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queenof-literature · 3 years

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Goron

Hi all! This is the forth story in my Wild’s Story Hour series, which was originally requests that were sent in, and soon turned into its own series! I’ve been writing this on and off for a few months now, so I’m so happy to post it.

A little note: My Tumblr has been very wonky lately. I’m not sure about y’all, but every time I search for recent in the Linked Universe tag I get spammed with completely random tags not even related to the point where I can’t even see LU content. This is the only tag that’s like this for me. So please know that I’m not ignoring anyone, it’s just been quite laggy and slow for me to get notifications as well.

AO3 Link

Thank you all for your continued support, and I hope you enjoy!

"Thanks for dinner Wild!" Hyrule exclaimed before digging in. Wild heard similar sentiments as he passed out mushroom and veggie rice balls, with some fruit crepes on the side. An odd combination, but that’s apparently what happened when you traveled with a group of eight others. In Twilight’s Hyrule they had found a relatively safe and secluded place for the evening before the sun had begun to set, so Wild took the extra time to put more effort into dinner. The others used to tell him that he didn't need to put so much effort into dinner, they were fine with rations and quick meals over a fire. However after they learned that cooking was what Wild would consider a passion, they allowed themselves to be fed without complaint. If Wild enjoyed it, who were they to stop him. The delicious food was certainly a bonus.

After thanking Wild the group settled around the fire, relaxing into the evening lull Wild had begun to find comforting long ago. He was never expected to talk, he could just sit in peace and listen. And if he chose to talk, which was becoming more frequent as time went on, the others always listened.

But after the… incident when Wild sang Kass' song, no one had asked him to tell anymore stories. After the first night of 'Wild's Story Hour' as Hyrule called it, Wind would often jump on his back and ask questions about his Hyrule. If Wind was anything, he was curious. That trait seemed to be amped up since Wild's Hyrule also had Rito and Koroks. Now though, Wind bit his tongue and kept quiet.

Wild didn't want to admit that he missed it.

He never thought he would miss talking, especially telling an entire story over a campfire. Talking used to feel like giving pieces of himself away, and if he gave too much he would be empty. Now he felt relieved every time he talked about his adventure. Wild loved seeing his brothers’ reactions to his tales, and the more he talked the more weight was lifted off him. That must have been what Warriors was talking about when he said that sometimes it helped to talk to others.

Wild missed it, but he didn't want to bring it up. It was embarrassing, and he didn't want the others to feel forced to listen to him. He was trying to get rid of that mentality but it was hard.

Wind felt guilty too, Wild could tell. Wild wasn't sure the little pirate had ever seen Wild so far gone in panic and anger. He hated that any of them saw him like that, let alone Wind. It wasn't the little pirate's fault, he didn't know that bringing it up would cause Wild's panic, not even Wild himself knew. It hadn't affected their friendship, but Wild didn't want Wind to feel uncomfortable around him at all.

Before he could cucco out, Wild signed for Wind to sit with him when he could. Wind smiled and nodded, quickly finishing his conversation with Four before making his way over.

"Yes, Wild?" Wind asked eagerly, but Wild could still see the apprehension under the surface.

"Are you okay?" Wild asked, skipping the small talk he wasn't good at.

"Of course! Why?" Wild resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Getting Wind, or any of the Links, to admit something was wrong was like pulling teeth. Although, Wild guessed he didn't have much room to talk…

"You've seemed upset lately. Did I do something?" Wild once again got straight to the point. If Wild did anything to upset the younger, he wanted to fix it. And he wanted to fix it now.

"What? Of course not, Wild! I'm sorry I made you think that. It's just… I feel bad I guess.” Wind sighed out, his shoulders slumping out of his fake eagerness. Wild winced slightly, knowing what Wind was talking about. Wild had one of his… attacks, in front of everyone. It started innocently enough, with Wind being curious about a song. It ended with Wild yelling and sobbing about his failures a century ago.

“That wasn’t your fault.” Wild stated firmly. “You didn’t know what was going to happen. No one did, not even me.” Wild trailed off slightly at the last part. Wind’s face had perked up slightly, but he didn’t look completely convinced.

“Wind.” Wild said gently, getting the younger’s attention. “I wouldn’t have sung if I didn’t want to.” Wild paused before admitting the next part, slightly embarrassed. “I like talking about my adventure. It feels nice.” Wild felt his ears turn red, but Wind didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he looked happier than he had in days.

“So… everything is okay? Do you forgive me?” Wind asked hopefully.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Wild reassured. “Of course everything is okay.”

“Can I…” Wind trailed off from his question, but Wild knew what was going to be asked, and he simply nodded and smirked, opening his arms slightly. Wild caught a flash of Wind’s face, a large beaming grim, before a body launched into his arms from across the log, squeezing the life out of him. Wild squeezed just as hard back, thankful that the matter was behind them. Wild could feel eyes on them, and turned to meet the mirthful gazes of his companions. Wild simply glared at them, warning them not to say anything. This was between him and Wind. But the other Links were simply thankful everything was all right.

“Hey Wild?” Wind’s muffled voice rose from Wild’s chest.

“Hm?” Wild hummed, biting back a smile.

“Do you ever wanna tell another story for us? It’s okay if you say no.” Wind asked into Wild’s tunic. Wind used to bite back on his hugs and physical touches, afraid it would be seen as childish. But after it became more common around camp, and after the other Links understood that Wind simply came from a home where hugs were a common display of affection, Wind didn't feel the need to hide it anymore.

“Yeah, anytime.” Wild smiled.

“Now?” Wind questioned hesitantly.

“Sure.” Wild confirmed, searching through good memories of his adventure. Like an arrow, Wind launched off Wild’s chest, and Wild shoved down his disappointment at the loss of warmth.

“Guys! Shush!” Wind yelled, a hush falling over the camp besides a few grumbles about being interrupted. “Wild’s gonna tell a story!” He shouted in excitement, ignoring Wild’s shocked face. By now, Wind really meant right now.

“Did you inform Wild of this?” Legend asked, smirking at Wild’s shocked face.

“Of course! I asked him!” Wind scolded, turning back around and sitting on his and Wild’s shared log, ignoring Legend rolling his eyes. Wild saw Twilight shoot a look over the fire, silently asking if this was truly alright. Wild gave him a reassuring look and a nod. The camp was once again quiet as they all looked to Wild in interest.

“Uhh. What should I talk about?” Wild questioned awkwardly. It was always so awkward at the start.

“You always ask that, talk about whatever you want.” Legend crossed his arms, and lowered himself to the ground, back against the log.

“There’s two divine beasts left. You can talk about one of those?” Hyrule spoke up beside Legend.

“Okay, Gorons?” Wild suggested. The Gorons were a fun people to be around, and if Wild was honest, he wasn’t ready to touch on the subject on the Zora quite yet. That was too close to Mipha. Mipha wasn’t necessarily a secret, but it was a topic he was still sore about.

“Gorons sound fun. Don’t we all have Gorons in our Hyrule?” Four questioned, receiving nods and noises of confirmation.

“Didn’t Twilight wrestle them?” Sky questioned, receiving blank looks from the others.

“I’m sorry Twilight what?” Warriors’ shocked expression almost sent Wild into a fit of laughter. He couldn’t blame the man though, Wild was just as surprised when Twilight told him about his adventure with the Gorons.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Wind’s cried in betrayal.

“Uhh, I needed my iron boots to do it.” Twilight tried to soothe the outbreak of awe.

“That doesn’t matter with Gorons. Those make you heavier, even someone with above-average strength couldn’t beat a Goron with iron boots.” Four smirked from beside Sky, who was watching the chaos he caused unfold.

“I told y’all I learned how to wrestle in my village!” Twilight shouted with no heat.

“You didn’t tell us you wrestled a Goron!” Wind yelled back.

“He also burned a building down.” Time spoke up, biting back a smile at Twilight’s betrayed expression.

“I told you that in confidence!” Twilight yelled.

“Wait and you give me shit for lighting things on fire?” Wild cried out. Now this was the first he had heard of that.

“You do it for fun!” Twilight tried to defend himself through the uproarious laughter.

“Why did you do it then?” Wild questioned.

“That’s not important!” Twilight huffed.

“Maybe we should call you Wild.” Legend joked.

“Hey don’t you dare-” Twilight began before being interrupted by Four.

“As entertaining as this is, I think Wild was going to tell a story.” He reminded.

“Yeah! Wild talk about the Gorons!” Wind ceased glaring at Twilight in favor of looking at Wild.

“Okay, okay.” Wild said after he was done laughing. “Well you guys know my Death Mountain is really hot with all the lava.”

“Understatement.” Warriors mumbled.

“So I had to pick up some elixirs from Foothill stables and drink them on the way up." Wild started, relaxing into his story as he went.

“Don’t your elixirs only last a couple of hours?” Hyrule titled his head.

“Yeah, why?” Wild questioned.

“That looks like a long and rocky road. What, did you just run through the whole domain?” Hyrule joked, pausing when he saw Wild bite his lip. “Wild!” Hyrule yelled in realization.

"What? I didn't have any other choice! I had plenty of elixirs!" Wild defended.

“What if you ran out?” Four chided with a snort.

“Then I’d teleport away.” Wild shot back.

“Don’t extreme temperatures affect your slate sometimes?” Warriors smirked.

“I… would deal with that when I got there.” Wild huffed at the laughter that came from the others.

“Yeah a lot of your plans involve that.” Legend mumbled.

“Anyway.” Wild interrupted before the conversation could lead to discussing his battle tactics. “I kept running up the path and there were a lot of fire monsters like moblins, and keese and chuchus-” Wild continued.

“Don’t the chuchus in your Hyrule explode?” Hyrule asked once again, eyes shining in excitement.

“Yeah! If I throw bombs at them then I can make a huge explosion! Especially the big ones.” Wild confirmed with a grin.

“No, you two are not having a competition of who can make a bigger explosion when we get to Wild’s Hyrule again.” Time already knew where this would lead. It was best to nip it in the bud now.

“Awe.” Wild and Hyrule groaned.

“We never get to do anything.” Wild mumbled with a pout.

“You were saying?” Time lifted an eyebrow. Wild huffed once more before continuing his story.

“Right. It was a long walk and of course I wasn’t going to risk taking a horse. There were a lot of cliffs along the path and since I didn’t have much time I took the straight path. Then I accidently ran into a Talus!” Wild grinned at the rest of the group’s groans. They had some run-ins with the larger monsters in Wild’s Hyrule, and while they all had tough enemies, Wild’s had some of the largest monsters that were considered relatively common.

“Volcanos have molten rock, how did you miss it?” Warriors joked.

“It was molten rock!” Wild defended. “It blended in perfectly.”

“Wait wait wait.” Four waved his hands. “Your Taluses are also made of magma and volcanic rock?”

“Yep.” Wild confirmed, laughing slightly at the various looks of surprise the Links always held when they learned of new monsters their own Hyrules didn’t have. The other heroes had been near Eldin, but not quite near Goron City enough to see an Igneo Talus. Hopefully they were never dropped off near Death Mountain. Wild didn’t really want to wake up on fire.

