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skampi835 · 3 years

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Let’s never speak of this again! (Motonari x reader)

Let’s celebrate Motonari’s upcoming route with an oneshot! 🥳 Since I hopefully avoided most of the spoilers I didn’t come up with any good idea, but then I found this:

you and your enemy hug each other, it's completely accidental, and neither of you know why it happened, and it's like,,, you glare at each other, with an expression of ''let's never speak of this again'´

Thanks for putting this idea in my mind @screnwriter!

Fandom: Ikemen Sengoku

Language: english

Starring: Motonari x reader (female)

Genre: Comedy

Warning: besides Motonari’s slanguage surprisingly none... ahaha who am I kidding? It's Motonari 😂

real Warnings: angst, bad language, violence (fighting scene!)

Word Count: 1.810

“Get her!”

Shoot! How do I always end in situations like this?!

With this thought you’re bolting straight into the next alleyway. You’ve left the busy trading streets of Azuchi a long time ago and unfortunately lost track of your current position due the rising panic inside of you. Honestly, you’ve no idea where the heck you are right now! Though obviously still in Azuchi you’re running hopefully into the right direction towards the fuller marketplace!

Desperate, you’re squeezing your way through a very small gap between two buildings and dash on. Maybe your pursuers can’t follow you through this and it'll buy you some extra time! The shouts from traders and the sounds of frisky chatters are getting louder with every step you’re taking, which means you have to be on the right track!

Determined you’re keeping up the fast pace, praying you’re able to shake off your pursuers completely in the crowds of the busy market, as you round the next corner. But all of a sudden you’re awfully crashing into a wall.

“Woah!”

“Uff--!”

The heavy impact is stealing your air, though obviously not only from you, but also from said wall, which in the hustle and bustle you’re literally falling into his arms eagerly not to fall. Together you’re even staggering sideways for a split second. Stressed and tense you’re spinning your head up with surprise, staring into the startled, wide ruby red eyes of the man. "Wah-…?"

“… You?!”

You didn't even realize how tight you were clutching Motonari when you crashed into him, until he’s violently yanking your arms away. "The hell yer doing? Got a bloody death wish?" He hisses and is glaring at you furiously.

As shocked as Motonari's reaction was, so are you aghast to face him right now. "What, of all people, are you doing here?!" You snap, still completely out of breath.

Quick steps are pulling you back to the current situation you are still in. You were supposed to keep running from your pursuers but simultaneously you’re facing an enemy of the Oda forces. Your situation is definetly growing somewhat hopeless. Nevertheless the sight of Motonari’s anger makes it a lot easier for your decision, to pass him and run away, than to stand rooted on the spot.

Unfortunately Motonari suddenly grabs your wrist roughly when you've just turned away and is pulling you back. "Ack-…! Let me go!" you plead.

"I won't do shit," Motonari growls venomously. "Now that yer recognized me, princess, I’ve gotta improvise something."

The hectic steps from the side street are getting louder with every passing moment, before they’re coming to a sudden stop right next to you. “There’s this witch!” One of the pursuers is shouting. He’s considerably tall with broad shoulders and a massive body. Shortly afterwards another two coarse figures appears behind him. They’re building themselves up with stern grimaces in the narrow alleyway.

Your eyes anxiously widen and your body starts to tremble ever so slightly. But there is no running away again for you, for Motonari’s adamant grip is chaining you.

"Huh, didn't even know yer know so many grim-looking acquaintances, princess." Motonari’s saying coolly, scanning the three men with his steely gaze. Still he doesn't loosen his grip on your wrist instead he’s tightening it.

"I haven't!" You snort, trying to yank your hand free to get away from him - without avail. You don’t know if it's better, getting caught by Motonari or these guys. But you know for shure both scenarios are pretty bad.

"Hey, you there! Plat-head!” One of the scoundrels growls and is glaring at Motonari grimly, whose dryly raising an eyebrow at this denomination. "Give us the little girl. We have business with her."

“That stupid hussy broke my nose!” Another of them shouts indignantly. You’re noticing his swollen red nose and you can't suppress a brief, yet inappropriate, flash of pride in your face.

It was just a few minutes ago, when they stalked you after you’ve exited your favorite shop. Unfortunately this shop is located in the outskirts of the village so there weren’t many people when they confronted you. The guys wanted to ‘talk to you nicely’ and after a few seconds you’ve ‘nicely declined'. Thank goodness you know some techniques of self-defense!

However, even more inappropriate is Motonari's spiteful laughter that he’s suddenly uttering. It’s giving you the creeps! "Seriously?" With a quick sideways glance in your direction with his ruby red orbs, he’s grinning at the fellow with extreme smug. "Tell me, how’d she did it, putz? Did she climb onto yer?"

Good gracious! Wouldn’t you please make him madder than he already is? Pretty please?!

"What did you just call me?" The broad shouldered man’s roaring furiously. Shortening the distance to Motonari, he’s threateningly waving with his massive fist.

Without wanting to, you’re quickly seeking cover behind Motonari, who has finally let go of your wrist. Now with his hands free he’s facing the attacker. With quick reflexes Motonari’s skillfully dodging the scoundrel's punch and draws his sword with a metal 'shink' that’s humming in the air. You’re holding your breath when Motonari’s holding the blade right against the throat of the ruffian, who is instantly not moving a muscle anymore. "Are you out of yer damn mind? You fucking want to take me on unarmed?!"

Motonari’s sounding incredibly unimpressed, for it was him against three rapscallions, but also incredibly pissed. No matter how this will end, you're sure you won't be of any use. So you’re looking around for an escape route. But you are cornered. The only side you could rush to is a dead end.

"The lil’ one’s mine, get it? So piss off, aye? ” Motonari’s growling with a frown and kicks the man roughly in his side. Gruntling the man hits the ground hard.

"You sunova-!" Furiously about the defeat of his crony, another ruffian - not quite as stupid as his predecessor - is trying his luck with a rusty dagger, when he’s running towards Motonari. But after a few seconds it lands on the ground, followed by the guy.

The last of the crew charges in, just to earn a brutal smack with the back of Motonari’s sword in the side of his neck. "Tch! How the hell did ya morons think yer can take me on when a lil’ girly beat you up? Ya wanna make me really mad?”

You’re recognizing the change in the air around Motonari. It’s tense, shifting from the beginning amusement to bloodlust. Motonari’s wielding his sword, but apparently used it just to disarm his opponent. But now it seems that he won’t restrain himself any longer.

"Crap, let's get out of here!" The guy with the lost dagger is yelling towards his pals. Frantically they’re getting up and quickly disappear into the alleys.

You sigh, relieved as the men finally disappear. But just one moment later your heart’s sinking completely into your boots when Motonari turns back to you, though this time with a sword in his hand. "Back to ya, princess."

“I haven't seen or heard anything!” You shout, throwing your arms up in air and backing from him. Now pressed against a real wall on the side of the house, your heart is pounding up to your throat, when you meet Motonari’s sharp gaze. Luckily the bloodlust you’ve seen before has gone, too.

Motonari’s raising an eyebrow, probably irritated by your strange reaction and is fixing you. Then the corner of his mouth curves up to an amusing smirk while he’s withdrawing his sword back to his belt. “Heh, ain’t that a start?” He snickers.

Abruptly he shortens the distance to you, placing one of his white gloved hands right next to your head against the wall behind you. Superior and smugly, Motonari’s looking straight into your eyes, straight into you. The tension’s getting tangible again and your heart’s pounding hard in your chest. "You owe me. I bet you saw nothing, understood?"

Something you least of all wanted, is to owe to some madman like Motunari! His stern expression is sending a shiver through your spine. "I- ... uhm ... thank you?"

"What should I do with yer thanks? Can’t buy anything with ‘em.” Motonari snarls dissatisfied and is slightly narrowing his eyes. "Either you damn shut yer mouth about everything ya saw - hell, just forget I’m even here! Or I'll cut out yer pretty tongue. Ain’t that a deal?"

Automatically you’re pressing your lips together sealing your mouth - and especially your tongue. You’re staring at him in horror with wide eyes. "Let's never talk about this again, aye?"

What joice do you have? Of course you could just agree with Motonari and then tell the warlords about his whereabouts. But you’ve always been a woman which sticks to her word, no matter how bitter this one is. Not entirely sure whether he'll still carry out his threat to cut off your tongue, you're just nodding, while glancing determined up to him.

"Splendid." Motonari’s pushing himself off the wall with a mask of satisfaction on his face, giving you the way free. "Then rush back to yer patrons, ‘lil princess.”

Uncertain you’re blinking towards him. Motonari makes no move to stop you, he’s just waving with his hand in your direction. He really leaves you with just that! Without further thinking, you’re taking to your heels and bolt away. Not that he'll change his mind after all!

After two more alleys, you’re finally reaching the busy and crowded market and try to calm your panicked pounding heart. That was definitely too much excitement for one day! Still, you're grateful for Motonari getting those ruffians off your back. But why does it haf to be Motonari of all people?!

A deal is a deal, you’re thinking to yourself taking one last, deep, nessecary breath. Certainly it won’t mean anything good that Motonari’s currently in Azuchi. You just hope, you won’t regret this deal someday.

With quick steps you’re heading purposefully back to the castle. Even if this idiot surely won’t appreciate it, your silence about that accident was certain to him.

And you are going to take to grave, that you’ve embraced Motonari by that accident, when running into him. Yes, better never even think about this again!

_____

Motonari’s running his white gloved fingers through his hair and grunts in annoyance, after you left. That you’ve recognized him is a great nuisance to him. It’s time to rethink his plans. That would slow things down a lot.

As if he’d actually trust a little princess like you to keep her mouth shut. What stupidity!

Casually he drives his hands on his sides to get rid of the strange feeling from your delicate arms embracing him.

Let's never talk about this again. - Yeah, better let's not.

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #fanfiction #ikesen fanfic #ikemen sengoku fanfiction #ikesen fanfiction #ikesen fic #ikesen motonari #Motonari Mouri #ikesen motonari fanfic #ikesen motonari fanfiction

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crusherthedoctor · 3 years

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Can you list anything you unironically like in the games (and cartoons and comics) that you don't like?

I won't bother mentioning music, since that goes without saying and is to be expected for a Sonic game... unless you're Chronicles.

Sonic Adventure 2 (mixed gameplay-wise, annoying story-wise) - While I prefer Sonic's SA1 levels for a number of reasons, I still think his and Shadow's gameplay in SA2 is fun on its own merit. I also don't mind the treasure hunting gameplay returning or how big the levels are this time around, since Knuckles and Rouge are still fast and not '06 levels of slow. It's mainly the gimped radar that creates the unfortunate domino effect of making them a problem.

- Introduced Rouge, one of my favourite characters for how playful she is and how she's a lot more nuanced and intelligent than you'd expect.

- Some genuinely good scenes, like Eggman's trap on the A.R.K and Sonic escaping from the G.U.N. helicopter.

- Had some good ideas going for it, like the Pyramid Base and the Biolizard as a scientific monster instead of an ancient one.

- Despite my thoughts on the backstory itself (or rather, its execution), Shadow has enough depth and subtle qualities and occasional unintended hilarity to stand out from the typical dark rival characters you see in media.

- The Last Scene's music in particular is one of my favourite cutscene tracks in the series.

Sonic Heroes (mixed gameplay-wise, loathed story-wise) - The gameplay is fun when you're not being screwed over by repetitive combat, overly long levels and/or ice physics.

- Boasts some of the most consistently Genesis-worthy environments in the 3D games, up there with SA1's and Colours'.

- The in-game dialogue that isn't the same tutorial drivel repeated ad nauseam can be interesting, funny, etc.

- Reintroduced the Chaotix, which provided me with another character I quite like in the form of Vector.

- Bringing Metal Sonic back in full force and front and center in the plot after a long absence (not counting cameos and the like) is a perfectly fine idea. Just... not like this.

Sonic Battle (decent yet repetitive gameplay, mixed story-wise) - Emerl's arc is compelling, and it earns the emotional weight of having to put him down at the end.

- While some characters are iffy (read: Amy), other characters are extremely well-handled. Shadow is probably the prime example.

- Gamma's belly dance healing animation is fucking hilarious.

- When I was young, and the game was first announced, I was really excited about being able to play as Chaos. This proved to be my downfall when it turned out he was arguably one of the worst characters in the game due to being slower than me during the writing process, but I still recall that excitement fondly.

Shadow the Hedgehog (comedy classic) - The sheer amount of legendary stupidity this game has going for it makes it practically impossible to actually hate. It helps that it's not quite as white-knighted on the same level as '06... usually. You know you're in for a unique experience when you hear a gunshot every time you click something in the menu.

- By extension, Black Doom never gained an unironic fanbase like Mephiles/Scourge/Eggman Nega did, which means I'm a lot more willing to take Doom's dumbass brand of villainy in stride. He even has a unique design... a terrible one that rips off Wizeman granted, but alas, even that is a step-up from Fridge Shadow and Bumblebee Eggman.

- Despite being... well, Shadow the Hedgehog, some of the environments would fit right in with any other Sonic game, like with Circus Park, Lava Shelter, and Digital Circuit. Even the Black Comet levels look pretty cool.

- This game understands amnesia better than IDW does.

Sonic '06 (what do you think?) - The obvious one: Shadow's character was handled pretty well, even if it came at the cost of everyone else being a dummy and being forced to interact with Mephiles.

- Like SA2, there are some good moments, like the Last Story ending sequence with Sonic and Elise.

- In the greatest form of irony ever, I like Solaris as a concept and design(s), and its backstory has potential to serve as a parallel with Chaos without being a complete ripoff. Iblis sucks, Mephiles sucks, but I'm fine with Solaris.

- Introduced legendary characters like Sonic Man, Pele the Beloved Dog, Hatsun the Pigeon, and Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove.

The Rivals duology (apathetic outside of Nega-related grumbling) - There were some cool zone ideas in both games that were sadly let down by the restrictive and limiting gameplay. I particularly like Colosseum Highway for thus far being the only full-on Roman level in the series instead of merely having a couple minor hints of Roman, and Meteor Base for the unique scenario of the space station being built into an asteroid. These level concepts and others deserve a second chance IMO. (At least Frontier Canyon got a second chance in the form of Mirage Saloon, amirite?)

- Ifrit has a better design than Iblis. Not saying it's amazing, but the Firebird motif it has going on is a lot more interesting for a fire monster than the Not-Chaos schtick they had with Iblis.

Sonic and the Secret Rings (a very frustrating gaming experience) - Erazor Djinn, A.K.A. Qui-Gon Djinn, A.K.A. Dr. N. Djinn, A.K.A. I'll Take It On The Djinn, A.K.A. Not From The Hairs On My Djinny Djinn Djinn, is one of the best villains not associated with Eggman in the series. He's a Mephiles-type character done right, and there's actual weight and reason to his actions, however sinister or petty.

- I don't have strong opinions either way on Shahra as a character, but the Sonic/Shahra friendship is sweet and well-handled.

- The ending is one of Sonic's greatest moments. The sheer contrast between how ruthlessly he deals with Erazor and how comforting he is towards Shahra speaks volumes... Still gonna make fun of the mountain of handkerchiefs though. (Before anyone lectures me, I understand the significance of it and can even appreciate it from that angle... doesn't mean I'm not allowed to poke fun at it. :P)

- Another game with some redeeming environments. I love the aesthetic of Night Palace, and Sand Oasis looks gorgeous too.

Sonic Chronicles (my personal least favourite game in the series) - Uh...

- Um...

- Er...

- I like Shade's design?

