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machinegunbun · 3 years

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🤘-

What about reader is the manager/assistant and fucks up some bug career opportunity for them?

Mistakes can allways happen but that was something really big

Maybe even gets fired for it?

Fucked It +

TW?: Mostly angst but theres some very slight smut with readers S/O

A/N: Not to age the writing but Im writing this as colson tweets that he’s gonna play at the halftime show in the next few years. S/O= Significant Other. I wanted to keep it kinda gender neutral cause bi people exist i dunno.

Word count:1.8k A little longer than a blurb, but just as dialogue-y

This year had been stressful, to say the least. There was the release of tickets to my downfall, and along with that the cover scandal, the bloody valentine music video, downfalls high, the snl episode. It was like every second of your day was filled with something, you rarely got the chance to spend time with your S/O.

That’s right, you had an S/O. Being Colson’s manager wasn’t your entire existence, although you’d seemed to have forgotten that recently. Their name is Devin, and they are not very happy with you.

They’d broken down in tears your first full night home, telling you how under appreciated they had felt while you were away. Devin had a life of their own too, though, and considering the pandemic at hand had chosen to go stay with their family to avoid the covid hot spot that was LA. You understood, and as much as you hated to admit it you barely even realized they were gone. You didn’t know what that meant, but you knew whatever it meant wasn’t anything good for your relationship, but, you loved them and you wanted to recreate that spark.

You wanted to put work into them, and you, and most importantly your relationship. You’d gotten through the emotions, but as for the spark there was only so much you could do thousands of miles away. So, you decided to put in the work and devise a plan. Your plan started about an hour and a half ago, beginning with a shower and ending with your favorite lipstick.

You love Devin and you want nothing more than to wrap them up in a soft blanket and kiss them on the forehead and take them on picnics, but you also wanted them to look at you and touch themselves. You could do one of those things in your current situation, and you felt both would help to replenish your spark.

You looked good too, dressed in your lingerie with your hair all done. You felt so unbelievably sexy just looking at yourself in the mirror, you wished they were here to witness it.

You stood in the doorway of your bedroom, your LED lights set to red, your phone set to start recording in

3…

2…

1…

You tried your best to pose sexily in the small frame, arching your back and playing with your hair, slowly slinking down the wall. You were sure when you sent this Devin would be calling you within seconds. You checked the video, editing it to the length you liked and saving it to your camera roll.

Butterflies began fluttering in your stomach as you looked at your message app. You had seen Devin in so long, what if the spark had really gone? What if they didn’t want you anymore? Or what if they just didn’t want you right now, what if this wasn’t the right thing to do?

You took a deep breath, looking yourself in the mirror and quickly clicking through your messages, sending it before you could think too much and clicking your phone off. You moved from the bathroom, moving to your bed, staring at your phone and waiting patiently for a response.

After thirty minutes you gave up, too nervous to check if they’d seen it. You were cool.

Well, you were cool now that you had cried and and picked yourself apart piece by piece, ending up on the couch in a heap of blankets eating a family bag of your favorite chips to yourself. Family guy played on the TV, the episode only really meant to drain out the noise of your thoughts, and momentarily the bling of your phone. You would’ve missed it entirely if it weren’t for the flickering of your flashlight that you’d enabled to make sure you didn’t.

You rushed from your comfy blanket fort, spilling your chips on the way, your hand wrapping tightly around your phone. You turned it around, seeing that the notification that had popped up was only from Dylan, the guy that got Colson a place at the halftime show.

Work, great, the thing that started this all. Was this the universe telling you it was over? You read on.

It simply said “Call me.”

Your eyebrow raised, considering waiting until tomorrow. You opened your messages, seeing that you had accidentally sent him the video of you in your lingerie. Fuck, thats why Devin hadn’t responded.

You opened his contact, calling him quickly, each ring feeling like needles being inserted into your brain.

“So I hope you understand why we wouldn’t want to be associated with that unprofessionalism.” He said, you’d zoned out through his lecture

“I understand, I do, but I hope you’d be willing to reconsider as this was a mistake on my part and not Colson’s. And seeing as this isn’t public I hope we can just brush this all under the rug and forget it ever-”

“I hear you, but I don’t think that will be possible. Mistake or not it was unprofessional on so many different levels

“But, sir-” You tried, your fingers thumbing over the buttons of the remote to mute the tv.

“It’s over, I’m afraid.” He responded, a beeping noise signalling the call had ended

Oh, nicer, you thought sarcastically, it wasn’t the universe after all, it was the manager.

Tossing your phone on the couch beside you, you retreated to your blanket fort, unmuting the TV.

Colson and the boys had been looking forward to performing at the halftime show since you’d met them. They’d been so excited when you told them you’d got them a spot. Although it was the last thing you wanted to do right now, you knew you had to break the news to Colson.

You stared at your phone, willing yourself to reach over and call him, eventually drifting off into an unsatisfying sleep.

“Oh good, you’re here! Okay, so I was thinking for the halftime show-” Colson began, but you cut him off before he could continue

“Oh, yeah, about that.” You say, rubbing your head in hopes it would soothe the dull ache that had begun to rear its ugly head. You opened your eyes in time to watch the excitement drop from Colson’s face.

“I…” You began, not sure how to start “I fucked it.” You began to laugh, taking a moment to acknowledge how ridiculous the situation had really been.

“What do you mean?” He asks, knitting his eyebrows together in confusion.

“Devin and I are going through a bit of a rough patch with them being away and all, so I decided to try and,” You made a vague shimmy movement with your shoulders “spark things up a bit. You know the silhouette challenge on tik tok? I did that, but I got nervous when I sent the video and I was on the couch for like hours crying too scared to see if they even looked at it, next thing I know I’m getting texted by Dylan asking me to call him.” You paused, partly for dramatic effect and partly to let yourself laugh. You buried your face in your hands, Colson watching in amusement, eager for the end of your clearly hilarious story.

“I accidentally sent him my nudes. It was so fucking embarassing, oh my god!” You finish, looking up from your hands to realize no one else seemed amused.

“What’s that got to do with the halftime show?” Rook questioned.

“Oh, right.” You’d completely lost track in the midst of your rambling “He said it was completely unprofessional and he wasn’t interested in working with us.”

Colson remained silent for a moment, looking over to the other boys before responding “He isn’t interested in working with you.” Your eyebrows furrowed at this, looking between the boys..

“What’s that mean?”

“This is the gig of our lifetime. I’ve- We’ve wanted to play the halftime show since… forever. This was our one chance and because of you we got booted out. And you were laughing about it.”

“I’m sorry, it was a genuine accident, I thought you’d find it funny. Some corporate guy saw my tits ‘cause my relationship is failing, if I don’t laugh I cry.”

“You’re the one who sent him the nudes. This is your fuck up.”

“Yeah, okay. But I work for you, so by association he won’t work with us.”

“Then you aren’t a part of ‘us’ anymore.”

“Colson, seriously? It was a fucking accident. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Watch your tone, I think you’re forgetting you work for me. I’m a nice guy, but this isn’t my shit to deal with.”

“I’m sorry.” You repeated, your voice lowering. It was easy to forget Colson was your boss, he never treated you like an employee. There was more respect between the two of you than any boss/employee relationship you’d ever seen before. You’d never even seen him mad before today. You were genuinely lucky to have had this experience, to think that it was about to come to an end broke your heart.

“Is sorry going to get us this gig back?” The question was rhetorical, but you shook your head “Then I’m sorry, I can’t let this pass me up because of something you did.” Colson says, staring you down. You stood like a statue in your place, unsure whether or not you should leave. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife.

You took it upon yourself to make the decision to turn and leave, driving to the nearest gas station, where you sat in your car, crying in the parking lot.

Everything was fine and in the matter of a week it had all gone to shit. How did this happen?

You were in a happy relationship, and now they were living with their parents for who knows why and telling you they felt neglected. Your career was going amazing and you’d ruined it completely with one mistext.

You started your car back up, settling on the hope that maybe Colson and Dylan would come to their senses, and come Monday morning you would still have a job.

#mgk #mgk angst #mgk fanfic #mgk x reader #machinegunkelly #machinegunkelly angst #machinegunkelly fanfic #machinegunkelly x reader #Colson baker #colson baker fanfic #colson baker x reader #colson baker angst

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 3 years

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And into the cavalry battle we go! Can’t believe this is gonna take three whole chapters to get through… sports festival feels way too long already, man, and I’m only a handful of chapters into it...

[No. 28 - Strats, Strats, Strats]

We start off with Shouto speaking to his team, explaining that he chose them in order to make the most stable formation. Kaminari will guard the left and keep people away with his electricity. Yaomomo takes the right, makes the insulator, and shields and supplements their movements. Tenya takes the lead, since his mobility and physical stature make for good defense.

One of them (I think Tenya?) asks if Shouto will hold people off with his ice and fire. Shouto doesn’t reply right away, instead looking over to the stands - more specifically, towards where Endeavor is watching from. He tells them no, in battle, he refuses to use his left side.

Huh, they do have the same eyes here. Wind dude kind of has a point.

As the teams stand along the outside of the perimeter of the battle arena, Present Mic does a final, rhetorical check to make sure the teams are formed and are ready to go, then announces the start of the countdown to the battle royale. We jump around a bit as the countdown is given: Monoma tells Tetsu^4 no hard feelings, which Tetsu returns. Toshinori watches on from the stands.

We see team Bakugou and team Todoroki in formation and ready to go, both of them focused on a single target. Izuku himself has gotten over most of his nerves and now is focused on the moment. All of them have their point totals given and also broken down by members of the team, in case you weren’t able to do the math yourself from the previous chapters.

Since Hori is giving the team point breakdowns for our three main teams anyways, this is where I want to insert the team and point totals for all the teams, from most to least points on the headbands:

Team Midoriya [10,000,325 P]: Midoriya [10M] + Uraraka [135] + Tokoyami [180] + Hatsume [10]

Team Tetsutetsu [705 P]: Tetsutetsu [165] + Honenuki [190] + Awase [155] + Shiozaki [195]

Team Bakugou [665 P]: Bakugou [200] + Kirishima [170] + Ashido [120] + Sero [175]

Team Todoroki [615 P]: Todoroki [205] + Iida [185] + Yaoyorozu [130] + Kaminari [95]

Team Mineta [420 P]: Mineta [125] + Shouji [145] + Asui [150]

Team Hagakure [330 P]: Hagakure [25] + Jirou [110] + Satou [140] + Kouda [115]

Team Monoma [305 P]: Monoma [35] + Tsuburaba [100] + Kuroiro [65] + Kaibara [105]

Team Shinsou [295 P]: Shinsou [80] + Ojiro [160] + Shouda [50] + Aoyama [5]

Team Kendo [225 P]: Kendo [75] + Tokage [20] + Komori [45] + Yanagi [85]

Team Kodai [165 P]: Kodai [60] + Bondo [90] + Fukidashi [15]

Team Rin [125 P]: Rin [55] + Shishida [70]

Team Tsunotori [70 P]: Tsunotori [30] + Kamakiri [40]

Have fun keeping track of points in the canon event, or mix stuff up for your own teams if you wanna do alt teams or whatever. Anywho, moving on, as Mic announces the start of the match.

And of course, it’s no surprise that several of the teams immediately rush Izuku’s team, even though I feel like it makes way more sense for them to hang back and wait until there’s only a few minutes left in order to actually take the points. But I suppose competitiveness and all that. More specifically, it’s team Tetsu^4 and team Hagakure after team Midoriya first.

Tetsu is the first to acknowledge (loudly) that the whole match is really a fight for the ten million, and everyone knows it. Hagakure herself is just eager to be going after Izuku, which is inch resting. Competitive, she do be.

Tokoyami notes the two teams incoming and ready to attack, and checks with Izuku (in his own way) what their response will be. While the girls are a bit in wonder at Tokoyami’s choice of words, Izuku says that of course they’ll be running away. Honenuki, no doubt hearing this, attempts to prevent them from moving by causing the ground under them to soften into a gloop that they start to sink into.

Oh no, quicksand! Too bad it’s not movie quicksand. Izuku quickly realizes whose quirk it is (I think) and tells Ochako and Mei to turn away for a second. Then, once they do, he turns on the jetpack, and they all go flying up and out of the pit trap and over the heads of the teams going after them. Tetsu realizes that the support girl must have provided the tools for flying, still focused on going after them. Hagakure calls for Jirou to try and stop them, with Jirou sending out her earjacks to try and keep them from getting away - only for Dark Shadow to smack away the jacks, allowing team Midoriya to make a clean escape.

Tokoyami tells Dark Shadow well done, and to cover the teams’ blind spots. Dark Shadow accepts the task with great enthusiasm, twisting around to watch behind all of them. Izuku takes a moment to gush over Tokoyami’s quirk, talking about how its defensive power was just what they needed, and how now the team is covered at midrange from every direction. Tokoyami is the one to point out how Izuku is the one who chose him.

Ochako gives her team warning before they land, with her boots (from Mei) being the first to hit the ground with a poof of dust blown away from her landing site. Mei asks how Izuku is liking her babies, bragging about how cute they are and how she made them that way. Izuku complements the mobility they’re giving the team and Mei’s work in general, leading to her gushing more. Meanwhile, Izuku reveals in his thoughts that Ochako had made everyone except herself weightless, so that all the weight that’s being carried is her plus their clothes and equipment.

Ochako, meanwhile, is a bit put out that Izuku hasn’t gushed over her part in all this, because the only part he gushed over her about was internal. Izuku, you should have complemented her work out loud as well, you dummy.

Team Hagakure prepares themselves to go after Izuku again, only for Sato to notice something important - the headband she was wearing is gone! Hagakure is shocked and freaked out, trying to figure out when and how it happened. Meanwhile, Monoma and his team are heading away, Monoma spinning said headband around his finger as he says to consider him an opportunist.

We get a bit of an overhead view of a number of the teams running around the battlefield (which was very helpful in putting together the team listings). Present Mic states that two minutes have just passed, but the battlefield is already chaotic. Everyone’s scrambling for headbands, but there isn’t just the ten million out there! Other high rankers are also worth a shot as well.

Just as an overview here, we see team Tetsu^4 and team Hagakure are still going after team Midoriya, with Shouji just there in the corner of the textbox approaching from behind as well. Teams Rin and Shinsou are rushing at each other, as are team Todoroki and team Kendo. Team Mindoriya, meanwhile, just seems to be trying to get out of the way on foot.

Shouji (or is it Mineta hiding inside the ‘bunker’ made by Shouji’s dupliarms?) laughs a bit, saying how this isn’t a scramble, but a one-sided massacre. Yeah, in retrospect, that sounds way more like Mineta. But also, Izuku thinking Shouji’s alone, even though this event is a cavalry battle, so maybe it was him? Eh, whatever. Tokoyami notes that they have to keep their distance, since fighting multiple foes is a bad idea. However, that plan goes a bit awry when Ochako steps on what turns out to be one of Mineta’s quirk balls, causing her to become stuck in place. Izuku quickly tries to determine where Mineta is, only to be surprised when he sees Mineta hiding inside Shouji’s dupliarm bunker.

Someone (maybe Ochako?) asks if that’s legal, which Midnight confirms it is. As if that’s not enough, Tsuyu, also on Shouji’s back, lashes out with her tongue, just missing both Izuku and Tetsu thanks to their timely dodges. As she retracts her tongue, she complements Izuku’s dodging; Izuku wonders how many people Shouji has hiding on his back.

Tsuyu quickly reminds Izuku to use her first name, but probably isn’t heard since team Midoriya make a strategic retreat back into the sky - breaking one of the hoverboots in the process, unfortunately. Present Mic comments on how team Mineta using the size difference of its members to form what can be more considered a tank than anything. Mei is distressed at the destruction of her baby, with Ochako apologizing but noting that they got away.

Too bad someone was prepared for their second takeoff, and really, really wants those points.

Izuku: Oh fuck I’m gonna die.

Katsuki, looking pretty gremlin-y, as per the norm, yells how Izuku is getting pretty damn full of himself (which is hilarious in its irony.) Izuku quickly calls for Tokoyami to react, and Dark Shadow takes the explosive blow meant for Izuku despite the massive discomfort in its expression. Katsuki is confused, but has no time to make a second attempt, as Sero tossed his tape and latches onto him, pulling him right back into the waiting arms of his team.

Present Mic wonders whether leaving one’s unit is allowed, which Midnight confirms is allowed on a technicality - aka his feet didn’t touch the ground. In the staff booth, Death Arms comments on how those class A kids sure are something else. In the crowds, people comment on how it’s fun to watch, what with all the flashy moves, and that it’s just the level the kids are at after fighting real villains.

Present Mic cuts back with with more commentary, stating how both the doggedly pursued first place team and the determined pursuers from class A are nothing to sneeze at. He then draws attention to the current standings, asking rhetorically how said teams are doing after seven minutes of play. There’s a moment of silence, the crowds and the two in the announcement booth shocked as they actually register the standings.

Why, it looks like almost all the points are being held by teams from class 1b! What a plot twist!

Monoma sweeps by, grabbing the headband right off of Katsuki, as he comments on how it’s too simple, really. Katsuki demands the head back back, threatening Monoma with death, while Mina comments on how easily he caught them by surprise.

Monoma goes into a bit of a monologue on how Midnight’s announcement of the first event made it obvious that the number of participants wouldn’t be thinned that much in a preliminary. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that a good number of students would be advancing to the next event - around forty or so. It was really the perfect opportunity to hold back and observe their soon-to-be-rivals’ quirks and tendencies, so it was only fair they ended up placing more modestly.

Kirishima asks if the whole class was in on it. Monoma says that no, not everyone was, but it wouldn’t have been a bad idea, instead of aiming for some fleeting first place, like a horse going for a dangling carrot. Meanwhile, team Bondo approaching as well. How is Katsuki taking all this?

Not great. And of course, because Monoma has no chill, he turns back to give Katsuki a mocking look, commenting on how Katsuki’s already a celebrity - the victim of the sludge incident! He’ll have to ask sometime, how does it feel to be attacked by villains on an annual basis?

RIP Monoma, you fucking dead. Katsuki tells Kirishima there’s a change of plan. As Monoma glances back at him curiously, we see that Katsuki has gone completely feral and around the bend, and is probably actually going to murder a man by the end of this. Katsuki’s plan? Before going after Deku, he’s gonna murder every last member of Monoma’s team.

Izuku, apparently overhearing Monoma’s monologue, notes how class 1b threw the qualifiers and planned for the long game. Even before the sports festival, he had the impression that they were stronger than they seemed, and that they want to end class 1a’s supremacy. On the other hand, because of that, they aren’t quite so deadset on targeting Izuku.

Izuku starts to talk to his team about how it shouldn’t be too hard to evade - only to be cut off both physically and verbally by team Todoroki getting in front of them. As Present Mic announces the match being halfway over already, Izuku takes a deep breath and recenters himself, stating how it won’t be quite that easy. Shouto states kind of menacingly that they’re coming for him; other teams are shown briefly reaction to the loss of points in their own ways.

We close out on Present Mic noting that class B is on the rise, but in the end, who will wear the ten million point crown?

Anywho, glad to finally have that chapter done, even if there’s still two more before we get through this second event and finally move on to the finals. At the least, this sports festival stuff has actually gotten me thinking about the reasoning behind the decisions made for the entrance exam and sports festival, which I will probably end up making posts for after this arc is over.

See y’all next time! Character sheet will be up in just a moment.

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365days365movies · 3 years

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Western August I: Stagecoach (1939) - Recap and Review

Let’s start at the beginning...almost,

The Western arguably was born with the 1903 film, The Great Train Robbery. This 12-minute short film is a classic, and one of the earliest achievements in film-making. It’s also, unsurprisingly, a Western, and based on an actual train robbery. At the time it was made, the Wild West had only really ended a few years prior, with its heyday being about 40 years past. Which, yeah, is CRAZY. People who remembered the Wild West lived into the 1950s and ‘60s. It seems like so long ago, and it was, but it was still relatively recent from a historical standpoint.

From then, the Western remained a staple of cinema, and would be so for over half a century. And then, enter John Ford. Born in 1894, the Irish American director began his career in 1914 as an assistant and handyman, often working with his older brother Francis. Eventually, John took his place as a director, starting with silent films, especially westerns. Starting with the very successful film The Iron Horse in 1924, he quickly rose to stardom. He transitioned from silent films to talkies pretty effortlessly, and continued his streak. All the while, he was also one of the first directors to have a roster of actors in his company. You know how Tim Burton always uses Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? Or how the Coen Brothers always use Frances McDormand and John Goodman? Or Wes Andersen with Bill Murray and Owen Wilson? Yeah, that started with John Ford and...ugh...

Before I start...fuck John Wayne.

Dude was a racist homophobic asshole, and absolutely a dick. Look it up, or don’t if you’d rather not have one of cinemas most iconic faces completely ruined for you. But OK, outside of that one time that he said that the Native Americans were “selfishly trying to keep the land for themselves”, or that he believed in white supremacy over uneducated blacks...yeah, he’s a DICK...

Marion Robert Morrison was born in Iowa in 1907, and began his film career after becoming injured while surfing without a surfboard and ending his football career. Yes, really. His football coach was a friend of a film director named John Ford, who hired Morrison as a favor to him. Said football coach was also friends with an actual remnant of the Old West: WYATT FUCKING EARP. YEAH.

For years, Morrison was a bit player until starring in the film The Big Trail in 1930, a Western directed by Raoul Walsh. And he wasn’t exactly famous after this, but it was with this film that he took up a screen name: John Wayne, after a Revolutionary War general, Anthony Wayne, and...well, the name John. Anthony sounded too Italian. Yes, really. After this movie, Wayne continued to star in more Westerns, and even became one of the first film cowboys to sing on camera.

And then, 1939 came along, and John Ford came to him with a new film project. Being a classic Western, the film was about a group of settlers riding on a stagecoach together through the West. Strangers to each other, they find themselves attacked by a group of Native Americans belonging to the Apache tribes. This film, an adaptation of a 1939 short story, would come to be known as Stagecoach. And it would launch Ford, Wayne, and the Western genre into a Golden Age. So no more navel-gazing, let’s get started!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

I get reminded that I haven’t watched a Criterion Collection film in a while, and the film begins with a rousing Western theme, courtesy of...holy shit, this movie has SEVEN COMPOSERS? Well, OK, courtesy of somebody in that list of seven. From there, we cut to a camp somewhere in the Arizona Territory in 1880. Which, again, is only 60 years prior to this film’s release date. There, a group of men discuss the danger imposed on them by the Apache, stirred up by the legendary warrior Geronimo.

