosie.” Declan Nods her way as she gets in the cab to head home.

—————

The cab drive home was the most peace she was going to know for the next 24 hours. It started with the cops being at her house when she got there. George had been arrested after being taken to the hospital for injuries from wrecking her car. He was being held and charged and poor Rosie thought she might pass out.

George’s mother paced and shouted in their house late into the night. Wailing about her “poor” son. What did she do to him to make him behave in such a way? Denial was not just a river she'd read about in the encyclopedias she'd gotten for Christmas.

Her own mother joined in, what did she do? How was she going to fix this? Why didn’t she have the money to bail him out? She raised her better than this.

Rosie sat and took it. But each biting remark only made that funny feeling in her stomach grow as each verbally slapped her over and over.

“Did you ever consider you’re yelling at the wrong person?” She finally says back quietly.

“For god's sake girl don’t mumble and slouch! It’s ugly!”

She had been told she was pretty tonight and told she could be and do whatever she wanted. Things she’d never heard before. There were people out there that wouldn’t treat her like this. This isn’t what she wanted. She wouldn’t survive a life like this, it would hollow her out into a shell of who she really was.

“I said, Did you ever consider you’re yelling at the wrong person?” Her brow was now creased and a rare sight it was. “Did you ever consider your son is a drunk? A hateful loser who has been breastfed too long by his mother?!” She sass’s with balled fists in the meanest and most insulting thing she’d ever said came out of her mouth confidently. “And you! I don’t have any money because you won’t let me work! You won’t let me leave! Or even LIVE!” She throws her arms up in the air. “You’re being bullies when I’m the ONLY one that tried to DO something and HELP him. And this is what I get? No. No more. I don’t have to put up with this...this… BOLOGNA!” She yells and stomps to her room, slamming the door and leaving a room of shocked faces behind. Her father in the kitchen almost choked on the beer he was trying to secretly down to deal with the situation. It was beer and not even liquor what was he becoming?

Rosie falls to her bed and cries and hits the pillows as her door is quickly bombarded with screeches on the other side. Demands of her to come out and apologize and she just kept shouting “NO!” Over and over to their requests. She took all of her suitcases and laid them on the bed, the voices on the other side growing tired and falling quieter and they tried to listen to what she was doing. She threw her life into those cases. All her favorite things, things she might need, she stuffed them full and sat on them to get them to shut. She angrily pens a letter. Telling them she was tired of being oppressed and lied to and she was going to make herself happy and never see them again. She still signed it with a heart.

She gets out of her bedroom window and makes her way to the car with the dented fender and busted windows the cops had returned to them. She throws in her bags and whispers a prayer it will start. Someone was looking out for her. She could see the sources of the yelling running out of the house behind her as she headed out of the subdivision. She’d never felt more alive.

She practically drifted into the gravel parking lot at the roadhouse and held tears of joy from her escape and the fact that the buses and vans were still in sight. The bus was headed out of the parking lot. She leaves the car with the keys in the ignition and straps her bags and suitcases up and runs as fast as her feet will carry her toward the van left in the line.

“WAIT!” She shouts and pants. “PLEASE WAIT!!” She lets out a scream she didn’t know she had in her. Her lungs burned and her blood pumped faster than it ever had as the van door rolled open. “I’m coming with you!”

“Is that?” Declan snorts out an amused sound

“Well fuck me it’s that little girl again.” Danny muses as he looks out the door. “Slow down mate, we got a castaway.”

“Being. Chased. Keep going.”

“Chased?” Danny laughs. “By who?” The thought of someone being in pursuit of this tiny white field mouse amused him to no end.

“I RAN AWAY!” she laughs as she throws her bags to the filled van and is ran full force as the van gets to the highway and she’s yanked inside. The door slams shut behind her and she’s left wheezing and trying to fix her dress and hair.

“Come now little bird, have a seat.” Danny pulls her down on the bean bag he’s sat on.

“I. Ran.” She pants out and Danny and Declan laugh but the other eyes in the van are looking at her confused.

“From the cops?” Someone asks concerned

“No.” She clears her throat and takes a deep breath as she calms down. “From my house.”

“Was it as bad as you thought it was gonna be?” Danny pushes back her hair.

“Worse.” She lets out a nervous laugh. “I can... I can come with you guys right?” She says with puppy eyes.

“Welcome to our merry little crew Rosie bug.” Danny beams.

“I ran away too.” Another girl with long beautiful wavy hair says from her spot in the open-backed van, now crowded full. “Husband? Parents?”

“Both.” Rosie nods and they share a sympathetic nod of understanding.

“I’m glad you came Rosie.” the girl's eyes showed strong empathy and it made Rosie certain she'd made the right decision.

“I am too.” She finally catches her breath. “So…” she primps for a moment to gather herself. “Where are we off to first?”

@vale0413 @littledeadgirlwalking @jaegeeeeer @phillipkopusimagines-and-stuff @mjolnir96 @xmother-mortemx @this-isnt-madness @thors-hair-extensions @divadinag @s-h-e-w-r-i-t-e-s

#Declan Harp #declan harp fanfic #declan harp fic #frontier au #frontier #jason momoa frontier #jason momoa #declan harp au #declan harp x ofc

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oldmacnewlife · 4 years

Text

Meet the Mac

iBook G3/600 14 in. Early 2002 Model M8413

The latest addition to my collection is also the oldest. Introduced January of 2002 and discontinued May the same year, this model of Apple’s iBook line of laptops shipped with a PowerPC 750cx CPU clocked at 600 MHz.The base model included 256 MB of PC100 SO-DIMM RAM. 128 MB of this is onboard while the remainder is installed into a user-accessible slot. The memory can be upgraded to a total of 640 MB, which I have done. This model weighs in at just under 6 pounds.

EveryMac.com lists the battery life at 6 hours. Your actual experience will vary with usage (and the age of the battery.)

The 14.1 TFT XGA display is powered by an ATI Rage Mobility 128 (2x AGP) integrated adapter with 8 MB of SDRAM. The native and maximum supported resolution is 1024x768. It’s possible to mirror the display to a second monitor through the mini-vga port.

The base model shipped with a 20 GB ULTRA ATA hard disk, though mine has a 40 GB drive installed. I’m not sure if this was an available option at purchase or if it was a user-installed upgrade. Also included is an 8x Combo drive, capable of reading both CDs and DVDs, as well as writing CDs.

For communication, there is a 56k v90 modem as well as 10/100Base-T ethernet. I’ve installed the optional AirPort wireless adapter, though as yet I have not been able to get it to work with my modern networking hardware. The AirPort “sees” the local network but cannot connect to it. I can connect to my local home network through a wired connection just fine.

For connectivity, there are 2 USB 1.1 ports and a single FireWire 400 port.

There really isn’t any expansion available beyond the optional AirPort card. The wi-fi antenna is built into the case.

This laptop shipped dual booting, with OS 9 and OS X 10.1 installed. Versions up to 10.4.11 are supported.

I’m not a huge fan of the keyboard. I don’t know how to explain it other than it doesn’t “feel” good. It seems I’m always either hitting the wrong key or accidentally hitting the trackpad to send my mouse pointer flying across the screen. This could simply be due to the smaller (than I’m used to) size of the case. Time and use may mitigate this.

Speaking of the trackpad, while it’s perfectly serviceable, due to the aforementioned issue I prefer using a USB Apple Mighty Mouse, though OS 9 will treat this two button mouse as having only a single button. There doesn’t seem to be a way in OS 9 to completely disable the trackpad, though I was at least able to disable clicking to improve the situation a bit.

AppleWorks 6, which provides word processing, spreadsheet, database, and basic graphics editing capabilities, was bundled with the system. For surfing the web, Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 4.7 are provided. I actually did take these out for a test drive on the modern internet and, no. For email you have Apple Mail, Outlook Express, or Netscape. As with the web browsers, I was unable to get these to connect to a modern server.

The iBook was Apple’s entry level line of laptops (power users were directed to the PowerBook models), so even by the standards of the early 2000s, these were not exactly high performance machines. These were best suited to basic computing tasks such as web surfing and general office tasks such as word processing and spreadsheets. In 2020, the web is pretty much out but you it's certainly still capable of light office duties, with the appropriate software for this OS and hardware, of course. Lightweight retro gaming is also possible. I’ve been playing the original Diablo and it runs just fine.

I picked up this laptop for about $60 on eBay largely as a relatively inexpensive way to natively run OS 9. It’s done that, and done it well enough to at least whet my appetite to explore Classic Mac OS more, and at the price I paid, I’m not complaining. Now, back to Diablo.

#computers #apple #mac #ibook #laptops #os 9 #macintosh

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what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

Text

Stark Spangled Banner Ch39: The Reunion

Intro: As the remaining Avengers continue their search for Tony, help arrives in the form of an unknown face...and after two agonising years Katie is reunited with her brother.

Warnings: Bad Language words, grief, hellavulotta angst, SMUT (NSFW) NO UNDER 18s.

Pairing:Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist

A couple of mornings later, 11 days post the Snap, Nat decided she couldn’t take it anymore and told Steve she wanted to go to Clint’s.

“I have to know.” she said, looking at Steve. He sighed and glanced over her shoulder to Katie who merely shrugged. She knew where Nat was coming from, it was killing her not knowing what had happened to Tony.

“Alright.” he acquiesced, “Let me grab a jacket.”

“I’ll meet you on the jet?” she asked. He nodded and watched her go before he turned to his wife who was studying him over her coffee. "If Barton was alive he would have been here by now.” Steve dragged a hand down over his beard as he dropped onto the sofa next to Katie “I don’t understand why she doesn’t see or get that?”

"Put yourself in her shoes.” Katie sighed as she curled in on herself under a blanket on the sofa as a particularly nasty cramp hit her stomach “You’d do the same thing for Bucky, or Sam, or me.”

"You know that I would." he replied, noticing her shift in position and he frowned but before he could say anything she placed her hand on his bearded cheek.

“Then just go, let her see. Plus, you could be wrong.”

“I suppose it’s happened from time to time.” he quipped and Katie smiled as he leaned over to press their foreheads together.

“Are you feeling ok?”

“Not really” she replied honestly, “But I’ve taken some painkillers, and Dr Kellet is coming over later. Thank fuck she wasn’t snapped.”

“I can ask Thor to go with Nat instead.” Steve looked at his wife who shook her head. “She asked you for a reason.” Katie said gently, “She trusts you. And I think if its bad news, she’s gonna need you.”

“Ok, well, if you’re sure.” he looked at her again and she nodded. “I love you.”

“I know.” she smiled “I love you too. Now go.”

Barton’s farm was deserted. As the two of them walked around, Steve found his attention drawn to the picnic table not too far from where they had landed. It was loaded with condiments, plates, cutlery and scraps of food as a squirrel darted off the top from where it had been routing through whatever other animals had left. Steve couldn’t help but remember the first time he had visited, the normality of Barton’s life outside the Avengers. He had kids, a wife…at the time he’d almost been jealous, wondering if he and Katie could ever get that life. And then he’d gone and caused them both to be on the run, essentially ending that domestic dream.

And if he hadn’t, then Thanos certainly had.

Natasha, meanwhile had stalked straight into the house. Steve, hearing the door snap shut behind her turned and watched as she stalked back out of the farm house and over to the barn at the far side of the yard. Nothing had changed.

“Natasha?” he called.

She didn’t respond. With a sigh Steve jogged after her and followed her into the barn as she dodged round the tractor in the middle to a door at the far side. Steve noticed a key pad at the side and Natasha clearly knew the code as a moment later there was a beep and it swung open to reveal what he supposed could only be referred to as an office of sorts, or as Katie would refer to it a ‘man-cave’. There was a desk and some hi tech coms devices sat on it along with a computer. At the other side was a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall, a small couch, a stereo but none of that was what Natasha was looking at. She’d headed directly to some form of smaller room at the back and opened that to reveal a shelving unit of sorts. On one of them was an empty case that had clearly held a bow and arrow. Natasha then bent over and when she stood up Steve noticed she was holding a government issued ankle bracelet that had obviously at one point been around Clint’s ankle. Not anymore, it was in 2 pieces.

"He's alive," Nat said, her voice cracking “Steve. he’s…he’s alive"

It was good news in a way, but then again, where was he? Surely if he and his family had survived he would have headed to the compound to find the rest of them. But this looked like he had left in a hurry. Alone. Which made Steve think that his family hadn’t been so lucky.

Natasha, satisfied that Clint was alive but clearly nowhere to be found at the farm, suggested they head home and see if they could track him from the compound. Steve hadn’t the heart to tell her that he didn’t think they’d have much of a chance and he knew deep down she probably thought the same thing. Instead he nodded and they headed back over to the jet, which is when the pair of them heard something skulking around the side of the house. Natasha whipped out her gun as they both cautiously approached. As soon as Steve saw who it was he relaxed.

“Hey buddy.” he said, bending down to pet the sandy coloured one-eyed dog

“Clint just left him.” Nat sighed.

“He won’t have been thinking straight, Nat.” Steve said, looking up at her, then around slightly, chewing the inside of his cheek before he made a decision. “We’ll take him home with us.” He stood up and, giving a sharp whistle, he was pleased to find the dog simply trotted behind him, up the ramp and happily curled up in a corner on a fleece blanket Natasha laid out for him.

“Do you know how old he is?” Steve asked, nodding to the dog.

“Well when they found him in 2011 the vets estimated he was about six months old…so seven give or take.” Steve straightened up and he looked around. Clint’s ankle tag had gotten him thinking, there was someone else they should probably check in on as well. He voiced his thoughts to Natasha who nodded, and plugged in the co-ordinates for an airfield in San Francisco which was about thirty miles away from the address Scott Lang had listed on his house arrest details. In little over an hour and 45 minutes later they pulled up outside Lang’s house and told the cab driver to wait.

When no one answered Steve simply kicked the door in and once they were inside they found it had been deserted some time ago. The remnants of a breakfast lay on a plate on the side growing mould and there was a mug and a plate in the sink. Natasha headed up the stairs, as Steve checked around the ground floor to see if there was anything that might give them a clue. The only thing he noticed was a calendar. The date of the Snap was circled, 23rd April, and next to it was written “QR- Research.”

He didn’t have a clue what that meant. As he walked back into the hall Nat came down the stairs and joined him.

“No sign of anything being packed from his closet and his bed wasn’t made.” She shrugged

Steve nodded. “His calendar seems to suggest he had a research date or something but other than that…hang on…”

He stopped by the phone in the hall, the red-light was blinking to show there was a message. Steve hit play and they stood stock still listening to the message.

“Hi daddy” a little girls voice spoke. Steve knew Scott had a daughter, but it struck him then he had never even bothered to ask her name. “I tried your mobile but you’re obviously busy doing cool stuff with Hope and Dr Pymm…Mom said that you should come over tonight for 4pm now your tag is off and it’s your favourite for tea. Oh and I got a new ant farm for you to try out. I love you, byeeeee!”

Scott took 2 years house arrest to be with his family and Steve knew he wouldn’t run out. The only logical explanation was that he too had been turned to dust.

“Think we’ve seen enough?” Nat sighed.

“Yeah.” Steve nodded “Let’s head home.”

***** “Well,” Dr Kellet looked at Katie as she sat up on the bed, “there’s nothing physically wrong. Everything looks ok. I expect the cramps will settle down soon.”

Katie nodded and looked at her hands.

“How are you though?” the Doctor looked at her and Katie sighed.

“I’m okay, I suppose. I mean, I know there’s nothing I can do about it but it doesn’t stop me wondering you know, if I could have done something or-”

“Even in the case with normal miscarriages there’s nothing that anyone can do.” the Doctor spoke softly. “It’s a natural reaction, Mrs Rogers, you’re still in the grief cycle.” the Dr snapped her bag shut. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself time.”

“That’s what Steve keeps saying.” Katie said softly

“How has he been?” “Amazing.” Katie smiled instantly “He’s been an absolute rock, I know he’s upset himself but he just…” she trailed off. “It’s good that you have one another.” Dr Kellet smiled as she handed Katie her bag containing her pill. Neither of them spoke much, it was a silent gesture that made them both feel a little strange. They hadn’t even discussed the subject but with everything that was going on Katie had to acknowledge that going forward even the simple things like obtaining medical treatment was going to be much more difficult as they’d lost half the people that kept medical centres open. Doctors, Nurses, receptionists, porters…

“I’m going to be meeting with the Local Authorities.” Dr Kellet looked at Katie as if she had read her mind “All the remaining specialists are, sort of a how we go forward planning session.” “Let me know if we can help in anyway.” Katie said “That’s what we have the Stark Relief fund for.” Dr Kellet nodded. The two exchanged goodbyes and the Ob-Gyn left, leaving Katie alone with her thoughts which were disrupted when she heard her phone going. It was a message from Steve to tell her they were on their way home with good and bad news. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know but she assumed the good news was Clint was alive, the bad news being perhaps the kids or Laura weren’t. Deciding she would rather heat it in person she replied and told him she’d leave some dinner for them both in the communal kitchen and with that she headed off to find something he could cook. Such a normal thing to be thinking about. It felt good.

****

Steve and Natasha landed home at just gone eight in the evening. And, given that they hadn’t eaten since breakfast, they headed straight to the kitchen with Lucky in tow and found the leftovers of Katie’s lasagne. Whilst it was warming up Steve gave Lucky a drink and then found some left over chicken and scraps of vegetables from the roast dinner the night before and placed them down in a dish for him to eat. Lucky wolfed his make shift dinner down, and so did they. Between them they ate the entire lot of left overs, along with a helping of salad and then walked down the dimly lit corridors, dog on their heels. It was completely deserted.

“Feels odd doesn’t it?” Nat remarked “I mean it was always so busy.” “We will fix this Nat.” Steve spoke, and he wasn’t sure where his optimism was coming from, but seeing Clint was alive gave him more hope than he’d had that morning.

“Thank you for coming.” She said as they stopped by the stairs that led to her apartment “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem.” Steve smiled, giving her a hug. “Do you wanna take our guest or should I?” he gestured down to the dog. She shook her head “Katie has a soft spot for that dog, besides, I prefer cats.”

That didn’t surprise him in the slightest. He found himself smiling slightly as he replied, “Alright, see you in the morning.” before he watched her up the steps and was pleased to see some of her usual Black Widow swagger had returned.

“Come on buddy.” he turned to the dog which obediently trotted besides him, tongue lolling, his one eye trained on the super soldier.

Katie was awake in bed, the speakers in the room playing what sounded like the Trouble Man soundtrack as she lay on her side, facing the door, her hands absentmindedly playing with the pillow she had clutched to her chest.

“Hey.” he said as he walked in and she looked up, smiling softly. He leaned over to give her a gentle kiss “You feeling ok?” “Yeah.” she sat up “What did you find?”

“Clint’s alive.” Steve shrugged off his jacket and laying it on the back of the chair by the dressing table. Katie gave a sigh of relief which was short lived as she spotted the look on Steve’s face.

“What is it?”

“There’s no sign of him. He’d bust off his tag and left. I don’t think his family made it.” Katie bowed her head “They’re gone? All of them?”

“I think so yeah.”

“Fuck.” Katie screwed shut her eyes as her head fell back and she looked to the ceiling.

“We do, however have a guest.” Steve added, looking over at her.

“Who?”

“Lucky.” At the sound of his name the dog came pounding into the bedroom and jumped on the bed.

“I couldn’t just leave him there” Steve explained as Katie smiled and leaned over to scratch the dog behind his ears, promptly causing him to lay down, his head in Katie’s lap. She wrinkled up her nose “He stinks!”

“Yeah well he’s been alone since Clint left, God knows what he’s been up to or eating.”

Katie looked down at the dog who rolled over for a belly scratch and she obliged.

“It doesn’t look like Lang made it either.” Steve sighed, watching as Katie tickled the animal.

She shook her head sadly, a tear falling onto the bed as Lucky rolled back over and moved to lick the side of her face before he jumped down on the floor.

“Nat wants to give Barton a few more days to cool off before we look for him but I’m not sure he wants to be found." Steve shook his head, dropping onto the side of the bed and removing his shoes and then his shirt thinking back to what he had seen at Clint’s. He laid his palms flat on the bed and dropped his head gently, letting out a sigh. He heard the sheets rustle as Katie edged her way closer to him, leaning her head on the back of his shoulder, nuzzling her cheek against him.

"How is Nat?" she asked.

"A little bit better now that we know he's alive."

Katie nodded as she dropped a kiss to the back of Steve’s shoulder before he stood up, “I’m gonna take a shower, I won’t be long.”

“Okay. Where’s Lucky gonna sleep?”

“I dunno.” Steve eyed up the dog who was now led on his back on the floor as if he’d been with them all his life “Looks like he’s comfy there.” “Yeah, it does.” Katie smiled.

Whilst Steve was in the shower Katie went into the closet and pulled out one of the old duvets for Lucky to sleep on, folding it up and placing it at the end of the bed. Steve was out of the shower shortly and climbed into bed besides Katie, reaching over and turning off the light before he settled down on his back and Katie cuddled up to him, head on his chest

“So what have you been up to today?” he asked gently, his hand rubbing her back.