“Are there ice and electric ones too.” Legend groaned.

“Ice ones.” Wild answered. “Those ones are really hard to see.”

“Ugh, remind me to watch my step.” Legend rolled his eyes.

“Will do.” Wild deadpanned. “Luckily I had some ice arrows so it was okay. Eventually I made it to the Southern Mine. That’s where the Goron mine for ore!" Wild explained. "I even met another Hylian there! He had some of the Flamebreaker Armor that you get in Goron City.” Wild had shown the group his Flamebreaker Armor before, and some had even tried it on, including Four.

“Oh? Did you seduce this Hylian for clothes as well?” Warriors raised an eyebrow.

“No I did not!” Wild crossed his arms, glaring at the rest of the now laughing heroes. “I’ll never live that down will I?”

“Nope.” Warriors and Legend smirked at Wild’s glare.

“I asked if I could buy it, since he was heading down anyway.” Wild spoke over the chuckling Links. “He said he would give it to me if I caught him 10 fireproof lizards so he could make elixirs. I saw a bunch of lizards while running up so I caught enough.” The rest of the group nodded, they too had to do some… irregular things for important items.

“How do you catch that many lizards that fast?” Wind tilted his head. “Aren’t they quick?”

“Oh yeah. If you’re not careful they’ll scurry away and bury themselves in the mountain side or under rock. I had to crouch and hop around.” Wind laughed at the image of Wild moving around like that.

This was nice.

“Is Goron City far away from the Southern Mine?” Sky asked.

“It’s not too far, but after I got a part of the armor and started approaching the city, Vah Rudania, Daruk’s divine beast, was circling Death Mountain and started launching giant fireballs so I had to dodge them and sprint up to the city.”

“Giant fireballs? Why would the beast attack you?” Hyrule asked.

“Well I’m not sure if Rudania meant to do it since it was circling the volcano, but Rudania was terrorizing Goron City like Medoh was terrorizing the Rito, so I think it was because of the Calamity.” Wild hummed in thought.

“They were infected with… malice, right?” Four questioned, remembering Wild’s pictures of the large pool of intimidating… something. It was apparently a manifestation of the Calamity, and Wild had said it burned whenever he touched it, especially with the Master Sword in hand. Four remembered even the pool looked evil. Pure black roots took hold of whatever was around it, mixed in with deep shades of reds and purples. Wild also told him there was an odd sound it made that set him on edge.

“As far as I know.” Wild nodded, thinking back to the pools of malice in all the Divine Beasts. “Back 100 years ago,” The group perked up in both excitement and worry. It was rare Wild talked about 100 years ago. Both because he couldn’t remember it, and because it had pained him for so long. “The other champions rushed to their Divine Beasts. The plan was I would protect Zelda, and return to defeat Ganon after the Divine Beasts weakened them. Zelda wanted to come with me, since she still believed there was a chance to awaken her power. She always pushed herself so hard…” Wild trailed off for a moment, staring into the fire. Twilight almost began to rise, believing Wild to have slipped into another memory, but Wild shook himself out of it quickly. “Help never came. The Divine Beasts were taken over by malice, and while they piloted themselves the champions were killed by Blights that Ganon had created to directly match their strength and exploit it. And well… you all know how the story ends.” There was a heavy silence, no one knowing what to say, including Wild. Wind scooted over on the log and leaned against Wild gently, showing his silent support. Wild smiled down at him, then at the others around the fire.

“It’s okay.” Wild told them. “Let’s just keep talking about the Gorons?” He proposed.

“Cub…” Time started, not quite knowing how to get his message across. “Talk about whatever you want to. Anytime.” Time finished, hoping Wild knew what he meant, and judging by the smile he did.

“Thanks, Old Man.” Wild said earnestly, thankful for the comfortable warmth at his side.

“Well um…” Wild began, thinking about where he left off. He appreciated that everyone waited to let him think, and didn’t interrupt him. “I finally made it to the city. Since it’s made from the materials they have up there it’s made up of a lot of rock and metals, but it’s still great to look at! They work hard on their signs outside their shops and the children always roll across the bridges over lava. There’s also a whole bunch of statues carved into the mountains.” Wild made large gestures solely with his left arm, since his right was still held captive by Wind.

Time leaned his chin into his hand. It was always interesting to hear about the boys’ Hyrules from their perspectives. Some Hyrules like Wild’s had very little to no government, and Time enjoyed hearing how different civilizations had gotten by.

“I got to meet with their leader, um, the ‘Boss’ of the Gorons. His name is Bludo. He’s really grumpy, and he has a bad back. He told me that him and someone named Yunobo would use cannons to scare off Rudania-”

“You have cannons too?” Wind looked up, always excited to hear how similar his and Wild’s Hyrules could be.

“Mhm!” Wild nodded. “Do you all not?”

“I had air cannons mostly.” Four spoke up, among some murmurs of confirmation among half the Links. It seems Time, Warriors, and Hyrule didn’t have cannons in their Hyrules.

“Since his back was bad I had to go find Yunobo, who disappeared after running an errand for Bludo to get medicine for his back.” Wild continued after briefly explaining how cannons work. “I just had to follow the path up to the Abandoned North Mine. Since Rudania started terrorizing them and monsters infested they stopped using that one as much. There was a Goron watching the area and he told me to not touch the Boss’ cannons.”

“And let me guess you touched the cannons right away didn’t you?” Sky asked, clearly amused.

“Yes I did. There was one right behind him.” Twilight let out a snort, quickly trying to muffle his laughter at Wild’s playful glare. Time too, was greatly amused by Wild’s antics, although his mind wandered a bit. All of these names for the Divine Beast’s names always sounded so familiar. Was it possible Wild too was a part of Time’s hero line? His Hyrule was far larger than the others, though. He wouldn’t be surprised if Wild was in a timeline of his own. Or perhaps somehow the land had changed and Wild was just far, far into the future. Time shook his head slightly and tried to tune back in. He really needed to stop trying to understand how complex time and time travel was.

“The cannons are so fun up there! I could roll my round bombs into them, and they had enough power to blow up a whole monster camp.” As Wild rambled on about all the ways he could use his bombs around Death Mountain, including cannons and carts, his eyes practically sparkled.

“I finally found Yunobo.” Wild got back on track with his story. “He was trapped in a cave-in and I got to use the cannons to get him out. When I went to check on him, he had some sort of orange shield surrounding him, and he was really timid.” Twilight mused on that for a moment. That sounded like how Wild described one of his champion powers.

“I had to run back to Bludo after that, and he told me about Daruk. I looked up at the stature of him and I finally remembered him, at least a little bit.” Wild had a small smile on his face.

“What was he like?” Hyrule questioned.

“He was really kind, as far as I could tell. He joked around with me a lot and he didn’t even care that I never answered. He said he would protect Hyrule to his death.” Wild’s smile turned bittersweet. “I think he always forgot I wasn’t a Goron, or he didn’t care, he would smack my back hard enough to send me flying.” Wild chuckled lightly.

He seemed to be fond of Daruk 100 years ago. Daruk appeared to understand how much pressure was crushing down on Wild, yet he never showed pity or disdain. He even teased him about it. Wild could remember a faint feeling of excitement when being told he would be seeing Daruk’s progress, so he assumed the Link of 100 years ago enjoyed his time among the Gorons, no matter how short it was.

“Awe yes I remember that well. I distinctly remember running away screaming when the Gorons wanted to thank me for helping them.” The camp cackled at the image of a younger Time running away and screaming.

“Bludo asked me to find Yunobo again, since his back was still hurting him.”

“Good to know everyone in every Hyrule is so needy.” The veteren scoffed.

“Turns out that Yunobo works with Bludo because of his powers he got from Daruk, the forcefield I was talking about. Yunobo hops in a giant cannon along Death Mountain, and Bludo launches him at Rudania.” Wild explained.

“That… sounds dangerous.” Sky laughed a little.

“Yeah… but Daruk’s shield is indestructible! Only problem was the guardian sentries surrounding the mountain.”

“The what?” Wind raised his head from Wild’s shoulder to look at the older boy.

“Rudania sent them to guard the area once we finally arrived at the base of Death Mountain.” Wind nodded and plopped his head back onto Wild’s shoulder, no one daring to tease either of them, even in good fun. “If they caught me with their lights, they would send magma bombs right onto the path!”

“And how do you know that? Did you get caught?” Warriors asked, slightly surprised Wild would get caught. He could be quite sneaky when he wanted to be.

“Well I was curious…”

“Wild!” Warriors pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I ran back to the base after I tested it and Yunobo had his shield!” Wild defended against the groans and muffled laughs. “Besides I was about to launch someone out of a cannon I wanted to know what we were up against. I avoided the sentries the rest of the time, and I had to whistle for Yunobo to stop and go, and there were some Moblins on the way up.” The rest of the group could imagine that climbing Death Mountain, especially one as large as Wild, while avoiding sentries, fighting monsters, and whistling for someone to stop and go would be tedious.

“Everytime I fired Yunobo from the cannon Rudania fled further around the volcano, and we made it all the way to the top!”

“Did you set off anymore sentries?” Twilight questioned.

“No!” Wild frowned. “I’m not completely reckless you know!” Wild stated, not appreciating the silence that followed his statement. “I’ll have you know I made it all the way to the top!”

“And how did you get into Vah Rudania?” Time raised an eyebrow.

“I…” Wild started boldly, before realizing exactly how he got into the Divine Beast.

“You what.” Twilight narrowed his eyes.

“I… jumped.” Wild shrugged the shoulder Wind wasn’t resting his head on. “Once I got into-”

“You jumped where.” Time smirked. That bastard, he knew something was up and he was gonna sic Twilight on him! Wild would find a way to get revenge later.

“Vah Rudania was in the middle of Death Mountain so I used my paraglider-” Wild once again tried to brush this portion of the story off.

“You jumped into the middle of an active volcano?” Four cackled, the first one to understand what Wild was saying and showing an odd lack of restraint.

“Wild.” Twilight chided in ‘that voice’.

“Don’t ‘Wild’ me you lit a building on fire!” Wild defended.

“See Time! This is why I didn’t want you to tell them!”

“How did you know your paraglider wouldn’t burn up?” Warriors lips quivered under the strain of covering a grin.

“I would deal with that when I got there!” Wild claimed once again, trying not to focus on the slight flaws in his argument.

“How? How would you deal with that?” Legend threw his hands up at his friend’s stupidity.

“I don't know Legend. I never got there so I never had to deal with it, since it turned out fine.”

“What happened next?” Hyrule asked, covering for Wild and moving the conversation forward. Wild held back a fond smirk, he’d have to thank Hyrule later.

“Glad you asked, Hyrule!” Wild ignored any other questions. “I heard Daruk’s voice telling me I had to go find the terminal as usual, but this time inside the Divine Beast was pitch black.” The group had finally stopped asking questions and started listening to the story with interest.

“I had to get rid of pools of malice by shooting the eyes, and I had to light some areas up. Once I reached the terminal there were some places that opened up so it was lit up again.”