Sonic Unleashed (overrated game and story IMO) - The obvious two: the opening sequence and the Egg Dragoon fight deserve all the praise they get.

- Seeing Eggmanland come to life was an impressive moment to be sure. While part of me does feel it didn't quite measure up to what I had in mind (ironically, the Interstellar Amusement Park ended up being closer to what I had in mind), it still looks badass and works well for what it is. I also don't mind the idea of it being a one-level gauntlet... key word being idea.

- Obviously, the game looks great. Not a fan of the real world focus (real world inspiration is fine, but copy-pasting the real world and shoving loops in it is just unimaginative), but it can't be denied that the environments look good.

- This game pulled off dialogue options a lot better than Chronicles did, since they didn't rely on making Sonic OoC.

Sonic and the Black Knight (just kind of boring all around) - Despite my gripes with the story (Merlina wasn't nearly as fleshed out as her unique anti-villain status deserved, which ends up severely undermining the ambition of the plot in more ways than one, and the other characters go from being useless yes men for King Arthur to being useless yes men for Sonic), I will admit it provides interesting insight into Sonic's character.

- Like '06 and Secret Rings, the ending is very nice... well, aside from Amy being an unreasonable bitch ala Sonic X at the very end.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (apathetic) - The admittedly few new concepts sprinkled within had promise. They may not have been as fleshed out as they could have been, but level concepts like Sylvania Castle and White Park, bosses like Egg Serpentleaf and the Egg Heart, and story beats like the Death Egg mk.II being powered by Little Planet, all could have been brilliant had they been better executed.

SatAM (apathetic outside of SatAM Robotnik-related grumbling) - I'm not a fan of the environments on the whole due to them looking too bland or samey, but there are some exceptions that look pleasant or interesting, like the Void.

Sonic Underground (apathetic) - The character designs make me feel better about myself.

- Does "large quantities of unintentional meme material" count as a positive?

Sonic X (mostly apathetic outside of Eggman's handling) - Helen was a better human character and audience surrogate in her one focus episode than Chris was throughout his entire runtime.

- Actually, most of the human characters not named Chris were legitimately likable. Including everyone in Chris' own family not named Chris. Hilarious.

- Despite arguably having the most Chris in it, I actually don't mind the first season that much, partly due to slight nostalgia from seeing it on TV when it was new, but mostly because Eggman actually acted like a villain for the most part, and certain other characters weren't quite as flanderized yet. It's season 2 and onwards where things started going off the rails IMO. (Incidentally, Helen's episode was part of season 1...)

The Boom franchise (apathetic) - Along with Chronicles, the games provide yet more proof that just because someone isn't SEGA/Sonic Team, that doesn't mean they're automatically more qualified to handle the series.

- The show had some good episodes here and there, and Tails' characterization was probably the most consistently on-point out of the cast.

- Despite not exactly being favourite portrayals for either character, even I'll admit that many of Knuckles and Eggman's lines in the show on their own were genuinely funny.

Archie Sonic (pre-reboot is mostly terrible, post-reboot is mostly... bland) - Whenever I doubt myself as a writer, I think back to Ken Penders, and suddenly I'm filled with a lot more confidence.

Sonic the Comic (apathetic) - Fleetway isn't a comic I tend to recall much of aside from how much of a loathesome cunt Sonic is, but IIRC, Robotnik's portrayal is pretty good. Different, but good.

IDW Sonic (stop pissing me off, comic) - Putting their handling aside (and being too obviously "inspired" by MGS in the latter's case), Tangle and Whisper are good characters IMO.

- Same goes for Starline, before he was killed off-screen and replaced with Toothpaste Snively.

- Execution aside (noticing a pattern?), the zombot virus was a fine concept on its own and an interesting new scheme for Eggman.

- I get to remind myself that I've never drawn scat edits and posted them publicly on Twitter.

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rachelbethhines · 3 years

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Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 60s

So the 60s is the era that Wandavision pulls most heavily from for it’s inspiration. So much so that one could make the argument that each of the first three episodes are all set in the 1960s. Episode one pulls from the early 60s with multiple Dick Van Dyke refences, episode two is very Bewitched inspired, and episode three is aesthetically very similar to The Brady Bunch which started in ‘69. As such it was hard to narrow down the list for this decade and I had to get creative in some ways.

1. The Andy Griffith Show (1960 - 1968)

The Andy Griffith Show gets kind of a bad rap now a days for being, supposedly, a conservative’s wet dream. People claiming it as such have apparently never actually seen the series. Oh yes, it’s very much set in white rural 60s America and will occasionally present the obliviously outdated joke, but the story of a widowed sheriff being the only sane man in a small town full of lovable lunatics, who prefers to solve his and others problems with negotiation and hair brained schemes as opposed to violence has far more in common with modern day Steven Universe than whatever genocidal fantasy fake rednecks have in their heads.

As the gif above shows Andy Griffith was very subtlety progressive for its time. Andy was a stanch pacifist, pro-gun control, treated drug addicts and prisoners with respect, and all the women he would date had careers, ect. and so on. It’s not a satire making any sort of grand political statements but the series had a moral center that was far more left than many realize.

But if it’s not a satire, then what type of comedy is it?

The Andy Griffith Show excels in what I like to call, ‘awkward comedy’. See everyone in Mayberry is far too nice to just come out and tell a character they’re making an ass of themselves, so therefore whoever is the idiot punching bag of the episode’s focus must slowly unravel as everyone looks on in helpless pity until said character realizes the folly of their ways and the townsfolk come together to make them feel happy and accepted once more. Wandavision takes this polite idyllic awkwardness and plays it up for horror instead of laughs.

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

The creators of Wandavision actually met with Dick Van Dyke himself to pick his brain and learn how sitcoms were made back then. Paul Bentley also took inspiration from Van Dyke in his performance of the sitcom version of Vision, while Olsen stated Mary Tylor Moore had a heavy influence on her character of Wanda. But more than just being a point of homage, The Dick Van Dyke Show was hugely influential in modernizing the family sitcom and breaking a lot of the unspoken traditions and ‘rules’ of the 50s television era. It’s also just really, really funny.

3.The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 - 1965)

Bit of a cheat here. Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually started in 1955 as a half hour anthology show, but in ‘62 the show got a revamp and was extended into a full hour tv series. I knew I wanted The Twilight Zone to be covered in my episode one recap, but ‘The Master of Suspense’ couldn’t be forgotten. While The Twilight Zone reveled in the surreal and supernatural, Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the thriller genre and made real life seem dangerous, horrifying, and other worldly.

4. Doctor Who (1963 - present day) vs Star Trek (1966 - present day)

Just like how westerns dominated the air waves during the 50s, science fiction was the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the 60s. From Lost in Space to My Favorite Martian, space aliens and robots were everywhere. So naturally I had to name drop the two sci-fi juggernauts that still air to this today. If you thought that the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek was bad then you’ve never seen a chat full of Whovians and Trekkies duking it out over who is the better monster, the Borg or the Cyberman. But which one has the more influence over Wandavision?

Well Star Trek owes it’s existence to sitcoms. As with The Twilight Zone before it, Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions and it’s co-founder and CEO, Lucille Ball, was the series biggest supporter behind the scenes, lobbying for it when it faced early cancelation. As with all things sitcomy, everything ties back to I Love Lucy in the end. However despite that little backstory, it would seem that the series has very little to do with Wandavision itself beyond being quintessentially American.

I would argue that Wandavision owes much to Doctor Who though. Arguably more so than any show mentioned in this retrospective. Time travel, alternate realities, trouble in quite suburbia, brainwashing, people coming back from the dead, ect... just about every trope you can find in Wandavision has also appeared in Doctor Who at some point. As a series that can go anywhere and do anything, Doctor Who was a pioneer of marrying genres in new and interesting ways.

5. Bewitched (1964 - 1972) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965 - 1970)

It’s hard to pick one series over another because they’re essentially the same show. A mortal man falls in love with a magical girl who upends their lives with magic filled hijinks as they try their best not to have their secret discovered by the rest of the world. And both have their fingerprints all over the DNA of Wandavision.

There’s only two core differences; Samantha and Jeannie have completely different personalities, with Sam being confident and knowledgeable and Jeannie being naïve and oblivious, along with their relationships with their respective men, Sam and Darrin being married and in love at the start of the series and Jeannie chasing after Tony in the beginning in a will they/won’t they affair, finally only getting together in the last season.

6. The Munsters (1964 - 1966) vs The Adams Family (1964 - 1966)

Fans of these two shows are forever sadden that there never was a crossover between them. Because they’d fit perfectly together. Both shows are about a surreal and macabre family living in American suburbia and disrupting the lives of their neighbors with their otherworldly hijinks. Sound familiar?

The main difference between the two shows is the way the characters viewed their placement in the world they inhabit.

The Munsters were always oblivious to the fact that didn’t fit in. They just automatically assumed everyone had the same personal tastes as them. Whenever they encountered anyone who behaved strangely around them they would write that person off as being the odd one rather than questioning themselves. As such the main cast was structured like a stereotypical sitcom family who just happened to be classic movie monsters.

The Addams were well aware that they were abnormal and they loved it! They lived life with in their own little world and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. As such the characters were far more colorful and quirky as individuals but there was little in the way of refences to other horror franchises beyond just a general love of the twisted and strange.

7. Green Acres (1965 - 1971) and the Rual-verse (1962 - 1971)

So the MCU is not the first franchise to bring viewers an interconnected universe to the small screen. Far from it, as sitcoms had been doing this for decades, starting with the ‘rualverse’. Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were all produced by the same company and were treated as spinoffs of each other, complete with crossovers and shared characters and sets.

Of the three, the last show, Green Acres, has the most in common with Wandavision. A well to do businessman and his lovely socialite wife settle down in small town America on a farm in order to get away from the stresses of city life, only to find new stresses in the country. Eva Gabor, herself a natural Hungarian, plays the character of Lisa as Hungarian making her one of the few non-native born Americans on tv screens during the cold war. Despite her posh nature and original protests to the move, Lisa assimilates to the rural life far easier than her husband, Oliver. Who, as the main comedic thread, can’t comprehend his new quirky neighbors’ odd and often illogical behavior.

8. Hogan’s Heroes (1965 - 1971) and Get Smart (1965 - 1969)

So as comic fans have been quick to point out, it’s looking like both A.I.M. (Hydra) and Sword (Shield) will be players in the story of Wandavision. To commemorate that here’s two shows to represent those opposing sides. Although in truth, neither series has anything else in common with each other but I need to condense things down someway.

In Hydra’s corner we got Hogan’s Heroes. A show all about taking down Nazis from within.

I love, love, love, ‘robin hood’ comedies where a group of con artists try week after to week to pull one over the establishment. The Phil Silvers Show, Mchale's Navy, and Top Cat, just to name a few examples are all childhood favorites of mine. However while those shows had a lot of morally ambiguous characters, Hogan’s Heroes has very clear cut good guys and bad guys, cause the bad guys are Nazis and the show relentless makes fun of the third reich as should we all. In fact I was watching Hogan’s Heroes while waiting for the GA run off election results. Fortunately my home state decided to kick out our own brand of Nazis this year.

For Shield, we got the ultimate spy spoof, Get Smart. Starring, Inspector Gadget himself, Don Adams, as the bumbling Maxwell Smart. Get Smart, is a hilarious send up of Cold War espionage but the real selling point of the show, imho, is Max and his co-worker 99′s relationship. You can cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife all while laughing your ass off.

9. Batman (1966 - 1968)

First was Superman and then came Batman. Yet while Superman was a serious action show, Batman was a straight up comedy. Showcasing that superheroes could indeed be funny.

Also shout out for Batman being the only show on this list to have an actual crossover with it’s competitor, The Green Hornet.

10. Julia (1968 - 1971)

Since episode two features the first appearances of Herb and Monica, let’s highlight the first black led sitcom since the cancelation of Amos ‘n Andy over a decade earlier. The show focuses on single mother and military nurse, Julia, as she tries to live her life without her recently decease husband, who was killed in Vietnam, as she tries to raise their six year old son on her own.

The series is cute. It’s more of a throw back to earlier family sitcoms where there’s no fantasy and life lessons are the name of the game. It’s the fact that the main character is a single black woman is what made the show so subversive and important at the time.

Runner Ups

There’s much good stuff in the 60s, so here’s some others that didn’t make the cut but I would recommend anyways.

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961 - 1963)

I call this the Brooklynn 99 of the 1960s. Bumbling but well meaning Officer Toody longs to do good in the world and help anyone in need, but often screws things up with his ill thought out schemes. He often drags his best friend and partner, the competent but anxiety riddled, Muldoon into his escapades.

Mr. Ed (1961 - 1966)

The grandfather of the sarcastic talking pet trope.

The Jetsons (1962 - 1963 and 1985 - 1987)

Hanna-Barbera often took popular sitcoms and just repackaged them as cartoons with a fantasy theme to them. The Jetsons has no singular show that it rips-off but is rather more a grab bag of sitcom tropes that feature, robots, computers, and flying cars.

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965)

The Outer Limits was The Twilight Zone’s biggest competitor in terms of being a sic-fi/horror anthology series.

Gillian’s Island (1964 - 1967)

The only comparison to WandaVision I could think of was that this is a sitcom about people being trapped in one place. But by that point I was running out of room on the list. Still it’s one of the funniest shows on here.

So yeah, this took longer than expected cause there’s a lot, here. Hopefully the 70s will be easier. Which I’ll post on Friday.

#wandavision #sitcoms #1960s #dick van dyke #bewitched

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alienahellsparkle · 3 years

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❦ List fandoms of my heart: №3 (the last).

✯ Kuroshitsuji (Dark Butler)

This anime is my guide to the world of anime, my first of all, and the first that I liked. In addition, I have been watching it since I was 13 (omg, how old I am..).

I can say, from it I learned what anime is. It is one of my favorites and one of those that I can revisit (P.S .: And I'm still waiting for the new season or new full-length films, although no one said anything or promised anything about it).

The advantages of this anime are - interesting plots, 19th century setting mixed with the supernatural, soundtracks and a huge number of different characters for every taste. As I can tell, everyone will find their ideal 2D kun or chan here.

I could single out a lot of cool characters, but I'm afraid they could be spoilers too, so I'll just mention a few of my personal favorites.

Sebastian is a demon butler and another protagonist besides Ciel. A jack of all trades, a cool killer and one of the most real handsome men who stole many hearts from the female audience, who is in many similar tops and sometimes even has leading positions. I can say that he was my very first anime - love.

Prince Soma is an Indian prince. I don't know how many fans he has, but I think not as many as Sebastian and Ciel. Actually, Soma is the one who attracted me much more and my love for Sebastian did not last forever. This is because Soma, in addition to being beautiful and Indian (which was important to me as a lover of Bollywood films and music, and also interested in Indian culture), has a sweet and good personality. Three combos!

Madame Red is a bright woman with a difficult fate. I guess there isn't much more to say here (spoilers, spoilers, damn it).

Pluto is a devilish dog. Cutie, charming, with one cool ability and mine another anime-love (those who know this character and his unusual ability - yes - yes, I know it's weird to fall in love with characters like him).

As I said, the soundtracks are wonderful - some of the tunes have some classic notes in them, and also, the opening can be recognized from a thousand and it is easy to remember which anime it belongs to.

Also, there are elements of detective and crime, which also adds its own special shades and makes this anime even more interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

I look forward to continuing with it and begin to show interest in anime of a similar genre and setting in one (I found something similar, for example, as "House of Shadows").