“Still trying to get a lock on where Tony is.” she said softly “And then I saw Dr Kellet, made dinner and then I wasn’t feeling great if I’m honest. So I came back here and Thor sat with me for a while, just talking.” He pulled her a little closer, his chest tightening at the thought of her hurting and him not being there “What did Dr Kellet say?” “Nothing much. Says I’m physically alright, any discomfort I’m feeling should be gone soon.” “Do you need anything? Pain relief or…” She shook her head “I’m ok, honestly.”

They both fell silent for a moment, before she broke the silence.

“You now, knowing Clint is alive makes me feel a little more optimistic.”

“Optimistic?”

“Yeah, think about it.” she said, her hand tracing shapes on his bare chest “That’s 6 out of 7 of the original Avengers confirmed alive. Tony has to be as well, it makes sense.” “I’m not following.” Steve frowned. She propped herself up, so that she was leaning on his chest “Thor was talking before about how he thought after Ultron that we had been pawns in someone’s intricate game, that someone we know now to be Thanos. But those stones, they have a magic beyond anything we know. Thor doesn’t believe for a second that who’s left is merely a coincidence and neither do I. It’s happened for a reason. Tony’s out there, I can feel it. We just need to find him.” “Honey, I understand what you’re saying…” Steve started, he wasn’t sure he agreed. He didn’t believe in fate, it was bullshit. But before he could say anything else she cut him off.

“Please don’t.” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t what?”

“Take this hope away from me.” she whispered, her eyes locking onto his in the dim light of the room “Apart from you it’s all I have right now.”

He sighed and nodded, chastising himself. If it made her feel better who was he to try and make her think any differently just because he did? Eventually they would have to face facts but now, well he just wanted her to get through the next few days, one at a time so he bit back his response and kissed her head. “Sorry, you’re right. As long as there’s hope, we have a chance.” She kissed him gently before settling back down, and it wasn’t long before she drifted off. *****

Clint had obviously trained Lucky to chase Raccoons as Rocket spent half his time over the next week dodging the dog’s pounces only to eventually solve the issue by screaming at the canine making him halt dead in his tracks, eyeing the animal in front of him with curiosity.

Thor returned from another scouting trip with no news or sign of his people and this time he set deep into a brooding depression, appearing only for meals. Not even Katie could talk him round. Pepper was keeping herself busy liaising with who was left at Stark Industries, turning her attention onto how they could help after Katie had told her about Dr Kellet and the Health Authorities. It kept Pepper busy and gave her something to focus on.

Steve, Natasha and Rhodey spent most of their time talking to the people who were conducting the census and the authorities, whilst Katie buried herself away with Rocket and Bruce trying to calibrate the scanners to reach further into space, bouncing off the NASA satellites to boost their range. But they continued to get nothing. And every night, Steve and Katie would disappear together, out walking Lucky in the grounds, the two of them just taking a moment to themselves and it fast became the time of day the two of them looked forward to the most.

The elephant in the room was Fury’s pager. In the two weeks they had now had it, no one had managed to get working, not even Rocket, despite his attempts to fix the booster that was attached to it. As the 19th post snap afternoon drew to a close, the Racoon let out a frustrated sigh and downed the small screwdriver he had been using and shook his head.

“Shit.” He said, hanging his head. “If I had the right parts I could sort this easy, but without getting up to Contraxier I wouldn’t know where to start.” “What’s Contraxier?” Katie asked.

“A market-slash-junk-slash-booze hole” Rocket shrugged “can find most stuff there. That’s where I stole Thor’s eye.”

Katie knew better than to ask.

“It’s so goddamned annoying.” Rocket continued. “I mean it’s a simple technology too, they’re ten a credit. All it needs to do is produce a magnetic field across each of these coils and bingo.” Katie looked at Bruce whose head had shot up.

“Say that again?” he said gently. “These coils.” Rocket pointed to the item as Bruce walked over. “Each of them needs a magnetic core. All of the little magnetic forces add together through the core and it powers the…what?” he asked as Bruce looked at Katie and she grinned.

“An electromagnet?” She shook her head, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. “That’s all it is?” “I’ve no idea what you Terrans call it, but if that’s what that does then yeah.” “I can’t believe it.” Bruce picked up the device and slid it under the large magnifying glass Rocket had been using “I took my eye off the ball, I could have sorted this straight away…” “You’re kidding me right?” Rocket sighed “Seriously?”

Bruce rushed around, grabbing various bits of material and settled down at a seat bending over the device, his nose barely an inch away from it.

“I’ll fetch the others.” Rocket sighed, wandering out of the room.

Rocket returned a few moments later, flanked by Natasha, Rhodey and Steve just in time to hear Bruce’s yell of success.

“It was an electromagnet. A god-damned electromagnet.” he said, shaking his head as he stood up and placed the Pager on a plinth inside one of the glass cages used to experiment in. He fiddled around with some wires, muttering to himself before standing back. As they crowded round, the screen on the pager lit up. The word “SENDING” flashed across the screen and they all looked at one another.

Another glimmer of hope…

*****

Their excitement was short lived, as nothing came of the device. It simply continued to send the signal for a good 2 days on end, no one answering and Steve found himself wondering if whoever was on the other side had been dusted too.

“More census results.” Natasha said, tapping a button as Steve walked into the room, coffee in his hand, Katie following.

The 3D globe flashed up, along with numerous digital displays of numbers that kept rolling, and rolling increasing in front of their eyes. He placed his mug down and sighed, leaning over the table so he could get a closer look “God, this is a nightmare.”

“I’ve had better nightmares.” Katie mumbled, her eyes on the ever increasing death tolls.

“Hey.” Rhodey appeared in the door and they all turned to face him. “So that thing just stopped doing whatever the hell it was doing.”

Nat, Steve and Katie exchanged a glance before they followed him out of the room.

“What have we got?” Nat asked as they walked into the lab.

“Whatever signal it was sending finally crapped out.” Bruce said as they stared through the glass sided container at the pager that had been running for the last few days.

“I thought we by-passed the battery?” Steve spoke from where he stood a few steps behind Katie.

“Well we did.” Rhodey replied “It was still plugged in it just… just stopped.”

Steve looked up to his left before he glanced back at the item and took a deep breath “Re-boot it, send the signal again.”

“We don’t even know what this is…” Bruce began to protest and Katie cut him off, turning to look at him

“Fury did.”

“Katie’s right, just do it please?” Natasha said, as she too turned from the object to look at Bruce. “Tell me the second you get a signal, I wanna know who’s on the other end of that thing.”

She turned to leave the room and Katie followed her with her eyes as she stopped dead due to the presence of a blonde woman she had never seen before in her life. She was dressed in a red and blue combat suit of sorts which had gold shoulder pads which led into three golden stripes across her chest, culminating in a gold nova-style star of some kind. Katie felt a little bit indignant at the sight if she was honest. That star style had been given to her.

Lucky gave a bark as Katie nudged Steve. He looked from the pager, to her, followed her gaze and immediately straightened up, drawing himself taller as he turned to face the woman as she eyeballed Natasha and spoke clearly.

“Where’s Fury?”

“He’s not here.” Steve stepped forward putting himself in between Katie and the newcomer as he eyed her up and down. “I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to be rude but who are you?”

“Name’s Carol, Carol Danvers.”

“Carol Danvers?” Katie frowned, stepping forward as she instantly recognised the name.

“You know her?” Steve asked and Katie turned to face him.

“Kinda. When we took down Hydra at the Triskellion, Fury had the retinal scan we used hidden under that name, Carol Danvers.” Katie turned from Steve to scrutinise the small woman in front of her. “You were important enough for him to page when people started to vanish, and important enough for him to use your name to hide a clearance under.” Katie paused, looking straight at the woman “Who are you to him?”

“A friend” She said, vaguely “We go way back. I gave him that pager so he could reach of me in case of emergency, I haven't heard from him in over twenty years so I’ll ask again, where is he?"

"Dead.” Nat said simply

“Dead?” Carol’s face slipped a little bit. “How?”

“Thanos.” Katie replied simply.

“The mad Titan?”

“You heard of him then?” Rhodey scoffed “Yeah well, he came to Earth wielding his infinity stones and…”

“He’s been chasing Infinity stones.” it was a statement not a question as Carol closed her eyes, her voice almost a groan.

“He ain’t chasing them, he found them.” Steve sighed “He found them and eighteen days ago he used them wiping out, we suspect, fifty percent of the entire Universe.” “With a literal click of his fingers.” Rhodey added.

"Half the universe?" Carol mumbled to herself, "That explains it."

"Explains what?" Katie questioned.

"It's been chaos out there for the past two weeks, I've been getting distress calls from all over the galaxy." She sighed.

“Exactly why did Fury have a pager which connected him to you for emergencies?” Nat asked, her eyes still narrowed slightly.

“I have powers.” Carol spoke and Steve could tell she was picking her words carefully “From an accident”

“Accident?” he frowned “Yes, that occurred during Project Pegasus.”

Nat and Katie exchanged a glance that Steve didn’t miss.

“What the hell was Project Pegasus?” Bruce asked.

“It was a joint initiative between NASA and the Airforce to analyse and study new aircraft engines.” Rhodey answered.

“To the public.” Kate added softly. “In reality it was the cover used for the project to study the Tesseract.”

Steve let out a groan. “Why does everything come back to that damned cube?” “Yeah well that ‘damned cube’ and I had an accident, and I absorbed its power.” Carol sniffed as she rubbed at her temple “Has Fury never mentioned me to you guys? Not even once?” They all shook their heads.

“That’s a bummer. Especially seeing as you’re named after me.”

“Named after you?” Steve frowned

“My pilot tag” Carol smiled slightly as she looked round “I was Captain Carol ‘Avenger’ Danvers, you are the Avengers, right?”

“What’s left of them.” Steve folded his arms across his chest.

“You were Fury’s first Super Hero.” Katie looked at her, cocking her head slightly, studying the woman some more. “You’re what inspired him to put a gang of us together.”

“Apparently so…”

Before they had chance to question her further Rocket walked in.

“Is that a racoon?” Carol frowned, staring at the creature who looked up at her, raising his eyebrow before he sarcastically replied.

“You want a photo or summin?”

Carol stayed that evening and they sat up late into the night as she explained everything about who she was, what had happened between her and Fury in the Nineties and for some reason, Steve and Katie both felt they could trust her. It was a boost, if anything, to have someone else on their side.

The next morning after a rest and food, she was preparing to set off again and had given their spirits somewhat of a lift with her promise of what she could do.

“I’ve got places I can try, favours I can call in, people I can speak to.” She said, scanning a photo of Tony into her device on the wrist. “And then I’ll go wherever the trail leads. If your brother is out there, and your friends, I’ll find them.”

Katie nodded.

“You should be calibrated to our coms.” Bruce looked up as Carol tapped again at her arm and nodded.

“I’ve boosted your scanners and your signals too.” she said.

Silently Natasha, Steve and Katie walked her out of the facility, Steve taking Katie’s hand in his as they rounded the corner that led to the doors. They swung open revealing the now dark sky and Steve noticed Katie glance up, something which had become a habit, almost as if she was hoping to see a sign Tony was there. Which of course she never did.

Suddenly, Natasha gave a gasp whilst Steve jumped backwards, pulling Katie with him as Carol lit up, like she was on fire, but when he looked closer he noticed it was some kind of bright energy that engulfed her as she hovered off the floor and turned to look at them, her eyes full of humour.

“Yeah sorry, should have warned you about my party trick” she chuckled slightly.

This woman had some power, and it made Steve wonder why Fury had never introduced them to her before. But that was a question for another day.

“I’ll be in touch.” She said and with that she was gone, as fast as she had arrived, shooting through the air like a star leaving Lucky jumping up and barking in her wake.

Natasha looked over at Steve and Katie, and rightly reading the situation decided to leave them alone “I’m going to let Pepper know what she said about finding Tony.” She nodded to the couple and wandered back towards the doors as Katie looked back up again.

“Sweetheart?” Steve questioned, and she turned to face him, her eyes full of tears.

“This is it” she shrugged “This is the best chance we’ve had, and probably will have and…” She couldn’t think of the words to explain how she was feeling. She was excited, excited that they had a plan. But then there was also a feeling of dread in her chest. Dread about what it was Carol was going to find, if she found anything. She wrapped her arms tightly round Steve as he pulled her to him, holding her close.

“Keep hold of that hope.” He said gently, his hand stroking through her hair. “Keep hold until we know any different.”

*****

“Titan is a mess.” Carol sighed, her hologram flickered slightly. It was three days since she had left the compound and this was the first they had heard of her since. It wasn’t great news. A lead on Thanos had taken her to his home planet, even though it was assumed destroyed a while back. “There’s clearly been a big fight here but there’s no sign of anyone now. I have a few more potential leads thought, so I’ll follow them up.”

“Sweetheart.” Steve sighed gently, turning to Katie so she could step into his arms and press her face against his chest and simply stay there, the tears dampening his T-shirt as he gently stroked her head. This had been her last hope, that Carol would find something. But they were still none the wiser and every day that past Tony’s chances were getting slimmer, Steve knew that. After a moment or so she pulled back, reaching up to wipe at her eyes and he looked down at her, his handsome face full of concern.

“I’m gonna go back to the apartment.” she said. “Take a shower…”

“Alright.” He nodded and to make sure he understood that she needed space, not from him, but just to be alone with her thoughts, she reached up, gently touched his cheek and stood on her tiptoes to kiss the whiskers that adorned his chin and face. Steve watched her go before he turned back to Natasha who was bent over looking at something on a tablet.

“What you looking at?” he asked and Nat glanced up at him with a sigh.

“Potential sighting of Clint.” she said, turning it to face him. He squinted a little. It looked a bit like Barton, but he couldn’t be sure. “I ran a facial recognition. Got a few hits, but we all look so different now, we all are so different now.”

Something about that line powered home to Steve as he headed back towards their quarters an hour or so later. The arrival of Carol four days ago had galvanised the group into remembering who they were, even if they didn’t feel like it anymore. They were the Avengers. Fury’s greatest plan, and the ones to whom the survivors of the snap were looking to for direction.

Steve had realised recently that shield or no shield, he needed to be Captain America, even if he didn’t want to be. He had to lead this gang from the front lines, just like always, not as a vigilante that fought the bad guys from the shadows, hiding from a government that had declared him the enemy.

He walked into their bedroom and saw Katie was flat out on the bed, Lucky by her side. Gently he worked the covers up around her, flicked on the lamp on the night stand and gave the dog a quick pat before he pulled off his black sweater and moved into the bathroom glancing in the mirror. He scratched at his chin and gave a sigh. As much as Katie loved the facial hair, Captain America didn’t have a beard, but still, she was going to kill him for this...

Katie woke up five or so minutes later and stretched, her feet kicking at the blankets which had been pulled up around her. She blinked and looked around, Steve’s black sweater was tossed over the back of the chair and she could hear running water coming from the en-suite as the door was slightly ajar. Climbing out of bed she strolled over to the bathroom door as the water stopped and she nudged it open further to lean against the frame, just in time to see Steve raise a towel to dry off his face. When he lowered it she could see the reflection of a familiarly clean shaven jawline.

The beard she loved so much was gone.

He locked eyes with her in the reflection of the mirror, almost nervously. Deep down Katie had known this was coming, it was only a matter of time seeing as he’d settled back into his role as leader of the Avengers as easily as he had left it.

“Captain America doesn’t have a beard…”

She smiled and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his toned waist kissing his muscular shoulder which was bare thanks to his white vest. Wanting to be closer to him she pushed up on her toes to nuzzle behind his ear and his eyes closed when she kissed the side of his neck. He shivered a little at the contact, dropped the towel to the sink and turned in her arms loosely wrapping his own around her.

Katie just stared at him for a moment taking in his cleanly shaven face, the familiar sideburns, and sharp jawline. His hair was still longer though, despite the fact she had trimmed it for him a few days ago. He’d wanted to keep it slightly longer on top, pushed back off his face. To be honest she liked it like that, it reminded her of when they had first met. That said she’d also loved his spikey short do and his longer no-mad locks…frankly he was gorgeous either way.

"You know I really loved that beard," she sighed as she looked up at him “Can’t believe you murdered it…”

“Murdered it?” he raised an eyebrow, as she reached up to gently take his smooth jaw in her fingertips.

“Yes, murdered it. But I’ll let you off, because you are ridiculously handsome.”

Steve smiled a little crookedly and leaning down connected their lips in a soft, slow kiss that quickly became heated, when his tongue touched hers. His hands slid down the length of her back, over her ass, his fingers skating the back of her bare thighs which sent a fire coursing through her body, drawing a soft groan from her as he continued to kiss her, hard. They both needed this, needed the contact, needed to fill that gaping hole and emptiness they had both been feeling for the past few weeks. Katie slid her hands down, tugging up his top briefly as he moved his kisses down the side of her neck. Her fingers grazed his hips then hooked into his belt to begin undoing it but his hands gently stopped her.

“Sweetheart.” He swallowed, his breath deep. “I don’t want to hurt you, you know after…”

“You would never hurt me.” she whispered.

He looked down at her once more, and then he knew he was kidding himself. Over three weeks it had been since they’d made love and that was too fucking long for his liking. His lips crashed onto hers but before they could resume where they had been, they were both jolted as suddenly the air was filled with a loud rumbling. Curiously Steve reached out to steady the mirror which was shaking and then the entire building started to rattle and they looked at each other in confusion.

"FRIDAY?" Katie called out.

"Something has entered the atmosphere Mrs Rogers" The AI responded calmly, "A vessel is being brought towards the facility.”

And then there was a banging on their door, but Rhodey didn’t wait for them to answer. Wrenching it open he ran into the living room calling their names. Katie shot out of the bathroom and into the hall, Steve hot on her tails, grabbing his sweater off the chair and pulling it over his head as he headed into the living room.

"It's Danvers.” Rhodey look at Katie who took a deep breath “She found him."

Katie’s chest began to heave, she felt like her heart was going to pound out of her ribcage. Her hand flew to her mouth as Steve dropped a hand to her shoulder.

"Alive?" she managed to whisper.

“He was when she found him.” Rhodey replied gently.

Without a further word Katie set off sprinting through the facility, not waiting for anyone. She burst out onto the lawns, where Pepper was already waiting, staring up at the sky. Steve followed along with Natasha, Bruce and Rhodey, all of them coming to a stop and watching as the massive space ship rounded the corner, carried by Carol who was encased in a golden orb of light. Katie gently took Pepper’s hand in hers and squeezed her fingers, neither of them moving their gaze from the ship, as it made its way to the ground, deposited onto the grass.

With a hiss the ramp dropped and there he was, being supported by a blue woman. He looked weak. He’d lost a lot of weight, needed a shave, a shower and he looked so pale.

But he was alive!

At the same time Katie let out a soft cry, Steve swore as he spotted instantly how bad Tony looked. He sprinted forward, passing Katie who was rooted to the spot and ran up the steps, taking Tony’s weight off the blue woman. Tony gripped his arm and looked at Steve, before turning his head to watch where he was going.

“I couldn’t stop him.” he said quietly.

“Neither could I.” Steve replied.

“I lost the kid.”

“Tony, we lost.” Steve said gently, looking at his brother-in-law, there was guilt and fear plaguing his face in a way that Steve had never seen before. In turn, Tony studied the man in front of him, scared to ask the next question.

“Yeah, is err…” Tony looked up and his eyes fell first on Katie then Pepper who, following a gently nudge in the back from Katie, took the last few steps towards him

"Oh my God!" Pepper exclaimed, looking him up and down quickly, seeing how sickly he looked. Tony visibly sighed when he saw her, feeling like he was seeing the sun for the first time as she gently pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arm around his neck to hold him close as she sobbed against his hollow cheek. Tony breathed deeply, shaking slightly as he pressed a firm kiss on her cheek.

Katie who was watching the reunion covered her mouth with her hands and found herself shaking as the tears fell thick and fast. Eventually Pepper pulled away slightly and Tony placed his arm round her shoulder as Steve supported him on his other side. A couple more strides and he was in front of his sister looking into those green eyes, eyes that belonged to their mother. It had been almost 2 years since he had seen her, and he could tell she was scared, frightened about what he was going to say. But he only had two words for her.

“Hey Kiddo”

The sound of his familiar greeting broke Katie and she let out a loud sob stepping forward. As she gently wrapped her arms round him she cried into his shoulder, babbling her apologies.

“I’m so sorry Tone, I’ve missed you so much.” she sobbed as he brought a hand up, resting it on the back of her head.

“I’m sorry too.” He said, his voice choking slightly “So sorry my beautiful girl, God I missed you.”

*****

“I need a cheeseburger.” Tony grumbled, and Katie’s face split into a grin as Pepper took hold of his hand from where she was sitting by his bed in a chair.

“Maybe in a few days, pal.” Banner smiled as he gently patted Tony’s shoulder. Katie looked up and Bruce jerked his head to the door of the room. She followed him out and the pair of them were joined by Steve and Rhodey who had been hovering at the back of the medic bay.

“He’s lucky.” Banner looked at Katie “The wound in his abdomen missed everything major and he appears to have fought off most of the infection thanks to Nebula, but I’ve given him a course of IV antibiotics to be on the safe side. He’s slightly dehydrated and a little underweight, but other than needing a lot of rest he should be fine.”

“Thank you Bruce.” Katie said, looking back through the window into the room. Tony had his head lay on the pillow, tilted in Pepper’s direction, a smile spreading across his face as they talked.