And from there, we go to the town of Tonto, where stagecoach driver Buck (Andy Devine) lets a group of passengers out. One of these passengers is Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), there to catch another shuttle to meet her husband in Dry Fork, New Mexico. However, the stagecoach gains an extra passenger in the form of the Marshal, Curley Wilcox (George Bancroft), who goes to find an outlaw also in Lordsburg.

The passenger list builds with the addition of Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell) and Dallas (Claire Trevor), a drunk and a prostitute both driven out of town by the Law and Order League of Women, due to social stigma affecting them both. In a bar getting a farewell drink, Doc meets yet one more passenger, Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek), a whiskey salesman that Doc is glad to meet. Meanwhile, banker Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill) also boards the vehicle, under mysterious circumstances.

Friends of Lucy are worried with her travelling a drunk and a prostitute (the ABSOLUTE SCANDAL), but she needs to visit her husband in Dry Fork. As she leaves, she meets eyes with the dangerous but enigmatic gambler Hatfield (John Carradine). And before they’re able to leave altogether, the carriage is stopped by the army, who warn them of the Apache and Geronimo. All of the passengers refuse to get off, and YET TWO MORE passengers board to protect the carriage: the Marshal and Hatfield. And finally, they’re off! But as they head out, they’re stopped when they encounter a recently escaped outlaw.

This is The Ringo Kid (John Wayne), who just got out of prison. The Marshal sees him, and takes him into custody on the way to Lordsburg, where they plan to drop him off into jail. And yes, he’s put on the fucking stagecoach. In total, we have Buck, the Marshal, Lucy, Hatfield, Doc, Peacock, Gatewood, and the Ringo Kid. Jesus, that’s a crowded-ass carriage, even if two of them are outside of it. Hell, Ringo’s sitting on the fuckin’ floor!

Anyway, the group interacts and introduces themselves. We learn that Doc once patched up Ringo’s brother, and was discharged from the Union Army for drunkenness. We learn that Hatfield is a true southern gentleman, and a veteran of the Confederate army (much to Doc’s ire), and that Ringo’s brother was murdered under mysterious circumstances.

The group gets to Dry Forks, currently under occupation by the army. Said army had accompanied them (outside of the carriage, thank God) to Dry Forks, and are staying there to guard against the Apache. Meanwhile, Lucy’s dismayed to find that her husband isn’t in fact there. This leads to the debate of whether or not the party should go back to Tonto, or head onwards to Lordsburg. Buck wants to go back to Tonto, as does Peacock, while literally everybody else wants to go to Lordsburg. And so, they continue onwards.

Before heading onwards, the group sits for dinner, during which Ringo is the only one to show any form of kindness to Dallas, as everybody else looks down on her for prostitution. Shit, man, they won’t even sit near her at the table. Jesus. Unfortunately, Dallas is used to this cruel treatment, and it allows her to bond with Ringo in her loneliness. Once again, character interactions reveal things about our cast. Lucy is feeling quite ill, and Hatfield reveals that he served under her father in the Confederate Army.

And from there, the coach continues on through the desert. Buck and the Marshal argue about letting Ringo free, as he aims to continue his feud with the outlaw Luke Plummer and his brothers, despite the fact that he’ll likely be killed by them. It’s for this reason that the Marshal wants to keep Ringo in his custody, as he was good friends with his father and doesn’t want to see him killed by the dangerous Plummers, whom Buck thinks should be taken down regardless.

Inside the coach, the banker reveals that he’s literally a Republican from 2016 (he rants about small government, and claims that a businessman should be President, holy shit), while people keep treating Dallas like shit, except for Ringo. They go through a cold mountain pass, which isn’t great for Lucy for some reason. It’s actually quite rough on everyone. Except for Doc Boone, who keeps drinking Peacock’s whiskey samples, which is hilarious.

Finally, the group makes it to the next stop, Apache Wells. There, Lucy discovers that her husband has been severely wounded in a battle with the Apache, and she falls faint. Despite being absolutely SMASHED, Doc sobers up to help her, with the help of Ringo and the Marshal. Meanwhile, Dallas watches over her, despite the rancor that Lucy’s tossed at her this whole time.

The group stays the night, attended to by Chris (Chris Pin-Martin) a Mexican man who’s married to Yakima (Elvira Rios), an Apache woman who...is played by a Mexican singer. Huh. I mean...it’s still technically redface, unfortunately. But then again, the attitude towards Native American actors at this time was...oh boy. And the portrayal of the Mexicans in the camp aren’t exactly great, as a group of them steal the group’s spare horses, meaning that they only have one set of horses to use from here on out.

But amongst the unpleasant is a pleasant surprise, and the reveal of the cause for Lucy’s mysterious condition: she’s pregnant. Or rather, she was, as the baby’s just been delivered, and is being held by Dallas. As the group celebrates, Chris warns Ringo to stay away from Lordsburg, as the Plummers will kill him. But Ringo has something else on his mind.

See, on seeing Dallas with the baby, he finds himself quite in love with her. He finds her outside, and tells her that his father and brothers were killed by the Plummers. In turn, she reveals that her family was massacred on the real-life Superstition Mountain. Their conversation ends in Ringo proposing to Dallas, which she protests to because of her mysterious past.

The next morning, Yakima’s left with Chris’ horse and rifle, and the group worry that she’s gone to tell the Apache. After Gatewood panics about his mysterious valise being possibly stolen, the group packs up and readies themselves to go. But Lucy is, of course, still ill from literally giving birth hours ago. Things are still tense between Lucy and Dallas, despite Dallas taking care of her the entire fucking night. Jesus, lady, that high horse is looking uncomfortable, you should get off it.

Dallas has something else to worry about, as she’s thinking on Ringo’s proposal. She consults with the doctor, who reminds her of her mysterious and checkered past being revealed if she goes. But she doesn’t seem to care, and she decides to accept the proposal. As for the rest, Gatewood’s freakin’ the fuck out. Because of Lucy’s condition, the doctor requests that they don’t leave until a day later. And Gatewood doesn’t give a single shit, as the Apache are close enough. Still, the party decides to stay, at Hatfield’s added insistence.

Ringo and Dallas talk, with Dallas both warning him of the Plummers, and also accepting his proposal. The men are all still arguing about whether or not they should leave, and they note that the Apache are likely between them and their destination. Ringo then takes the opportunity to escape and ride to Lordsburg for revenge on the Plummers. But he stops when he sees smoke signals on the hill. The Apache are coming.

No more waiting, it’s time to GO. Taking the still recovering lady and her newborn child Coyote into the stagecoach, they take off into the desert. Gatewood continues to run his loudmouth, to the ire of Hatfield and Ringo. And Peacock, to my delight, shows some kindness and “Christian charity” to Dallas, as she holds Coyote during the ride. And after all, they’re almost at the ferry!

Ah, shit, the ferry! Looks like the ferry, and the entire town of Lee’s Ferry have been burned. And if they ford the river, all of their supplies could be flooded, or the oxen could drown! Or worse, dysentery could set in! That’s what The Oregon Trail taught me! And yet, despite this, that’s actually EXACTLY what they do! And unlike me literally every time I’ve every tried to cross a river without a ferry, they make it through fine! Realistic educational games my ASS!

But it’s not entirely safe, as the group are being watched by none other than the Apache, who make their way down to intercept the group. In the carriage, meanwhile, the group is thankful that they’ve made their way from danger, and even Gatewood relaxes a little. Doc Boone makes a toast, and everyone seems to be getting along for once.

OH FUCK, PEACOCK GOT HIT!

The girlfriend IMMEDIATELY SAYS, “Now he really is Drew Peacock.” I leave and get boba to soothe my injured spirit from that well-timed joke. And then, the movie continues, and the chase is on! The Apache chase the stagecoach through the desert, and the groups trade gunshots and arrows, with Ringo shooting from the back. Gatewood panics so hard that Doc Boone punches him and IMMEDIATELY knocks him out, as he attends to Peacock’s injuries.

But despite their best efforts, the Apache group catches up to them, although many of them are killed by Ringo, the Marshal, Doc, and Hatfield. In the process, Buck is also shot, and Ringo literally jumps ON THE FUCKING HORSES, and commands them from the front like a goddamn badass. Things begin to get worse, as everybody in the stagecoach runs out of ammo, at the worst possible time. Hatfield only has one bullet remaining, and he considers using it...to kill Lucy! Holy fuck!

And just as he’s about to fire IN HER FUCKING FACE, the sounds of horns ring out as the cavalry arrives. And Hatfield, dick that he is, is shot. I think he was trying to spare her the indignity of being captured by the Apache, but Jesus, man! He collapses, and reveals that his father is a judge in Virginia before he...either passes out or dies, I’m not sure. The group finally gets to Lordsburg, where it turns out that Lucy’s husband is gonna be OK, and wasn’t severely injured. She tanks Dallas for everything that she’s done, and promises to help her should she ever need assistance. Good, finally, the lady needs a goddamn break.

The stagecoach rides through the busy town, and the arrival of the Ringo Kid gets the attention of Luke Plummer (Tom Tyler), who fetches his brothers Hank (Vester Pegg) and Ike (Joe Rickson). Time to get ready for a showdown, it seems. Dallas seems to know this, and goes to Ringo after the living Peacock (yay!) and the not-so-living Hatfield (oof) are brought in for medical help.

Buck’s also OK, but Gatewood isn’t. See, that valise he was carrying was actually full of money, and he had embezzled it from his own bank. He had counted on telegraph lines being down, so that he could escape with his ill-gotten gains, but has no such luck, and is led away in handcuffs! HA!

Ringo, meanwhile, is set to kill Luke Plummer and his brothers. The Marshal lets him escape, and promises to get Dallas safely down to a little ranch he owns in the South. Dallas and Ringo walk off together, and Dallas tries to get him to leave and say goodbye before he goes to his death, and before he finds out about her past (presumably as a prostitute).

See, they’re actually walking up to a brothel, where Dallas is going to stay and work. Because, yeah, she’s a prostitute. Sucks that she’s been so maligned, because prostitution fuckin’ BUILT the Old West! I guess it’s easier to see that with historical context. As Ringo finds out the truth about Dallas (which he might’ve known all along), he still insists upon marrying her...and upon killing the Plummers.

Doc, meanwhile, goes to the bar where the Plummers are waiting. He tells them that he’ll get them arrested, and Luke swears to come back for him after their business with Ringo is concluded. The brothers head outside, ready for the final showdown. It’s 3 on one, Plummers against Ringo. Ringo fires! A few more shots...then silence. And Dallas mourns.

Except that Ringo wins the fight, and goes back to her! A happy ending! I’m sure that’ll be pretty goddamn rare this month. The Marshal arrives to take Ringo away, and Ringo goes as promised. She asks to ride with him a bit, and the Marshal agrees. He and Doc watch them get on, then cause the horses of the carriage to stampede away, letting Ringo and Dallas escape into the desert, together. And that’s the end!

Y’know...I liked it! I really liked it!

This movie is often referred to as the greatest Western of all time, and the reason that the Western survived into the next several decades. And honestly, I get it! It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, and won for Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Mitchell, AKA Doc) and Best Original Score, both of which were quite deserved!

Review time!

Cast and Acting - 9/10: Sure, it’s a little hokey. But at the same time, it’s good classic Hollywood acting! Wayne, Trevor, Mitchell, Carradine, and Devine are standouts for me, all of which serving their roles well. Also, fun fact about Andy Devine: he’s the voice of Friar Tuck in Disney’s Robin Hood! KNEW I recognized that voice!

Plot and Writing - 10/10: Standard plot? Sure. Engaging as hell? Hell yeah! This is just a good story, plain and simple. No holes, no problems, no mistakes, and purely straightforward. Great writing by the original story author, Ernest Haycox, and great screenplay by Dudley Nichols!

Directing and Cinematography - 10/10: Great looking movie, too! All credit to John Ford, unsurprisingly. Cinematographer Bert Glennon also deserves credit for the beautiful landscape shots throughout. Gogeous film, even in black-and-white!

Production and Art Design - 8/10: This is pretty standard Western production design, so not a lot to write home about specifically. However, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. To the contrary, it’s quite good! Just does stand out to me quite as much as other movies. Might be a nitpick, but it’s still something against the film.

Music and Editing - 10/10: No complaints! Seven composers definitely make their presence known, and you can tell that this score heavily informed all Western scores after it. It’s iconic, and it’s perfect for the mood. As for the editing by Otho Lovering and Dorothy Spencer...it’s great! Perfect pacing, well-edited...no complaints whatsoever.

94%, and I had fun with this one!

I honestly did have quite a good time with this one. I can’t really call it a “fun” movie, but it definitely is a good one. Plus, it’s a John Ford/John Wayne film, which is basically a staple of the genre. So, what’s next?

Next: My Darling Clementine (1946), dir. John Ford

#stagecoach #stagecoach 1939 #john ford #claire trevor #john wayne #andy devine #john carradine #thomas mitchell #george bancroft #apache #western august #365 days 365 movies #365 movie challenge #western genre #user365 #usersasha #my gifs #mygifs

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secretgamergirl · 3 years

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How not to Write a Campaign

I have been playing RPGs for a very long time. Back in the day, I avoided any and all pre-written adventures of any sort because my limited experience with them was... just frankly terrible. Weird inconsistencies in tone, unfair encounter setups, too many assumptions about PCs’ motives and actions, etc. Then much later I discovered a group of writers who actually got it, wrote things perfectly in line with how my friends like a game to go, and we’ve been all in on those for a decade and change. But I just finished running a ROUGH one, and I want something good to come of it.

I don’t want to make this a specific review, because... I’m in the industry, I know the people who wrote this campaign, I can guess at some of the problems involved, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or reputation, so let me just refer to the offending prewritten campaign here as the Amnesia Campaign. It’s for a big fantasy RPG, it riffs of a particular author’s work, you can probably guess what it is from that, but, I’m trying.

The first problem I need to bring up with the Amnesia Campaign is that it just commits the cardinal sin of long term RPG campaign writing- The mustache-twirling villain who always manages to escape from the PCs at the last minute. I cannot convey just how important it is that you never, ever do this. The worst sort of example is when you plan around the PCs actually confronting your villain multiple times, and failing to kill them, which is a terrible idea because there really is no way to ever stack the deck and account for every contingency to make an unwinnable fight, or even one where escape is always possible, and especially if you’re publishing adventures, some number of groups will kill the villain too early, either shorting things out or forcing a handwave to keep an ineffectual villain in play and pretend they’re still a threat.

The Amnesia Campaign doesn’t quite go there. Having an actual chance to go toe to toe with the villain is reserved for the very end, but it does use another variant, where no matter what happens, the PCs arrive just after the villain they’re chasing has left. Now... there’s a way you can make that work. If you have a villain who cannot be reached in practical fashion, and can launch attacks anywhere within a huge region, you can build a whole campaign out of characters reacting to the aftermath of evil actions they could not be expected to even learn about until the villain has left the scene. Here, meanwhile, we have a villain with a big elaborate plot that requires traveling all over the world gathering things, based on research he does at the very start which the PCs can, and indeed are expected to do, quickly pick up on these research notes, and basically know everything the villain plans to do from nearly the start of a very long campaign. And... frankly, the villain has no real edge to keep him believably one step ahead. He is a mildly wealthy man hiring goons, mundane forms of transportation, and having to negotiate and fight his way through to various sub-objectives needed for his plan, and it is at least strongly implied that he doesn’t have a lot of lead time. When presented with a scenario about someone needing to be chased down and stopped, PCs can pretty reliably be counted on to constantly be rushing forward, coming up with clever ways to accomplish what they need to in less time, and cut down if not completely nullify their travel time. But, like with battles the villain somehow keeps escaping from, I am forced to continuously state to my players in running this that no, somehow even after avoiding this whole side quest by reading the mind of the person with important information, and directly teleporting to where the villain left for by riverboat, he somehow beat them there, and once again, just left. It’s frustrating, and implausible. We end up with a villain who seems overwhelmingly outmatched, but keeps succeeding because... well, he has plot armor so we’re railroading this.

Admittedly, having a good villain when writing a full campaign in advance can be tricky. The safe and tested formula is generally to start off with minions of your main villain, starting with some who don’t even know who they’re ultimately working for, gradually build up to who’s calling the shots and to what end, have a big side trip to prepare for the final confrontation not directly involving the villains, than cap it with a big showdown. If the PCs know who the main villain is from the very start and where to find them, it becomes hard to rationalize anything between. Sometimes you can pull it off if they’re leading an army or ruling a country, but even then, you want to work up a food chain to them.

A similar problem, which crops up a bit towards the end of the Amnesia Campaign, is making too many assumptions about how the PCs react, and who they befriend. In RPG writing, you need to make as few assumptions as possible about the specifics of what the PCs will do in any situation. You can count on the real broad strokes. The party will investigate the situation described in the adventure, they’ll explore the area, find the villains, fight them, win, learn something to keep the larger plot growing, but that’s it. You can’t assume they’re going to team up with this NPC, enter this room from that direction, or otherwise reenact what you’d imagine you’d do in their place, or what happened in your test play of your adventure. This is particularly important when you include a little sidequest unconnected to their primary goal, or you’re presenting an open-ended investigation.

Ideally, you just have a sensible location, have some villains in it with clear goals and personalities laid out, and you scatter around some things to enable various clever tricks if players think to try them, without mandating any of them. Mention where windows are, and chandeliers, and holes just too small for the average human to fit through, but don’t, as part of the Amnesia Campaign does, invest heavily in the assumption that the PCs will start investigating a sewer system when investigating how a cult gets around a city and go sparse on other possible clues. Also don’t waste adventure background note space on thousands of years of history at the expense of what the actual current problem in the area is and who or what is behind it.

The next problem is one that, were I the average consumer just buying this book would bother me a hell of a lot more than it does as someone who knows how the sausage gets made. Put mildly... you do not want to play a rogue in the Amnesia Campaign. Nor do you want to play a swashbuckler, a critical-hit focused character of any stripe, really any class out of the... roughly 25% of all classes who rely on knowledge of where to make a hit count the most to do the full amount of damage with their attacks, because practically everything is immune.

Now, again. I partly understand how this happens. We have several different authors writing different chapters of the campaign, simultaneously, in pretty unforgiving crunchy conditions, with just a rough outline to go off. Nobody really has a chance to confirm notes and say “hey, did your chapter totally invalidate one of the foundational character archetypes, because I was thinking of doing that and having two of those back to back would be a bit much.” And while the publisher of the Amnesia Campaign does throw out little booklets of tips for players on what sort of character concepts will/won’t work, they’re not written last, so this sort of tip is missing there too. On the other hand, it’s a huge problem within nearly any given chapter just on its own. If you’re making the call on what all monsters to include in a multi-level stretch of a campaign, you should generally avoid choosing nothing but monsters immune to one of the most common bread and butter class features. And honestly, given how the subject matter naturally lends to the deployment of a particular monster type, erring on the side of assuming everyone else is heavily deploying them wouldn’t be a bad assumption for any author to make.

This though, unlike the rest of my gripes, is ultimately a high level problem that needs a high level solution. When you’re publishing a whole campaign, and you’re doing it in a game where several foundational character concepts kinda live or die based on things like whether things are properly harmed by particular flavors of damage, or whether a decent percentage of enemies fall under a certain classification, that really shouldn’t be a double-blind. Coordinating to get all authors to use a decent spread, or include outline notes like “it’d make sense for about half the enemies in this chapter to be fire elemental themed in various ways, but keep a good variety otherwise,” and/or trying to get a rough handle on emergent themes to adjust for/warn about in player-facing pitch material. Even the best-written campaigns are prone to rude awakenings or hilarious reductions in challenge as turns out, say, going all in on cold damage does indeed pay off for the one with Fire in the title.

Meanwhile, on the other side of that coin, more or less, huge swaths of the Amnesia Campaign really just completely break down by failing to account for some basic standard issue capabilities of a typical party. Particularly the fact that past a certain point, you need to account for the fact that the PCs are almost certainly capable of flight. It’s a thing that happens. If you are really keen on writing adventures where local warlords are chilling out on the open-air rooftop patios of their otherwise heavily fortified fortresses, or melee-oriented monsters plan an ambush in a canyon in a vast wasteland, or a dangerous leapfrog between a series of elevated platforms over something dangerous, you want to make those low-level adventures, or else a typical party, possibly even accidentally, will just completely circumvent the whole thing. There is a whole lot of that in the back of the Amnesia Campaign. My group... literally skipped giant swaths. Heck, there was a whole side quest in the last book where the PCs are rewarded with the location of a giant obelisk which I had to cut because... it was in the middle of a big open outdoor space, and they flew over the city on the way in. They definitely had a view over those hedges.

This sort of dovetails into the next issue, consistently escalating threats. The whole fantasy RPG gimmick is that at level 1, you’re a helpless peasant barely capable of doing anything remarkable, and by level 20 you’re literally punching gods in the face and have more money in your pocket than everyone else in your home country combined (with the obvious exception of the other people in your party). Now, mechanically, balancing around that is a very easy math problem. Characters of level X are meant to deal with threats of level Y, either pull a Y level monster out of the book, or slap levels on something lower to bring it to that point, or spread that out over more enemies, then they drop Z amount of fancy loot. Easiest thing in the world. But you also need things to fit together thematically. You can absolutely throw fighter levels onto the local chicken-stealing goblins to make them mechanically as threatening as a demigod bursting through from another plane of reality, but when a group of characters is at a level where they can be expected to handle the former, it’s just plain weird for them to end up dealing with the latter. Like, yes, these particular goblins have 200 HP instead of the usual 4, so the local town guard can’t handle them, but that should never be true of chicken-stealing goblins. You don’t get that tough stealing chickens, and once you’ve gotten that tough, you should have your sights set a good deal higher than that. At least be stealing rocs or something.

The 4th chapter of the Amnesia Campaign is a particularly blatant example of not getting this, featuring a large number of “please be aware the party can fly at this level” moments mentioned above, and also just demanding the PCs deal with problems that really are beneath them at that point. Seeking out local guides, impressing petty local warlords, getting challenged by giants they must impress to rest safely when crossing a huge desert. These are... not appropriate speed bumps at a point in the narrative where the party is traveling to a location where they are going to literally fight a god, weakened or otherwise. The whole setup would be wonderful as the first chapter of a campaign, but that far in, it just doesn’t work. Particularly when the actual opening of the Amnesia Campaign sets the tension very high right off the bat, with extradimensional threats, shapeshifters, an evil cult, things that typically come later as things start to escalate.