“Did this one rotate like the other Divine Beasts?” Legend asked from his place against his log.

“Yeah I could control it with my slate like the other ones. There were all kinds of puzzles like the last beast, like this one where I had to light my arrow with blue flame and shoot it through a hole in the door, then-”

The rest of the Links listened intently as Wild went into the intricate details of the different puzzles within the beast. They were always interested to hear both about the Sheikah technology of Wild’s world, and how he had to use what was available to him to solve them. As much as they teased Wild for being stupid and reckless, he really was intelligent, espeically when it came to logic and puzzles. Twilight remembered how some markets in his Hyrule had little puzzles made of wood,each one requiring moving certain pieces to unlock different parts. Twilight had never been particularly interested in them, but he wondered if Wild would be, if Twilight found one complicated enough. He’d have to get away from the group and find one whenever they ended up near one of his markets. Perhaps even Four and Sky would be interested in getting their hands on them and taking them apart.

“-and I finally got to the last terminal and unlocked it.” Wild continued, barely pausing to breathe. The group wasn’t sure if he was aware of how much he was talking, or how rapidly, but they didn’t dare interrupt. “Fireblight Ganon manifested, and had the power to throw huge fireballs. But he had to suck in everything around to create them. So I threw my bombs into his mouth and blew them up. Other than that, I just had to get up close.” Wild described the fight in an almost casual sense, even though it seemed these blights were pieces of Ganon himself. It seemed some blights were far easier than others.

“When Daruk appeared, I still only had one memory of him, but he seemed as kind as he had been in my memory.” Wild had a small smile. “After freeing the beast I got teleported back to Goron City, and Vah Rudania took its position against the Calamity alongside, at the time, the Zora domain’s beast.” Wild explained. “Bludo thanked me, even though he hadn’t really understood what I did. I said goodbye to Yunobo, and, uh, that was that.” Wild ended his story as awkward as always, wincing at his own words. His throat, still unused to talking so much for such a long amount of time, felt as though he had swallowed sand.

“Thanks for the story, Wild!” Wild looked down at the sailor, something shining in the younger’s eyes he couldn’t quite place.

“Yeah! I always like hearing about how your guys’ kingdoms compare to mine.” Sky smiled, kindly shuffling and reaching over, handing Wild his water pouch. How he knew Wild needed it, or when he even got a hold of it, Wild would never know. Wild nodded in thanks and began sipping at the water, resisting the urge to chug it all in one gulp, as everyone’s voices blended slightly, creating a warm atmosphere.

The group continued to discuss different topics, going off on different tangents relating to Gorons and their Hyrules, all of which Wild was perfectly content to just listen, occasionally answering questions directed at him.

With the warm weight against his shoulder, and the comfortable but lively chatter surrounding him, Wild allowed himself to just exist within the moment, feeling himself relax further.

“Hey Wild?” Wild felt the head against his shoulder stir, and Wild looked down to meet a fellow set of blue eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for the story.” A relaxed but genuine smile reached Wind’s expressive face.