“I’m gonna stay with him.” She said, looking back to Steve and then to Rhodey. “Can you make sure that Nebula and Carol get some food and a place to stay?”

“Course.” Rhodey said as Steve pressed a kiss to the side of her head

“I’ll be back later to check on him.” Bruce nodded.

Katie watched the three men leave before she walked into the room. Pepper and Tony both looked up at her as she sat on the edge of Tony’s bed.”

“Pep could you give us a minute?” he asked. She nodded and stood up, touching Katie’s shoulder once as she left, the door clicking shut behind her. Katie turned back to her brother who reached out with his cold hand and wrapped it around hers

“Kiddo, I’m so sorry.” “So am I.” she whispered, her tears forming “There hasn’t been a day over the last twp years I haven’t thought about you.” “Same.I wanted to call so bad but…” He trailed off, his voice cracking. “Stubborn ass hole, remember.” “That’s the Starks for you.” She smiled.

“What I said to you, it was unforgivable.” Tony’s brown eyes locked onto hers, shining with tears. “And I know it sounds stupid but I didn’t mean any of it, not really…“

“Rhodey told me why you said it.” she said softly as she looked at her hands, the tears falling onto the sheets “I should have told you about mom and dad.”

“None of that matters now.” Tony shook his head, gently squeezing her hands.

She fell silent again, wiping at her face, before she took a deep breath, steeling herself as she knew she had to tell him what had happened. Because if he found out of someone else…

“Tony, there’s something you need to know, before anyone else tells you.” she looked at him.

“What?” he frowned.

“When Thanos, when he came to Wakanda…” the tears still fell “I was…I was pregnant, but we didn’t know and…” “Was? Oh no.” her brother’s face scrunched up as his hands wrapped even harder round hers. “Kiddo I’m…” “Don’t.” she smiled sadly at him. “Don’t say you’re sorry, please.”

“I am sorry. Sorry I wasn’t there with you.”

“You’re here now” she looked at him. He smiled and opened his arms and she lent down next to him, gently laying her head on his bony chest, closing her eyes and relishing his presence. It was as if the past two years had never happened as she lay there whilst he comforted her, the way he always had done.

“Nice hair by the way.” he quipped, making her chuckle.

“Thanks. Part of my disguise.” “Mmmm doesn’t work, can still see your face.”

“Why do you think Steve grew a beard?” she looked up at him

“Spangles grew a beard? A proper one?” Tony cocked his head to one side, eyebrow arching.

“Yup.” Katie nodded. “It was pretty impressive to be fair. I’ll show you a photo at some point.”

Pepper returned to the room at that point and Katie sat up, moving off Tony’s bed, pulling another chair up from the corner. He lasted approximately twenty more minutes before sleep overwhelmed him and he closed his eyes, out for the count.

“You should go.” Pepper looked over at Katie. Katie started to protest but Pepper cut her off. “I know you think you’re invincible, but you’re not. Maybe Steve won’t put his foot down with you over this but I will. You’ve had an ordeal, we all have, but you especially need to look after yourself. Go to bed.” “Damned.” Katie frowned “When did you get so bossy.”

“Comes from living with him.” she jerked her head at Tony “The amount of times I’ve found him collapsed over a computer.”

Katie smiled fondly before she clocked the stern look Pepper was giving her and stood up, “Fine…but…” “If anything changes I’ll get FRIDAY to call you straight away.” With a deep breath Katie stood up, dropped a kiss to Tony’s head and left. The rubber band that had been wrapped around her chest for so long had slackened but getting Tony back was the tip of the iceberg. She knew that the next step would be to find Thanos, and none of them would rest until they did.

After making sure Carol and Nebula were settled, and thanking them both for what they had done to get Tony back to them, Steve walked back to the apartment, grabbed a beer and headed out through the patio doors into the large garden area to let Lucky have a mooch around. He felt much better than he had in ages, like someone had slotted a large piece of the puzzle back into place. Once Tony was stronger, maybe they had a chance of finding Thanos and reversing all of this. And then, well, maybe then they could have a shot at being a family. He took a pull from his bottle and looked out over the grounds. It wasn’t a bad place to bring up a kid, he supposed. Or maybe they should get their own place, just like they almost had 3 years ago. The more he thought about it, the more he started to think that was the better option. Did he really want a kid surrounded by all of this? More to the point, he found himself wondering if he wanted himself surrounded by this anymore. A year or so ago, he’d jumped at the chance to get back into the thick of it, but now he just felt tired. He’d fought for so long, given so much, maybe it was time to get out, take a back seat like Tony had.

Taking a deep breath he finished his beer, called Lucky back to him and headed back inside. He’d just thrown his empty bottle into the recycling and was contemplating heading back to see how Tony was when the door to the apartment opened and Katie stepped inside. She looked tired, but almost, dare he say it, happy…

“Hey.” He greeted her as she shut the door “How is he?” “Sleeping.” she crossed the hall towards him “He’ll be out until the morning I expect.” “And you?” he asked, opening his arms.

She smiled, stepping into his embrace “I’m ok. What about you?” “Me?” he asked.

“Yeah.” she looked up at him. “Everyone seems hell bent on making sure I’m ok, they seem to forget you.” He took a deep breath, “It’s not important.” “It is to me.” she looked up at him.

“I’ve got you.” he shrugged “And well, as long as I do I’ll be fine baby doll.” “You’ll always have me.” she said gently, and then neither of them knew how but they were kissing again, picking up where they had left off before in the bathroom, the kisses growing violent as they both poured every bit of emotion into one another, both clawing at the other with a desperate touch. Steve fell towards her, pushing her back into the wall which separated the hallway from the kitchen area and pressed himself tightly against her. She slid her hands up beneath his top, her nails digging into his back, stinging his skin enough to elicit a deep, guttural moan. At that noise Katie let out a high pitched moan of her own as his hands skimmed down to the back of her thighs as he gripped tightly, hoisting her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and couldn’t help but mutter rapidly into his ear, amid tight, short gasps. “I need you Stevie, I need you, please.”

He dropped his lips to her neck, trailing his teeth along the arch of her shoulder. "I need you too.” his voice was dark and deep which made her moan even more, and he didn’t wait for a response before hoisting her higher and carrying her into the bedroom where he dropped her down onto the bed. His hands gently reached down and they separated long enough for him to remove her top, Katie repaying the favour as she pulled his jumper and vest off in one move before she threw her arms around him as his lips dropped again to her neck. He slipped one of his hands into her shorts and she bucked at his touch as he gently played with the flesh letting out a groan as he found her ready for him, slick and hot.

“Fuck.” he mumbled before his hand moved to the button at the front of her shorts and hers fell to the buckle on his belt, their mouths still tangled together as he kissed her hard, needily before he tugged on her knees, pulling her flat down. Taking her shorts and underwear off in a swift glide down the bed, he shimmied out of his jeans and boxers, Katie taking the chance to hastily remove her bra before he fell onto her once more, using his knees to push hers apart. He propped himself on his elbows and dropped down to kiss her, slamming his teeth into hers in desperation as she was clawing at his back, arching up as she groaned into the kiss, his name falling from her lips as he pulled away slightly.

“You’ll tell me if I hurt you?” he looked at her. She knew he was worried, so she gently reached out, running her finger over his once again smooth jaw line.

“Promise.” she assured him. He swallowed thickly and as he worked into her she let out a soft moan as he started to move slowly at first, almost patiently as she hiked her legs up around him. He wanted to take it slow, he really did, but he found he couldn’t, and she didn’t want him to either. She was urging him on and soon they were fucking with avaricious force, both chasing a gratification they hadn’t felt in weeks, and the more he gave the more she wanted.

Her hips met his with every drive forward he made as she writhed and mewled underneath him and it wasn’t long before she felt herself beginning to go. Steve could read her body signs better than she could herself and as her breath began to go he pressed his mouth back to her neck, groaning himself

“You feel so good, so fucking good.” his mouth nipped at her ear as he spoke “I love you so much, baby..” and that was it, with those words she was undone.

“Stevie.” His name tumbled from her lips, in little more than a squeak as she tightened round him again and again. Then, as the heat burst between her legs and the lights exploded in front of her eyes she let out a short gasp, her nails digging further into his back, smarting the skin as she succumbed. Steve kept thrusting through her orgasm, the coil in his own belly tightening more and more.

“Katie, fuck!” he closed his eyes, his head dropping to her shoulder and he spilled himself into her with a jerk and a moan before his elbows slowly slipped out from under him and he collapsed on top of her, their breathing coming in ragged gasps as they both lay delirious from the utter carnal nature of it all. Katie’s hands gently trailed up his back and into his hair to begin their usual caress, these moments after he loved as much as the act itself. Gently he moved his head to slide his nose against hers before he kissed her softly, tenderly this time as they held each other close.

Skin to skin, soul to soul, the pair of them as together as they could be, each lending the other a soothing reassurance that whilst they were still grieving, and would continue to grieve for however long they needed to, they hadn’t lost everything. They still had one another, and as long as they did, they would be ok in time.

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the-alfreton · 4 years

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I went through the new Destiny 2 trailer frame by frame so you don’t have to

This post is gonna be very pic heavy, so I’ve made it keep reading so it doesn’t clog your feed

(also none of what I say is confirmed I’m just a random guy on the internet)

So! That new Stasis trailer, huh?

It actually shows us a lot of stuff, including:

Our first look at the new armour sets for Europa

Some more weapons, including what I believe to be our first totally new exotic

A small peek inside what I think is the Deep Stone Crypt raid

Some rad new Fallen enemies!

And more!

So without further ado, let’s get into it:

Kicking this off with this, one of the first shots of the trailer, which seems to show a small hut in the distance with what looks like the Exo Stranger on the left, along with some other figures on the right that could potentially be Eris and / or the Drifter. This could be the landing / hub area of Europa, and looks suitably inhospitable.

We also get our first look at the new armour sets from behind, along with some of the new weapons, a scout rifle and what appears to be a sidearm in the second image. The scout rifle looks like it’s got a little PS Vita stuck to its side (RIP). We’ll get a better look at both the weapons and armour later. For now, look at how the Guardians make tracks in the snow!

First new Fallen enemy! Beyond Light doesn’t appear to be introducing a new enemy faction like Forsaken or Taken King, but is compensating with new types of Fallen enemies. This one in particular seems to be able to wield Stasis, and is dressed in the distinctive white robes of the House of Darkness.

Lots of House of Darkness banners strewn about the trailer in various locations. The House seems to be much stronger and more unified than the House of Dusk. Its symbol is hella swanky too

A look at what appears to be a new grenade launcher on the back of what seems to be a Hunter. Note the camping rucksack and the PS Vita on the grenade launcher. Good luck finding a memory card under fifty bucks

The dude who appears to be a Warlock (?) also has a backpack and a new weapon - one that looks like a pulse rifle, but again, it’s hard to tell. Note the little jerry can on the side of their waist.

NOW WE’RE TALKIN. Our first proper look at the armour sets. It’s hard to make out the details in the lighting, but it looks like the sets for, from left to right, Warlock, Titan and Hunter.

I also want to talk about the Warlock bond, which looks like it bears the same icon as several items from the Collector’s Edition of Beyond Light. The meaning of this icon is still beyond me.

Dayum Daniel back at it again with the Titan snowshoes

Another new Fallen enemy that will be familiar if you’ve played Scourge of the Past or seen the previous gameplay trailer. These appear to be smaller versions of the Insurrection Prime mech, perhaps a sign of the Kell’s Scourge joining the House of Darkness?

Another day another look at the PS Vita Grenade launcher

A couple of shots showing what looks to be a new heavy machine gun, with a nifty little scope. It seems to share the same blue and red colour scheme as the legendary weapon that was teased at Guardiancon a few weeks ago, shown below.

A much clearer look at the new hunter armour, along with the machine gun from the last image. The boots in particular look very snazzy.

We also get to see a first-person look at the hunter’s gauntlets as they prepare to throw some Stasis projectiles at some crucible opponents. Stasis is going to have a big impact on PvP and PvE alike.

The next shot shows some house of Darkness Fallen, clad in white fabric, in what looks like the Deep Stone Crypt raid, or at least the image of the raid that you can see on the Beyond Light page on bungie.net.

The server racks and the foggy red background in particular bear a strong resemblance to the ones in the raid teaser image, which leads me to believe this has a possibility of being our first look at the raid.

It’s time for some Stasis abilities! The first one we get a proper look at is the Warlock’s Ice staff. This one in particular looks like it’s being used for some kind of ranged ability, as opposed to a proper Super ability.

Up next is a Titan that looks like they’re using some kind of lunging melee ability, not unlike the melee ability for middle tree Striker Titan.

Here’s the cleanest shot I could find of the new SMG that pops up quite a bit in the trailer. The all-important PS Vita screen thingy can be observed just below the scope.

This next shot is pretty chaotic, but we get a look at a new bow that seems to share the same blue and red colour scheme as the machine gun. As an avid bow user, I’m pleased to see a new one here - all but three legendary bows are being vaulted in November.

Here we see a Titan preparing to slide into the DMs of some frozen enemies, shattering them in the process. The trails of Stasis ice that the Titan is kicking up behind them leads me to believe this may be some kind of sprint ability that lets you shatter frozen enemies.

Now we’re talking - Warlock Super time.

In the trailer, the Warlock uses their super to create a damaging Stasis field around them, kind of like a mobile Mei Blizzard from Overwatch. However, this could be just one move of a roaming super, and could have combos like Arcstrider.

Here we see a Titan getting up close and personal with some enemies - with a bazooka / sleeping bag strapped to their back. It doesn’t look like a stowed weapon - it’s probably part of the new Titan chest piece. Good luck fitting through doors come November.

Hell yeah. A great look at a Warlock with the new armour set wielding what looks like a new Exotic weapon - it bears a strong resemblance to the exotic teaser image on the Beyond Light page on Bungie.net. If you look closely at the bottom right hand side of the Warlock robes, you can see the same icon from the bond and water bottle from earlier.

The first person perspective of the exotic weapon is held in a very unique way, further evidence of it being an exotic. The way it’s held looks like a cross between Sweet Business and Jotünn.

The Fallen enemy that the Warlock is shooting at looks like he has a Stasis elemental shield, too. The enemy in question bears a strong resemblance to one we saw in the first gameplay trailer, shown below:

Here’s the goon in question. Note the same helmet, glowing eyes, pointy ear thingies and a black, angular device on their back. Perhaps some kind of device that lets them harness Stasis energy?

Another look at the new Fallen enemy from the very start of the trailer, wielding a pair of frozen swords formed from Stasis Ice. These swords bear some resemblance to the Shock Blades wielded by regular Fallen Captains, but with a few key differences. These ones are a lot colder and pointier, for example.

And here’s the final shot of the trailer - a Titan with their back sleeping bag / bazooka and the new exotic, a Warlock with their ice staff and a Hunter preparing to unleash an ice sickle (icicle?), all clad in Stasis energy.

And that’s all I could find! I tried to focus on smaller things that were easier to miss as opposed to big things like the cool new hunter grenade that makes ice walls and floors. This trailer was really neat - November is a long way away, but damn it’s gonna be something special.

Feel free to reply if you noticed something or have any theories. Thanks for reading through this post, and I hope you have an awesome day!

#destiny 2 #destiny beyond light #beyond light #destiny #destiny stasis #exo stranger #destiny fallen #I lost half my progress on this post when I tried to finish it the first time #I only cried a little #trailer analysis #frame by frame #destiny lore

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fuse2dx · 4 years

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August ‘20

Ruiner

Ruiner frames its action at an isometric tilt. There’s a lot of red; in the game’s interface, as the prominent colour of the neon lighting that adorns its stages, and in the blood that is frequently spilled. Its cyberpunk setting isn’t anything particularly new, but as a unifying aesthetic, the glitchy effects, and out-there personalities doing their best to cope in a dystopia do well to build a convincing and intriguing world. Stages are action packed and throb with electronic noise and big loud industrial bass hits, with the play being akin to an arena shooter; enemies surging at you in bite size, minute-at-a-time waves, with each of these closing out with a grading screen serving as the pat on the back to keep that dopamine rhythm pulsing. It’s a pretty hypnotic cocktail.

These stages evolve out of a singular hub city, and while it’s not particularly big, there’s just the right level of hubbub, and it has a lovely Hirusawa Susumu track acting as an excellent, melancholic mood-setter. Based on the size of its world and the the quick-fire action being split between a very small number of stages, it’s not surprising to say it’s fairly brief - I mean, how could it get so big? But what is important is that it’s plenty of fun and and has style by the bucketload. I got a good kick out of it.

Carrion

On one hand, a horror game where you play the horror is just the kind of flip on a genre that’s needed to freshen things up a bit. On the other, it’s one straight out of the spoof ‘Peter Molydeux’ playbook. What a carri-on.

... I’m sorry. After your initial escape from a lab, Carrion centres around a hub world, with individual stages then breaking off to allow for more specific themed stages. What you’re trying to do within these is to spread your big, goopy self around, where certain spots will act as save points but also count toward unlocking an alternative path back to the hub and opening up new routes in the process. What’s unique to this particular metroidvania take is that while there are new skills that open up new routes, your movement in general is uniquely freeform - point in a direction and off you go, free of any worries about platforming and the gravity that’d otherwise bind you. While it may not be the most precise movement given the size to which you grow - and boy does this become a point during some forms of combat - it does remain responsive, and quite fun to simply shamble about like a giant congealed blob of bloody, multi-toothed sinew-y mess. Everything scales up nicely on both sides of the fighting, with distraught pistol-equipped humans turning to shielded folks with flamethrowers, all the way up to drones and mechs that are just as mobile and / or deadly as yourself, even in spite of your own upgrades that allow for more ranged, varied, and sharper extremities. It’s not especially long, and is never so taxing as to demand too much expertise of you, but it is fun and importantly, quite unlike anything else out there.

Yoku’s Island Express

Pinball continues to feel like a lost art form to me, with the nuance of skilled play being more like a foreign language than another type of game you can easily pick up. Yoku, newly-appointed postmaster, is but a tiny little bug, and as such is indebted to these skills in his efforts to travel and clamber about an environment much larger than he. Flippers are casually littered about to shoot you from one area to the next, but there’s also plenty of sections you’re led to by the story that are small yet just detailed enough to play like a neatly sectioned off area of a complete table - complete with requirements for precise shots to move forward, and those inevitable moments where you have to sit back and watch as your ball falls with miserable, exacting precision between the flippers. Failure typically sets you back a few pickups, but given these are just as quickly re-earned, you’re never punished too hard - there’s certainly no three strikes and out mentality here. It’s a very friendly interpretation of pinball’s mechanics, and there’s a decent enough story layered on top, with its characters and art demonstrating enough pleasant charm that you can definitely see this being a great way to introduce pinball to a younger audience. That’s not to say it’s not enjoyable from an older player’s point of view - just that you know what’s being presented is a wisely palatable version of a classic hobby, rather than the arse-kicking ordeal you may be used to.

Rime

I am certain that Rime would love me to compare it to a certain Fumito Ueda PS2 game. There’s the ultra-minimal scene that’s set as a boy washes up on an island; a sparse, beautiful, somewhat Mediterranean set of landscapes, and with very few ways to interact with it all that don’t involve clambering over things or shouting out in wordless desperation. But as you’ll have noted, I haven’t found it in myself to justify using that game’s name here.

As much as I wanted to give this a chance, it often felt directionless, uninspired, and at worst, slow and tedious. The puzzles are derivative of any number of games I’ve played before, and the biggest danger is that you might assume as to their difficulty and over-engineer your approach, rather than not be able to tackle them. The platforming is simplistic and regularly drawn out with ledges, ledges, and more ledges to climb across and dangle from; even if you were to find a way to fall to your doom, as is tempting, it is unlikely to take you back much further than a few seconds. Crucially, there’s really very little to sink your teeth into on any front, and even when the game does finally start to weave some plot threads into the game’s canvas, it’s well into the latter half - long after I’d already racked my brains for any hint of an allegory that’d fit, and given up on expecting one. Sadly, to the point that the actual story felt like a cheap afterthought when it did finally start to unravel. This bounced off me much harder than I’d expected - I came away wishing it had forged a bit more of an identity and a purpose rather than just an aesthetic strung together with some weak elements of play.

If Found

As far as interactive elements in visual novel-type games go, If Found has a different approach to most. The story’s primarily told by means of a diary - one that’s full of witty observations, personal reflections and enigmatic sketches - that you actively erase as a means to push events along. The diary belongs to Kasio, a trans girl returning to their small Irish hometown after a stint away at university in the city; a return that’s not met in the warmest or most understanding fashion. As a mechanic, the erasure of this diary is loaded with meaning; peeling back layers of a scene often matches a more poignant set of observations, and the scrubbing of such personal details away offers a painful reflection on an identity being chipped away at. It’s very much a story about finding one’s self, about coming of age, and as it rides these highs and lows it does an excellent job in making you ride along these alongside the characters, and it does one hell of a job to make you think about the compassion that you both see and offer in the world outside. I’ll put my hands up and say that there are some elements of the story running in parallel to this main one that didn’t gel with me quite so well, but this is a minor footnote to an otherwise highly enjoyable play through. In a short space of time, Annapurna have done a great job in winning me over with their publishing choices - particularly in holding up the kinds of voices and ideas that fit these smaller titles so perfectly.

