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lazyliars · 3 years

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/rp

DreamXD actually slots very nicely into a working theory I've had for about two or so months now, mainly centering around one question:

What happened to Dream?

Namely, why did Dream change, when exactly did it happen, and was it solely an internal change, or was there an external force at play, specifically a preternatural one?

I think with DreamXD, we might finally have an answer.

Or at least some clues to follow. DreamXD presents a shift in every single paradigm the Dream SMP has had. Like, I think most of it is just being so utterly blind-sided by George Lore Real, but part of it is the massive ramifications of an Actual God* being present in the storyline.

((*On the other resident god of the server, Foolish:

DreamXD is different than Foolish, in that his characterization is so dramatically inhuman - Foolish talks and acts like a (somewhat eccentric) person, and his powers are, as far as we know, limited in comparison to the creative-mode godhood that DreamXD occupies. And whether that is because Foolish is not a "full" god (having been referred to as a demigod) or simply because he's spent so much time around humans, we don't know, but we do know that either way, DreamXD is NOT that.

DreamXD's voice is marked by glitches and dramatic shifts in tone, he seems to lack control over the different aspects of his personality, like the more "Dream" part vs. the darker one that threatens to eat peoples souls. The "normal" part even displays confusion when George references things that the "darker" part said, implying that it may not be fully aware of itself.

TLDR: Foolish acts more human than DreamXD, who has a very eldritch personality.))

To get right to the point:

The Dream we knew before November 16th, and the Dream we know now are not the same. Something changed, and it changed for the worse.

Consider: Dream was always antagonistic to the L'manbergians - he was always imperious to them, and he was responsible for starting a number of fights between his faction and theirs, just as many if not more than they were.

But, he was also not... evil. He'd pick fights with Tommy, the disc wars were still a thing, but the gravity of the spats they had weren't dire. They were fun. They were... actually a game. He wasn't like the way he is now. While in hindsight we can look at these events and detect a serious undertone knowing what's to come, at the time they were far from it.

There is an argument to be made that he had the same tendencies as now, just not expressed as loudly, and while I believe it's a valid argument, I disagree that it's proof of Dream always being the way he is now.

Sapnap, Badboyhalo, Sam. They all remember Dream as their friend - they remember someone who was, maybe a little aggressive and a lot competitive, but not cruel. Not needlessly murderous. Not someone who steals sentimental items and lines the walls of a disgusting museum to use against them.

Dream cut them out. Sapnap was totally blindsided. Bad doesn't seem to fully believe it. Sam blamed himself for not realizing and tried to take the weight of that crime on his own shoulders by becoming the Warden.

There's also the competing theory that what happened to Dream was purely psychological - either the circumstances slowly isolating him from his friends driving him to the do things he's done, or a desire for control that started early and continued to fester until it overshadowed everything else, or any combination of both.

And those theories are still valid, they could still be the case, but I haven't been able to shake the idea that there is something deeper at play. I can't overstate how the exile arc and everything after it have been so inhumane, so cruel, and... not exactly out of character in the sense that I could never see Dream doing them, but in the sense that I could never see him doing them for no reason.

And there really doesn't seem to be one. Dream says himself, it's like a game. He sees people as toys, puppets. And there just doesn't seem to be an inciting incident that could explain how he made the leap from semi-authoritarian leader who, despite being a warmonger, does love his friends, to heartless murderer who wants to reduce everyone he knows to dolls.

There's... ways, he could get there, but nothing that we've seen makes sense. There is a missing piece, something that must have happened from his POV that we didn't get to see because he doesn't stream.

And DreamXD could be it. This godly entity that claims that it is "a part of [Dream]" but that it isn't him entirely. That seems to share the lack of understanding of humanity that Dream has been displaying like when he asks if resurrecting Tommy was “cool.” But that still loves George. He still, despite apparently not having the same history as Dream, desperately wants to be George's friend.

If I had to pinpoint the moment Dream changed, it would be the day that he revealed that he switched sides, and was going to be fighting against Pogtopia. He was paid for this betrayal in the Revive Book.

I mark this as the turning point in my theory because it is the first time Dream mentions his affinity for chaos in the context of hurting others. However, we also know that this likely wasn't the day he actually made the decision to betray - as he revealed that there was a traitor among the Pogtopians, a fact that he likely would have learned before this.

Now, I mark George's lore stream as the introduction of DreamXD proper, and I want that on the record because it isn't technically his first appearance on the server.

Most people will remember him from Techno's stream, where he logged on to break the End Portal in a panic. I doubt the character was properly written into the lore at that time, but it fits neatly with the rest of what we know about him - a guardian of the server, and the keeper of it's rules. No contradictions.

What less people might know, is that DreamXD has made an even earlier appearance, and it's this one where things begin to get... interesting.

Around roughly October of 2020, Tubbo and Fundy did some improv'd streams centering around Demon Hunting, or rather, "Dreamon" Hunting, and it's during the first of these two streams that DreamXD makes an appearance.

The bare bones of it was - Tubbo is an experienced "Dreamon Hunter" and teaches Fundy his ways. They find Dream, and realize that he has a Dreamon inside of him, which is basically an evil version of him. They attempt to exorcise the Dreamon from Dream via various shenanigans, and eventually, they do a ceremony to free Dream. However, they apparently botch it, and unleash the Dreamon within. After more shenanigans, one attempt to fix it utilizing Fundy and Dream's wedding appears to work, but then DreamXD logs on, flys around at Tubbo and Fundy threateningly, and they end stream on the idea that there are probably more Dreamons to hunt.

Now. There's a lot to unpack here. I'm not gonna go into the nitty gritty details in this post, but I do recommend watching the Dreamon streams, as they have A LOT of details that, if this is getting incorporated into the main story line, could be important - especially the focus on duality, having TWO versions of Dream, which end up being potentially separated from each other.

(Also, they're just really funny streams. Tubbo and Fundy are at PEAK chaos and Dream plays along with their inane bit perfectly, it's just good content.)

At the time of the Dreamon streams airing, they were explicitly non-canon. IIRC Tubbo and Fundy referred to them as taking place In an “alternate universe,” which makes sense considering they would have been on opposite sides at the time (Manburg and Pogtopia.)

However.

And this is where I show you my wall of red string and newspaper clippings.

My singular piece of evidence for this comes from one line DreamXD drops. He simply says: “At least you're not hunting me.”

The Dreamon streams take place around early October. Dream reveals his betrayal of Pogtopia around November 6th-7th. The timeline of the Dreamon streams would line up perfectly with the idea that there was a catalyzing event that put Dream on the proverbial path to hell.

I do not believe that they intended the Dreamon arc to be anything other than a side story at the time, but considering that DreamXD himself was barely canon until now, I don't think it's out of the question that they took a look back at a fan-favorite minor arc, saw an opportunity to co-opt it into the current story line, and potentially fill in some holes regarding Dream's characterization all in one move.

On the question of whether this would be a GOOD storytelling move?

The Dreamon theories were prevalent during the exile arc, and I've got to say, I was never a huge fan. The detachment of Dream's actions from his intentions, and by extension his morality, never sat right with me. It feels cheap to make him a victim and say “a Dreamon did it!” in regards to all of the horrible things that he's done. It strips his agency and makes everything that happened less impactful in my opinion, and I stand by that reading.

BUT. With DreamXD introduced, I feel like it's necessary to look at this from all angles. And with the way DreamXD was characterized in George's stream, I don't think it necessarily ruins Dream's character to say that an external force was involved with his descent into evil.

Namely, the idea that whatever happened to Dream was not really a “possession” so much as a gradual loss of humanity, could be an interesting way to look at this. It implies that Dream was always capable of his actions, but grants us understanding as to why he would actually perform them, and why he might have become isolated enough from his friends that they would let this happen.

The Dream we know now could be an expression of his “worst self” brought to the surface by a Dreamon/DreamXD/other. It also begs the question of what would happen if that force were to leave him, and how it might cause yet another shift in character, especially if it were to be portrayed as less of a switch being flipped, and more of a withdrawal, with a gradual process of realizing how far gone he was.

To close this out, I've been stewing on the idea that Dream hasn't entirely been himself since the climax of the Exile Arc.

I think this theory holds water, but it's also not waterproof... there are plenty of holes, and a lot of that comes from the fact that Dream doesn't stream. We're left in the dark when deciphering his character, and what might appear to be the key, could just as easily be revealed as a red herring, or even nothing at all.

Regardless of the validity of the Dreamon theory, I think that DreamXD is one of the most interesting developments we've had on the SMP in a long time, if simply because his arrival coincides with fucking George Lore Real. God. I still don't know how to deal with that.

I always appreciate people adding to the discussion by the way! Feel free to reblog with additions if you like or leave them in the replies.

And if a single one of you comes to my blog on THIS. THE DAY OF MY DAUGHTER'S WEDDING. And calls ME a c!Dream Apologist to MY FACE..... I will be v sad.

#Dream SMP #DreamXD #Dreamwastaken #c!Dream #georgenotfound #dream smp analysis #dream smp theory #lazytext

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jamespotterthefirst · 4 years

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The Art of Observation

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 2.5K (sorry again!) Warning: None Author’s Note: The coffee house scene from book 1, chapter 7 from Ethan’s POV.

Catch up here.

_______ A rational man would keep his distance.

But Ethan discovers, with some dismay, that he is nothing close to a rational man because he finds himself in her presence again. This time in line at his favorite coffee house and at his own invitation.

“What's your poison?” he asks, unsure of what else to say as they wait.

Lilac looks up at him, quirking her lips in thought, the gesture entirely too lovely.

“Surprise me,” she tells him at last, breaking him from his wandering thoughts. “I trust you.”

His chest swells at the words and he clings to them for a second longer. The smiling barista waits patiently and Ethan schools his features with practiced expertise.

“I’ll have the Vienna and she’ll have…” He glances down at her smiling yet intrigued face as he considers what to order for her. In the span of a second, he recalls the cloud of misery swirling over him that morning as he marched towards Naveen’s room, feeling as helpless as ever. Until she found him, kind eyes piercing him completely as she said, “I wanted to ask how you’re doing.”

“...the espresso Romano.”

Lilac’s brows furrow with curiosity but she doesn’t ask. Instead, she hurries to dig her credit card out of her purse. “I’ll pay.”

With a shake of his head, he places a hand over hers, gently pushing it back.

“Don’t even think about it,” he says, shaking his head again when she opens her mouth to argue. The barista smiles fondly at them, her bespectacled eyes falling on their joined hands. Abruptly, Ethan jerks it away, feeling his neck flare with heat.

“I know how much interns get paid,” he adds quickly, inwardly grimacing as soon as the words leave him. His addled, panicked mind blurted them out in a misplaced effort to appear nonchalant. God, why was he such an imbecile around her?

After he pays, he leads her to his usual table by the window. Lilac settles in her seat with an easy comfort that he almost envies.

“Do you come here a lot?” she asks, glancing around appreciatively.

“Fairly often. Sometimes I need a moment where nobody needs anything from me. No one here recognizes me, no one cares who I am.” He vaguely gestures toward the many patrons around them. Many of them rush out in a hurry, caffeinated drink clutched in hand. Others occupy the bar stools or tables, too engrossed in newspapers or screens to pay them any mind. The only eyes on Ethan are a pair of striking green ones, watching him with silent admiration.

He ignores the pleasant swoop of his stomach. “Thirty minutes with a good roast and a new book works wonders. I didn’t bring a book, however, so I suppose you’ll have to entertain me.”

He meets her eyes in the charged silence. Lilac's lips begin to lift in a smile, a sure sign she is accepting the challenge. Just then, however, the friendly barista arrives with their drinks. Lilac observes the curly lemon twist adorning hers with amusement.

“Lemon, huh?”

“Espresso Romano is a double espresso with sugar and Meyer lemon, both squeezed into the brew and rubbed on the rim. It brightens the espresso and cuts the edge off the bitterness.” Once again, his mind travels to the icy dread in his stomach earlier as he walked down the construction zone towards Naveen, almost too afraid to face him. Before he can dwell on it, Lilac's gentle smile captures his attention, as incandescent as the beams of the sun burning through fog. “Try it.”

Keeping true to her declaration of trusting him, she takes a sip. Her eyes light up as the flavor hits her tongue. “Hey, not bad! Certainly an interesting mix of flavors.”

The reaction is entirely too pleasing to Ethan, so much so that he rants, “Just don’t ask for it in Rome. It’s a misnomer, and they won’t know what you’re talking about.” Ethan stops with a private cringe at the senseless rambling. Bravely, he adds, “But I thought you might like it.”

Her eyes light up with interest.

“What made you think that?”

The question is entirely too coquettish to be innocent.

“Simple observation.”

“So what, you’re studying me?”

A swift flush travels from his neck to his ears.

“I study everyone, Rookie. I observe everyone. As should you,” he deflects. “In fact, that’s one of the reasons I most enjoy coming here. The clientele can be… intriguing at times.”

To his surprise, she wrinkles her nose in distaste.

“No way, I like to tune out the whole world,” she explains. “If I have a good book, I’d rather be curled up on the couch with a blanket. I don’t want any distractions at all.”

Ethan smiles at the impassioned declaration, realizing it coincides with everything he has learned about her.

“I suppose that’s fair. I mostly read historical nonfiction in what little spare time I have.” Lilac matches his smile with one of her own, perhaps knowing that much about him, too. “Being out in the world adds to the experience for me. Everything around us is part of the same fabric.”

What was he talking about? Ethan couldn't sound more like an arrogant ass if he tried.

He rushes on, “But the art of observation...it’s critical to our work as diagnosticians. You’ve already begun to understand that.” Ethan glances around the tiny but crowded shop until his eyes fall on a man around his same age. “For example… that man there, the one reading a book. He’s deeply troubled. Something’s gnawing at him.”

Lilac follows his line of sight. “How can you tell?”

“He hasn’t turned a page the entire time we’ve been here.”

Lilac stares at the man a bit longer to verify his claim. When the man continues to glance at the same page, she allows an impressed nod.

Ethan doesn’t have time to feel smug because as her eyes fall back on his, she fixes him with a very sharp and serious expression. Green eyes study him astutely, almost as if they can see right through him and conclude that something is gnawing at him, too. Could she read the anguish at failing his friend, weighing heavy in his chest? The grave set of her mouth as she studies him tells him that she might, despite his masterful efforts at keeping his emotions hidden. The beat of his heart spikes up as he remains motionless, transfixed.

Hastily, he tears his eyes away from hers, making himself busy with drinking from his mug.

“You give it a shot,” he prompts quietly, desperate to change the subject.

Lilac blinks but recovers by straightening in her seat. She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear as glances around. Ethan's eyes linger on the small tress she missed, falling weightlessly against her cheek. He has the wild urge to sweep it away, his calloused fingers lingering against the freckles that taunt him so often.

He is pulled from that silly fantasy by her imperceptible nod towards the entrance. A blonde woman, looking to be a few years younger than Lilac, rushes into the store, hand nervously tugging at her coat. Her hair sticks wildly in all directions, the back of it reassembling a nest of some sort.

“I think she got laid last night,” Lilac says casually.

Ethan's mug freezes halfway to his mouth. He is grateful for that or half of his drink would be sprayed all over the grinning young doctor before him.

“Come again?”

“That’s totally sex hair,” she explains wisely. At his aghast expression, she laughs and adds, “Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

Their eyes fall on the woman now waiting for her order by the pick-up counter.

“Besides, that look on her face?” Lilac continues wickedly. “Pure satisfaction.”

Ethan's eyes fly back to hers. “What makes you so sure?”

“I know it well.”

Throat dry, he struggles to keep his thoughts decent with herculean effort. He wavers for a second, wondering briefly what a satisfied Lilac might look like, breathless, cheeks flushed, and looking at him through heavy lids.

Mercifully, Lilac is no mind reader, no matter how well she proves to read him. Her attention is on the woman, now making a beeline towards the exit with her coffee. They catch an undeniable glimpse of a sequined dress under her coat. No doubt worn to a nightclub the night before and worn again this morning in her haste to leave her lover's bed.

“Okay, you win that one.”

She brings her mug to her lips but the victorious smile is still evident in her eyes. The chime of the entrance door bell rings loudly over the acoustic cover of a Michael Jackson song playing through the speakers. Bearclaw Man strolls in and lines up at the counter.

An idea strikes as Ethan suppresses a euphoric grin.

“Try to top this,” he tells her. “Based on how he carries himself, I bet that gentleman is going to order two venti macchiatos, one with almond milk, one coconut. And, hmm…” He feigns deep thought. “Let’s say a bearclaw. To-go.”

As if on cue, Bearclaw recites Ethan's words verbatim to the barista. He couldn't have done it better if Ethan had paid him.

Lilac's mouth falls open comically. “What?! There’s no way you predicted that!” She turns to Ethan, at once sensing his stifled laughter. “That’s total B.S.! You cheated somehow.”

He stops fighting back and allows a deep, genuine bout of laughter, his shoulders feeling lighter somehow. “Indeed. That man comes in with the same order nearly every day I’m here.”

“So you were just trying to impress me.”

Busted.

“Hardly,” he lies shamelessly. “I’m trying to impress upon you the importance of observation and memory. My point stands. Observation is key. The subtle signals, the hidden details...all the secrets in plain view.” His attention is entirely on her, all pretense and humor gone from his face. She is watching him just as attentively. “Everyone throws a curtain over their lives, hopes it will smooth out the edges and hide the flaws...but the truth always shines through.” As he speaks, his words begin to lose steam, an earth shattering realization beginning to stir him as he looks at her. “Always.”