“No, Wind. Thank you.”

~~~

Very minor spoiler for Age of Calamity: The fact that BOTW/AOC Link canonically eats rocks is beautiful to me.

Wild loves puzzles, change my mind.

I like to write Wild how I play video games in general, which is just screwing around and seeing what happens.

I’m sorry if I get anything wrong about other Hyrules. I’ve played a good amount of the Zelda games but it’s been a long time since not a lot of them are on consoles I have :(

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 3 years

Text

Concept: RED Spy is down, his watch damaged and the knife blasted from his hand by a clever strike from a BLU. His ribs ache from the force of being hurled bodily into the unforgiving soil of Teufort’s rocky ground, and he grits his teeth into a snarl.

He can fight without his knife, he lived this long as a Spy prior to this whole mess of a contract... but it would not be easy. His ankle feels damaged, twisting as he rolled and Spy curses at the misfortune; still, his arms were hale enough to enact a chokehold when the opportunity arose.

The sun disappears as looming shadows block the light, and hearty chuckles linger in the air, the malice behind the sound sending a shudder through the espionage agent. He understood, this was... well, it was personal to a degree, if he had a downed BLU then of course he would think nothing of enacting some quick revenge for a past death/insult.

But it was also their job. He hoped to take at least one down with him, if possible... but it would not be the end of the world to die here and now, later he could hunt them down and delight in the gurgled screams as his butterfly knife pierced their spinal columns.

Blood dribbled slowly from the shallow indentations in his bottom lip wheren a few teeth had pierced accidentally during the heavy impact. Spy’s tongue darted out automatically to catch it, equally thrilled and revolted by the taste of the coppery substance...

He grunts as a heavy Texan boot digs into his side, and two voices laugh uproariously as if the world’s wittiest joke had just been exchanged. They would pay for tha-...

His vision flashes sharply a second later, pain radiating through his face like an explosion as a steel-capped boot makes contact; without even consciously registering it, Spy knows his nose is broken. That was a sensation he had become all too familiar with in the past.

He cries out as something heavy crunches down on his legs, efectively trapping him.

“Aw, don’t be such a wuss Spah, I manage to carry that around when it’s full all’a the time!” the BLU engineer coos, his expression worryingly unhinged, though not unfamiliar... the RED Engineer had made the same face a truly disconcerting number of times in the past.

Indeed, the toolbox weighed more than one would suspect, and if his ankle had not been shattered before, it certainly was now. There was only one solution, if he could but find it... where was his-...?

“Oh laddie, don’t go looking for your pretty little pistol... our spook went and knicked that when ye blacked out for a second, like the delicate little crossaint ye are.” BLU Demo taunted, crouching down over the RED.

Spy did not recall blacking out, but that’s not generally a good sign...

“You are, as ever, outclassed here, mon frier.” came a smug voice so like his own that it irritated to no end, as the BLU Spy faded into visibility.

If this had been the first death of the day, or even the twelfth, then perhaps he would not have stopped trying to find a solution. Beady blue eyes darting subtly around until some ingenious escape plan came to light and he could be freed from this mess...

But it wasn’t, and he was so, so very tired. Between the Pyro, Sniper and a number of rather lucky swipes from the BLU Medic, Spy had been dying all day long. He would love for this to end quickly... but given the location, and the unlikelihood of help arriving in time to curb the enthusiasm of the currently losing team surrounding him... Spy felt that things were not in his favour this day.

Hovering gently across the room, the intel gleamed innocuously, cruelly. A beacon that lured them all to their deaths day in, day out on these damn capture the flag campaigns; a beloved sight for both the teams’ benefactors.

And so they died, day after day, for nothing more than a glowing briefcase with an ever-changing array of useless paper inside. Why, last week there had been a recipe for some fried chicken with eleven herbs and spices... useless, though Engineer had been eager to try it, as had another fried chicken afficiando on the team.

The week before? A number of magazines, a short story about some science fiction show he was certain may have been written by one of the Pyros, and a crudely drawn map to different households that Spy could not make heads or tails of...

A slap snapped him back to reality, sending fresh waves of sizzling pain through his face as the damage to his nose once again took his full focus.

“Looks as if he’s back with us again.” BLU Spy said, radiating smugness from every pore as he flicked out his knife with unnecessary flourishes. “Good evening Monsieur, seeing as you will be staying with us for some time, I would hope you will be an obbliging guest... and not miss out on the festivities. Such as,” he said, pointing the blade directly at a blue pupil, “when I remove your eye from its socket, hmmm?”

“Hey, I called dibs on ‘im first boyo.” BLU Demo exclaims, swatting at the blade-wielding hand, and trying not to look too pleased as it scored a deep groove across Spy’s face. Spy hisses at him through clenched teeth, loathing the man. “He needs those eyes to see what ol’ eyelander and I are gonna do tae him, aye?”

“Just don’t go hogging him, I’ve had to rebuild a dozen sentries today because of him. Not to mention my back’s achin’ somethin’ fierce from all the damn backstabbing the little red weasel’s gotten away with.” BLU Engie interjected, groaning as he stretched, fingers and spine making awful audible pops. The man flexed his gloved hand and the mechanical whirring sent chill straight down the Spy’s spine. “Now see, I’m thinkin’ that fair’s fair only if’n I get to pull yours right on out of that body of yours. Whatcha think about that, you filthy RED?”

It would technically fall under ‘fair’, but not anything Spy particularly wanted to experience. Before he could open his mouth in his own defence, with a smooth ‘Gentlemen, please...’ the mechanical fist slammed in from the side. Bile rose automatically in his throat at the sensation of a tooth dislodging and blood filling his mouth. The BLUs seemed wildly unhinged today, beyond their normal bloodlust... but they had lost all week long, so they may be getting sanctions and penalties from the Administrator.

His head whirled. When was the last time he’d had more than a few hours sleep this week? The last time he drank some actual water or ate something substantial? Maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess if he’d not insisted on skipping the team lunch during ceasefire, in order to do some covert surveillance in the enemy intel.

Consciousness flickered.

There were delighted but angry voices jabbering back and forth about ‘waiting their turn’, and ‘going a little easy to start because the french fry had to last’...

And then, there was screaming.

It was almost like a bad horror movie, with the sounds of screaming, crunching and swearing flickering in and out. Little snippets of a full scene that he could not comprehend as his battered head swam...

In the sudden silence, loud and grotesque for the heaviness of it, all that could be heard was a sharp, angry series of breaths.

Spy blinked frantically, trying to ascertain what had happened, trying to cling to the here and now when all his body & mind wished for was to give in to the swirling darkness.

A figure coalesced before him, eyes seeming to glow with a feral light, body and bat completely splattered with blood and gore, expression half in shadow.

“S-Sco-...?” Spy tried to get the word out around damaged molars and a outhful of blood. Everything throbbed, but the silence was a symphony of hope to his ears.

“Don’t worry, they won’t fuckin’ touch you again, Spy. I got ‘em.” growled an unusually serious Scout, his fist shaking around the bat’s handle. He seemed frozen, a figure in a portrait surrounded by the broken corpses of the BLUs, uncertain what to do next.

A wheezey exhalation from Spy seemed to snap the runner out of it, and he knelt to shove against the toolbox pinioning the espionage agent to the ground. It clunked to the ground with a heavy metallic finality, and Spy sighed at the sudden freedom.

“Ya look like shit, Spook, so we gotta get ya out of here before those guys fall outta respawn lookin’ for revenge.”Scout says, mouth running while his eyes dart over the mess that the normally immaculate espionage agent made. He slips an arm under Spy and they slowly work the man into a sititng position.

Ankle’s definitely shattered, Spy notes with a true lack of enthusiasm.

“Scout... just prop me against the wall there and take the intel. Once it is secured, they cannot touch me anyway, as the humiliation round will keep me safe.”

“And just who the fuck do you think you are ordering me about like that?” Scout objects, eyes never once leaving Spy’s face.

“Someone who wants to win as much as I do?” Spy hazards.

Scout leans back on his haunces, crouched by Spy. He tilts his head, “Ya a real bastard, ya know that? I don’t care about the intel, we gotta get you outta here. But if it means that much to ya...”

In a frankly ridiculously fluid movement, Scout is up, across the room and back again before Spy could blink. The intel snapped to his back like a magnet.

Spy is hauled to his feet with minimal protestations, an arm over Scout’s shoulders and the runner’s other one about his waist. The majority of his bodyweight was resting on the runner, and Spy felt rather despondent about their chances of surviving like this.

He said so.

“The others are coming, don’t worry about it.” Scout grinned.

Heavy machinegun fire could be heard above near the BLU spawn, along with delighted maniacal laughter. The REDs were here, and judging by the beeping of a sentry, they were spawncamping like no tomorrow.

“See? We got this. So don’t worry about it.” Scout shrugs as they begin the slow ascent up the corridor and hiopefully towards a dispenser. Spy lurching along and trying to think of other things as each jostling movement created little discomforts.

In a momentary pause, he looks to the runner. “Merci, mon... fils.”

The words felt too big for such a narrow corridor to hold all at once.

Scout laughed, half in delight and half from awkward nervousness. “Yeah, yeah, you better thank me. I saved ya butt in there!”

They continued hobbling towards the rest of RED for a long moment, before Scout said, looking anywhere but at Spy. “Don’t worry about it... Dad... I got ya.”

Spy could not help but smile through a mouth of bloody, broken teeth. Suddenly, the world felt a little brighter...

The End

#tf2 #scout #spy #dadspy #fic list #random idea i had just now

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k7l4d4 · 3 years

Text

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 6

Once more, we delve into the world of Midnight Striga! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

Eda roared, leaping toward the man, the monster, who had just casually murdered a child right in front of her!! Whipping her staff down to crush his skull, she was caught dumb when he casually leaned out of the way, a frost clad fist slamming into her face as she fell forward. A gasp of pain burst out as she was sent sprawling. Luckily, Eda had been in plenty of brawls. Gathering her wits, she tucked into a roll, coming up flat on her feet.

“If you think I’ll go easy on you ‘cause you’re human, you’ve got another thing coming!!” She shouted, eyes glancing at Lily, still prone against the wall. What was up with her, this was an emergency!! She growled, shifting herself to spring between Lily and the goons following that monster.

“Go... easy... on me? Pfft HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!” The bastard laughed, actually laughed!, at Eda’s claim, as if the idea that she could beat him was so utterly ridiculous it deserved nothing but ridicule. The fact that his goons echoed him was like rubbing salt in the wound. “That- That was truly amusing!! In exchange for that wonderful jest, allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed, a mocking leer stretched across his face. “I am Rudolph Cranwin, practitioner of the most noble art of Frost Magic, not that I ever really cared about the alleged nobility of it; twas but another tool for me to kill with, nothing more. I look forward to seeing how long I can drag out your demise!!” He said cheerfully, as if her death would be the highlight of his day.

‘To this piece of shit, it might very well be.’ Eda bitterly thought to herself. Her thoughts were cut off by his next words.

“However,” Rudolph mused, “This crowd truly is far too large. Better to thin it out a bit before I let my precious brethren have their fun.” He raised his hand, a cold wind building into a ball in his palm. Eyes widening in shocked comprehension, Eda lunged forward, a massive ball of flames building along Owlbert. She had to get there in time, she needed to! If she didn’t… Rudolph gave her a mocking smile. “Too late, Owl Lady. Winter Spite.” With those two words, the ball exploded in all directions. A huge burst of extreme cold, so deep that it effortlessly extinguished Eda’s building spell, ripped through the stadium. In an instant, the entire place was coated in frost. Just from what she could see on the ground, Eda saw several Demons and Witches in the crowd frozen in place, ice and frost coating their bodies; from the few she could clearly see, at minimum twenty had died, a quarter of which were children. The smallest she could see looked to be about five. As if some signal had gone off, the hoard of Mages lurking behind Rudolph burst forth, screaming in bloody rage, sickening grins coating their faces, spells primed to rip and tear.

“Tree Shot!” “Big Head Blast!” “Sword Beam!” “Wind Cleave!”

Eda braced herself for the attacks; a tree root tore out of the ground, ripping across Eda’s ribs, a spell shaped like a giant head rocketed past her, a beam of light shaped like a blade cut into the stadium, and slashes of winds tore at the bystanders. And more. So many more. They weren’t all incredibly powerful, but they all had something in common; the palpable desire to hurt leaked out of each and every one. Bearing her fangs, Eda whirled around, launching a wave of magic upwards, cutting off as many spells as she could. Her quick timing was used against her, however, when a blast of cold smashed against her back, sending her flying.