This isn’t to say you can’t mix things up a little. Dealing with threats well below a party’s capabilities can be really nice as a chance to just sort of flex, and get some perspective on how much more capable they’ve grown over time, but you have to do it in a low-tension point of the narrative, and a little self-awareness about it doesn’t hurt.

Finally, while I really kinda hate modern wealth-by-level assumptions, they are baked into the design of the game, so if you’re running with it, you really need to make sure you’re really giving the players something they can use. The Amnesia Campaign really leans heavy on treasure being weird oddities that may be of value to a collector... while also being set, generally, in places so totally removed from civilization that shopping trips aren’t really practical. Much less those needing the party to really find the right sort of buyer.

Really, you want to give out entirely practical loot (really hard to do without knowing the party makeup, but variety can work), big piles of cash/sellables along with sufficiently large cities along the way for viable shopping, or raw materials suitable for crafting plus ample time to really do something with them.

Anyway, hopefully this has come across more as practical constructive advice for anyone writing a campaign, either as a printed product or just for your home game, not just me tearing into the Amnesia Campaign at length.

#rpg #game design #gm advice

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ft-dads-au · 3 years

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Part of the Family

A collaboration by @mdelpin and @oryu404

Fairy Friendship Week 2020 Prompt: Secrets Pairing(s): Sting & Gray, Gray & Rogue, Sting x Rogue

AO3 | FF.Net

Summary: With Rogue's and Aki's birthdays coming up, Mika suggests that Sting and Gray go gift shopping together. Neither of them are excited about the idea, but it ends up being just the thing to bring them all closer together.

September 9, 2020

“That’s a great idea!”

The words burst out of Sting’s mouth before he had a chance to stop them.

It wasn’t a great idea.

In fact, it was one of the worst ideas Sting had ever heard. He was exhausted, having just got off what was supposed to have been a twelve-hour shift in the Emergency Room that had turned out to be more like fifteen, on top of not having gotten much sleep because the twins had been fussy all night.

He smiled at his mother-in-law warmly while scrambling for any excuse he thought she might accept that would get him out of a trip to the mall with his brother-in-law, who looked about as enthused with the idea as he felt.

“Wonderful!” Mika Fullbuster practically beamed at them, “I’ll feed the boys and get dinner ready for us while you’re gone.”

She picked up his son, Kuro, and cooed at him before placing him in a high chair next to his identical twin Haku. Gray’s son, Aki, watched with interest, although he kept close to his father.

Sting knew he was screwed when Gray remained silent, examining him with that glacial expression of his. “Okay, I’ll take a quick shower then. Be back in 10.”

He could hear Mika and Gray talking in low voices, Mika reminding her son that Rogue would probably like it if he got to know Sting a little bit better.

More than anything else, it was those words that motivated Sting to get in the shower and put on his best face because he knew she was right. Rogue loved his brother, had missed him all those years they had been on the outs, and now that Gray and his parents were a part of his life again, he wanted them all to become the family he never thought he’d have.

But Gray wasn’t exactly easy to get along with, and Sting was still irritated about how he had treated Natsu on the night of Lisanna’s birthday, not to mention how he’d dismissed Rogue all those years. Still, for Rogue, he could make an effort. The cold shower didn’t wake him up as much as he’d hoped, but he knew he wouldn’t have gotten out as quickly if he’d taken a warm one. Now he wasn’t just exhausted but also freezing cold and nervous, a far cry from what he’d been looking forward to when his shift was finally over. He passed the bed on his way from the bathroom to the closet and almost sobbed at how badly he wanted to get in it. “Come on Sting, you can do this!” he encouraged himself as he grabbed something comfy to wear and got dressed. “Go to the mall, get some birthday presents, have a chat with your brother-in-law...Can’t be too hard, right?”

It was incredibly hard.

Gray hadn’t said a word since the moment they’d left the house, and Sting had no idea what to say to get a conversation going. Almost everything he knew about the guy was off-limits to talk about, so they walked around the mall quietly, occasionally entering a store that looked interesting.

“Do you think Aki would like this?” Sting grabbed a colorful book thinking it would make a good birthday present for his nephew. He pushed some of the buttons on the front to see what kinds of sounds it made.

Gray shook his head, “He doesn’t like loud noises.”

“I wish I could say the same about the twins,” Sting groaned, placing the book back on the shelf, “just about every toy they have is loud.”

“Cana?” Gray asked, mouth stretching into a small smile.

“Well, she’s not the worst offender. That would have to be my parents,” Sting chuckled, “They’ve wanted grandkids since probably before I was born.”

Gray studied him briefly before turning his attention back to the shelf full of electronic board books. He moved away from them as he discovered the hardcover storybooks.

“He does like books though, tries to memorize them and pretend he’s reading them,” Gray added with a proud smile, “He could probably use some new ones.”

Sting thought Gray had a nice smile, it reminded him of Rogue’s. It was the first time he’d seen a real resemblance between the two brothers, outside of the dry wit they shared, and it made him warm up to him a little.

"Yeah, Rogue mentioned that.” He considered his next words for a moment, ultimately deciding he trusted Gray to be the kind of person who could keep a secret. “He’s uhm...taking a break from the stuff he usually writes to work on a book of fairy tales for kids. One of his college friends is doing the illustrations.”

“He’s writing a children’s book?” Gray asked, his voice sounding softer than Sting had ever heard it outside of speaking to Aki. He appeared stunned by the news but also something else.

Was it pride?

Sting thought it might be. The twinkle in his brother-in-law’s eye made him believe he was right.

“I kind of figured he’d write one of those mystery novels he always loved so much.” “Oh, he did. Published it under a pseudo a few years back,” Sting beamed, the swell of pride overtaking his fatigue for a brief moment. “Don’t tell anyone about the children’s book, though. He wants to keep it a secret because...well, you know your mom. Just act real surprised when Aki gets it for Christmas.”

They checked out some of the books together, flipping through the pages to see if the stories were fitting for Aki's age and whether or not they would appeal to him. Soon they'd decided on a few and headed to the register.

Sting grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket, staring at its contents blankly for a moment. He took a card out and waited for the cashier to finish ringing up his purchases so he could place it in the reader. Trying to hide a big yawn he couldn’t quite contain, Sting inserted the card into the bottom slot when the reader prompted him. He waited to plug in his pin, thinking about how happy he was that they had managed to get one of the presents out of the way fairly quickly.

The card reader beeped at him, a message reading Card Declined displaying on the screen, much to Sting’s confusion. There should be plenty of money in there, he’d just gotten paid. But even knowing that, he could feel his cheeks darken with embarrassment as he saw the cashier glance at him surreptitiously.

He turned to see Gray’s eyebrow arched in silent question.

“I don’t understand,” Sting protested, “I’m sure there’s more than enough in there.”

“Are you sure about that?” Gray asked, looking somewhat exasperated.

“Yeah, I got paid yesterday,” he insisted. “I’ll just rerun it. Sometimes these things are flaky.”

“I don’t think it’s the reader that’s flaky,” Gray muttered under his breath.

“Let me just see it for a moment,” the cashier offered graciously, “Sometimes, you just have to wipe the chip a bit.”

Sting shrugged, handing the card over. There was something about it that seemed off, but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was.

“I think I see the problem,” the cashier said, and although his face remained serious, Sting could hear traces of laughter in his voice. “We do not currently accept Magnolia Hospital ID Cards as a valid form of currency.”

“What?” Sting could only gape in confusion as the cashier handed him back his ID Card.

“Long day?” Gray smirked, taking Sting’s wallet from his hand and grabbing his debit card, finishing up the transaction for him.

“You have no idea,” Sting muttered, finally entering his pin into the keypad and waiting for Gray to complete his purchase, pretending not to see that his brother-in-law was still laughing at him.

“Come on,” Gray said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him behind him.

“Where are we going?”

“Coffee.”

He led them to the nearest coffee shop, where they each ordered a drink and a snack. Spotting an empty table, they quickly sat down.

“You know, if you were this tired, you could have just said no,” Gray sighed, shaking his head at him. “Mom isn’t that scary.”

Sting looked up, and having already shoved his chocolate chip muffin in his mouth, he shrugged his shoulders in response.

“Oy, take bites!” Gray griped, snorting at the crumbly mess he was making on the table, “I bet Rogue loves that.”

Sting laughed, easily picturing the look of distaste he’d receive from his husband if he’d been present. “He knew what he was getting into. Was he always so neat and tidy as a kid too?” he asked, eager to learn some things about Rogue from before they’d met each other.

“Kind of, not as bad as he seems to be now, though,” Gray mused, “He was always serious, with a very sharp tongue, but he could be a lot of fun too.”

He stared off into space and suddenly broke out in laughter, so hard that Sting began to worry for him. It stopped as soon as it started, but the amusement continued to play on his features. “I bet there’s one thing you don’t know about him, though.”

Sting leaned forward in his seat, eyes suddenly flying right open as he was dying for him to continue.

Gray’s whole face lit up with mischief, “Did you know that right up until the moment he was born, Rogue’s middle name was Ashley?“

“Ashley?” Sting repeated, blinking in confusion.

“Yep,” Gray grinned, “Mom’s doctor insisted Rogue was a girl, something about the way she was carrying or whatever, and the ultrasound confirmed it, so we all thought he was a girl. For months my mom told me all about the new little sister I was going to have. She had Dad paint the nursery pink, coordinated all the crib sheets, bought the clothes, everything.”

“You can imagine my parents’ surprise when he was born. Everything they had was for a girl. You should ask my mom to show you his hospital pictures. They’re hilarious! My dad and I have never let him live it down,” Gray chuckled, “I still call him Ashley when I want to piss him off.”

At first, Sting was just boggled by the fact that a doctor would predict a baby's gender from the way the mother was carrying, and how, even back in the early ’90s, an ultrasound managed to support that statement. But when he imagined what those pictures would look like, not to mention Rogue’s face when he’d ask his mother-in-law about them later- which he totally would- he almost choked on his muffin from his laughter. “I should buy him some extra gifts,” he giggled, “I have a feeling I’ll need them to get in his good graces again later.”

“He had a figure skating phase too,” Gray continued, “I was a hockey nut, so I loved to tease him about it, but the truth was he was terrific. Very graceful. I was kind of surprised to see he got rid of the ice rink in the backyard. Maybe now that we’re all back, we can set it back up,” he added.

"I knew about the figure skating. He made sure to show off the first time we went skating together because I ran my big mouth but completely sucked at it."

“Well, he does love to show off.”

“I’m glad you two made up,” Sting confided, getting carried away by the moment they were sharing. “He really missed you.”

He realized too late that it had been the wrong thing to say as Gray only nodded and then went right back to being quiet, but Sting didn’t let that bother him. He’d seen a different side of his brother-in-law, and he was confident that with time they could become good friends.

They finished their coffee and shopped for birthday presents for Rogue for another hour before calling it a night. Gray drove them back to the house to let Sting rest. When they arrived, Mika had already finished cooking, and the boys were playing quietly in front of the TV.

"Wow, looks like you had a successful trip!" Mika smiled happily at the shopping bags they were carrying, "and you're right on time for dinner!"

Sting was happy to see Rogue had gotten home as well, and even more delighted when he stopped setting the table to greet him with a hug and a kiss.

"You look really tired," Rogue fretted, frowning at the mark left on Sting's cheek by the zipper of his coat when he'd fallen asleep in the car. "Go sit. I’ll plate up for you."

"You're the best-" Sting flopped down on one of the dining room chairs, watching fondly as Rogue started scooping rice onto his plate. It was a small effort, but he thought it was really sweet, and it almost made him think twice about his next words.

Almost.

"Thanks, Ashley."

Between Gray's loud snort, Mika's knowing grin, and the look of horror that started to spread across Rogue’s face, Sting could honestly say that the unexpected shopping trip, exhausting as it was, had definitely been worth it.

"You just had to tell him, didn't you?" Rogue fumed at Gray, only managing to contain his outrage for the sake of the kids.

“He’s family now, isn’t he?” Gray’s attempt to sound innocent only riled Rogue up further. “Relax, Squirt, there’s lots of stuff I didn’t tell him. Like the time you-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Rogue seethed, much to everyone’s amusement, but when he looked around the room, he suddenly became skittish. "Wait…where did mom go?"

"Right here," Mika answered as she appeared from the hallway, carrying a large photo album and an even larger smile on her face. She sat down next to Sting, who knew exactly what was going to happen, as his own mother had put him through a similar skit once.

"Let's see-" she pulled a curious Aki onto her lap, completely ignoring the protests of both her sons as she started flipping through the pages.

"Look how cute your daddy used to be when he was little," she told Aki, pointing at some of the pictures of Gray when he was the same age. "He looked just like you, but he always managed to take off his clothes wherever we went."

Sting tried but failed not to laugh as he saw her finger pointing at a picture of a much younger looking Silver holding what appeared to be a bunch of children's clothes as he chased an almost naked Gray across the playground. “Dada,” Aki bubbled at the picture and the others on that page.

Meanwhile, Rogue had finished piling food onto Sting’s plate and went to put the twins back into their high chairs before they’d start protesting the fact that everyone else had left them to gather at the dining table. He finished just in time to see Mika turn the page, much to Gray’s relief and amusement, because the next set of pictures were made at the hospital. Rogue could only groan as Sting went off in what could only be described as a laughing fit at the sight of his first baby pictures, in which he was dressed in pink from socks to bonnet.

“See Gray’s face? He was actually a little disappointed when we told him he didn’t get a sister after all, “ Mika chuckled. “He was so proud of the pink frog plushie he’d picked out as a welcoming gift, and he was worried his brother wouldn’t like it.” “The opposite was true, though,” she continued, smiling at Rogue as she continued to spill more embarrassing moments from his childhood. “You had it with you all the time. The one time you lost it, you wouldn’t stop crying and refused to leave the park without it. Dad searched for half an hour in the pouring rain before he finally found it.” “He still has it,” Sting revealed, returning Rogue’s pout of betrayal with an innocent smile. “It’s sitting on a shelf in our bedroom.” “Gee, when I saw how exhausted you looked, I didn’t think I was getting screwed today. Guess I was wrong.” “Rogue!” Mika was quick to scold her son. “What? It was kid-proof.”

Gray cackled in appreciation at Rogue’s snide remark, his grin withering when his mother flashed him a disapproving glare. He coughed uncomfortably and shifted his attention back to his brother, “You still have it? I thought you’d said you lost it.”

“Don’t get full of yourself,” Rogue crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away. “I happened to find it when I was cleaning out the basement a while back.”

Sting knew that was some high-level bs, but he let it go, enjoying the back and forth between the two brothers. Judging from the pleased expression on Mika’s face, he wasn’t the only one.

“Suuuure you did,” Gray teased, marching towards their bedroom with an air of purpose, “I’m gonna go see it.”

“Don’t you dare put your grubby hands on Frosch!” Rogue yelled, chasing after him.

“You named it Frosch?” Sting snickered, although he had to admit it sounded incredibly cute.

“Shut up!” Rogue complained, “I was little.”

“Boys!” Mika scolded, turning to Sting to explain. “Gray ended up loving Frosch just as much as Rogue. He’d sneak into Rogue’s room and take it back to his room.”

“No I didn’t!” Gray denied, “I remember stealing or hiding it just to mess with him. It was hilarious, watching him have a complete meltdown.”

Rogue stuck his tongue out at his brother, acting more childish than Sting had seen in a long time. It was both endearing and amusing as hell.

“It’s okay. I love you too, Bro,” Gray replied, walking over to Rogue and bravely ruffling his hair.

“Rogue wasn’t the only one having a meltdown,” Mika retorted, quietly enough that only Sting could hear her.

“Ugh, just wait until you start dating someone. I am telling them everything,” Rogue promised.

Gray laughed heartily, “Good luck with that. I have zero intention of dating anyone.”

“That’s a shame,” Sting sighed, “you and Natsu looked pretty cute slow-dancing together the other night.”

“That was not what that was,” Gray sputtered, “That was just me comforting a friend.”

“Oh, so you admit you’re friends now?” Rogue immediately pounced on Gray’s words.

“No, I-we are friendly-ish, uhm…friend adjacent? Whatever! He’s still a pain in my ass!” Gray attempted to clear things up, but at hearing that, Sting and Rogue glanced at each other and cracked up.

“Oh my God, get your minds out of the gutter, that’s not what I meant, and you know it!”

But it was too late. Sting and Rogue only laughed harder at Gray’s outrage.

“Who’s Natsu?” Mika interrupted, completely lost as to what was happening.

“Gray’s source of butthurt-” Rogue pulled out his phone and looked through his image gallery, showing his mother a picture of their friend.

“Oh, he’s cute! You should ask him out, sweetie,” Mika encouraged her older son, as Aki gave them all a tentative smile from his spot on his grandmother’s lap.

“Look what you started,” Gray glared at Sting accusingly, “Now I’m never gonna hear the end of it.”

“Well, you said it yourself. I’m family now, aren’t I?” Sting bounced Gray’s words back at him, patting him on the back, “That’s what family’s for!”

Sting and Mika laughed at Gray’s less than enthusiastic response and Rogue’s triumphant smirk.

It was a fantastic feeling to no longer be watching from the sidelines like he usually did, but to actually take part in this moment and give as good as he got. It wasn’t something he was used to, having grown up as an only child.

And it was with a start that Sting realized that while he’d grudgingly agreed to go on the shopping trip with Gray hoping to befriend him, somehow in the last couple of hours, they’d become brothers instead.

#fairy tail #ftdadsau #ftguildevents #sting & gray #gray & rogue #stingue #fics #Fairy Friendship Week 2020 #prompt: secrets #sting #gray #rogue #mika #aki

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tales-unique · 4 years

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QUARANTINE

—Question from Ellie: I just came across your drabbles here and this chapter had me thinking... What if they all got sick at the same time??? I'm imagining them all stuffed into a big bed together so their Human can keep an eye on them like my mom used to do with my brother and I when we were sick. Like would they bicker and fight with each other cause they all feel bad and want their humans attention? I can imagine War and Strife doing something like trying to fight or arm wrestle over their human's attention to the point where Fury tries to kill them both for keeping her up and Death tries to pretend they don't exist until he finally snaps. Poor human would be exhausted trying to reign them in but it sounds hilarious!

Chapter 1

Impossible; it’s the only word that comes to mind when you step into your living room and survey the scene before your eyes. Never before have you had the company of all four of the Riders at once, especially when they are all showing the telltale symptoms of illness.