Neither of them breaks eye contact, maintaining the spell—the illusion of being the only two in that shop, mere feet apart.

“You just have to learn to look for the light,” he finishes quietly.

As he watches her, he can see a silent realization dawn on her face. Her eyes widen slightly with a multitude of emotion before she hurriedly casts her eyes away.

“Everyone?” she asks with pause. She seems to be mustering up the courage to meet his eyes again and when she does, she says, “You’re right. I know I always try to seem more together than I feel. If people knew what was going on inside… well, let’s just say it’s good they don’t.”

The finality in her words feels forced to Ethan, as though there is so much more she is not saying.

“Precisely. If you’re self-aware about it, at least that brings you one step closer to some sort of truth.”

It's as if the words are spoken by someone else. They echo in his mind as he finally acknowledges the inexplicable, maddening feeling that constantly pulls him towards her. At long last, he accepts it, recognizing he lost that battle a very long time ago.

Lilac takes another drink of her espresso as patrons mill about them, uncaring that the world had entirely shifted on its axis mere seconds ago.

“Alright,” she says after a moment, plastering a cheerful smile on her face. “Let’s up the ante. What do you see when you observe me?”

Ethan drinks the last dregs of his coffee as he thinks, studying her over the rim of his cup. The first memory that finds him is the night Dolores died and Lilac staying by his side like no one ever had before.

“You’re too selfless,” he says. “You care more about your patients than about yourself. One day, that’s going to get you in trouble.”

A heavy silence ensues in which he swears he can see brief shock cross her face.

“So how’d I do?”

Her answer is in the form of a courageous smile that doesn't entirely reach her eyes. “You’re way off the mark.” The taunt is almost credible but Ethan knows better. “Swing and a miss. Sorry, you’re completely wrong.”

He humors her with a chuckle. Kindly, he says, “I’m not sure I am.”

Very subtly, she straightens in her seat saying nothing.

“Now do me.”

This makes her almost choke on her espresso. After fighting back a small cough, that cheeky smirk makes a reappearance, much to Ethan's utter confusion.

Whatever that was about, Lilac doesn't explain. She instead scrutinizes Ethan thoughtfully, lush bottom lip caught in a bite. He's not certain what will kill him first, the sight of it or the anticipation of her response.

“You’re lonely,” she concludes.

“I am not lonely,” he returns at once. “I’m desperate for any moment to myself.”

“I’m not sure about that,” she deflects, waving a hand. “You could go read in your office on a break. But instead you come here to people-watch.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but the truth of her words catch up to him. Solitude had always been a rare gift for Ethan, particularly when so many people had demands on his time. He had always relished a drink in silence or the comfort of a book. He had never needed or craved companionship until… until the people he loved the most left his life forever— his mother, Dolores, and now Naveen.

Ethan meets her expectant gaze.

“Did you feel this way before Dr. Banerji retired?” she asks kindly.

Stomach clenching tightly at the question, Ethan stares at those knowing green eyes for a long moment.

“Well? Am I right or what?”

“As usual, Rookie, you’re only half-right. And in medicine, that counts for nothing.”

Lilac looks wholly unconvinced. When she opens her mouth, Ethan is certain it is to continue arguing the point. Mercifully, his pager interrupts.

“Come on, then. My pager is buzzing. We should be getting back.”

As they trek through the crowded streets of Boston, Ethan glances down at her, unable to suppress the half smile she inspires. She had definitely been wrong in her assessment of his loneliness because at that moment, as she smiles brightly back at him, he does not feel so lonely anymore.

_______

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading! A bit shout out to @thegreentwin, @aestheticartwriting, @apphia12, @chasingrobbie, @vallerwhoas, @mvalentine for the title ideas!

_______

tags:

@dulceghernandez | @lion-ess24 | @emotionalswift2 | @the-soot-sprite |

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #playchoices #my writing

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sohotthateveryonedied · 4 years

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I Trust Him

Summary: Unlike the others who are so eager to please that they practically beam when he gives them a hello, Jim hasn’t met this one face to face yet. As far as he knows, Hood is on the side of the heroes these days, but just barely. It’s been a confusing couple of years. There’s a duffle bag with eight heads stuffed into it that he just can’t sweep under the rug.

Read on AO3!

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Jim checks his watch. The signal has been on for ten minutes now, its trademark bat silhouette shining against the backdrop of Gotham’s smog and pollution like a holy beacon. He’s running late tonight. Jim pulls his jacket tighter around himself and it takes everything he has not to shiver as his breaths turn to mist in front of his mustache. If Batman got a paycheck, Jim would dock him a hundred bucks for making him wait in the cold like this. He should have brought a heavier jacket. “Need a smoke?” he hears, which just about gives him a goddamn heart attack. He wheels around, hand flying instinctively to his gun holster, only to find the Red Hood leaning against the door to the roof. And he thought the Bat was good at sneaking up on him. Hood’s holding out a pack of cigarettes.

Unlike the others who are so eager to please that they practically beam when he gives them a hello, Jim hasn’t met this one face to face yet. As far as he knows, Hood is on the side of the heroes these days, but just barely. It’s been a confusing couple of years. There’s a duffle bag with eight heads stuffed into it that he just can’t sweep under the rug. “No thanks,” he says after a moment, pulling his hand back from his firearm. “I’m trying to cut back.” Hood tucks the cigs into his jacket pocket. “Good choice. These things’ll kill you.” Then he snickers, like he’s sharing an inside joke with himself. “So where’s the fire?” Is...Is this it? Batman really sent the Red Hood ahead instead of meeting Gordon himself? Jim hopes he’s not mad at him; he’s been waiting three days to show Batman the pictures he took of his latest kitchen remodel. “Uh. There have been rumors of a robbery happening tonight at the Gotham Museum of Antiquities. A team job, at least four men. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but my intel is pretty sure the target is in the art exhibit.” Hood nods. “Gotcha. I’ll head over there.” Is it weird that Jim is so accustomed to the Bat vanishing on him that he doesn’t entirely know how to end a conversation? Not this kind, anyway. Jim rubs his hands together, trying to coax warmth back into the frozen appendages. “If you don’t mind me asking, where is he? Batman, I mean.” “Had a date. I was unlucky enough to be serving backup tonight.” “Batman dates?” “I know, right?” Another snicker. It’s so creepy hearing him laugh from inside the helmet, echoing faintly like a threat. “I keep telling the others how fucking weird it is but they just get all ‘it’s about time he settled down’ and ‘they’re both old so who cares’ and ‘so what if she’s a criminal, she makes good sangrias’. Fuckin’ kissups.” Jim doesn’t know what surprises him more: that the Batman and Catwoman rumors are true, or that Hood is friendly with the other bats. Since he first started showing up in Gotham, the Hood has always been a wild card. Only kills the worst of the worst, but in such brutal ways that he can’t be trusted not to escalate. And yet, he’s been spotted on multiple occasions giving food to the homeless kids in Crime Alley and escorting the working girls home at night. Then he goes and reveals that not only is he on friendly terms with Batman, but that he’s practically one of the family now? If Jim had a death sentence, he’d ask if Hood’s doing this all just to torment him. “So when’s the robbery supposed to go down?” Hood asks. “I’m a busy guy so I gotta arrange my manicure appointments accordingly.” Jim is pretty sure that’s a joke. Then again, who knows? Jim makes a point of never missing his monthly spa days. His cuticles are grateful for it. “Sometime between eleven and two. I already have some of my men watching the place, but these guys have nabbed priceless objects from right under security guards’ noses.” “Got it,” Hood says. “Do the bat thing. And for your sake, I promise to stick with rubber bullets this time.” Thank the lord. Jim isn’t in the mood for the extra paperwork any deaths would entail. Hood pushes off the door and heads for the edge of the rooftop, taking out a grapple gun. “Now get back inside, commish. You look fucking freezing.” Hood raises his arm to shoot off a line, but Jim stops him. “Wait. Can I ask...is it true?” “Is what true?” “That you’re him. The one he lost.” Hood turns to face him and crosses his arms. “Does it matter?” “To me? I like to think so. It near broke my heart when the kid stopped showing up.” Understatement. When Batman lost his second one, Jim didn’t see the big guy for weeks. The best he got were glimpses in newspaper articles, detailing the Bat’s new form of violence as if the world had personally wronged him. He’d truly gone off the deep end, and Jim knew in his gut that it wasn’t just vengeance for himself. Then, when Jim was sure there was nothing to be done, a new one showed up. The third kid. He wasn’t like his predecessor, who was the brightest firecracker Jim had ever met. He liked chocolate bars and doing cartwheels along the roof’s edge while the adults talked, chiming in with a quip every once in a while. Sometimes Jim would make a trip to the vending machine right before their meetings and buy the kid a Snickers bar, just to see him light up. Robin would repay him by sneaking into his office and planting a bag of Swedish Fish somewhere he knew he’d find it. It became a game for the two of them. “He died,” Hood says. Jim can’t see his face, but he imagines a scowl hiding beneath the helmet. Just like his mentor. “And now?” A shrug. “He got better.” Jim shoves his hands into his pockets. “Well, if you happen to see him, give him my best. I’ve missed him. He’s a good kid.” “Was a good kid, you mean. People change.” “Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever the case, he was always my favorite one.” Hood’s expression doesn’t change because...well, it’s a hood. But Jim likes to think that he’s smiling under there. “I should go.” Jim nods. “Good luck. And go easy on my guys, will you? It’s not easy getting them to trust a gun-wielding maniac. No offense.” This time when Hood snickers, it’s not as threatening as it was before. “None taken. But what about you? Do you trust a gun-wielding maniac?” Now there’s a complicated question. After a moment, Jim settles on, “I can’t say that I agree with everything you do. And as far as the GCPD is concerned, you’re on real thin ice.” Hood nods, like he expected that much. “But that kid who used to hide candy in my office? I trust him.” Red Hood raises his grapple again and gives a quick two-fingered salute. “Cool. See ya, Gordon.” And then he’s gone, leaping off into the shadows. Even though there’s no one left to see, Jim smiles and salutes back. “See you, kiddo.”

#batman #jim gordon #Commissioner Gordon #jason todd #red hood #robin #dc robin #batman and robin #dc comics #fanfiction #fanfic #batfamily #batfam #batfamily bingo

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binkysteebnpewter · 4 years

Text

Of Paper Planes & Teddy Bears

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem Reader

Words: 2100+

Summary: Wanda has loved you since you trained her when she joined the avengers. However she’s too afraid to confess all because she’s sure you’re dating the Diner guy.

I used a divider a few times, they’re by: @writeyourmindaway 💗

Warnings: TW:Dissociation, TW: Anxiety Implications, explicit (?) detailing, conspiracy thoughts (just to add flavor 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Taglist: @softpeachbarnes @thejournalman

There was so much that I could say about her. So much good, so much praise, so many compliments that'd sound like Shakespeare had possessed my body to write an entire play solely about how her eyes stared into my soul with just a simple fleeting glance she'd give as we passed each other in the hall. There was so much I could say about her to show someone how much I love her and what I love about her, but that would take too long— even though I knew I could talk about her until my lungs failed to take in air and my heart failed to beat.

What I would utter out was that her attitude was what got me up in the morning, other than the fact she always made breakfast for everyone even though she didn't have to— and her cooking is absolutely blissful if I'm honest. However her coffee is downright dreadful. She liked her coffee way too strong for me or anyone other than Tony and Bruce, who refused to drink theirs any other way now. I didn't see how she could drink it, especially not black with just ONE spoon of honey.

There were those days where sometimes she didn't want to cook and everyone would sometimes go to the nearby diner, and today was one of those days. She had dressed down pretty casual and comfy, but oh— she looked otherworldly in her comfort clothes, dressed to no ones expectations as she held her favorite teddy bear

Sam drove while everyone else talked, but her? She sat playing with a few small paper airplanes, making them fly with psychokinesis. Making one fly out of her course, she stops them all and looks to me. She smiles and one of them unfolds suddenly, refolding quickly. Smiling at the blossom flower, my eyes widen when I moved over and rested in my lap. She smiles to me once more and focuses on her airplanes again, leaving me a storm of emotions.

The time passes like it's racing as we all ordered, waited, receivers, and ate. Some of us were still eating, some were just talking and relaxing. It was peaceful and the diner was never busy enough to draw a crowd to us, thankfully.

"How you gonna be like 'she gotta blonde, she gotta be thick, she gotta be tan'?" She asks, standing up to a guy sitting near us as he dissed his own girlfriend.

"You ain't got the right to be picky. All you packing is a tic-tac.. what you gonna do breath mint?" She asks and he flusters.

"What you gon' do Listerine?" She asks, giving him a look full of utter sass and confidence.

Smiling as the guy flustered and began ignoring her, I nodded and gave her a thumbs up as she turned back around. She smiles to me and laughs a bit.

"Yo! You're here today!" I hear and she turns.

"Mattie! What's up?" She smiles, standing and giving the guy a hug.

Him.

The one I wish I was. The guy who gets to call her baby girl, the guy who gets to stay up and talk on the phone with her for hours, the guy who gets to hear her sleepy voice say those three words I so desperately want to hear and say back.

I love you.

Wanda had left my origami flower in the diner, right on the table with her plate. Did she not like it? Was it the wrong color? I purposefully kept my airplanes folded neatly in the colors black and red, the colors I knew she liked. Was I overthinking all the subtle things? Was I imagining them? It was possible, maybe I'm reading too far into things.

I walked silently across the street from the cemetery, a hat placed on my head and tipped low as I faced the ground. My fingers played with the fidget in my hand, the puzzle fidget I had solved too many times to count now. I was long overdue for a new one, there was no combination of moves someone could do to mess up the colors on my rainbow ball fidget toy to make sure I couldn't return each colored ball to its respective hole too quickly. Wind whipped around me and chilled my skin, my thin jacket doing nothing to keep me warm.

The pigeons, I swear, are staring at me as I walk. Following me, I know it, as I took turns and they stayed right nearby with me from the start of my journey. I was a long way from the compound, that I knew for sure. I'm convinced one day they'll begin recognizing individuals, or that maybe they're not even real— robots maybe. Do we ever see them sleep? Do the power lines charge them when they rest upon them? Do they video people and record conversations? Is this how the government truly finds wanted people?

A bus loops around and around, passing through the old streets. The neighborhoods of old tenement houses, public schools, coffee shops, and candy stores. Sidewalks lined with cart shops, their goods ranging from street food to newspapers and tourist spots. I haven't seen the bus stop once as it's passed by one time after another, yet there are always less and less people aboard it with each pass. Has it even stopped? Why come down this road so many times? Is it forever stuck in this route? Is it in limbo— wait, can objects be stuck in limbo?

dO UnITs hAVe a SoUL??

I pass a hot dog stand, the grilled hot dogs looked oddly like fingers to my eyes and I suppress a gag. Do they bleed when you bite into them? Is the juice metallic tasting? Is the texture— Let's stop there, yeah let's stop there.

I head to subway station to realize I had been in the Brooklyn-Queens area, my numb fingers aching as I swiped my subway card. I stand as far from people as I could, the suffocating feeling of the subway closing in. The scent of the train car was musty and pungent, like old sneakers in a gym locker and rotten food found in the home of a hoarder who'd dropped their food and never found it to pick up and throw away. My fingers pause in the motion of scrambling my fidget as I realize the conductor was making an announcement, I caught on too late. Asking the man nearby if he'd heard the announcement, I shuddered when he gave me a simple rat-like smile and said nothing with a shrug.

I guess I'll never know.

I feel as though someone is watching me and Natasha's words play through my head. 'If you feel like someone's watching you, it's because someone is.' Do I look for them? Do I make eye contact and sass them? No, don't. Really don't, never trust a man or even a women on the train this late at night— I have no clue why they're up, or why I'm up even. I had woke with a feeling of dread and left without a single thought about it, the compound had felt too stuffy and small— despite its size.

The compound was... a mystery to me. It was large and spacious yet at times it felt like it closed in on me, suffocating like a 5x5 room. It made me feel like SCP 096 in his airtight steel cube room, watched yet not seen.

I step off the train at a random stop, heading out back into the chilly night air to continue an aimless walk through a concrete jungle shaped like a maze of looming buildings that wait— wait for the perfect moment to swallow me whole like a fly in the air, gone like I had never even buzzed in someone's ear.

Walking off the sidewalk and into a parking lot, I glance around. The parking lot may seem empty but I don't trust it, there are cars here— I know there are. They just don't want me to see them yet. They like to hide, spook me when I'm not paying attention once more. The building seems to expend as I enter with my membership card in hand, I'm sure I'll never understand how everything fits inside this place— just like I'll never understand where all the shoppers in here come from, even so late.

Are they even people?

I don't know how long I've been in here before I begin to become hungry, taking notice of the samples being handed out. Don't trust it, never trust it— you don't know if that person is sick or has done something to the food. Buy something and make it yourself, or buy a packaged snack— some fruit even. I cannot find check out, and the lady I had passed only gave me an eerie smile when I asked how to get to check out.

What is up with people and not knowing the answers to questions tonight?