“Ah, ah, ah! No interfering with the games, Owl Lady!” Rudolph mockingly chided. She turned her head towards him, eyes burning with hate. He merely grinned. “If the crowd wishes to live, they must defend themselves, or have one of their own act as a champion! You, and your sister I suppose, are my prey.” Rushing into her guard, his palm glowed. “Winter Punt.” A burst of frigid air formed underneath her gut, angled upward, and as it released, Eda choked on her own air as it drove her into the sky.

What was with this guy!? She had decimated Lily earlier, and while she was feeling some of the effects of pushing herself that hard, that quickly, she shouldn’t be this hampered. She sighed, freezing up as she saw her breath, as if she was in the middle of winter. She looked down, and saw her limbs coated in patches of frost, weighing her down, slowing her reactions, and who knows what else. She genuinely didn’t even feel the cold, not really, but her body was acting as if she was naked in a blizzard!!

Rudolph smirked. “I see you’ve noticed.” He chuckled, slowly stalking towards the Witch and her prone sibling. “Yes, a fun little aspect of my magic is that it clings to the body of those it hits, slowing them, filling them with cold, stilling the flow of magic. The longer our fight goes on, the slower, weaker, and more feeble you will become.” He cocked his head, a look of mockingly fake sympathy playing across his features. “Oh, how tragic, to be cut down so short.” He cackled, an uproarious sound that resounded through the arena.

“Bastard.” Eda bit out, trying and failing to flake the frost off her limbs. “If I wasn’t dealing with this, he’d be flatter than paper!!” She glanced back at her sister, still stuck in that pose from where she had dropped, dead to the world, tears pooling at her feet. ‘What’s up with you, Lily? We don’t have time for this! ...Please, whatever’s going on, I’ll help you, but you have to snap out of it!’

Luz growled as she and the others passed by yet another corpse, this one bearing the distinctive signs of Retic’s harvesting; the chest ripped open, organs carefully partitioned and severed from the surrounding tissue, and the corpse tossed aside like a rag doll, whatever body parts he didn’t take flopping uselessly. The others stoically pointed forward, steadfastly ignoring the gore and death surrounding them; they knew that if they stopped, they wouldn’t continue. But with each corpse, each tragedy they passed, the burning rage built up within them.

“So…” Willow drawled, trying to distract them from the horrors surrounding them. “You mentioned you were a member of this group. What was that like?” She instantly felt like kicking herself, but it was the only thing she could think of off the top of her head.

Luz snorted, but decided to answer; it would come out eventually. “I wasn’t a member of the Black Dog Squad specifically, but I often got saddled to them; they provided a big, bloody distraction, I completed the objective, whether it was stealing a priceless relic, assassinating an enemy, or just setting the pieces for something bigger in motion, I got it done. I hated every second of it.” It was truly the most painful chapter of her life, bar nothing.

“If you hated it, why did you join?” Amity stated more than asked. Truthfully, Amity cringed at the accusatory note in her voice; all of this pain was like nothing she had experienced before. The fact that the girl in front of her, that snarky, selfless, free-spirited girl had been in any way connected to a group capable of this? It was jarring. She had to know why.

Luz gave a small chuckle, the kind of empty, hollow ache that only came from someone trying to humor the most tragic and heartbreaking of requests. “I didn’t exactly want to join. Suffice to say, I entered Oroboros’ field of vision when I interfered in a few of their operations, not that I knew it at the time. They ended up deciding to pay me a visit. The reason? Join them, or someone will die.”

Gus cocked his head in perplexedness, deciding to ask what he felt they all were thinking. “Well, you didn’t seem to have a problem sacrificing yourself earlier.” He hoped he didn’t sound accusing, but it really was confusing to him.

Luz snorted, morbidly amused. “I never said I was the one being threatened with death.” She calmly replied, causing the others to pause for a second. Luz continued, nonchalant. “Yeah, whenever Oroboros decides it wants someone in its ranks, but they have a few too many morals, they take a hostage, someone that person cares about dearly.” The others felt a sinking feeling at Luz’s words, as she rambled on. “Whenever the recruit talks back, their hostage gets beaten. Whenever they fail, their hostage has a limb broken. Whenever they succeed, the hostage gets a wonderful meal, after having been deprived of all but the bare minimum of food and water needed to keep them alive during the extent of the mission of course. Every aspect of an Objectionary Recruit’s time with Oroboros, someone like myself, is intertwined with the health and safety of their hostage. If the Recruit dies, so does the hostage.” She finished, walking on.

The others exchanged alarmed glances, before Willow spoke up, voice loaded with uncertainty. “Then… did you leave your hostage behind?” She didn’t think Luz had, none of them did, but the only other alternative…

“HAHA!!” Luz cackled, as if what she asked was funny. “No. No I didn’t. They begged me to leave, to save myself, to do the right thing. But I didn’t! I stayed. I killed, and stole, and ruined countless lives, for the life of someone dear to me. But, ultimately, it was for nothing. A guard, one who would’ve been a perfect fit for the Black Dogs if it weren’t for his lack of magical training, decided he wanted to have some fun. My hostage took exception to that. An hour later, their bodies were found. The guard had been strangled with his own belt… my hostage had a knife slid into her liver.” She turned her head towards the others, an almost beatific look on her face. “It’s hard to threaten someone with a hostage when they’re dead, afterall.” And then, Luz laughed, the broken, empty laugh of someone who didn’t know how to find any other way to make it stop hurting.

And so the group moved onward in silence, the Witchlings carefully ignoring the splotches of tears that followed behind them; they didn’t want to tell Luz she’d been crying ever since she started talking.

Boscha growled, hastily ducking under another clumsy swing from the disgusting pile of fat in front of her. With a roar, she leapt into the air, an axe kick launched for the fat thing’s head, a curved blade of bloody flames trailing in its wake. She yelped when he caught her kick, slamming her into the ground with a painful Crack! Cursing, she bobbed under another lunge, slamming a burning fist into his stomach, something that prompted a horrific squeal from the disgusting beast.

His smile dimmed, Fatso charged Boscha with a roar, his mouth distending into the massive chasm of flesh he used to swallow his foes. Screaming in challenge, Boscha belted out a burst of flames, gushing from her mouth; it was an honestly surreal experience to be literally breathing fire!! Fatso squealed, flailing back from the flames that avoided his colossal mouth. Boscha smirked. ‘So I just have to keep him from eating my attacks, eh?’

“Try and eat this, you fat fuck!” She shouted, unleashing a wave of flames. Even if he ate some of it, the rest would scorch him badly, something Fatso was apparently smart enough to realize. With a shocking level of agility and strength, he hurled himself into the air, beaming in childish delight. Out of the line of fire, he opened his maw, inhaling with all he had; the massive wave of flames was sucked into his gut. Boscha cursed. Why wasn’t this working!? Her flames, her damnable flames, the one thing she could reliably use, were worthless against this creep!! Whispers started creeping in, the sound of screams building in her head. She shook it off as best she could; she knew trying to fend it off was temporary, but she couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“Oooooohhh you’re a funny one! IIiiiiiiii’llll have lots of fun tenderizing you!” Fatso cheered, rushing up to Boscha, slamming his corpulent fists into her legs, a scream of agony ripping out of her throat; he had definitely snapped a bone or two. Before she could move, he gripped her by the skull, violently slamming her against the stone. “Iiiiii’mmmm gonna have so much fun with you, and when you get all nice and tender, I’ll get to eat you all up! Wooooonnnnn’ttttt that be fun!?” He kicked her in the stomach, her lunch spilling out in response. “Aaaaaawwwww, you lost all that food! Tttthhhhaaaaattt’ssss no good! Nooooowwwwww you won’t taste as yummy when you get in my tummy!” He whined, hurling her away in annoyance. He pursed his lips, placing a pudgy finger on them. “HHHhhhmmmmm maybe I’ll have better luck if I try finding that scarf girl?”

Boscha’s eyes snapped open. Shakily rising to her feet, she screamed. “YOU KEEP AWAY FROM HER!!” With a roar, she rushed him, only for him to dismissively backhand her away, not even bothering to look at her.

“YYyyyoooouuu’rrrrrreee no fun anymore.” He said without a glance, waddling off. “Aaaaaaalllllll you can do is throw that stupid fire. Nnnnoooooo fun, no fun at all eating the same stupid trick.”

“Fun?” Boscha whispered, eyes widening in incredulousness. “You think this is supposed to be FUN!?” She half-screamed. Tears started building in her eyes. “HOW IS KILLING US, ATTACKING US WHEN WE’VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU, SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!?!?!?”

“Hhhuuuuuuuhhhh? Wwwwwhhhhaaatttt kinda stupid question is that? IIiiiiiittttt’ssss fun because I’m strong, and you’re weak.” He said, as if saying that the sky was red, or that plants were purple. “Tttthhhheeee boss said that, because I’m part of Oroboros, I can do whatever I want, eat anything I want, anyone I want, because I’m strong and they can’t stop me, so whatever I do is fun, because I say it’s fun!!” He cheerfully explained. “Eeeeaaaaatttttiiinnnnnggg is so much fun, I could eat forever!!!! BBbbuuuuuuttttt when I eat people-meat, it’s even more fun, because they give the bestest screams when they go in my tummy!!” He patted his gut for emphasis.

Boscha’s blood pounded in her ears. Strong? This… fat piece of TRASH thought he was strong!? No… he didn’t know the meaning of the word. She had seen real strength. He might’ve been powerful, but he wasn’t strong. If he faced someone with real strength, he’d be crying like a bitch. Boscha pulled herself to her feet, utterly indifferent to her previous pain, nothing but burning rage flowing through her veins at the moment. Flames sparked, sputtered… and raged. Boscha wasn’t sure if she was fully conscious at the moment, but she didn’t care. This bastard had threatened one of the few things in this life she actually cared about still, and he had the balls to pretend he knew what strength was, and that he was strong?

Flames pooled at her feet. In a burst of heat, Boscha zipped to Fatso’s side, fist cocked back. With a roar filled with the rage of a wild animal, Boscha slammed her fist so hard against his gelatinous face, she would swear later that she felt his bones bend around her fist. “You think you’re strong?” She asked, the deathly calm doing nothing to hide the burning hate hidden within.

As Fatso rocketed back, eyes snapped wide open in disbelief, Boscha rushed in, flame-clad knee slamming into his gut, watching in grim amusement as he coughed up a mix of blood and miscellaneous bits, whether the blood was his own or not was up for debate. “You don’t know anything about strength.” She ducked under his clumsy swing, landing a clean blow to the throat, prompting him to choke. “Strength isn’t about lording what power you have above someone else.” She slammed across his face, knuckles landing a solid hit to his eyes. “It isn’t acting as if you’re above the same rules and laws everyone has to follow.”

He grunted, and roared, swinging both arms down towards her skull. She leaned back, letting the attack whiff by, slamming home a kick to his chin. “It’s about making a difference.” She caught his next punch, her eyes narrowing at the panic in his gaze. “It’s about looking after what’s precious to you.” She twisted his arm to the side, prompting a squeal of pain. His eyes furrowed, before he lunged forth, attempting to swallow her, only for her to catch his face with her free hand, fingers covering his eyes and digging into his temples, arresting his movement. “It’s what happens when you stop standing on the sidelines to cruelty, or acting to further cruelty yourself.” Flames started licking up her arm, prompting Fatso to start struggling.

“I don’t think you’ve ever seen real strength before.” She casually continued, ignoring his screams as the flames scorched his face. “I wonder, if I had never seen real strength, would I have turned out as something like you?” She pondered, even as Fatso begged and pleaded for her to let go. “Even so…” She murmured, glaring at Fatso, even as his skin blackened and peeled under her grip. “How can you call yourself strong… when you’re losing to someone AS WEAK AS ME!?!?!?!?” She screamed, wetness pouring down her face. She screamed and screamed and screamed, all while the skin, fat, flesh, and what little muscle remained of his body all turned to ash, tears pouring down her face all the while. When all that was left was his scorched, pitted, blackened skeleton, Boscha fell to her knees, tears falling in pools. “I’m so sorry I’m weak. Maybe if I was stronger… you wouldn’t have had to die so slowly.” And with those words, Boscha fell, her strength spent.

#the owl house #fairy tail #owl house au #fairy tail au #owl house crossover #fairy tail crossover #luz noceda #amity blight #willow park #gus porter #eda clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #boscha the owl house #magic

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gideongrace · 4 years

Note

7. "I just don't. Want to! Why is that so hard to understand?" + 40. "You might as well just walk around with a sign around your neck saying 'perpetual asshole' on it." 💜💜💜💜

Today is Steve's first day back at work since the accident and it's also Billy's day off so he's had nothing to do but sit and worry and think everything to death since Steve left this morning.

He's been texting back and forth with Steve since then, trying to keep it light, keep it easy all while also texting Max and snapping at every single thing she says. Because no amount of time nor effort nor therapy could ever truly make him not the kind of asshole who handles stress real poorly. But. At least he isn't snapping at Steve. At least there's that.