✯ Dame x Prince

Another anime that became my find and I can watch it many times. I liked it so much that after I found it (in 2018 it was a spring novelty), I watched almost all the episodes in one gulp and only later realized that it ends too quickly, because I could not stop in time.

This anime contains everything that I love about the reverse - harems - beautiful drawing, bright colors, romance, elements of comedy and fantasy, attractive male characters and not a stupid main character who can be respected.

We can say that Ani is one of the few normal owners of a harem, but she can be considered a diamond among them. She is encouraged by her courage and the fact that she is not embarrassed when guys compliment her or try to flirt (I could say more about her, but these will be spoilers).

Despite the fact that here the male characters are clichéd, for example - a kind cutie, handsome womanizer, narcissistic rude and so on, they look cool and interesting to watch, it's a pity that we will never know which of them Ani chose in the end.

In addition, there is one more plus in the form of a good plot, after which it helps some characters to reveal themselves.

Even if many people do not always take girly harem animes well and consider them worthless and empty, just to please teenage girls with cute romance in a colorful wrapper, this anime genre also deserves a place to be. Who knows, maybe soon the reverse - harems will evolve even more, at least there are already some anime-worthy options. Everything has its fans..

In general, this is a good and positive anime that can bring more colors to life. And I still hope for season 2..

✯ Nanbaka

When you watch a video on the topic: "Guess the gender of anime characters", you will not think that in this way you will be able to discover a new anime. That's how I found out about Nanbaka, after which I watched the first season in a couple of days.

I associate this anime with the beginning of July 2018 and the dairy drinks Twix, Milky Way and Snickers, which at that time I was finally able to taste.

Nanbaka has several advantages - a cool variety of characters, an element of comedy, and an equally vibrant color scheme. Also, I noticed that all characters have their own special difference - they all have nails painted in a different color and have small fangs.

Despite the fact that there is no romance here and the plot is built around a prison theme, Nanbaka is quite interesting to watch, and in some episodes there are elements of drama and seriousness. However, if the first season is more comical situations, then the second season is a little more serious, at least there are more problems that the heroes solve.

Of the characters, there are not only bisonens and heroes with simple qualities including kindness, cuteness, foolishness, signs of a womanizer, hot temper and severity, but there are also unexpected specimens, such as several LGBTQ characters and even antagonists.

Unfortunately, Nanbaka is not a very popular fandom and most likely there will never be a third season... But this is another solid anime that can be endlessly watched and is one of those that drags on from the first episodes.

✯ Romance Club

This visual novel often came across to me in YouTube recommendations, in the form of walkthroughs and analysis of Easter eggs from it.

At first, I was not very interested in this, and from the video, my first impression was that this is just an incomprehensible game with characters similar to cardboard figures, but for some reason it became very popular and discussed on social networks.

After some time, I still began to watch the walkthroughs and more or less began to understand what the whole highlight of the game is, and after that, I began to play myself, though at the beginning, then, I had only a plan to while away the rest of summer time until autumn, but I didn’t notice how I began to be drawn into the RC and it became not just a game for one time, it became a habit that is difficult to get rid of.

Now, it's not just a bunch of pretty cardboard character figurines and a joke that RC is a mix of films like "50 Shades of Gray" and "Twilight", made for teenage girls.

Romance Club is - characters for every taste, from whites and Europeans, to Hispanics and Asians, both boys and girls. LGBTQ relationships have not been forgotten here either.

Various stories with any setting - vampires + werewolves, pirates, aliens, 19th-18th century, royal setting, movie stars and fame, Scandinavian mythology, ancient Greek mythology, sea and beach setting, detectives and crime, ancient Japan (geisha and samurai) , angels and demons, everyday life and much more, but the creators continue to delight us with new stories to this day, and I think we still have a lot to see.

Beautiful graphics and drawing of characters, cool design of clothes, and also, here you can learn how to beautifully compose texts and sentences (let's say this can be useful for the writing sphere), since some stories contain wonderful descriptions of some scenes and comparisons of concepts (example. "Stars as luminous points," and the like).

But besides romance, other important topics can be revealed here, such as the concept of friendship, a hard life due to many problems, courage and self-confidence, and sometimes even 18+ topics can be touched upon. In addition, some stories have instructive facts, for example, something about the history of Turkey during the Ottoman Empire.

Romance Club is scientifically enlightening!

Despite the fact that I refused to play games, since they take a lot of time, during which you can do a bunch of other useful things, RC is the only game (besides the Sims) on which I do not regret wasting my time and it is always interesting to watch new stories and how the old ones will end.

(P.S.:

here is part 1 https://lenahellsparkle.tumblr.com/post/650656683336548352/list-fandoms-of-my-heart-1

part 2 https://lenahellsparkle.tumblr.com/post/655103141583470593/list-fandoms-of-my-heart-2)

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flclarchives · 3 years

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Amusing Himself to Death, an Akadot.com interview with Kazuya Tsurumaki (director of FLCL and assistant director of Evangelion) from around December 2001. In the article, Tsurumaki explains a few things about Evangelion, his mentality behind FLCL as a whole, and the meaning of the name ‘FLCL’.

Full article text is under the cut, or read the article in its original form [here].

Kazuya Tsurumaki was a relatively little-known animator when Hideki Anno selected him to work as the assistant director on Neon Genesis Evangelion. For the TV series, which became a smash hit in Japan and one of the touchstones of the current surge of interest in anime in the US, Tsuramaki served as the main storyboard artist as well as assistant director, and when Studio Gainax began production on a trio of Evangelion films Tsurumaki got his first directorial assignment.

As he tells the story, Anno came to him after Eva and announced that he was out of ideas and that it was up to Tsurumaki to dream up the next project because, "you are next." Tsurumaki let his imagination run wild, but by the time he had written a script, Anno - despite his declaration that he had no stories left to tell - was already several steps ahead of Tsurumaki and in pre-production for his next series, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo, leaving Tsurumaki a chance to have complete and unsupervised creative control of his own series FLCL.

FLCL, referred to as "Fooly Cooly" (or "Furikuri" by its American fans), is unlike any anime series to come before it. Wild, maniacally fast-paced physical comedy; exaggerated, exuberant animation alternately pushing towards surrealist- as when mecha exuviate from a bump on young Naota's head - and deconstructionist - as when the animation literally stops and the story is told by a camera bouncing across a page of black and white manga art panels; and obsessively, often irrelevantly, referential to obscure Tokyo-pop bands and anime insider trivia; FLCL was hyperkinetic and disorienting, yet mesmerizing, almost transgressive, and undeniably original. It inspired enthusiastic admiration for Tsurumaki as a creator, even amongst the perhaps 90% of the series' fans who were absolutely baffled by much of it. One is tempted to refer to it as announcing the arrival of full blown post-modernism in animation, or perhaps as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable of the anime industry.

When Tsurumaki visited Baltimore to speak to American fans at the recent Otokon Convention, predictably, many of the questions were along the lines of, "Hi, I really loved FLCL [or Evangelion], but could you please explain this part of it to me?"

Tsurumaki answered all questions genially with a self-deprecating and often mischievous sense of humor. For example:

Why does Haruko hit Naota over the head with her guitar?

Kazuya Tsurumaki: Naota is trying to be a normal adult and she belts him to make him rethink his decision.

Why does Evangelion end violently, and somewhat unhappily?

KT: People are accustomed to sweet, contrived, happy endings. We wanted to broaden the genre, and show people an ugly, unhappy ending.

Why is the character of Shinji portrayed as he is?

KT: Shinji was modeled on director Hideki Anno. Shinji was summoned by his father to ride a robot, Anno was summoned by Gainax to direct an animation. Working on Nadia [Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water, one of Anno and Tsurumaki's earlier projects] he wondered if he still wanted to work like this. He thought that working on Eva could help him to change.

Is there any particular reason why so many Gainax series feature very anxious, unhappy young male protagonists with no parents?

KT: Yes, the directors at Gainax are all basically weak, insecure, bitter, young men. So are many anime fans. Many Japanese families, including my own, have workaholic fathers whose kids never get to see them. That may influence the shows I create.

Could you explain the mecha bursting from Naota's head in FLCL?

KT: I use a giant robot being created from the brain to represent FLCL coming from my brain. The robot ravages the town around him, and the more intensely I worked on FLCL the more I destroyed the peaceful atmosphere of Gainax.

Why doesn't FLCL follow one story?

KT: In the third episode Ninamori was almost a main character, a kid who, like Naota, has to act like an adult. After episode three her problem was solved so we wrote her out. She has many fans in Japan and we got plenty of letters about that decision. For FLCL I wanted to portray the entire history of Gainax, and each episode has symbols of what happened behind the scenes on each of Gainax's shows. Episode one has many elements of Karekano; episode two, a lot of Evangelion references, etc.

Where does the title FLCL come from?

KT: I got the idea from a CD in a music magazine with the title Fooly-Cooly. I like the idea of titles that are shortened long English words. Pokémon for "Pocket-Monsters" for instance, and an old J-pop band called Brilliant Green that was known as "Brilly-Grilly."

Is there any reason why the extra scenes added to Eva for the video release were cut in the first place? Did you think the story would mean something different with them intact?

KT: The scenes that were added to Eva for its video release aren't that important. We added them as an apology for taking so long to get the video out. Maybe they'll help people understand things, because the episodes were done under tough deadlines the first time around.

Can you explain the symbolism of the cross in Evangelion?

KT: There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.

After the panel, Mr. Tsurumaki sat down to speak with Akadot.

Do you enjoy confusing people?

KT: I have a twisted sense of humor. I'm an Omanu Jacku, a contrarian. [Writer's note- Omanu Jacku is a folk character a bit like Puck, a mischief maker]

What do you see differently now that you're working as a director rather than only as a visual artist?

KT: As an animator I have only the art; as a director story is really big. I still feel as an animator and I often have trouble putting the needs of the story first.

Did you intend from the start for FLCL to be as bizarre as it wound up?

KT: From the very start I wanted a different flavor. To achieve this I had to re-train the animators to be as stylized as I wanted them to be because I wasn't drawing it. I knew that not everyone would get it. I deliberately selected very obscure J-pop culture and anime sub-culture jokes and references. Because Eva was so somber I always intended to make FLCL outrageous and wacky.

Why the choice to break out of conventional animation and use manga pages? Was it at all a response to how many anime are using computers to achieve smoother and more realistic visuals? Were you trying to go the opposite direction?

KT: I like manga, not only to read, but the visuals. The pen drawings, the frame breakdowns and layouts . . . This is the first time I have used digital animation, and those bouncing manga shots wouldn't have been possible with cel animation. Personally I'm not interested at all in using computers for realistic animation. I'm impressed by it sometimes, but I'm interested in using computers to do what was once impossible, not to do smoother versions of what has already been done. I want to be less realistic.

Has using digital animation techniques changed the way you work, or the way you feel about your work when you see it? Does it still feel like it's yours if a computer did much of it?

KT: Before I got into digital animation I saw other shows that were using it and I felt that there was no feeling, it was empty. As an animator, there's a sense of release when you draw a cel. There's something there. Working on FLCL, though, I learned that computers can do more, and, most of all, that they allow room for trial and error and revising, more freedom to experiment. That is why I now feel that cel art cannot win against computers. For actual animation everything is still drawn on paper. That work hasn't changed. It's the other stuff, the touchups, and coloring. If we didn't use paper, maybe the feeling would change.

Earlier today you said that you were trying to broaden the genre by giving Eva a sad ending. Does the sameness of much of today's anime bore you?

KT: First of all we didn't use a sad ending to annoy fans. When they're upset, that really bothers us. Personally, I think a happy ending is fine, but not if it is achieved too easily. That's no good.

For all the fans that are confused at all, if you had to define in one sentence what FLCL is about, what would you say?

KT: FLCL is the story of boy meets girl. For me it is also about how it's ok to feel stupid. With Evangelion there was this feeling that you had better be smart to understand it, or even just to work on it. With FLCL I want to say that it's okay to feel stupid.

Even though it may be strange to us, do you have in your head a logic behind it? Are you trying to portray a story that follows the logic of dreams, or is it supposed to make sense symbolically?

KT: I'd like you to think of FLCL as imagination being made physical and tangible, just as it is for me when I take whatever is in my head and draw it.

So what are you working on next?

KT: Right now Gainax has told me that they'll support anything I choose to create, but I'm having trouble coming up with any ideas.

Why is that?

KT: Releasing titles for market, I know I have to make something to please fans, but I'm not a mature enough person to accept that fact. If I'm not amusing myself I can't do it. I feel bad that fans have to put up with such behavior from me. I apologize.

#FLCL #Evangelion #archive.org #Kazuya Tsurumaki #also i can upload the text as a PDF if anyone would like it!#things like these articles make me realize the people who say FLCL is too confusing aren't artists. because as an artist this is cathartic-#-to read. i'd kill to be able to make something as high-strung stylized and full of weird references as FLCL.#and with GAINAX too? holy shit #interview #article

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amjustagirl · 3 years

Text

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Wordcount: 2.3k

Summary: Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears echoes of the birdsong in her laugher, the songs of the gods in the wind.

(Loosely inspired by ‘Your Name’, aka Kimi No Nawa, featuring Haikyuu’s own pretty Tokyo boy)

Wordcount: 3.5k

Masterlist here

AO3 Link here

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

‘It’s rare to see young men like you buying flowers for their mother’, the florist comments offhand as she wraps his order of yellow chrysanthemums in paper.

Akaashi smiles, accustomed to the friendly florist by now. ‘I guess I’ve always had a partiality for flowers’, waving to the florist as he leaves to head to Shibuya to meet Bokuto for Izakaya. He’s running late, but Bokuto doesn't mind, hooting good naturedly at the comedy show playing on the television in the rundown bar.

‘Agaaaashi, you made it!’ Bokuto rises from his seat to give him a jovial fist bump.

‘Of course I did’, he responds dryly. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me from my appointment with you’. He spends most of dinner listening to Bokuto’s recent exploits both with the national team and MSBY. Excitement still sparkles in the older man’s eyes as he recounts each and every match he’s played in, and Akaashi idly wonders how it is that Bokuto seems to have managed to pack on even more muscle in the short span of a month, the last time they met up was to see Bokuto off at the airport for the World Cup.

‘You should have continued playing volleyball in university’, Bokuto crows in between mouthfuls of yakiniku and beer and Akaashi shakes his head at the refrain he’s so used to hearing from his senpai.

‘I wouldn’t be able to maintain my grades if I wanted to take volleyball seriously in university, plus there’s no guarantee I’d even get off the bench’, he answers self-effacingly.

‘But you have the best tosses, Akaaaaaashi!!’ Bokuto declares, his words slightly slurred, and Akaashi wonders if he should start to inch Bokuto’s beer away from him. After consuming far too much barbecued meat (Bokuto took the liberty of ordering twice of what Akaashi would normally order, waving his protests off by stating grandly that he’ll take care of the bill, he’s the one working after all!), Bokuto slips into a food-drunk stupor, happy to listen to his anecdotes of university life, and he takes the chance to ramble on about his advanced Japanese classical literature course that he finds far more fascinating than his class on modern literature to his best friend.

They stumble out of the izakaya when the line outside grows far too long to be ignored, Bokuto draping a heavy arm over Akaashi’s shoulder, the red tint on the tips of his ears betraying his slightly tipsy state. As they stand at the traffic light patiently waiting for the light to change from red to green, Bokuto turns to him and grasps his shoulders in his large, warm hands.