You’re somewhat thankful that you’ve cashed in your leave days with work because no doubt you will also be sharing in their suffering before long, even though you had been planning to use the time to travel. With a soft huff you dispel your own negativity and return to Strife’s side, where he sits morosely on the floor with his back propped up against the back of your couch. It seems Fury’s outed him from his earlier place on it, content to lounge there like a house cat. You snort at the notion, finding it rather fitting in its irony, before passing Strife yet another blanket to try and calm his chills. “Thanks,” he talks weakly and it still startles you that he sounds so nasally and frail. If anyone had told you that the Horsemen were susceptible to illness you would have straight up called them a liar, but now? Now, not so much. With a small smile you gentle pat his covered arm, glad that you’re able to help at least one of them. Strife is the most Human out of all of them, it would seem, at least when it came to being ill. He whined and struggled, fought against the symptoms, while his brethren simply endured. “Oh, cease your whimpering, Strife! It’s infuriating!” Fury hisses from her spot, coiling up like a snake about to strike. You frown, moving around to the front of the couch so that you can see her properly. She has her fingertips pressed against her temples and her eyes are closed, face taut with pain and annoyance. A headache? No, more a migraine you surmise with a thoughtful hum. “Did you take those tablets I gave you, Fury?” You try to be as quiet, soft, as you can, but she still grimaces when you talk, muttering a small ‘no’ and it’s then you notice the two little white capsules on the side table next to the glass of water you set there a good while ago. Huffing in frustration you turn to the only source of help you’ve had during this whole escapade; Death. The eldest of the Riders sits in the corner of the room on an old recliner chair, silent as the grave as he too battles his own illness. Surprisingly he’s still very resilient and has helped you with the task of caring for his kin. Though, when he speaks there’s a hoarseness to his voice that betrays his own illness and you frown when he utters a small cough when he catches your gaze. Raising a hand dismissively towards Fury, he forces a small chuckle. “Leave her, she cares little for human medicines,” he states, causing you to nod slowly; you’d known this, of course, but she seemed so in pain that you had to try at least. “I gave her a tincture while you were tending to Strife,” he continues, voice tired and irritable, as though merely talking aggravates him, “give it time to work and she’ll be more tolerable.” “I don’t want her tolerable, I want her better,” you frown again, sparing a glance at the others before looking back to him, “I want you all to get better, it sucks seeing you all so... miserable.” It was the truth; seeing them all so low had brought your own mood down considerably, but you were making the best of the situation by helping as much as your mortality could allow. You had let War sequester himself in your spare room with your classic book collection, you gave into Strife’s every whim despite yourself, and for Fury you had turned on that awful incense plug-in she seemed so fascinated with, the one an old friend brought for you and insisted that you use, forcing the room to smell like an old church. The only one you were unable to find something to help for was Death. He had no mortal trinket that he enjoyed that you knew of and, unlike his middle brother, didn’t actively strive for your attention; he simply required your company, in passing, and watching you tend to his siblings seemed to soothe him in its own way. “We’ll be fine, now stop your worrying and go about your business,” Death reprimanded lowly, though his voice didn’t seem to hold the same conviction as it normally would have. You’re unsure whether it’s because he’s sick or if it’s his small fondness for you showing through. Either way you offer him a small smile and nod, noticing briefly as his gaze seems to soften a fraction and the corners of his eyes crinkle in what you assume is a smile. It wasn’t so difficult to go about as your normally would as it was to do so with the company you kept there. Strife is, by far, the worst for it. He tugs at the hem of your dressing gown to get you to look at him and clamps his hands around your ankle so you stumble and he can catch you, all so he can hold you close to his feverish form. Once you’re caught he makes a show of keeping you there in his lap, even as you pout and try to wiggle free. “Strife,” you try scold him but you can’t help the laugh that spills forth as he holds you as if you were a cat nestled in his lap, “I have things to do, you heard Death, let me go about my business!” “Can’t do that, little one,” he hums lowly, sniffling despite his best intentions. He still has that damn helmet on even though you’ve told him dozens of times to take it off, but you know that there’s a fond look on his concealed face from the way his voice dips and his hands clutch at you a little tighter. “Come on, Strife,” you try to be softer, hoping you can appeal to some higher nature in him, “I need to go check on War, too, y’know.” For a second you think he’s actually considering letting you go but such hopes are dashed by his stubbornness to share; a trait he seems to only show so openly when ill. His grip tightens and you let out a frustrated growl. “Strife!” You whine in frustration, but your own annoyance is cut short when a shadow is cast over the two of you, and you both quickly look up to see the angered self of Fury looming over you from the couch. It’s clear your shenanigans have disturbed her and you feel somewhat better knowing that you’re still in Strife’s grasp, aiming to use it as a means to protect yourself from her wrath. “Strife,” she hisses lowly, fingers digging into the fabric of the couch so tightly that you distantly fear she’ll rip it, “let her go, this instant!” The Horseman’s eyes glare vibrantly at her sibling and after a momentary glare-off between the pair he reluctantly loosens his hold on you, grumbling under his breath as he does so. You quickly scramble to your feet, straightening your pajamas and dressing gown accordingly. While he sulks you use the time to check on War, carefully treading to your spare room where the behemoth currently dwelled. Peeking your head inside you spot War easily, his large back facing you from where he sits on the bed in relative peace, save for the occasional sniffle. He’s the only one apart from Death that is manageable and actually allows you to help, though he seems perplexed when you offer him a steaming cup of tea or something similar. The thought makes you giggle; human remedies have little effect on the Horseman, but it’s the thought that counts and he seems more than happy to let you be happy while you help. The sound of your laughter catches his attention and he turns slightly to acknowledge you, you face softening as you notice the slight redness to his cheeks. Unlike Strife he has shed his obstructive armour without much fuss and was dressed in simple underclothes, and yet he still smouldered to the touch. Your smiles melts into a troubled frown when you come to touch a gentle hand to his forehead, watching his brow crease once more at your actions. “You’re so warm,” you whine, feeling defeated. Nothing you were doing was helping, not that he seemed particularly bothered by the troublesome cold he had. “It’s nothing to be so concerned with,” he breathes out, simply watching you as you scowl. Even now he’s the least talkative of them all and this saddens you because he’s ( secretly ) your favourite. Despite being the youngest, and having a temper, you find him the easiest to open up to and the least judgmental, at least in your opinion. Humming lowly you settle at his side on the bed, pulling your legs up to your chest to wrap your arms around them as you take a moment to simply breathe, and he's more than willing to allow you the peace and quiet. Of course, after barely five minutes has passed you hear movement and, realizing you had dozed off with your head awkwardly leaning on your knees, look up to spot Strife pushing the door open ungraciously, his helmet now removed so his golden eyes can narrow suspiciously upon you and his younger brother. "Strife—" Before you can even begin your protest the Horseman steps forward, reaching out to scoop you up into his arms, and takes you away with him to your living room. Shocked by his clear disregard for the situation you simply blink owlishly up at him, grunting at the force in which he then flops down upon your sofa, blatantly ignoring Fury's hiss, which sounds like a tired, angry cat, as he disturbs her from yet another restless snooze. Even Death's attention is caught as he watches his younger brother lie back, his legs dangerously dangling over Fury's curled up form, holding you to him like a child would clutch at their favourite stuffed toy. When you're finally free of the fabric of his scarf and have maneuvered into a more comfortable position you let out a huffing breath, realizing that there is no escape and that this is where you'll likely spend the rest of your day, at the very least. "Strife?" You sigh, now laying with your back against his chest, head resting back into the crook of his neck. It's not that comfortable, but it's better than being scrunched up in his grasp. "Mhm?" He hums, as innocent as the cat that ate the Canary. "You're a brat," you huff, rolling your eyes when he simply chuckles at you. Feeling his arms tighten around your waist as he lays there with you, absent-mindedly playing with the ties of your dressing gown, almost distracts you from the feeling of hands touching your legs. At the sudden realization you jump, legs twitching, while your head shoots up to look at what had you in its grasp. Fury. She looks oddly enchanting with her floating hair looking bigger, messier, than usual and her eyes are somewhat drowsy and unfocused. You calm despite the wicked snarl on her lips, knowing that she would have already unleashed her wrath if there was any to be had, but it seems that Death's tonic is working and she's much more tolerant of the intrusion. In fact, she seems to almost welcome it as she uses her grip on your legs as a means to pull herself up the lengths of your body until she's practically on top of you. Her body weight forces a whine to come from your lips and it prompts her to ease off to the side, slapping Strife's hands away so that she can hold you close instead, busying herself with taking in the scent of your hair; she enjoys the scent of your bed head almost as much as that plug-in you loathe. You blink owlishly between the pair, feeling yourself begin to burn up from the heat that resonates from them both as they clamor at each side, subconsciously fighting for your attention even as the lull of sleep tugs at them. Awkwardly you try to shimmy out of your dressing gown , but only succeed in getting your arms free before Fury has you trapped again, enjoying the feel of your skin against her own. Like War, Fury has also traded in her armour for something less restrictive. However she decided to steal one of your oversized t-shirts and an old pair of shorts that barely fit her rather than simply dress down. It’s a better choice, at least. A low grumble soon catches your attention as you, again, attempt to wrangle free from your own clothes, causing you to pause and look up, directly into the almost glowing gaze of War. It’s clear from his face that he’s irritated from Strife’s behaviour and at being disturbed, and you offer him a sympathetic smile from where you lay. The youngest Horseman spares a glance to his eldest sibling, who has been watching the commotion from his seat with a smirk upon his face, hidden behind the impassive expression of his bone mask, before he circles around the couch. His intention is clear, he wants in on the cuddle-the-human pile, but there’s barely any room since your couch is small and is already overcrowded between Strife and Fury already, nevermind you being there too. No, this will not stand. With a determined expression you wriggle free, or at least as much as the grumbling Horsemen would allow, so that you can try and make room for War. It takes effort to convince Fury to tuck in her legs and even more to convince Strife to move about so that the behemoth can join you all, and by the time you’re done your cheeks are flushed and you heave a sigh of relief for now you all fit, sort of, on the couch and you are pleasantly nestled, finally free of your dressing gown altogether, in the middle of it all. “Finally,” you groan, feeling tired from the dizzying heat that now encased you. As your eyelids grow heavy you spread out much like a cat, briefly looking over the three contented Horsemen and realizing that this is the closest you’ve ever seen them all together. Save for Death, that is. “Death,” you call softly, tilting your head to look at the eldest Horseman, who is still settled in the same place he had been since arriving at your home that day, your slender hand reaching out to him, “come over here.” You wiggle your fingers, motioning for him to come over. He always seems on the outside, or at least to you he does, so you want this time to be different. He raises an eyebrow from behind his mask and eyes you curiously, flicking his amber gaze between the soft yet wistful expression on your face and your outstretched arm before sighing deeply in defeat. Your smile falters at the weariness in his pace as he comes over to you but it’s reignited anew when your feel the cool digits of his fingers cover your own, enjoying the warmth that spreads from them as he settles down onto the floor. He sits there with his back pressed against the base of the couch, one leg stretched out before him while he uses the other to lean his arm upon, head leaning back to rest against the well placed cushion you gave him, a low rumble escaping him at the feeling of your fingers drifting through his hair. For once his hair is soft and clean, no doubt he used your shower while you were out getting medicines for them all, and it makes you feel at peace as your stroke through the locks. You breath a gentle sigh of contentment and your ministrations slow, no longer as deliberate, as you too finally succumb to the tendrils of sleep, joining the Four Horsemen for a well earned rest.

#Darksiders #Darksiders Imagines #Darksiders Imagine #Imagine #Darksiders Death #Darksiders Fury #Darksiders Strife #Darksiders War #Death #Fury #Strife #War #( I honestly can't remember if I posted this on here or nOT )#( so here they are both chapters ! )

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erekiosuncreativeideas · 4 years

Text

Reliving An Old Nightmare - Chapter 18

<= Chapter 17

Summary : Snatcher has a lot of things to say. Also available on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337299/chapters/58252951

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CHAPTER 18 IS HERE !!! I hope you’ll like it ! ALSO : I commissionned Puyo-Proto to voice a bit of Snatcher in this scene !!! The result is amazing, I’m so happy with it, thank you again !! You’re so talented ! YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT HERE !! OF COURSE, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE CHAPTER, so I advise you to read said chapter first! Check out his amazing voice acting ! Here’s his twitter !

HAPPY READING !

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Chapter 18

Snatcher had thought that he had experienced pain in the most unenjoyable ways… But, oh, he had been so wrong. The ghost’s consciousness started to emerge again, slowly waking up to awful pains in all parts of his body. But what hurt the most was his head: the shade could feel every heartbeat resonating inside of his skull, as if someone was hammering the walls around his brain. He just wanted the sensation to go away. He was so tired, so nauseous, everything was so painful!

The spirit barely realized he had let out a whimper as his mind was way too foggy to care. All he wanted was to ignore the growing pain in his body and go back to sleep, where everything was so much more peaceful…

-“Snatcher?” said a soft and sad little voice on his right. The shade felt his consciousness be stimulated by the cry for help next to him. What was happening? The question appeared in the ghost’s mind as he couldn’t help but have a very bad feeling. Why did he feel this way? Why couldn’t he think clearly? Why did he feel himself be stuck against something, while his lower body dangled in the air? Why couldn’t he move his hands?

And why did this all feel so extremely familiar?

The sudden realization hit him hard, pure horror engulfing him. He knew exactly what was happening, he remembered everything his body was currently experiencing. He had gone through that kind of suffering in the past when-

He opened his eyes, panicked. He felt his heart sinking in his chest as he immediately recognized the room he was in: damp walls made of stones, a cobblestone floor, several casks scattered around the place, huge kegs, humid and cold air… Snatcher was in the cellar again. His hands just like his torso were shackled to the wall, exactly like hundreds of years ago.

His breathing got caught in his throat from the shock. No, he couldn’t be there again, he couldn’t go through this torture again! Once was already more than enough! Why was he here again?!

-“Snatcher! Snap out of it!”

His attention got back to the small child next to him. She was shackled to the wall just like he was. It is only then that he noticed he had been hyperventilating. His ears were ringing from the panic and his mouth was dry. The little girl had tears marks on her cheeks and her eyes were red from all the crying she must have done while he was still unconscious. She didn’t have her hat on and the accessory was nowhere in sight. She didn’t seem to be injured, which was a relief to the spirit. He tried his best to calm himself down, still very much scared and confused by his current situation.

-“What… Why are we…” he tried to ask, yet couldn’t say the words, for some unknown reason. Maybe it was the shock, maybe it was all the trauma coming back to him after all those years… Or maybe his throat was too dry to make any sound. In any case, he wasn’t able to finish this sentence and hoped the brat would understand what he had meant: “what happened? Why are we here?”

Given the context, his ex-contractor had no problem to decipher what he had tried to say. She attempted to move, but the chains on her wrists prevented her to move too much. She winced in the process, certainly from the pain it caused. And oh, Snatcher knew very well how painful it could be.

-“We… We got caught,” explained the child with a weak voice: “I was going to blow up the padlock with my hat, but… The butler knocked you out…”

The memories were now coming back to the ghost like vivid visions in his mind. He could remember the sudden pain on the back of his head, the cries coming from the little girl… She had begged him to help her, to stand up and fight… But he had lost consciousness.

And now they were in the cellar. The last place he wanted to see or be in again.

Snatcher pulled on the chains, yet it was all in vain: as a mere human, he wouldn’t be able to get free. He knew that. However, he kept trying, feeling a mix of fear and anger powering his attempts. He couldn’t stay here, he couldn’t, not again, not a second time… And even less with the kid next to him, in the same situation as him. He would definitely not allow it. The very idea of having her going through that hell just made him livid: never, he would never allow it! If she had to suffer, it was going to be through him and no one else!

And so, the ghost screamed. No matter how much the little girl jumped beside him, no matter how much his throat ached, and no matter how much time it would take… He was going to get out and kill Vanessa and her accomplice, once and for all. He hadn’t finished the job the first time and it had been one of his biggest mistakes… A mistake he wouldn’t repeat. Even if he had to die in the process.

Rage had engulfed him whole as he tried to pull on the chains, again and again and again… The sound of the chains resonated in the room just like his pants from his effort. But he was far, far from being over! If he had to break his own wrists to get out of these chains, he would! This wouldn't be the first time anyway!

-“Snatcher! Snatcher stop!” begged the hatless brat. Though, the spirit wasn’t listening. He didn’t want to listen.

He was going to get out, he was going to get out, he was going to get out! His screams were deafening and became feral-like the more he screamed. He could hear the child trying to calm him down next to him, but the shade didn’t care. He didn’t have to care in his situation! How could anyone expect him to stay calm when he had to relive his worst nightmare?

And then, all of a sudden, the air around them became awfully chilly. The spirit stopped abruptly, confusion replacing his anger for just a moment.

“Why…?” Though, his bewilderment didn’t last long as he quickly put the missing piece of the puzzle. It was her, it could only be her. The sound of muffled steps behind the door of the cellar only confirmed his suspicions. Vanessa was there. Whether she had come because of his screams or just because she wanted to bathe in his hatred for her and his rage… It didn’t change the fact that she was behind the door. Even as a simple human, the spirit could still sense her presence behind the wooden surface. As for the little girl, she seemed to have come to the same conclusion as him. She was standing deadly still, probably terrified, if the look on her face was any indication. The shade had been scared too, the first time. However, now, pure fury radiated from him. He hated her, loathed her!

How could she come after shackling them up on a wall again? How could she?

The ghost’s rage intensified even more as he clenched his teeth. Why? Why would she do that again? When she had explicitly said to him that she wanted to make things right this time? Then again, she had also said that everything had been his fault from the start…

He started yelling again, even more furious than before:

-“How dare you!” the words left his mouth as he pulled on his restraints once again: “All this talk about how mature you said you were compared to me! How better you wanted everything to be!”

The ghost could feel his throat hurt from how dry it was. How long had he stayed unconscious? How long had it been since the last time he drank water? The anger quickly made him forget those thoughts as he continued screaming:

-“Well newsflash, Vanessa! You screwed everything up! You’ll never be the mature person! You’re just a heartless monster!” he paused, and then scoffed almost for himself, though he knew very well she could hear him: “And I was the liar? Me? You were the liar all along!”

His body radiated heat the more he yelled, but the ghost purposely ignored it. It wasn’t important. Even though he could feel his body changing from the inside, he was just blinded by the fury and the resentment he had towards the Queen. Nothing else was important. Not even the cries on his right as he opened his mouth again:

-“And you know what’s fun?” he asked with a mix of bitterness and sarcasm: “You never took a good look at yourself! You destroyed an entire village, killed all its inhabitants, murdered your dear fiance, and somehow it was my fault? You’re so full of yourself it’s hilarious!”

The spirit laughed, but it sounded terribly maniacal and insincere. His skin had changed colour, now purple like his ghostly form, yet his body remained tangible just like his human form. His face radiated a yellowish light and his mouth had changed, showing fangs instead of normal teeth.

Snatcher was livid and his body was reacting in consequence.

-“And you actually thought I would love you again? Forget everything that you did just because you created a perfect little alternate reality?” The spirit laughed again, yet his laughter ended with a sad tone. A minute passed in silence, but he knew she was still there.

-“You never cared about me,” affirmed Snatcher bitterly: “All you cared about was the idea of living the perfect princess life, falling in love, just like in a fairytale. But you were the villain all along, you were the unstable witch becoming crazy when something didn’t go your way!”

Snatcher stopped again, shutting his eyes hard and clenching his fists as he questioned in a desperate, loud voice:

-“Why are you still here?!” He demanded as his words resonated in the cellar, echoing all around him and the kid: “Go away! If you want us to die here so much, then get lost!”

He took a deep breath and screamed as much as he could, all his rage and fury fuelling his last words:

-“I hate you, Vanessa! I loathe you! Get lost!”

Snatcher thought it would be enough. Snatcher really thought she would leave them alone to die, just like she intended… But instead, he still felt her presence behind the door, as the air cooled down again. She wasn’t leaving. And then, after a few seconds, the door opened and a silhouette entered the room, holding something tight against her chest.

It was Vanessa, wearing her light green nightshirt. Her face was full of sadness and guilt, and she couldn’t bear looking at the ghost in the eyes.

And, in her hands, was the brat’s magical hat.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Gosh I LOVE writing cliffhangers :) ALSO DON’T FORGET TO LISTEN TO PUYO-PROTO’S VOICE ACTING, IT’S AMAZING AAAAH

See you on the next chapter ! :D

Chapter 19 =>

#A Hat In Time #ahit #snatcher #puyo-proto #hat kid #vanessa #Reliving An Old Nightmare #my art #fanfiction #Raon

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thisisthepartwhereyou · 4 years

Text

BEASTARS MINI-STORY #5: “Everybody Play the Game pt. 3” by JCL

---

We see the interior of a claw crane machine full of plush dolls. These plushies look like adorable chibi-versions of characters in Cat's Don't Dance (1997), such as Danny, Sawyer and Pudge. A claw moves down into frame and makes a grab at a Danny-doll. While the claw succeeds in clamping the body, the doll still slips through the grip and remains down with the rest of the dolls.

HARU: "Damn."

We see that Haru is the one playing with it, holding its joystick with an irritated expression as the claw returns to its default position. Now seeing the whole machine from the exterior, we see that it has an aquatic theme, with the picture of a cartoon crab and the title 'Treasure Trove' printed between the top of the machine and the display glass.

Legosi is standing next to Haru, leaning against the wall next to the machine.

LEGOSI: "I think you're throwing your money away. I've never actually seen anyone win something from these things."

Haru takes up a coin from her pocket and pushes it into the coin slot. The machine begins to play a short melody (which sounds like a sea chanty) and the crane inside it starts to blink, signifying that a new round has started. Haru's ears (who following the events of the last chapter look a little reddish) flicker. She got a frown on her face.

HARU: "It's not a waste of money if it keeps you distracted for a bit."

She glances over her shoulder, over which we see that the boys from 701 has taken a seat at their reserved table.

HARU: "He's still feeling pretty bad, isn't he?"

Legosi turns his head to look at Durham. The coyote look depressed for some reason.

LEGOSI: "Yeah..."

Haru pulls the joystick in a L-shaped motion, goading the claw back to the Danny-doll.

HARU: "I don't get it, it's not like he pulled my ears off or anything. He already apologized... He doesn't have to look like he's on a funeral or something."

She presses a large and red button on top of the joystick. This makes the four-fingered claw inside open up, descend and make another grab at the plushie. It goes a little better, with the doll actually being elevated for a short distance, before sliding off the grip and falling down. Haru gives off a disgruntled growl.

HARU: "Damnit! I get knocked around by accident almost daily by animals bigger than me, but they usually just apologize and then it's done. I don't take it personally, and they don't linger on it."

She quickly puts in another coin. The melody plays again and she maneuvers the claw into the same place as before. She really got in for that Danny-doll!

HARU: "I don't like getting treated like a little porcelain doll. Most of the world pities me already for being this small and fragile, he doesn't have to feel so sorry for such a little thing! It's like with you and that yakisoba-incident*...!"

She presses the button and the claw goes down again, except now it misses the intended target completely.

HARU: "SHIT! It was just a stupid mistake, and you still feel bad about it."

Haru turns her head to look at Legosi, who is still looking in Durham's direction.

HARU: "What is it with you canines and your overabundant sense of guilt?"

LEGOSI: "I think you've misunderstood why he feels as bad as he does. After he hurt you, did you happen to get a good look at the other visitors here?"

Haru's brows go up. She turns to look at the other visitors in the café besides them. We see that there is like 10 of them, all of them herbivores of varying sizes. She does not notice anything special about them though.

HARU: "What about them?"

LEGOSI: "Look at them for a little longer..."

Haru takes another, longer look. Doing this, she eventually notices how the other visitors are throwing them and the 701s nervous and/or unfriendly glances.

HARU: "... They keep looking our way?"

Legosi nods. He then crouches down, gets close to Haru and whispers into her ear.

LEGOSI: "It's because they're expecting us to attack and eat you at any moment. You probably didn't notice in the commotion..." ---

We enter a flashback, taking place right after Durham accidentally clamps Haru's ears on the Fivelimbs-carpet.

LEGOSI: "...But when you cried out they all immediately stood up or reached for their phones, probably ready to call the police."

As this happens, several of the other patrons stand up at their tables with their phones up, or look like they are about rush out or rush in.

LEGOSI: "Two of them even ran out the door."

We two scared-looking visitors, a goat and a llama, running out through the door.

LEGOSI: "Yanni reached for something behind the counter. I don't know if it was a phone, a baseball bat or a even a firearm."

Finally we see the owner, Yanni, reaching down for something behind the counter. ---

Returning to the present, Haru look upset by what Legosi just told her.

LEGOSI: "That's why Durham feel so bad. You see, because of his accident, everyone in here is now watching us with scrutiny. After all, we are six male carnivores, with one female herbivore..."

We go over to the 701s, sitting at their table. In an illustrative way, we see disembodied eyes filled with scorn spawning around them within a cloud of resentful aura, illustrating how they are currently perceived in the café by the other patrons.

LEGOSI: "People are always quick to assume the worst from us, and now that one of us has actually hurt you, it's hard for the other ones here to get the idea of us eating you out of their head."

Haru turns to Legosi. She has gone from being upset, to angry.

HARU: "But it was just a stupid accident!"

Legosi acknowledges this with a nod and a melancholic expression.

LEGOSI: "There are no accidents, not with carnivores. That's what they think."

He sighs.

LEGOSI: "That's what they always think, and we're always supposed to feel bad about it, even if it isn't true. That's the reason behind our... Overabundant sense of guilt."

Haru stares at Legosi, looking very sad for a few seconds. She then groans with a voice that sound so frustrated, deep and rough that it might as well have come from some wrath-filled creature from the darkest pits of hell.

HARU: "Son of a BITCH!"

The sound hilariously catches Legosi off his guard. Haru then swiftly turns and hits the crane machine with her fist. She leans forward, her forehead resting against the glass. Her eyes focus in on the Danny-doll; the orange feline sitting in there like an unattainable object of desire.

HARU: "It pisses me off. And as a cherry on top of the situation, why must that darn cat mock me..!?"

Legosi puts a hand on her head and scratches it affectionately.

LEGOSI: "There, there...!"

HARU: "So what are we supposed to do?"

LEGOSI: "Buy the doll online?"