I sit motionless, vaguely aware i was on the floor in the kitchen. I was also vaguely aware it was some time past 4am, when I returned from my late name wander. However something is wrong, something is staring. I do not know what nor do I think I want to know, yeah... I don’t want to know— I never will want to know.

It feels as if I’m staring at the back of my own head, watching as blurs vibrate and buzz off me and disappear into the air. I was staring, but staring where? At what? What color is it? What shape does it take? Is it smooth or textured? Is it decorative or a utensil?

I want to reach and touch myself, reassure myself that I am, in fact, here— that I am tangible and existing. So I reach up to touch my forehead, but everything blues— freezes. It was like something had stopped me from proving I was tangible, but I didn’t know what stopped me. I can’t figure it out, I’m sure at this point I don’t want to figure it out.

Do not touch my own face, that is asking for trouble. Something has warned me not to do it, and blindly I will take the unseen things advice.

My mind feels cloudy? No, it feels foggy. Not quite... It feels as if someone has steamed it, the moisture leaking out my eyes— I am crying with a dull expression as I sit on the kitchen floor, barely aware I even exist. This skin isn’t even my own, who’s is it? Did I steal it? Did I win it? Did we swap? How do I give it back? It is uncomfortable and suffocating, irritating like a sunburn.

Who am I? Am I a spectator? Am I a player? Am I winning? What am I playing? What am I spectating? Are others here? Is this a competition? Where are the controls?

I’d like to take the controls now.

It was a very faint and ghostly feeling of a hand touching mine that made me obscurely aware my hand had never dropped from moving to touch my own face. How long ago was that? The world was a blur, scratchy and set in black and white like a very old VHS tape. I didn’t know how long it was of those ghostly hands rubbing my upper arms and occasionally wiping my face and eyes, but the feeling of those motions became more prominent— heavier and more tangible.

Eventually, my world came into color and the first thing I could see was red. Brown hair that was lazily held in a messy ponytail, skin adorned with a pair of red pajamas, green eyes that seemed so soft and worried as they met mine.

“You’re with me, miere?” She asks softly and I touch her hand that was cupping my cheek.

She is real.

She’s here, tangible, existing.

So I am real, tangling, existing— because she is talking to ME.

“Miere?”

“Please don’t leave me alone...”

“I am not going to leave, Miere. I am right here, don’t worry.. I am always right here.”

“I love you..”

“Miere?”

Meeting her green eyes, they seemed so bright but so cautious. Why? Squeezing her hand that had been holding mine, the corners of my lips tugged up a bit.

“I love you Wanda..”

“I... I love you too, Miere. I, I thought you were dating... Mattie?”

“Mattie..?” I mumble, confused.

Who is Mattie? Do I know a Mattie? Surely I do, she wouldn’t have mentioned a Mattie if I didn’t and— Oh, the diner Mattie.

“No, I’m not dating Mattie.. He was my friend from school.” I admit, his face now fresh in my head.

“Besides, I don’t like guys.”

“Are you... are you gay?”

“Of course I’m gay.”

#marvel #wanda maximoff x fem reader #wanda x fem reader #female reader insert #reader insert #avengers #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff one shot #tw: dissociation #tw: anxiety implications #Wanda Maximoff Fluff

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crusherthedoctor · 4 years

Note

What are your top 10 favorite Eggman bases/ships?

10. Scrap Brain - Gotta respect the one that started it all, right? Despite being the very first of its kind, it remains memorable in its own right, with the sickly orange sky and dark towers in act 1, and the infamous Labyrinth Zone switcheroo in act 3.

9. Crystal Egg - Not much to say here, but the crystal schtick and the faux-upbeat atmosphere really make it stand out, and I’d love to see something along these lines in a new installment, particularly a 3D one.

8. Circus Park - DUH DUH DUH-DUH DUH-DUH DAA-DAA DAA-DAA DAAADAAAAAA

7. Pirates' Island - Technically this is Captain Whisker's property, but Whisker was made by and worked for Eggman, so it counts. An old town transformed into a pirate hideout, it’s like an bad guy Venice. (Soleanna?) Like Crystal Egg, it’s very unique for a final zone, and the showdown with Whisker and Johnny is gloriously jazzy.

6. Egg Carrier and Final Egg - Prior to 2012-ish, I actually didn't care for the Egg Carrier at first. I didn't have anything against it mind you, but compared to other Eggman bases, I didn't really think about it as often. But in time - much like SA1 as a whole - I reacquainted myself with the little details that gave it so much character, like the swimming pool room for example, and I grew to appreciate it a lot more.

On a side-note, after making such a big deal out of it, I always found it hilarious how Eggman casually revealed a second one at the end of the game. :P

As you'll notice, I put Final Egg alongside it, because it was basically the Egg Carrier's birthplace, and it shares a similar level of character as well, most notably with the dummies of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and the cool Easter Egg with Metal Sonic and... Unidentified Sonic.

5. Pyramid Base - If there's one thing I can praise SA2 for, it's combining Eggman and Egypt together. I've always loved the Ancient Egyptian aesthetic, so I was always going to be biased for an Eggman interpretation, but they really went all in on it, defiling ancient statues with the doctor's face and everything. It's also the setting for, IMO, one of the better levels in the game (Pyramid Cave).

All in all, this is one of those Eggman bases that show just how versatile the doctor's tastes are, and by extension how versatile the doctor himself is.

4. Eggmanland - Eggman hyped up his dream land for years, and when it finally came to life in a game, it more than lived up to that hype... for better or worse if we're talking level design and length. But aesthetically at least, it's perfect, blending the playful and fiendish sides of the mad scientist seamlessly, and since this place counts as a theme park, a factory, AND a lava level all in one, you get the impression that Eggman kept cycling between different ideas for what he wanted Eggmanland to actually be over the years (note how in SA1, he referred to it as the ultimate city...), so he finally settled on mixing them all together, resulting in the metallic hellscape we know and love.

And do I even need to mention the Egg Dragoon battle? And Dark Gaia I guess, but fuck him.

3. The Amazing Interstellar Amusement Park - And then he topped himself by taking his theme park to outer space. Having turned whole planets (and an asteroid belt) into attractions, there’s a lot of memorability to this one. Sweets here, an aquarium there, neon lights up there, it’s all part of the fun. And let’s not forget those glorious, glorious public announcements.

2. Death Egg - It's iconic for a reason, and the fact that it actually ended up being more durable and persistent than the original Death Star it ripped off is inarguable proof that a whole Galactic Empire ain't shit compared to Eggman. I especially love its S3&K incarnation, with its ominous glare in the background of Lava Reef, and the silver and dark blue colour scheme within the space station itself.

Also notable for having one of the most iconic Sonic VS Eggman confrontations in the franchise (Sonic 2), and one of the greatest confrontations as well (the entire Death Egg-Doomsday gauntlet in S3&K).

1. Titanic Monarch - It may be relatively new, but it deserves to be considered as iconic as the Death Egg, the Egg Carrier, and Eggmanland. This one is my favourite of the lot for the premise alone: After building so many giant robots over the years, he finally made one so gargantuan that it counted as a zone and fortress all on its own. The idea of platforming your way inside and around a giant robot is something I've wanted in a Sonic game for an extremely long time, so you bet I was ecstatic when Taxman and Co had the same idea.

And of course, the colours are perfect. Dark and bright at the same time. Just like you know who. Like Eggmanland before it, this zone IS Dr. Eggman.

Honorable Mentions: Flying Battery for being just as iconic as the Egg Carrier, Techno Base for the cyberspace aesthetic, Egg Fleet for the sense of scale, Lava Shelter for being one of the better levels in Shadow’s game, Press Garden for the sheer absurdity of an evil newspaper factory in a snowy forest.

#Crusher's Asks #Opinion #Dr. Ivo Robotnik

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ducktracy · 4 years

Text

107. buddy in africa (1935)

disclaimer: this review entails racist imagery, content, and concepts. i don’t endorse any of these stereotypes or depictions whatsoever, i find them gross and wrong. however, it would be just as wrong to gloss over them and act like they didn’t exist. this review is purely for educational and informational purposes. please let me know if i say something harmful, offensive, or wrong—it is NEVER my intention to do so. thank you for bearing with me and understanding.

release date: july 6th, 1935

series: looney tunes

director: ben hardaway

starring: jackie morrow (buddy)

ben hardaway’s last buddy cartoon. buddy sets up a moving variety store shop in africa, but a pesky monkey and gorilla cause problems for our little shopkeeper.

just a normal day where a man is mowing the grass in his african village, or so we think. a pan out reveals that he’s perched on top of a house, mowing the straw roof. another gag includes a human juicer, a man twisting the bone in his hair to squeeze the juice out of the fruit in the man’s mouth. some villagers engage in a game of horseshoe, a man tossing children and using their nose rings to get caught onto the stake in the ground. as always, racial stereotypes and caricature are abound and uncomfortable.

enter chipper buddy, whistling away as he totes his trailer behind his car, advertising a variety store. a somewhat similar premise would be used in porky’s five and ten, where fish wreak havoc on his own variety store. a gorilla is hitchhiking, eagerly sticking out his thumb when buddy approaches. buddy rides straight on by, bad news for the gorilla, who dismisses him frustratedly. there’s a nice (albeit standard) gag of a monkey traffic cop and a giraffe posing as a traffic sign. the monkey directs the traffic, while a kangaroo (in africa???) stuffs litter in its pouch.

a guard waits by the entrance of the village. he spots buddy approaching and snags another villager, shaking him and ringing him like a bell. everyone pokes their heads out to see what the occasion is as buddy drives through the gates.

buddy screeches to a halt and begins to set up shop, beating on a drum, his butt, some pots and pans, greeting the crowd congregating before him with “howdy, folks! here it is!” jackie morrow’s voice acting is very cute, and it’s neat that they got an actual child actor (i believe i read somewhere that he was 9 when he voiced buddy). i think jack carr’s voice suited him more, though—it was an ambiguous child AND adult voice. it could pass for either, just like buddy’s appearance. i guess it’s just a little strange seeing buddy drive a car and own a house and talk in a child’s voice. just something very petty to nitpick at, morrow does a very good job of voicing buddy. the villagers exchange fruit for the goods as the trade ensues.

there’s another rather redundant and arbitrary shot of the gorilla hitchhiker before cutting back to buddy and his booming business. one of the villagers goes into his hut with his newfound collectibles. he twists two lightbulbs in his ears, which add some much needed light into the dark hut. he placed a lampshade on his head and reads the newspaper. elsewhere, another villager stuffs fireworks in his mouth and lights them, flying off into the distance. it’s an absurd gag, but the abruptness and almost incoherence of it makes it highly amusing.

meanwhile, our little salesman triumphantly displays some bottles. “here’s a drink that’ll cure your jitters,” he announces in rhyme, “buddy’s famous jungle bitters!” one of his customers takes the bottles buddy was holding in his hands, whereas a pesky little monkey decides to help himself, too. buddy scolds the monkey, but the monkey isn’t bothered, chattering and slamming buddy’s car door shut.

four of the villagers drink the bitters—music strikes. a man plucks his hair like a bass as they sing “marchin’ towards ya, georgia!” a very catchy song indeed with lovely vocals, but appreciation severely muddled by the blatant blackface caricatures staring you in the face. a man plays an elephant like a pair of bagpipes, a man stretches out his lips (sigh) and plays them like a muted trumpet, and a woman sings some vocals. she has some sort of pipe on her neck (it’s difficult to tell since this print is so poor in quality), and a man annoyed with her singing turns a knob that shuts her up. meanwhile, buddy merrily juggles his bottles.

two of the villagers dance, bouncing around doing handstands. obviously, this whole scene, not to mention entire cartoon is cringeworthy and painful to watch (unfortunately, this is relatively tame compared to other cartoons), but the animation is solid, very bouncy and fun. a turtle plays itself like a banjo while the four singers finish up the song. very catchy indeed.

back to the monkey, who’s proving himself to be quite the nuisance. he bangs the bottle against the car in an attempt to open it—buddy yells at him to stop and to give it back, but the monkey refuses. buddy chases the monkey around the car—he dives under the car, where the monkey pops out on top and hits the bottle against buddy’s head. buddy snags the bottle (which somehow isn’t broken) out of the monkey’s hands and spanks him. back to the harman-ising days of spanking gags! how we miss you!

accomplished, buddy releases the monkey and laughs. the monkey shakes his fist and wanders off, right back to the hitchhiking gorilla. ahhh, of course. the monkey chirps and squeals about his horrific encounter with buddy, patting his own butt for good measure. the seemingly docile gorilla scowls and rolls up its fur-sleeves (such an overdone gag, but a big guilty pleasure of mine. i can’t help but love it!) menacingly. it puffs its chest out and tips its hat forward, preparing to march along. a nice detail as the monkey follows behind, also puffing out his chest.

the gorilla and monkey come to a standstill as a guard confronts them at the entrance to the village. a lovely little bit of acting as the gorilla shrugs at the monkey for advice, the monkey punching its palm. the gorilla takes its orders and pummels the guard into the ground, the gorilla stepping on his head and the monkey poking his eyes.

predictably, buddy gets his. he’s pumping up a tire when the gorilla terrorizes him, stepping onto the tire and propelling buddy upwards. the gorilla catches buddy and slams him down onto the tire, pumping the air pump and propelling him offscreen. thusly, the gorilla snags the pump and tire, preparing to beat buddy senseless by swinging the tire like the world’s most painful lasso. the scene reads as incoherent (even aside from the poor quality) as the tire hits the gorilla instead, shooting it into the distance. a tree slingshots the gorilla back to where it was (nice rubbery animation of the tree), and the gorilla barrels right into a lookout tower. the tower collapses, trapping buddy AND the gorilla who are both unscathed. finding great humor in the debacle, the little monkey laughs at the gorilla. in a moment of camaraderie, the gorilla exchanges a glance with buddy and punches the tire. the tire sends the air pump handle rocketing, which in turn hits the monkey, who flies into the distance. iris out as foes become friends, the gorilla and buddy shaking hands.

hardaway’s buddy cartoons, in my opinion, were slightly weaker than king’s. in general, they’re all pretty bland—the titles blend together and i can’t even remember if i have a discernible favorite or not. i know i had commended a buddy cartoon relatively recently and labeled it as good, but i can’t even think of it! thus proves buddy’s blandness. this is another bland one, more than usual. right off the bat the racial stereotypes and caricatures make the cartoon an uncomfortable watch. the monkey and gorilla scenes were amusing, though. the ending battle read as incoherent and incomprehensible, i kept having to rewind it just to formulate what was going on. it was certainly creative and high energy, though, and i applaud that. the song number was nice and catchy, but that’s it. i hate to say “it could have been worse” because blackface is blackface and stereotypes are stereotypes, any inclusion at all is immediately bad. but i suppose there are cartoons out there that are more mean-spirited than this one, more of a “celebration everyone sings and dances for the fun of it and everyone gets along”, but still. not pleasant and cringeworthy. even besides that, the cartoon doesn’t have much going for it at all. you won’t miss anything by skipping.

but, as always, i’ll provide a link. obviously view at your own discretion.

#lt #buddy in africa #reviews #long post #racism tw

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dollsted · 4 years

Text

Rated: T

Pairing: JarethxSarah

Plot teaser: The Goblin King is dead...at least in Sarah's normal life he is...but what happens if that turns out to just be a rumor? Source: Archiveofourown.com/F0rce0fnatur3

Notes:

Hello my bebes. So just a little address to those who continue to read this. I have always been a fan of the Labyrinth and I know nothing could touch on or pick up where Henson left off but I've put a lot of thought into how my version of the story should go. I hope I can give fans back some semblance of what we've been waiting for since the story came out. I have read all there is and watched behind the scenes and rare footage on my favorite movie and so characters that are within the novel, concept sketches, and other works will be put in here. There may also be minor oc's as well as one big one. So I say unto you. I hope you enjoy my version because the goblin king may be watching over all of us in the heaven's and no one can take his place...I bring him back to life here on the pages before you.

Chapter 1: Rumors

When I was a child, I thought like a child. But I did not do childish things. In fact, I don’t think anyone could call what I went through childish. But that feels like a time long, long ago. Even now if I think back on it, my mind becomes a fog. And then one day I just---forgot entirely. I do remember the days after vividly. I graduated and parted with my drama club family. I struggled with my major but suddenly all these dreams and thoughts of harrowing tales wouldn’t stop springing to my mind like an unlimited fountain from a spring that burst and never dried up. At first I would scribble the stories down in notebooks when I was supposed to be paying attention to the lecture in front of me. Now at twenty, I’ve found my calling and have become one of the bestselling fantasy novelists of my generation. I’ve heard all the praises. To be so young and have one of the most sought after series. One scholar I met at a gala party in New York City told me fantasy novels were an elder mans game. The older the person the wiser the writing as if the pages were scrolled on ink and parchment paper itself. I gave them their props as they rightfully deserve, but I planned to hold my own. I’d rather contend with the older crowd than the young teen romance category. I had no interest following on the coattails of finding a way to weave a story about a werewolf or vampire. I’m just waiting for the mummy revolution to peak.