‘I’m really proud to have you as a friend, Akaashi’, Bokuto tells him seriously. ‘And I’m going to prove to you that I can be the best ace so you can be proud of me too’. The molten gold glimmering in Bokuto’s gaze fills him with far more warmth than any alcohol could possibly achieve.

‘I’m already proud of you, Bokuto-san’, he answers, his earnestness resounding in every word of his short declaration. Bokuto beams at him in response and bounds across the pedestrian walkway in approximately three strides, ignoring Akaashi’s chiding to ‘look before you cross the road, even if you have the right of way!’

Many things may have changed since high school, but some things still stay the same.

His dreams take a strange turn that night.

He’s back in the Fukurodani gym with his teammates, but it’s not accurate to say he’s with them - rather, he’s watching his past self from afar, seated on the bench, a wrist guard on his right arm. He doesn’t remember ever injuring himself enough to warrant a wrist guard at any point during his high school volleyball career, but it’s probably just another oddity of being in a dream.

‘I wish your wrist was feeling better, Akaashi. I miss your tosses already’, the pout in Bokuto’s voice pronounced.

‘It’s just for a while - I’ll be right as rain tomorrow!’ he hears himself say cheerfully - but that doesn’t make sense either. No one in their right mind has ever described the way he speaks as cheerful, and the rest of his teammates glance over at him curiously. Then his past self awkwardly tucks his legs under the bench, ankles crossed almost as if he’d like nothing better than to fold himself away with all the cloth vests they use for practice – but that doesn’t make sense either, he doesn’t even know why he’s behaving like some fish out of water. While volleyball doesn’t come naturally to him as it does to someone like Bokuto-san, and there are times he feels like he’s struggling to swim upstream, his fingers still itch to toss a ball up into the sky in a perfect arc even now.

‘I told you, I don’t get what you insist on waxing lyrical on him being a star you can’t help but follow,’ he hears her voice chime in his consciousness, inexplicable though her presence in this scene may be, he hears himself answer - ‘just be patient and watch’.

Anahori, their substitute setter tosses the ball up in the air and it’s a good toss, he will give him that, but it’s still not quite as high a toss that Bokuto likes. Bokuto runs right up to the net to leap into the air, back arching to slam the ball to the ground with such force that it’s a commanding full stop punctuating any doubts about his place on the team as its captain and ace.

‘You see! When he plays well, he's like a supernova, shining with a light so bright it almost blinds my eyes.’

‘Waxing lyrical again, Keiji-kun?’ He can hear her tease him gently. ‘Go on, carry on with your celestial metaphors’.

‘How about a shooting star then’, he replies, amused. ‘If a shooting star shot up from the earth instead of falling from the sky.’

‘You sound like you like the guy. Are you sure you don’t?’ She asks. ‘You sure sound like you do.’

What?!

His legs are tangled in his sheets when he thrashes awake, mouth open in a gasp for air. That was a new twist in his collection of dreams, the first time he’s dreamt of something other than that phantom girl’s life in months, but even when the dreamscape doesn’t even feature her, she still manages to invade his dream.

Worse - his dreams are now edging into territory he hasn’t mapped out in years. His teenage infatuation with Bokuto-san died a natural death after he realised that he’d mistaken his admiration for the ace for romantic feelings. Besides, there was no way Bokuto-san would ever be in love with him, not when he’d chosen to devote the next decade of his life to his sport. So why are his dreams dragging him deeper into a labyrinth of memories that aren’t even his own?

‘Why are you squandering my pocket money in a maid café of all things’ he says, sounding uncharacteristically put out. But then again he would be annoyed if anyone managed to drag him into the pink and white monstrosity his dream has deposited him into.

Bokuto’s happily seated across from him (or rather, his past self), exclaiming ‘ooh - isn’t the ketchup art on this omurice amazing, Akaashi? They managed to capture my hair so well!’, and to his horror his past self nods encouragingly and only laughs when Bokuto whines about not wanting to destroy this ‘piece of art the maids took so much time to create’ by eating the damn omurice.

‘Don’t be such a killjoy, Keiji-kun’, she giggles. ‘Look at him, he’s having such fun, and besides, your day will reset so your money won’t be wasted anyway!’.

Bokuto, distracted by the catchy beat of the J-pop song blasting over the speakers, is cajoled by a trio of pretty maids to join them on stage to dance along with them. He pops his hips to the beat of the music, throwing up cheesy hand signals with such gusto that it makes him (yes, present day Keiji) want to smile.

But his past self evidently hasn’t lightened up yet, because he hears himself say crossly – ‘You do realise this is a waste of time when we could be doing something more useful like homework, especially since Bokuto-san and I already spend most of our time training?’

‘Oh Keiji-kun, life is too short to be spent worrying like that. Because before you know it, you’ll grow into an old man who doesn’t know how to have any fun’.

‘I have fun’, he says petulantly, a faint sulk in his voice.

‘Oh really? Then stop worrying and live a little. Maybe you should take a leaf out of your beloved Bokuto-san’s book – look how much fun he’s having!’

Bokuto clearly seems to be having the time of his life because now he’s prancing around the stage playing some silly game with the maids.

‘I told you, I don’t think of him that way.’

‘And I’ve told you I’ve borrowed your skin for far too long to know when you’re not telling me the whole truth, Keiji-kun’, she sing-songs. ‘You wished for more time with him, didn’t you, so aren’t I doing a good deed by helping you figure out what Bokuto might like to do with you?’

‘Bokuto-san doesn’t have spare time on these things – and you’re just making an excuse to explore cafes in Tokyo at my expense!’

‘Two birds, one stone. Don’t be pedantic, Keiji-kun!’

The next time he’s back in one of those dreams, he finds his past self dressed in a blue yukata along the Sumida river, tugging Bokuto away from the takoyaki store. He remembers Bokuto dragging him away from the rest of the team on a quest to buy some snacks at the food stalls set up around the park, insisting that his stomach’s growling too loudly to wait until the fireworks display is over ‘come on, even you can hear my stomach at this rate, Akaaashi!!!’ – but that’s where the dream starts to diverge.

‘If you queue for takoyaki, we’re going to miss the fireworks, and you don’t want to miss that, do you Bokuto-san?’ he says, hand firmly on Bokuto’s yukata sleeve.

‘That’s right! But shouldn’t we join the rest of the team? They’ve got a spot by the river just over there!’

‘We won’t get there in time with this crowd – come on! If we hurry, I know the perfect spot to watch the display’, weaving his way through the crowd to shimmy up the trunk of a tree and settle himself comfortably against a large branch.

‘Woah – Akaashi! I never knew you could climb trees!’ Bokuto calls, sounding impressed.

‘Well, don’t stand there, come join me!’

The tree creaks ominously as the larger boy scales its trunk, branches already heavy with red lanterns groaning in protest as he settles himself in the branch opposite Akaashi. And not a moment too soon, because a collective gasp ripples through the crowd along the river as the night sky explodes into rainbow hued fiery streaks.

‘It’s amazing, Akaashi!’ Bokuto hollers with his face tilted up to the sky.

‘You’re amazing, Bokuto-san’, he says fondly, reaching over to bump Bokuto’s shoulder with his fist and the older boy beams at him, the sheer delight in his smile brighter than the fireworks in the sky. There is a sea of stars in his eyes, and Akaashi wants to shrivel in shame at the way his younger self looks like he’s mentally planning to pirate a boat to cross the straits to Bokuto’s heart.

‘There is no way I’m going to do that’ he hears himself say, sounding mildly cross.

‘Eh – it’s cute. ‘sides, doesn’t he look so happy’ he hears her say, sounding overly chipper.

‘You could spend your time instead learning how to play so Bokuto-san won’t pout when you sit out of practice and you wouldn’t have to pretend you sprain your wrist every time we swap.’

‘Are you mad? Do you really think they won’t think something’s up when I can’t even do a simple serve?’

‘Fine. You have a point’, he answers begrudgingly.

‘Of course I do. Come on Keiji, live a little. Enjoy your time with the lodestar of your life’.

‘Can you not say things like that?’ he says dryly.

‘It’s your fault for reading so much Shakespeare to me!’ she replies with a grin in her voice.

He texts Bokuto the minute he wakes up. ‘Bokuto-san, apologies if this seems weird, but do you remember if we ever climbed a tree when we watched fireworks with our team?’

Bokuto takes a while to respond, but that’s to be expected, it’s his mornings are usually filled with practice and conditioning. But when he does respond, his text makes Akaashi’s brow curl. ‘Nope, but sounds fun! What’s up Akaashi!!’

Akaashi drops his head in his palms. Good to know he’s not losing his grip on reality at least.

But his sleep for the following weeks continues to be filled with dreams in the same vein.

He dreams of scenes that have never taken place in real life - him challenging Bokuto-san to ramen eating competition, the older boy winning handily of course, crowing like a child when he slurps the last mouthful of tonkatsu broth - ‘eh Akaashi, eat faster!’, him dragging Bokuto-san to the arcade near school, demolishing middle schoolers in endless games of dance dance revolution (there is no way he is actually able to move like that in real life) and losing far too much money in claw games - ‘Akaashi I really want that toy pleaseeee’ - and even he would admit it’s absolutely adorable if not for the fact that he can’t explain why these dreams keep invading his head like a wildfire that refuses to die.

‘I honestly don’t understand you’, she says and again, why on earth is she in this set of dreams - she doesn’t belong in them -

‘What exactly do you not understand?’

‘If you like him that much, why aren’t you jumping at the chance to hang out with him? All you do is nag me about how I’m wasting his time, I’m wasting your time, but I don’t understand - isn’t time meant to be spent on the people you love? Unless you’re confusing love with admiration, because yes, I get that you admire his talent, but you don’t seem to have all that much patience for spending time with him outside of school.’

‘I suppose I do like him, but…’

‘Finally you admit it, but I don’t like the sound of that word.’

‘It’s nothing’, he finally says, and she huffs in annoyance, clearly wanting him to explain but he stubbornly refuses to say another word.

His past self is skidding down the hallway with Bokuto hot on his heels yelling ‘Akaaashiii you owe me a Yakisoba bunnnnn’ when he hears an almighty crash behind him. As he spins around, Bokuto’s sprawled on the floor, papers and books scattered around him. The older boy grimaces as he sits up, grabbing at his ankle in pain.

‘Bokuto-san, are you ok?’ he cries, running back towards the older boy.

‘I might have twisted my ankle. Argh this is bad - prelims are just next week!’ Bokuto groans, clutching at his ankle desperately.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll be fine tomorrow, trust me’, his past self says with complete certainty, and flags down a passing student to call for a teacher.

‘Look what you’ve done now. Are you happy with yourself?’ he hears himself say accusingly. ‘Everything might reset tomorrow, but look - he’s hurt himself today. Is this what you’ve been trying to prove to me?’

‘I’m sorry, Keiji’ he hears her say, her voice watery. ‘I didn’t think -’

‘Of course you didn’t, you never think about the consequences of your actions, do you?’ he says, glass shards in his words.

His dream fades to black. He never hears her answer.

His sleep remains relatively undisturbed for the next fortnight, just in time for his mid-term exams which he aces, even his course on classical Japanese literature. He’s relieved of course, because his final year grades matter most when it comes to recruitment, yet there’s a part of him that’s buried deep between ventricles and pumping flesh that childishly wonders what his dreams are going to show him next.

His wish is answered when he opens his eyes to an ocean of stars, white pinpricks of light against the vast tapestry of the purple night sky. His head is pillowed on tufts of grass and the wind whispers against his feet.

The sight takes his breath away.

He’s a born and bred city boy, and he knows from experience it’s near impossible to see stars in the city sky amidst light pollution and masquerading satellites.

‘Is this your way of apologising?’ he asks, his voice wry.

‘Is it working yet?’ he hears her ask, an uncharacteristically timid note in her voice. He laughs, a fond sound, and he can hear her huff a breath through her mouth. ‘I am sorry though, Keiji. I never meant to hurt him’.

‘It’s fine, no damage done. Besides, I was thinking about what you said.’

‘Me? About what? I know I’ve said plenty to you so far’, she says curiously.

‘About Bokuto-san’, he supplies, and she stays silent, waiting for him to go on. The stars twinkle down at him, and if he closes his eyes, he can imagine the galaxy reaching down to lend him its infinite strength. ‘You were right about how…I felt about Bokuto-san. I thought what I felt for him was something more than it really was - now I’m starting to realise I just admire his strength, and I don’t see our paths ever converging, especially if he’s going to chase his dreams of going pro all the way’.

‘You don’t have to chase someone else’s light when you’re brilliant in your own right’, she says gently.

‘Thanks’, he answers thickly, as if the word feels a little awkward in his mouth.

‘So -’ she pipes up, and he can tell she’s trying her best to paper over the sudden lapse of silence. ‘Will you tell me stories about the stars, Keiji?’

He laughs fondly, raising a hand to catch the stardust from the sparkling constellations overhead. ‘I could tell you the story of Andromeda, chained to rocks as a sacrifice to satisfy the cruel demands of the sea monster?’

‘Ugh no gory stories, I want a happy ending!’

‘It has a happy ending, I promise. Just be patient and listen, okay?’

Akaashi wakes up before his past self can finish telling the tale of Persues’ rescue of Andromeda from the jaws of defeat. It’s barely three in the morning, but he knows it’s futile to try to go back to sleep. He wanders to the window, and wonders whether the lone star hanging in the cloudy sky is merely a satellite in disguise.

Against his better judgment, he dials Bokuto’s number.

‘What’s up, Akaashi!’ he hears the older man mumble sleepily, sheets rustling.

‘Was it obvious I had a crush on you in high school?’ he asks plainly. If seeking closure is what he needs to end this slew of dreams, then he’s going to do it, never mind the embarrassment thick in the blood in his veins.

‘Huh?’

Akaashi’s pretty sure he can hear Bokuto blink rapidly. ‘A crush on you’, he repeats, and for good measure he adds - ‘sometime in your third year of high school’.

‘Ehhhh…’ Bokuto’s voice trails off over the phone. ‘You did?’

The sigh that trips out of Akaashi’s mouth is worn, weary. ‘I did’, he confirms, embarrassment writhing in his belly.

‘But you stopped right? Just before I graduated? You started becoming distracted after Spring High and I thought you were just worrying about university entrance exams.’

‘I suppose.’ And Akaashi should really get a grip on himself but his dreams have been doing a number on him so to his horror, he starts to ramble. ’ It’s probably the lack of sleep, but look - this sounds really stupid but I was having a lot of really weird dreams and I don’t understand what’s happening but I’m hoping getting this off my chest helps me get some more sleep and I hope you don’t think I’m completely weird and don’t mind still being my friend -’

‘Woah, ‘kaashi, slow down! You’re overthinking again - what, you think I’m not going to be your friend anymore?’ Bokuto booms, laughing widely.

‘Uh. I don’t know?’

‘Relax! I’m flattered, but I think it’s a good thing we never went out! You were already so stressed dealing with me in high school Washio used to joke about your hair falling out, but I’ve changed! Now I’m just an ordinary ace!’

‘Bokuto-san, I don’t think anyone would call you ordinary’, Akaashi interjects, rubbing circles against his temple.

‘You know what I mean!’ Bokuto laughs, the sound so round and boisterous that it makes Akaashi quirk his lips up in affection.

‘Yes, Bokuto-san. Anyway, sorry for disturbing your sleep.’

‘Anytime, Akaashi!’ They bid each other goodnight, and the relief he feels after the call settles on his chest like a blanket, and he falls back to sleep.