Today is Steve's first day back at work and it's… good. It's great. It's… fine. Really.

Okay, he's miserable. His feet hurt after only having been on them for three hours because after having been reduced to basically lying on his ass on the couch for months, his stamina is garbage and his arm is sore and his everything else aches seemingly just because the rest of his body parts didn't want to miss out on the party his feet and his arm are apparently having and…

It sucks.

The only thing keeping him going is texting Billy, even if Billy is pretending to be cool about everything rather than be honest and admit how stressed out he is about this. Steve expects to head to Billy's apartment at the end of the day and find that he's punched a hole into the wall. He's got 'nearest hardware stores' pulled up as a google search tab in the browser on his phone, just in case.

"Oh no, by all means, go ahead, laugh at my misery."

Steve's head snaps up as Dustin comes stomping into the kitchen followed closely by Robin and rather than pay attention to what Dustin just said, Robin is on Steve in an instant, dragging the tall, ugly stool over from the far side of the kitchen for Steve to sit on because she can tell just by looking at him, can tell just from the way he'd been leaning against the wall that he's exhausted just by standing.

He sits down in the proffered chair without complaint and Dustin continues on with his rant like he'd never been interrupted in the first place. "Like. I just don't. Want to! Why is that so hard to understand?"

Steve looks at Dustin, then at Robin, who shrugs uselessly, before looking back to Dustin. "I take it your date didn't go very well?"

Dustin huffs out a breath in the most dramatic, most Dustin way possible. "No, it did not."

Robin giggles and shoves her hand in front of her face before muttering, almost unintelligibly, "Tell him what happened."

Dustin's face crumples up so hard it begins to resemble a crushed soda can more than it does a face, but he says, "He showed me a naked picture of himself in the middle of the date as a way to, I think, proposition me for sex."

Steve feels his eyes try to separate themselves from his skull. He has no idea what to say to that so he just winds up gaping at Dustin blankly and fighting his eyeballs and their unrelenting urge to flee.

"Oh, he was totally trying to fuck you," Robin says. "He wanted him some curly haired nerd boy real bad." She giggles uproariously.

Dustin makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a squeak. "And, as I have said a million times before, I. Do. Not. Want. That."

With a grunt of his own, though its one borne of exhaustion and not defeat, Steve gets to his feet and goes to pat Dustin reaffirmingly on the shoulder. "I know, man," he says, because he does.

Before meeting Billy, his dating life had been the exact same way. A complete and unmitigated disaster.

Max gets home from class sometime after one, spends ten minutes listening to Billy groan softly to himself and throw the same ball against the wall again and again and again before finally deciding she's had enough and dragging him out to Navy Pier. It's tacky and cliche and touristy… and also the only place in the entirety of basically landlocked Illinois that even remotely reminds either of them of California. And it's not that it looks the same. Or that it feels the same. But that it's a pier with a ferris wheel and that's about as close as either of them is going to get around here.

So they go. And sometimes they go a lot considering as they both quite frequently miss California but also love Chicago and the people they've grown to know and love here.

It usually cheers one or both of them up when they're bummed out or angry or sad or whatever and today Max drags Billy, same as always, thinking it'll work its usual magic, same as always.

Only it doesn't.

They wander around the tacky little gift shops and nothing.

She buys him an ice cream and nothing.

She offers to ride on the ferris wheel with him and nothing.

The only thing that gets him to smile even a little is a bakery with some plain little cupcakes out on display that he immediately takes pictures of and then starts texting, she thinks, Steve.

And that's when she gets the idea.

Dustin sighs. "Thank you, Steven. You on the other hand"—he turns to glare at Robin—"You might as well just walk around with a sign around your neck saying 'perpetual asshole' on it."

Robin huffs, clearly unbothered by Dustin's accusation. "You know I support your right to not fuck whoever you please. I just think your reactions are funny."

Steve's phone goes off and he struggles not to check it.

"And a guy showing you naked pictures of himself in the middle of a date is hilarious," Robin says, grin nearly splitting her face in two.

Dustin scowls and Steve's phone goes off again and he loses the battle not to check it.

He has two texts from Billy. The first is a picture of some cupcakes with pastel blue icing. The second says, "Yours are better," and Steve can't help but smile.

When he looks up Dustin is still scowling only now it's being directed at him.

"What?" Steve asks, fully not getting it.

Dustin grumbles something Steve doesn't quite catch, throws his hands up in the air full drama queen style and stomps back out to the front room.

"What?" Steve says again, this time to Robin.

Robin's still smiling but the meaning behind it changes a little. Now it's less like she's having a good time and more like she's about to explain something to him. (And she just loves explaining things to him.) "He's just mad you have someone while all he can find are losers," she says.

"Oh."

Robin shrugs like, "What can you do?" and she says, "Yeah."

"I got an idea," Max says.

Billy looks up, not exactly curious, but not… not curious, either.

"Come on," she says, holding a hand out to him. He takes it, but he looks suspicious.

She doesn't tell him where they're going, just drags him to her car and makes him get in.

They arrive at the bakery and Billy sighs partly in annoyance with Max for coming up with the idea and making it some big secret, partly at himself for not getting it sooner than four blocks ago and partly in relief because annoyed as he might be at Max, he needs to be here and he's glad she's dragged him.

He walks in and the second he does, Dustin grumbles at him, "Of course you're here. Because you're perfect!" And it sounds like an insult, it has the tone of one, but Billy doesn't remotely get why or what for.

"Why—" Billy starts but Max's burst of laughter cuts him off.

Dustin makes a very loud noise and points to the kitchen. "Your boyfriend's in the back," he says, sour as anything.

Max laughs again and Billy just shrugs and heads for the back. He claps Dustin on the shoulder as he passes by and manages to keep his laughter to himself, but none of this impresses Dustin.

The kitchen is worse (read: weirder) than the front room had been because the second Billy steps through this door Robin shouts, "Billy! Yes! Please take your idiot boyfriend home!"

Steve glowers at her and slowly—much too slowly to mean anything other than he needs to be taken home right now—gets up off his ugly, little stool and comes to stand by Billy. "I'm fine," he growls.

This time Billy speaks before Robin can get to it. "Yeah... considering how long it took you to get up off your stool and walk over to me I'd say you're not."

Robin nods at him and he nods back and Steve grunts, "What? Are you two conspiring against me now?" He looks to Robin. "Did you text him and ask him to come get me?"

Billy huffs. "No. Max brought me. I was being miserable and she dragged me to the Pier and when that didn't work she dragged me here." He puts a heavy hand on Steve's good side and Steve melts under the touch almost completely.

Billy waits for Steve to say something, or for Robin to, but when neither of them does, he leans in and kisses Steve, gentle and quick.

"Let's go home, yeah? This was good enough for a first day."

Fortunately, this is all the convincing Steve seems to need and he lets Billy lead him out of the bakery and to Max's crusty, old orange Beetle.

Max is incorrigible the entire drive back. She doesn't say anything in terms of words, but the smug smirk plastered all over her face says everything.

They go to Billy's without even discussing it.

Steve's not brave enough to admit it out loud yet, but he's started thinking of this place as 'home' as much as he hopes Billy thinks it is. And maybe he does. After all, Billy did say, "Let's go home?" didn't he? Not "Let's go to my place" or "Let's go, we'll pick where later" or even just "Let's go". He said, very specifically, "Let's go home." So maybe he meant it.

Or maybe it was just a casual slip of the tongue and Steve is overthinking things.

There isn't time to talk about it, though, even if Steve had wanted to, because Billy starts directing him towards the bedroom the second Max opens the front door and Steve is asleep the second he lies down on the bed and his head hits the pillow.

#asexuality #asexual #asexual fic #asexual characters #asexual fanfiction #harringrove #harringrove fic #ace steve harrington #ace billy hargrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #gideonwrites

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alitheamateur · 5 years

Text

A Taste of Home

Summary: Amelia Calvert is a Boston-born girl returning home after the sur turn of events in her marriage. Her life is turned upside down, leaving her nearly broke, jobless for the most part, and sleeping in the childhood bedroom of her parents home. As if things weren’t shaken up enough for Millie, a familiar face discovers her return to the city, and her world turns to the happiest, most confusing whirlwind of shambles.

Characters: Chris Evans X OFC

Warnings: Slight age gap (9ish years). Language

Back home. Back to square one. Back like things never changed.

Except everything had. You were returning without a job, no abode of your own, and a nixed husband. It was all supposed to be under wraps, but whispers spread like an unrelenting rash. The bad kind of rash that you never want to have to call an ex about… Your city may be a big one, one supposed to be above and beyond all that small-town “he said, she said” nonsense. But, gossip found it’s place no matter the zip code, and you just happened to be square in the center of it.

You much preferred Boston to the sweltering air of rural Texas, but the things we do for love, huh? Your husbands’ home-base office happened to stand in the city of Austin, and at the time, you would’ve followed him to Tim-buck-too had it been necessary. “At the time” meaning before you found him on all fours, belt loose around the ankles with his paralegal. You’d had her in your home, schmoozing her with expensive wine, and an overpaid caterer because you didn’t want to poison her with your shit concoctions in the kitchen. “At the time” anyway….

Leaving your soon to be ex-husband without so much as a “see you later”, Boston called your name. And for the time being, so did your old room on the upstairs floor of your parent’s house. You chose for a few months at least to believe those clichés about “never being too old to go home.”

Your travel blog hadn’t quite caught on with the public yet, and since your divorce wouldn’t be final for countless days, money was nearly nonexistent. You were separating from a lawyer, too. Meaning a substantial monetary settlement in your favor was highly unlikely.

Thankfully, you always had a place at Calvert’s Cup, your family owned coffee shop just a mere 4 blocks from your childhood home. The familiar solace of the place was comforting, and the warm, fuzzy smell of the house blend soothes your aching, confused heart, as well. Sure, the little downward brows of pity from the nosey morning crowd who’d made it a freaking special ops mission to discover your reason for returning to Boston wore you out. But, there was no stopping them. No way, no how. So, you played on with your best smile, and did your due diligence around the little shop.

One Tuesday, with the rain pouring outside like the coffee at morning rush, and thunder rumbling against the loose panes of the front window, you ran back to the register once hearing the twinkling of the entry bell. Your line of sight never raised as you greeted the patron approaching your counter.

“Morning. What can I do for you?”

A cackling, raspy outburst and the clapping of a heavy set of hands swiped your attention.

“Hold on a fucking minute.” The yelping announcement from the very familiar male voice instantly made you want to fall into a cave never to see the light of day again.

You’d know that loud, Boston city charm anywhere. You swiped a loose lock of hair around the curve of your ear, hoping to God your face didn’t appear as heated & humiliated as it felt.

Chris, the always handsome kid that lived two doors down from you your entire childhood, in the flesh & very much grown up. Of course, you were highly aware since his face frequented any slimy gossip column on the newsstand weekly. The two of you hadn’t been extremely tight knit in the category of friends almost 15 years ago since he’d been a handful of years older. But he was a face you spent many an hour daydreaming about.

“Amelia Calvert, in the flesh. God, how long’s it been!? What are you doing here?” He smiled, shaking off the mist of rain settling on his coat.

Yeah, what are you doing here? Let’s hear it. And don’t leave out that part about moving back in with your parents. That’ll be a real smash.

“I uh... I’m back here now. For good, most likely. Some things have just.... well, changed recently.”

Before he had time to retort, his pocket chimed. Pulling the telephone culprit loose, he checked the screen and dismissed its interruption.

“Well, well. How ‘bout that? I’m sure your mom is ecstatic. I know how chipper my mom gets when I’m in town for a break.”

The valley girl in you wanted to squeal a little. He was unfathomably handsome, decked in a dark shaded baseball cap, and a shirt resembling the same. The beard was new, but inexplicably welcomed.

He was simply, well, just Chris. The choir boy who made everyone laugh, and whose house the entire school knew had the best parties. You remember him typically strumming a guitar, and starring in the lead role for every drama club production. Not a single person could ever deny his natural born taking to the stage. And all these years later, the stars, and that damn near perfect beard, had fallen perfectly into the place for him.

You could feel the metal clasp of your diamond earrings warming against the bashful heat of your blush. Here you were, tied into a stained apron, dry-shampoo caked in your fitful hair, smudges of whipped-cream splattered on the glasses you usually never wore in public, standing in front of a literal A-list celebrity. When were the stars supposed to fall into place for you? Those bastards.