Double Kick Heroes

It’s a rhythm game. I like rhythm games! It’s about a zombie apocalypse. Oh no. It’s... a heavy metal rhythm game? Ok, maybe we can work with this.

After a trailer name dropping a bunch of familiar artists - Jinjer, Carpenter Brut, Gojira - what surprised me straight off was that none of these licensed artists featured in the game’s story mode. They’re all sectioned off in a separate menu, and while on the bright side they’ve each given a unique stage with a visual theming in keeping with the bands in question, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Instead, all tracks throughout the story were composed by just one person, and with only a small handful of featured musicians being included to diversify things. It starts with more (arguably) palatable hard rock numbers, but goes up to and includes grindcore, death metal, black metal and the like, meaning that not only is it going to put a lot of folks off right away, but that it’s asking a heck of a lot for one composer to cover all of these sub-genres with the appropriate care. While it was refreshing to hear some types of music I’d normally not expect to hear in a game, some tracks inevitably grated, and while I enjoyed some others, I wasn’t ever bowled over too strongly either.

The story itself is fairly by the numbers. It sees an on-tour band fighting back against a zombie uprising, and has unsubtle references to any number of heavy artists, albums and songs shoe-horned in at every opportunity. It also bears the hallmarks of its dialogue being written by someone that has a very particular sense of humour which personally all fell very flat. While the team undoubtably do love music, the over-enthusiastic style rubbed me in a similarly uncomfortable fashion as Jack Black does regularly, with his half-comedian, half-musician schtick. The gameplay itself is based around the drum parts of its songs also corresponding to different weaponry on your car that holds the hordes back, and while this on its own can prove tricky, higher difficulties also mounts other expectations - like steering your vehicle, or alternating pedals to shoot different parts of the screen. Some of my frustration with all of this is likely my own fault for having chosen to play on the ‘Hard’ difficulty, but traditional wisdom feels a little bit lost when you can still get damaged when your combo meter is racked up well into triple digits.

In all, Double Kick Heroes presented some pretty unique gaming scenarios; like having to work out the best controller configuration to play blast beats with, or asking out loud “did I just hear the words ‘we are Genital Absolution’ coming from a Nintendo console?”, and it’s clearly a small team working on something they really care about. I respect that. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was hoping, but I hope they’re proud of what they’ve created.

Manifold Garden

A puzzle game taking significant inspiration from the works of M.C. Escher is a pretty good starting point in my eyes. It being presented in a wonderful manner certainly doesn’t harm either; from the UI all the way into the game, it’s beautifully clean and defined, opting for delicate shading rather than messy textures, and with its intricate, recursive geometric patterns, you’ll likely find cause to stop and take stock on a regular basis.

One button looks after your basic interactions with the world (pushing, picking up, and so on), with your other crucial way of interacting with the world being the ability to approach a surface and then assign it as ‘the new down’ - spinning everything about an axis, planting your feet to it, and changing your perspective on everything. There’s a nice steady introduction of puzzle pieces as you ease your way in, but they all stem gracefully from these simple mechanics. That I - not the world’s greatest puzzle gamer - was able to enjoy this without every getting too stuck may hint at it perhaps not being as complex as some puzzle fiends might desire, however this amounted to me coming out the other side with great waves of satisfaction, and nought but positives to say. I would go so far as to say that it’s the most fun I’ve had playing a puzzle game in a long, long time, and to boot it’s also perhaps the game where I’ve used the screenshot button the most copiously. Wonderful stuff.

#ruiner #carrion #yoku's island express #rime #double kick heroes #manifold garden

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themockingcrows · 4 years

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Companionship Through Circuitry Ch. 3: Uploading

Not all uploads are created equal. Bro/Hal Also available on AO3!

Upload me, Bro.

“Don’t you need a stronger interface than that? Would you even work with that thing?”

I was designed to functionally overwrite data when necessary, and if that means re-writing the code of a simple wrecker then so be it. Upload me.

Bro sighed a bit. He had his reservations now that he was starting to get used to Hal’s voice and attitude, and the concept of potentially losing him because he didn’t want to take a lengthy detour was kind of obnoxious. But hey, what did he know, he was just a post-war guy taking directions from an AI who seemed to know his own capabilities far better. Against his better judgement, Bro took the shades off of his face and fished out the connection cable, following Hal’s advice to locate where an entry port could be positioned based on the make and model of the machinery at hand.

The massive structure was meant to replace cranes for more basic movements, the continuous track treads far superior to wheels and the mobility vastly improved. The behemoth whirred to life a few moments after Ambrose finished the upload cycle, glasses still gently dangling by their cord till he ducked forward and tucked them somewhere less conspicuous. The droid moved its appendages, orienting itself as Hal took control and sussed out the operational maneuvers for each piece. It was a strangely human motion, the sensors of the face looking down at the pincer hands before giving them a whirl and twirl, clicking them together a few times to gauge the pressure.

Right. Step back.

Thank fuck this was temporary. Hearing the modulation of Hal’s voice was jarring, booming and decidedly electric from the audio core even with its damage and residue. When he stood fully upright, many times taller than Ambrose, it was with the soft screech of abused metal and rust. This wasn’t going to last forever, but it should last long enough to move a few barriers out of the way. Hal whirred forward excitedly and clasped both pincers into the edge of a stacked vehicle long since crashed, tugging it a few times before the body gave way to motion and the entire pile began to move. Ambrose wasn’t certain what all would be beyond where they could see, but he had a feeling that getting through the blockade would open up some options.

Or, you know, trap him underground to die a horrible death. But who’s keeping track of anything, right?

With much whirring and churning metal, Hal eventually moved several wrecked cars that had acted as a barricade between them and the rest of the bridge that seemed sturdy enough to cross as far as he could see. So the asphalt was gone in a few places, the girders and skeletal aspects of the bridge were still plenty intact for a man and a pair of sunglasses to pass unhindered so long as they didn’t gain too much attention. Or at least got away from the ruckus of attention they were currently causing right now.

I changed my mind, can I stay in this longer?

“No. You cleared the junk and I can cross now, get back in the glasses so we can leave,” Bro said, already sensing where this was going.

What if there’s more junk on the other side of the bridge? Or in the center? Wouldn’t it be handy to have someone who would be able to move it easier? Hal asked, giving his hands another whirr for emphasis as if Bro could have somehow forgotten the difference between a set of pointed shades as a fully fledged wrecker droid.

“I said no. How much power does that thing have left anyways?”

Enough to enjoy getting over the bridge in style.

“And if I don’t feel like travelin’ with a gigantic fuckin’ target on my back?” Bro asked. “What then, hm? Everything in a mile prolly heard all this noise, you’re not exactly dainty with your maneuverin’.”

I believe you’d benefit more from me in this shape for a while. I’m enjoying having hands, that’s a bonus. And being able to move where I want to, Hal said as he backed up and did a quick turn as he could on the tracks. I could serve as a shield if required, or lift things to be a shield for you.

Bro ran his tongue over his teeth. The offer DID sound kind of appealing when put like that… but he knew it’d bite him in the ass just as soon, knowing his luck. He shook his head and went over towards the shades, tapping them with his fingers.

“Nope. In you go.”

But what if I just followed along behind you.

“And if we get separated how’m I supposed to get to your body then, huh? Want me to get there on my own, without you, and put somethin’ stupid in there?” Ambrose asked with a smirk. “The best body they could have created for you, the body your creator dude wanted for you, all goin’ to waste so I have someone to play Pong with.”

Hal was silent for a moment before the massive droid looked down with a creak of metal. He could practically hear him squinting.

You wouldn’t dare.

“Spoken like someone who doesn’t know me very well,” Ambrose said with a shrug, both hands lifted up for emphasis at how helpless he was in the situation overall. “You think I wouldn’t kill to have a good quality droid be my butler and play stupid games with me? Dude, my kid left for the city already, who’s gonna fill the void for me now if not that or a bitchy AI.”

The droid looked towards the bridge again, sensors trying to run how he’d normally run to assess risks before realizing the hardware just wasn’t up to spec to do what he wanted to do. This body was made for moving things, for lifting and toting, for sorting, not for detecting stealth routes a companion could take to an objective. Ever so slowly the droid bowed down and let its arms go limp, the shades chiming and beeping a short time later to alert Ambrose it was time to remove the connection and put him back on safely. While Ambrose wouldn’t say he missed having the weight on his face and the shade over his eyes, there was no denying a bit of fondness for the habit. It was nice not having his retinas toasted.

“I see my offer was too much to resist.”

You’re a bastard. I’ll not have my body sullied like that. If it does something foolish it will be because I will it to do something foolish, not any other way.

“Sure thing,” Ambrose said as he started up the bridge, pulling his blade out to keep it at the ready, grip light. He resisted the temptation to spin it or do bored tosses like he would while at home or doing detail work on it, keeping his hands ready to put lethal force behind the steel at a moments notice. The bridge itself seemed like it had been used in the past as shelter, or a lookout point. Chairs were arranged beneath a sheet metal roof with a standee wall against the side of a toppled truck, and garbage lay strewn about the broken glass that crunched beneath Bro’s boots. At every turn there could be a human being or worse.. yet all seemed quiet for now. Abandoned. Empty.

Packrat by nature, Bro took a moment to peer into different cars that they passed to see if any of them had been used as more shelter, or used to store any spare belongings that nobody would miss. There didn’t seem to be much on hand, however. Spent shells, empty cans and bottles, ragged blankets, clothes that reeked of sweat and in one car the sweet sickly smell of feces. One front seat had a few gadgets that slowed Ambrose’s steps to peek however, grinning in amusement.

“Oh, hey, I remember readin’ about these things,” he mused, reaching through broken glass to pick up a blocky hand held game system with a melted looking cartridge. The screen was cracked, but the buttons looked well worn. Must’ve taken a lot of abuse to wind up like that, those things were supposedly indestructible in their time. He dropped it back onto the seat it had come from and the bit of bones that rested here and there as well. The original owner? An art project by some bored creep? Hard to guess honestly and not really his place to wonder about.

There’s something else there, Hal pointed out, zeroing in the target t’s to direct Bro’s attention to the keychain looking item shaped like an egg. He reached again and plucked it up, rubbing a thumb over the dirty screen with a hum. A flip over and he nodded a bit.

“Some other kinda game I guess..? Looks like it’s self contained and takes a smaller battery. Doubt it’s like yours, is it?”

No, most likely that type of device ran on a watch battery. Do you not know what it is?

“Is it not a game?”

It is a game where you are tasked with keeping a small creature alive by meeting all of its needs and wants.

Bro snorted. “I’ve raised a baby, I think I can live without a game reproducin’ the experience.”

Yet.. it had been some of the best years of his life. Boiling water to make sure it was safe for Dave’s baby bath, washing hair so fine it was barely there. Messy cheeks in the high chair as he figured out how to feed himself, skinned knees and bandages, late night visitors to his bed whenever there was an electrical storm outside or when the winds screamed out over the desert like hungry dogs. Those big red eyes in the dark asking if it was safe when people came too close to their hidden home, listening to the distant explosions of deterrents and traps going off left and right. Those same red eyes staring up at him for the tenth, the hundreth, the thousandth time he’d knocked him down to make him get back up and keep fighting.

Bro swallowed hard for a moment, throat suddenly uncomfortably dry. He knew it was wrong. He knew deep down it had been too much, but there was no choice. Not when the world wouldn’t hesitate even a single second before putting a bullet in his head if he didn’t take the initiative and attack first. He could tell himself that a thousand times and yet it didn’t change anything.

Bro closed his hand around the toy and stuck it into his pocket without a second’s hesitation.

“Might make for a fun project later though. Maybe I can re-program it, give it a better battery. Somethin’ simple like a time waster to take the edge off should be easy.”

How many pet projects do you intend to keep on your person?

“As many as I feel like, considerin’ one is already on my face. What, suddenly attached to the idea of being an only child?”

I am not a child. If anything, I would prefer if you spoke to me like an adult instead of like one of your wards. Keep it in mind, Bro.

“Yes Mom.”

That is not what I meant when I sai-

“I’m kidding,” Ambrose said as he fished his hand back out of his pocket and continued to walk, suddenly less interested in browsing the potential second hand belongings than he was about getting off the bridge and continuing Northwards. He’d dallied too long as it was, and while things seemed plenty deserted up here, he didn’t want that to stop being a thing any time soon thanks to their broadcast position.

You know, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before. But I have radio functionality, if you would enjoy to listen to something as you walk.

He snorted. “Yeah? The same ten stations, no thanks. Propaganda, interviews with dumbasses, or the same fifty songs over and over. Nobody knows how to find decent music, and the songs that’re any good get played so often you get sick of them. Nobody makes anything new either.”

I also possess some selections Dirk enjoyed, if you would prefer listening to those. They may prove to be something more to your taste, he was particular about what he listened to.

“Particular how?”

He was particularly ardent in enjoying what he liked and stubbornly sitting through what he didn’t like before deleting it from any device he listened to it on. Let me play a sample, Hal offered before going quiet and chiming softly to signal he was changing focus.

Bro stopped walking when the music started, quiet near his ears to not block out incoming noise but loud enough to hear the quickly pronounced words and heavy beat, the tempo driving into his skull enough that he tapped his foot in time with it. Soon he was bobbing his head, catching the tune even without knowing the words, and smirking in amusement.

“Not quite what I’m used to, no. But it’s nice. Feel free to keep’em coming while we head on, yeah? Turn them off if you detect something approaching,” he instructed.

But of course, Bro. I’m not an idiot, said Hal in a more modulated voice than usual behind the thrum of the music.

When he began to walk again, the beat added a new cadence to his step and made the walking go by quicker than before. In no time at all he was over the bridge and on the other side of the water, taking in his surroundings with the same eyes of the curious and the mildly kleptomanic. Every new venue was a new opportunity, especially when there were what looked like stores in the distance. Hell, now that he had his new pet project he’d need a few parts, wouldn’t he?

“...Mm. Hal, that sign says ‘Toys’ in part of the name, right?”

It would seem so. It was likely a location of the Time For Toys brand from before the war, Hal offered. It could potentially be something else, but the orientation of those letters makes the likelihood of it being anything else quite low.

“Perfect. Let’s go shoppin’.”

Giving another glance to the toy in his pocket, guessing what size of batteries to keep an eye out for adjustments sake later on, Bro strode towards the building bearing the toy slogan and let himself inside without a second thought.

Perhaps he should have thought twice. There were few places as unnerving as an abandoned toy shop that had sat this long through destruction and disuse. Rows and rows of figurines, dolls, moth eaten soft toys, accessories, and toy cars rested on the shelves and from dangling sorting rods that stuck out at even intervals. Everything was silent save for his footsteps, and Hal kept focusing the t’s on various rodents that were startled by the sudden invasion. As far as humans went, it seemed most had stayed clear. There just wasn’t much use for toys after the war he supposed.

...Okay, bullshit, he kind of wished he’d known this place existed when Dave was a baby. He probably would have loved a lot of these things, instead of making do with the things Bro could make him. Smuppets were amazing, and so were the other puppets and the electronic things, but sometimes a kid just needs a teddybear. He poked one with blue button eyes and sawdust stuffed feet, its floppy soft arms resting alongside its torso with fabric claw tips resting alongside its thighs. The bear fell over with a soft whump and a bit of dust in the air, leaving Bro free to quietly explore the graveyard of toys.

Past a section of toy balls that had long since deflated, baseballs and mitts, were electronic toys. Dollies that talked and horses and dogs and cats that made realistic noises seemed to be all the rage, but along with them hung more of the egg shaped toy he had in his pocket in different colors, still in the package. Whistling softly, still nodding along with the tempo on the song Hal continued to play, he grabbed several of the packages and batteries from the end of the display cap to stuff into his bag.

That was when he saw it. Soft, fluffy, and apparently capable of movement and speech. The small creature was hard to decipher at a glance species wise. It had a beak and two big eyes that could apparently blink when they weren’t staring into your soul, a small sensor in its forehead, and two massive ears. Two fat, pudgy paws rested at its base in front of a set of wheels that offered free movement.

Furby.

An apt name, Bro supposed. The little thing was furry as hell, soft to his rough fingered touch and fairly sweet looking with its black and white fur pattern. The external fluff seemed to safeguard a sizeable chunk of electronics from what he could guess thanks to a testing squeeze. ...Interesting.

What are you so distracted by now.

“You think you’d be capable of driving one of these?” Bro asked curiously. “It’s got wheels and seems like it can maneuver around on its own from an AI. Talks too.”

I’d rather die. So there is your answer.

“But it’s possible,” Bro continued. “You were able to work that droid back there just fine. Think of how useful this would be for checking out crowded buildings.”

Wouldn’t an RC car be more useful for exploration purposes.

“Hey, I never said I wouldn’t mod this thing,” Bro said as he continued to feel the edges of the furby before turning it and cutting the edge of its fur open, removing the skin messily to get a better look at what lay beneath. “Look. See? A lot of these guts’re useless. Could take them out, put better power and mobility, maybe add a weapon.. Maybe connect the innards of a walkie talkie in there too, or some radio parts to keep in contact.”

It was a whole new project idea. The egg toy was one thing, but this. This was something entirely new. And the fact that Hal hated it so much on sight was kind of appealing.

Are you implying you plan to weaponize a furby.

“Yes. I’m also implyin’ I’d like to see you pilot the damn thing if I can make it work how I want it to. Could set you loose on a floor and let you roll around doin’ your own damn thing, keep shit off you left and right, let me know what you see. You’d be able to help me out.”

And the reason I couldn’t do that with the big droid is…?

“Batteries, bein’ inconspicuous, and portability. I can stuff one of these things in my bag easy, and nobody would expect one of these to be anything important,” he hummed, mind already going wild. Dave would love it.

No, Dave would probably hate it and say he was taunting God but Dave wasn’t here right now and Bro was itching to customize. He glanced back the way he’d come before putting his tongue between his teeth, thinking.. and then grabbing another furby identical to the one he’d de-skinned. He’d need to strip it cleaner, treat it nicer, figure out how these fuckers ticked. Manual was probably in the box somewhere, but even if it wasn’t how hard would it be to figure out a children’s toy?

“I think I know where we’re campin’ tonight. Lemme just grab a few things and we’ll find a spot to nest down.”

I’m never touching that thing, I have no idea why you look like a child with a new toy.

“Because I’m a man-child with several new toys,” corrected Bro as he wandered the aisles, looking for radios or walkie talkies. Paydirt came in the form of a pair of ‘authentic army navy walkie talkies’ whose authenticity he seriously doubted even with their rather pretty camouflage patterning just based on the materials he felt beneath his fingers. These casings would be easy enough to pop with his hands, let alone with his tools, they could really have stood to make these sturdier. He’d kill for a good blowtorch though, maybe make some kind of a shell underneath the furby fur to-

You’re a maniac. You do know that, correct? I can’t hear your thoughts but the things you’re looking at are alarming when placed with the potential logic.

“I think you mean genius, thanks. Shoosh now, I’m tryin’ to find Frankenfurb some more parts,” Bro hummed, tucking the walkie talkies beneath his arm before finding a shopping basket. There. Much better. Like a pre-war man he wandered the aisles, snagging things that looked useful or interesting or, in the case of his eventual sleeping, soft. His sleeping spot back behind the main register ina protected circle of countertops was soon piled high with plushes and surreptitiously dotted with his electronic findings and various tidbits he planned to use for parts. Doll clothes, while overall worthless to him, still had elastic bands inside of them and the fabric wasn’t flammable. Useful. He even found a child size pair of sunglasses he’d already made plans for, so long as he was able to control the melting properly.

Peeling off his boots and settling back with his supper, Bro opened his bag and set to work toying with his new toys. First everything had to be opened and examined, taken apart, and in some places scrapped entirely down to their base components until he had a small pile of tidbits at his disposal. The toy from earlier seemed to be damaged even when he tried to power it on, but the new packaged replacements just needed to have their old battery removed and replaced with something new to turn on. He already knew how he wanted to update it, especially since there seemed to be a data port that would fit Hal’s cable to it. He failed to say it, but it would be a good emergency backup for transportation should anything ever happen to the shades.

The furby would be his prize. Off went its two toned furry skin, out came its voice box and innards, and in went an assortment of new parts.. Including a salvaged port from one of the extra egg toys Bro had grabbed. He’d worked well into the night by the time he put the skin back on and proudly wiped the beak clean before adding the tiny shades, grinning proudly at it.

“Might need some more tweakin’, and I wanna get a proper laser to put in the thing.. But for now it should be able to move around easier and communicate back to the matchin’ walkie talkie,” he said, gesturing over to his creation with both hands and a wide smile.

It’s hideous.

“You’re gonna be in there eventually, Hal, mark my words.”

If it comes down to being a matter of life or death, I consider my life to have been a full one until you can repair me properly.

“You’d rather be dead than have some mobility and autonomy while helpin’ me out?” Bro asked, rummaging in his bag for some water to quench his thirst, using a bit more to wipe his face with now that sleep was settling into his brain.

Did I fucking stutter.

“All I hear is someone who’s bitchy and in denial about the frankenfurb.”

Bro’s vision faded briefly to display those red eyes once more, though this time they were giving a decided roll before his vision faded back in.

When a furby is on the line, Bro, I will be as bitchy as I please.