Haru backs away from the machine and turns to Legosi.

HARU: "No... I mean about the atmosphere. What can we do about it?"

LEGOSI: "I am not sure whether there is anything we can do.... I guess we could go to another place."

This makes Haru's ears twitch in annoyance.

HARU: "No way! You guys rented a table, we have as much right to be here as any other paying customer."

Haru seems to ponder hard about what to do.

HARU: (The issue is fear and ignorance... How does one deal with silent fear and ignorance withpout causing a scene?)

Thinking about this, she then looks like she realizes something and turns to Legosi with an apologetic look.

HARU: "I am sorry about what I said about canines and guilt. That was very speciest of me."

Legosi shrugs.

LEGOSI: "It's alright, you didn't know better. Also, you should probably stay away from the word 'bitch'. That's kind of an offensive therm for us..."

Then, all of a sudden, a light bulb appears above Haru's head. Meanwhile, Legosi's stomach begins to grumble.

HARU: "Hey... You just gave me an idea."

LEGOSI: "Good. Could we get something to eat while you explain it to me?" ---

We skip ahead for a bit. We see that at their reserved table, each of the 701s have individual trays with food in front of them. Durham is continuously dipping a wafer into his cup of coffee with a vacant look in his eyes.

DURHAM: "This is unbearable. First impressions are everything, and now I've turned this game night into a stare off..!"

Jack, who is eating an English muffin whilst carefully wiping the crumbs from it into a napkin, gives the coyote a tired look.

JACK: "You should try and cheer up, you know, for her sake. She probably doesn't understand the situation."

It is about then that Haru return to the table with her own tray. Sliding the tray up on the table (which has a carrot cake, a cup of black coffee and a small bag of sugar cubes on it), she then hops up on the sofa and scooches in next to Miguno, who straightens up with a nervous look as she gets close. She doesn't appear to notice this though and looks around with a friendly face.

HARU: "What are you guys talking about?"

DURHAM: "Oh... Nothing."

Durham's eyes go directly to Haru's ears, taking notice of their reddish tint.

DURHAM: "... You're sure that you're alright?"

Haru looks a bit annoyed. She proceeds to rip open the little bag with the sugar cubes, making them fall out on her tray.

HARU: "I told you, I'm fine. You don't have to keep apologizing when it was just an accident."

Durham nods, but still look quite guilty. A hand lands on his shoulder. He looks up and sees that it is Legosi, who is giving him a look that appears to say 'it's okay.' This seems to calm Durham's conscience a bit. We then hear Collot growling at Durham.

COLLOT: "You should apologize to me too...!"

We then see that Collot has ordered a very large glass of ice tea, which he has positioned between his legs.

COLLOT: "Or at least pay for the damn tea. I'm not even an ice tea kind of guy...!"

Durham raises an eyebrow and stares at Collot with an unsympathetic eye. Meanwhile, Legosi sits down next to Haru. We see that his tray has a latte and a pound cake on it.

DURHAM: "Just consider it a bad case of karma for something you've done and gotten away with."

Haru sweat drops at this.

HARU: "Actually, I should be apologizing for that one... I am sorry that I bust a nut."

All the boys give her a weirded out looks. Realizing what she just said, she blushes and looks embarrassed.

HARU: "Okay, lousy choice of words, but you get what I'm saying, right?"

Collot gives her a little nod and smile, showing that he is not holding any grudge. Haru sighs.

HARU: "My karma must be wicked bad. First the crane robbed me, and now I put my foot in my mouth...!"

Voss, who has been busy gorging on a piece of blueberry pie, looks up from his plate.

VOSS: "No disrespect, but I don't think a crane machine is such good indicator to the legitimacy of karma, cause in that case everyone who has played it must've been real ass... ASSemblings of bad actions. I mean when did 'Cat's Don't Dance' come out? Twenty years ago? I bet the owner have to take those plushies out every weekend just to remove the cobwebs."

JACK: "Actually, there is some scientific legitimacy to karma."

Now everyone turns to look at Jack.

JACK: "Not that one can actually collect supernatural points that will determine what you're reborn as. I mean, if you see karma as an outcome of action, one should remember the third law of motion: for every action, there is an equivalent and opposite reaction... Meaning that good actions will affect your odds favorably, just as how bad actions can come back to bite you, sometimes when you least expect it."

Collot huffs at this, lifting the iceatea off his crotch and putting it on the table in front of him.

COLLOT: "Whatever you say Earl."

Taking a sip from the tea through a long straw, his face lights up a bit.

COLLOT: "Mmm... Its actually pretty good!"

Haru and Legosi share a look. He nods, prompting her to clear her throat, which directs the 701s collective attention towards her.

HARU: "Excuse me, I was just wondering... Do you guys have any questions about me and Legosi?"

This question catches the boys off guard. They all look a little uncertain.

HARU: "It's okay to be curious you know, I mean you gotta wonder how it works."

MIGUNO: "You mean... It's okay to ask questions?"

Legosi nods.

LEGOSI: "Well to be honest it would be nice if more people asked questions about us."

Haru takes the sugar cubes up from her tray and puts them into her coffee. She then proceeds to stir it with a spoon.

HARU: "Most people seem scared to ask, or maybe they're afraid of the answers."

DURHAM: "So it's really okay?"

Haru takes her spoon up and points it at Durham.

HARU: "As long as it's not too personal."

Miguno leans forward, looking at her and Legosi eagerly.

MIGUNO: "Okay... Um, stop me if I overstep any boundaries, but what do your families think?"

Haru takes a sip from her coffee.

HARU: "They all like Legosi, but I don't think they quite get that he's my boyfriend."

LEGOSI: "Actually, your dad knows."

Haru looks surprised by this, and she puts the cup down.

HARU: "He does?"

LEGOSI: "I told him when he gave me a ride home the first time I had dinner at your parents house."

HARU: "Really? Huh."

JACK: "What about Gosha?"

Legosi meets Jack's look.

LEGOSI: "He knows, but we haven't really had a chance to set up a formal meeting. Things have been pretty hectic since last Rexmas, with my job, his job and Haru's studies, so finding a date that works for all three of us have been pretty difficult."

HARU: "Golden week is soon. How about then?"

Legosi look at Haru with uncertainty.

LEGOSI: "I am not sure. A lot of people order udon during golden week... I'll have to talk about it with my boss before I can say for sure."

A little vein pops on Haru's head; she gives his arm an annoyed little poke.

HARU: "Considering you almost never take any time off, even during the holidays, he should give you a break...!"

JACK: "I have a question."

Jack stares at the two with a quizzical expression.

JACK: "How did you guys meet?"

Haru and Legosi look comically stunned... Like how are they supposed to explain all the bizarre details of how they got together without freaking everyone out?

HARU: "Uh... Well we actually came across each other one night, but we didn't really say hello to one another...!"

LEGOSI: "Y-yeah, we didn't really have a proper meeting until I went to the gardening club to ask for some plants for the drama club to borrow."

The 701s listen to this (very censored) re-telling with interest.

HARU: "Then we kind of met back and forth during the preparation for the meteor fest. It was a rocky time for both of us, during which we got close and... Well..."

Putting her hand on Legosi's, Haru gives him a tender look.

HARU: "Things has just continued to develop since then."

Legosi responds with a tender look of his own, and puts his other hand over hers. Seeing this, the 701s look touched. Durham even lets out an effeminate sigh. Strangely enough though, Jack doesn't seem to share the same sentiment as his friends, having a rather neutral expression on his face instead.

DURHAM: "Did he go after you or did you go after him?"

Haru awkwardly thinks back to when Legosi almost ate her in their first meeting, while Legosi simultaneously thinks back to when tried to have sex with him in the storage room of the gardening club. They both look a little awkward about this and reply with deadpan voices:

HARU & LEGOSI: "Both."

Haru then points a finger at Legosi.

HARU: "Though I'd have to say he made the first move."

Legosi blinks and gives her an odd look.

LEGOSI: "Are you kidding? You totally came onto me first."

Haru looks at him in an argumentative way.

HARU: "No way... It was you who started it."

LEGOSI: "Did not."

HARU: "Did too."

The boys stare at them as this interaction takes place with amused expressions.

LEGOSI: "Nuh-uh!"

HARU: "Yuh-uh!"

Haru takes a bite out her carrot cake with a stubborn look.

HARU: "Whatever, I know I'm right though... Mmm, a little dry...!"

Legosi look a little annoyed, and he begins to eat from his pound cake.

VOSS, COLLOT, DURHAM, MIGUNO & JACK: (What is this? Elementary school?)

HARU: "Anything else you wonder about?"

Voss then holds his hand up, like a little kid in class.

VOSS: "Me-me-me! I'm next! I'm next!"

HARU: "Shoot."

Haru takes her cup and takes a little sip of her coffee.

VOSS: "What is the sex like?"

Legosi's eyes bulge open and he bites down hard on his spoonful of pound cake. Haru chokes on her coffee, Jack facepalms and the other 701s stare at the fennec in a scolding manner. Even some of the other patrons (who appears to have listened in on the group's dialogue) look uncomfortable.

JACK: "Idiot...!"

Voss on the other hand look adorably clueless.

VOSS: "What? Was that too personal?"

Legosi opens his mouth. We see that he bit down of the spoon so hard that it is now bent out of shape... And with Legosi's set of false teeth attached to it.

LEGOSI: "Of coff itf too peffonal! What could poffibly be-"

Legosi then notices that his dentures are missing. He looks down, pulls them off the spoon and puts them back into his mouth. The boys look stunned and confused by the reveal that Legosi now wear dentures, while Haru can't help but to give off a little laugh at the slapstick-esque situation. With his teeth back in place, Legosi gives Voss a stern look and finishes his sentence.

LEGOSI: "- more personal?"

HARU: "I have to agreed, that is too personal." (I mean we haven't even...!)

Voss is visibly amused by all their reactions.

VOSS: "Yeah-yeah, I know. Honestly I just wanted to see your reactions!"

He then gives Haru a more serious look.

VOSS: "Serious question though, from one small mammal to the next: How do you deal with the size-difference? Like, when you're hanging out and stuff?"

Haru seems to think about this as she wipes some coffee stains off the corners of her mouth with a napkin.

HARU: "That was mostly a problem in the beginning... I mean I am a bit self-conscious about my size, and when I first started being with Legosi, I felt constantly reminded of it. But now I don't think about it as much."

She pats at the backpack which she is seated on.

HARU: "I mean we find ways to make it work, with him bringing a backpack when we eat out so that we can sit at the same table, and I got him a pair of big chopsticks whenever we stay at home to eat together."

VOSS: "Do you ride him?"

This question causes another wave of extreme reactions across the café. Legosi now look angry and embarrassed.

LEGOSI: "VOSS!"

Voss rolls his eyes at all of this.

VOSS: "I meant non-sexually you dirty-minded doof! Like how I ride Collot or Durham when we're up and about!"

The fennec points his thumb at Collot. Both Haru and Legosi sweat drops at the idea of them doing this.

HARU: "No... No offense, but I think that would be weird."

Voss points at her with his own, blueberry-stained spoon.

VOSS: "That's what I used to think, but it actually makes you feel surprisingly empowered. I mean the view is great, you don't have to worry about anybody stepping on you or knocking you down. And on top of that, it's like you're piloting your own, giant furry MECHA!"

Hearing this, Collot turns and gives his small friend a look.

COLLOT: "Is that why you hum Cruel Angel's Thesis whenever we're walking through the school halls?"

VOSS: "Maybe."

COLLOT: "Nerd."

Voss glares at him.

VOSS: "Oh yeah? Get fu... STUFFED!"

The 701s all turn to stare at the fennec.

DURHAM: "... Fu-stuffed? You know, now that I think about it, you've been awfully reserved with your vocab tonight Voss.

MIGUNO: "Yeah, most of the time you're like a little Chucky-doll."

Collot puts two fingers on Voss forehead, checking the fennec's temperature.

COLLOT: "Are you ill or something?"

Voss look annoyed and pushes Collot's fingers with his hands.

VOSS: "I am fine!"

Voss then looks away with a pair of puffed up cheeks.

VOSS: "I just don't think it'd be appropriate when there's a lady present..!"

The group at first look stunned by this. Then they all go "aaaawww" and lean in towards the embarrassed-looking fennec. Haru even finds it so cute that she holds her hand over her heart.

VOSS: "SHADDUP!"

Looking at the group around her as they make fun off the fennec fox, Haru then stares at Durham, who does not look the least bit depressed anymore.

HARU: (To think a mood can change so drastically... )

She shares a look with Legosi, who gives her an approving smile.

HARU: (... when you know a little better)

LEGOSI: "Hey, is anybody up for a game of Hungry-Hungry Wolf?" ---

We see a compilation of Haru, Legosi and the guys getting back to playing multiple games across the passage of time: These include Haru, Legosi, Durham and Miguno playing Hungry-Hungry Wolf, using large, plastic wolf heads to eat as many of the little red marbles as possible. After this they play Whodunnit, where Jack seems to have come to the conclusion that it is Captain Mustard who murdered the victim in the kitchen with a flatiron. Then, finally, we see Haru and Voss play a tug of war with a rope in their mouths (the same game played by Legosi and Bill during the Riz-arc) while the others cheer them on. ---

Later, we see Collot and Legosi competing against each other at the Whack-the-Weevil machine, furiously beating the the artificial bugs that go up and down from the holes while collecting points on a scoreboard each. Completing the round, Collot does a victory-pose while Legosi looks like he's out of breath.

COLLOT: "And the title of district weevil-swatting champ goes to..."

He points at Durham, Voss (who is currently sitting on Durham's head) and Miguno, who un-enthusiastically complete Collot's sentence.

VOSS, MIGUNO & DURHAM: "Collot, the sultan of swat...!"

Collot proceeds to make audience sound effects in a boastful fashion, while Haru puts her hands on her hips and gives Legosi a confounded look.

HARU: "Are you tired or something? I mean I've seen you at full speed, you could've totally beat him!"

Legosi, who has his hand over his stomach, looks like he is in some pain.

LEGOSI: "It's probably because I need to got the bathroom... I'll see you guys in a minute."

Legosi walks off to the bathroom, Haru and the guys following him with their eyes as he leaves. Collot begins to eagerly rub his hands.

COLLOT: "Very well then, who'll be the next victim? Haru?"

HARU: "No thanks, I am still tuckered out from the tug of war...!"

Hearing this, Collot turns to Durham instead.

COLLOT: "How about you then Durham? Get over here!"

Haru looks around, and then notices that Jack is sitting by himself at their table, looking though his phone. She walks over, hops up on a seat opposite him. He looks up at her.

JACK: "Just looking through my schedule for the next week. Did you want something?"

Haru pulls up a coin from her pocket and places it on the table, she then leans forward and gives the labrador a curious look.

HARU: "Penny for your thoughts."

JACK: "Don't worry about it, my thoughts are free."

HARU: "I am just a little curious. We haven't really talked a lot this evening and... Well, you are Legosi's oldest friend, aren't you?"

Jack nods and looks down at his phone again.

JACK: "That is correct."

HARU: "Meaning that me coming into his life was either the biggest or the smallest surprise to you."

Swiping through a schedule on his phone, the labrador doesn't look up as he replies.

JACK: "Probably the biggest."

HARU: "Is that why you don't like me?"

Jack looks up from his phone with a shocked expression.

JACK: "I... Why would I- Why would you think I don't like you?"

HARU: "Just a feeling. Back when when we talked about how we met, you could probably tell that we skipped over quite a few things. Things that were not very pleasant. Also, when I asked if it was true whether you were the smartest guy at school like Legosi thought, you acted like it wasn't a good thing."

Haru looks over to the rest of the 701s. They are enjoying their game of Whack-the-Weevil, unaware of the serious conversation taking place.

HARU: "This is just me guessing, but you probably consider it a burden rather than a strength, because it forces you to see the whole picture of something."

She looks down.

HARU: "Meaning you can see what an effect that our relationship will most likely have on our lives. You want to be happy for Legosi, but it's hard when you're certain that he most likely won't have a happy life with me..."

Looking at her, Jack's expression gets increasingly sadder as she continues to talk.

HARU: "I doubt I am as smart as you, but I am a realist. I know what it means for Legosi to be in love with a herbivore, and I wouldn't be surprised if you hate me because of that."

JACK: "I don't hate you!"

Haru meet Jack's look, which is a bit on the shocked side because of Haru's observation.

JACK: "It's just that... Well, it's complicated... And a bit selfish actually." ---

Entering a flashback, we see Jack's collective memories of Legosi from his childhood.

JACK: "We've been like peas and carrots since kindergarten. We've gone through basically every tough thing and fun activity together, outside and inside school. I... Well I guess with him, I eventually came to believe it would be like that through Cherryton, then through university and then through... Everything really. Always."

He thinks to back to his first meeting with Legosi in kindergarden, then playing in the sandbox together, him comforting Legosi at his mother's funeral and then finally attending Cherryton together. ---

Returning to the present, Jack looks depressed.

JACK: "But he chose you. He's not the kind of person to abandon someone, but still, after he met you, he's just drifted further and further away."

Haru stares at Jack with a knitted brow.

HARU: "... Y-You wouldn't happen to be in love with him?"

Jack looks up, looking kind of disturbed by that thought.

JACK: "It's not like that. For most of my life I've relied on him to feel strong... And now that he is living his own life, I've come to realize just how weak I feel without him."

He sighs and gives her a serious look.

JACK: "So no... I don't hate you. I am just jealous of you."

Haru looks skeptical.

HARU: "And you're sure you're not in love with him?"

Jack's face twists into an irritated grimace.

JACK: "Don't be ridiculous, I like girls!"

HARU: "Yeah-yeah, I was just kidding."

She then transitions to a more serious expression.

HARU: "Believe it or not, but I understand how you feel. This relationship has not been easy to keep going, especially not since we both left Cherryton." ---

We enter an illustrated train of thought in Haru's mind, where we see Legosi from the back as he is walking straight into a vast darkness ahead of him.

HARU: "It's frustrating... That feeling that he keeps going to places where you can't follow him, followed by that fear that one of these days, he won't come back...!"

In this domain of thoughts, Haru tries to follow Legosi into the darkness. But as they move further in, Legosi becomes one with the darkness and disappears, while Haru is left alone in the dark. ---

Back to reality, Haru gives Jack a melancholic smile.

HARU: "It's a hard thing to confess to, both as a female and as a herbivore that you actually need someone."

She leans forward against the table, her chin in her hands. Her eyes go tender.

HARU: "But at the same time... When I am with him, I feel neither scared or sad. What people think, the risks, all the realistic and horrible things that might happen, even my pride... All of that just go straight out the window."

She looks up at Jack, a great smile on her lips now.

HARU: "So I'd say I have grown dependent on him too."

Jack looks stunned; he never would have guessed that her feeling for Legosi were so similar to his.

JACK: "I really am happy for him though, and I am happy that you make him happy."

Haru meets his look.

HARU: "So... It's not impossible for us to get along?"

JACK: "Well the parameters certainly argue against the improbability."

Haru stares at him. Jack looks a little self-conscious about his convoluted phrasing.

JACK: "That means-"

HARU: "That it is not impossible."

The two are quiet for a few seconds, then they share a little laugh.

HARU: "Speaking of improbability, what are you thoughts on that?"

She nods towards the Treasure Trove crane. Looking at it, Jack cocks an eyebrow.

JACK: "Well, research does indicate that one in fifteen people can win a prize from them."

HARU: "Really?"

She hops down from her seat with a convicted look.

HARU: "Sounds like good enough odds to me!"

She proceeds to go over to the machine and puts the coin in. The machine plays the melody and blinks again. Haru grabs the joystick and aims for the Danny-plush again.

JACK: "Wait a minute!"

Jack walks over and crouches next to Haru, looking in through the display glass.

JACK: "If I were you, I would try to go in just a little further in from where you have it now..."

Haru looks back and forth between Jack and the machine. She looks doubtful.

HARU: "But then I'll miss the head..."

JACK: "Trust me."

Doing as he suggests, Haru moves the claw in just a little bit more before pressing the button and making the claw go down. As Haru predicted, it misses the plushies head and goes behind the doll instead. Haru does not look surprised.

HARU: "Knew it."

But as the claw goes up, she sees to her great surprise that the plush follows it all the way up. It turns out that while the claw missed the the head, it did get a grip of the plushies tail.

HARU: "...!"

JACK: "See?"

Getting a really focused expression, Haru gently pulls the joystick to the left, goading the claw back to the deposit-hole.

JACK: "Careful now... Steady...!"

Once there, she presses the button again. The claw opens and drops the plush down the hole successfully. Both she and Jack looks overjoyed and victorious.

JACK: "Ah!

HARU: "YES!"

Haru pulls the plush out of the hatch and looks at it with stars in her eyes. She then turns to Jack, looking all impressed.

HARU: "I can't believe it! How on Earth did you do that?!"

Jack rubs the back of his neck.

JACK: "It was just a well-educated deduction. I mean the head is covered in fake fur, which is why the claws keep sliding off it as it deals with the full weight of the doll. The tail on the other hand is made of a less slippery fabric."

Stars appear in Haru's eyes.

HARU: "Wow... You're like Sherlock Hound!"

Jack gives her a surprised look.

JACK: "You know about Sherlock Hound?"

HARU: "Know about it? I watch that show anytime it's on! I especially love Moriarty and his bumbling sidekicks."

Jack, looking happy over the fact that they have found a common ground with something and goes full fanboy on the subject.

JACK: "Yeah I know, they're hilarious! And Mrs. Hudson!"

Haru nods with a knowing expression.

HARU: "I know right...! Personally, I think the show is really underappreciated."

JACK: "I think it's really underappreciated too!"

Haru then takes another look at her newly acquired Danny-doll, looking really happy. But then she gets an uncertain expression and looks up at Jack.

HARU: "But what should we do? By right half the plush should be yours..."

Jack chuckles.

JACK: "I am not really a plushie kind of guy, you can have it. Besides, it was your coin."

To his great surprise, Haru then hugs him around his neck. He looks stunned by this.

HARU: "Thank you."

She then lets go to look down at down at the plushie again. She playfully makes the doll dance while humming 'Nothing's Going to Stop Us Now.' Jack still look stunned and has a noticeable shade of red on his face.

JACK: (That was the first time ever a herbivore gave me a hug..!)

HARU: "We gotta show this to the guys! They'll be so impressed!"

Jack smiles and points over his shoulder with his thumb.

JACK: "I'll fetch them so that you can surprise them."

HARU: "Great idea!"