Now, I stare at a blank page. My well is congested and I need inspiration but a deadline for my eager fans want a rushed job. No one asks a baker to take the brownies out of the oven because they’re clamoring to eat it before its ready, mindlessly spooning the hot batter into their mouth. I understand the impatience but this is why the good writers have one hit wonders, or a series, and then slowly peter out for indefinite hiatuses. I can’t just expunge something onto blank pages without inspiration to fuel my motivation. So I gaze out my window on the reading nook watching the city life buzz about. I wish I could just reach down and pull their thoughts from them and manage to get something cohesive enough to send to my editor. I wring my hands around my coffee cup too jittery to even take another sip, the perfume from my eight o’ clock brew souring in my stomach. I can hear the battery warning on my laptop but I’m frozen where I sit. I came up with different plots but nothing made sense. I would need to cram at least four hundred pages into the novel and when I got rolling and tried desperately to fill the pages with random ramblings it came out in cliché bits and pieces that made no sense.

Tonight there would be another gala and this was a black and white only listing. I was prepared but that’s who I was. I was ready within seconds. If I was given three hours I would be ready in three minutes. Always itching to go. Why slow life down anymore? Maybe it was just my mindset as a writer, maybe it was the pressure from the public. I was already a book behind and itching to be at this gala, perform my part of dutiful famous author, and then slip away with a spoon of ice-cream in my mouth and my silk gray pajamas on my body. Suddenly a thought rolled over my mind making me feel suddenly ill. When had I become the mirror image of my stepmother? My insides coiled tight like a sailors knot and I couldn’t stand to have this cup in my hands any longer and be alone with my thoughts. I needed to keep busy to numb my mind and run on autopilot.

I glanced at the one newspaper clipping I saved of mom stuck to the corner of my corkboard. Around her ideas were peppered on yellow sticky notes. I was stuck in my fantasy that worshipping an absent parent who left dad and I behind for the stage, for fame and fortune, had abandoned us took precedent over reality. Before my epiphany I lived in a world where she would come back because daughters were invisibly connected to their mother’s right? Like sons and fathers. I had dreams she would ride through our suburban neighborhood on the whitest steed---well in a white limo, and she would come out with a plume of feathers in a pink boa around her neck and her finest ball gown and she would announce she was here to storm the castle and take me away with her where we would live in riches and in the lap of luxury. That’s the word she was, luxury. But that’s all she was. She wasn’t a dream that would ever come true. A mirage. She was just a word. One everyone knew how to speak, and only the rich could afford to. When I finally grew into myself and knew she was just another selfish story I made up in my head, I put my scrapbook and pictures of her away. Even now they’re packed in boxes I doubt I’ll ever open. The article is recent, her career had slowly plateaued when younger famous musicians rose to fame and glory on the stages of Broadway. And in some way, I had to thank her for popping my bubble of dreams because I didn’t want to follow in her footsteps in reality. Or dad. Or my stepmother’s assumption of what I should do with my life. I needed to do what I wanted. What my heart and head wanted.

But now I’m stuck. In a bog of eternal stench. I raised a brow. That was an odd way of phrasing something. What did that even mean? What did I even just think? Before I could grasp it and replay the sentence it was gone. I needed air. And possibly something to eat. Normally I would go for a jog before the night fell but I had an hour left to get ready so I did what anyone would do in my position. I took a much needed nap.

As I scan the crowd I notice little things. Another perk of being a writer. People watching. Noticing details. I watched couples stroll in, one couple shied away barely making it through the door when they realized they had forgotten or weren’t notified by the theme of the party. Even champagne colored attire wouldn’t fly in the mayor’s presence. The women who wore their hair down had coiled them in delicately hanging curls that bounced as they floated across the marble floor. There wasn’t a straight haired woman in sight. I was thankful I chose last second to throw it up in a chignon before I left from the house. I had to admit I still hadn’t mastered the art of being able to glide like most of these women had with heels and dress trains. My mermaid style dress was all in black and the design made it hard to take a good stride. I never cared for alcohol. I never developed the taste for it. The most I would take is a glass of wine, any color, and that was on my worst days. But I felt foolish just holding onto the flute of champagne clutched in my hand. Perhaps I could discretely slip it on a passing tray or abandon it in a less frequented area. I longed for my settee, ice-cream, movie, and pajamas. Depending how the night shaped, maybe I’d skip it all and just go straight to bed. Since I wasn’t stalled in conversation or mindless babbling I stole my chance to discard the flute. As I turned I became arrested by a form. I cursed wishing I had my precious solitude back. A bulky man towered over me. His jet black hair was slicked back and went against the grain of men who wore the signature penguin suites of stark black. He was dressed entirely in pure white. His hazel eyes bore into me seeing me and not just scanning over my bodice as most of the suitors that had pursued me during the eve had been. I spent more time dodging the men in heat that I barely noticed if there were any noble guests not just looking out for the single stragglers for a one night stand.

I shrunk into myself and flushed tearing away from his gaze giving a slight curtsy. As much as the restriction of my dress would allow me to bend my knees. And then I felt even more awkward because I did that. I felt my brows knit and I mentally threw myself out a window before grounding myself. I expected him to start the conversation but perhaps I was being vain. Not everyone knew about me even if I lived in a city packed with my fair share of fans. I was used to having others pounce on me with immediate greetings and questions. To stop my internal suffering I chose to open my mouth and end my misery of turning into an awkward child and reminding myself that I was an adult. Am one. Speak!

“Good evening.” Oh good, I just used the opening line to every gothic and creepy character would use. I really floundered instead of thrived in large gatherings. I wanted to wipe the slate clean, I hadn’t realized half of my champagne had been slugged back. I became aware of the stinging in my ankles and the pain on my feet as I balanced on my heels. He parted his lips revealing pearly whites. I could see his dimples and I found my hand busying itself by brushing a stray strand that had come lose from the chignon behind my ear.

“It is.” His smile was warm and inviting. But I was on high alert none-the-less. I wasn’t sure how to further this conversation. I’d give anything to have my joggers on so I could shift my weight side to side. It was my tell that I was uncomfortable. But I was restricted in these damn stilts.

“Are you here accompanying the mayor in his entourage?” Aside from the orchestra playing at the base of the stairs I could hear the soft chuckle in his throat.

“Unfortunately no. I was a plus one with the Matthew party.” I had no idea who they were but I nodded in agreement as if I did. “What about you, lady?”

“I only got my invitation because of my status. I’m a hot ticket item until my success runs its course and someone else comes along to claim the limelight.” I whisked my flute in the air toasting to my misery and draining the glass abandoning it on the wide railing. I was drowning. I wished for my friend from college to be at my side. She was excellent at steering conversations away from my failings.

“That’s usually how fame works. May I ask, what your profession is now?” ‘Now’? It was an odd way to say something but I disregarded it as a slip of the tongue.

“I’m a novelist.”

“Fancy.” He waggled his brow and now it was my turn to laugh. It came out more like a bark.

“Mind if we speak more but actually participate in this party by dancing?” I felt my face pale. I was meant to be a statue. One that showed up, soaked up the atmosphere, and then left without being drawn into something complicated. Like dancing. That was complicated. Especially in the prison I handpicked for myself. He offered his arm and I gratefully took it stepping as if I was made of china. I literally took baby steps painfully listening to the stairs announce our decent when the butt of my heel ricocheted in the scoop of the room. I could barely get one foot in front of the other, my dress demanding my steps be smaller.

He blessedly closed his stride into small boxy steps allowing me to move with him. He lead, and I floated in the weight of his arms. His palm spanned over my entire back horizontally. I felt like a small hill up against a mountain. The tempo slowed, the musician’s skill amazed me. They could transition from fast pace to slow and sensual within the beat of a note. Before I knew it, we too had slowed, the only glimmer of having been keeping in step to the upbeat rhythm was my fast beating heart and the bead of sweat on the back of my neck. Somewhere between that transition, his body had mingled closer to mine and now his lips were at my ear in a gentle whisper. My eyes widened. I was confused. What did he just say? Was that really what he meant to say? I felt my world splinter. I felt like a dark void inside my heart was going to swallow me whole and I would be rid of all the people and buildings around me.

I somehow made it back to my flat on the top floor. I slipped off my shoes, wormed my way into my pajama’s and when I came back to myself I was curled up in bed holding myself not caring that my chignon was half tamed and half wild. I didn’t even bother to wipe away my lipstick, clean the eyeshadow off with the liner above my lashes. I barely got my arm into the sleeve of my shirt. I hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on or button the shirt closed. My covers lay neglected at my back, my pillow barely touching the top of my head. I was staring into the black hole hiding the corner of my wall. Tears welling in my eyes. Why was I so tore up about this?

I felt the hot coals roll over my cheeks staining my silk sheets. My muscles were stiff, my circulation numb from sitting so still. Why was I feeling all these things that made no sense to me? The thing the man said didn’t even make sense. It sounded like a joke or something he stole out of a novel. What did he mean when he said ‘The Goblin King is dead?’ and why was my heart breaking?

I pulled my phone from the belly of my clutch opening up the web browser searching for anything that could connect me to those words. How was I supposed to react to that? Why was it even affecting me?! My mind was screaming. I found forums with geeks talking about video game references. Millions of results were nothing more than mindless ramblings of geeks and nerds. Broken phrases about movies, books, television, games. There was no viable information present. Frustrated I threw my phone against the wall but heard it hit my vanity instead shattering the mirror. I gasped at my own failings sliding off the bed to clean up my mess. My flat was empty. It was full of things that adorned the walls and filled the spaces so it didn’t look barren but---the truth was it was just me alone living here. I got to work brushing the pieces into the dustpan pausing when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a giant ragged shard.

Hadn’t those words meant something at one time? A title? I had an odd hazy thought that I was meant to remember something. Something significant. But my work took precedence. What that man said was nothing. If it was a message it fell on deaf ears. Maybe it was just highbrow humor I forgot to gloss in the New Yorker. But that was a business magazine and no imagination or right brained people were allowed to even grace those pages. I got the vaguest of feelings that I had been on the other side of this mirror once. A fleeting thought. I disposed of it climbing back into bed regretting the ruin of my mirror and phone. I was a person meant to be on call any time of day especially for my editor. I would rush first thing in the morning to the store to get a new phone and hastily set up my mailbox.

I stretched arching my back like a cat reveling in the warmth my flat offered through the central air system and gazed out to the skyline barely looking back at my with a slit eye of pinks and purples. No signs of orange yet. Coffee time. The heavens answered my thoughts. I heard the timer chime awake and the maker got to work gurgling the water I poured the night before come alive. All I would need to do is feed it creamer and retrieve my mug. I tapped a key on my laptop forgetting momentarily that the battery warned me the night before I needed to charge its juice. It wouldn’t matter. There would still be a blank page and a blinking cursor angrily ticking to remind me my own time was slipping away to start a draft. I couldn’t get what the stranger whispered to me out of my head. I paced feeling the ache in my feet from my heels from the night before. I had darted from the party wanting to stretch that space between me and my dance partner. Away from his words. Away from the mocking eyes that gave me a headache and dejavu.

It would’ve been easier to hail a cab but I felt like the world was crumbling down on me. I was choking and I needed to breach the surface and gulp lungful’s of air. And then I practically fell into the lobby before the doorman or desk clerk could barrage me with questions. I knew I was disheveled. I didn’t need to be prodded or gawked at. I clambered into the elevator fishing the key to activate my penthouse suite on the top floor. I wanted to get home. I needed my bed before I passed out here. Fifty stories up and I stumbled into my room listening to the whirling gears of the elevator haul itself back to earth while I stayed floating in space.

I escaped the footmen who were busy busing in luggage and packages of other residents. My main focus needed to be a new phone. With my laptop dead I needed access to the internet now more than ever. I knew my editor would be trying to get ahold of me. I tried to keep my thoughts singular but after I began setting up everything on the little device I found my curiosity drawing me back to the same spot I fled from. Who was the man that approached me and I danced with? Why did he single me out? Did he know me? Was he using code that I should know? Was it a password to get into somewhere?

All my thoughts were spinning in a jumbled mess worse than a tornado at level five and I wanted answers but only gained more questions.

#labyrinthfic #labyrinthfanfiction #labyrinth au #labyrinth 1986 #jarethxsarah #ao3 #archiveofourown #archive of our own #myart #myworks

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fresh-buttonsdotcom · 3 years

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A Frog’s Adventure

By fresh-buttonsdotcom

Just like everyday it was a sunny day full of smiles and cheer from everyone in town. Frog walked down the small pebbled street and made his way to the café to enjoy his daily breakfast. He got smiles and waves from those who were awake as the crisp morning air chilled him down to his bones.

Frog had a routine, and this routine always started with two blueberry-and-fly pancakes and reading a book by basking in the sunlight of his favorite food joint in the entire town.

Today was no different. Frog walked into T’s Café and More, the familiar chime of the bell rang through the air signaling his arrival.

“Frog, my dear, how are you this morning?” Tortoise asked, walking slowly into the dinning room from the kitchen.

“I’m just fine, thank you. How are you?”

“Ehh, could be better. I missed the mail truck again yesterday.”

“You miss the mail truck everyday.”

“Oh hush up. I’ll fix you up some pancakes, you just take a seat and leave me alone.” Frog croaked a wet laugh and took his regular seat by the second window. He produced a hardcover copy of Piglet, a Snakesperian play, from his small bag and started from the third act. Halfway through the fourth act warm wafts of melted butter and warm syrup coated Frog’s tongue causing saliva to slip out the sides of his mouth. It was early enough in the day that the café was barely occupied, giving Frog great and reliable customer service.

“Here you go, hun.” Tortoise rasped, and set down the steaming plate of pancakes.

“You’re the best, TT.”

Tortoise smiled at Frog, “Don’t you forget it.”

Frog traded bites of pancake for lines of the play, and within twenty minutes he was done. Frog was so absorbed in the play, he didn’t even realize when more customers flooded into the small café. Chatter clogged the air, making talking to Tortoise impossible, so Frog threw down some money and walked out with his book in hand.

Outside the air had warmed up. Frog stripped off his light coat and placed it in his small bag. His bag was just big enough to fit his money pouch and a couple of books, but since Frog had only brought the one book with him he had space to stuff his small suede jacket inside. The town bell chimed seven times, indicating to Frog that it was time to go to work.

Frog worked at the local elementary school and worked with second graders. He both loved his job and despised it. On one lilypad there was the fact that all the kids Frog got to work with were all super cute. On the other lilypad, however, there was the decline of young'uns in their small town, which meant Frog could be out of a job any year. But Frog didn’t like to think about negatives like that, so instead he took everything day by day. Frog approached the small building and walked inside.

“Good morning, Mr. Frog!” Frog smiled at the verbal boom blasted down the hall.

“Good morning, Principal Tiger. Lovely day isn’t it?” Principle Tiger smiled tightly.

“It is. I’m afraid I have some bad news though. The triplets are sick, swine flu, and so is Mrs. Pig. I’m going to need you to sub in for the fifth grade class for the time being until Mrs. Pig is able to return.” Frog felt a pant in his chest. He loved teaching the second grade because that’s when you really get to start teaching them and getting them ready for the “real” world.

“Yes, I can do that.” The dejected tone of Frogs voice was not missed by Principal Tiger.

“Look, I know you love your second graders, but the triplets were going to be your last class for a while. Think of this as a promotion.”

“Sure, a promotion.” Frog’s mood was immediately dampened by the saddening realization that he would either have to teach a different grade, or find a new job all together.

Frog had lived in the small town of Pinkerton his entire life, fom egg, to tadpole, to froglet and finally frog. All of Frog’s other siblings had taken off after graduating school, and Frog hadn’t seen them since. Sure he gets the occasional letter, but he couldn’t help but miss all the commotion and ruckus they brought to his life.

Frog entered Mrs. Pig’s classroom, turned on the lights and looked around. There were five desks; each with a child’s personalized name tag. Frog placed his things below the teacher’s desk and pulled out the lesson plan for the week. After reviewing the plan for several minutes, the school bell went off, and students started arriving. Frog didn’t need an attendance sheet because he’d taught all of these kids previously—all but one.

Frog put on his happy face and greeted the kids, “Hello, come in, come in!”

“MR. FROG!” A chorus of small cheers resounded against the walls of the room.

“You’re going to be teaching us?” Chip asked nearly spitting out his lunch.

“I sure am! Why don’t you guys put your things away in your cubbies and then I’ll answer your questions.” Most of the kids scrambled to get their stuff put away and get back to their seats. One student was standing silently in the doorway. Frog took a quick peek at the attendance sheet.

“Hello. I’m Mr. Frog. Are you Toada?” Toada peaked her head out from under her hat, just enough for her eyes to lock onto Frog’s and quickly fall to the floor. “I promise I’m not scary,” Frog said calmly, slowly inching his way towards the frightened girl. He held out a lettuce leaf. Toada shook as she raised her head to meet Frog’s eyes once again. When their eyes met she flinched slightly but didn’t look away, and took the leaf with a trembling hand. Frog smiled at Toada, and watched her slowly put her things away and sit down at her desk.

“Mr. Frog, where’s Mrs. Pig?”

“Well, Birdy, Mrs. Pig is sick right now, so while she gets better, I’m going to be teaching you guys.”

“Mr. Frog, are we still taking that test on hibernation patterns?”

“Misty! Why’d you tell him?” Chip whined, rocking back and forth against his desk.

“Are you going to make us take a test, Mr. Frog?” Birdy asked, pecking nervously at the wooden desk.

“You guys will have a test—“ the exaggerated groans brought a smile to Frog’s face, “but it won’t be about hibernation patterns. This test will be about yourself, so there are no wrong answers.” The kids cheered and chatted spiritedly amongst themselves as Frog passed out a sheet of paper to each student.