#bro strider #lil hal #brohal #stridercest #homestuck #my fic

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a-shiro-by-any-other-name · 5 years

Text

Welcome Back (Shiro x F!Reader) N$FW

Hi guys! Here's a little something I've been working on for a long time that I forced myself to finish by Shiro's birthday. Happy birthday to everyone's favorite sexy space dad! ;3

I hope someone out there enjoys it.

(The under the cut function on mobile is fuckin up and I cant fix it atm. My apologies)

To read on Ao3 under my main account CapsuleCorpDame:

https: //archiveofourown.org/works/17957087

Shiro had finally returned to the Castle of Lions after disappearing. Relieved from the constant anxiety you felt in his absence, your emotions got the better of you. But before you could cover up your true feelings, he confessed his love to you. Later in the night he noticed you were wearing his shirt to sleep.

“You can have it back if you want it.”

“No- no, you can keep it. It looks good on you.” He smirked.

“Are you sure?” You grabbed the bottom hem of your shirt with crossed arms about to lift it up past your shoulders. Slack-jawed and beet red he stared down at where your hands were.

“W-well….when you put it that way…”

“Y/N” Shiro stood there before you with his freshly cut hair and clean-shaven face. The day before, he had emerged from the shuttle with straggly long hair, a thin beard forming from his jaw. His haircut made him look more youthful than the undercut he had before. He was cleaner now, but you could still see the dark circles under his eyes. Of course you had been worried about him since he disappeared. The others were upset too but it showed on you and Keith the most. As stubborn as Keith was he didn’t want to talk much about it, and you didn’t want to burden anyone else with your pain; but it did show.

Upon his arrival you caught a glimpse of his disheveled face and ran off to your room to cry. To you it was irrational. You were happy he was back but who were you to him really? To sob in front of everyone was too embarrassing. You decided to wait for him to approach you first which didn’t take very long.

Looking up at him you were speechless. You knew you looked like absolute hell and chose to bury your face in his chest, arms squeezing his waist tightly. Your breath hiccupped as the tears made their way onto his shirt.

“What- happened to you…?” It finally came out. He ran his fingers through your hair as you trembled against him, digging your nails into his sides, in an attempt to stable yourself.

“I only remember escaping from a Galra ship on an escape pod. I have no memory of anything before that…” His other hand wrapped around your back. You grip on him loosened and you turned your head to press your forehead against his chest. A deep breath helped you compose yourself.

“I’m so glad you’re back.” You tried to smile at him knowing that your feelings for him were probably very apparent.

“I wanted to talk to you about something… do you mind if we take this to my room?”

Your heart skipped a beat. His room? Was its really that personal and private? Maybe he wanted to confront you about your feelings and didn’t want to embarrass you out in the open. You let go of his waist and nodded in acceptance. The two of you walked side by side in silence down the hallway. Shiro looked around when you approached his bedroom door, assuming it was to make sure no one was around to see. The door slid open and he ushered you in. It was amazing how immaculate his room was after all this time, the man sure was disciplined. He sat down at the edge of his perfectly-made bed and patted the spot next to him to signal you over. You tried to sit more comfortably than you felt but kept a small distance between you as to not seem so clingy.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think since I’ve been trying to get back to the castle…I had been trying to avoid talking about this for a while now until I saw how upset you just were.”

Involuntarily you gulped but tried to hold eye contact. Gears were turning in your head to try and find any words to stop him from finishing.

“I don’t want to hide it anymore. The gravity of our situation kept me from acting out on it but now I grasp that we could die at any time out here…”

What was he talking about? You suddenly realized this wasn’t about what you thought. “I’ve had feelings for you for some time now…and I don’t expect you to reciprocate them, but I wanted to tell you so that maybe we could move forward.”

“…What?” your mouth wouldn’t close. Did he just confess that he likes me?

“I- I don’t mean we have to have a romantic relationship! I just meant that if you didn’t feel the same that we could look past this and pretend it never happened!”

“I don’t understand… I’m a potato. Why would you want to be with a potato?”

He looked more confused than you. “A…potato? Why would you compare yourself to a potato? You don’t look anything like a potato, unless it’s because they’re delicious?”

You snort laughed at his response and covered your mouth, smashing your forehead into his shoulder. God he was so cute. You threw your arms around him in an embrace. “I don’t think I’ll ever comprehend why you like me, but I thought it was obvious that I liked you…”

He held you back tightly, pressing his nose to your temple. “I knew you cared for me, but I didn’t want to assume it was more than friendship. I really missed you… I was afraid I’d never get to tell you how I felt.” His breath tickled your ear as he spoke.

“I always felt like I was just annoying you!” you practically shouted into his neck.

“I don’t think you’re annoying, I think you’re fun!” He pressed a kiss to your cheek and your face immediately became hot. “Does this mean…you want to give us a shot?” He pulled back to look at your face. He too had a blush on his cheeks under his scar. Agreeing that time was too short, you began to close your eyes and lean in to him. The tips of your noses slid past each other abruptly bringing your lips together sloppily. You could feel how smooth his lips were when you brushed by them. It took a second to reform your lips for a proper kiss, aiming to place your lips around his bottom one. You had dreamt of this moment for so long the feeling was overwhelming. He initiated the second kiss gliding his hand from your hair across your jaw cradling your face. Outside the door you heard a small stampede passing by, a certain blue paladin shouting: “Dinner!” as if it were miracle.

“Maybe we should…” Shiro pulled away as if to suggest following them. You nodded in agreement, unsure of how the two of you would eventually reveal your relationship to the others. The two of you went to the dining hall rather awkwardly, at least to you. Throughout dinner you couldn’t help but steal glances at Shiro now that your brain was overclocked with thoughts of him. When he caught you, he would smile until someone distracted him with conversation. At one point he silently gestured you had goo left on your lip, to which you used your thumb to wipe it off before licking your thumb. It was innocent enough as you weren’t looking directly at him when you did it but the thought sparked something in him.

Dinner was over and it seemed that everyone decided to go their separate ways for the night. Shiro had said he was going to retire for the evening but you weren’t sure if you should talk to him further. Trying to keep a sense of normalcy you said nothing and went to your room to shower.

Shiro wanted to continue being with you but was unsure what he would say. He ended up walking up to your door, stopping when he heard the sound of your voice. You were…singing. He rested his hand on the door, pausing to recall the times you had sung in the shower before. The words were often muffled but he still liked to sit outside your door to listen so long as he knew no one would come by and spot him. He took a seat next you your door for old time’s sake.

The shower had taken a tad bit longer than you planned once you decided to shave. Shave for what? Most of the time you didn’t care about your body hair since no one ever saw it but… maybe tonight…no. Outside the bedroom door sat Shiro, waiting until he felt enough time had passed to let you unwind after the shower. Hearing footsteps in the hallway he immediately got to up to go back to his room to avoid whoever it was. Given up, he decided to wait to talk to you tomorrow instead.

You lie down on your bed naked, chosen to air dry tonight. The sheets felt good against your newly smooth skin, but you couldn’t stay nude all night. You never knew when there’d be an emergency, and learned that the hard way. Over time you had secretly collected shirts from the other paladins (aside from Pidge since she was much smaller) to use as sleep attire. Hunk and Shiro’s shirts had proven to be most useful but when Shiro had disappeared you couldn’t help but take a few more from his room out of grief. The scent brought you comfort. His shirt and a pair of shorts would be your usual pajamas.

Lying in bed unable to sleep, you had no idea how much time had passed but you were growing restless. Boldly you chose to go bother Shiro, but it took you a while to finally get to the door. You contemplated what you would do if he were asleep. You couldn’t just wake him up after all he’s been through. The halls were dark and quiet except the faint sound of the video game you assumed Pidge was playing on the big screen in the common room. Taking a deep breath, you knocked on his door lightly.

“Shiro…?” You tried to stay quiet by bringing you mouth close to the door.

“Come in.”

You pressed the button on the code entry to have the door slide open for you. Back pressed against the headboard Shiro sat up in his bed. You stood in the door-way unsure of what to do. He waved you over with a smile. Practically jumping onto his bed

“Is this my shirt?” He slipped his thumb into the back of your collar to look at the tag.

“Did Takashi Shirogane just look down the back of my shirt!?”

“Well technically it’s my shirt so…”

You play-slapped his chest in awe at his joke. “You can have it back if you want it.”

“No- no, you can keep it. It looks good on you.” He smirked.

“Are you sure?” You grabbed the bottom hem of your shirt with crossed arms about to lift it up past your shoulders. Slack-jawed and beet red he stared down at where your hands were.

“W-well….when you put it that way…” He touched his forehead to yours before pressing your hip back downwards to the bed. This was really happening! You slid your hands behind his neck to plant a kiss on him, gesturing approval. His Galra arm was positioned above your head, supporting his weight over you, as his left hand gently cupped around your hip. His mouth never left yours even when he paused to bite his lower lip in anticipation. You ran your fingers through his hair relishing the soft texture between your digits. Stealing glances at his face, you became proud at how intense his expression was as he hovered over you. His eyes stayed closed as you began to nudge his mouth open with the tilt of your head. You softly bit his bottom lip, arching your back as the kiss ended. This triggered him to let out a breathy exhale at the crook of your neck, sliding his rough hand up the hem of your shirt.

“Y/N… we shouldn’t…” But his mouth ended up on the soft spot of your neck.

You let out a gasp from the tingling sensation. “W-why not?” You raised your knee to graze your thigh against his groin, feeling a hard surprise. In response he ground into you, while bringing his thigh up against your wetness.

“Is this really what you want?” He completely stilled himself awaiting a response.

“Yes…” you thrust yourself against him again, this time attacking his neck with kisses.

With a groan he followed your rhythm with his hips, no longer concerned with any doubts he may have had. Over and over, he kept the pace, gradually increasing the pressure as much he could without inciting a burn. Your hands slid around his shoulders and down to the waistband of his sweatpants. Hooking your thumbs under the fabric, egging him on. He gave a husky growl, causing him to stop and trace both hands up your sides under the fabric, face buried in your neck, looking into your eyes asking for permission to continue. You arched your back and slid downwards on the bed, letting him glide the cloth up over your breasts and taking it completely off you. Immediately he nuzzled his face against your chest, gliding his tongue over your nipple. You produced a moan before he took it upon himself to knead the other nipple between his fingers.

“Jesus Christ!” Your thoughts were going wild and you resumed dry humping the life out of him. You grabbed at his shirt feeling his toned back, as you desperately wanted to feel his skin against yours. He paused when he realized this.

“Y/N-” He didn’t bring his eyes to yours. “My body isn’t… all that pleasant to look at.” Imagining that he was referring to his scars, you reassured him.

“I don’t believe that. I need to feel you against me.” You pulled at his shirt again with no more resistance from him. The poor man was battered and littered with pink, raised scars. Despite that he was of course jacked beyond belief. To avoid possibly seeing your shocked expression he immediately went back to fondling your chest with his tongue. You arched your back and relished in all the warmth this man was bathing you in. His fingers traced your skin downwards, leaving a tickling sensation behind before slipping his massive hand under both layers in your shorts. You let out a gasp at his bold gesture.

“Nnhh you’re so wet.” His fingers were sliding around every crevice that was smothered in your wetness, trying to spread it was far as he could. Out of desperation you bucked your hips causing his finger to slide into you inadvertently. You both groaned in response. Immediately he pulled out and yanked your shorts and panties right off your hips. In slight embarrassment you clamped your thighs together, face turning an even brighter red.

“Now now, no need to be self-conscious. Today we’re overcoming our insecurities, right?” He gingerly grabbed your thighs and pried them open, watching your expression to make sure you still wanted it. Your insecurity washed away as soon as he plunged his finger back inside you. It was thicker and deeper than your own fingers could ever go. Moaning, you moved against him in response. Taking the hint, he drew out his digit and slowly pushed it back in, feeling you from the inside. The wet sound and glistening image drove him over the edge. Using his other hand, he parted you open and dove in tongue first against your clit. You let out a long moan in pleasant surprise. It had been so long since you felt this good. His tongue lapped you up while his fingers filled you over and over; it was getting to be too much in the best way. Seeing the muscles on his back flexing as he fingered you was exciting you even more. “Oh fuck…” you couldn’t help but to moan as your back arched. It was too late to turn back; the intense stimulation had you seeing stars before you could stop yourself. Riding out the wave of pleasure; you knew it wasn’t going to be enough. He pulled away and wiped his mouth on his arm.

Reaching your fingers around the elastic of his pants, you began pulling them down away from his hips. You kissed him as leaned back, as he helped you undress him. Springing forth from his boxers his member looked strained for release, immediately hitting his stomach, erect.

As you egged him backwards towards the bed you crawled downwards to trace your tongue along his shaft. He let out a deep groan when you wrapped your lips around the tip. Unable to take him fully in your mouth, you used one hand to grasp the rest and the other hand slipped under his balls. You sucked him as far as your throat would let you without gagging. Rhythmically you slid him in and out making sure your tongue massaged every inch it could. His groaning was red-hot indulgence to your ears. You could tell he was trying not to slam dick down your throat. “Y/N…” your name escaped his lips. Hissing, he gently pushed you away from his groin to steal a kiss. Sliding his big hands under your ass, he scooped you towards him making sure your wet slit was pressed up against his crotch. Mouths intertwined, your hands around his neck, he pulled you back and fourth against him making sure you were good and soaked for him to enter. Gingerly, he slid the tip inside of you causing you both to shudder. Slowly pushing you towards the bottom of his shaft, Shiro let out a throaty moan, clearly excited. You could tell how tight you were by how big his dick felt inside you. You began to move gently against him knowing by his hesitation that he didn’t want to hurt you. Rolling your hips really helped to completely sheath him within you. He waited for you to move faster to be sure you were ready. You built up a steady pace before he started moving his hips with yours. The room was echoing with your panting breathes. One fist in his hair, you whispered in his ear :“I want you to feel good.” You found the soft spot on his neck and began to suck until he squeezed your ass in reaction.

With both hands he lifted you off him and pushed your back against the mattress. With both hands placed above your head he slid his dick back inside you. The new position let you feel his hard-sculpted body against yours, his pelvis rubbing against your clit with every push. Wrapping your arms and legs around him brought you closer. Although he was kissing you gently his pounding was forceful. He was beginning to lose control. Pumping in and out of you, his grunting became more erratic. Knowing that he was enjoying himself brought you great pleasure which you expressed by moaning loudly. “Y/N I can’t hold it much longer. Nngghh. You feel so fucking good.” This was exactly what you wanted to hear. “Takashi…please cum for me.” With those words he pounded you into the mattress. Back arching, you let out the build up that was growing within you. The deep hum of his groans and increased speed had you seeing stars. With one last deep thrust he hovered above you panting for air. He cradled you in for a soft kiss as he pulled out, rolling over so you could lay on top. Being there on his chest was all you’d been fantasizing about for months.

“Thank you…” He pressed his lips against your ear. “It’s felt like a lifetime since I’ve been able to immerse myself in anything other than fighting the Galra… You make me… happy.”

“I missed you so much Takashi.” Your words barely a whisper. “I’m glad I can bring you joy after all you’ve been through.” For the first time in years, the tears you shed were rooted in bliss.

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audiogrizzly · 4 years

Text

Top 5 Games of 2019

It was a little tricky to construct a top 5 for this year, though there have been a couple of surprises. I wasn’t expecting the year to be a bit crap as we are no w on the cusp once more of a new generation. But 2012 wasn’t all that bad of a year (PS4 and Xbox One would release in 2013) and at the moment, everyone is doing alright. PS4 has sold through over 100 million systems, Nintendo are definitely on an “on” generation with Switch, Xbox has been able to get back into peoples good books with things like Game Pass (on both Console and PC, their PC side they seem to really be turning around), there’s even interesting things happening in the mobile space with Apple Arcade.

This won’t be the last year where my top 5 games are full of current gen titles, I am expecting the new systems to drop in around November, last time it was hard to find a top 5 specific to PS4 (as I listed each platform separately back then). It IS however, another list of mostly AAA tier games. If you want to know what smaller more “interesting” games I have been playing, check out my honourable mentions at the end.

Also, follow me on Melee. It’s this new image blogging service from Imgur which you can download now on the IOS App Store (its just on iPhone at the moment) and it has seemingly been built to help people share gaming related clips and images off of places like Twitter and Instagram (and err, here on Tumblr). I posted a couple of daft clips of me failing in Modern Warfare and Destiny 2 and it didn’t take long for them to amass a few likes and comments.

That sounded like a sponsored advert but ain’t nobody paying me for this. Let’s get into my top 5

5. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

I was about to select Gears 5 to be my number 5 until I saw sense and cast my memory back to when I started playing Jedi (all the way back in November. I was impressed by its intense action, impressive visuals and great characters. I especially enjoyed the 4 armed pilot who always complains. I did feel that towards the end I got sick of managing large groups of enemies so I dropped the difficulty to get through it, but I still haven’t achieved 100% of activities on all planets so I can still go back to it one day.

4. Borderlands 3

We all knew this was coming but not even I had any idea that we would have been actually playing it in 2019 way back at the start of the year. For me, I look at the game. I don’t care about weird magicians or their insane sounding legal woes, all I’m interested in is the work of a team who deserved better for their last title, but am still glad returned to what they do best, looting and shooting. I enjoyed rejoining these characters I have followed over the last 10 years, all the referenced to older games, cameos from characters from Tales From the Borderlands and The Pre Sequel and was sad to see some people go. I still have about a year of extra content to go through and I really appreciate the efforts they have made to make the game last longer than just one playthrough through in the Proving Grounds, Circle of Slaughter and Mayhem modes. Though I have always tended to stick to Borderlands games and create builds for each and every vault hunter, so I will be doing that.

3. Mortal Kombat 11

It’s been a while since I last put a fighting game into my end of year round up. And I HAVE fallen off MK11 a little bit, but this entry reminded me of how impressive it is for Nether Realms to pack their fighting games with some many things to do and keep people playing outside of just going into matchmaking and fighting others. The Vault this year is basically another little adventure full of exploration and puzzle solving and the Towers of Time give you plenty of challenge and direction of many months to come. You also have to give the developer credit for never backing down on the brutality of the game, they must have all got their heads together after DC Universe vs. and vowed never again to make watered down versions of Fatalities. It is a game that keeps getting better and better.

2. Call of Duty Modern Warfare

I was debating whether or not to include this years CoD. I always get the same type of enjoyment out of it each year, people complain that it never changes but I’m glad it sticks to a formula. Of course they are not identikit games, there are new maps, new modes, new ways of building your loadout and new touches, like how in this year you can snap to edges to stay in cover while you shoot, there’s the new special equipment system where you can drop ammo or reduce your footstep noise. Having doors you can either peek through or smash open adds another level of strategy, there have been times where I have been able to escape being under fire by closing a door, re-positioning and then wasting whoever just wanders in.

The campaign this year, good to see it back, but whatever, the co-op mode is Spec Ops again, like it was back in MW2 and 3 but on a much larger scale, I have yet to complete one of these btw. But as always, it’s the multiplayer that does it for me and Modern Warfare deserves credit for being what must be the first AAA game to feature cross platform play, not just launch with it. I know that games like Fortnite are popular, but I don’t see that as a AAA title, it doesn’t have the full package, it’s just a mode and it started off small. Call of Duty is expected to be big each year, has a lot riding on it and allowing for cross play is a big step. I especially appreciate being able to play with a keyboard and mouse on PS4 and being able to matchmake only with people playing with controllers on PC, in fact, I have never really given the game much of a shot on PC before as I know people just fall of it, there has often been low player numbers reported on the PC versions of CoD and it looks like it won’t have that problem this time round due to cross play.

Modern Warfare still has to contend with Destiny 2 and Overwatch for my time as my main multiplayer game but it’s still as fun as ever.

1. Control

Put this down as my main “surprise” game of 2019. A game which was not on my watch list, though I was aware of it as you can’t ignore a game from the makers of Max Payne (I did skip Alan Wake and didn’t care much for Quantum break though). Bought it at the last minute before its release, downloaded it and was wowed by the sinister nature of the environment you run around in. This weird fictitious US government agency which looks into paranormal activity which you seem to have become in charge of because you picked up a mysterious weapon from the deceased Director while searching for your brother. What then follows is about 12 hours of wacky powers and odd video clips as you unearth what has been going on in this strange ever morphing building.

I especially loved how the game never holds your hand too much, the map of each floor is vague enough that you also have to rely on in-game signposting to move around, as well as a bit of memory work. There is also great humour involved too in some of the PSA posters on a lot of the walls, the antics of the caretaker and the videos you find of Dr. Darling throughout the game.

I did have a few weird technical issues with the game throughout playing, but still found it to be visually pleasing, there was this weird hitch that used to appear after coming out of the pause screen that always threw me, it would be followed by a few moments of low performance before getting back into the smooth action. But this didn’t stop me from having a great time with Control. Perhaps the game that will be the most prominent in my head when I think of 2019.

So there you have it, control is my best game of 2019. But let’s look at the other new games I played throughout the year in my honourable mentions:

Gears 5

The Outer Worlds

Days Gone

Apex Legends

Far Cry New Dawn

Trover Saves the Universe

Concrete Genie

Devil May Cry 5

Tom Clancy's The Division 2

And also a special mention to these old games that were rereleased/remastered/repackaged etc in 2019:

Borderlands Game of the Year Edition Remastered

Halo Reach

And now, a look at the games I have on my watchlist for 2020:

Cyberpunk 2077

Last of Us Part 2

Ghost of Tsushima

Halo: Infinite

Watch Dogs Legion

Phantasy Star Online 2

Gods & Monsters

Doom Eternal

Overwatch 2

Diablo IV

Minecraft dungeons

Marvel's Avengers

Carrion

Streets of Rage 4

Will they all even come out? Let’s find out, happy new year!