Taglist:

@1tooru @kageyamakock @animeflower26 @underrated-fruit-tarts-official

#akaashi x reader #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi keiji x y/n #akaashi keiji #haikyuu angst #haikyuu!!#hq #haikyuu imagines #haikyuucreations #haikyuu romance #haikyuu headcanons #hq imagines #hq fluff #haikyuu fic rec #fukurodani #kimi no nawa #your name

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Uncle Scrooge by Don Rosa: The Isle at the Edge of Time (Thank You Comission For Rosie Isla)

Hello all you happy people! Today’s review is a bit special as it’s the result of another review. See I had trouble finding a translation of the subject of last weeks’ mother’s day special, Family Ties.

No not that one. I have Paramount+. I can watch all the Family Ties I want and that’s a fact that i’m pleased as punch about.

No it was the story 80 is Prachtig, called Family Ties in the copy used, Della’s first major comics appearance and one that explains what happened to her in the classic continuity, one that clearly served as the foundation for her far more fleshed out 2017 versions personality and backstory. It also had Pinocchio in it for some reason, and spent most of it’s large run time on a meta comedy plot that had nothing to do with the reason anyone wanted to read this story in the first place.

But despite being a vitally important story, it never got an english translation, something that baffled me till I read the story and found cameos of the racist indigenous stereotypes from Peter Pan. In 2014. You may commence booing. Even with how weird the story was I simply couldn’t find the story googling it and the Della tag is too vast and deep to go spelunking in.

So what’s all this have to do? Simple I put out a post last month when neither I nor Kev, who wanted to comission it as part of Moons, Millionares and Mothers, my coverage of all three season 2 Ducktales story arcs, could find a copy and offered a review to whoever found it. Weeks passed I got nothing.. then in the 11th hour I got a break as the lovely @rosieisla found a translation that was on this very site, one she seemed to have helped with. As a result I could do the review and as a man of my word, offered it up despite her clearly having not seen that part of the post and simply having done this to be nice. Still she gladly took up the offer and offered me my pick of two stories: The Carl Barks Story Back to Long Ago or this one.

As for WHY I picked this one Back To Long Ago didn’t seem bad, i’m just not a fan of “The Cast is put in the past as their own ancestors” type deals. Or in some cases put the cast as people from that time period. It’s just not for me and is most often done in TV where it can get really goofy, Beverly Hills 90210 being a prime example of this, though Girl Meets World was no slouch in being embarassing... that being said I really need to finish that show and miss it.

So yeah when put up against a story with two intresting hooks and FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD, even if i’ts not the version that’s my boy, it was no contest. So what are these hooks you ask? Well join me under the cut and find out.

We open with a weird stylistic choice: This story has a narrator complete with caption boxes. Now for those of you familiar with comics or pastiches of comics in tv and film, this probably dosen’t seem like a big deal. It was a common thing in comics from their inception to 90′s to have caption boxes, big boxes of text narrating the action to help move things along faster. It did start to fade out by the 80′s and was gone by the end of the 90′s for the most part, replaced instead with first person narration. It’s the kind of thing you’d see most often in the Golden and Silver Ages, with stuff like tihs

It’s not a BAD device, it’s good old cheesy and bombastic fun and some writers did get clever with it.. like that time Chris Claremont used the narration to yell at a greiving cyclops after he lost a teammate early in his long and storied run on the uncanny x-men.

This is a objectively weird scene that’s still somehow effective by the by. On the one hand it does come off as Chris Claremont essentally bullying Cyclops who already feels guilty for a death that was not in fact his fault as Thunderbird was told the plane he was attacking with fleeing villian Count Nefaria was about to explode and refused to listen.. and that they needed to get rid of either him or Wolverine as both served the same purpose and chose the non-white guy.

On the other htough it comes off just as much as Scott beating himself up in his grief and anger over the event and his perceived failings as a leader. It’s good stuff and shows why this run caught on as this was only three issues in. Also the rest of the issue features the X-Men fighting a giant cyclopian demon that Cyclops accidently freed in his rage by destroying the stone thing keeping him imprisoned. No really here’s the cover

Huh so tha’ts what Nifty’s dad looks like. Neat. Also I REALLY hope we get the X-Men fighting aliens or demons in the MCU. Unlike the XCU the MCU isn’t alergic to getting batshit.. and for the record Deadpool and New Mutants are the exception, not the rule.

My point that I swear I do have is that this was common practice for most comics.. but never really for Disney Duck comics. It popped up ocasionally, like with Scrooge’s introduction, but Barks and those after him never really used them that much. Sure they’d have caption boxes for flasbacks and what not but Barks and Co geninely only used this sort of thing to set up a story. The most i’ve seen it in a duck comic is life and times and even then i’ts usually only used for gags or to set up the passage of time, as the story IS covering decades and thus often needed to have montages to show time passing, and in the case of chapter 11, had to cover decades in the span of a single chapter, so it’s not like they had many other options. So even Rosa as a personal quirk didn’t really use these often.

Rosa used this specifically because he felt the plot was complicated by the use of the international date line. As for what it is, it’s essentially a line marking calender dates from one side of the hemisphere to the others. To use the offical defentition from the National Ocean Service I found via a quick google:

“The International Date Line, established in 1884, passes through the mid-Pacific Ocean and roughly follows a 180 degrees longitude north-south line on the Earth. It is located halfway round the world from the prime meridian—the zero degrees longitude established in Greenwich, England, in 1852.

The International Date Line functions as a “line of demarcation” separating two consecutive calendar dates. When you cross the date line, you become a time traveler of sorts! Cross to the west and it’s one day later; cross back and you’ve “gone back in time."

Despite its name, the International Date Line has no legal international status and countries are free to choose the dates that they observe. While the date line generally runs north to south from pole to pole, it zigzags around political borders such as eastern Russia and Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.”

Rosa felt this made the story complicated.... and that... really isn’t remotely true. The narration is mostly used for gagas and really dosen’t clarify anything. it’s mostly used well in the opening.. but the actual explinations for the date line are clear enough in the story that even if I hadn’t looked the thing up, I still would’ve got it and i’m sure a kid would’ve too. It just feels like a weird thing to ruminate on, especially because he’s got actual things to make up for: while to his credit the native american characters he cribbed from carl barks are sympathetic, their culture respected and treated decently and used for a green aseop, their dialouge is stitled and sterotypical something he dosen’t even comment on (And these trades ewren’t THAT long ago)

And of course it dosen’t help that he dosen’t even comment on using a common device in american superhero boooks.. in the same volume where he ONCE again makes an unwanted and outdated diatribe about superhero comics. I’ll probably cover the Super Snooper Strikes again so I can throughly tear this apart but higlights include: Calling superhero comics “Unwanted” just because he dosen’t like them personally, when people like me would disagree and they’ve lasted through a LOT of highs and lows, outdately saying they took over the American market as the only suitable comics which while true for a TIME,but by 2015 when this book was printed is laughably out of date, as non superhero works like The Walking Dead, Saga, and Scott Pilgrim were massively popular, one of my faviorite comics that is entirely slice of life and would go on to bea huge hit, Giant Days, re-debuted that very year. He also has the fucking gal to insult The Uncanny X-Men by name and I swear to god I did not know this when I made those references earlier, but as you probably guessed REALLY god me livid.

And this is just on his COMMENTS on the story I can’t imagine just how bad the content itself is and having read the first few pages which come off as Rosa using Donald to essentially do an “old man yells at cloud rant” about superhero comics, I really don’t want to. Might make htis a patreon exclusive or again would do it on comissoin. You all make the call.... the point is I don’t likes his elitist bullshit about superhero comics, and this is clearly something that gets my hackles up as I just spent a good two paragraphs of an entirely unrealted review yelling at the guy for it. I don’t like when he does this and this authors notes entirley felt like an excuse. I GET the dark age of comics were bad, they REALLY were that bad, but I will NEVER accept painting an enitre genre as bad just because one work in it is bad. And I wont accept it from someone who himself writes about an often throughly unlikeable anti-hero for a living. Scrooge may not have a gun on his gun on his gun or get to stabbing or have pouches, but he DOES finacially abuse his nephew, scoff at people’s personal troubles, and often refuse to use his wealth to help others in general. So yeah in conclusion Rosa really needs to say less about this subject.

Okay so where were we.. right the story hadn’t even started yet. Jesus.

Okay so our story begins with the narrator. Whose going on about time and what not. The main point of this speech about time is that it’s night in Duckburg and Scrooge is going to bed as, even being the workhorse that he is, he can’t keep going 24 hours. While he’s snoozing though something major happens and it’s the hook that made me pick this story along with the international dateline one.. an island rises thanks to volcanic erruption.. and the lava is GOLD. That’s just pure unabashed classic Duck Stuff: a mysterious treasure or phenominon of gold bound to bring scrooge in.

But Scrooge isn’t stupid: the sun comes up and the world still spins while he sleeps, so he set up a satalite to monitor for this sort of thing. The thing naturally goes nuts.. and even more naturally breaks down becasue Scrooge bought cheap parts. A nice gag and a fully in character way to bring our antagonist into the picture, as the Satellite of Loaded falls in the middle of South Africa... right on the property of my boy Flintheart Glomgold.

This is something Rosa brought up in his commentary for the story i’d never thought about. It turns out Glomgold being a citzen of Duckburg WASN’T an invention of the original Ducktales but the comics: some overseas had understandably moved him from his home country of South Africa. Him bieing in the same town as Scrooge instead of half a world away allows for easier setups and more intresting ones.

Rosa however being obdient to Barks Version of things, ketp Glomgold in South Africa like barks did, which was an .. ifffy decision given Apartheid had JUST ended at the time of this story. Not so much in the reboot as not only had apartheid been long gone by the time of the reboot, but that’s more fair. Still we do get some gorgeous vistas as a result as Glomgold’s minon goes to look at it and finds it’s from McDuck Mining company... Glomgold’s reaction is obvious.

So on that note we cut to Scrooge rushing to Donalds house and forcing him awake and not telling him anything at first. Look his Ducktales Counterpart straight up kidnapped his donald in my last review, I’d call this a win. He also tries to dress Donald while explaning both his panic to find the crashed satlitle and what it found: the golden island. The end result of him dressing donald is worth a chuckle

So after Donald puts his shirt and little hat on our heroes get rollin rollin rollin what keep rollin rollin rollin who to Manilla. On the plane we get the scene I mentioned: The boys make a quip about Scrooge having lost a day and the group go over the international date line. It’s a fun little scene especially Donald trying to get paid early at the end. Classic scrooge and donald stuff without the abusive undertones some of their classic stuff has.

Meanwhile Glomgold works out the data and finds out about the gold island, and his excitement accidently wakes a giraffe outside.. welll it was nice knowing him, Giraffes are the deadliest species known to man.. here’s an educational video t back that up....

youtube

So at Manilla Airport, Scrooge finds out abotu the south african crash, figuring he’ll get a laugh out of glomgold being there ... only for Donald to spot the Jet. Scrooge figures this can’t be anything good... now come on man maybe he’s just promoting his energy drink.

As super sayin god super sayian as my witness, I will never get tired of Ultra Instinct Glomgold here.

Scrooge isn’t so nice about that though and figures he better find out if Glomgold knows about the island and bribes one of the fueling crew for his uniform. He sucesssfully eavesdrops on Glomgold talking to his pilot, finding out from him exactly WHERE the island is. He ends up hilariously botching the mission though: when getting ready to leave Glomgold complains abotu the price of gas and that naturally causes Scrooge, just as cheap, to join in... and Glomgold to find out it’s Scrooge. The two wrestle outside the plane but before this can progress to a game of Naked Robber an airport security guy comes up and Scrooge cleverly claims that Glomgold’s plane has an infestiation, requring it to be quanrantined and allowing Scrooge to jet on.. thoguh not with an actual jet. With Glomgold seemingly dispatched, he can afford to save some money and take his time with a seaplane and I know just the man for the job.

Oh nope looks like he’s busy. So one time related rambles later we meet Keoki, their asian pilot from the tiny island of Wookawooka.. and no that’s not a real place i checked... and no Fozzy dosen’t own it his check bounced. That being said it is a very well done represntation of someone from a smaller country: he’s doing this job to try and bring money back home, but being a seaplane captain just isn’t enough and his island is dying. Scrooge naturally is about as sympathetic as you’d expect, having apparently never even heard of the idea of a bonus when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests it.

Even less suprising is that Glomgold streaks by in his Jet:turns out Manilla was already overun with the bugs Scrooge claimed and Donald rubs it in that had Scrooge got a JET this wouldn’t of been an issue.

So Glomgold easily beats them there, and to add insult and actualy injury to a cash based one, our heroes get blasted by golden lava on the way in and crash. Should’ve gotten launchpad... got the crashing professional. Keoki is dispondent as this means his people are doomed. He also dosen’t know waht staking a claim is when Scrooge mentions it and the boys bring him up to speed with the poor guy saying he wish he could for WookaWooka. Donald also makes a valid point about how greedy and heartlress scrooge can be.. and really billiionares in general.

No no YOUR the Grouch who refuses to have one drop of emapthy. Donald’s just pissed at your general selfish and terrible behavior.

Glomgold glomgloats and has seemingly won... but naturally that rant that seemed extranious at the time about the date line comes into play: turns out the Island is on it, and since glomgold put his marker int he west, Scrooge simply puts his in the east which is a whole day before. Now GRANTED there’s nor eal legal prescendice for the intetaoinal date line itself , as noted above... but there’s enough witnesses in Scrooge’s favor that it simply does not matter anyway. Scrooge SEEMINGLY wins.

But Huey, Dewey Or Louie instead backs another claim: Keoki’s from earlier. While it was made in gest, he and the others along with Donald back it as witnsses instad. WookaWooka is saved and SCrogoe ends the story yelling at the narrator.

Final Thoughts: Don Rosa.. did not like this story, feeling it wasn’t one of his best and apologizing for it. I however.. really loved it. It’s not PERFECT: the narration feels not entirely necessary and the gag isn’t as funny as he thinks, though the payoff of scrooge saying “it’s time for this story to end” is fucking hilarous. I also feel it’s a bit too compressed: the story is only 16 pages and was only THAT long because Rosa added a few for exposition, a worthy addition. This feels like one of his 30 page adventure stories but slightly crammed into half the length. I also feel the golden island bit was BADLY underused as it’s such a cool setting but barely shows up in the story.

But despite that.. it’s still a fun story: as is standard for Rosa the art is gorgeous and the humor is great. And unlike some stories where Rosa casually ignores how terrible scrooge is, here it’s his own greed and hubris that do him in: had he actually agreed to help Keoki, the boys likey would’ve let him keep the island but his own cold refusual to be a human being does him in, just as his cheapness nearly did. Flintheart is also decent here.. not the deepest foe but frankly most classical duck antagonists really aren’t all that fleshed out, and we still get some good bits with him. The dateline bit, while telegraphing that it will be important, as I said REALLY isn’t that hard to understand. All in all while i’ll agree with Rosa this isn’t his BEST, it’s still a really damn good story and one he shoudln’t be ashamed of.

Tommorow: Green Eggs and ham is back for some train shenanigans! Kay.

Saturday: The Tom Retrospective returns for it’s last detour! Eclipsa and Moon team up to stop meteora but grapple with diffrent wants: One to save her daughter.. the other to stop waht she clearly sees as an out of control monster. The result.. will only lead to tragedy and a hell of a two parter.

If you liked this review consider joining my patreon, patroen.com/popculturebuffet. At as low as 2 bucks a month you get accesss to my patreon discord, exclusive reviews, and to pick a short when I do one of my shortstragavanzas, a marthon of theatrical shorts honoring a characters birthday. And given Donald’s is next month, now’s the time to get on board.