Jack gets up and proceeds to walk over to where the rest of the 701s are. As he goes, Haru begins to play with plushie again with a happy expression.

HARU: "~Nothing's gonna stop us, nothing's gonna stop us, nothing's gonna stop us now!"

???: "Well-well, look who it is."

Haru's happy expression dies in an instant. She looks around, seeing three familiar figures from her past: Mizuchi the harlequin rabbit and her two friends. Her former bullies.

TO BE CONTINUED...! ---

#beastars #fanfiction #script style #haru #jack #durham #collot #voss #legosi #ship #everybody play the game #jcl #2020 #dwarf rabbit #spotted hyena #sheephound #fennec fox #grey wolf

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pynkhues · 5 years

Note

Ok, so. First of all, I freaking love your writig, its *chefs kiss* delicious. Second of all I have this theory. Its that the only way they will say anything seriously nice about the other is if they are not saying it to each other. Could you write something about Beth defending Rio to someone (maybe a PTA mom or Ruby) or Rio defending Beth to someone (maybe Dean) and the other one overhears? Kinda the opposite of 'eavesdroppers never hear nice things' kinda thing. Sorry for the ramble!

Thank you so much! You’re so sweet!

So, I’ve had so many requests for fic in The Center and Circumference / domestic fic universe, I didn’t realise that that wasn’t in your request until I’d already finished this prompt, haha. I hope that’s okay! Anyway, it’s pretty long, so I hope you like it :-)

He’s halfway through a meeting with one of their newer clients – some watery-eyed, broad-faced fuck with a propensity already for overstepping – when Rio’s cell buzzes in the back pocket of his jeans, and shit, he thinks, gaze flicking to his right on the table where his work cell sits uninterrupted. It’s ain’t that.

“I can manage the extra cars,” the client says across from him, unperturbed, shifting forwards slightly in his seat, and Rio arches an eyebrow, feeling his cell quiet down, then the tell-tale buzz of a voicemail left after it. There are only a few people it could be on this line – Elizabeth, probably about dinner tonight or somethin’ (she’s careful about calling his work cell for work-related things after all), his mom, probably about dinner on Sunday night, or - - his jaw already twitching in annoyance - - Glenvale Elementary School.

“That’s a lotta product,” he tells the client, while telling himself it could be Danny’s teacher – Elizabeth had kept him home sick yesterday with what she was sure were the early signs of an ear infection, and she is usually right about those sorts of things; or Emma’s teacher, maybe – giving her another prize for highest raised hand or cleanest desk or some shit, but damn, who’s he kidding?

If it’s the school, he knows who it’s about.

“I can move it,” the client insists. “It’s only three more than my guys are already doing, and I’ve got a few new territories I’m exploring for distribution.”

It’s the way the guy says it more than anything that makes Rio train a lazy eye back on him – the tone just the wrong side of desperate. Rio knows that tone – the tone of somebody who’s promised someone more than he can offer.

Rocking forwards a little in his own seat, Rio knits his fingers together, drops them as one to the table in front of him, his brow furrowing in faux confusion as he does it, and he’s about to ask exactly why this dumbass needs three extra cars worth of pills when his cell starts buzzing again in the back pocket of his jeans.

And just - -

If it is the school - -

If one of them is sick or hurt or something, just - -

Fuck.

He lurches to his feet.

“We’ll start with one,” he tells the guy, already reaching for his cell, and when the client opens his mouth to try and haggle, Rio silences him quickly with a look. Once he’s sure the guy isn’t going to make trouble, he drags his gaze away just long enough to make eye contact with Demon, who’s standing, folded-armed, by the door.

“Demon’ll take you through the, ah –” he rolls his free hand out at the wrist, making a show out of considering this, his other hand still occupied with his buzzing cell. “Paperwork, dot the I’s, cross them t’s. You do okay with the one, we can talk about two next time, yeah?”

And at least even the mention of Demon is enough to shut the guy up for real.

What can he say? Demon’s got a rep, and what sort of boss would Rio be if he didn’t know how to use it? He smirks a little, watches as Demon moves to sit down on the edge of the table, inches away from the client, looking down at him, and when he’s sure Demon’s got it, Rio slips easily out of the room.

He’s still walking down the short hallway of the warehouse to his current office when he finally actually looks at his buzzing cell, feeling equally pissed off and vindicated at the Glenvale Elementary number blearing back up at him. And sure, maybe he’s pinching his nose as he answers the call, elbowing his way into his office – expecting what exactly, he has no fucking clue. He’s given up on guessing when it comes to Marcus and Jane. If they’ve started another fire though, he swears to god - -

“Mr Vela,” the administrator says, a little breathless, her voice cutting through his thoughts. “Thanks for taking our call. We understand you’re a very busy man.”

Rio just hums, folding down into his desk chair.

“The kids aight?”

“Um, yes, yes, the kids are all fine, we were just - - we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming in? Now? Or whenever soonest you could get here?”

He checks his watch, rocking his jaw in irritation. He’s not sure he can sit through another meeting with Marcus and Jane’s teacher, watch him make cow eyes at Elizabeth, blush like he’s fourteen when she laughs at some joke so lame it may as well be leavin’ his mouth with scuffed loafers and a sweater vest.

And - -

Wait - -

He purses his lips a little.

“Yeah, ain’t you got some PTA mom bake off on right now?” he asks. “My partner should be there already. In your cafeteria and whatnot.”

Despite his best efforts to get her not to be. There were better uses of her time after all, but she kept insisting it was good for the kids to see her there, for the school to see her there too, and they’d fought enough about it, because yeah, sure – Rio was down for the recitals and the games and even the family mixers (which - - ugh), but it wasn’t like the kids were even around for the PTA shit, and besides, Rio (and Elizabeth, in name at least) had donated half a library to the damn place. Enough that the school would turn a blind eye to any of the shit Rio did if he needed to (namely taking the kids out at no notice if shit went down. Or if it didn’t. Whatever. Sometimes he just wanted to take ‘em to LegoLand).

“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” the administrator says a little nervously. “There’s been an incident with some of the parents. In fact, with your partner. If you could come in as soon as you could, we’d be grateful.”

***

And really, this shit is just hilarious.

He’d gotten a few of the details over the phone from the administrator, but honestly he doesn’t think anything will really beat walking into a first grade classroom and seeing Elizabeth on one of those tiny little plastic seats, a handful of scratches at her temple like someone’s tried to gauge out her eye and missed, some more at her chest, the neck of her pink blouse torn open and her neck and chest smeared with frosting.

Rio arches an eyebrow at her as he steps in, and Elizabeth puts her nose up and everything, a blush dusting her cheeks, all prim like they ain’t gonna be finding blood and frosting when she pulls her bra off later, but then - - he bites back a grin. That sounds kinda fun.

She’s doing better than the woman beside her anyway – some Bargain Bin Barbie, who has two cotton balls shoved up her bloody nose, the start of a killer black eye (and damn, when had Elizabeth’s right hook gotten that good?) and cake in her peroxide blonde hair. Some Ryan Seacrest-type who’s gotta be her husband sits beside her, arms folded over his chest, looking for all the world like it’s the last place he wants to be.

No imagination, Rio thinks, his jaw rocking in amusement, eyes shifting back to Elizabeth.

He can’t think of a place he’d rather be.

“Ah, wonderful, we’re all here.”

The voice sounds from behind the desk, and Rio jerks his head around to see some guy who must be a part of the faculty – tall and lanky wearing the ugliest fucking tie Rio’s ever seen. The guy gestures him out vaguely towards the back of the classroom. “Would you mind taking a seat.”

Striding forwards, Rio grabs one of the little plastic chairs from where they’re stacked in the corner, dropping it beside Elizabeth and sitting heavily down in it. As soon as he’s seated, the guy looks between them, ringing his hands a little nervously, shuffling in his own seat.

“I’ve called you in today because your wives –”

“They’re not even married,” Bargain Barbie snips, and Elizabeth’s head rotates around so quickly she’s like that little girl in The Exorcist.

“It’s 2019, Tania, marriage hasn’t been a measure of a relationship’s worth in at least twenty years. Something you’d know if you read something other than the back of your box-mix cupcakes.”

And, well, damn, Rio thinks, sucking in his lips to swallow a laugh as he looks back at Ugly Tie. Vaguely he can see Bargain Barbie (or Tania, he supposes, but whatever, he doesn’t care) make a noise of abject outrage – whether at being called out for her apparently dated ideas or the insinuation that her cupcakes aren’t made from scratch, Rio has no idea. Maybe it’s both, with the way she turns about nine different shades of red. Beside her, her husband suddenly grabs her hand, dragging it into his lap to stop her from hitting Elizabeth again.

Or, well, trying to. No matter how funny this whole thing is, Rio’s not exactly inclined to let anyone touch her.

“Your partners,” Ugly Tie corrects nervously. “Were involved in an incident in the school cafeteria ahead of this afternoon’s PTA Bake Off.”

“We weren’t involved in an incident,” the blonde hisses, flailing her free hand out in Beth’s direction. “She attacked me.”

“I did not attack you,” Elizabeth replies, and Bargain Barbie snorts while the colour drains from Ugly Tie’s face, like he thinks fists are about to fly again. He teeters nervously at the edge of his seat.

“Witnesses did say you pushed her face first into the cake display, Ms. Marks.”

Witnesses, Rio thinks with a grin. Like this is an episode of CSI. These people really are a trip.

Elizabeth looks at Ugly Tie at that and then quickly paints on that Stepford look – the one that’s all Bambi Eyes and Molly Manners – the one that, despite himself, still makes his dick twitch.

“Maybe I moved a little suddenly,” Beth allows. “But honestly, it was an accident, Ed - - can I call you Ed?”

Ed pinks a little, stuttering out a yes, and Rio has to resist the urge to snort.

“I guess I was just a little swept up in the moment of it – you really do just run the best PTA fundraising bake off – and I mean, I’d know, because I’ve participated in more than my share, being an active member of the school community - - ”

“You’re so full of shit,” Bargain Barbie snaps, arm flailing out of Seacrest’s grip, and honestly, Rio thinks, amused, she’s kind of got her there. Still, Ugly Tie holds up a hand to both of them, as if finding his train of thought again.

“The reason we’ve called your partners in, is it seems like the fight stemmed from broader tensions between your families.”

And that shuts them both up.

Rio glances curiously over at the other couple, racking his head to think of any time Elizabeth’s so much as mentioned a Tania, but he comes up blank. He knows there’s a Margot who’s trying to get the school on a raw food diet, and a Penny who always fights it when Elizabeth tries to move the school away from celebrating religious holidays (“It should be all or nothing,” Beth insists. “If the school is going to keep celebrating Christmas and Easter, why can’t they celebrate Eid and Diwali too? It’s 2019!” – apparently that’s her buzz phrase at the moment), but - - no Tania.

“Anyone?” Ugly Tie asks them all now, and Elizabeth and Bargain Barbie both sit up a little taller, pointedly maintaining their silence, and damn, they’re more tight-lipped than half Rio’s boys. He eyes them both with a vague interest as Ugly Tie sighs.

“Fine. A two week ban on all PTA activities,” he says, and Rio could almost laugh at the look of abject horror on both Elizabeth and Tania’s faces. “And you need to apologise to each other and to the other members of the PTA.”

“Mr. Hollander, the Spring Fling Dance planning committee nominations are next week,” Bargain Barbie cries, and Elizabeth opens her mouth probably to say something equally embarrassing, and Rio figures that’s probably their cue. He grabs Elizabeth by the elbow, lurching to his feet and dragging her up with him, and before she can dig her heels in in that way she does, he’s nodding at Ugly Tie in acknowledgement, saying a quick “Sounds fair,” and dragging them both out of the room.

***

Turns out her sister’s shitty car had croaked again that morning, so Elizabeth had lent her the mama van on the condition she drop her for the bake off and pick up the brood after school, which is fine, he figures, pulling out of the school carpark, Elizabeth all tightly wound beside him in the passenger seat, her cheeks red and her posture stiff.

“You gonna tell me what that was about?” he asks as he gets onto the main road. He really should go back to work, but fuck it, he thinks. There’s nothing on Demon can’t handle, and if there is, he knows how to reach him anyway.

“No,” she snips, and Rio casts a look at her out of the corner of his eye, and it takes him a minute to realise that the red of her cheeks isn’t embarrassment like he’d figured, but rather that it’s still anger. It’s enough to make him shift in his seat – it ain’t like she doesn’t get mad, just she doesn’t usually get mad about PTA stuff, at least not like this – more just tense and exasperated and sometimes frustrated in a way he can usually diffuse if he looks at her or touches her right. But this - -

He ain’t seen her like this recently.

The car slows at the traffic lights, and he uses the opportunity to reach over, push her hair out of her face, run a thumb over one of the scratches at her temple.

“Want me to call my sister? Get her to bring over a rabies shot?”

It works like he’d wanted it to. Beth exhales a laugh, her gaze drifting over to him, watching as he takes his hand back to the steering wheel of the car. They get another couple of blocks when he feels it, the slow boil of her anger again, simmering beside him in the car, and they’re not even that far from home, but fuck it, he thinks, he doesn’t like the idea of her going straight into one of her furious cleaning or cooking frenzies, so he pulls over.

If she’s surprised, she doesn’t react, not even when he turns in his seat to look at her, taking in the tight lock of her shoulders, the tighter one of her jaw.

“Elizabeth,” he starts, and she looks out the window, away from him. “Come on, ma.”

She rolls her eyes at him, like he’s the one being ridiculous, and he pointedly pulls the keys out of the ignition, watching as she turns enough to scowl at him, folding her arms across her chest. Whatever. No skin off his nose, he thinks, leaning back against the driver’s side door, his eyes not leaving her, he’s got all day, and it’s only another minute, maybe two, before she’s flailing her arms in the air, her cheeks reddening all over again.

“She called you a drug dealer,” Beth whisper-yells at him, like anyone can hear them in his car, and shit, is that all? Rio just laughs.

“And you upset about that?”

He knows she is – can see it in the heave of her (still frosting-covered) chest, in the way her lower lip quivers, her eyelashes clump. Can hear it in the tightness of her voice, and maybe he should’ve gotten her home first, gotten her on her back in their bed, breathless, legs trembling, made her forget about it the best way he knew how, but - -

“She meant it as an insult,” she says hotly, interrupting his train of thought, and Rio pops an eyebrow at her, because no shit. “And it’s not like she knows you are one. She thinks you work flipping cars with me.”

“So what?” he asks, shrugging, and Elizabeth frowns over at him, finally turning around in her seat to face him. She’s still all flushed, flustered, and she seems pissed at him now when she flails her arms out at him, and voice shrill, says:

“So what? So - - so what if she says that sort of thing in front of her sons, who go to school with your son. What if they tell all their friends about what Marcus’ daddy does for a living?”

Shaking his head, Rio can’t quite take her eyes off her, because seriously – sometimes he thinks she figures he popped out of the ground the day he showed up in her kitchen, like Marcus did that day in the park.

“Trust me, it won’t be nothin’ Marcus ain’t heard before.”

And at least that shuts her up, her mouth closing, her posture sagging a little back against the passenger side door. He just watches her, briefly considering putting the keys back in the ignition and driving them home, but then - - he knows her enough to know that that ain’t all it is bothering her. He frowns at her, drums his fingers on his leg, and then looks away, something sharp spiking in his gut.

“You worried about your kids?” he asks, voice a little tighter than he wants it to be, and when Beth shrugs, his frown deepens.

“It’s a part of the deal,” he says. “Shit, you know what I look like, ma.”

And she doesn’t reply to that either, and that sharpness in his gut peaks into something uncomfortable. He rocks forwards a little in his seat, using the momentum of it to sit back harder, to bump his back back against the door.

“This a problem?” he asks her. “You want me to talk to the kids about how their new stepdad’s gonna make ‘em whispered about on the playground?”

“I don’t care about the kids!” she yelps, and he blinks, unable to contain his surprise when she suddenly backpedals. “I mean, of course I do, that’s not - -”

She exhales, the sound harsh in the hollow of his car, and she won’t look at him when she says:

“She can’t talk about you like that. She doesn’t know anything about you.”

And that’s - - not what he was expecting. He blinks at her, that sharpness in him dulling, squinting a little at her as he takes her in.

“She can do whatever she wants, ma."

Because shit, she can. Rio wouldn’t have wasted his time talking to her anyway, but hell, if she ain’t gonna pretend to make nice with other parents, he sure as hell ain’t either.

“Fine,” Beth says finally, sniffing a little. “But actions have consequences, isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

He could almost laugh at that, because she’s right, he is always telling her that, but he means it more in the context of handling a slippin’ employee, or her own tendency to steamroll into situations like she’s - - hell, like she’s one of their seven-year-olds.

“And what? Talkin’ shit gonna get her hit?”

“Yes,” Beth tells him firmly, nodding, sitting up a little straighter in her seat, her chin up, all defiant, and Rio snorts.

“You all about defendin’ my honour now?” he says it patronisingly, expecting her to get embarrassed in that way she does when she thinks he’s making fun of her, but that’s not what happens at all.

“Yes,” she says emphatically instead, and Rio blinks, surprised, and then before he can say anything else, she keeps talking.

“I told you. She can’t talk about you like that, and I’m not going to let her. And just for the record, I like the way you look, so.”

She stops then, looking over at him briefly, then quickly turning around in the seat, facing forwards again, all prim again like there ain’t cake in her hair, and Rio can’t quite stop his grin.

“Yeah, I knew that last one, ma,” he says, and Beth pinks, but she smiles, gaze finding him again. She bites her lip a little, looks up at him through her lashes, and Rio just - - shit. He can feel how goofy his smile is, quickly tapering it into a smirk as best he can.

“You really push her into that display?” he asks her after a minute of quiet, and Beth wrinkles her nose, blushing for real this time, but still. Something in her face, it’s a little proud.

“Punched her too.”

He arches an eyebrow, looking dutifully impressed, and she preens before she can help herself, holding up a hand at that so he can see the start of the bruises on her knuckles. He laughs, shaking his head, grabbing her hand to inspect it, and shit, if he doesn’t find them cute too – all dainty like her, little blooms of purple, like flower buds, and ugh. Even thinkin’ that, he shakes his head at himself, but presses his lips to them all the same, and he doesn’t hear it, or even see it, but some part of him feels her breath hitch, and it’s a relief really – that he can feel just how sprung she is too.

“Okay, bruiser,” he tells her, twisting back in his seat, pushing the keys back into the ignition, and he goes to drop her hand, but she threads their fingers instead, and he holds it there, against his thigh, the whole ride home.

#beth x rio #nbc good girls #the center and circumference #my fic #prompt fills #welcome to my ama

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whetstonefires · 5 years

Note

I have wandered into your tumblr and I want to know absolutely everything about your ideas for Earth 3 Impetus and Motion. EVERYTHING. Possibly the least relevant part of that is the family line, as Earth 3 often has really skewed versions of the characters. Would the first Johnny Quick even have a speedster grandson when he was killed and his blood used to power his successors?

Oh, cool ask! Thank you!

😄 I’m very happy to talk about this but I’m afraid you may be disappointed, because I’m Doing It Wrong. I’ve been working off and on on a bespoke Earth-3 for the past…several years. Production has slowed but not stopped. It’s up to over 300,000 words on AO3 at this point.

The issue that set me off was that tendency to skew; I didn’t like it. I found that, most of the times DC had built into Earth-3 before rebooting again, there were two countervailing currents leading writing decisions. On the one hand to make things As Wrong As Possible compared to the main timeline, and on the other to just make them…arbitrarily different.

Lois Lane is Superwoman, evil counterpart of Wonder Woman, for some reason, woop-de-do; this fits under both categories.

This process worked neither according to the ‘timeline that diverged into a Bad Timeline at some point in the distant past but somehow contains versions of the same people in the same place’ premise of the original Star Trek ‘Mirror, Mirror’ episode, nor does it work according to any direct cosmic principle of inversion, although some of the early versions claimed to.

(See: Mirror Christopher Columbus discovered Europe and then later Evil George Washington conquered England for the American Empire, what even guys. 😩)

Also Earth-3 so transparently existed almost every time it was reinvented as a place to get villains from, and to look bad in comparison to the main timeline, without any attention to making it work internally, which I thought was a damn waste of a cool concept. ‘A damn waste of a cool concept’ drives a lot of fanwork lol.

So for my world, I had the slightly conflicting goals of working as close to that amorphous thing ‘canon’ as possible, and of making the setting stand on its own, as a superhero setting, with internal causality and more or less the usual sort of hero-versus-villain logic. So I inverted the alignments of only superheroes and supervillains, and kept as much as possible of their backstories intact.

This means my stuff doesn’t map onto any canon Earth-3, especially not the one from Forever Evil because that came out after I’d already gotten all the big things pinned down. 😅 Some people get upset about this and come yell at me about how i.e. Owlman is Thomas Wayne Junior. But since I always saw that particular concept as a huge cop-out from looking at how few alterations it takes to turn Bruce Wayne into a spectacular villain, I was like ‘nuts to that’ from the start.

If you’re cool with my relationship with canon, on we go.

-&-

So, Impetus and Motion! I don’t remember what I said on that one post where I remember blathering about it, so forgive me if I repeat myself. ^^

Lineage is the same as canon, technically. I’ll go over it; if you don’t care just skip ahead to the next subsection. 😄

Mirror Barry Allen, the Dash, got his villain name for his signature kill technique of grabbing someone, hyperaccelerating them, and then letting go at the right moment that they get dashed against something immovable and go splat. He dashes people against things.

(His eventual sidekick, Blaze, got his for liking to make things combust by accelerating their molecules. The combination makes them sound like a pair of racehorses, which they did not intend and are very annoyed by when it’s pointed out.)

The Dash is pretty scary, especially because most of the ways he abuses his speed for profit are so low-key nobody even notices (i.e. screwing with the stock market) and he doesn’t need to be a supervillain. He just likes it.

His public villain profile is relatively low for the level of danger he poses, tho, because his town is infested with really dumb superheroes who beat him embarrassingly often, when he actually turns up to fight or is successfully ambushed. And with the occasional exception the scale of his crimes is fairly small compared to i.e. Ultraman.

Keeping him imprisoned is ridiculously difficult, tho. He can’t be completely depowered (because the Speed Force is external to him and all the power dampeners that are used assume they’re trying to shut off something generated internally) and he’s really smart, so it took years of battles to keep him long enough to transfer into a proper cell even, and longer to get an unblurred look at his face.