“She’s loving it. She and dad both. I did miss the place…”

“What brings you back anyways? Florida, was it?” He questioned cocking a thick eyebrow, endearing little wrinkles appearing above his left eye.

“Texas, actually. Yeah, it was Texas. I guess it was uh, it was just time to hang up my cowboy hat.”

It drew a belly laugh out of him, and he flapped a hand over his stony peck as if to choke back his uproarious reaction. You needed to feel a laugh like that. But instead, as of late, you were only the butt of such laughter.

His incessant mobile buzzed out again, this time in the palm of his hand.

“Hey, a large house blend, please. 2 sugars would be great.” He politely whispered, muffling the speaker of his phone.

Chris moseyed in circles a few feet from the counter, far enough to make your eavesdropping much more challenging as you appeared to innocently make his order to go. He still talked with his hands, boisterously tossing his head about. That had to be the theater upbringing in him. He may live up to his lax, ‘go with the flow’ reputation, but he definitely had a thing for the dramatic, as well.

You sealed the lid tightly on his biodegradable cup, marking his name across the side with your sharpie, and without thinking, dotted the letter “I” in his name with a tiny little heart. Your psyche was clawing it’s way through to the light one way or another.

“God, sorry about that. Agent bullshit, and all that jazz.” He nodded, rolling his extremely bright eyes.

“Living the dream, right? I can only imagine.” An airy giggle escaped you.

His fingers tapped on the counter, the other hand accepting the steamy java you had whipped up. He chewed his lower lip, gnawing back the tiniest traces of a smile, but the crinkles around his nose gave up his jig.

“It’s damn good to see you, Millie.” It was a simple sentiment. Meaningless, really. But, you could feel behind the bold, warm cadence of his voice that he’d meant exactly what he said. It wasn’t one of those things you say to an old acquaintance because you feel like you have to. Chris seemed…genuinely pleased at your unexpected presence. Which caused those same certain warm cadences in your…. areas. Your heart could’ve exploded into a million beating pieces as your nickname fell from his mouth.

Why the hell did he care though? What did your miniscule return to the city matter? There’d been no contact since his golden ticket was stamped, and truly before now, you weren’t sure he would even recognize your plain face in a crowd.

“Well, I’m happy to know that little ol’ me could brighten your day. And that I’m sure that glorious cup of dark roast had nothing to do with it.”

You were rocking fretfully back and forth behind the counter. Your hands fiddled with the loose watch band fastened around your bony wrists. You were fidgeting undoubtably. You were a fidgeter. The soft auburn whiskers sprouted around his sharp jaws made you fidget.

What those jaws would feel like flexing between your thighs…..

“You’re right. I do love the dark roast. Your dad always leaves a bag with my mom around the holidays for me. This cup seems to taste a little better though, I’m not gonna lie.”

Okay. Was he flirting? That was definitely flirting. You were getting a divorce, not dying. But, he didn’t know that. The wretched “D” word news surely hadn’t spread that far, had it?

You let yourself smile, timidly accepting the compliment with apprehension. This guy could have the ass of half of America on a platter had he been that sort of person. Nothing about the saggy, tired circles under your eyes, and your hair tied into a blonde crows-nest at the crown of your head screamed sex appeal in the slightest.

Chris leaned over the counter, fat beads of rain residue still hanging from his coat dolloped on the counter, one catching your finger. You froze in an instant. Your mind already warring whether to suck his slightly chapped lips into your mouth, or faint from the heavenly poison of his scent climbing into your nostrils.

“But don’t tell your dad. Wouldn’t want to ruin my source of supply.” He whispered deep into your ear like he was spilling some undisclosed secret of the CIA. The mans mouth grazed the shell of your ear, goosebumps climbing up your tensed neck.

“Mhmm…” you choked on your tongue trying to clear your throat. “Your uh, your secrets safe with me.”

“Cross your heart?” With one thick brush of a finger, Chris marked an ‘x’ over the now heaving rise of your chest, politely minding not to drag over your breast. The pert of your begging nipple may have made things a bit awkward.

“I’m a fortress.” You gulped, trying to swallow down the unrelenting urge to capture his lips.

He took a long pull of the coffee, never releasing you from his cuffed stares. You didn’t want to look away from his swimming, batting eyes, but something about the way his neck strained with his swallow called for your attention.

“Come to my place, Mills. Tomorrow night, if you don’t have plans?”

Well, your mom would certainly be distraught that you’d miss movie night, but you could probably squeeze in some time for the guy. But, alone? At his place? No one around to hold you accountable for the screaming, near melted center of your body that suddenly ached for him?

Lacking all power of will, you nodded a probably overzealous acceptance, making his mouth open into a pearly-white smile. A movie star smile. Literally.

“I’ll text you the address then! Have a good one. Glad I ran into you, Amelia.” It was as if the light of the room followed him out the door when it closed behind him, and you were left standing in a blissful fog to make some sense of the events of the last 5 minutes.

And what the hell did you have to wear to Captain America’s house?

*A/N: PLEASE let me know if you’d like to be added, or removed from the taglist*

tags: @miidailyinspiration @mollybegger-blog @littleluna98

#Chris Evans #chrisevans #chris evans x ofc #chris evans fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic

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jesus-otaku · 6 years

Text

Title: 1000 Kisses (Part 6)

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Pairing: Ladynoir (aged up about 5 years or so)

Word count: 1978

Prompt used: 45 (to keep a cover [couple unestablished] kiss), requested by @thesoulsdepths and an anon

Prompts already used: 1, 11, 24, 28, 29

You can request a prompt for the next part here. (JUST send the number! If you send a ship I will assume you want a separate fic!)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

I forgot when I last asked for prompts to specify that 45 was kind of hard to apply to this fic, but I tried my best. Since Ladynoir has already been established in this fic, I decided a flashback was the best way to go. So enjoy some Ladynoir during two separate time frames.

“I hope she deleted that video.”

________________________

“Oh my God, that akuma was the worst.”

Chat laughed uproariously. “You're just saying that because he threw you in the Seine.”

“I smelled like river water for a week! A whole week! Do you have any idea how many excuses I had to come up with to explain why I smelled so bad?”

“You're exaggerating. We had patrol the night after and you smelled fine.”

Ladybug shoved him playfully. “You always think I smell fine.”

“I don't know, you did smell kind of funky after getting tossed in the Seine.” He laughed again as she swatted at him. “You're the one who said you smelled like river water after. Don't come after me for agreeing with you.”

She rolled her eyes at him and swung her feet back and forth over the edge of the roof. It was “date” number two, and they had been swapping memories of akumas and battles past for the last ten minutes or so. She hadn't realized until now just how many akumas they had faced. Five years of this superhero thing had racked up quite the villain count. Just in the last ten minutes, they had recalled at least twenty. “Do you remember Copycat?”

He groaned. “Do I remember being a wanted criminal for a day? Unfortunately, yes. That akuma was really the worst.”

She giggled at the put-out expression on his face, and nudged him with her shoulder. “Hey, at least I knew it wasn't you who did it, right?”

“You sure had a lot of trouble telling me apart from that lousy fake, though,” he teased, rubbing his nose against hers.

She gave him a quick kiss. “It's like I told you back then, isn't it? Once I figured out which one was really in love with me, it was easy to tell you two apart.”

“You know, it crushed me when you said that the first time,” he remarked.

Ladybug blinked in confusion, pulling back a little so she could meet his gaze. “Why?”

He looked equally confused, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Because you didn't think I was really in love with you.”

She stifled a laugh, hiding her face in her hand. “Silly kitty. That wasn't what I meant when I said that at all.”

“Wait, so you—”

“I meant you were the one who was really in love with me,” she confirmed with a grin. “Copycat, he was…obsessed, kind of. I mean, his statue is nice, don't get me wrong, but his whole thing about being the one who deserved me? Creepy.”

Chat flopped back to lie down on the roof, his arms spread-eagled. “I wish I'd known that's what you meant. I was convinced you thought I didn't love you.”

She tucked her knees up to her chest. “I think I always kind of knew you did,” she confessed. “I…never really wanted to admit that I knew, or even really think about it, because, I mean…we were just partners then, and I thought I liked someone else.”

“Oh?” He sat up, just a little. “Who?”

Even though she was very sure that her crush on Adrien was a thing of the past, she felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “A classmate.” She plowed on before Chat could ask for a name. She didn't want to confess to having had a crush on a model whose face was still to this day plastered on magazines across France. “Anyway, so I didn't really let myself think about the fact that you were in love with me for a long time. And then I graduated, and my old crush and I sort of fell out of touch, and…I realized that maybe it had just been a crush, and not real love like I'd thought it was. So I really thought about what I wanted in a guy, and…” She shrugged helplessly. “What can I say? You ruined my standards for men, kitten. And I kind of let myself notice then that you were in love with me, and, well, the rest, as they say, is history.”

He smiled. “So that's when you started flirting back.”

She nodded, her lips tugging up into their own smile. “That's when I started flirting back.”

Chat shifted to wrap his arms around her waist. “Lucky me,” he said. He paused, then added, “But I still didn't like Copycat.”

Ladybug laughed. “I'm sure you didn't.”

He slid closer, propping his chin on her shoulder. “This isn't an akuma, but do you remember that time the Ladyblog girl's younger sister was convinced we were dating and she begged us to get a kiss on tape to humor her?”

“Oh, God, I remember that. I hope she deleted that video.”

“Aw, come on, it's a classic now. I hope she saved it just so that if we ever have kids I could show it to them.”

“I whacked your teeth!”

“Well, you were kind of in a rush to get it over with,” he remarked teasingly. “Since you hated the idea of kissing me so very much back then.”

She covered her face with her hands slowly. “Alya still owes me for agreeing to do that.” The memory was excruciatingly painful to look back on, in the way that most people would have been embarrassed to be reminded of what they had said right after getting their wisdom teeth removed. It was much better off being remembered only in her head, and not preserved on camera for all posterity.

2 years ago…

“Pleeeeaaaaase?” Alya clasped her hands together and made the biggest puppy eyes she could possibly manage. “I swear it won't go on the Ladyblog. But my sister's being impossible and she knows I know you and she really wants this video. Oh—I can make it a photo instead! If that would be better. Then you only have to kiss for a second. Please please please please please!” She was practically kowtowing at this point.

“You don't have to convince me,” Chat Noir said. “Anything for a fan. But…” He glanced Ladybug's way, and she saw the silent uncertainty in his eyes. He had to be remembering all of his failed advances over the past three years.

She took the lead. “That's a lot to ask of us, Alya.” Chat looked glad for the interception. “I understand your sister must…really want us to get together, but we can't go along with this and deceive her. It wouldn't be right.”

“I've tried convincing her you're not an item,” Alya said apologetically. “I've done everything I can. She just won't listen. I give you my word this will never, ever go on the Ladyblog. Please, just this once? She's a kid and you two are like…you're like royalty or something to her. Can't you please give her the fairy tale kiss she wants to see?”

Ladybug sighed. Alya was lucky that they were friends, and that Marinette could never say no to a friend. “Okay, fine, but I think you owe us a favor for this.”

Alya whipped her phone out in the time it would have taken most people to blink. “Anything for my favorite superheroes! You two ready?”

Ladybug and Chat glanced at each other, the atmosphere between them shifting from its usual comfort into unbearably heavy awkwardness. “Not quite,” Ladybug admitted. She had to struggle to meet Chat's eyes. “So, um, how do we do this? Should I be closer, or should we be standing, or…”

“It's just a video for her little sister,” Chat pointed out, shrugging it off. “I think we can get away with sitting. Here, um…scoot closer, and I'll…put my arms around your…your waist…”

She scooted closer as instructed, suddenly feeling very aware of their proximity and every little move either of them made. “Like this?”

“Y-yeah.” Chat's hands came up to wrap around her waist, barely a ghost of a touch. He was turning pale, like he was too nervous even to blush. “Like that.”

Alya was on the edge of her seat, her knees bouncing up and down with anticipation. Ladybug got the feeling that Alya was as invested in this video as her little sister was. “That's perfect! Oh, and Ladybug, maybe put your hands on his shoulders, like they do in the movies.”

Feeling like she'd been turned into some kind of pose mannequin, Ladybug did as she was told. Her and Chat's faces were only inches apart now. She probably could have counted the strands of hair falling across his forehead if she had wanted to, but she reminded herself firmly that that was definitely something she didn't want to do. “Can we get this over with now?” she asked Alya, not taking her eyes off poor Chat, who was still incredibly pale.