But if you go up to 5 you get a guaranteed review of whatever you want every month, and will get me to my next milestone, which will give everyone including yourself a monthly public darkwing duck review, reviews of the two Ducktales minis’ I haven’t covered (Time is Money and SuperDuckTales) and a reivew of the Danny Phantom film the Ultimate Enemy. So please join today and if you cannot, like this review, subscribe and give me your opinions on it bellow. Or even if you can feedback is always appricated and I will see you at the next rainbow.

#donald duck #scrooge mcduck #don rosa #ducktales #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #flintheart glomgold #gold #island #volcaones

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365days365movies · 3 years

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April 5, 2021: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) (Recap: Part One)

Yeah, so...Spectrum exploded last night.

So, I'm unfortunately a little behind. BUT NEVER FEAR! I'll get back on time before you know it! So, uh...where were we last time? OH RIGHT! Let's talk about black comedy. And I don't mean black-and-white comedies, or comedies prominently featuring African-American culture and demographic. No, I mean dark comedies.

The "black comedy" functions off of macabre or taboo humor and jokes, and is often closely associated with biting satire and commentary in film. That definition is loose as hell, I know, but it's all about the subject matter. The most common subject matter for dark humor is death, of course, and related subjects to death. War, murder, strife, madness, and violence are also common topics here.

Some of the best comedies are black comedies, though. For example, Brazil (1985; dir. Terry Gilliam) focuses on themes of depression, dreams, terrorism, totalitarian governments, and madness. And it's GREAT. How about The Death of Stalin (2018; dir. Armando Iannucci)? The title ALONE should tell you everything you need to know about the tone and topic, AND YET...

It's HILARIOUS. And also informative! If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend it. And again, that film is about, well...the death of Stalin, and the fallout of his disastrous and murderous regime. Dark, DARK topic, but very funny movie.

Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is about war; Fargo is about murder in North Dakota; Heathers is about a toxic relationship and the death and murder of teenagers; Birdman, or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance is about an actor's existential crisis and complete mental breakdown; and Trainspotting is about the devastating effects of drug addiction and features a DEAD BABY FOR CHRIST'S SAKE...and yet they're all full of laughs! Except for the baby scene. Fuck me, the baby scene in Trainspotting.

So, yeah, these are a diverse group of films, that's for sure. But where does it all start? There's 1942's To Be or Not to Be (dir. Ernst Lubitsch), which is about a Polish theatre company who need to escape in the midst of...well, 1942 Poland. If you don't get why that's dark, you should probably look up some history, bud. Charlie Chaplin would dip into the role in 1947's Monsieur Verdoux, which I mentioned last time. And there's the seldom-talked-about Kind Hearts and Coronets (dir. Robert Hamer), a 1949 film about murder for status, essentially.

But it's hard to argue that the most prominent early black comedy is 1944's Cary Grant vehicle, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Directed by Frank Capra, this film was based on a 1941 stage play, and is about...well, we'll get to it. While its prominence as a black comedy is one reason I'm watching this movie, the other is...well, to be honest, this is a movie I heard about CONSTANTLY from my Mom, as this is one of her favorites. And yet, like Dirty Dancing, I've somehow never seen it! Let's remedy that.

So, without further ado, let's get into it! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

The film starts off with a BANG, as a man calls me a “big simp” to my face! Actually, he’s screaming at a Brooklyn Dodgers game, where a massive fight breaks out. This fight quickly transitions to a city hall, where a line of people are waiting to file marriage licenses. Amongst the line is Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) and Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane).

Brewster is hiding from the press, as he’s a famous reviewer, and author of the Bachelor’s Bible, and it would be quite the scandal for him to get married. And yet, he’s head over heels in love with Elaine. After going through an existential crisis about the whole thing, he gives into Elaine’s sweet demeanor, and the two file their marriage license officially.

It’s Halloween day, and we move from the city to the suburbs of Brooklyn, where two policemen, O’Hara (Jack Carson) and Sanders (John RIdgely) are on patrol. Sanders tells O’Hara of the kindly Brewster Sisters, the sweetest women on Earth, both of whom live in the neighborhood. Currently, they are being visited by Reverend Harper (Grant Mitchell), Elaine’s father. He’s speaking with Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha Brewster (Jean Adair), the kindly aunts of Mortimer.

Also living there is Mortimer’s brother Teddy Brewster (John Alexander), who apparently believes that he’s Teddy Roosevelt, which is...hilarious. Dude is hilarious, seriously. The cops come over to visit the two, and collect some clothes and toys for local charity. Also, Teddy only leaves a room by screaming “CHAAAAARGE!!!”, and running up the stairs, and I love Teddy a lot.

Reverend Harper and the cops leave for the night, and the sisters settle down for the evening. Abby and Martha state that their plans for Elaine and Mortimer should go as scheduled, which is probably talking about their marriage. Abby also mentions that she’s done something while she was away, to Martha’s delight and surprise. They tell Teddy that he’ll soon be digging a new lock for the Panama Canal...whatever that means.

Martha’s about to go to the basement to see what Abby’s done, but she states that because she was all by herself, the surprise is in the window seat. As she’s about to look at the surprise, Elaine shows up in the window, and the two arrive to give the happy news that they’re married. Elaine goes to tell her father of the news, while Mortimer goes to tell his sweet aunts. Afterwards, the two will be on their honeymoon, going to Niagara Falls. And I should say, they’re quite a sweet couple.

After telling the news to his aunts, he asks them where his notes are for his new controversial book, Mind Over Matrimony. They go to look for it around the house, and Teddy comes downstairs, dressed up in attire to “go to Panama.” Aunt Abby comes across a childhood picture of Jonathan, Mortimer’s brother and apparently a violent sociopath or some sort. She goes to burn the picture (geez), and Mortimer continues to look for the notes. He goes to the window seat.

Yup! It’s a body! Looks like Abby and Martha’s sweet old lady act is a guise for some myurder! Which I know, just because it’s the most famous thing about the movie. However, Mortimer thinks the murderer is Teddy, and tells his sweet old aunts about the body, asking that he gets put into an asylum. But Abby notes that Teddy didn’t kill the man, and they already know about the body!

Which, yeah, surprises Mortimer, obviously.

Abby cheerfully admits that the man, Mr. Hoskins, was poisoned by a tainted glass of elderberry wine, and that they did so on purpose, hiding the body before the Reverend came for a visit. The whole thing isn’t a big deal; it’s just Abby and Martha’s little secret!

After they leave, and brush off the whole thing as easy as needlepoint or macramé as a hobby, Mortimer, is completely broken by the whole affair, and is partially convinced that he’s dreaming. All the while, Elaine’s trying to get Mortimer to come over and speak with her father. But Mortimer can’t exactly forget about this whole silly murder thing, and goes to confront his aunts about it. He learns that Teddy’s digging not a lock, but a grave in the cellar. As he’s done with 10 other bodies. Or maybe it’s 11 others?

After picking up a phone call from Elaine, then hanging up abruptly (and understandably), Mortimer finds out how this whole thing started. See, the two have a “Renters Wanted” sign in their front lawn, and the neighborhood thinks that it’s there so the two sweet old ladies can offer help to anyone in need, even though they aren’t actually renting to anyone. In reality...well, they do it for another reason.

See, an older gentleman stopped by a bit ago, and he had a heart attack right there in the living room. After seeing how peaceful he looked, the two decided to bring in other lonely old men and bring in the same kind of peace. And from there...well, yeah, you get the general idea. They’ve been poisoning them with arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide mixed in with elderberry wine. Apparently, Martha’s got the mixture just right so that it tastes delicious. With all this explained, they offer Mortimer a sip of wine. Which he’s understandably nervous about.

But with all of that done, Elaine comes over to check in on him. But he’s not able to tell her anything, which greatly (and understandably) confuses her. He basically kicks her out (which enrages her, once again understandably), and calls a judge with the intent to frame the whole affair on Teddy, who’s always been.unstable. Which, for the record, is not even SLIGHTLY going to solve the problem.

But as he’s on the phone, a man named Gibbs (Edward McWade) comes in to rent an apartment. He’s all alone in the world, with nobody to care for him. And of course, this leads to the women trying to poison him with the wine. It’s a funny yet tense moment as he stops just short of drinking the wine, distracted by Mortimer’s freakout over the phone. But Mortimer gets off the phone JUST in time to scare Gibbs away and stop him from drinking the wine. And it is...VERY funny, goddamn.

As Mortimer tries to tell the aunts exactly what’s wrong with what they’re doing, the phone rings. It’s a call from Witherspoon (Edward Everett Horton), who runs an asylum that Mortimer wants Teddy committed into. However, they don’t quite have room for him, as they have too many Theodore Roosevelts at present. However, they do need more Napoleon Bonapartes. I love this goddamn movie.

Still, Witherspoon agrees to take him in despite that, and Mortimer head out to get the paperwork done. However, he asks his aunts to not do anything until he gets back, and he also proises that he’ll attend the “services” for their latest victim. He leaves, and kinda steals a cabbie’s car in the process (I love this movie, I’m telling you), and Abby and Martha start shutting things down for the night. However, as they do, they get a mysterious knock on the door. They pretend not to be home...only for a man with an ominous scar to enter the room regardless.

Let’s pause here, shall we? See you in Part 2!

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hookedonapirate · 4 years

Text

Figure of Speech

Summary: Killian has been in love with Emma Swan ever since he was eleven and she was his babysitter. The last time he saw her was the day he kissed her, thinking they were having a special moment… right before she headed off to college with her boyfriend.

When their paths cross years later, he’s just happy she remembers him—because while he’s a talented, free-spirited journalist who takes risks and has a knack for finding trouble, Emma is an accomplished and sophisticated politician who’s planning to run for President of the United States.

Sensing Killian Jones—the boy who once knew her and supported her long before she entered the soul-sucking world of politics—is the key to unlocking a part of herself that’s been dormant for so long, she hires him as her speechwriter. As she travels the world to launch her 2020 presidential campaign, he is by her side, helping Emma find her voice again.

The attraction between them sizzles, but when they eventually give into it, will their relationship withstand the demands of the election and scrutiny of the public?

A/N: Thank you @ultraluckycatnd for beta reading and @onceuponaprincessworld for your help with this! Thank you @captainswanmoviemarathon for starting the event and everyone on discord for all your help!

Before you read, there are a few things I want to clarify.

First off, this story is heavily based on the movie, Long Shot, for the Captain Swan Movie Marathon, with some elements of OUAT weaved in. What I’m referring to mainly is that the president in this fic is in no way based on President Trump. In other words, I am not using this fic to bash the current U.S. president in any shape or form, or any other real-life president. So if you plan on going into this with that mindset, I beg you to hit the back button right now. This story in no way reflects my opinions or views, I mainly stuck to the plot of the movie.

Secondly, I hope that I have made it perfectly clear in the beginning scene of this chapter that Killian is not actually a white supremacist, he is only going undercover to get his story. Nor is he Jewish like Fred Flarsky is in the movie. He’s the Killian we all know and love. So please don’t send me hate messages accusing me of either being a racist or writing Killian as one. I was very torn whether to include this scene or not but I feel it is relevant to the plot and shows Killian’s character in this story as very passionate about what he believes in and is a big risktaker when getting his point across, so I decided to keep it.

Third of all, I know some of you are sick of hearing about politics, especially since the U.S. election is so close. But this is not a political movie, it’s a romance. There is of course some talk of politics, but I’ve tried my best to keep it to a minimum. So if you’re worried about that, please don’t be. The movie genre is a romantic comedy.

Writing this fic was a huge wake-up call for me because it’s the first one in a while that I’m not proud of, for lack of a better word, because I have not been able to spend much time on it. I have so many wips in my docs it’s not even funny and I think that has really impacted how this chapter turned out. But because of this fic, I decided to take some time and work on finishing some of my wips before posting them, with the exception of this one because today is my posting date.

With that said, because I’ve been pushing myself to finish my wips, I finished writing my first original novel after working on it for two years, and I will be publishing it soon. So be sure to look out for Follow My Lead, a romance about a former ballerina and a gym owner.

Okay, now I am done with my rant, so please enjoy!

AO3 FF.N

Rated: M

2018

“So you guys are fairly active on social media, right?”

“Yeah,” Jaxon answers absentmindedly, his eyes focused on the cue ball as he lines up the shot.

“How many times a day would you say you Tweet on average?”

Jaxon taps the ball, sends it into its pocket, and high-fives Marcus, ignoring the question.

“Hey Rogers, ready to get a Swastika tattoo?!” Richard calls from the other room as the tattoo artist is finishing up with him.

“No, that’s okay, I’m cool,” Killian replies nonchalantly through the large lump in his throat, glad his British accent didn’t leak out as he takes his turn.

“Oh, come on, man, we’ve all got ‘em!”

Killian gulps and looks around the room, all the members pulling up their shirts to show their tattoos on the left side of their chest. He was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but he can sense Jaxon is already suspicious of his motives. He forces a small smile, pointing to himself with his free hand as he holds up the cue stick in the other one. “You want me to get a swastika tattoo?”

“Yeah!” the group chants in unison.

“Then I’ll get a swastika tattoo,” he agrees submissively, hoping the anxiety he feels isn’t clear in his voice. He removes his leather jacket, or rather the jacket he borrowed from Victor, depositing it in a chair before he walks into the adjacent room where the tattoo artist is waiting for him. He sits in the parlor chair, his stomach twisted in knots as he chooses his left bicep for the tattoo and cringes at the thought of getting it. He’s never gotten a tattoo before, and not only is he afraid of needles, but his beliefs don’t at all resemble anything a swastika symbol resembles. Tattoos are removable, though, right?

When the needle pierces his skin, he pinches his eyelids shut and yelps, “Blo-ooooody he-eeeell!” He realizes his mistake immediately when the words screech out in his thick, British accent. Plus, bloody hell isn’t exactly an American phrase.

He’s praying no one noticed, because if they did, they would know he’s lying about who he claims to be, but when he flips his eyelids open, everyone’s staring at him.

Fuck.

Jaxon, the leader of the group, enters the room with Killian’s jacket in one hand and wallet in the other, raising it for everyone to see Killian’s driver’s license. His heart flitters with panic. “Look at this. He’s been lying to us. His name isn’t John Rogers,” Jaxon announces angrily. Marcus appears next to him, holding up his laptop. On the screen is the Storybrooke Advocate website with Killian’s profile pic on the page. “It’s Killian Jones. He works for the Storybrooke Advocate! He’s a fucking journalist!”

“Wait, wait, wait, I can explain!” Killian pleads, raising his hands in surrender.

The members circle him like sharks, and everything becomes a blur as they yank him from the chair and slam him against a table.

“What are you doing, trying to fucking embarrass us, huh?!” Jaxon screams at him. “Who sent you?!”

“No one sent me!” Killian claims adamantly, fear and pain crippling him as he tries to think his way out of this. “I was just…”

Before he can finish his sentence, Marcus reaches into Killian’s jeans pocket as the others hold him down, and pulls out his phone. Which is currently recording everything. “He’s been recording us this entire time!”

Jaxon’s face is red with anger, steam practically emitting from his ears as he grits his teeth and fists Killian’s shirt in a vice-like grip, pulling him so close that Killian smells his wretched breath. “You infiltrated our group! You’re gonna fucking die!”

They say your life flashes before your eyes during your very last moments. They say it’s like reliving every moment that’s ever stuck with you—every moment that’s ever made an impression on you. Killian always thought when he was finally shuffled off to sleep with the fishes, his life would appear in sequence or at least in random order, featuring all the people who have played a vital role in his life—his parents, his brother, his best friend—but he never thought one person would stick in his mind. He never thought all the images flashing before his eyes would be of one person and one person only.