“Okay, now I want you guys to start off with question number one: what is your name?”

“Easy peasy.” Misty remarked confidently. Frog looked around the room to make sure everyone was finished.

“Question two: what is the most interesting thing you’ve learned about hibernation?”

“I learned that when we hibernate, it needs to be like at 100 degrees!” Frog quickly brought a finger up to his lips.

“Shh, let’s let other people think on their own for now.” Frog suggested calmly. He continued on, asking about their favorite places, their funniest jokes and even the names of their best friends. After their fake test activity, Frog gathered their “tests” and resumed the lesson plan. At lunch time, when the kids where outside playing, Frog took the chance to read about what the kids wrote about. Most of their answers were silly and creative, but when Frog got to Toada’s, he realized she hadn’t written a word. Instead, she sketched a very detailed landscape of a forest with a black hole and a question mark on the middle of the page. Frog tried not to let the concerning picture bother him, but he couldn’t he’ll the way his eyes drifted nervously over to Toada every other minute, making sure she was still there.

After school ended and the bell rang, Frog gave the kids their homework sheets and sent them on their way, but not before trying to confront Toada.

“Toada, can you stay back for a few minutes?” Toada’s eyes bulged with fear, but she kept his gaze and nodded slowly. She shuffled up to the front of the room where the teachers desk was, and stood awkwardly on the other side of Frog, eyes down again.

“You’re not in trouble, okay? I just wanted to talk to you about this,” Frog provided Toada’s fake test and showed it to her, “what does this black circle mean? The one with the question mark in it.” Toada shrugged. “I know that can’t be true. You spent the entire first block of the day drawing it.” Toada stayed silent and Frog internally groaned. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk about it you don’t have to. You can go now.” Toada walked quickly out of the classroom leaving Frog with nothing but more questions.

Frog spotted Principal Tiger walking out of his office and walked briskly to catch up to him.

“Oh, Mr. Frog, how’d the first day go?”

“Pretty well, although there is one student I’m concerned about.”

“Toada?” The principle asked. Frog nodded and walked beside Principal Tiger as they both exited the building. “She’s new. Carmen found her out on the side of the road, dehydrated and alone. She’s currently living with The Ravens and the mayor is sending out letters everyday, but no one has claimed her in the past two weeks.” Frog’s heart ached at the thought of that little girl alone and without family.

“Does she speak?”

“Not that I know of. She clearly understands what’s being said, but is choosing not to talk back. The Ravens are trying to do speech therapy on her, but so far no luck.”

“If she doesn’t speak, how do you know her name?”

“She wrote it down for us. The child can clearly communicate but for some reason wants to stay silent.”

“Hmm, okay, thank you!” Frog took off towards the town square where newspapers from all over the county were sold. He got there and bought up one of each newspaper. He hurried home, practically tripping over his own feet. Once home, Frog found the advertisement sections of each paper and pulled them out. He microscanned each paper for a missing ad for Toada. After a few hours of scouring the papers, Frog had come to a dead end. Why was he so concerned about a little girl, Frog wondered to himself, before tucking all the papers away and calling it a night.

For the next few weeks, Frog continued buying all of the newspapers and searching for Toada’s parents. He also maintained a shaky relationship with Toada in school. He got her to make eye contact with him, he got her to write, but still no words.

During lunch, Toada would sit in the empty classroom with Frog and they would write to each other. Mostly it was Frog asking questions and trying to make jokes, and Toada sat there, amused and bored, opening up day by day.

On the third week since Frog took over Mrs. Pig’s class, Frog finally found something. It was a small ad, in the bottom right corner of the left page:

Missing Girl, Please Help! -Wetlands district

The ad read. Frog carefully cut out the ad and placed it in his bag. He was so excited to tell Toada about his discovery, he couldn’t sleep. Frog woke up to the sound of grass being mowed and knew he overslept. Looking at his wall clock, Frog saw he was going to be late for school if he didn’t hurry up. So he quickly grabbed a bread sandwich to go, and ran out the door. By the time Frog got to the school, the bell had finished ringing. Frog slid into the classroom, almost taking out Chip with him, and smiled brightly at Toada, before smiling at the rest of the class.

The day went by at a snail’s pace, but after seven grueling hours of containing his excitement, the bell rung.

“Toada, can I talk to you?” Toada nodded, and waited for the others to clear out of the room before Frog sat down across from Toada in the child-sized desks.

“So, I know that you’re lost,” Toada’s expressions turned cloudy, “and I know you don’t know how to get back or ask for help. So, here.” Frog took out the paper scarp from his bag and handed it gently over to Toada. She opened it carefully before her eyes scanned the writing. Her head shot up and her eyes filled with tears.

“Is this really them? Really?” She asked hushly. Frog was so taken aback by the fact that she had spoken, that it took him a few seconds to collect himself.

“I think so. That’s why I wanted to show you. This paper is from a county all the way in the Wetlands district. Does that sound familiar?” Toada shrugged and gripped the piece of paper harder. A fat droplet fell onto the paper, and her bottom lip started quivering.

“I want to go home!” She exclaimed, letting her tears fall stagnant down her cheeks. The echoes of her cries filled the empty halls, and Frog’s heart broke for the little girl. Then, and idea struck him.

“Let’s get you home.” Toada’s cries morphed into hiccups before softening into sniffles.

“How?” She asked, whipping away the tear tracks from her face.

“Well school is almost done, and Mrs. Pig should be back any day now. Principal Tiger will be able to teach the class so I can take you!” Toada and Frog ran excitedly through the halls to get to Principal Tiger’s office before he left. They skirted to a stop outside his office door. Frog jingled the door handle, before spotting Principal Tiger walking outside. Frog and Toada sprinted over to Principal Tiger, out of breath and full of excitement.

Frog couldn’t put his finger on why he was so excited to get Toada back to her family. But his stomach fluttered every time he thought about getting that little girl and her family back together.

“Principal Tiger!” Principal Tiger turned from where he was a few paces from his bike and smiled.

“Hello Mr. Frog, Toada. What can I do for you two?”

“Well it’s really for me. You see, I think I found her family!” Toada handed out the paper to the principal. His eyes scanned the paper a few times, before looking back at the two of them, this time without the smile.

“And what do you want to do you this?” Principal Tiger asked, shaking the paper around to show its flimsy-ness.

“Well, I want to take some time off to take her back to her family.”

“And if it’s not her family?” Toada’s excited expression dropped and her eyes went dull and Frog placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Well then I’ll bring her back.” Principal Tiger looked over the paper once more before shaking his head and handing the paper back to Frog.

“I can’t give you personal time for this. We need you to help the school run. I’m sorry, but the answer is no. Good day.” With that, Principal Tiger left Toada feeling hopeless and defeated.

“Flop that,” Frog declared after Principal Tiger was out of earshot, “I’m taking you home.” A spark reignited in Toada’s eyes before a slow smile crawled across her face.

(Please leave constructive criticism if you have any!)

#writing #short story #story #original writing #original content #frog #toad #animals #creative #fiction #fantasy #I have been awake since 7am yesterday #help #tired #hungry #blood draw

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harryjamesheadcanons · 7 years

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Quick introduction to my favorite, ridiculous, super #extra OC, Aaron Finch-Dursley.

Aaron Finch is the Muggle older brother of Justin Finch-Fletchley.

The brothers were really close as kids, though Aaron is two years older. Their parents divorced when the boys were six and four, and their mother was remarried by the next year. Their stepdad Alan Fletchley is a better dad than their own, so much so that he offers his last name to both boys to make it official. Justin, remembering less of their biological dad, adds it to his name. Aaron chooses not to, but still loves him as much as he loves their mom.

Had Aaron attended Hogwarts, he would have been Sorted Hufflepuff before the hat even settled on his head. He’s kind, patient, and fair enough to rival Helga herself.

It takes hard work and patience for Justin to be able to explain everything he experiences at Hogwarts and in the Wizarding World, but he is true, loyal, and unafraid of the toil of writing out long, detailed letters. It’s harder than one might think to contextualize everything about Hogwarts, to convey the scale of the moving staircases, the history and mentality of the House Elves, Dumbledore’s omniscience, the Transfiguration coursework. Understanding it all is hard sometimes even for Justin, who lives it every day, but all the same, it just doesn’t seem fair to keep Aaron out. The only time Aaron ever sees Hogwarts is during Justin’s second year, when the family is allowed to visit him in the hospital wing after he’d been Petrified.

That’s when he suddenly gets it - understands why Justin loves this world so much, and is able to get a clearer picture in his head of what the life of a wizard is even like.

He has a pretty normal Muggle upbringing, though admittedly he does spend it at Eton. He has a close-knit group of friends that he grows up with, and gets on with nearly everyone around him. He never focuses too much on the coursework, it seems secondary anyway. He befriends the friendless, protects the helpless, and somehow seems to remain on good terms with everyone.

When he comes out as gay when he’s sixteen, not one person is surprised, but everyone is as accepting as he could have asked them to be. He takes to dating wizarding boys off from Hogwarts for the summers. Eaton is such a dreadfully small dating pool.

When Justin comes back from his sixth year at Hogwarts, saying that he won’t be able to return the next year because of highly anti-muggleborn sentiments, Aaron is secretly - shamefully - a little bit relieved. It’s gotten more and more dangerous each year, and if the newspaper is to be believed, the ensuing year in full out war would be even worse.

When a letter from a Muggleborn friend of Justin’s warns that members of Dumbledore’s Army are going to be hunted down more viciously than other Muggleborns, Justin decides to move to America rather than go into hiding. He has some friends help him put wards over their family home to keep their parents safe.

Since he’s taking a gap year anyway, Aaron tags along. They get a flat in Boston with a couple of roommates - a set of American twins, one witch and one Muggle - and learn the Muggle and Wizarding area surrounding.

Aaron enrolls in some classes, and does some volunteer work to figure out what he wants to do with the the rest of his life - and ends up settling on an education major. He’s always liked school and thinks sixth form might be ideal to teach - he’ll be able to do some good with kids that age, he decides.

He decides to take his actual credits when they get home. Justin seems to think that the tension is going to break any week now, and he can give his all in the final battle and then return back to normal life and Hogwarts like he never left it.

Eventually, he gets a letter from the Muggleborn kid he was Petrified with - Colin - saying that it’s going to happen in a matter of days. They return home, and Justin goes to fight. Aaron and his mother stay the entire night in the Three Broomsticks, under the care of Madame Rosmerta, with some other Muggles whose loved ones are in danger. It’s the worst night of either of their lives.

But then the war is over, and Justin returns to Hogwarts - to the anxiety of the whole family. Aaron enrolls in university to work towards his teaching degree. Life settles back into what it used to be, even though he still feels stuck in an odd position on the fringes of wizarding society.

One day, during a summer that feels particularly fortuitous with its Muggle and Muggleborn-friendly legislature and new Ministry programs, Justin drags Aaron to a shop in Diagon Alley.

Aaron is a little overwhelmed by all the overt wizardingness of it all. He feels a little like he’s missing pieces he should know in order to exist comfortably in this spaces. “God,” he says to Justin, after nearly knocking over a display. “They shouldn’t let Muggles in here.”

A low slow voice from behind him says, “You wanna say that again?”

He turns. The guy is cute, smiling a little, and wearing a smock that matches the logo on the outside of the store.

Aaron backpedals frantically. “No no no, I mean - I’m not, I was being - I’m a Muggle.”

The guy grins. “Yeah, I know. Me too. I heard you ask how many Knuts to a pound.”

“And I suppose you know? Justin is bloody useless and couldn’t tell me.”

“God, no. I wish we were using pounds. I promise I know less than your boyfriend does,” the guy says, a question in his voice.

“My brother, actually,” Aaron corrects with a smile.

“I’m, uh, Dudley.”

“Aaron.”

They learn each other slowly. Dudley is hesitant to show the parts of himself he’d been hiding since the beginning of the war, hesitant to open up about his past, hesitant to let himself be loved. Aaron, though, is patient. And loyal, when he learns the truth.

They adapt to the two worlds together, living mostly Muggle, although Aaron does help Dudley reconnect with Harry after a few years. It’s rocky, but the fact that Ginny and Aaron become fast friends - and both really want their respective partners to have peace - really helps.

Aaron finishes his degree, and lands a teaching position in a suburb of London. He enjoys his job teaching history and government, and tries to teach his students to view the world with fairness and patience.

Dudley gets a data entry job at a firm partnered with Grunnings.

They rent a little house together, with a garden for Dudley and a huge kitchen for Aaron. Justin, still healing and helping his friends heal, is in and out of their guest room for a number of years, still trying to get back on his wizarding feet and figure out where he fits in the new order of things. When he finally gets a job and his own appartment, Dudley helps Aaron throw a housewarming party for him and some old school friends.

Aaron does most of the household chores, and most of the cooking - some of Dudley’s leftover spoiled child habits spill over into his adult life, after all - but he’s okay with it. It makes him feel in control of his life, quiet and safe and secure.

They have their issues, of course: Dudley has food issues that never quite dissipate, and lots of leftover guilt from his childhood. He has some sort of crisis about every other week about whether he deserves this or that good thing. His testy relationship with his parents and his cousins cause unnecessary tension in their lives. Aaron has unrealistic expectations - he thinks life is beautiful and is very comfortable with his place in it, and gets a little uncomfortable when that belief is shaken. He takes on the problems of his friends and family, too, and doesn’t notice the amount of stress he puts on himself that way until it culminates in him blowing up. They work through these things, though, and they’re happy.

Dudley proposes on the spot one night in their living when Aaron mentions wanting kids during a football match commercial. He hadn’t had a ring or a plan, but it worked out fine. Aaron said yes, and within a year, they were married in a little civil partnership ceremony in the Fletchley’s back garden. Petunia Dursley cried through the whole thing, Vernon Dursley harrumphed uncomfortably at their kiss, but Harry (and his friend Hermione, since Ginny was on off flying for her team) wished them well. As a joke, Aaron throws a bouquet off one of the tables. Justin’s friend Hannah catches it, and her date’s face turns crimson, making Aaron smile proudly.

Their surrogate, Jessica, is a dream, and Aaron’s life changes forever the first time he holds little Myna Jean Dursley in his arms. He cannot imagine, in that moment, ever doing anything besides that, besides holding his daughter and watching her breathe. The feeling isn’t any less strong a year and a half later when he holds Rhea for the first time, although he’s wiser now, and knows the road he has ahead of him.

Fatherhood suits him quite nicely, him and Dudley both, and their little family is just about as happy as can be.

There more to him, of course, and I’m probably going to start mentioning him on this blog fairly regularly, but I’ll link back to this post so people don’t think they’ve forgotten about a canon character, haha. If you’re wondering about a visual, Ross Marquand is a great face-cast.

#harry potter headcanons #harry potter oc #justin finch fletchley #dudley dursley #aaron finch-dursley oc #keep an eye out for more of him #sibling tag

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robininthelabyrinth · 7 years

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Fic: Trouble on the Way - Chapter 2/4 (Ao3 link) Fandom: The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (total AU) Pairing: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart Series: Sequel to Bad Moon Rising Warning: explicit adult content

Summary: It occurs to Len that maybe he’s been willfully ignoring reality when it came to Mick’s new condition. Oh, sure, he’d done the basic research, the public stuff, but he’d been so determined not to make Mick feel like any more of a freak than he already did that he’d perhaps skimped a little on some of the details that were turning out to be more relevant than he’d originally thought.

Time to fix that.

A/N: Will only make sense if you’ve read the first one in the series, as it follows straight on it, but I think the first one is one of my best standalones, so I’m making this a sequel instead

An executive decision was made that (in the spirit of the first one) this series is going to be like a minimum of 70% kinky smut, because we can always use more of that in this fandom, so, uh, mind the full set of warnings on Ao3.

———————————————————————————–

They put their stuff in a car and move to the house on Sullivan, Len keeping an eye on Mick as it gets closer to moonrise. The benefits of being with a pack are definitely showing: Mick's calmer than he usually is, less angry. Normally by this time they would have already locked themselves indoors, Len putting on something for Mick to watch, some documentary or another, and letting him pace and hit the walls until he made a game-time decision as to whether he needed to be locked into a room or if he thought he could handle the transformation free and clear.

Werewolf transformations are only really necessary on the night of the full moon – while humans typically perceive three days of fullness, wolves are more discerning. Sure, they can transform the rest of the time, especially when it’s close, but that’s the only day they really have to. Len’d been playing it cautious and keeping Mick inside for all three whenever he can, purely out of concern for Mick’s temper, but he's been easing up on it as time goes on and, as he’s said, Mick’s in a startlingly good mood this month.

Mick’s also more inclined to find excuses to touch Len than usual, but that happens every month. Probably the social instinct Mick mentioned rearing its head; Len wasn’t stupid enough to let himself into that bank vault with a fully transformed wolf, but the days before and after, he could always count on Mick finding a reason to sit right next to Len or to appear right by Len’s side to help him sit or stand up from any given degree of reclining, no matter how unnecessary the help was. Len’s not particularly surprised to find those tendencies seem to have been amplified now that they're knocking boots in addition to the other components of partnership.

Plus, it means that Mick is happy to take over the majority of the heavy lifting involved in moving their stuff if it means he can hand the box to Len, stroking his hand each time, for Len to actually put into the car. So, really, Len doesn’t particularly mind.