His secret identity survived so long that Barry Allen was there to comfort Iris West after she was targeted by the Dash on several occasions, and they were married by the time he got ultimately unmasked.

She left him after that and moved back to the future, which she was still from because that’s hilarious, but he eventually tracked her down and promised to reform if she’d take him back. This obviously fell apart eventually, but not until after the twins were born.

I haven’t mapped out the mirror Thawne line. I assume the Thawnes with healing powers who inadvertently adopted Barry’s twin were much nicer in this timeline but idk if he ever became Cobalt Blue or what. I hope he lived to old age. Apparently there have been multiple Cobalts Blue? Idk idc, Flash continuity what even are you.

Everyone thought Eobard Thawne was nuts, but he actually did go back in time and stop the Dash from destroying the world with nukes in a fit of rage, his historical analysis, method of giving himself speed powers, and time machine were all successful. He may additionally suffer from some degree of psychosis, but he wasn’t wrong. (His little brother still exists in this universe because good!Eobard wasn’t the type to manipulate time to erase inconvenient family members. He also doesn’t have the title Professor because he never got tenure, so he just goes by Zoom.)

-&-

Bart is still Don and Meloni’s kid. Frankly I don’t understand those two in the normal timeline, so it’s hard to construct their mirror versions in any depth or even decide whether they should get mirrored. (Probably not tbh.) But I don’t exactly need to, because the resulting Bart is very much the same and thus doesn’t really know them. He was still born with his weird speed glitch that caused him to be raised in a simulation, and eventually time-traveled to un-glitch him.

The difference is that he’s not a nice kid. He’s a two year old who looks twelve and has received all his socialization from reasonably good AI in a world that was not real. Where nothing had consequences. Where nobody was real.

He’s very frightening, is Impetus. Impetuous, wildly powerful, selfish–oddly sweet, occasionally, in the ‘gay and innocent and heartless’ way of Peter Pan, but probably even more likely than Peter to knife someone. He’s so delighted the first time he eats actual ice cream, as opposed to a simulated version, but the ice cream stand is now on fire.

Mirror Bart isn’t so much cruel or even un-empathetic as solipsistic. He’s arrested in the state of an intellectually advanced toddler playing, what’s that game called, the one where the objective seems to be getting in car chases a lot? When was the last time they made a new one, I feel like I haven’t heard it mentioned in ages, it’s a dead franchise isn’t it I’m old. Grand Theft Auto! That’s it. He doesn’t just not understand that danger is real, the way Impulse started out. People aren’t.

Impetus is easily bored and surrounded by NPCs. It gets ugly, sometimes.

He also time-travels a lot more frequently than normal Bart, because he doesn’t really get attached so he doesn’t try to maintain a normal life of any kind, so he pops up all over the timestream.

Jason Blood hated him personally long before Bart had any idea who he was; they have a villain rivalry plagued by causality issues and closed time loops that is alternately epic and stupid as fuck.

And then there’s Thad. Thad’s had a less awful time than he did in canon, I think–President Thawne is not technically a supervillain so he’s probably about the same as in the original timeline, but even assuming Meloni and Don are still out of the picture (probably it’s Barry’s fault in this dimension?) raising a kid as a ‘defense mechanism against a supervillain’ calls for less extreme brainwashing fuckery than raising one to hunt down a superhero.

So he probably behaved a bit more like a reasonable grandparent, simply because the context incentivized him to emphasize concepts like duty and loyalty more, and hatred less. He might even have been able to go public with Thad’s existence, depending on the spin he came up with. Among other factors.

But it was still a depressing, isolated, dehumanizing way to grow up, and it went on a long time, because as per canon Thad has the opposite problem from Bart in terms of how he passes through time. Motion is a 40-year-old man with a 12 year old’s body and approximate life experience.

Thad was already So Tired when he finally got out into the world on his own, and once he encountered Impetus he learned pretty quickly to both pity and fear him.

Even when Thad tries to avoid Bart and just have a life, Bart always crashes back into his existence again, and in the meantime he feels guilty. Because even if he could completely shake off having been raised to see countering Impetus as his whole reason for existence, he’d still feel a lot of personal responsibility to try, because he has the ability to stand up to him in a way almost no one else does, and he knows Bart’s out there resulting in casualties.

Due to all the time travel involved, even having just defeated Impetus doesn’t mean he’s not still out there at an accessible point in the timestream, needing to be stopped.

Impetus results in Motion the way Inertia resists Impulse. They’re very much locked into an action-and-reaction framework that does not even a little bit help with Thad’s clone identity issues.

Except for how the amount of time Thad spends saving people from Bart has slowly created a fairly large body of people over the course of history who know them as distinct entities, and like Thad a lot better.

Good feels good. ^^ It’s not necessarily the case that this happens, obviously, but with their alignment swap they also ultimately exchanged who’s defined by isolation. It takes Bart a long, long time to even understand that he’s lonely.

#flash family #thaddeus thawne #earth-3 #my take #bart allen #impetus and motion #the opposite of an evil twin #i hope this was the desired amount of everything #barry allen #BARRENCE #good and evil #mirror universe #ask #hoc est meum #wyldcard4

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voidendron · 4 years

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I've started getting a handle on the Star Wars AU Septic bois and it makes me happy! I’ve been changing quite a few things from my original plans for it, but they’re all coming together really nicely imo <3

uh...it’ll be under the cut because it got long ^^”

some things may still change, but for now this is what I’ve got!

Chase

Chase’s species is Bothan and he’s a smuggler, though he doesn’t actually use the term “smuggler,” himself. Literally everyone else does for him, but hey. His crew consists of three droids (Bolt, Beeper, and Slink) and two Corellian hound littermates (Kye and Sophe). He tends to prefer the presence of droids over people. Originally the only Septic he knew was Anti because he had a bounty on him for dodging payments, but he later met Marvin and Sam by chance and they’ve been friends since.

He was adopted by an Ithorian couple as an infant. His parents had a tendency to take in orphans, so Chase has five other siblings with only one of them being their parents’ biological kid. From oldest to youngest his other siblings are a brother (Ithorian, the biological kid), sister (Twi’lek), sister (Nautolon), Chase, brother (Quaran), brother (Human). I don’t have names figured out for his siblings yet, but his Twi’lek sister is married and has two kids; she lives on Ryloth, so if he ever mentions going there it’s probably to visit her. Their parents used to live in Coruscant’s lower levels, so they knew infants/toddlers wouldn’t last long on their own before they were picked up by someone undesirable, so they took it upon themselves to adopt these kids. As such, Ithorese is actually Chase’s native language and he doesn’t know any Bothese, and he has kind of an odd accent paired with throaty/growly way of speaking.

He stayed neutral throughout the war, smuggling for whatever side offered the best pay for the job. He tends to be indifferent toward former Imperials/Rebels after the war and gets annoyed when Jackie and Jameson fight.

Marvin

Marv’s species is Cathar, which is a feline humanoid. He’s also a Mandalorian and one of two survivors of Clan Magniif. He’s extremely protective of Sami (”Sam”), the other survivor from his clan and holds a grudge against both Rebels and Imperials for the deaths of their people. He only knew Sam and Angus (leader of a rival clan) to start off, then later met Chase by chance. Didn’t like him at first, but the smuggler quickly grew on him.

He was found in a destroyed Cathar settlement as a toddler, so Magniif’s leader took him in as a foundling. He was raised by Mandalorian customs as one of the clan’s own and remains loyal to it even after its destruction. He’s also extremely impulsive and thinks with his fists instead of his head.

During the war, Magniif tried to stay out of things, but was eventually talked into helping a Rebel cell. That resulted in the Empire making an example of them and wiping out most of the clan. After the war, he and Sam take whatever odd jobs they can for supplies or credits.

Jackie

Full name Sehnaj’akk’eedara, Jackie’s a Chiss, which look mostly human besides blue or silver skin, blue/black/silver hair, and glowing red eyes (Jackie has blue skin with darker blue hair). He’s known for being reckless and protective to the point of risking his own health.

While more typical of his people to be Empire or non-aligned, he agreed with the Rebels’ standpoint and joined them with no questions asked. It did take them a while to start trusting him, but he was eventually granted his own Y-Wing and made part of a squadron of fighters. Because Chiss weren’t known for being part of the rebellion, there were a few instances that Jackie was sent to sneak into Imperial territory to steal something or tell his comrades how best to attack an outpost.

Primarily though, he was a pilot during the war who protected Rebel supply ships. After it ended, he became a data courier for info too sensitive to be sent over transmissions. That’s how he met Jameson and Schneep, then eventually Chase, Marvin, and Sam.

Also, fun fact: He saw Vader in his TIE once and flipped out about it for days after because “Oh my god I could have DIED” if his squad leader hadn’t ordered an immediate retreat.

Jameson

A Human from Coruscant, Jameson had once been a politician’s right hand. He was known for blackmailing the senator’s opponents and doing shady business with bounty hunters, but nothing could ever be proved to pin the charges on him.

When he joined the Empire, he started as a spy, then a hacker, then eventually was granted an officer’s rank and took charge of a small espionage group. While only a low-ranking officer, Jameson (JSE-815) and his team often had their stations changed to whatever outpost or battle cruiser needed their aid. After his promotion, he rarely went on the field himself for spying and instead stayed behind to work at computers with his hackers.

During a Rebel raid on an outpost he was stationed at, Jameson ended up taking charge of the troopers when the colonel was gone (he’d taken a large group of troopers to attack the Rebels’ base, which turned out to be something they’d planned, and left the outpost ill-protected). Only having experience leading espionage, Jameson’s tactics were quickly overwhelmed and he and a few others ended up cornered in the command room. In a last-ditch effort to protect the information in the computers from falling into enemy hands, he and the remaining Imperials detonated grenades to destroy the information completely. Jameson hadn’t expected to survive; he received damage to his neck and now uses a vocoder to speak, lost three limbs (both legs, right arm), and received internal damage that required organ replacement. Shortly after the event, he also got an AJ^6 to improve his productivity, though at the consequence of affecting/limiting his personality.

After the Empire lost the war, he was sent to Sunspot Prison. He was later released a few years later under strict parole to aid Jackie with a mission that needed a hacker. He’s not fond of his current companions, but at least he’s not in a cell.

Schneep

Schneep (SN-334) is a modified surgical droid and was built shortly before the Battle of Geonosis and purchased as a Republic droid. He started out with a very flat personality as programmed in the factory that built him, but the more his owner joked with him and encouraged him to think for himself, the more he started to develop his own personality. He quickly latched onto sarcasm and grumpiness. His owner found it hilarious. His patients...not so much.

Throughout the Clone Wars, he’d receive a tweak here, an upgrade there, until it eventually came to the point it was hard to tell what his base model was (2-1B surgical droid), and sometimes even unclear whether or not he was actually a surgical droid. His programming was even modified to allow him to defend his patients if they were in danger (big no-no and cancelled the warranty on him). The first time he sawed a B1 battle droid’s head off was certainly a shock--to both the other droid and his patient.

After his original owner was killed in the war, he ended up passed around a lot, eventually somehow found himself under a Rebel general, then an intelligence gatherer after the war. So he somehow survived not one, but two wars and has never even had a memory wipe.

Now carrying a piece of the divided information Jackie and Jameson need to deliver, he was sent with them. It wasn’t until eventually meeting Chase that Schneep was finally given a name instead of being called by his serial number.

Anti

Anti Septik is a bounty hunter of unknown species and planetary origin (though is believed to be a Rattataki from what glimpses of his skin have been seen). He wears a full suit of armor to hide his identity, and uses a universal translator to hide both his voice and accent. He’s ruthless, can find ways to track a contract down no matter where they go, and seemingly can’t die. A former partner claims she saw a target nearly cut Anti’s head off, but he got right back up and started shooting.

Nothing is known of his past, but any hunters who’ve worked with him before refuse to do so again. He’s greedy and bloodthirsty; if a target is wanted dead or alive, he’ll kill them every time whether they’re ready to surrender or not, and has killed partners to get their half of the earnings, too.

He has a green lightsaber that he stole from the body of a Jedi killed in one of the Temples after Order 66. He uses it more for show, keeping it hanging at his hip most of the time, but knows how to use it if he needs it.

I don’t have much on Angus or Sam yet (besides they’re both Human and Mandalorians, and that Sam lost an eye during a training bought), and I’d like to add Jacques and at least some Ipliers. However, the only one I have any ideas for is Host; the rest I’ll have to figure out!

#jacksepticeye #writersofjack #the septics #star wars au #bothan chase #cathar marvin #chiss jackie #cyborg jameson #droid henrik #bounty hunter anti #blitz indites

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the-durin-boys · 5 years

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You’re Okay Pt. 2 ~ Thorin and Company x Reader

Here’s part 1!!

-----

The weeks following the little itty-bitty hypothermia incident was kind of iffy, to say the least. Thorin hasn’t let you out of his sight, always insisting that you sit next to him for dinner, or that you sleep close during the night, and at first you didn’t mind enjoying the feeling of being looked after and cared for, but after a while, you began to feel very cramped and claustrophobic. Wherever you went, there was a dwarf. Whether it was Thorin himself or another member of the pitying party. But you didn’t complain, not wanting to seem ungrateful to the dwarves care. And so the over-protective watchfulness of Thorin Oakenshield continues.

“Everybody, get down!” The hushed, almost panicked whisper of Thorin resonates through the forest air, and everybody drops to the dirt, rolling to hide in bushes and behind boulders. The company has been hunted down by an orc pack for several weeks, and Thorin hasn’t let you leave his side. That’s how you got into your current situation, on the ground, shrouded by shadows and body pressed tightly against the warm, firm chest of the dwarven king. His hot breath tickles your ear and picks up the hair on the back of your neck as the orcs and warg scouts jump over the cleverly hidden divot in the forest. The orcs, having found nothing, continue on their path, but Thorin doesn’t allow any of the company to stand for the fear of one of the orcs looking back and seeing the dwarves rise out of the dirt. And so here you are, trapped between a boulder and Thorin, questioning why you could almost fall asleep, with Thorin’s arm curled protectively around your waist and steady breathing gently lulling you to sleep. Thorin must have taken notice of the gradual sleepy relaxation taking hold of your body, because he shifted away, just a bit, and let the cool evening air softly wake you once more. You, dreadfully tired from the journey and already now half asleep, moan quietly in disgruntled annoyance and you scootch back until your back finds its previous source of warmth. You can almost swear, through delirious haze of fog of sleep, that Thorin Oakenshield chuckled but you couldn’t really care less, because all you want to do right now is sleep. You, Thorin, and the rest of the company lay still for almost half an hour as the pack circles back. By the time that Thorin is sure that the orcs are long gone, the sun has set and so have you. Thorin can’t help but look at you and smile, feeling a fluttery touch on his heart knowing that you felt safe enough in his arms to fall asleep. He calls for camp to be set up, and while the others work, he stays next to you, a little upset that he can’t hold you in his arms in the presence of others, so he makes up for the loss of touch by covering you in your blanket and guarding you as you sleep, blissfully unaware of what was to come.

The next morning, when you wake, you immediately felt that something was off. A sort of deep feeling that sits in your gut and twists your stomach into knots kind of a feeling.

“G’mornin’ lassie. Sleep well?” You blink up at Bofur and wipe your eyes, shaking sleep and that terrible feeling from your chest. You nod dazed as you try to take in your surroundings.

“Where did everyone go?” Bofur looks up from the small fire that he was tending (they kept building it really close to you in the night so you don’t freeze again.) and surveys the camp for himself.

“Well Thorin took the boys out huntin’ and I think Dwalin went with ‘em. Everyone else is down at the stream bathin’.” You yawn and pull yourself up onto the log that Bofur sits on.

“Why aren’t you at the stream too?” Bofur chuckles and pats your head, letting his head come to a rest on your shoulder.

“Well someone had to watchya, didn’t they?” Bofur looks at you, and before you can protest, continues speaking. “Of course, I agreed to stay behind an’ watch, so don’t feel bad about it. I don’t mind watching over someone as beautiful as you.”

“Bofur!” You squeak, hands flying to cover up your reddening cheeks. Bofur laughs and pats your shoulder, only causing you to burn a deeper red. “It’s not funny! Stop laughing!” Bofur is about to speak again when a deep, rumbling voice interrupts.

“Bofur.” There is no chill nor menacing tone nor a threat on Thorin’s tongue, but still Bofur stopped laughing and straightened out. He knows of the kings little crush on you, but he still smiles and seats himself further away from you to make room for the royalty.

“‘Mornin’ Thorin. Lovely day, innit?” Thorin looks at you, watching the shade of red fade to pink on your cheeks.

“Yes, I suppose it is a good morning.” He seats himself between you and Bofur (his spot since that night) “A good morning indeed.” The airy tone that contrasts so hilariously to his usual regal tone, and the love-struck gaze in his eyes causes Bofur to smirk and then stand.

“I’m going to join the lads at the stream.” You look up at Bofur and playfully throw a twig at him when he waggles his eyebrows. “Want to join.”

“Bofur oh my goodness, give me a chance to wake up, will you?” Your face heats up again and Bofur watches victoriously as Thorin’s back shifts and his gaze turns to a glare.

“Oh so that means you’ll be joinin’ me later, then?”

“Bofur!” You throw another twig at him and Bofur laughs. “Get lost!” Another twig.

“Alright! Alright! I’m going!” Bofur holds up his hands in surrender. You don’t say anything, but Thorin does.

“Bofur, go clean yourself and inform the others that breakfast will be late.”

“On it. And (Y/N)?” You peak at him through your fingers while almost hiding behind Thorin.

“What?” Came your muffled reply.

“Have a good morning.” He winks and then sets off, not missing the growl from Thorin and the squeak from you. “It’s going to be a lovely day.”

Now, you aren’t a picky person at all, and you definitely don’t mind some attention now and then, but you do very much enjoy your own personal space, and being able to hang out with yourself and a good book. Ever since you fell asleep cuddling Thorin, (which was a direct result of the stupid hypothermia incident) he has grown so fiercly protective of you that you haven’t been able to hang out with Fili and Kili, even Bofur and Bilbo (especially Bofur). But still, you didn’t complain, aside from a few grumbles. You aren’t really sure why Thorin is acting the way he is (you know that you’re a bit emotional dense, that’s why you befriended Bilbo, who acts as a translator for these kinds of things) but it’s starting to grate on your nerves. Who does he think he is, trying to control you like this? It’s been starting to negatively affect you. Maybe it’s because he thinks that you’re weak? That you need protection? You sigh outwardly and bite at your thumbnail. It’s one of the rare moments of peace that you got without Thorin and an assortment of other dwarves breathing down your neck. Right now you are at the stream, alone. You had managed to whisper your whereabouts to Balin before slipping into the trees armed with your bag and blade. The water is cool and clear, and the stream is less of a stream and more of a shallow river. The warm afternoon air is tinged with the scent of rain and the forest is quiet. Almost too quiet, but you don’t pay attention to that, but instead pay attention to the thick layer of filth and grime covering your skin. You sigh and take off your shirt and fiddle with a tear in your sleeve, but decide that that is a problem for later and toss the shirt aside. You’re reluctant to take off anymore clothes, so you decide to bath in parts, to never be truly naked. You dip your makeshift washcloth in the water and start to scrub away at the grime, really wishing that you had picked up some more soap whilst you and the rest of the company were in a little town. A rustle and a few snaping of twigs catches your attention and you snap your head up and squint across the river, just in time to catch the familiar glint of an arrow as it flies through the air.

“Shit!” You throw yourself to the side, but the arrow still catches your shoulder, cutting deep into the flesh. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Several more arrows, by orc design, you note, fly from within the trees. You’re barely grab your blade to deflect the arrows when two stick, one in your left thigh and the other right under your ribs. You gasp, stunned for just a moment. You hear the notch and the fling of another arrow and duck out of the way just in time to let it fly by. The tree you lean against provides enough cover to duck out of the way and move quickly and swiftly through the woods, but you leave behind your bag, the only thing with you is your blade. The colors of the forest start to blur together as you stumble forward, following the smell of woodsmoke. There are no signs of your attackers from the river but you still move quietly along the skirts of the camp, just to make sure before you finally step in.

“(Y/N)?” You don’t know who’s speaking to you, you consciousness fading. You pitch forward and fall into the sturdy arms of a dwarf.

“Orcs. Orcs at the river. They’re at the river…” Your eyes roll back and you go limp, succumbing to your wounds.

-----------

“Where is (Y/N)?” Thorin returns back to his seat, next to where you should be, from his conversation with Dwalin.

“She’s gone down to the stream to bathe.” Thorin looks over at Balin.

“And you let her go alone?” Balin quirks an eyebrow up at Thorin.

“Did you want to join her?” Thorin scowls and turns away.

“When did she leave?”

“Five minutes ago.” Thorin almost growls but says nothing and sits down. Time passes extremely slowly for Thorin, but he doesn’t want to stand and go after you and cause an embarrassing scene for both you and himself, so he sits and waits, occupying himself by tending the fire.

Another five minutes pass.

“(Y/N)?” Thorin looks up at the sound of Ori’s voice and sees you pitch forward into his arms, speared with two arrows of orcs making. The company is up in a panic but everything else falls silent as Thorin races toward you, and everything slows, all he can see is you.

“Orcs. Orcs at the river. They’re at the river…” Your eyes roll back and you fall limp just as Thorin reaches you and Ori. All the blood in Ori’s face drains out as he passes you onto Thorin and as he stares down at his own bloodstained hands.

“Oin!” Thorin has never felt such red hot anger, such fierce and horrible burning hatred like he feels now. Orcs, disgusting pigs, attacked you when you were alone and the most vulnerable. Your soft skin, slick with blood, burns his skin. How….. how dare they! Oin shoves his way through the crowd and takes you from Thorin’s arms, leaving Thorin to stand so fiercely that the rest of the company backs off. His eyes miss the angry and tear-filled faces of the rest of the company, only seeing red.

“Everyone else, take up your arms and follow me.”

#Thorin Oakenshield #thorins company #thorin x reader #x reader #the hobbit

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loquaciousquark · 5 years

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E45 (Dec. 18, 2018)

Evening, all! @eponymous-rose is off tonight with such silly things like family and events and real life obligations, so I’m here to make bad jokes and have opinions instead.

For those who hadn’t heard, Brian & Ashley are engaged as of this week! Brian is taking both her last and first name to be ultra-progressive. Tonight’s guests: Sam Riegel & Matt Mercer. Matt is here willingly. Sam is not. We’re discussing Episode 45: The Stowaway, sponsored by LootCrate. Brian asks Sam for an impromptu song ad; he rhymes moot and loot and jigs and everyone is a little closer to death than they were a few moments prior.