The woman he’s been in love with since he was eleven years old.

Killian remembers when he first fell in love with her like it were yesterday. Or at least an eleven-year-old boy’s version of love. He remembers the song, It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday by Boyz II Men, was playing on the boombox. He remembers what day it was, what he was wearing and the fuzzy feeling in his chest. He remembers thinking about one of his favorite movies, The Sandlot, how Squints tricked the lifeguard, Wendy Peffercorn, into kissing him and how she eventually married him even though she was older and way out of his league.

Back then, a three or four year age gap seemed like a huge deal, but maybe because he was so young and she was… well she was so grown up and mature and very beautiful for her age. Not Wendy Peffercorn. Well, he supposes Wendy was too, but Killian had his real-life version of the movie character. His version of her was also blonde. She may not have been a lifeguard, but she was his next-door neighbor and also his babysitter ever since his brother left to join the Navy. Killian’s bedroom had an excellent view of her backyard and he would occasionally watch her sunbathing by the pool as she listened to music on her headphones or read a book in her bikini. Not only did she have a beautiful body, but she was wicked smart. She was passionate about the environment and the things she cared about. She was super nice to him—which went a long way with him—and had a ridiculously cute, dimpled smile. She was perfect. An angel.

Maybe that’s why, right before his death, she’s the only one he sees.

Before he met her, he never considered kissing a girl, or even liking one for that matter. He thought girls were gross and had cooties. But Emma was no girl. Not even at fifteen. She was a woman.

Emma Swan was his Wendy Peffercorn.

She still is. Even as he’s being threatened by a group of angry white supremacists.

She’s all he sees.

“Did you know that every year, the school throws away over five hundred tons of recyclable garbage? And no one cares!”

“Aye, it’s rubbish. But how do you get muppets to care about stuff they don’t care about?”

Emma shrugs. “They’ll just…” She bites her bottom lip, hesitance etching her features, “they’ll just c-care because it’s the right thing to care about.” She may not have all the answers, but she’s the most inspiring person he knows.

He smiles and rests one elbow on the counter, his chin perched in his hand as he admires her passion for the environment. He admires how beautiful she is in simply a snug pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt with a picture of a buttercup on the front. He admires her waist-length, golden hair, how it glows radiantly in the sunlight cascading through the kitchen window and how it swishes from side to side when she turns around to grab a mitt and pull the pizza out of the oven. Delicious aromas of crisp, baked bread, melted mozzarella cheese and sweet tomato sauce waft through the kitchen, making his stomach growl. Licking his lips, he jumps off the stool and heads over to grab a slice from the pan.

She gently swats his hand away. “Don’t touch, kid, you’ll burn yourself. Let it cool, first.”

He frowns as he returns to his seat. He hates it when she calls him that. He doesn’t want her to think of him as a kid; he’s almost a teenager! Heeding her warning, he does his best to resist the temptation of getting up again and grabbing a slice, even though the gooey, golden cheese, colorful toppings and toasted crust look amazing. Instead, he places the hand she’d touched on his cheek. He never wants to wash his hand or his cheek ever again.

Emma continues the speech she’d prepared for her Student Council election. She’s running for president, and he is not only her biggest supporter, but he also came up with her campaign slogan, ‘Stay calm and vote for Swan’. He was quite proud of himself when she actually thought it was clever enough to use.

“I would definitely vote for you, Swan.”

“Thanks, Killy,” she says, ruffling a hand through his hair.

Now that’s a better nickname. Though he hates when his brother calls him Killy, he never minds when Emma does.

Once the pizza is cool enough to eat, Emma returns to the oven, using a pizza cutter on the pie. She plates two big slices, one for each of them, and brings them to the counter, sitting next to him. They eat their pizza in silence at first, besides the yummy food noises they make.

“Thanks for helping me. I know it’s probably boring hearing my speech over and over again.”

He shakes his head. “Not at all,” he mumbles through a mouth full of pizza. “I’m just happy to help,” he smiles. His hand pauses midair, still holding his half-eaten slice of pizza as he locks eyes with his beautiful babysitter. He wonders if she feels the same way he does, and normally he wouldn’t think it was possible, but the way she’s looking at him right now makes him rethink everything.

She reaches out to him, and he closes his eyes as she caresses his cheek. His heart slams against his chest and he loses all the air from his lungs. And that’s when he knows he’s totally and completely in love. Her hand feels so wonderfully warm, he wants to spend the rest of his life feeling her touch and immediately gets a chill when she pulls her hand away.

“All better.”

His eyes flip open to see Emma wiping her hand with a napkin. She looks up at him and smiles. “You had some sauce on your face.”

He chuckles on the outside, but internally he’s berating himself for being foolish enough to think someone like Emma Swan could possibly like him. She’s way too good for him.

Especially when he’s thirteen and has to wear glasses. As if hitting puberty isn’t bad enough, he also has to sport the most hideous pair of thick-framed glasses. By then, his father said he was too old to have a babysitter, so he didn’t get to see Emma as much. He mowed the Swans’ lawn occasionally, but she was gone most of the time with extracurricular activities and prepping for college. He convinced himself she could never be into someone like him. Someone who was nerdy and awkward and four years her junior.

Until one day when he’s fourteen and she’s eighteen.

She’s leaving for college and he’s been in his room sulking while listening to It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye for two weeks, not looking forward to her departure. He’s afraid he’ll never see her again. But he’s also happy for her. She’s off to better and greater things, greener pastures as they say. She’s going to Harvard and leaving him in the dust.

He’s on the front porch, sitting on the top step, his chin in his hands and his elbows propped up on his knees as he watches Emma and her parents packing up her things. He wants to offer his assistance, but this seems like a very important bonding moment for the three of them and he doesn’t wish to interrupt. He can tell Mr. and Mrs. Swan are both incredibly sad but also very proud of their daughter, and there are lots of hugs and tears by the time the car is packed. Then Emma says something to her parents and they wave at Killian. He smiles and waves back before they head inside.

Emma walks over to him, and he immediately stands up, making his way down the remaining steps.

“Hey,” she murmurs, smiling at him.

“Hey,” he parrots, offering a small smile. “So, you’re all packed?”

“Yeah, we’re leaving soon.”

Nodding nervously, he scratches behind his ear as he looks away, not sure what to say.

“Look, I’m not a goodbye person, but — ”

“Let’s not say goodbye then,” he suggests and offers his hand. But instead of shaking it, she throws her arms around him. Killian’s stunned, and can’t even move at first, completely paralyzed in her embrace.

Emma’s hugging him.

He slowly molds into her body, his arms wrapping around her waist as she tightens her hold. Her hair smells like strawberries and cream as he buries his face there. He never wants to let her go.

“I’ll miss you, Killian,” she whispers in his ear.

His heart does a little somersault, and he whispers, “Not a day will go by when I won’t think of you.”

He feels her smile against his neck. “Good.”

That one simple word does something to him and he grins into her hair, holding her tighter.

She breaks the hug long before he’s ready, and he’s still awestruck as she leans in to kiss him.

Bloody hell.

Emma Swan leans in for a kiss as he springs forward to meet her halfway. Their lips finally connect like they had so many times in his dreams, but he doesn’t fail to miss how surprised she is when a gasp escapes against his mouth. She doesn’t pull away, but he knows he probably should after realizing she was actually going for his cheek. But her lips are so soft and warm and taste like cinnamon and cocoa, and he swears they move ever so slightly against his. He still has his arms around her, pressing her to him, and her center suddenly moves away from him. Forcing himself to break the kiss, he looks down and notices the very prominent and very hard erection tenting his pants.

Fuck.

His cheeks are on fire as he looks up, apology and embarrassment flushing his face. He’s expecting her to either slap him or storm away and never look back, but she stares down at his groin, her mouth agape.

“Bloody hell, I’m so sorry, love.”

“It’s okay,” Emma squeaks as her eyes snap up to his.

Just then, a ‘69 Ford Mustang pulls up in front of Emma’s house, the music booming through the speakers at an obnoxious volume.

He panics when Emma’s boyfriend gets out of the car and makes his way over to them. Killian forgot Neal was riding with Emma to Harvard, where he was certainly not attending. Neal could only get into a community college.

Killian quickly pulls off the backward baseball cap from his head and uses it to cover his obvious boner.

“Hey, babe, ready to go?”

She nods and looks at Killian, a small smile tilting her lips.

“Bye, four-eyes,” Neal taunts with a condescending sneer as he wraps his arm around Emma’s shoulders.

Really?

Killian bites his tongue as he rolls his eyes. That nickname really gets old. Can’t he think of something more original?

“Don’t call him that,” Emma scolds her boyfriend, swatting his chest. “He has a name.”

“Sorry, I mean Killian,” he says insincerely before turning around and pulling Emma with him.

As Killian watches them walk away, pushing up the bridge of his glasses with his finger, he would give anything to be the one with his arm around Emma, the one leaving with her instead of being the one she leaves. She cranes her neck to look at him as she walks away. He swears she’s looking at him longingly but he’s sure he’s only imagining it. She’s still gazing at him until her parents emerge from the house. Neal doesn’t even have the courtesy to open the door to her parents’ station wagon for her, and instead hurries into the back seat.

Arsehole, Killian thinks bitterly as he watches the vehicle pull away from the curb. Emma stares at him through the passenger’s window, and their eyes connect. He flashes one last smile and waves. She smiles back at him and presses her palm to the window before she disappears down the road and out of his life, leaving a permanent gaping hole in his heart.

He always thought not being able to see Emma anymore was the scariest thing he’s ever experienced. But that was before he was inked with part of a swastika tattoo so his cover wouldn’t be blown. That was before he fell from a two-story building and landed in a dumpster. Luckily the trash bags cushioned his fall and didn’t contain any glass or other sharp objects. He hadn’t really thought that through when he jumped. But then again, he didn’t really have time to do anything but run for his life while Marcus and Jaxon were busy trying to figure out how to stop Killian’s phone from recording. Killian took advantage of the distraction and plucked the phone from their hands, sprinting for the nearby window.

His phone.

Killian quickly lifts his hand to see that not only is his phone still in his hand but it’s still intact. He climbs out of the dumpster, his entire body sore, but he lands on his feet. He’d left his leather jacket up there, but it wasn’t even his. Killian doesn’t wear leather jackets, he’s content with his hoodies. He borrowed the jacket from his best friend, Victor. He’ll be pissed, but oh well, Killian will buy him a new one.

Three of the members are poking their heads out the window and Killian looks up at them, throwing the hand that’s still holding his phone in the air. He feels like Bennie in The Sandlot when he finally gets the baseball from the beast and hurdles the fence, still holding onto the ball. The difference is the beast chased Bennie down. The difference is the beast in the movie was not actually a beast at all. He can’t say the same about those white supremacists, though.

“We trusted you, man!” Richard calls out. He’s the one Killian had contacted through one of their social media groups.

“Sorry, mate,” he says in his British accent, his words lacking any sort of apology as he spins around. “Peace!” he calls behind him trying to sound as American as he can, and instead of saluting the members with two fingers, which is not a peace sign for Brits, he flips them the bird as he goes.

∞∞∞

“Tonight on Walsh News, we take an in-depth look at Emma Swan, a Rhodes Scholar, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a protégé of President Gold who tapped Swan two years ago to be the youngest Secretary of State in the history of this nation.”

As sore as Killian is from that jump out of a two-story window and as much as he hates that arsehole, Walsh, and everything the media mongrel represents, he lifts his eyes from his MacBook. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and manages a small smile when he sees Emma on the television screen. He knows what he’d done to write his article and expose the White Power group was worth it. He may have lost faith in humanity long ago, but Emma’s passion and ambition and hope have always stuck with him. He wants to believe the support he’d always shown her when they were young has always stuck with her too, but he doubts it. She doesn’t need his support. She never did. She was never a helpless duckling, and even after she lost the student council election to August Booth because of his stupid two prom platform, her wounds healed and she eventually spread her wings and soared high in the sky, leaving Storybooke in the dust.

As Killian gazes at her wistfully at the screen, he sees the elegant swan he always knew she’d become. While everyone he knows had hopes and dreams they gave up on long ago, Emma is the one person who made hers come true. Well, not quite all of them. She always talked about saving the planet, but he knows her work isn’t nearly finished. She’s only thirty-seven, and even though they haven’t spoken to one another since the day he watched her ride away in her parents’ 1987 Pontiac Safari Station Wagon, he still believes in her. He’ll always believe in her.

∞∞∞

Emma sucks in a deep breath as she twists the knob and opens the thick, wooden door, entering the Oval Office with a little bit of forced enthusiasm. President Gold had been vague over the phone about what he’d wished to discuss with her, but his tone of voice indicated it might be something big. “Good morning Mr. President,” she greets with the smile she had practiced in her bedroom mirror repeatedly that morning.

“Hello, Ms. Swan.” He rises from his chair and rounds the desk, gesturing to one of the couches. “Please, have a seat.”

She sits down and crosses her legs, folding her hands in her lap as he sits on the couch across from her and rests his elbows on his knees. “Ms. Swan…”

“Yes, sir?”

He blows out a long breath as if whatever he’s about to tell her has been weighing on his mind for quite some time. “I will not be seeking re-election.”

Emma’s sure the awestruck expression on her face doesn’t even come close to how surprised she actually is. “Really?” Did she hear him correctly?

He nods, clapping his hands together. “Look, I know how absurd it sounds seeing as I’m only halfway through my first term—”

“And you’re incredibly popular, sir.” But she knows most of his popularity stems from being a television star before he took office. He hosted the popular game show, Let’s Strike a Deal.

“And I’m going to use that popularity to transition into something more prestigious than the presidency. I wanna make it in the movies.”

Emma blinks, not believing what she’s hearing. She opens and closes her mouth several times, trying to process this. “Yoooouuuu… want to leave… the presidency… to be a movie star?”

“I know it’s tough to make the leap from television to film, but I think I’m going to give it a shot.”

After the initial shock washes over her, she sees this as an opportunity. She had planned on running for president in 2024, but with Gold leaving office at the end of his first term, perhaps she can use this to her advantage. And she knows just how to go about it. Gold may be good at convincing people—he is an actor after all—but Emma not only has far more education than him, her extensive political background has helped her greatly improve her cajolery tactics over the years. After she lost the Student Council election to August Booth in high school, she’s learned that in order to get ahead, sometimes you have to use a little sleight of hand to get there—give the people what they want, so to speak. Or, in this case, help Gold realize just how legendary his presidency could be.

“Mr. President, have you given any consideration as to whom you might endorse? I’m sure you’re probably thinking of Yang or Crowley. Sound choices,” she nods and purses her lips, averting her gaze, a look of contemplation on her face. “It’s so strange because I was considering a run in 2024, and I can’t stop wondering what…” she looks at Gold again, “what it would do for your legacy to endorse the first female president. I mean, wow. ” The word is breathy, almost a whisper. “Now that’s a legacy.”

Gold presses his joined hands to his lips and has a thoughtful expression embedded in his features, but she can’t discern what he’s thinking.

She looks at the floor between them while he ponders her words.

“Emma?” he finally says after a moment.

“Hmm?” She reverts her eyes to him.

“I would like to endorse you to be the next President of the United States.”