He is a little concerned about the fact that their otherwise unremarkably moving-of-boxes-of-stuff-to-the-car seems to have garnered something of an audience of nosy neighbors, which this neighborhood isn’t particularly known for.

The neighbors - if they are neighbors, which Len's not entirely sure about - are trying to be subtle: a few are leaning on doorways, some are pretending to read newspapers, one is even pretending to be throwing away garbage with almost painful slowness, but Len’s got a sense of his surroundings fine-tuned to unexpected prison fights and he knows when someone is watching him. Staring at him.

Len could take out his gun, but then they’d know for a fact it was Captain Cold they were looking at, and since Len rather likes this particular safehouse, he’d rather not have that get around. So instead he waits until Mick’s gone back inside to grab their coats and turns to stare at the whole lot of them – there’s got to be at least ten – with his best murder-face glare.

He stares at the first one to the far left, waits until the guy looks up and makes eye contact before flinching away, then moves his gaze to the next one, a woman, and then the next one after that, making absolutely certain that they know he knows they’re watching him and trying to convey with his eyes that if they don’t stop, he will find them in their beds and murder them brutally.

Most of them slink away like dogs with their tails between their legs. One just stands and gapes like a dumbass, and Len starts seriously considering going to go punch his lights out when the light bulb goes off and the guy dashes away.

Sadly, that probably has more to do with Mick walking up right behind Len and throwing a casual arm over his shoulders as he effortlessly shoves the box with their coats in it into the trunk of the car. Some people just can’t accept no for an answer without seeing that someone’s already taken, Len guesses, but he’s honestly a little befuddled by the fact that this is happening to him. Sure, Mick’s bigger and stronger and meaner looking, but Len’s no delicate flower.

“That was weird,” Len comments to Mick, sliding into the passenger seat.

Mick shrugs. “It happens even in the best neighborhoods –” By which Mick means the worst and most unfriendly. “– but fuck ‘em.”

Len shrugs and nods his agreement. Assholes like that aren’t worth the time spent thinking about them.

Still. Kinda weird.

“We’re probably going to be inside most of tomorrow,” Mick says, interrupting Len’s train of thought. “It being the moon and all. But after that, we really need to start talking about which safehouse we’d like to stick with more long term.”

“Oh?” Len asks. This sounds like more of the territoriality stuff that hotline Dan had been talking about – something about a desire to show off your place, “acts of territorial display”, which obviously wouldn’t work for the two of them because of the whole criminal-on-the-run thing –

“Yeah, it’s fine if we move around ‘cause the CCPD’s on our tail, but I need a place, one place, that I can say is mine. Somewhere we can really sink our roots down and defend from attack, if need be – old instinct stuff, back when wolves lived in dens. S’why I went to go look at all the safehouses today, but I couldn’t figure out which one would be best. What do you think?”

Len gnaws on his lower lip. Mick needs a place that’s defensible but also comfortable – on one hand, if Mick’s seriously thinking of expanding their little pack of two with some other wolves wandering around, then they’d need a meeting place anyway, somewhere with plenty of space. On one hand, that old bank vault on Thompkins would be useful for controlling anyone with a temper, but on the other hand, they’d need to find a way not to let themselves be driven away from it in the end, because Len can’t even imagine how bad Mick’s reaction would be to losing a place he had declared to be his own territory, and Thompkins Street is in a district that the politicos are always talking about renewing…

Actually, speaking of urban renewal –

“What about Birch?” he asks, naming the little place they’d been staying the day before yesterday, before Len had brought them back to Thompkins with its bank vault instead. It was one of their habitual favorites, being as the previous owner had been some sort of restauranteur and the kitchen took up nearly half the house before the guy had sold it all and moved out of the city – supernatural flight, they called it.

“I took a look there,” Mick admits. “I like the kitchen – four ovens is definitely the right number –”

“No one needs four ovens,” Len immediately says, falling back into the familiar argument.

“And I love the cellar there – do you know how hard it is to find a good sealed-up cellar that can be turned into a freezer room for meat in this city? Harder than you’d think – but it’s only got two bedrooms and one office other than that kitchen. Not really enough room.”

It’d always been enough room for the two of them, plus occasional visits from Lisa to crash in their office, but as Len suspected, Mick’s thinking of expansion.

“Yeah, that place is pretty tiny,” he says. “But we could knock down the walls and expand into the next few houses, one on each side. The place next door has a cellar, too – we could use the one in the main house for keeping your precious meat at the right temperature –”

“Given your theme, Lenny, I don’t think you have any right to complain about something being the right temperature –”

“Shut up. We could use the main house cellar for meat, and the one in the next house over for moons that go bad, especially if we might be dealing with new wolves.”

Mick’s quiet for a long moment, so Len turns to look at him, wondering if he said something wrong.

Mick’s beaming.

“What?” Len asks suspiciously.

“No, nothing,” Mick says. “Just – I’m real glad you’re on board with the pack thing. Real glad.”

“Of course I am,” Len replies, rolling his eyes and turning back to watching the road. “Partners, remember? You want a pack, you get a pack.”

“We get a pack,” Mick corrects.

“Naturally,” Len says. “I’m the boss, remember? I run the best jobs in Central City ‘cause I know how to pick the best possible crews; I’m sure between the two of us we can gather up the best possible pack.”

“The best pack,” Mick says, his voice dropping to a pleased growl. “Yeah, Lenny. We’ll have the best territory, the best pack. You and me.”

Len can’t help a smile, because hell yes, you and me. He pokes at Mick’s arm. “Even if we do end up collecting ourselves a new pack, they’d damn well answer to me,” he says warningly. “I don’t give a flying fuck about any type of werewolf superiority bullshit. My crews listen to me.”

“You’re the boss,” Mick says, but he’s still beaming, so Len figures it’s okay. Mick won’t ever bring anyone into the crew that Len doesn’t approve of. “But at least one person I’m thinking of might have some issues with that.”

Len arches an eyebrow.

“Your sister?”

Len huffs a surprised laugh. It hadn’t occurred to him, but it’s obvious, of course. Naturally Lisa’d be part of their pack. “Yeah, well, I’ll make sure she knows she has to listen to me if she’s gonna stick around,” he says with far more confidence than he actually feels. Lisa’s very much her own woman. But he’s not letting her run around in Central and risk her running into something like what he and Mick ran into, a mad werewolf out for blood; without a Mick of her own, she might end up dead instead of just different. No, Len will definitely have to lay down the law this time around.

Might even stick for more than a week this time, too.

Well, a brother can always hope.

“You know, fights for dominance are considered very attractive in the supernatural arena,” Mick says, and Len tears his focus away from planning the inevitable confrontation with Lisa to look at his partner, who is looks deeply smug for some reason. “Not sure if it’s something tied into the animal or into the supernatural itself, but all the old bullshit about showing off how good you are, how powerful, how clever, how quickly you can put down dissent inside your pack and establish your right to command, all that stuff? Totally a thing, if you know what I mean.”

“Is that why you like all those Animal Planet documentaries?” Len jokes, not entirely sure where this is going.

“Probably,” Mick admits gamely. “I’m just saying that I’m really looking forward to it.”

Len shrugs. Mick being excited about getting to go fight people is hardly news, backed by supernatural instinct or not. He’s not sure why Mick is smiling so proudly at him about it.

Maybe it has something to do with hotline Dan’s line of crap about wanting to “show off” a mate? Mick wanting to start fight over Len is hardly news, either, but Len doesn’t usually give him an opportunity, either because Len’ll put them down first himself or because he doesn’t go out as much as Mick likes. If Mick behaves this full moon – and by behaves, Len means gets Len off already damnit, and ideally not too much property destruction – maybe Len’ll let him take them out to Saints or even to one of the more supernatural bars and Len will start fights and let Mick finish them.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

“We can go bar hopping when the moon’s waning,” Len says aloud, nodding to himself. “Saints to meet the Flash, of course, but after that, we can go to the supe bars and start a few fights.”

“I like the sound of that,” Mick growls, clearly pleased.

See, Len doesn’t need magic pancake-making skills to make his partner happy.

“Well, you live up to your promises from yesterday and we’ll have plenty to fight people about,” Len says with a smirk, reaching up to stroke one of the hickeys Mick left high on his throat. You wouldn’t think that people would still be homophobic – there are supernatural creatures running around and they’re still worried about who sleeps with who, which clearly demonstrates the epic stupidity of mankind – but Len finds he rather likes the thought of Mick stepping up behind him and making clear where the marks came from.

Mick whines, high in his throat, and Len realizes he may have said that last bit aloud.

He smirks.

“You’re doing this to screw with me,” Mick says accusingly, mock-scowling at Len.

“One of us got off so far today,” Len reminds Mick. “One.”

Mick goes back to smirking faster than the Flash’s lighting strikes. “Yeah,” he says. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed how good you’re being. For me.”

Len readjusts himself, because he still finds that unbearably hot, and glares. “Better make the wait worth my while,” he drawls, nice and slow and deliberate. “Or else –”

“Or else what,” Mick says, voice abruptly low, lower than human timbres can reach.

Len’s playing with fire and he knows it, but fire is Mick’s element. Len can’t help loving it as much as he loves Mick.

“Oh, nothing,” he drawls, deliberately slouching down and looking out the passenger side window. “I’m not saying anything.”

He lets one hand fall down till it’s high up on his own thigh.

“You’re saying something,” Mick growls.

“What can I say?” Len says with a shrug, rubbing his hand up and down his leg, careful to obey Mick’s instructions not to actually touch himself but coming perilously close. “If you aren’t keeping me satisfied, then –”

Mick literally spins the car off the street with a screech of squealing tires and into a parking spot, reaching out and grabbing a smirking Len in for a kiss the second they’re standing still.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” Mick growls between kisses, his lips against Len’s, then moving down to lap at the hickey Len’d been stroking earlier, one of his hands falling down to cup Len’s cock through the denim of his jeans. “You little tease.”

Len laughs, his voice a little thready as his hips jerk up only to be caught fast by the seatbelt. “You know you’re the only one for me,” he drawls, but the real affection sneaks in there anyway.

“No one else,” Mick says, trying to sound threatening, but Len’s known Mick too long not to catch the little hint of insecurity underneath. Mick’s always been quietly worried that Len will trade up; he worries that he’s not intellectual enough, not smart enough, not quick enough, too undisciplined, too crazy.

“You’re my partner,” Len says firmly, because he’s never wanted someone else, not as a partner. Mick’s not talking about physical devotion, the sexual relationship that they’ve started on, because as fun as that is, it doesn’t matter; no, Mick’s talking about the important stuff. The stuff you stick around for. It’s not just habit, sticking with Mick, the way Mick sometimes seems to think it is. Mick’s the perfect complement to Len: he’s comfortable with people in a way Len will never be, he’s as good as Len at identifying a mark and even better at making deals, he burns hot but cools down fast, unlike Len’s tendency to keep grudges forever, and he’s strong, inside and out, in a way that would burn Len up inside with envy if Mick wasn’t so good about sharing that strength. So what if he’s not as quick with a quip or doing his figures as someone else might be? “Why would I need anybody else? And anyway –” He lets his voice trail away meaningfully.

“Anyway what?” Mick asks, stroking Len through his jeans.

“It’s not just partners anymore, is it?” Len asks. “It’s mates.”

Len still doesn’t fully understand what that means to werewolves, but he must be getting close to putting his finger on it, because he finds himself up against the window being kissed breathless before he can even blink.

After a second, Mick pulls away, and his eyes are glowing a little, not quite yellow yet but definitely not entirely human, his pupils dilated with lust. “We’re going to the house on Sullivan,” he says, his voice rough. “We’re going now. I made you a promise, and I’m going to keep it.”

Len wants to whine a little when Mick pulls his hands away and puts them back on the wheel – when did Mick develop self-control? Clearly around the time Len totally misplaced his own – so not fair – but leans against the window instead. “You do that,” he says, pleased that his voice remains cool.

Besides, Mick’s right. It’ll be more fun in a bed. Especially that bed.

If they’re going to settle down, Len’s going to have to find a way to get the bed from the Sullivan house moved into the house on Birch, or something like it.

Much to Len’s amazement, they make it to the safehouse relatively intact. Len jumps out to wire open the garage and Mick brings the car in.

“Bring the stuff inside, will you?” Len tells Mick, opting to head inside himself.

He can here Mick grumbling behind him, but also the sound of the car being popped open.

Len smiles.

He’s been enjoying what they’ve been doing so far, and yes, even the obedience to Mick’s orders that he wait to get off, but really –

Mick should know better than to give Len time to plan.

By the time Mick realizes that Len’s not waiting for him downstairs and comes upstairs – probably to bitch about how goddamn lazy Len can be, making Mick do all the work just because he’s a werewolf and has supernatural strength – Len’s in place.

“Fuck,” Mick says, coming to a dead stop in the doorway to the bedroom.

Len doesn’t have a stitch on him, clothing neatly piled in the corner, and he’s lying back on the bed, pillows under his back to prop him up; he’s working himself open with one hand, keeping his legs splayed open so Mick has a great view from where he’s standing.

He can’t quite keep the flush from rising up on his cheeks, though – less from the actual physical stimulation, which he’s been doing more in a utilitarian fashion than in a way designed to get himself off, than from the way Mick looking at him.

Looking hungry.

Len had hoped, of course, that Mick would react positively to his little surprise, but he’s just plain old not used to someone looking at him like that, like Len’s the most delicious thing he’s ever seen. He’s not used to the idea of Mick looking at him like that, those familiar eyes alight with lust and affection, and all of it his.

Yeah. Len’s definitely okay with this whole ‘mate’ thing.

“God, Len,” Mick says, coming towards the bed like he can’t resist. “Look at you. Just – look at you.”

“All yours,” Len says, and watches with pleasure as Mick’s pupils dilate, eyes going a little black with lust. “But you know what else?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re also mine,” Len says, still working his fingers into himself, acts mostly for show as Mick’s eyes are drawn irresistibly down. “Now strip for me.”

Mick swallows hard, nodding and starting to pull his clothing off quickly.

When he’s naked – and god, he’s glorious, naked and hard and wanting, Len’s amazed it took them so long to get here – Len smirks. “Good,” he purrs. “Now I think you made me a promise. Get on the bed.”

Mick crawls onto the bed, leaning in for a kiss, which Len grants him, nice and dirty and messy, before shoving him down onto the bed and crawling over him. “My turn to be in charge,” he tells Mick smugly. “Just like you promised.”

Mick groans and fists the bedspread. “Fuck, Len,” he says. “How are you this perfect?”

“Practice,” Len quips, and reaches out to wrap a hand around Mick’s cock.

Mick lets his head loll back, but he keeps his eyes fixed on Len as Len positions himself and slowly sinks down, grunting with pleasure as he does.

“Len – Len –”

“I like this,” Len says, letting his eyelids drift down, letting the pleasure he feels show on his face. “I like being all filled up with you, stuffed full with your cock – just like I ought to be –”

“Len…”

Len hums a little, then starts moving on top of Mick. “You like it too,” he says. “You’ve been liking it, being in charge, ain’t you? You like how you’ve had me the last day – begging for you, on my knees for you, on my back for you, like I can’t get enough of you – like I’m wanting you, needing you like I need water, like I need air –”

Mick whines, low in the back of his throat. His eyes aren’t black anymore, no; they’re yellow points of light, shining in the dark, the wolf starting to come forward.

“But you need me just as much, don’t you,” Len purrs. His legs are strong enough that he doesn’t need to brace himself on Mick, but he leans forward anyway, lifts a hand and cups Mick’s cheek, kisses him lightly.

“Len,” Mick pants.

“Now, I’ve been letting you call the shots,” Len says, starting to move faster, letting the stretch and burn turn to pleasure. “I’ve been letting you pick me up, play with me, do with me as you like – and you like that, don’t you, like having me at your mercy, like me being available to you, anytime, anywhere – to do anything you want with me, and me loving every minute of it –”

Mick’s eyes are wide and fixed firmly on Len’s face.

“– and I like it, too,” Len continues, lips curling up in pleasure, his eyes crinkling with his smile, his hips moving faster, bearing down on Mick. “I like it when you take charge of me, like it when you give me orders, like how you make me like it, like being at your mercy, ‘cause I trust you to take good care of me, like you ought to – like you do –”

Mick nods dumbly, his hands still fisted into the bedspread, hips jerking helplessly up.

“But there’s one thing you need to remember,” Len says.

And then he stops moving entirely, using his weight to force Mick’s hips still.

“Len!” Mick cries out.

Len smirks and leans forward until they’re only inches apart. “I may like being yours, Mick,” he purrs. “But in the end – I’m the boss.”

It wouldn’t work if Mick really wanted to keep moving, of course; Len’s human strength nothing against the force of the supernatural, but – as he suspected – Mick stops moving the second he realizes that Len isn’t responding anymore.

“Len,” Mick gasps, and oh, revenge is sweet; it’s so sweet. “Lenny – please – you gotta –”

“Isn’t this what you promised me?” Len asks, as innocently as he can manage. It’s not much, to be fair. “You said if I’d be good, if I could wait, I could – how did you put it – you said I could crawl into your lap, and make you give it to me, didn’t you? ‘cause you know how much I need you – how much I want you – and this is how I want you –”

“Len,” Mick says, and his eyes are wholly yellow now. “You don’t understand. It’s too close – the moon –”

“You said we’d be fucking all day,” Len says, though he does take pity on his partner and start moving again, though at a nice slow roll of his hips. “I don’t think the moon’s going to be a problem.”