Tonight’s announcements: Pub Draw & Name Drop are two new shows on the Critical Role channel--check out critrole.com for more details.

This Thursday’s episode is the last of 2018; Critical Role then returns on January 10.

Liam’s oneshot, The Night Before Critmas, airs at 7pm Pacific this Friday night. He’s been planning it for two years, and the VOD will be available December 23.

Talks Machina is also breaking for the holidays and will return on January 8, where they’ll have a cast-wide discussion on the state of the campaign so far. The questions open on Reddit, Twitter, and email on January 4th.

CR Stats: Nott has the most kills of the group with 37. The 45th HDYWTDT occurred in episode 45 as well. Twiggy’s dragon kill was the fifth guest kill of the campaign, and the 2nd guest HDYWTDT. In campaign one, guests got 22 kills and four HDYWTDTs. This was the longest episode of campaign two and the fourth longest of the series.

Matt and Deborah had met extensively to discuss backstory and mechanics, but hadn’t discussed much personality. The only person who wanted to check voice/accent was Khary (with Shakaste).

Deborah was one of the first guests they reached out to when they started streaming all that time ago, but she initially said no because D&D was such a personal thing for her and she didn’t want to share it with the internet. Everyone agrees she was worth the wait.

Everyone’s furious about Daredevil’s cancellation. :(

Sam thought it was fun to play alongside another Arcane Trickster because... “she was very good at it, all that great stuff that I forget to do.” Nott was jealous that many of the things that made her unique were present in Twiggy. However, the jealousy was later reversed because of how excellent Twiggy was in the fight.

The Happy Fun Ball was a narrative device Matt had been planning for a long time--he liked the idea of a pocket dungeon with lore attached. When they realized Deborah’s schedule would put her on a boat in the middle of nowhere, he found a perfect opportunity to bring it in.

Sam asks if Matt intended the device to be a one-use single episode thing, or something recurring, something for the party to further explore at their will. Matt explains very circuitously (and hilariously) that certain DMs may have in the planning of the introduction of the Happy Fun Ball originally intended for such Happy Fun Balls to leave with the guest, and were very surprised when said Happy Fun Ball (and all its hundreds of extraplanar rooms to explore) was left behind with the party instead. He then basically dares Sam to press a button and see what happens.

Nott doesn’t resent Fjord for touching the window or setting a time limit on the library exploration. While it was cool in the library, there were too many things attacking them.

Matt doesn’t necessarily intend his traps for Travis, but he likes having good buttons and bad buttons. “I just want shit to happen. Surprise me!” He admires the player that occasionally gets bold, rather than the one who always sends their minions out to touch all the tiles and trigger all the traps before they ever set foot in the dungeon. He also enjoys the meticulousness of Liam being at the same table as Travis’s impulsiveness.

Sam does not want the fans to send him larger flasks. His current flask holds 128 oz, which is exactly a gallon.

GIF of the Week: @criticalschluck with a hilarious movie-trailer-style GIF of Travis explaining he’s got an intelligence of 6 (Grog), then an intelligence of 14 (Fjord), then pushing buttons and experiencing... consequences.

Nott approves of Caleb’s choice to abandon the books to go back to the party. While she wants as much knowledge in his head as possible, it’s because “a smarter Caleb is a more powerful Caleb, and hopefully a Caleb that can stay alive a little longer.” Matt likes watching characters be put in situations where they have to choose between long-reaching character goals and the people they have chosen as their family. He was fascinated to see the struggle as he was ticking down the time on his sheet. He’s very excited to see what’s going to happen this Thursday.

Brian and Matt both fanboy over Sam’s 1hp decision.

Sam reflects on Jester’s being left behind--”not in a malicious way, you know, but sometimes in a big family someone gets left behind at a mall!”

Matt circuitously explains that the stained-glass window could be used to access other places. This man’s being slipperier than soap suds on wet tile tonight.

Nott was aware that the hit she took for Jester could have been a killing blow, but she was ready--”it was what goes through her head around Caleb a lot: ‘I’ve got to protect my friends.’” She’s very protective and very maternal, and Sam would have been okay if that had been the last of Nott.

Both Sam and Liam (and others) have begun to experience the in- and out-of-game changes that come with finally beginning to really know these characters. They certainly wouldn’t have died for each other at the beginning of the game, even knowing how hard their friends worked on these characters. It was originally a “system shock” (as Matt puts it) which required check-ins after certain blow-ups at the beginning of the campaign to make sure they (the players) were all okay. Now, though, they’re closer and closer to being willing to die for each other for both in-game and meta reasons.

Sam reflects on how both Caleb and Nott hate themselves, but manifest that very differently in how they treat other people. Caleb withdraws and puts up thick walls; Nott is quick to trust and care about everyone.

Nott is least close to Yasha at the moment. She’s still a li’l scared of her.

Matt had a few battle options planned out regarding which parts of which chamber were futzed with. The black tapestry was the one curtain they didn’t mess with that would have led to a “very rough encounter.” Matt had six maps built off-stage, just in case.

Sam’s backup character is a handsome actor named Sam Seagull.

Brian is annoyed that every encounter starts with the chat screaming “TPK.” Matt: “I hope not. That’d be my fault if that happened.”

While the dragon was very powerful, Matt had expectations that the party would understand very quickly that the fight didn’t necessarily have to end with the dragon’s death--he wanted them to understand the challenge was the exit, not the dragon. However, they came in in a different order than he’d anticipated, including party staggering, and that was when he started to get nervous.

Whatever magic had first triggered the first crystal would have been the same magic required to open the second door. It was proximity-based.

Fanart of the Week: @tehsasquatch, with this super-cool portrait of Nott.

On whether Nott feels as if she’s earned her comma: sometimes, especially in encounters like these, Nott feels just for a moment that she can be brave, she can be useful, she can be heroic--and then the moment it’s over the world comes crashing back down. When she’s out of those moments, she feels that she’s still just a goblin.

Is Sam ready for Nott to get the spotlight Fjord’s currently in?

Sam: No. Matt: [very intense face]. There’s a lot of backstory elements that he and Matt know that no one else is aware of, and he’s nervous about those coming to light.

The Traveler’s appearance was complete improv. Matt was reading the situation and the emotions and looking for ways to facilitate a heroic story, and when the dice worked in her favor, he felt it would be a wonderful, dramatic story beat to suddenly include--especially since the Traveler hadn’t responded much recently. Matt: “Yeah, that was really cool.”

The Traveler/Jester relationship has evolved in ways Matt both did and did not expect. He wasn’t sure how seriously Jester was going to take it. It’s the difference between believing in something and allowing that thing to define you as a person. He loves it. Sam: “The Traveler...is Taryon, right?”

Nott doesn’t see Caleb as abandoning her at all. “He’s a weak, puny man who needs to get himself out of danger.” It would have actually been harder if Caleb had been there, because if Nott had had to make a choice as to who to protect, Jester would be dead.

After Beau’s emergence from the orb, she probably for a few minutes would have thought that they were all dead behind her. It wasn’t that hours or days had passed--just a few minutes. Matt found Beau’s and Caduceus’s conversation at the end very fascinating and compelling, especially as a way to end the episode.

Nott agrees that Jester is not as happy and fine as she appears to be, especially after their talk about boys, but doesn’t feel it’s as severe as Caleb’s issues. “Jester’s a functional person.” However, Sam’s excited they’re getting past the “flitty person from the first half of the campaign” to the “core of sadness” as the story progresses.

Matt’s sure Yasha was not happy at all that her friends all disappeared without warning. “She spent six days thinking her friends were never going to come back. She doesn’t cry in a corner; she’s familiar with grief and loss. She hardens herself and moves on.” He’s hoping they’ll get to see some of that this week.

Critmas Spotlight: The Blind Weaver, a really, really cool 3D painting by a lady named Elaine Ryan, which has layers upon layers of polyurethane stained to make an amazing effect. See @elaineryanart on twitter and tumblr for more!

Talks Machina: After Dog

They decide where guests sit at the time of the episode. Matt likes to avoid the edges so they don’t feel like the outlier. Sam requests no attractive guests be placed immediately adjacent to him so that it does not detract from his glory. “That’s why I sit next to doggo Laura Bailey.” Brave man. Brave, foolish man.

Sam likes oatmeal raisin cookies. I am DELIGHTED, WHAT AN OLD MAN WHO SHARES MY TASTE. He also likes Werther’s, which is bringing back so many memories of my grandmother’s house. Matt likes ginger snaps, which are my favorite Christmas cookies also. I would kill for ginger snaps right now. Matt and Sam both are excited about pumpkin pie.

Essential D&D gifts, per Matt: dice, PHB, HeroForge custom minis if you really want to get them excited. He finds that getting in there and making a character can really help hook someone on the visual aspect & get invested in their character. Everything else is fluff. Sam suggests a music playlist for the first game; when he ran his first game with his kids, he liked having gridded paper to draw the maps on.

Matt does not feel that the crew of the ship has been mistreated, but they have been “neglected and dragged through places they didn’t expect.” He does think they’ll talk about everything they’ve done to all their friends and family when they get home in a very “you won’t believe this!” kind of way.

Sam always wears the same tie when he’s voice directing and on the first day of a new show. He’s wearing it tonight and can’t discuss the new show.

Favorite holiday movies! Brian: “Love, Actually” and “Die Hard,” as well as “Miracle on 34th Street.” Matt loves “A Christmas Story” (my favorite also, bless this man). Sam likes “Prancer” and “Scrooged,” but realizes mid-sentence that this is Brian’s first Talks as an engaged man.

Brian on proposing: ”It’s...the best.” They’d been together for over six years & met during the first Last of Us game. Brian describes himself as a former “piece of shit” and a very different person back then. Ashley had no expectations that he was going to propose & was totally surprised. Gah, this is too romantic.

Brian: “I always imagined for years what that moment would be like, and this topped all of my expectations... What more can you really hope for in this life than to feel that feeling with another person? It’s to me the pinnacle of our human experiences to be able to say ‘I’ve been through hell and yet found someone that I can definitely say I want to spend all the days of my life on this earth with,’ and the fact that it happened is fucking cool. It’s like heroin with none of the bad side effects.”

It was extremely stressful--but only the logistics. Apparently Matt’s proposal was extremely logistically intensive; Brian sympathizes.

And on that lovely, quiet note, we’re done for the night. Happy holidays, everyone. <3

#talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts #critical role #critical role spoilers

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scribblestatic · 5 years

Text

When she’s led into her living/bedroom, Shigaraki Tomura is sitting on the floor, supporting his head with his hands and

Dammit. God damn it, he’s the creepy guy from work. He’s the damn creeper with the split lips and wrinkly face. Fucking hell. Shit. Shit he know’s where she works. Dammit, okay. Okay. It’s not okay, but make it okay, just...just play it cool. She can make this work. She just has to play it cool.

“Aaaaah, there she is. Hey, Chou-Chou, come sit over here,” Shigaraki grins, pointing at the other side of her table.

Chouko smiles thinly, but she cautiously makes her way over and settles on her knees like a samurai about to be executed.

“Ah...I’m sorry, who might you—“ Tomura jolts so quickly across the table, she barely has time to let out more than a panicked squeak before his hand wraps around her neck. She stiffens reflexively, not realizing that his pinky is raised until her skin isn’t crumpling like burnt paper. He scowls childishly at her from the darkness of her hoodie, as though he couldn’t kill her any second.

“C’mon, c’mon, you’re Kyuu-san. 93. You don’t have to act like you aren’t, you know? I mean, you didn’t even bat an eyelid when Kurogiri threatened you. And just now, you got really scared because my hand curled around you. So either you’re used to threats, or you know who we are and what our Quirks are.”

Chouko’s smile slowly slips its way back onto her face, returning with wobbling resilience. “A-Actually...uhm, I think it’s fair to say...anyone would be frightened if someone suddenly reached for their neck. And also...seeing a man threaten you in your house is scary, too. I could’ve frozen in fear. And so, whether I deny or confirm that I’m this...93 you speak of—” the fingers tighten, and she resists the urge to choke, “—I...hah, I think you’re...basing your...ideas off of faulty evidence.”

For a moment, Shigaraki stares her down, and she stares right back from under her bangs, dimly gasping a little for air. But then the fingers loosened, and she coughed, holding her throat as her windpipe was no longer pressed against.

“Hmm...you make a good point. Yeah... Yeah, that is faulty logic.” He taps his chin inquisitively. “So I guess you could just be any random old girl then.”

“Th...thh-hhhcouhh...that’s...quite possible.”

“So then, if you are a random girl who I’m not looking for, I should be able to just kill you and get it over with, then.”

“Ah-wh-wa-wait! Wait a minute! I, uh, j-just don’t get so hasty—”

“But I don’t like wasting my time if I’m not in the right place.”

“And that’s true! I can completely understand that! Your time is very important, right? I can’t imagine what you’re doing, but I bet it is—“

Shigaraki’s grin shows all teeth, more of a threat than an actual smile. “I’m sure you know what I’ve been up to, 93.”

“R-Right, yes, of course, uhm...well, I...how...uhm...” For a moment, Chouko falls into a panic. The room briefly spins and she feels so terribly nauseous, but she tries very hard to not think on that point too long and drop her lunch all over Kurogiri’s shoes. “...just...just I, I am...I don’t, I mean...just...hold up for...wait...”

“Heeeey...hello...” Shigaraki waves a hand in her face. “I think I broke her, Kurogiri.”

Chouko quickly clicks her teeth shut. Breathes heavily, trying desperately to calm herself. Then, she smiles, strict and tight as corset laces.

“Sorry...I...I, uh, tend to panic a bit sometimes. E-Especially in the presence of someone such as yourself.”

“Because I’m a villain?” Shigaraki leans in on the desk.

“Well...yes. Yes, actually.”

The crusty man is quiet for a moment. Then he’s cackling out loud, his head leaning back from the force of his laughter. Chouko just stares at him and trembles, hoping that she doesn’t look too afraid that they’d use even just that to kill her.

“That’s hilarious,” Shigaraki says after calming down. But his good nature flips on a dime, the man becoming stark and annoyed. “But don’t you have heroes to worry about instead?”

Meanwhile, Tsukauchi’s in his office, doing late night work and finalizing some files that need to go in when his phone rings. He’s confused by it for a moment, especially when a phone number he doesn’t recognize pops up.

But what really gets him is the name of the caller. Simply ‘93′.

Usually, he’d just dismiss a call like this as prank or something else, but...he is a bit curious. Plus, it gives him an excuse to take a quirk break/ So he decides to answer the call, clicking accept and putting the phone up to his ear.

“Hello, Detective Tsukau—”

“Hello! If you are getting this call, it means that 93 either is currently in a life or death situation or was in one and has been murdered. Please stay on the line for any possible vocal evidence on the situation. Also, please track this line to find the phone’s location in the event 93 is still alive. Your line will be muted. Thank you!”

Before the policeman can respond, there a click, and then—

“C’mon, c’mon, you’re Kyuu-san. 93. You don’t have to act like you aren’t, you know? I mean, you didn’t even bat an eyelid when Kurogiri threatened you—”

The detective listens for a moment.

Then he’s up on his feet, eyes wide as he quickly bustles out of his room to get a team and at least one hero on the line for what’s quickly becoming a rescue mission.

The police and heroes have been looking for 93.

The League of Villains found her first.

#static speaks #drag au #okaaaaay #going to bed now qwq #hacker au

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wings-of-a-storm · 5 years

Text

Totally taking this tiny window of no updates to reflect on how sweet Elu’s river stroll (and great escape) was in 3x03. That and Eliott coming out to Lucas! This legend keeps coming for us...

CODE RED: EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

New scenes in Skam France really give me life because they are often so understated but potent. The night guard scene was definitely one of them.

It was so awesome that even though there was danger of getting caught and getting into huge trouble when the night guard showed up, Eliott’s first instincts were to both put his arm around Lucille’s shoulder and to linger and search for Lucas. I thought both of those instincts demonstrated the quality of person Eliott is. We’ll forget that he, er, ditched his girlfriend shortly afterwards. Ehem.

We also see that Eliott was the first to make it out of the grounds, but instead of fleeing into the dead of night with everyone else, he waits for Lucas even though he doesn’t know where he is. That act spoke volumes too, didn’t it? Sure there would have been some ulterior motives there (he didn’t come all this way to not spend time with Lucas), but there would have also been some concern there too. I really liked how this new scene brought all of that out.

It was also so awesome that when Lucas stopped in the middle of the path and was clearly freaking out as he tried to find someone (Eliott? His friends?), the hero who saw the patrolman’s light about to hit Lucas, who ran over and dragged him to safety, was Eliott. I mean, it wasn’t as dramatic as Eliott darting out in front of a moving truck to pull Lucas to safety, but it somehow felt as exciting in the moment? ;)

Can you believe though, that it didn’t end there? That Eliott softly asked/told Lucas that he was going to go walk him home? Thank you Skam France for making that a thing! I didn’t know I needed it in my life but now that it is here, I want to metaphorically hang it up next to the piano scene. It is just so cute! And at the same time, so much more than that!

I mean, on its own, it is such a sweet thing for Eliott to want to do. But since we are privy to Lucas’ life, that innocent act also feels so incredibly touching because Lucas has been feeling so isolated and neglected/uncared for lately. His home life has been absolute shit -- his Dad is so caught up in his own life that he is failing to give his teenage son even the basic needs: shelter and food (ie. not transferring him money for his own survival while his mother is in a clinic). But here is this sweet boy who buys him snacks, lends him beer, and is now wishing to walk him home because he cares about him and wants to spend time with him.

I am just such a sucker for the idea of someone looking out for you; for little old you being a priority in someone else’s world… Lucas seems to have that with Eliott. Ugly sobbing, guys.

I need to also be real though. The only problem with this scene is that, er, Eliott totally, absolutely, 100% ditched his girlfriend! How does someone, whose first instinct is always to wrap an arm around their girlfriend’s shoulder in affection and protection, manage to lose her so easily like ten seconds later? And instead of finding her or joining her, only goes to look for his new crush and walk him home. Oh, the painful reality of love triangles...

WALKING LUCAS HOME/COMING OUT

Their whole quiet stroll together to Lucas’ apartment was so calming and intimate in its sincerity. It was a real chance to breathe after their hectic lust battle in the common room. It was reminiscent of their evening at Eliott’s place, where they could just relax and be themselves.

There were several things I enjoyed about this stage of their night:

1) Lucas confiding to Eliott about Chloé. While yes, it is absolutely Lucas’ own doing that he is so stressed by the intense attachment he cultivated in Chloé, I liked that he was able to admit the stress of that to someone who would understand the falsity of that relationship and why he did it. His friends completely ignored his original discomfort and instead shamed him for not wanting to be with her. But now Lucas has someone he can confide this stuff to who actually listens to him. (Plus it lets Eliott know Lucas is basically still available, so strategic tick to Lucas there.)

2) In a similar vein, Eliott confiding to Lucas about his problems with Lucille. While yes, it is nice to see Eliott finally tell Lucas about Lucille and lay his cards out, I liked that Eliott seemed to be confiding in Lucas in turn, as if he was still processing some resignation about his failing relationship but hadn’t quite had someone to talk it through with.

Plus, Eliott’s solemn face when he was reflecting on his relationship seemed to be a glimpse into how conflicted he feels right now: that although he is very keen to let Lucas know he wants to date him when/if he breaks it off with Lucille, he is still a little sad that his current relationship hasn’t ended up being what he needed (cough Polaris). I really like that his face told the story as much as his words did.

3) Eliott coming out to Lucas!! In the now immortal words: “Not necessarily a girl.”

Even though Lucas had secretly seen Polaris and thus seen how open-minded Eliott is about different types of relationships, it was never a guarantee that Eliott identified as LGBTIQ. Eliott has finally made that explicit to Lucas and thank god he did because Lucas really needed to hear it from him. Good on you, Eliott! Your boldness has been legendary tonight.

Can I just say though, how hilariously pleased with himself did Eliott look when he was about to drop the bomb and was anticipating his own delivery? He couldn’t wait to see Lucas’ reaction and I am here for that cheek.

4) Lucas knows he is being taken seriously. If we look back to Lucas’ conversation with Alexia about bisexuality, Lucas’ ignorance seemed to betray his perception/fear of what it might mean for Eliott to be bi/pan: that he can have fun flings with guys but would only ever seriously date a girl because that is easier with the status quo.

That night by the river though, Eliott didn’t just make his sexuality clear: he let Lucas know that he takes their connection very seriously. When he stared Lucas down after saying he wouldn’t necessarily want to date a girl when/if he breaks up with Lucille, he basically blew up Lucas’ presumption of how he would rate in the hierarchy of Eliott’s bi/pan relationships as a boy. Lucille, after all, was a long term relationship, and that is what Eliott implied he still wants. With Lucas.

So yes, Lucas, when/if Eliott breaks it off with Lucille, you will be the one he dates as an equal and not as a piece of fun on the side. (Harmful stigma, be gone!)

5) Their almost first kiss! Oh that incredible lonnnnng stare that was the beginning of a kiss! (Let’s be real, they were already kissing with their eyes.)

Firstly, could Lucas have been any more endearing the way he so quickly went from cocky to nervous and yearning.

I mean, that intense dance of Lucas’ pupils as he tried to focus on Eliott’s face so close to his… Lucas didn’t look like he was able to initiate a kiss but he did look like he was hoping for one.

And then we have Eliott, whose head lowered ever so slightly. Just a degree. And whose quality of gaze changed, ever so slightly. Just a degree. ;)

Eliott sort of got a bit stuck there, on the cusp of something, but the anticipation was alive between them. It looked like Eliott might have gotten there in the end if he’d had a little longer to sort his head out before they were interrupted…

I mean the way he looked at Lucas’ apartment block and then straight into his eyes was thick with innuendo. Whether it was going to be through his own actions or Lucas’, a kiss had definitely been on the cards that night.

Their feelings were there, the intensity was there, the challenge was there, but it just wasn’t quite the right time for them. Their looks unlocked a promise though. It will happen.

This week?! Are we really ready for it?

#skam france #skamfr thoughts #elu #eliott demaury #lucas lallemant #3x03 thoughts #eliott ride or die demaury continues to amaze #what a legend #P.S tumblr gods I am sorry I did not please you again #i need lucas to chat bite you since you seem to like tag challenges so much

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