“Okay! Three, two, one, and…action!”

She must have been more nervous about kissing Chat on camera than she'd realized. She leaned in at the same time that Chat did, far too quickly, resulting in a painful clash of lips and teeth and almost foreheads and noses too. They both pulled back a little with quiet “ow”s, reeling, but Alya was still filming and so Chat leaned back in, slower this time, to try again.

God, kissing someone you weren't interested in was a chore. She tried to pretend, in her mind, that it was Adrien kissing her, Adrien holding her waist, Adrien's lips on hers, but it didn't help much. Her brain still knew that it was Chat, not Adrien, that she was kissing, and the “fairy tale” magic that was supposed to happen during a kiss was definitely absent. It wasn't that he was a bad kisser. On the contrary, he was really a very good kisser. But he wasn't Adrien, and that was making all the difference. She forced herself to pretend she was enjoying this, for the sake of Alya's sister, but she was counting down the seconds until this was all over the whole time.

“And cut!” Ladybug and Chat pulled apart immediately as Alya hit the button on her phone to stop recording. “Thanks so much guys, I really owe you one. It was a little awkward, but that's my fault for making you do it even though you're not together. You guys are the best. Let me know if there's ever anything, and I mean anything, I can do for you.”

As Marinette went home that night after the interview, she decided to wipe the kiss from her memory as much as possible. It had been forced, and awkward, and nothing she would have wanted a real kiss to be. And she promised herself she would never, ever kiss Chat Noir again.

She had no idea how much her opinion of Chat Noir would change in the near future.

The present day…

“Y' know, we could always redo that kiss for the Ladyblog,” Chat pointed out, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Now that we would actually mean it. The public's been dying to see us become a couple for ages.”

“I am not kissing you on camera. Me and publicity don't go well together at all.” She flicked his bell. “And if we did that, we'd never get any peace. The press would be even worse than it is now.”

He sighed, not unaffectionately. “You're right. As always. And I like our time together like this too much to sacrifice it for the press.”

Ladybug smiled up at him. “What happened to 'anything for our fans'?”

He shrugged, and shot her an impish grin in reply. “I swapped that out for 'anything for my lady' once we started going out.”

“A reasonable change.” She set her hands on his shoulders. “We could recreate that kiss right now, if you wanted.”

Chat wrapped his arms tight around her waist. “That sounds like a purr-fect idea to me.”

#miraculous ladybug #ladynoir #otp #drabble #miraculous fanfic #1000 kisses

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itsfinancethings · 5 years

Link

October 25, 2019 at 10:25PM

Many people say that hip-hop was birthed by DJ Kool Herc on a 1973 summer evening in the Bronx. Others point to the release of the 1979 Sugarhill Gang song “Rapper’s Delight” as the moment when the genre was catapulted into the national consciousness.

But several years before either of those moments, Rudy Ray Moore was rhyming over a beat. On his 1970 album Eat Out More Often, the comedian, propelled by a backing band, spit profane and slang-laced poems about America’s mystical underbelly of prostitutes, hustlers and thieves — including one character named Dolemite, a slick-talking, karate-chopping pimp who exposed corrupt officials and defeated seedy rivals.

This quasi-musical performance of Moore’s recording is dramatized in Dolemite Is My Name, a new film that arrived on Netflix on Friday and stars Eddie Murphy as Moore, who died in 2008. The film traces Moore’s reinvention from struggling comedian and record shop employee to movie star in his own film, Dolemite, which would become a beloved cult favorite in 1975.

But while the movie faithfully depicts Moore’s rise, it ends before it can explore the primary way he remains influential in modern culture: through hip-hop. At every step of hip-hop’s four-decade history, artists have imitated not only Moore’s rhyming style, but nearly every facet of his act. “All these things that hip-hop became — the image, the swag, the independence, the sh-t-talking — he was it before it was called hip-hop,” the West Coast hip-hop pioneer Too $hort tells TIME.

While Moore’s act would be considered decidedly misogynistic today, he put forth an alluring alternative model of success for black men, and his do-it-yourself spirit paved the way for generations of musicians and entrepreneurs. Below, several prominent hip-hop artists from across the decades — Too $hort, Big Daddy Kane, Del the Funky Homosapien and Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell — talk about Moore’s impact on their own art.

“He was the first really to be rapping”

Moore’s rapping on Eat Out More Often was a far cry from what hip-hop would become: his words weren’t rhythmically aligned to the music, and the beats were jazzy as opposed to funk-based. But his unique, bombastic delivery on that record — filled with black vernacular, growling catchphrases, and eye-popping profanity — set many precedents. His theme song to Dolemite’s 1976 sequel, The Human Tornado, got even closer to rap before it was rap: over a funky breakbeat, Moore crooned a few lines before spitting a rapid-fire, multi-syllabic bar: “I don’t want no dilapidated seep-sapping pigeon-toed, cross-eyed, bow-legged son-of-a-gun messing with me,” he snarls.

When Del the Funky Homosapien was a teenager starting his rap career in the early ’90s in Oakland, he was introduced to Dolemite at a friend’s recording studio and was bowled over by Moore’s verbal prowess. “I was like, ‘This is wild,’” he told TIME. Intrigued, Del went back through Moore’s discography and realized it contained the blueprint for rap. “I would be studying his monologues — how to really rap,” he says. “He was the first really to be rapping damn near like that… Having people captivated just by how you’re talking. I wanted to see how he was doing it.”

Del would go on to achieve critical acclaim throughout the ’90s for his tongue-twisting and off-kilter bravado. Meanwhile, another rapper had ascended out of the same city wielding a profane boisterousness: Too $hort. Of all the rapper’s colorful obscenities, he became known for a particular curse word — ”b-tch” — that he delivered in a way not dissimilar to Rudy Ray Moore. Too $hort says this is no accident, given that he saw The Human Tornado “probably a hundred times.”

“There’s no way on earth I could ever fix my mouth to say I’m not influenced by him,” he says. “Part of the makeover of Too $hort comes from listening to Rudy Ray Moore’s rhythmic cadence, his attitude, the way he curses.”

Moore’s influence on rapping was not just stylistic but structural. On his records, he weaved long-winded and uproarious narratives about society’s underworld, full of sexcapades and brawls. Curtis Sherrod, the executive director of the Hip Hop Culture Center in Harlem, says that Moore provided a direct link between griots — West African historians and storytellers — and more recent hip-hop narratives. “He didn’t know he was a griot, but it was in his DNA,” Sherrod says. “He was able to tell stories and captivate audiences who were experiencing oppression and needed to have an hour window into this fable mystery fantastic life he gave you.”

In the years to come, comedic storytelling that often involved sex and violence, from Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di” to Biz Markie’s “The Vapors” to Snoop Dogg’s “Murder Was the Case,” would become an integral part of hip-hop’s DNA.

“We don’t have to ask for it”

When Kanye West rapped “we never had nothing handed, took nothing for granted” on the opening song to his debut record The College Dropout, he could have been talking about Rudy Ray Moore. Dolemite Is My Name depicts Moore’s struggle to be taken seriously when trying to break into the film industry: he was repeatedly told by executives that his lewd and black-oriented sensibilities were unsuitable for mass consumption. But Moore wouldn’t take no for an answer: he spearheaded Dolemite by fronting the money himself, creating his own distribution networks and learning how to make a movie on the job.

His dogged self-belief and independence would become a model for future rappers to create their own lanes as opposed to ceding creative control. Early in Too $hort’s career, for example, he sold cassette tapes out of the trunk of his car, formed his own label and forged an alter ego built on unshakeable confidence. He would eventually become a leader of the West Coast sound and a massive seller in the 1990s and 2000s. “He passed on that entrepreneurial spirit where we don’t have to ask for it, we just do it ourselves,” Too $hort says of Moore. “In my early days, he was definitely as influential as any rapper.”

Around the same time, the Miami DJ Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell was hoping to ascend in a city that had little hip-hop legacy. Rather than sign to a label, Campbell was inspired by Moore to go it himself and start Luke Records, one of the very first hip-hop labels in the South. “You watched a Rudy Ray Moore movie and saw he produced it, directed it, marketed his music and did everything else,” Campbell tells TIME. “He always inspired me to say, “Okay, if Rudy Ray Moore can do it, I can do it.”

As the leader of 2 Live Crew, Campbell furthered Moore’s legacy through his unhinged bawdiness. 2 Live Crew’s records contained graphic depictions of sex — and many samples of Moore’s voice —and found a massive audience for a level of obscenity that record labels would have thought unthinkable. 2 Live Crew also proved startlingly important to the future of hip-hop through their involvement in two legal cases related to free speech. In 1990, Luke and other group members were arrested for obscenity charges, but they were eventually acquitted and the charges were overturned on the grounds of free speech. The same year, the group was sued for its interpolation of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” with the case going all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1994, the court ruled in favor of 2 Live Crew and set the standard for protecting works of parody.

“If it weren’t for Rudy Ray Moore, we would have never done those songs,” Campbell says. “He has just as much credit for our career and our success as us doing the music.”

“The Pimp Persona”

While Moore played many characters, none had an impact as monumental as Dolemite. From The Mack to Superfly to Willie Dynamite, Dolemite arrived amidst a ’70s renaissance of fictional black pimps who would set a template for countless hip-hop stars. “I loved the pimp persona,” Too $hort says. “He would kick your ass, and he was about the money. Then he would stop on the street and start rapping to the homies. It’s like, this guy is the ultimate guy.”

In an era directly following the Watts riots, the Vietnam War and widespread urban rot, the pimp became a mythological figure; a larger-than-life, self-made renegade trying to claim autonomy in an unjust world. “If the leader of this country is stealing and getting away clean, what the hell are we supposed to do?” one character says in Dolemite, referring to Richard Nixon. Embracing pimp narratives wasn’t just about escapism, but a rebellion against traditional modes of American success.

So many rappers — from Snoop Dogg to Ice-T to Big Boi — adopted the persona, wearing colorful, flashy clothing and wide-brimmed hats. Their demeanor dripped with laidback aplomb. “I studied The Mack and Rudy Ray Moore / They were my idols when I was a kid,” Big Boi rapped on Outkast’s 1994 debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. There was Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’,” 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P”, and even this year, Megan Thee Stallion’s “Pimpin’,” which flips gender dynamics on their head in its celebration of sex and power.

And Dolemite, the archetype for many of these boasts, would be name-dropped over and over throughout the years by countless stars, both an inside joke and an homage. Snoop Dogg, the Wu-Tang Clan, Eazy-E, the Beastie Boys, Lupe Fiasco and A$AP Rocky have all slipped his name in verses, while Moore’s crackling voice has been sampled by Big Sean, Dr. Dre and A Tribe Called Quest.

Several rappers even went one step further and brought Moore into the studio with them, using him as a torchbearer and literalizing the lineage between them. On the intro to Busta Rhymes’ 2001 album Genesis, Moore implores Busta to “continue to give it to ‘em raw.” On Method Man’s Tical, Moore asserts he “taught the boy everything he know.” Moore also appears as Dolemite in Eric B and Rakim’s 1990 music video for “In the Ghetto.”

That same year, Big Daddy Kane — one of the biggest rappers at the time — staged a rap battle between him and a 63-year-old Moore on record. On “Big Daddy vs. Dolemite,” the two engaged in a vulgar game of one-upmanship before Kane conceded defeat. “He was doing the body shaking and everything,” Kane remembers about that day. “He went straight into character.”

Kane has a long history of engaging with Moore’s work: after watching The Human Tornado on repeat on his tour bus, he sampled a beat for his 1989 song “Children R The Future” by hooking up the VHS tape straight into his recording equipment. And one of Moore’s quips, “Put your weight on it!,” became the basis of Kane’s 1990 song with the same name. “He was that raw comedian that stayed raw,” Kane said. “He was someone I respected and looked at as an icon.”

Kane stayed in touch with Moore through the last decade of his life and says that despite all of the respect Moore received from the hip-hop community, he “died bitter.” “He died feeling like, ‘Y’all gives props to Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Redd Foxx, and they all used to come see me,’” Kane explains.

“To have someone make a movie about him — especially a comedic genius like Eddie Murphy — I know he would be real happy.”

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newstechreviews · 5 years

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“He was the first really to be rapping”

“We don’t have to ask for it”

“If it weren’t for Rudy Ray Moore, we would have never done those songs,” Campbell says. “He has just as much credit for our career and our success as us doing the music.”

“The Pimp Persona”

“To have someone make a movie about him — especially a comedic genius like Eddie Murphy — I know he would be real happy.”

#Blogger

0 notes