#mortal kombat #modern warfare #control #star wars #melee #borderlands

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diningpageantry · 5 years

Text

Don’t @ Me

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215168/chapters/43092371

Chapter 1/10 of It’s A Handheld Disaster

Word Count: 3118

Fic Summary: Teenage life is hard enough, but with the added weight of their lives, both Simon and Baz thrive online in a fandom for the British crime show, Gastrell, about the genius Huxley and his "flatmate" Sam. Through Tumblr, they find each other, and sink into something more than just being mutuals.

Chapter Summary: A shitpost is taken a little too personally, and an argument breaks out. In true Baz fashion, he seeks to prove himself right in the most ridiculous way possible.

BAZ

Morning routines are the most menial shit in the realm of existence of arbitrary tasks.

Everyone seems to have them, yet nobody really has a set one. For example, my step-mum has a long, seemingly pointless hour of simply facial cleansers, serums, and hair products. When I’d asked her years ago why she does it all, she shook her head and said “You’ll never be an aging woman, Basilton.”

I couldn’t quite argue with that.

Regardless, it’s a part of life. The routines. Wake up, morning routine, morning activity, eat, afternoon activity, usually afternoon snack, evening activity, dinner, night-time activity, sleep.

A boring, underwhelming cycle of the day.

Although, I suppose it’s shittier for me, since the homeschooling doesn’t give me a chance to do much besides sit and read. Of course, I have my car and I can drive off to whatever. Hell, father even suggested I get a job to occupy myself, but I don’t quite see the point given how much money we have (and the risk factors with moving around so frequently).

So, here I am. Finishing my classes in a matter of months, then having an entire year of pointless bullshit.

Needless to say, my entire day’s routine isn’t the most thrilling. Wake up at 10 on a good day, check social media and emails, then just lay here until I can’t wait to piss. Piss. Go to eat breakfast and get greeted by screaming children and my poor step-mum trying to wrangle them in. Go upstairs, go back online, see whatever’s on my dash, reblog some shit, then try to do something vaguely productive. Check Archive, check email again. Nothing’s on the emails, ever. Text Dev and Niall, who get awfully pissed since they are in school. Get more food. Eat. Bring tea upstairs, despite the disdained look from our maid (who hates collecting my piles of mugs). Write for a couple hours. Take an afternoon nap, if I please. Wake up and sit there (again). Maybe lonely wank. Go back to the bathroom, stare at myself in the mirror for a good few minutes. Sit on the toilet for half an hour for no reason besides the fact that my phone seems more interesting while sitting there as compared to sitting in bed. Sit then on the bathroom floor doing the same thing. Go back to my bed, listen to music on my phone and work on my laptop. Write, maybe scroll. Get dinner brought to me as they tut that I should be more active. Eat. Go downstairs for an evening workout (they’re right, I shouldn’t confine myself to my bed). Come back, do exactly what I do for half the day until I pass out somewhere around 3 am. Repeat.

Dream life for an 17 year old. Social life of a god.

Somewhat.

It’s shit to say (and sort of embarrassing to share) that there’s sort of a social media presence around me. Not quite the Instagram model bullshit, but based around fan life.

Yes, it’s a laughing stock. That’s where my popularity lies--a mixed grab-bag of various ages gathering around various platforms to enthuse about certain topics. And I’m somehow lucky enough to have the slightest bit of popularity here.

As in, a large following. A large, somehow active following.

It isn’t exactly thrilling as one would like to think. Sure, it’s fun to see a scattered group of regulars pop up, and I have my mutuals, but it’s a sad existence to sit around and make various shitposts with nothing better to occupy my mind. Or, at least, that’s what Dev and Niall tell me.

All in all, I blame Fiona. She’s the one who got me into the show, saying she thought the character was a bit like me. After I saw it, I found the three connections she’d grasped at.

Gay, dark-haired, and violinist.

As if that’s a rarity.

Yet, surely enough, I did love it. The cinematography, the characters, the storyline. It was intriguing--captivating.

It doesn’t hurt that the online community was still on the smaller side when I first got there. The show was only a season in when I made my blog, and I’ve stuck through all this bullshit to get me here. One of the regulars. Reposted everywhere, uncredited usually. Big fics, large interactions. Shitposts with thousands upon thousands of notes. I’m recognizable; a suggested name.

Don’t get me wrong, the attention is spectacular. I love interacting with people beyond this depressing household, and they’re usually fairly nice (usually) (except those ravenous for an argument). It’s just awkward to share at times when people ask why your mobile’s got 99+ symbols next to the apps and you just shrug and say “I’m shit at checking it” to avoid the conversation because most people see it as childish.

It’s a shame, really. Especially since I feel emotionally attached to these goddamn fictional fuckers.

I suppose that’s what makes it all the more personal, then. Even the shitposts mean something to me.

Which is what makes this is a long, winded way of saying fuck whoever’s arguing with me about whether or not Huxley is a fucking Ravenclaw. (He is. Hands down.) How’d I get here, staring at my mobile in disbelief at a brief back and forth post turned fight? Because it feels like a reasonable question to wonder.

I got here because, as almost all mornings, I woke up, opened my phone, read my notifs, then sat here, thinking of something. Anything. Then, in a tired haze, typed out a single text post on tumblr.

huxley gastrell is a ravenclaw send tweet

Following so, I went about my typical morning. Of course. Then--then--I check my phone as I’m going downstairs and I see it. I see the “@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!” notif, then read the God-forsaken reblog.

@gaystrell op do you take criticism on your posts?

I frowned at my phone, typing out a quick response before tucking it back into my pocket.

@bi-sammy no.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was the reply I’d open up to soon after I’d started poking at my morning meal.

@gaystrell well too bad bc ur WRONG and ur opinions are UGLY

#he’s clearly a slytherin this is slytherin oppression #don’t tell me he and bryonie aren’t from a slytherin family

Now I sit, staring and completely awestruck at such a post. Now, I won’t deny Bryonie Gastrell is definitely, in all possible ways, a Slytherin. Cunning and ambitious as fuck, as any political spy may be, but fuck anyone who tries to dismiss Huxley’s clear Ravenclaw leanings.

It takes me a moment to fully process, mouth robotically chewing my eggs as I contemplate my answer.

@bi-sammy there is absolutely no proof of huxley being a slytherin and more than enough support towards him being a ravenclaw. get your clueless negativity off my blog, you utter tit.

With that, I settle my phone face down onto my table and try to enjoy my lovely plate of scrambled eggs, barely ignoring the boiling of my blood.

SIMON

My phone lights up with the new notification, dragging my attention away from my laptop as the words slide down onto the screen. “@gaystrell mentioned you in a post!” I hate to admit that I get a little pattering in my heart, urging my hand out to grasp the mobile as I pause the Youtube video currently playing. As I read his words, I slowly blink out of my excitement.

Tit. He called me a bloody tit.

Of course this fucking wanker called me a tit.

He must think that since he’s this big bad blogger, he can call me a tit right out in the open. (Although, he is talking to me, so that’s a plus) (No! No no no, bad validation, Simon. Bad). What, with his thousands of followers and fans of his own, he thinks he can try to say shit out in the open?

Fuck it. He’s either getting a DM or a bloody fist fight from me. I’ll take a train to wherever the fuck he lives (which is somewhere in England, since that’s what his bio says) (and his aunt lives in London, since he’s posted about visiting her) (I really do wonder where he’s from and how close he might be--what if I run into him one day?) (No wait fuck I don’t want that anymore).

Clicking on his blog, the little person drop down gives me the option of a message. I barely think as I type it out, vision going spotty from the adrenaline of the twinging anger.

bi-sammy: i swear to god there was no point to the battle of hogwarts if you’re just going to go around and absolutely slander the slytherin name and dare say that huxley is not one of them and, rather, is a ravenclaw

At first, I grin at it, watching my lone message appear into the empty chat. It’s so freeing--so powerful to send it. I pride myself, in the moment, for this solid move of communication. Of course I’m fucking proud. I messaged the arse myself and gave him a space to fight.

Maybe Penny’s right, I should dial down the confrontation, but it’s just the internet. Nothing important happens through a stupid little argument over Huxley’s true Hogwarts house (although, I’m sure I know I’m right in my heart), but it is a bit of fun to fuck around with someone. It’s a distraction. And that’s why I’m here, afterall. To have a distraction.

Penny thinks it’s a bit silly, but she doesn’t really complain. All she’s ever said was “I thought we left fandom stuff behind us when we were 14.” She said it over lunch, watching me scroll through my at-the-time new tumblr.

It’s funny, I thought I did leave it behind when I was younger. It seemed unneeded as life shifted. I’d just found a stable foster home, with someone who was going to keep me for a while. I found Penny a couple months before I deactivated my old account. I was happy; we were free. I didn’t need a venting place.

Shits been sort of hitting the fan recently, though. No uni plans, David’s been getting more controlling, and of course, Agatha dumping me. It all crashed on top of me a few months ago, and somehow, the only place that I could find healthy coping was online. So, I started fresh. Made a blog and settled in. It’s not big, but I’ve had a few posts get noticed. I have a good few hundred followers, and one nice anon who asks me how I am every few weeks. It’s not a lot, but it’s comforting.

I feel at home here, even with a little discourse.

Well, only when the discourse is answered. Which, in this situation, I don’t know if it will be, given it’s been over an hour now and Baz hasn’t answered.

If that’s even his name.

It’s what his bio says, at least.

baz. 17. cisguy (he/him). gay. don’t interact if you think huxley is remotely straight.

I’ve wondered for a while what Baz stands for. He refuses to answer it in asks; he always says it’s too personal. He’s sort of odd like that--never posts pictures of anything that could be linked back. Seems sort of creepy, but then again, a lot of people follow him. It’s reasonable to want space.

Maybe that’s why he’s not answering. He probably wants space of some sort, but it’d be at least decent to answer someone who tried to have a discussion (that’s at least what I’m calling that message I sent--a discussion starter).

I frown at my phone, keeping it on silent as I slide it into my front pocket and settle into my seat in maths. I’ll say it--I sulk in class, a little bitter that I don’t have his attention (despite the fact that he seems like he’s always active online, which seems odd). Eventually, I exhale and try to let it slip away. There went my one interaction with him. My few seconds of the weirdest fucking bliss online, gone.

Then, it happens. As the class is ending, I pull out my screen just enough to see and there it is. A clear notification telling me he’d answered. Oddly enough, it’s just him sending me a link to a Google Doc.

Weird.

I ignore it for the moment being, letting myself ride the wave of relaxation that I actually got a reply. It passes my mind until I’m sitting in the back of Agatha’s car, listening to Penny and Aggie in the front talking about whatever’s on their mind. The rides are sort of awkward as of recently. At least Agatha agreed to drive me home (it’s a good 45 minute walk, if not) after some convincing from Penny, but her and I don’t really chat. It’s just the two of them.

Given that time, I have a chance to pull out my mobile and thumb through what was sent.

gaystrell: https://docs.google.com/document/d/175qFASmqD7hey8lE0eoE-6VhhFYE9DP6bpnI32Aay98/edit?usp=sharing

I click on it, not expecting that much (or, really, not expecting anything at all). Yet, the second it pops up and loads, my jaw drops.

“Jesus fuck,” I say aloud, scrolling through it. Penny turns her head, frowning as I stay locked on my screen.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“No--no nothing,” I say, waving a hand. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s got to be something for that reaction,” she says, keeping turned in her seat as she eyes me up. “Just tell us, Si.”

“I mean it when I say it’s nothing.” My voice gets quieter as I shift, reading the title. “It’s just fandom stuff. It’s really nothing.”

I hear her disgruntled huff as she turns back, mumbling something about me reacting too dramatically to this. “It isn’t even real.” It’s said under her breath, yet it still rings clear in my ears.

It isn’t really fake, either.

Hell, this is six pages of real. “Why Huxley Gastrell is, Without a Doubt, a Ravenclaw”. Shared by Basilton Pitch (is that his actual name?!). Fucking hell, it’s detailed to no ends. You’d think, with this much writing, there’d be pages of pointless filler where he’d just type “im gay hi huxley is also a gay we’re all gay here aren’t we”, but no. It’s full, grammatically correct sentences detailing his points.

It’s a bit much to read in the car, so I settle my mobile face down onto the seat as I’m left reeling. That… was a bit more than I’d expected.

Shit, did he write that for me?

This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

BAZ

Whoever says that having a flair for the dramatics is pointless has clearly never met me, because I wouldn’t quite call this masterpiece of an essay “pointless”. In fact, I should send it to academics. Rename it “A Study In Multi-Dimensional Characters and their Associated Generalized Personality Traits”. I’ll be hailed as a genius, as I deserve to be.

I crack my knuckles, and see the little person pop up.

Surely enough, it’s @bi-sammy’s name that he has listed online, Simon. It’s curious, he has his last name listed as “Snow”. Although, the smallest part of me believes it’s a pseudonym. Given our interactions, I doubt he’s clever enough to think of a solid pseudonym. And, even at that, why pick Snow?

Either way, it’s surprisingly endearing. Simon Snow. Sounds sweet. Sounds innocent.

I watch his cursor turn on, then his icon goes grey after a few moments. My heart starts to trip, making my cheeks begin to flush. Is… he ignoring this?

No. He can’t be. I put in hard work and dedication into this work, and I deserve the respect I’d sent into it. Fucking hell, three fully developed points (his devotion to intellectual work, his effort to step out of public light for Sam’s sake, and his overall lack of ambition for moving forward). I clearly set it out, and ended it properly; I’d proven that Huxley is a Ravenclaw. Case and point, opinion made, the end.

And, here I sit, watching him have the audacity to open it up then close it back. That was my hard work put in there, and he closes it? Who in the name of all that is sacred thinks he’s that above other people to the point where he just ignores--

Oh. He’s back on. Nevermind.

He’s… probably a school student. It’s roughly the time that most classes end, I suppose.

I make a mental apology to him, despite having never ranted directly to him in the first place.

He stays active for a good bit; long enough to show he’s reading. I assume that he’d just close off and message me, but after minutes, I notice a little highlighted comment pop up on the last sentence.

Simon Snow i………. owe you every single possible apology

Each word makes me grin like I haven’t in a while. A wide, cheek-creasing grin. There’s something so sweet to that--so personal. It feels like a note passed to me in a classroom under the tables. Like a cute “Blink if you like me”, although I doubt he has quite an intention.

Nevertheless, it warms my chest, sending my head back as I smile. I’m not sure whether or not it’s the satisfaction of winning, or his words, but I laugh outwardly into the room. It stays with me, reverberating onto my skin and my throat.

I look back at the comment, then leave it untouched. If he won’t remove it, then I won’t either.

With a glance at our personal messages tab, I figure that’s that. Even field, no more argument. No more interaction. It’s a bit of a shame, given the effort I’d just extorted for his sake, that he hasn’t answered in our chat.

While I’m disappointed to close off the document, I smile at it one last time. Sometimes I have to move on from random people, especially when they come on a bit strong.

Except, I find, moments later that I’m wrong about one thing--the moving on. He didn’t just stop his interaction, but instead made a public post.

“@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!”

This time, I really laugh. A full bellied, hand-covering-mouth laugh.

i guess i have to suck @gayhuxell’s cock now because i was wrong and the bloody arse was right. huxley is a ravenclaw.

#fuck me i guess

I take a minute, rereading over his words a few times before typing a simple answer with my reblog.

i’m available anytime behind a mcdonald’s parking lot

#fanfiction #fanfic #carry on #fic #mine #it's a handheld disaster #snowbaz #simon snow #tyrannus basilton grimm-pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #baz pitch #simon #baz #hhehehehe #this is like the longest chapter just a heads up #it's a short fic it's under 20k

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popopretty · 5 years

Text

Piko’s Spring Tour “Pathfinder” report

There are just so many things I want to write down for this live but I realized I would not be able to put everything into one post and I have also forgot some parts of it so please bear with my scattered memories.

I went to almost all the lives in this tour except for the one in Sendai. So it includes Nagoya, Osaka, Yokohama, Fukuoka and Tokyo. It is an amazing feeling following an artist on tour, like waking up in a different city everyday, meeting the fans you don’t usually meet but still being able to say “See you tmr”. For two weeks I was filled with Piko feels and I couldn’t really remember doing anything else.

KEEP READING - There is A LOT more under the cut lol

For most of the venues, there were like 150-200 people each. The final was in a bigger venue so there were more than that. There are girls, guys, couples, families, Japanese, foreigners, all kinds of people you can think of. And everyone is super nice and friendly. I still feel super awkward with my Japanese but people’s warmness there just calmed me a lot.

For the tour goods, there are T-shirts, mirrors, towels, mobile charger, tote bag and stuff from previous lives. If you buy one album, you will get a ticket to high touch with Piko at the end of the live. Plus there are chekis and if u are lucky enough you can get one with Piko’s sign.

My favorite thing from the goods this time must be the totebag. Its cheap and convenient since you can use it both as a handbag and a shoulder bag. The mobile battery is a new thing, which is a bit expensive imo but it works pretty well and has a super cute design so everything is forgiven xD I also bought 2 more CDs to get a high touch with him. I will write about it in more details at the later part.

Piko wears a different outfit every live. For the one in Nagoya, he wears the black outfit as in Black Swan cover, then in Osaka it was the white one as in Realizing. He is back to the black one in Yokohama and in Fukuoka is another white shirt with black gilet. He went with the Black Swan outfit for MOST of the final live lol. If you read my last posts, you have already known what else he was wearing xD

As for the setlist. The setlist is the same for all the small lives. Only the final is different so I’m gonna list out all the songs that he has sung in all the lives, not in the exact order.

- Realizing - This is the opening song for all lives.

- Loki - He sang this in all the small lives but not in the final.

- Ghost Rule

- HERO

- Tengaku - He sang this in the final only

- Re:Act

- Rolling Merry Go Round - this is also in the final only. I was so surprised when he sang it ;; this is also my first time listening to the song live ;;

- Dappo Rock

- Kachoufuei - This is one of my favourite songs in the new album

- Sakurane - This is also final exclusive! In one part he messed up the lyrics and he was super embarrassed so he laughed and asked the audiences to sing for him lol

- Black Swan - the most beautiful song live from the new album. Tbh I didn’t like the recording that much cuz the instruments are a bit too loud for me. But in the live it sounds much better and Piko’s voice just resonates around the live house and it is absolutely beautiful.

- Kokoronashi Acoustic - This is in the final only. He sang this song many times before but this time is totally different. He sang the first verse with no instruments at all and the acoustic guitar sound only came in in the second verse.

- Kasa - He sang it with a backup vocal of himself since it is a self-duet and many parts are overlapped. He sang the guy’s part with female backup in the first verse and then switched to the girl’s part with male backup for the second verse. In some lives, the fans even sang along with the backup parts which was really cute xDDD

After this part there is usually a small MC parts where Piko can talk and take a short rest before entering a non-stop session of about 4-5 rockish songs xD

- Murabito A - I love the song and the message in it. Whenever he gets to the “kamisama” I really just reached my hands towards him as if he is my God lol

- Futaiten Path Finder

- Lost One no Goukoku - I cant believe Piko covered it just recently! He sounds absolutely amazing in it. He didnt try to sing the original key (though I think he totally can). He chose a lower tone which showed off his beautiful, manly middle range and I love it so much. In the entry part of the song, he asked everyone to raise hand and shout out at the end of each drum session. He also asked the girls and the guys to do it separately. Even though there were only a few guys, they were really energetic, even when Piko asked them to say Yeah but in a girly cutesy voice. (They did it anyway lol!)

- Haikei Doppelganger - Of course this cannot be missed! This is like the most heated song in the live. Everyone was just headbanging like crazy. He just sounds absolutely powerful and precise for such a hard song that I lost my mind every time I heard it.

- Make Our Days - this is like a sequel to Make My Days. He mentioned that this is a song where he wants everyone to become one by doing the same moves. It is pretty similar to Make My Days and I dont know how to explain it in writing lol. So lets wait until some videos of it actually come out xDD He also asked all the band members to do that with different style every time and it was so funny (I will write more about it but probably in a separate post)

- Piscium - Last song before the encore. He spoke about the meaning of it, about how he started his career as a net artist, how it was in the beginning where they didnt really know what to do but try different things and see how it works. And it has been a long way with both joys and sadness and now he realizes that its not him walking alone, and that everything he does has the people who support him being a part of it. Thats why its not about him anymore but about all of us. Thats why Make My Day becomes Make Our Days, and Piscium lyrics also say “You made me. I made you”.

It was a beautiful moment…

Before the funny part kicked in xDDD

If you follow Piko, you might have already known that he has a corner called Pikone jinsei soudan in his namahousou, in which he puts on an okama personality and gives people advices on their problems xDD The live this time also has a session like that.