“It’s not that – it’s the wolf – you don’t understand – won’t be able to keep it down much longer, can’t hold it back –”

“And what made you think I want you to hold back, exactly?” Len drawls.

“Len – I don’t wanna scare you, Lenny –”

And with that, Len’s plans for vengeance – albeit pleasurable vengeance – disappear into the ether.

“Oh, Mick,” Len says, almost tenderly, as close to loving as he can manage with his scarred-up old heart of ice. He reaches out and runs his thumb on Mick’s brow, under his eye; drags it down until it’s by Mick’s mouth, dragging it over Mick’s teeth, both the ones that are flat and human, and the ones that have already lengthened, too long for any man, too large for Mick’s human jaw. “You’re my partner – my mate. You really think there’s anything that’ll scare me away now?”

Mick opens his mouth, but Len leans forward, presses their lips together. He’s not sure why, but the kiss – he’d been aiming for something sexy, but it turns strangely soft, kiss following kiss, Len’s hands coming up to hold Mick’s head, Mick’s hands curling over Len’s hips to help keep his balance.

“I want you,” Len says between kisses. “I want you. You think you’re the only one who’s territorial, huh? Just ‘cause you’re a wolf and I ain’t? Well, I’ve got some news for you, Mick – all that talk about me being yours? It goes both ways. I want all of you – man and wolf, territory and permanent home and new pack, all of it. And you're gonna give it to me.”

Mick growls, and the sound isn’t human, and Len smiles.

Then he grunts as Mick surges under him, hoisting Len up and off of him like he weighs nothing, flipping him until his back thumps onto the mattress, pushing Len’s legs up onto his shoulders and driving back inside.

“Fuck,” Len gasps, the air punched out of him.

“You know just what to say,” Mick says, and his voice is low, guttural – inhuman. “You’re perfect – my mate – stronger than anyone else, because you’re a stubborn little shit that doesn’t know when to stop playing with fire –”

“Nah,” Len says, because he might be being fucked, hard and fast and perfect, might barely be able to draw a full breath because Mick’s pounding into him, causing him pleasure, overwhelming pleasure, but he would never be able to resist a line like that. “I think you’ll find you’re the one who plays with fire – I’m the one with the cold gun, remember –”

“I shouldn’t have told you, earlier,” Mick says, and, fuck, is he getting larger? He is, he’s shifting, bones cracking, and Len didn’t notice it the first time, too busy getting fucked against the wall under the moon, but he sure as hell notices it now, feels Mick swell up even larger, his cock getting bigger and heavier even as he moves inside of Len, his whole body expanding as he lets himself transform. This is what Mick was holding back, why his hands curled around the bedspread instead of Len’s hips – hiding growing claws, no doubt. “About dominance displays, how hot they make me. You know exactly what you’re doing to me, don’t you?”

Well.

Maybe a little.

Len can’t help the grin that steals over his face.

“You fucker,” Mick says, and his yellow eyes shine in his face even as he smiles with a mouth filled with sharp teeth. “You want me to fuck you? I’ll fuck you.”

“Thought that’s what we were doing,” Len says, and groans when Mick pulls out of him, pushing Len onto his side and then his stomach, positioning him the way he wants him like a doll.

Len barely has to time to adjust before Mick’s in him again, Len on his knees and his face pushed into the pillow. He turns his face to the side, and oh, yeah, he likes this.

But he’s still himself.

“You like this position, huh?” he asks, aiming for jabbing and coming out mostly breathless, airy, intensely amused. “Wolves like doing it doggy style?”

Mick laughs. “It’ll be easier for you,” he says, and his voice is smug again, because he knows he’s in charge again, that the balance of power has shifted. Knows that Len loves being at his mercy.

“Oh, it’s all for me, huh?” Len says, moving back against Mick. He’s barely touched himself, but he’s close, he’s really fucking close, and Mick had damn well better get him off, and soon.

“It’s always for you,” Mick says, and leans down close until Len can feel his hot breath on the back of his neck. “You want me, wolf and all, huh?”

“Yeah,” Len says. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then you’ll get it,” Mick says. “I’ll take you the way you’ve been begging me too.” His hands are on Len’s hips. “I was planning on waiting for it, you know, building up to it, prepping you properly, but you always have to move at your own speed, don’t you?”

“Always,” Len says, even though he’s not entirely sure what Mick’s talking about. It’s not like they aren’t already fucking.

“I want you so much,” Mick says, and his voice is deep and perfect and how is he making so much sense? Len can barely think. “I’ve been yours since the beginning, you know that, right? Since before I got bit, and getting bitten only made it worse. I’ve been wanting – I’ve been dreaming of it –”

His voice cracks, just a little.

Looks like Mick’s not that unaffected.

“Wanted you, wanted to do this to you, but never thought you’d let me –”

“Don’t think there’s much I wouldn’t let you do,” Len says honestly, even though he knows it’s a dangerous thing to say. All but offering his heart on a platter, but they’ve already exchanged much more – trust has always meant more than love, to men such as them.

Mick grunts and his hips work faster, and then – finally – he reaches around to Len, starts jerking him off, and god, it’s scarcely even pleasure, it’s relief, it’s –

Mick suddenly surges forward, and stops.

“Mick!” Len howls, because payback is payback, but that’s just not fair – but no, Mick stopped moving, but Len can still feel him, can still feel him –

Growing?

“Mick?” Len gasps, because this doesn’t feel like before, like Mick getting larger as he shifts. This is lower, a swelling at the base, pressing against Len like – he’s not sure, but he’s heard – but no, someone would have mentioned – someone would have said –

Mick nuzzles Len’s neck. “You’re gonna love it,” he says, and his voice is cracked and open, half incoherent with lust. “Gonna love it, Lenny – gonna be begging for my knot –”

Len swallows and his cock jumps a little in Mick’s hand, because his cock is fucking stupid. “You’ve got a knot?!” he asks, because damnit, this is something the stupid hotline really should’ve mentioned!

“Wolf’s got instincts,” Mick says, still nuzzling into Len’s throat. “Got instincts, like I told you – gotta keep you safe, gotta take care of you – gotta make sure I’m the only one – gotta knot you, fill you up, so no one else can come and take you –”

“No one’s gonna take me –”

“Gotta take care of you,” Mick pants. “Keep you full, keep you happy – keep you mine – all my instincts screaming at me, telling me to do good by you –”

“Nice instincts,” Len says, and he’s so close, he’s so close – Mick’s hand is moving on his cock, the other pressed against his stomach, and the knot is so goddamn good, thick and hot and pressing against Len in all the right places, pinning him down and keeping him Mick's, marking him in a way that no human can, that no one ever has before and no one will ever again, and fuck, he’s so close –

“No one’s taking you from me,” Mick growls in his ear. “Never.”

And then Mick’s coming, Len can feel it, and it’s more than it was yesterday, filling him up, until he can imagine that Mick would be able to feel it pushing against his hand – he knows that’s ridiculous, but hell, why not, it’s hot as fuck, and then he’s coming, too, coming on Mick’s fucking knot, and yeah, this is probably going to be a thing to add to his list of stupid kinks – all Mick’s fault, every last fucking one of them –

He practically whites out when the orgasm hits.

When he comes down, Mick’s still big and swollen inside of him, still twitching, still spurting.

“My legs are gonna be useless tomorrow,” Len says, mostly because it gets Mick to whimper and grind his hips in a little bit more. He's not done coming; Len can still feeling him, every couple of minutes, another twitch and another spurt of hot wet heat inside of him.

Len’s pretty sure the knot should be starting to be painful, instead of pleasurable – the way things usually get once you’ve come – but he feels strangely floaty, stretched open and full. It feels good.

Mick buried deep inside of him, tying them together, swollen and coming, again and again – claiming him, filling him –

Fuck it all.

Mick was right.

Len does love it.

#dccoldwave #my fic #leonard snart #mick rory #bad moon rising #werewolves

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andrewdburton · 4 years

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My travel and speaking schedule for 2020

It's that time of year! I've been sorting through speaking invitations and comparing event schedules to my personal plans. I now have a rough idea of where I'll be in 2020 — and when. (As I finalize details, I'll update this post to reflect any changes.)

This year, I'll be traveling much less than last.

In 2019, I was away from home something like 3-1/2 months out of twelve. That was too much. In 2020, I'm deliberately saying “no” to opportunities. Still, I enjoy meeting and connecting with other folks who want to improve their lives — and the lives of others. So, I've agreed to a handful of engagements.

Here are the highlights from my “money event” calendar for the next few months.

“Intro to FIRE” Project (March 31st)

Before I do any travel, I have to do some work.

At the moment, most of my energy and attention is devoted to a five-hour audio-only project that I'm writing for Audible and The Great Courses. They've recruited me to create an introduction to financial independence and early retirement. It'll contain ten half-hour lessons on topics ranging from purpose to profit.

My first deadline for this project was January 31st. I turned in half of the course (which totaled about 20,000 words) and am awaiting feedback. The final five lectures are due by March 31st. My aim is to finish these by March 25th, my birthday. (I'd love to have more review time for editing and other improvements.)

In early May, after a speaking gig in St. Louis, I'll fly to Virginia to record the course. I'm not sure when it'll be released, but I'll be sure to keep you updated.

Plutus Voices: Portland (April 16th)

Get Rich Slowly turns fourteen on April 15th. To celebrate, I'll be hosting a Plutus Voices event here in portland.

The Plutus Foundation is a financial-literacy non-profit for which I am a board member. Plutus Voices is “a series of learning and networking events for the financial media bringing attention to important topics”. The Phoenix event, for instance, discussed meeting the financial needs of underserved communities. In Denver, we discussed financial independence and women.

On April 16th (or perhaps the 15th), Luna Jaffe and I will co-host a Portland event during which we'll explore our changing relationships with money. We may or may not be joined by our pal, Dougls Tsoi.

We're in the initial planning stages for Plutus Voices: Portland. I'll post more info (such as time and location) when I have it.

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Financial Freedom Summit: St. Louis (May 1st to 3rd)

In early May, I'll fly to St. Louis for the first-ever Financial Freedom Summit. This event is “for anyone interested in pursuing financial freedom”, whether you're just starting you're journey toward F.I. or you've already reached early retirement.

Because this is the first FFS, I can't comment on what it'll be like. I have no idea. But it's being organized by some smart folks, so I'm hopeful that it will grow into an annual mecca for money nerds. I've agreed to speak in some limited capacity — possibly an on-stage Q&A about life after early retirement — but mostly I'm looking forward to hang out with readers and colleagues.

Camp Mustache: Seattle (May 22nd to 25th)

Several years ago, a group of Mr. Money Mustache readers got together at a retreat center outside Seattle over the long Memorial Day weekend. They've repeated this gathering every year since. This year, Camp Mustache tickets sold out in twenty seconds.

Camp Mustache is fun for a variety of reasons. It's low-key. It's egalitarian (meaning there are no “speakers” per se; anyone can present). And it's a place for like-minded folks to share their stories of extreme frugality and travel hacking. For me, it's an opportunity to spend time with people that I don't get to see as often as I'd like.

Chautauqua: Ecuador (August 29th to September 5th)

My big event for the year will be yet another money chautauqua.

In 2013, J.L. Collins from The Simple Path to Wealth partnered with Cheryl Reed to host the first-ever F.I. chautauqua, a week-long retreat for like-minded folks to discuss the path to financial freedom — and what comes after.

That year, I spoke for the first time about about the connection between money and meaning. Since then, I've returned to give the same presentation in 2014, 2016, and 2019. I'll do it again in 2020.

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Out of all the money events I'm a part of, the chautauquas (chautauquae?) are my favorite. They're intense. For an entire week, a group of twenty or thirty people spend nearly every waking moment together to talk about money. Each speaker gives a two- or three-hour presentation. Plus, we have hour-long meetings with interested attendees.

Today, there are two different chautauqua events.

The official J.L. Collins chautauqua hops around Europe. In 2018, it was held in Greece. Last year, we met in Portugal. This year, folks will fly to Croatia. From my experience, this event is targeted at folks who are “fatFIRE”, those who tend to have higher net worths and higher spending. It's deliberately designed as a “premium event”. Dates and speakers for this year's European F.I. chautauqua aren't out yet, but should be announced soon.

The Ecuador chautauqua tends to have a different focus. It's more geared toward the “leanFIRE” crowd. Presentations are often about the Big Picture rather than simply about wealth-building. And some years are barely about money at all. (In 2016, I hosted a week with Leo from Zen Habits and David from Raptitude. Not really a money event!)

For this year's Ecuador chautauqua, I'll once again be speaking about money and meaning. (This is my life mission, after all!) Right now, it looks like I may also cover the nuts and bolts of FIRE — the basics — but that's not certain yet. And, as always, Cheryl will present on happiness and well-being.

I'm excited to be joined by some of my favorite colleagues:

Piggy and Kitty from Bitches Get Riches, which is one of my favorite money blogs. (I love it so much that I send them money every month via Patreon.) The Bitches think they'll be speaking about “how to lift as you climb”. What should you do with your financial independence? Share the wealth, contribute to the success of others, and use your newfound power and autonomy to help others achieve the same.

Tanja Hester from Our Next Life. I just had dinner with Tanja and Mark last Saturday. She told me that she hopes to talk about using money for good, toward purposeful ends. But she'll probably cover more about life after FI rather than the journey itself.

Want to join us? You should book a spot for the Ecuador chautauqua today!

Note that Tanja will host another week in Ecuador. That event — from August 22nd to August 29th — is only for women.

Fincon: Los Angeles (September 30th to October 3rd)

No surprise that I'll be at this year's Fincon Expo, the annual convention for money media — not just bloggers, but newspaper columnists, television journalists, and more. This year, to celebrate its tenth year, Fincon will be held in Los Angeles. (Long Beach, to be precise.)

At this point, I have no plans to speak at Fincon, but that will probably change. I'm sure I'll end up on a panel, or moderating a panel, or participating in some other way. The Fincon folks have become my family. I love them. (And, in fact, I'm writing this while on a week-long ski trip with 25 other Finconners!)

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Other Possibilities

It's possible that I'll add other travel and/or speaking to my year, but it's unlikely. If I do anything else, it'll probably be to fly to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to help remodel the caboose commune.

A few folks in the FI blogging crowd have begun to buy adjacent units from an old caboose hotel. The group currently owns three cabeese, and may soon add a fourth. Two of the cabeese need hard-core renovations, so we're hoping to get together for a work party. But whether I can join the fun is currently up in the air.

I may also be able to make it to one of the Camp FI retreats held across the U.S. I love these gatherings, but it's getting more and more difficult to justify the expense of traveling to them. If I can make it fit with other travel, I'm glad to go. (Camp FI is an outgrowth of Camp Mustache. It's generally held on holiday weekends at retreat centers around the U.S.)

Lastly, there's a small chance that I'll return to Europe this winter to re-visit the Christmas markets. My cousin Duane continues to defy the odds and beat his throat cancer (yay!). He's hinted that he'd like to repeat our trip from December 2018. I would too, and maybe Kim could join us this time. We'll see. I'm guessing that we'll start serious planning for this in October if it still seems appealing.

As always, I'm happy to meet with GRS readers when they find themselves in Portland — especially if they're able to come my direction. Now that I have office space in Lake Oswego, that makes a perfect meeting space. Let me know if you come to town! We can meet up for beer or coffee — or a dog walk.

The post My travel and speaking schedule for 2020 appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/my-travel-and-speaking-schedule/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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mredwinsmith · 6 years

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Japan’s True Hat Tourney

Coming to Japan, the only “culture shock” that I was worried about was finding a good pickup game of ultimate. Unlike many of you amazing athletes reading this, I never played in college or trained with a team. I’m a pickup player through and through. I started with a crew of friends, orange Home Depot buckets for cones, and fields of patchy, dubious quality in sunny San Jose. By the time I left California, I was playing pickup four times a week—twice on the beach, twice on the field—and running plays as a handler. Nothing made me happier than watching a newbie, some long-distance runner who was still learning how to throw a backhand, streak into the endzone for a point. I loved ultimate, and it had made me a better, more giving person—it had changed my life.

Online, before my flight to Japan, I was messaging every group I could find about a game. I came up with nothing. Some groups existed, but they were tourney focused machines working their way toward that well-oiled stack and cup play that I had never quite figured out. In the past two years since my arrival, I’ve campaigned—talking to everyone I can, going to social events literally for the express purpose of talking about ultimate—in order to get small pickup games going in Takasaki, the biggest city of our prefecture. It’s two hours on the train for me, but I’ve been able to draw fifteen to twenty people, almost all of them absolute beginners, out into the sun to toss the disc.

Honestly, I came to Japan because life in California had gotten a bit stale. My time on the field was rewarding and great, but off the field, I felt like I was in a rut. I had been tutoring kids for a few years and thought that teaching English in a foreign country would mix things up. It certainly did, but no matter how settled you get in a new place, there’s always something missing. For me, it was always more ultimate.

A couple years after I got here, we were making progress in our pickup games. A bunch of my crew had started to message me regularly, asking when we’d get out again. It made me happy every time people showed up, watching them fall in love with the sport–seeing that first end run, sliding layout, or point scored. I figured it was enough, these five or so games a year.