Her entire body is thrumming with excitement and her stomach is full of butterflies; she doesn’t even care he said it like it was his idea. She’ll even give him credit for it. Besides, trying to convince him otherwise would be like trying to teach a fish how to bark. She closes her eyes and refrains from jumping up and down on the couch. She opens her eyes again, trying to hide the excitement in her voice but fails, her tone coming out unusually high pitched. “I mean, if you think that’s a good idea, sir, I trust you completely. I’d be… I’d be honored.”

He reclines back, wagging a finger at her. “I’ll be pulling for Team Emma. Because you’ve been a great secretary.”

“Of State,” she adds.

“Whatever. You’ve done it well, Dearie.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“So stay focused. Don’t make any major screw-ups. Don’t kill anyone. That’s probably not a problem for you. I don’t know what you’re into. Whatever. And before you know it…” He rises from the couch and hums the US Presidential Anthem.

“I like the sound of that,” Emma says with a jubilant smile as she stands up.

“Hey here she comes, it’s the first lady president,” he chants.

“Thank you, sir.” She heads for the door, Gold following behind her still singing.

“Who can believe she is actually a woman. She’s got a big brain and a couple other assets.”

Emma opens the door and walks through, not even giving another thought to how incredibly sexist Gold is being. She’s floating high on a cloud as she sashays proudly down the hall and raises a subtle victory fist in the air, whispering to herself, “Yessss!”

∞∞∞

“You’re gonna love this,” Killian raves as he hands the piece to his boss. “I almost died for this.”

Sidney lowers the mug from his lips, swallowing his coffee down. He offers a tightlipped smile as he glances very briefly at the draft before looking up at Killian, a serious expression clouding his face. “Got a second?”

“Of course.”

“Come with me.”

Killian follows Sydney into his office and sits across from him at the desk, setting his satchel on the floor.

Sydney sets down Killian’s article and his coffee mug, folding his hands together on the desk. “I have some great news, Killian. We’ve just been bought by Walsh Media.”

Killian pales and his stomach drops. “What?!” Blood bubbles under his skin at the thought of the wanker buying the Storybrooke Advocate. The thought of him owning something Killian has literally put his blood, sweat and tears into. “Bloody hell. Are you fucking kidding me?!” Ever since he was a kid, he’s dreamed of being an investigative journalist, so he’s been nothing but loyal and dedicated to the company from day one. But in the blink of an eye, Walsh has managed to ruin all that for him.

“Look, I knew you would have a poor reaction—”

“A poor reaction?!”

“Killian, this is a good thing.”

“How?! That wanker represents everything we’ve been fighting against since day one. The whole point of this paper is to fight giant media conglomerates. Now we’ve been bought by a giant media conglomerate.”

“I see the irony,” Sydney nods.

“Irony?!” Killian stands from his chair, his voice growing louder with every word. “He’s going to turn us into a giant propaganda machine! And not the good kind!” Anger pulsates through him as he paces back and forth in front of Sidney’s desk; he’s never been this worked up before in his entire life. And that’s saying something for him.

“Killian, we’re running out of options. We’ve been running as long as we can on ads for weed doctors and escorts.”

Killian stops in his tracks and raises his hands in the air. “Then run penis enlargement ads or something!”

“Come on, Killian,” Sydney admonishes.

He sighs in exasperation, trying to calm down, his voice calmer. “This Walsh guy ran fake stories to get Gold elected.”

Sydney shakes his head and raises a finger at him. “No, they couldn’t prove that.”

“We proved it!” He holds up three fingers. “I wrote three articles about it. You published them!”

Sydney nods, lowering his face into the palm of his hand. “I did.”

“The shite that comes out of this guy’s mouth? He said same-sex marriage caused tornadoes! He represents everything that’s wrong with this country!”

“Killian, it’s done, alright?”

He freezes. “It’s done?!”

“They’re upstairs, finalizing the deal right now.”

Killian presses the pads of his fingers to his temples and turns away from his boss as he tries to process this.

Sydney stands and rounds his desk, sitting on the edge, pleading with him. “Look, we have to cut two-thirds of our staff.”

Killian turns around, devastation in his features. “Two-thirds?”

“Yes. But we want to keep you on. They want to keep you on. It’s just,” he blows out a hesitant breath, “you just have to tone it down a little bit.”

Killian furrows his brows in bewilderment. “I don’t know how I can tone things down any more than I’m toning them down, mate,” he mutters through gritted teeth.

“Okay look, Killian, you’re a brilliant writer…”

“Thank you.”

“You’re funny, you take risks, you connect with people…”

Killian’s brows pinch in suspicion. “Why am I sensing there’s a big but coming?”

“You have a distinct, authentic voice… but… ”

“And there it is…” he sighs.

“But, sometimes you’re a little too much.”

Killian is taken aback. “I don’t think I am too much. I actually think I’m the perfect portion,” he says defensively.

“Look, you have your job, so focus on that and just toe the line a little bit.”

Killian is enraged. Toe the line a little bit?! He’s not toeing any lines. “I quit.”

Sydney’s face twists with a mixture of shock and disappointment. “Oh, come on, Killian…”

“You should quit, too. Everyone should bloody well quit.”

“No, I’m not quitting, I need my job.”

“I need my job too. I’m broke. But I can’t work for that tosser.”

Sydney sighs. “At least let me fire you so you can collect unemployment.”

Killian slices a hand through the air over his chest. “No bloody way! I want nothing from him. Besides, I want him to know I quit.”

“He’ll never know it, he’s never heard of you. You’re going to destroy your life to spite a guy who’s never heard of you?”

“Yes! You said it best! That’s exactly what I’m doing. Fuck this.” Killian grabs his satchel and walks out of Sydney’s office, closing the door behind him, announcing to all his former coworkers, “Journalism died today, people!”

∞∞∞

“So the headline is, you’re in great shape,” Mary Margaret, the polling team manager, points out as she displays the next presentation slide.

Emma’s sitting at the meeting table between her Chief of Staff, Regina Mills, and Deputy Chief of Staff, Robin Locksley, trying to follow along with the presentation, but it’s difficult for Emma to focus when her stomach is full of butterflies. She still can’t believe she persuaded Gold to endorse her. Her head is spinning.

“Ninety-two percent, that’s good,” Regina comments.

“It’s very good,” Mary Margaret agrees exuberantly and moves on to the next slide, which shows Emma’s personality traits and how they were ranked. “Your sense of humor is eighty-two, which is solid.” Mary Margaret cocks her head to the side, as though she has to rethink that assessment. “It’s solid, but we wouldn’t mind seeing that number go up a few points… or more.”

Regina leans in to speak to Emma as she takes notes. “I’ll get some writing samples from some funny speechwriters.”

Emma sets her pen down and smiles. “Thanks, Regina.” She rests her elbows on the table, clasping her hands together as she reverts her attention to Mary Margaret and says, “But I’m really interested in knowing how people feel about my accomplishments.”

“Right, so we don’t drill down on specific policies, and that’s only because people don’t seem to care.”

Well, that’s a blow to the gut.

“With that said, if you could broker a deal that gets you out there talking about something you feel strongly about, that would be really great.”

“Well, that’s perfect,” Emma says enthusiastically, sitting on the edge of her chair. “We’ve been looking for an opening to start a conversation about the environment.”

“That sounds great,” Mary Margaret says with a grin, but Emma’s not sure if she’s being sarcastic and trying to hold back a laugh, or if she’s being sincere. “Now, if I may, onto your romantic life…” The brunette shows a photo of Emma and Graham Humbert smiling for the camera.

Emma refrains from rolling her eyes as she rests her chin in her palm. She doesn’t have a romantic life. One make-out session with a world leader she barely knows doesn’t constitute a romance.

However, the way Mary Margaret gushes as she looks at the couple in the photo, one would think they were actually a couple. “Remember the stir online when you and the Canadian Prime Minister were seated next to each other at the Global Business Forum?”

Emma nods, wishing she were taking a nap right now. She doesn’t care about improving her personality traits or starting a romance that will raise her numbers and appease the public. Although she is quite proud of her two highest scores, elegance and charisma, both ranked at over ninety-five percent.

“A relationship like that,” Mary Margaret points to the photo of Emma and Graham, “could push you into the high nineties.”

“High nineties? Wow,” Regina murmurs to herself, making note of it.

“That brings us to…” Mary Margaret switches to the next slide, showing Emma’s wave.

She knits her brows in confusion. “What’s wrong with my wave?”

“That kind of elbow movement is um…” Mary Margaret purses her lips as though she’s trying to figure out how to put it delicately, but then gives up, “well, it stresses people out.”

“You know what? It’s just an area of improvement,” Robin assures Emma after sensing the offended tone in her voice.

She supposes the movement in her elbow is a bit too much. It makes her look like a robot actually. “Fine, I’ll work on the wave.”

∞∞∞

“I’m not going to a fancy rich person party,” Killian declares after Victor proposed going to the World Wildlife Fund benefit in Philly tonight. Killian had shared the details with Victor and now they’re walking down Main Street discussing their plans for the evening. But Killian thought Vic was trying to make him feel better. Going to a fancy, rich person party will only remind Killian how rich he is not. He had something else in mind, something involving the closest bar and lots and lots of rum.

“Oh, come on, Jones. Don’t be so judgemental. There will be free booze and pandas and shit. People love pandas and shit.”

Killian shakes his head. “I just lost my job, I’m not really in the mood to mingle.”

“Fine, just sit at home and do nothing. Don’t hang out with your best friend and Boyz II Men.”

Killian’s ears perk up and he stops in his tracks. “Boyz II Men will be there?”

Victor stops walking and turns around, nodding. “Yep. They’re bringing their timeless blend of R&B and hip hop to the party. The fancy rich party doesn’t sound so bad after all, now does it?”

Not at all. He used to listen to Boyz II Men and other popular musicians in the nineties. But mostly Boyz II Men because it’s what he and Emma would listen to when she was over at his house babysitting him. He didn’t know Victor then; they met in college before Victor went off to medical school, but they have similar tastes in music. Which is how Victor knew exactly how to persuade Killian into going to a fancy, rich person party. “Okay, I’m in, mate.”

“That’s the spirit!” Victor pats Killian on the shoulder, and they walk again as Victor sings Motownphilly.

∞∞∞

“I’m starving. Why didn’t you power bar me?” Emma asks Robin as they make their way down the staircase, Regina and her Secret Service agents following behind them.

The Grand Room glitters like something out of a fairy tale, all candlelight and crystal chandeliers and gilt and sophisticated shine. The attendees glitter, the women dripping in diamonds and other precious stones and the men donning suits and black ties.

“I tried to, but you pushed my hand away,” Robin chuckles.

“Hopefully they don’t have skewered foods. I can’t eat skewered foods gracefully; I always look like a fucking cavewoman.”

“And there are cameras everywhere.” Regina points at a dutiful photographer who’s unobtrusively circling the perimeter of the room, taking pictures of as many of the guests as he can. “That would hurt your elegance score.”

“That’s my best score.”

When they reach the buffet table, Emma’s relieved to find that not all the food is on skewers. But even so, she’s so hungry, she may still look like a cavewoman trying to stuff as much food into her mouth as she can. “Cover me?”

“Of course.”

Regina and Robin both stand behind her like walls as Emma makes her first selection, grabbing a saucy meatball on a toothpick and bringing it to her mouth, being careful not to drip any sauce on her black dress.

“Oh my god, these meatballs are really good,” Emma mumbles through a mouthful of food.

“Graham Humbert is approaching,” Regina warns her. “He’s about nine feet away.”

“Shit,” Emma whispers and shoves another meatball into her mouth before wiping her lips and chin with a napkin. After swallowing it down and discarding the napkin, she spins around, offering a bright smile.

When Graham approaches her, giving her a once over, Regina and Robin disperse.

“Graham… how are you?”

“Good evening.” His lips twitch in a pleased smile as he takes Emma’s hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. “I am so sorry I missed you at the White House a few weeks ago,” he says in his thick, Irish brogue. He was born in Canada, but his parents are originally from Ireland, so naturally, he took on their Irish accent.

“Oh, it’s fine.” Emma waves off his apology with a flick of her hand. “Maybe next time?”

“Well, I—”

“If I may?” the photographer interrupts, holding up his camera.

“Aye, of course,” Graham turns toward him, and Emma relents, remembering what Mary Margaret said about how being seen with Graham would raise her score. She supposes if she’s going to be running for president, she must endure some things she may not like, in order to appease the public. Besides, it’s not like Graham is bad looking; in fact, he’s rather handsome with his curly brown hair and grey-blue eyes. But her hectic schedule doesn’t allow time for a romantic relationship.

Graham wraps his arm around her as she places a tentative hand on his back. The camera flashes a few times as Emma and Graham hold their smiles.

“One more,” Graham says, just as Emma’s about to pull away.

A few more successive shots are taken before Graham thanks the photographer and they break their pose, turning toward each other.

He inches closer, speaking intimately in her ear. “What do you say we get out of here? Grab a drink somewhere a bit more… private?”

The music changes from something soft and elegant to something more familiar. Very familiar actually.

Motownphilly.

Emma looks over Graham’s shoulder and her eyes light up when she sees Boyz II Men on stage. “Yeeeessss!”

When Regina told her about the World Wildlife Fund benefit, she failed to mention Boyz II Men would be performing.

“Yeah?” Graham asks, a big smile spreading across his lips.

While he’s thinking she was saying yes to his invitation, Emma had forgotten his presence as soon as she heard the music. Not that she would’ve accepted his invitation anyway. But now she sees this as an opportunity to avoid the question altogether. “Oh my God!” Emma scurries over to the crowd that’s gathering around the entertainers of the evening.

“Alright, alright, alright, alright. Philly, make some noise. Make some noise!”

The crowd whistles and cheers, and Emma is taken back to when she was a kid again. She was ten when this song came out—when she bought their CD—and listened to it constantly throughout her teen years.

Graham joins her on the dance floor as she moves to the music, not even caring about her elegance score. She literally hasn’t danced like this since high school, but she feels more carefree than she has in years and she hasn’t even had a sip of champagne. Stuffy music and champagne have never been her thing. But this… this is her music.

“Duty calls.” Graham’s deep voice in her ear makes her jump, and she spins around to look at him. “I’ll take a snow check on those drinks. Canadian for a rain check,” he winks.

“Okay,” Emma says, forcing a small laugh at his joke.

“Good evening,” he bids her, slowly walking away.

∞∞∞

“I feel very underdressed,” Killian grumbles as he peers down at himself. He’d never thought to change out of his blue jeans, t-shirt and black hoody, and here he is drinking champagne in a room full of rich people who are wearing tuxes and formal dresses.

“Don’t worry, you look fine,” Victor says as they make their way through the crowd.

Killian knows he’s just being nice though. Even Victor is wearing a dress shirt and blazer, but then again he blends in more with the other rich folk because unlike Killian, he’s not jobless or poor; he’s a doctor who makes more than a decent living.

Killian finishes his champagne and places the flute on a tray when a waiter approaches, and snatches another one, gulping it down like rum.

“Easy, buddy. You’re pounding those drinks pretty hard, don’t you think?” And that’s coming from Victor, who’s at the bar every night he’s not on call.

“I got fired today, mate.”

“I thought you said you quit?”

Killian’s gaze moves across the room as he turns his head to look at Victor who is standing next to him. “I was forced to quit because—” His words die in his throat, his jaw dropping when his eyes land on a gorgeous blonde dancing.

But not just any blonde. Killian recognizes her.

It’s the Secretary of State. It’s Emma Swan. His first crush. His first kiss.

He hasn’t seen her in person since she was eighteen, but she’s even more stunning as a grown woman. And she’s even more stunning than she is on television.

#cs ff #long shot au #captain swan

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