- Tokyo Shinobizaki

The first song of the encore is Tokyo Shinobizaki, which is an ending he sang for a short anime recently. It is a slow, jazzy and mature song, the type you may find in some old bars I guess. In the small lives, Piko would wear his live tour T-shirt, walk out and sing it with a stand mic. And he kept swaying and sliding his hands up and down the stand mic xD He has such lovely hands that my eyes kept fixating on them through out the song @@ In the final, when the music started playing, everyone was waiting for Piko to come out as usual, but it was just a band playing a super long intro. The live house for the final has a smaller stage on the right side that looks like a small balcony. And when the intro finally ended, Piko walked out from there, wearing a long red dress (the same one he wore in luz’s event not too long ago). He looked so pretty in that dress that everyone could have mistaken him as a girl without knowing him before >w<.

After he sang Tokyo shinobizaki, the jinsei soudan session started. Every live he would pick 2 letters from the fans and read it out loud (in okama voice) and then gave advices to them. All the band members also helped him out (and they also spoke in funny voices lol). There are many interesting questions but I think I will write about them in a separate post. I will just mention a few moments here. In the Osaka live, one fan was asking about how to deal with a rebellious son. And Piko was like “hmm I dont know. Should I ask my own parents??” and then he looked to the back of the stage, raised his hand and shouted out “Mama~~”. Turned out his mom was also there and all the lights of the stage started pointing to her xDD she then said that she actually didnt have to deal with Piko’s rebellious phase cuz he was a super good kid and didnt have that phase at all xDD In the final, Piko randomly picked a guy from the audience and asked him if he has any questions. The guy didnt have any, but he said that he brought his daughter to the live to see Piko. And Piko, still wearing that dress, rephrases his words like “Oh, so papa likes me, and papa wants his daughter to like me too so he brought her here?” He then asked to see the daughter. We all expected like a little grown up girl but turned out she was a super tiny cute little girl xDDD and Piko was like “ok lets get married” lol

- Yoshiwara Lament: Normally Pikone only sang Tokyo Shinobizaki but in the final she sang this one too xDD

After the Pikone part, Piko got into the backstage and changed again.

When he was inside the big screen started playing and they played a part of Black Swan MV which is coming soon.

And they also announced on the screen a two-man live with Pokota on November 4th this year!

2nd encore:

- Thanatos

- Hypnos: As some of you might know, Thanatos is the god of death in Greek mythology. Hypnos is his twin brother. Hypnos is a god of sleep. Piko said that the tour is like a dream. And when this tour end, everyone will wake up from their dream, go back to their everyday life. Thanatos is his first CD ever released, but Hypnos is the future. He will keep moving forward and come back, being a stronger and newer Piko. He asked for a title call and wrapped up the live with that song.

After the live came the high touch. I did it 3 times. One time was in the first live in Nagoya. I didnt buy the CDs but one friend of mine was kind enough go give me one of her tickets. The high touch is super short. You touch hand with him and say one sentence or two and thats it. I kept thinking what to say in Nagoya and ended up telling him “I LOVE YOU” in English lol. Second time was in Fukuoka. I did’t plan to buy a CD that day but that was 3rd day of the 3-day-in-a-row lives that Piko performed in (Tour in Yokohama, Chan-gero Sonic, tour in Fukuoka). He sounded a little bit tired at the beginning in Fukuoka but he tried his best and still sounded wonderful till the end of the live. So I bought a CD to high touch and tell him how well he has done. I also asked him not to try too hard. And all the time he just gently smiled back and said Thank you. The fragrance left from his hands still linger on mine even after I left ;;

Another interesting event did happen to me and my friends in the final. After the live I went for dinner with a few Pikoots and on our way to the station, we were supposed to pass by the livehouse again. A taxi was running from behind us so we decided to stop and walked to the side to let it pass. Then that taxi stopped in front of the livehouse and turned out it was Piko’s taxi. So we saw him getting in the taxi so we waved at him and said good job. Of course we all freaked out after that, like not believing what just happened. It was a miracle, really xD

So that’s the end of my tour dream. I tried to keep this report short but you can see how long it has become. I feel like its still not half enough to write down everything I want to write but I hope it helps you understand how wonderful a live it was. There were a lot of cameramen during the final so I am secretly hoping there will be a DVD!

#piko #live tour #live report #pathfinder

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coolkidstable · 5 years

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guess who’s back!

it’s been like a week but i am BACK BABY! as you can guess i have mixed feelings about that entire series, which were amplified by the fact that i actually went to that game - yes, game 4 - as a (slightly early) birthday present from my brother. this is truly just 2.3k words of me being emo and getting personal, but it helped me process everything. and sorry for the lack of a read more but i’m on mobile lmao

i made it clear to both family and friends that i wanted this series to be a close one, for the home team to win each game, and for it to be a hard fought series that shows just how good both of these teams are. (maybe this wasn’t as clear on tumblr, but the decision to step away was made abruptly, though i’m very glad i did it.) that, well, didn’t happen. the canes are a great team, and their success wasn’t a fluke. don’t even try to suggest that. but this series didn’t work for them, for reasons that i really don’t know but may be revealed with time. who knows. regardless, it was a fantastic run and while i wish the ending wasn’t so bitter, i’m so proud of this team and all that they accomplished this season. the future is bright, and this time “next year will be better” isn’t just a hope - it’s a promise.

i really wanted them to score a goal, though. i love tuukka, and i want him to win those two trophies so badly, but i was really hoping he’d give up a goal. obviously, the canes’ chances of coming back to win the series were slim to none, but one last goal would’ve been a way to end the season on a somewhat promising note. and it’s weird and a bit sad that i went to 3 home games this season, and didn’t even get to hear raise up in person - two shutouts and a whalers night for which brass bonanza played instead.

that’s not the main reason, though. i was at this game with my brother, whose main team is the canes, who just got back into hockey late last season, opting to root for his local team over his childhood rangers and getting to see such an incredible run. he just wanted to see a goal to ease the blow, and i was right there with him. it was expected, though, and he’s not crushed or anything. he went to some pretty special games this season, including both the first storm surge and the first playoff win, and he knows that the rest of our family is happy. and really, that’s what it all comes back to - family.

the first bruins game that i have even the vaguest of memories of watching is the 2010 winter classic against the flyers. i’m not even 100% sure if i watched any of it; i just remember asking my dad why they were playing outside and catching glimpses of the game while he watched. he and my mom, once diehard bruins fans, had become fairweather fans upon moving to north carolina in 2003. the bruins, quite frankly, sucked, and games were rarely on tv. meanwhile, the patriots were quite the opposite. the bruins soon started to improve and began to creep back into our lives. i remember the 2011 cup finals, and not knowing a single player other than zdeno chara - the Tall One - and tim thomas - the Brick Wall. i don’t remember much else, but i was there in some capacity.

then came 2013. a series against the leafs. a historical game 7 comeback from a 4-1 deficit. i remember watching bits and pieces of this game on two different TVs - first the main one downstairs, where my dad was watching, only because it was the playoffs. he didn’t watch or care about regular season hockey - i didn’t even know there’d just been a lockout. when he gave up on this game, he went upstairs to go to bed and turned on the tv for background noise while i hung around to say goodnight. we were almost done when nathan horton scored the first goal, and from there, we watched history unfold. i was losing my mind - was this what i’d been missing out on?

from there, i watched the rest of the playoffs, and i haven’t looked back since. first i watched this young undersized rookie defenseman by the name of torey krug take the rangers by storm, then i watched the bruins hand the penguins‘ asses to them in a swift 4-game sweep that began with a shutout on my birthday, and then i watched the bruins lose a hard-fought series against the chicago racistlogos in the blink of an eye. it was a rollercoaster of a postseason, and i spent most of my free time learning about the game and my new favorite player, who i must regretfully admit was seguin. every game brought me closer to my dad, as before the game 7 comeback, i’d never join him to watch sports, or anything, really. in turn, it allowed him to reconnect with the sport he’d once loved most of all.

the next season was a good one as well: my first full season, the first game i ever attended in person, and the bruins winning the president’s trophy. that season ended in disappointment, but it was a good run, and i grew an appreciation for every single member of that bruins team. (nowadays, i guess that attitude is what the kids would call my brand.)

halfway through that season, i discovered hockey tumblr. i didn’t really make content or liveblog or even talk in the tags, and i never made any lasting connections, but still, it was a community that i greatly enjoyed. it also opened my eyes to other teams, and i started to experiment with the whole having more than one team thing - yeah, those were my stars fan days, among other questionable choices that aren’t important right now. this is also where the canes first came into my life, though not as a true second team until much more recently. things were changing, and not always for the better.

the 2014-15 season was fun, though i wasn’t able to watch as many games due to not knowing about r/NHLStreams or anything of that nature. regardless, the bruins just simply weren’t very good, and the season ended in disappointment. a few months later, hockey became very disappointing for reasons i won’t get into, and this coincided with my second emo phase (see: my current url). i ended up jumping ship for bandom tumblr and the life of a panic! at the disco stan.

still, i kept up with the 2015-16 season a little. it kinda sucked, but it was fine. i still loved the team - i just wasn’t really invested anymore. and maybe it was for the best given how busy school was that year. the next season went much the same, only this time, the bruins made the playoffs, i had just about given up on using tumblr at all, and there was this new kid on the team named sean kuraly.

the 2017 playoffs were odd. i hadn’t watched many games that season, and i hadn’t watched a bruins playoff game since the last time i was truly invested in hockey. still, it wasn’t like a switch flipped and i suddenly stanned the bruins again. i spent all the games in that series playing pokémon moon while occasionally glancing at the screen to see what was happening. i wasn’t even truly playing the game; i’d already beaten it and was merely trying my hand at shiny hunting a jangmo’o by hatching dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of eggs, nicknaming them, and randomly trading them over the internet. it was mindless enough to pay attention, and pay attention i did.

it was kind of like the rangers series, on a smaller and less successful scale. much like torey krug before him, sean kuraly came out with a bang and made bruins fans love hockey again - or maybe i’m just projecting. regardless, you know he scored the 2OT winner, and you know about the kuraleap. i don’t remember how many jangmo’os named sean, kuraly, and sean kuraly i traded to the lucky people of pokémon sun and moon wondertrade, but the humber was definitely higher than 52. the bruins did lose the series, but i was interested again.

when the 2017 draft happened, i felt a special connection to it by virtue of these boys being the right age to be in the same high school graduating class as me. this draft piqued my interest in a way no other since 2014 truly had (unpopular opinion on 2015, i know, especially considering my favorite player was drafted fourteenth that year), and you know what? it had been a few months since i’d been active on tumblr, but i searched a few tags and started peaking back at hockey tumblr. i was almost convinced i should dive back in and redo my account for the second time, but i had college orientation to worry about, and by the time i returned, the motivation was lost.

until the 2017-18 home opener. you all know i love jake debrusk, and you probably know he scored his first nhl goal in that game (alongside charlie mac). you’ve seen the video and/or gifs of his dad crying. but beyond all that, it was just a damn good game. i had so much fun watching it - in boston, no less, because finally, after all those years trapped in my hometown, i was where i wanted to be - that i just had to get involved with hockey tumblr again. watching on my own wasn’t going to be enough, i knew.

and so, tumblr user @david-pastrnak returned. honestly, that season was fun, but the first half felt like a blur - likely just because it was my first semester of college. i even went to my first bruins home game in november, and though it wasn’t a good one, it was fun. they picked up the season with a win against tampa on the day i met my favorite band, and somehow, that seemed important. soon i saw my first live bruins win on td garden ice, and even went to a few more games, during which i watched as my grandma grew to love hockey and the bruins, bringing us closer together. it was around this time that i truly embraced the hurricanes, too, and having that second team that i truly care about and love has made being a hockey fan so much fun. it was also around this time that i rediscovered my love for writing. things were changing for the better, but they were only getting started. even when the bruins lost in disappointing fashion to the lightning, i knew things were going to be okay - better, even.

the off-season was mostly uneventful, but towards the end and into the beginning of the season, i ended up in a few group chats with others on here. some of these are still active while others are not, but regardless, i connected with a lot more people, got better at making conversation, and, most importantly, found some of the best friends i’ve ever had. you don’t really expect to meet a lifelong friend on the internet, never mind several, but i’ve gotten incredibly lucky!

this season has been special. i started going to games more often, grew to care about every member of this team more than i’ve probably ever cared about the entire team, and made some incredible friends who i’m blessed to know. and beyond me, this season has been incredible. you know that if you’re reading this, so i won’t get into it all. there were ups and downs, there were moments we thought we’d be golfing in april, and now we’re going to the stanley cup final. the last time this happened, i had just started watching hockey and was still learning. i was also a literal child who still thought i was straight. a lot has changed since then, and somehow, this stanley cup final feels like a culmination of everything i’ve been through with and because of this team. winning the cup isn’t just about how happy it would make jake, how much tuukka deserves it, or whether sean would hand it to danton or vice versa. it’s not about watching to see who helps wags lift it without damaging his injured hand further. it’s not even about watching the look of pure joy on pasta’s face and thinking back to his draft day and my bold, unwarranted, yet correct claim that he would be one of, if not the best player to come out of the 2014 draft. no matter how much they mean to me, winning the cup isn’t about the players.

winning the cup this season would be a celebration of all the friends i’ve made, the stories we’ve shared, and the connections we’ve made. winning the cup would be a celebration of how much closer hockey has brought me to my family. shit, winning the cup would be a celebration of kureinen and all our fun memes because why the hell not?

winning the cup isn’t about the players, or the team, or the parade, or the bragging rights for fans of boston sports. winning the cup is about the deeply meaningful and even just the fun ways in which hockey and the community on here have positively impacted our lives.

and even if we don’t, it’s okay. this season has been by far the best i’ve ever watched, and no matter what happens, it’s one i’ll always remember.

but hey, if we do, i’ll get my first tattoo to commemorate it. speaking of playoff promises, from now on, i’m going to have to talk like anders bjork on here so checkurohhhhhhhh

#now that that’s out of my system: i cannot believe ive been to two series winning games what the fuck #and i need to finish the fic i promised but once i get home it’ll be my priority!#personal #also i won’t be fully back until tomorrow in reality bc i’m busy today lmao #long post

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boogiewrites · 5 years

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A Girl Walks Into A Bar 3

Characters: Declan Harp x Bella Fiore (OFC)

Word Count: 3900+

Summary: Modern Declan harp AU. Bella returns to the bar. Declan having felt her absence and noticed her lack of communication over the past week, makes an attempt to get to know her better.

Warnings/Tags: Language. Drinking.

Positive feedback is MUCH appreciated! Reblogs, likes, asks and comments feed me to write more! Let me know if you’d like tagged in my work.

Click on my screenname then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.)

You had thought about stopping by the bar after work a few times that week. You'd stared at many half-written texts that would be reaching out to Declan., but you'd always found an excuse not to send them.

Work was work, CeeCee being understanding as always of how belittling people who didn't work or make music could be, doesn't berate you much when you return. The father and daughter had gotten themselves added to the list of people to never work with again. You'd take a listen to what the other girls, Mary and Jean managed to put together for them in your absence, and it wasn't their fault it was awful. It was the fad that had made its way into even smaller towns, far away from California thanks to Rebeca Black and her song Friday, of tween and teens coming in with parents that had more money than sense and wanting to cut a track. This one was worse than Friday, by a landslide. It was high pitched, the autotune was lending no favors and super nasally. Friday you had gotten used to, it was an internet classic at this point, but this song would never pollute the ears of anyone else if you could help it, and you deleted it off the drive. Whoops.

You'd gotten word your truck was still being worked on. Being an older model it was harder to find parts and people willing to work on it, but you just couldn't give Betty up. So you were still without a ride and as Friday afternoon rolled around with everyone else busy, you found yourself walking. You followed the same path, this time no looming snow clouds overhead but the harsh biting winter wind was worse this time. You'd been bundled up beyond recognition, beanie over your two-day-old curls, dry shampoo being your best friend this morning. Your scarf was up over your nose, and the sherpa collar of your oversize denim jacket was flipped up. If it weren't for your figure, no one would've even known you were a woman.

The windows in the front of the bar are too tinted to see inside but the neon advertisements were blazing through. Motorcycles were lined up against the sidewalk, more than you recall last time. You notice they're all black and have varied wolf head emblems on them. You hadn't looked at their vests last time when you were stopped before entering the bar, perhaps this was their symbol.

The bar is the same, a steady bass and wavering guitar come through the speaker's placed along the tops of the walls with the blinking strings of lights. The same stained floor creaks in greeting before you look up to see every person in the bar turned to see who came in. You stand your ground, a hard look on your face as you unravel the scarf from around your head. At the appearance of a woman, most of them turn back to their mates and mumbled with raised brows. You see the man who hassled you on your first visit and you give each other a nod in recognition with hard faces.

"Look who decided to show up." you hear the familiar deep, gravely voice come from behind the bar as he wipes his hands down on a towel before throwing it over his shoulder. "Haven't heard from you all week babe, I was beginning to wonder if you were gonna come back." he says in a playfully defensive, whiny way/ He moves around the corner of the long bar occupied by men in leather vests, you now note the banners across their backs that read "Black Wolf". You assume this was the group of bikers he'd been talking about in your kitchen that morning after the storm. You put your gloves and hat on the bar top at the very end chair, a few seats between you and the nearest person. His broad form comes to your side and wraps his around you, you manage a small smile and pay his back in return. He smelled as good as you remembered, masculine and musky with the hint of liquor you're guessing was seeped into his shirt from working.

"It's Friday I needed my ale." you say with the small smile lingering after he stays with his hands on your shoulders, smiling down at you.

"Ah," he says nodding and looking to the back of the bar with a smirk. You were as reserved as ever, you weren't as much of an outwardly animated person it seemed. At least not in public, or maybe it was all the other men staring, making you aware you were the only woman in the bar. "I won't make you wait. Comin' right up, Bells." he says and moves smoothly, shoulders shifting as his long legs carry him to the cooler. You look at the guys staring at you as you sit down, erasing the smile from your face and lowering your brow at them. You're met with mostly indifference to your cold glare.

"Thanks, Declan." you say with a relieved sigh, taking the bottle to your lips.

"So..." he says, leaning his elbows on the bar top across from you. "You have any other crazy customers this week?" he says with a warm smile.

"Nah. I mostly worked with just one band this week." you say with a nod and a noisy swallow. "They're out of downtown, a new group that plays up at Stiver's on Saturday nights." you explain, not making so much eye contact, feeling the heat coming off him through your jacket, making you extremely aware of his physical presence. You weren't intimidated, but you weren't used to this sort of platonic attention.

"It's been forever since I've gone downtown for any reason besides business." he shakes his head. "They any good?"

"Yeah, actually. Not a bunch of dicks like the usual dudes we get in there." you let out a huff of a laugh.

"Always good. I wouldn't know anything about that, I'm always surrounded by these assholes." he chuckles and motions to the guys sitting at the bar, some groan in retaliation.

"I'm not interrupting a meeting or anything I am?" you ask, side-eyeing the guy next to you as you take another drink. "I don't recall them all being inside last time."

"Nah." he says with a gritty response. "The cold finally ran them all in here." he dismisses the suggestion.

"Yeah it's fucking freezing out there." you agree, your shoulders starting to lose their tension, remembering how to have a friendly conversation again.

"You still walking in this weather?" he asks with an almost big brotherly scolding tone.

"Trucks not fixed yet." you say with a pursing of your lips.

"Hell, what'd you do total it?" he laughs.

"No, I had to have some work on the transmission. They've had to order parts and it's taking a while since it's an old truck." you say, the Ale warming you as you unbutton the thick sherpa lined denim jacket to reveal a black knitted sweater underneath.

"What kind ya got?" he asks with a tilted head.

"1949 Ford F1." you answer with a small nod.

"Seriously?" he asks with an amused face, his brows shifting in surprise.

"Yeah?" you say obviously, blinking slowly. "Why would I lie about that?" you ask with joking narrowed eyes.

"Just surprised is all." he shrugs and smiles again. "Don't think I really took you for an old truck kind've girl."

"Well, you don't really know me that well do you?"

"Not yet no." he says in a playful way. "But I'm tryin'." he gives you a big charming smile and it causes a much more subtle than his, but a smile nonetheless on your face.

You realize he's making an effort, trying to get to know you. He hadn't made a move on you, not in any sleazy or unacceptable way anyway. So you sigh and take your phone out of your pocket and go to your photos. Remember, you were trying to make new friends, not keep up your old habits. "Here she is this past summer." you say, laying your phone down on the bar top to show him.

"She?"

"Oh yeah, she's a full-bodied woman." you nod and grin.

"This cute lil lady have a name?"

"Betty."

"Black Betty, huh?"

"Maybe." you say with a deep dip in your voice, a half smile that shows your teeth coming across your face.

"Solid choice. Suits her." he nods, "Can I?" he asks, pretending to swipe the screen.

"Since you asked first." you nod and give a subtle thankful smirk, taking another drink. Because you hadn't been with anyone, it wasn't like you had any nudes or even any recent selfies in your phone. Pictures of Robert, mainly. Some of your family, food, guitars you wanted, various other music or work-related things and Charlotte and her new baby. The fact that he asked before scrolling was deeply reassuring to you.

"Declan!" you hear in an English accent shouted from the man you'd seen last time in the bar, even if the memory was fuzzy. "Can you get some money out the safe? SOMEONE's decided to pay with big bills and I need some change."

"Be right back." he looks to you and gives a nod. You return the motion with a face that says it's perfectly fine. He hits the bar in front of you before disappearing through the back door.