At least, I did until I met a businessman in my adopted hometown. He threw a shindig at a local restaurant, wining and dining the local foreigner population and asking what he and his friends could do to increase international tourism to our little town. Tatebayashi is fairly beautiful—with sakura blossoms in early April and a few festivals to its name—but it isn’t a draw by any standard measure. There are no world heritage sites here, and the azalea festival, which centers around a walk in the park, looking at—you guessed it—azaleas isn’t quite the ticket for people who want to truly experience Japan. When he popped his question, I was ready.

I took a disc out of my bag and asked him if he’d ever heard of ultimate. “Foreigners love it,” I said, mentioning the Tokyo Ultimate crew (with whom I’d trekked the 3 hours to play a few times), and my own budding disc enthusiasts in and around the prefecture’s capital. “We could have a tournament.” We tossed the disc—and the idea—around for the rest of the night. I already knew what I wanted.

Photo by Shuichi Tsujimoto

There was only one vision that I had for this tournament, only one shining example that I aspired to emulate: Hats, Hops, Hucks. It’s a tourney with hat rules—as in, no hat, no play. If your hat falls off, it’s a turn over. These aren’t normal hats, either. We’re talking fun hats. Massive foam rubber things, or the kinds of hats you buy at Disneyland, wear around the park, and then try to pretend you didn’t actually waste $30 on. My plan was to drop the rules pertaining to hats (too complicated to explain), but to keep the hats–and with them, the spirit of those California games.

This thought wasn’t a passing fancy, though. This was a necessary, intrinsic part of my plan.

To understand why you have to understand something about Japan’s attitude toward sports. From the outside, Japanese sports don’t look like a lot of fun—they look like work. At the middle school where I work, kids come to school shortly after 7 AM and practice before class. They stay after school, too, in nearly all weather conditions, coming even on Saturdays and the occasional Sunday to crank out a few more hours of throwing a ball or swinging a racket. These kids work hard—really hard—and adult sports look much the same. Those well-oiled tourney machines I mentioned before? That’s how they’re trained for all the traditional sports, and if they play ulti in college, they’ve got the same look in their eyes when they see a disc.

Although ultimate is a little more relaxed because of the later stage in life that Japanese people pick up the sport, a game of pickup—no training, no drills, just getting your cleats dirty for the sake of fun—is really hard, if not impossible, to find.

That’s why this tourney had to be different. If we wanted foreigners to come, it needed to be a friendly environment to learn and experiment. It needed to be a tourney that you could come to without a team, but with ten extra pounds of meat on your bones since the last time you laced up. It needed to be a true hat tourney, and it needed real hats. It needed the kind of hats that told the professional players, “hey, we’re here to have fun, remember?” The next day at work, I opened a Word document on my computer and titled it, “Hats, Hops, Tatebayashi. Can we do it?”

It took me months of messaging, reaching out to Club Jr. and talking to my friends, before I was ready to pull the trigger on the tournament. Eventually, Club Jr. settled on a day that they could come out to support us and I went to my man in town. We arranged to meet up, and before long, he had assembled a team of local businessmen. They had watched YouTube videos about ultimate beforehand, and I showed them pictures from my last outing at HHH. “There are a ton of frisbee tournaments here in Japan,” I said. “We must be different—we must be fun. We must have hats.” To my surprise, they understood my broken Japanese, and, more importantly, my reasoning.

Let’s gloss over the details a bit here, but suffice it to say that I spent several hours of every day, from January 5th (the day after my school’s winter vacation) to April 7th (the day of the tourney) messaging people, writing emails, posting to Facebook groups, drawing up t-shirt designs, making banners, clarifying the details, speaking Japanglish with newspaper reporters, and working on every conceivable thing I could do for the tourney. I met up with the guys at other restaurants on other nights and hashed out the details of what could and couldn’t be done.

At one meeting, a special guest member, a fellow ulti player from the capital, mentioned that maybe we could get more players if the tournament became a team tourney—y’know, bring your team and play. Luckily, the guy who had been enlisted to translate for me was more diplomatic than me. What I said was, “if you change it to a team tourney, I’m out.” What he said was more akin to, “maybe we can make the second day be devoted to teams. The first day is hats.” I was okay with that.

After plenty of hiccups and a lot of unexpected spending—prizes for players cost how much?—we arrived at the day. The guys and I chalked the lines ourselves in torrential winds and prayed that it’d die down before the discs started flying.

When the morning of the tournament arrived, the weather was mostly calm, but threatening rain. A cable news team had shown up to interview the players, and another newspaper reporter was walking around with a pad of paper herself. Club Jr. brought us extra tents in case the rain came down as well as the tourney shirts that they had gotten printed for us. When the players arrived, they represented a dozen different races, including 30 or so locals, and claimed true hometowns around the world and local hometowns up to fifty miles away. Sixty people in all ended up coming, from age seven to well over forty. They had heard the message: that this was a tournament for people who didn’t have teams, who wanted a return to the spirit of the game, that feeling of being barefoot in the park with your best friends. They wanted a return to the community of ultimate, where we’d eat barbeque burgers after the winners had been declared.

After tourney BBQ.

They brought their hats, too. Sharks eating people’s heads, local prefectural mascots, hats with spinners and umbrellas, flowers and googly eyes—they were all there. They came to have fun. Even the coach of Japan’s national team, who lives in the capital near where I arrange pickup games, came and brought his family with him. In a pink, flowered hat, he D’ed the only hammer (a low, terribly chosen bullet, cross-field) that I threw in the tourney. The only difference between this and the last time we had played together was that this time, he did it with a smile on his face. People heckled and laughed, they made new friends. Pros had come out and they certainly led their teams, teaching everyone little tidbits of what it takes to go to Worlds, but they still passed to the newbies, the kids, and the ladies (who are sorely lacking in a normal mixed-gender tournament). Games were low-scoring, but every miss was so close you could taste it.

After the tourney, they ate “California style” burgers (I made the closest approximation to In N Out’s spread that I could) and drank beers. The teams mixed and chatted together, some of them staying out until well after midnight. When I had gone before, to another tournament with the local crew, we’d stuck to ourselves. Our team on the field was our team after the game and in the bar after that. I never even learned the names of any of our opponents, let alone what their favorite drink was. This was entirely different, not just for me, but for many of the players, too.

Sitting, drinking with new friends that night, a Filipino player who lived in the neighboring prefecture told me how happy he was to be there. “This is how it is in the Philippines. We all hang out after. You bring your team, but when it’s over, we eat and drink together. I started out with friends just on my team, but every time we went to a tournament, I made more. I used to stay in hotels, but now I can go anywhere in the country for a tournament and stay on someone’s floor. This is what I’m missing here.”

Post-game congratulations–Japanese style (Photo by Shuichi Tsujimoto)

I’m proud to be here as a teacher, and I’m definitely proud of the work that I do on a daily basis, but nothing at school has ever felt as good as hearing that. As of now, I’m preparing to leave the country (three years is a long time to live in a place where you only half-speak the language), but I hope that this tournament will represent the lion’s share of my legacy. In an interview with the TV reporter, one of the organizers said that he wanted people to think of Tatebayashi as a fun town. He wants the name to become synonymous with this tourney, with the fun that can be had here.

Maybe only 60 people came out this year, but in some small way, I changed the social landscape of this place. I changed Tatebayashi the same way that ultimate changed me—bringing true fun and a reminder that life doesn’t always have to be so serious. Here’s hoping that spirit lives on, with or without me, everywhere the game is played.

The post Japan’s True Hat Tourney appeared first on Skyd Magazine.

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touristguidebuzz · 6 years

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Complications of Getting Catering to the Plane — Airline Innovation Report

A catering truck — called a high-loader in industry lingo — might cost $200,000, according to an executive with Gate Group. That's part of the reason airline food is so expensive. Gate Group

Skift Take: Are you upset some airlines charge $3 for a soda? There's a reason prices are higher than at a convenience store. It's not easy or cheap to get provisions onto an aircraft.

— Brian Sumers

The Skift Airline Innovation Report is our weekly newsletter focused on the business of airline innovation. We will look closely at the technological, financial, and design trends at airlines and airports that are driving the next-gen aviation industry.

We provide insights on need-to-know developments in passenger experience, ancillary services, revenue management, loyalty, technology, marketing, airport innovation, the competitive landscape, startups, and changing passenger behavior. The newsletter, sent on Wednesdays, is written and curated by me. We will look closely at the technological, financial, and design trends at airlines and airports that are driving the next-generation aviation industry. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here.

United Airlines has been around for 90 years, and yet it’s still not sure of the most efficient number of Coca-Cola cans to board for each flight.

I tweeted this recently, after someone at United forwarded me catering news. “To help reduce unnecessary soda overstock, beginning Dec.1, we will reduce the amount of soda provisioned on all single-segment domestic flights,” United told employees, while promising it still seeks to “provide the right balance of beverages to meet customer demand.”

I bring this up because this week we published an interview with Anne De Hauw, vice president of innovation for Gate Group, the world’s largest caterer and airline retail company. Part of her job includes bringing true innovation to airline catering and retail, but much of it has another purpose — to help carriers reduce costs. On each meal served to a passenger, she said, “every penny [airlines] can reduce is significant.” That includes drinks.

We spoke about how some U.S. airlines have resumed free food service on longer domestic flights. But mostly, she said, the trend is going in the other direction, with airlines charging for meals. Her research tells her passengers in their 20s and 30s — the next-generation of important executives — don’t mind. “Millennials want to have great food,” she said. “It can be simple, but it needs to be good. They would rather pay for good than get free food which isn’t good.”

We also discussed sodas. It’s a topic I’ve found fascinating since I interviewed then-Frontier Airlines President Barry Biffle a couple of years ago in Denver. He and I spoke about how passengers dislike paying for sodas, since most assume a Coke costs an airline 20 cents or less. But because of the supply chain expenses, he said, a Coke costs Frontier a lot more than passengers pay at Costco.

How much? This is an answer I tried to learn from De Hauw. She declined to give exact numbers, but defended Gate Group’s pricing.

“The cans need to be sorted in the catering unit at the airport,” she said. “They need to be sorted into trolleys. It is all planned in advance how much Coke goes into each trolley. The catering then needs to be driven by the high-loaders of the caterer at the airport and loaded on the airplane. That area is a highly secure area. And the price of a high-loader is around $200,000 — of one high-loader.”

For more catering tidbits, including her thoughts on the recent Listeria scare in at Gate Group’s Los Angeles facility, read the interview.

— Brian Sumers, Airline Business Reporter

News and Notes

Allegiant to Mexico: For roughly five years, executives at discount U.S. carrier Allegiant Air have said, on and off, that they want to fly to the Caribbean and Mexico. But it still hasn’t happened.

In occasional statements, they’ve suggested they have enough worthy U.S. markets, and don’t need to rush international expansion. But recently I spoke with Kristen Schilling-Gonzales, Allegiant’s director of planning, for my Airline Insiders interview series, and she told me part of the issue is airline’s technological system. It’s not ready to support international flights.

“Our website is also part of our booking engine and it’s all internally created,” she said. “The same thing goes with international. We’re looking to build our own departure control system, making sure that we’re sending all the right data to government agencies, all that stuff. We’re still working on that.”

She said she doesn’t know when the airline will be ready. But the airline’s planning team knows what routes it will suggest when, or if, the time comes.

“I’ve got a roughly five-year plan of several hundred routes that we could be running once international is up and going,” she said. “The routes aren’t the issue, it’s the infrastructure and updating our systems to handle it.”

Look for the entire interview after Thanksgiving.

Want to be the next interviewee for the series? Email me.

Stories of the Week

Airline Food Conundrum — Paid Meals Winning Out Over Freebies: Airline food isn’t always tasty, but passengers probably shouldn’t compare it to what they find in a restaurant. Delivering food to an aircraft is a logistical challenge, and it’s amazing the system works as well as it does.

Delta Puts a Better Business Class on Routes Where Travelers Will Buy It: When deciding which planes to send where, U.S. airlines usually keep it simple. Domestic routes, with few exceptions, get narrowbody jets with first class recliner seats. International routes get flatbeds, regardless of whether there’s a premium market. But this week, Delta said it will try something different in 2018. It’ll deploy flatbeds on more U.S. routes, while some flights to Iceland, Portugal and Ireland will lose them. It’s smart business since more passengers may buy first class on New York-San Diego, than from New York to Ponta Delgada, Portugal. (Did you know Delta flew to Ponta Delgada?)

United Is Making Tech Changes to Boost Wi-Fi Speeds on Many Planes: I heard for months United was having modem trouble on its Panasonic-equipped Boeing 777s, 767s, 757s, and Airbus A319s and A320s. But while I once received a $175 travel certificate after flying with broken Wi-Fi, I never learned the exact problem. Last week, though, United admitted it had an issue. “We are working with Panasonic to improve the quality of the wireless access points on all of our Panasonic aircraft,” United said, promising more travelers soon will be able to “….tap into a strong, steady connection at the same time.” The upgrade should be done by May.

Alaska Airlines Blames Trump Administration for Decision to Pull Out of Cuba: Our chutzpah award goes to Alaska Airlines, which blamed “changes in Cuba travel policies,” for why it canceled its Los Angeles-Havana flight. The Trump Administration’s recent regulatory changes may not have helped, but this was almost certainly a marginal route from the beginning. Remember, no other airline wanted to fly from the West Coast to Havana. In its release, Alaska said it would deploy the 737 to “markets with higher demand.” Blogger Brett Snyder tweeted, “not sure why they bothered saying ‘higher’ there, could have just said ‘Aircraft and crew will be re-deployed to markets with demand.'”

Airlines Personalize the Passenger Experience With New Apps and Devices: At almost every conference I attend, someone asks about the line between creepy and cool, when it comes to customer service. Do passengers want a flight attendant to wish them happy birthday? Do they want someone to bring them their favorite drink before they ask? Or might they want the airline to suggest where they should fly next, as Netflix recommends movies to subscribers? In many cases, airlines have the data they need. But they’re often not sure how, or when, to use it. Bloomberg’s Justin Bachman has details.

Why Airbus Lost Its Super Jumbo Deal With Emirates: Bloomberg’s Benedikt Kammel and Benjamin Katz report Airbus and Emirates recently shook on a deal that was to send 36 more A380s to the Dubai-based carrier. But it hasn’t happened. Why? “At the heart of the turnabout was concern at Emirates about the commitment of Airbus to carry on developing the A380, with the carrier loath to place on order only to see the program terminated a few years later,” the two reporters write.

‘Pay Least, Board Last’ — British Airways Unveils Its Newest Policy: Is any mainstream global airline brand mocked more than British Airways? The airline said it will require passengers buying its cheapest tickets to board last. It’s a similar strategy to what American, United and Delta use with basic economy. Many British newspapers, including The Telegraph, criticized the move, using colorful language to describe it. But this is a common business practice, right? People who pay less get less.

Airport to Pay Nearly $1.5 Million for Qatar Airways Flights to Pittsburgh: Over a one-year period, Pittsburgh International Airport could give Qatar Airways almost $1.5 million in exchange for twice-weekly cargo flights to Doha that began in October, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The airport may avoid some payments if the airline reaches its financial goals next year. But no matter what, the newspaper said, Pittsburgh’s airport will pay the airline about $15,500 per flight — or $744,000 total — to subsidize service for the first six months. Is that money well-spent?

Correction: Last week, I poked fun at Ed Wegel, founder of the reboot of Eastern Airlines in 2015. He has a new project, World Airways. In last week’s post, I suggested that the new Eastern is still flying, albeit under different management. Technically, that’s not true. There might be some planes in Eastern’s livery still operating, but the carrier no longer has an operating certificate. “Earlier this year, Swift Air acquired two Boeing 737-800s that Eastern Airlines Group was leasing,” an FAA spokesman told me. “Eastern Airlines surrendered its Part 121 certificate on Nov. 13, 2017.”

The Skift Airline Innovation Report is curated by Skift Airline Business Reporter Brian Sumers [[email protected]]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday. Have a story idea? Or a juicy news tip? Want to share a memo? Send me an email or tweet me.

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rollinbrigittenv8 · 6 years

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Complications of Getting Catering to the Plane — Airline Innovation Report

A catering truck — called a high-loader in industry lingo — might cost $200,000, according to an executive with Gate Group. That's part of the reason airline food is so expensive. Gate Group

Skift Take: Are you upset some airlines charge $3 for a soda? There's a reason prices are higher than at a convenience store. It's not easy or cheap to get provisions onto an aircraft.

— Brian Sumers

United Airlines has been around for 90 years, and yet it’s still not sure of the most efficient number of Coca-Cola cans to board for each flight.

How much? This is an answer I tried to learn from De Hauw. She declined to give exact numbers, but defended Gate Group’s pricing.

For more catering tidbits, including her thoughts on the recent Listeria scare in at Gate Group’s Los Angeles facility, read the interview.

— Brian Sumers, Airline Business Reporter

News and Notes

She said she doesn’t know when the airline will be ready. But the airline’s planning team knows what routes it will suggest when, or if, the time comes.

Look for the entire interview after Thanksgiving.

Want to be the next interviewee for the series? Email me.

Stories of the Week

Subscribe to the Skift Airline Innovation Report

0 notes