"You were in here last week." Mike says, slowly nodding. "You're Bella... right?" he says with a knowing tone and narrowed eyes. He was wanting to meet you again after Declan had talked about you. Declan didn't really discuss women much, he hadn't really given them much attention in a while, having made his way through the available pool of them locally and hook up apps weren't really his thing.

"I am." you say obviously, your face straight.

"You were pissed last I saw ya, I dunna know if ya remember me." he laughs, reaching his hand out. "Mike." he says with a warmer smile and you accept it politely. "Declan behaved himself at your place didn't he?" he says quietly.

"Yeah, he's been unusually nice. I'm waiting for him to ask me something pervy and weird to be honest." Mike chuckles. "Like he wants to wear my skin or something." you suggest with a shrug.

"Nah he's too big a boy to fit in you innit he?"

You lower your chin and smirk at him.

"Oh, bloody hell." he rolls his eyes. "Not what I meant. I swear it." he laughs. "I was gonna make a joke at his expense, sayin' if he did say somethin' like that it'd be because he can speak without thinkin' but I've gone and put me own foot in me mouth instead." he says with a nod and pout, his eyes away from you as he continues to exhale noisily. "My apologies."

"No offense taken." you say with the smirk still in place. "He... doesn't wear people's skin in his spare time, does he? Just so I know?" you ask with a deadpan delivery that makes him laugh.

"He is many things but he does not wear people's skin, no." he chuckles.

"I'm guessing you'd know?"

"Declan and I go way back. Years and years I've known the big idiot." he smiles with fondness. "We were mates long before we were business partners." he further explains.

It was good he had old friends, showed he could be loyal and manage relationships, you think. "He seems like a really decent guy." you say with hesitation in your voice. "Are you willing to vouch for him? I'd really hate to find out he's only nice to get girls into bed with him and have to kick his ass." you say with a slightly parted mouth and low brow to show your half seriousness.

"I can see why he likes you." he laughs. "I like ya too, lass." he nods and wags his finger at you. "Any woman threatenin' Declan for behavin' in such a way is alright by me." his voice is warm and friendly and you're thankful to hear the tone. He had grown used to new girls coming into the bar looking to bed Declan themselves, seeing this wasn't the case with you set his mind at ease. "He isn't that sorta man, no. Take him at face value, and you shouldn't be too disappointed." he shakes his head and gives you a closed mouth smile with kind eyes.

"Good. I don't need any more jerks disguising themselves as decent in my life."

"I share the sentiment." he nods. "Here's the devil we speak of." he says with a non-suggestive wink, heading back to cross paths with Declan as he walks down the bar to serve.

"Mike not bothering you is he?" he jokes, leaning back on the counter, turning your phone back on and picking up right where he left off.

"No, just talking shit about you." you say with a straight face and he looks over to Mike who gives him a cheesy grin.

"Gonna give me a chance to redeem myself?" he chuckles, eyes moving back over to your face.

"Maybe. Depends on how quickly you notice this bottle is empty." you say with a smirk, holding it up and shaking it.

He gives a low, rolling chuckle that makes a tingly sensation prickle up your neck and into your hairline. With a word he reaches out, his hand over yours with no sign of hesitation and takes it from you, moving to the cooler for another. He gives a rough shove to Mike's shoulder on the way there and Mike laughs, knowing he'll get an ear full later. On his return, he goes back to your phone as you take another sip and you watch his eyes. You see his jaw clench, his face less soft as he comes across something. You take another sip, narrowing your eyes and wondering what he could've come across.

He's found a picture of you that Charlotte took because you were rather pleased with yourself at the time. It was the middle of summer, and you dressed for the heat. High waisted, distressed denim shorts, frayed edges resting over the top of your upper thigh tattoo, a cropped and cut up Led Zeppelin shirt that hung off your shoulder, showing a strap to a bralette underneath.

"You uh..." he begins, carefully considering the direction to take his next words because what he'd found lies beneath all those layers was something he wanted to see more of. He suddenly was very eager for warm weather. "You look almost happy here." he decides to go with the tease, moving the screen to her point of view.

"Ah. Yeah." you nod and the corners of your eyes soften. "I decided last summer to enter her into a car show. So I got her all cleaned up and chromed and apolstered and everything. She needed it anyway, truth be told. She deserved a makeover." you explain. "She actually placed and I was the only woman to place so I was feeling pretty proud of myself."

"Congrats on that. You win anything else?"

"No, that's the only time I entered. Too much money for up keep and cleaning and not worth the payoff. I've got other things I'd rather spend the time and money on."

"LIke tattoos?" he grins. "Didn't know you had any." he muses.

"Well it is winter so... ya know... clothes." you say with an understated laugh.

"What is this?" he almost mumbles, enlarged the picture to your thigh, the only visible one in the photo.

"Ram's head." you say bluntly.

"Dude that's fuckin' sick." he says with a wrinkle of his nose in enthusiasm. "That's bad ass Bella." he says, looking back over to you.

"Thanks. It's one of my favs." you say with a small nod to the bewjeweled and metal inspired ram with large horns that permanently lived on your thigh.

"That one of those, astrology sign things?" he asks. "I dunno which is a ram but one's a ram, right?" he asks.

"Yeah, Capricorn." you nod. "But I'm not one, no. It's just badass like you said." you give him a smile, pulling up the wrist of your jacket to show a small black scorpion tattoo. "This is my sign. First tattoo too." you say rolling your eyes.

"Ah. Scorpion. Nice." he says leaning further forward to look at the now worn ink. "You have more?"

"Yeah." you say flatly, eyes studying his enthusiasm. "And no you can't see them." you chuckle.

"Wasn't gonna ask. Just curious." he shakes his head and hands your phone back to you. "I"ve been told Scorpios are mean, but you've not been mean to me." he says defensively.

"You've not been around me long enough." you huff a laugh into your bottle. "I'm not speaking on behalf of all scorpios but, I'm only mean to people who deserve it." you shrug. "And you've been pretty nice so far so..." you shrug and take another drink.

"Yeah you've been good comapny to keep." he gives you a softer, closef mouth smile. "Especially after being around these dicks all the time." he motions with his head down the line of men at the bar, leaning in and whispering to you.

"Bar needed some estrogen it seems." you grin.

"Certainly couldn't hurt."

"I would say the same of the bands I work with too. Should be more women in 'em." you nod and take another drink, your face appearing mroe serious.

"Not many women working in music?"

"Our studio is entirely women right now. But, with the musicians, the groups themselves, they're mostly men. The women do more solo stuff and don't seem to get booked as much. Which sucks, because it always seems their shows are only on days I can't go." you say more amused and with a tugging back of the corner of your mouth.

He listens intently, chin resting in his hand as his eyes stay focused and yours wander around the bar. He was pleased you were sharing, opening up a bit again. You seemed guarded and even though he certainly understood the compulsion to be so, it was something he worked hard to overcome for himself, and he couldn't help but want the same for you. You seemed really funny and nice underneath the hard leather shell. Or rather, denim shell tonight. "Your job have weird hours?" he asks with a tilt of his head.

"It can. I mean, you gotta follow the muse sometimes, if something's going really right you don't want to just cut it off and try again tomorrow and hope it sticks again. Creativity doesn't really work that way, unfortunately. I gotta travel for training and conventions and stuff a few times a year, sometimes people can only record on weekends so my days off are out of wack."

"That I can certainly relate to."

"Yeah, I'd say so. You probably have to work every day and hour most people are off."

"Yeah. But I'm a night owl, it's not too bad."

"Damn, I bet you never get to go to shows," you say with an almost pout he appreciates. "Having to work nights and weekends."

"Owning the place helps." he grins.

"Yeah you got me there. Not an owner, but a partner so I get a little wiggle room." you shrug. "But my best friend had a baby recently, so I lost my going out partner so all I do is work anymore it seems. You been to any good shows lately?"

"I have not. Live so close to a music town and never take advantage. Seems like you go a lot though."

"I try to. Support local acts, network, try and fail at making friends." you laugh into your bottle. "Without Charlotte it's not as fun. Guys are gross, you know how it goes." you roll your eyes.

"Unfortunately yes." he nods. "If you.. .and if I'm being too intrusive here tell me to fuck off, please." he flashes a wide charming smile your way "But if you ever need someone to go with you..." he shrugs and then places his hand under his face as if he were displaying himself. "I could always help keep the gross guys away." he offers and you study him for a moment. He wasn't being weird about it or nervous or awkward and you chew your bottom lip for a moment. With a giant man with a mean mug like him with you, you certainly wouldn't have to worry about dudes getting near you. And you knew you could trust him to get you home if you got too drunk. A role Charlotte used to take on often.

"Yeah," you say with a drag to your words. "You would." you nod in thought. You're trying to make new friends, Bella, you're trying to make new friends, you chant to yourself. Open up, it's not a date, he's offering to run interference for you. Just accept someone's help. "We seem to have similar taste in music too." you muse, recalling your passionate arguments of rock and metal the last time you were at the bar.

"It would seem so yes." he gives a wide nod. "And I need to get out more anyway, to be honest. All I do is work too. I miss being fun." he laughs.

"Big fuckin' mood, man." you give him a real laugh that reaches your eyes. Just do it Bella, you're the one making it weird now, just fucking let yourself enjoy something for once. "There's one on Sunday, this week." you begin, keeping your exterior cool and indifferent as you swing your eyes to his. "If that's not too short notice. Actually, there are some girls playing I'd like to see." you add with a tilt of your head.

"MIKE!" he yells, not looking away from you.

"WHAT?" he shouts back across the room.

"I WON'T BE HERE SUNDAY NIGHT!" he says leaning back and projecting his already loud and booming voice to his business partner.

"Oh?" he asks, making his way towards you.

"Me and Bella are gonna go see a show. I offered to keep the sleazeballs away." he says almost proudly.

"I see." he says with an insinuating glance. "It's been year's since you've been to a show."

"Yeah give away how out of touch I am, thanks." he chuckles.

"I'm glad someone's gettin' ya out of here. Let me get some fuckin' work done." he teases before he walks away.

He turns back to you to see a smile on your face and he feels hopeful. "So what time is it?" he asks.

You get out your phone, "What's your Instagram? I'll DM it to you, I found it on there." you murmur, scrolling through your likes.

"dhwolff. Two f's." he raises two fingers.

"There. Sent it." you say, already looking forward to stalking his feed later. "It starts at 9. So we can stop by some food trucks beforehand or something, beer isn't too expensive at this place." you say with approval in your voice.

"You want me to pick you up at your place? You're closer to town."

"Works for me." you say with the first smile that had an inkling of real excitement behind in what could've been years.

@vale0413 @littledeadgirlwalking @jaegeeeeer

#Declan Harp #declan harp x reader #declan harp fic #declan harp fanfic #declan harp fan fiction #frontier #frontier au #frontier fanfic #frontier fic #frontier fandom #jason moamoa #delcan harp x ofc #Declan Harp AU #frontier fan fiction #writing #fan fiction

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tamgerines · 5 years

Text

KH3 First Impression and Complete Thoughts

BACKGROUND: i've played kh1, com, kh2, bbs, 2.8, and a bit of khux. i've watched coded and 3d on yt, so i know the story relatively well. this is an impression of my first playthrough. i did my run on standard mode and watched the secret ending on yt. i mostly did this for story, so this will have my initial impressions based on my run that will not cover extra content like the phone mini games and cooking. my opinions are subjected to change if i ever do any later playthroughs. pls, feel free to disagree w/ me.

!!! WARNING: THERE WILL BE A LOT OF STORY SPOILERS!!!

AUDIO:

Music: utada is queen!!! that opening song!!! also i kept noticing how lit the songs are in each world esp frozen??? and aqua's. worth a replay just for the soundtrack alone.

Voice Acting: everyone sounded great for the most part. sora’s va have certainly improved and sounds less strained. his vanitas voice has suffered significantly though lolololol. i think i read that someone called it a wannabe dark knight voice? the organization sounded incredible, w/ my fav being xemnas, marluxia, and larxene. the disney and pixar va’s are incredible w/ my fav probably being randall in monster’s inc.

some ppl did not get vas like xaldin and laxeaus. and phil in hercules. which were all very disappointing bc in the scenes that they were in, they would just stand around woodenly, and it’s very noticeable.

VISUALS:

mostly a+. environments are beautiful. water and frost textures are amazing!!! you can really feel that waterga and blizzaga. fur textures in monster's inc. could use some work. little details like the sails moving in potc rly make the worlds come alive. this could be a me prob, but environments in certain worlds make it very hard to see map markers, treasure chests, and disney emblems (which are supposed to be hard to find, but still). mostly in tangled.

strangely enough, this is the only game where i prefer in game graphics to cgi. it's already highly expressive and there's something creepy and uncanny about the cgi esp in the final fight. and it's mostly bc sora's thin chapped lips throughout the entire game suddenly becomes full.

DESIGNS:

i don't love everyone's outfit or sora's outfit changes in this game besides toy story. this is something i alrdy knew going in, but i've always felt like the outfits in kh1 and 2 rly suited each of the character's personalities. and this is not just destiny trio but even chars like roxas, the twilight town kids and the hollow bastion crew. the move towards a uniformed look makes no sense to me like is it to unify the key bearers as one force against the organization? i could understand why destiny trio was wearing plaid but why the twilight town kids also? by the end of the game, almost everyone was wearing black and it's just boring to me. like there's a right way to do uniform while retaining characters' individual looks, and that's the wayfinder trio in bbs. in this game, not so much.

an aside, but i'm sort of disappointed in the hud moving to 3d too. the 2d portraits have always been part of kh so it's kinda a bum to see it go away.

i don't love the lvl designs but it might also be due to a narrative and pacing issue that i'll expand on. any case, vertical maps are a challenge to figure out. i don't consider myself bad at directions but there are so many moments, esp in hercules and tangled where i would be like where the heck do i go next (and i have the map) only for me to look up and find a shotlock teleport point (and this isn't so much a thing that heightens the difficulty but a time waster).

lvls and bosses in previous kh games have always been known for their gimmicks and mechanics, but in this game particularly i found it to be more tedious? and this mostly applies to frozen: who the fuck designed frozen? who the fuck thought it's a good lvl design to have sora climb a mountain, get kick off it twice, and climb it again as good lvl design? who?

all the disney bosses started blending together for me bc they're literally all giant monsters and rly easy. i think the mistake here is the fact that the disney worlds are put back to back whereas in kh1/2/bbs you have the interruption of original worlds and an actually playable important parts to the main story, in this game all the important storyline in radiant garden are locked in cutscenes interspersed throughout the game between finishing disney worlds.

a lot of ppl might disagree w this, but i miss the cinematic reaction commands and limit attacks. we still have them but i find them to be on a much smaller scale in the form of drive finishers and situation commands, but i find them to be less imaginative in kh3 in order to be less """"disruptive""" to the gameplay. i've always found cinematics charming in previous games as a way to show sora interacting with his party members during combat. little things like beast putting a hand on sora's shoulder, aladdin leaning on him, or riku bumping his fist have a way of making the friendships he forms feel organic. outside of link commands/ summons, in this game, he........just throws a lot of ppl around or is thrown around?

GAMEPLAY:

already sort of went through parts of it in the previous section, but overall combat was smooth. i love how mobile sora is in this game. the improvement to his running speed and addition of all the mobile skills like dodge roll, super slide, flow motion, blizzard skating, etc. makes combat feel fast paced and juking so easy.

magic is super improved on ever since 2.8 and feels satisfying to use esp bc i feel like ur given a lot more mp now and with the ability to save the last of your mana for cure, it feels like you're not always budgeting your magic.

underwater combat was smoother than i expected.

it's a mistake putting almost all the commands on the triangle button. there's so much options you can do in combat and you'd mean to activate one thing, but then an attraction flow comes out and you just want to die. it gets a bit easier as i went on and got more used to the controls, but in general, i still think it's a mistake to not to have an ability or something to disable certain features like in kh2 fm.

gummy ships continue to be a thing. why. i don’t like how i have to turn the camera myself now ;;;.

i'm not a speedrunner or anything, so i can't say too much else about fighting. the physical combos to me did feel like he was spinning a bit too much tho.

STORY: oh, fucking boy.

i'm not mad, i'm not disappointed, and i'm not even surprised. i already knew that post bbs, kh has already departed far from the franchise i loved as a kid and still today, at least story wise. but let's walk through it.

Disney Worlds: the disney worlds was literally a retelling of their movies. and unlike in kh2 and bbs, where visits to disney worlds were split into two parts, with the first part following the disney story and the second part being heavily tied to the main kh story and thus having original content, the disney worlds in kh3 only get one long visit. and the integration of kh into disney was just done so poorly. remember how kh villains used to kidnap princesses? remember how they used to actually conspire to take disney characters' hearts and turn them dark? remember, you know, when they were still evil and actually interfered with the worlds? in almost every world in kh3, an org member just comes says vague menacing things to sora, calls him stupid, and then leaves. yeah. and oh, maleficent and pete looks for a black box only to not find it, and leaves. AND THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING ELSE FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.

the pixar worlds + bh6 were the only ones with any actual new content and they feel so fresh. i esp loveeeeeeeed toy story omg. the script was so good, funny, and heartwarming. the pixar consultants should have helped kh all the way tbh.

like previous games, there's an attempt for each disney world to thematically tie into the main kh story. in this game, it was as heavy handed as ever, probably even more so.

Original Worlds: onto the meat of kh, the main story was rushed up until the end. you have a slew of disney worlds, then bam, they slam you with all the human bosses and the important story stuff.

the ‘awakening’ of roxas, xion, and ventus were very rushed. you literally have one moment they’re no there then two seconds of white screen and all of a sudden they’re there.

there’s a shit ton of shoehorned character redemption arcs: vexen, demyx, saix, eraqus, xehanort, xemnas, ansem. all were done either offscreen or by some miracle, they reached an epiphany after sora beat his keyblade into their heads.

the only death scene that i actually liked, that a lot of ppl complained about, was vanitas bc yes, although i thought his character had so much potential, it was at least a consistent and sympathetic death. bless him, born a villain die a villain. same with xemnas bc i loved his last speech.

xehanort was a shitty villain through and through. no one understood his motivation; it’s like nomura took a page from thanos’ guide of how to write villains, gave him some stupid ass goal to have a keyblade war to restart the world, and then just have him...get everything he wanted? his estranged friend comes back in ghost form for whatever reason and is just like ok we’re cool man even tho u took my student and indirectly murdered me and then gets taken up to heart heaven, like O K. and like what’s the most frustrating is that it’s implied they’re keeping him as a villain??? bc fucking ymx is like ooohh imma just go back to my own time via time travel. it’s too late for u sora hurdur.

and the younger members of the organization, the ones that we do know were in khux. we don’t get to know how they became nobodies and they don’t get a redemption??? really???

you can tell they tried, TRIED, hard to give everyone closure. and they miserably failed to close plot points. they actually opened more. who the fuck is the unnamed girl in lea and isa’s storyline? why the fuck did you mention her if you were going to play the pronoun game and not name her??? what the fuck was in the black box??? why are they looking for it when no one know what’s in it??? why the fuck was repliku inside of riku the whole fucking time??? why have org members be norted if they can still have agency and choose to betray xehanort??? why the fuck was BOTH sora and riku in different worlds in the secret ending????? ? ? ?

and tho i’m very glad that wayfinder and sea salt trios get their happy ending, the destiny trio had their characters assassinated. kairi was teased to become an independent character of her own and fight alongside sora, only to get shafted to become a damsel in distress, again, literally replaced by xion in one of the last battles, AND referred to as ‘motivation’ for sora by xehanort lol. sora, the guy who’s always going my friends are my power, ONLY grieves about losing kairi, accrediting all of his strength ONLY TO HER. riku, who spent the first game desperately trying to get kairi’s heart back, and who protected her from saix in the second, suddenly doesn’t give a shit about her and is just there as sora’s moral support. it’s so frustrating that nomura has the audacity to say that this series is primarily about friendship and then pull this shit lol. it’s transparent.

CONCLUSION:

i think for me, the quintessential kh trilogy has always been kh1, com, and kh2. as far as i’m concerned, the story should have ended there for destiny trio. and it’s like nomura said, how he feels more sympathetic towards villains now, i think nomura’s ideas have outgrown his main character.

sora’s journey worked in 1, com, and 2 because he had an overarching goal to find kairi and riku and return home. not everyone has to understand heartless vs. nobodies or dark vs. light but at least, anyone can understand the desperation of saving your friends. when that framework is taken away, sora’s goals and motivations become unclear; he’s a kid and has little reason to be caught up in xehanort’s plans, the keyblade war, or the organization’s agendas. and his failure to grow with the increasing complexity of the plot, to investigate for himself the bigger picture or even come into a similar realization of his own darkness/ balance like riku, makes him unfit; he’s a reactionary character instead of an active one. that’s why this game, being experienced from his point of view, felt mostly like a catch up to speed for sora and a set up to nomura’s next big thing instead of a genuine ending. i honestly don’t think nomura knows what to do with him and with kingdom hearts anymore.

kh3 is a game wrapped in nostalgia and promised something bigger than it could fulfill. and aside from better graphics and improved gameplay, the story wasn’t worth the wait.

#kh3 spoilers #my thoughts #i didnt mean for my ramblings to get so long but #yeah im im sad

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