#yeah totally stoneface

[cornerdreams-txt]

I think I came across the comments(about Ghost smiling/smirking) on tiktok you were referencing before. I totally get what you meant. A lot of the comments genuinely pissed me off. "Ghost is literally dead inside", "these wattpad kids are reaching", "why would Ghost even smirk." It's funny to me that they act like people are bastardising or ruining his character, but meanwhile they're just making his character so one-note and boring by insisting that the only thing he can be is cold and emotionless. Just the fact that they completely ignore how multifaceted he is because it doesn't fit their narrowminded view of his character. Sry to rant but seriously it bothers me, especially after reading your characterization of him. Also just them insisting he must be "stone-faced" while he's bantering with Soap, but I don't get how anyone can deny the little smirk in his voice, he's clearly enjoying the convo??

it's. yeah, it's ridiculous.

tbh i think the funniest part ab this is the fact that the girls gays and theys being this down bad over ghost is the PERFECT op for them to get a gamer gf. and theyre fuckin it up. theyre fumbling the bag. they have dropped the egg carton. they jumped the shark. insert other metaphors.

theyre so fucking stupid. anyway.

ghost is... incredible, really. he's insanely well-developed, thought out, and portrayed. there's so many wonderful bits and pieces that allude to how mentally unwell he is throughout the game, and the fact it's handled so well by the writers that most people dont inherently realize that he's ptsd rep. like when the representation is so good and natural that most people don't realize? that's how you know it's done right.

while, yes, he certainly does present as cold and stonefaced quite a lot, it's. a significant part of his character that he's also detached and yet still protective - it just doesn't get shown in conventional ways. like the fact that he focuses on the mission first because he knows that AQ is using their downed bird as bait, which allows them to most likely suffer significantly fewer casualties, but as soon as he's gotten heavy fire off that bird, he goes right in to protect and help alpha squad.

like he said - "choices have consequences." the consequence here was that they lost their main target, but kept more of their men alive. you win some, you lose some.

then there's, of course, "alone," where in the intro cutscene to that mission, he yells to soap to go, to get out, to run. as a lieutenant, soap is his subordinate - his responsibility. and he absolutely could just have left soap to fend for himself, but he makes sure soap gets away safely, and then he runs and takes care of himself. that whole mission, he's looking out for soap - giving him advice, making jokes to support him morally. he even saves soap's life when he gets to the church courtyard, and then runs to save himself. he protects soap as much as he can the whole time without getting them both killed.

and one of my favorite interactions in the game is what follows, when they're talking to rodolfo.

"i was on the run. ghost waited for me."

"of course, no?"

"no."

and then ghost cuts soap off. ghost clearly has a reputation. he works alone. he doesnt like people. he prefers to do shit by himself. and when soap says "no," implying he expected ghost to leave him behind, ghost interrupts, and says "yes." he voluntarily waited for soap. he chose to make that decision, to stay and do his best to make sure soap got out alive with him.

"no one fights alone."

2009 ghost was a very good character. he was sassy, he was fun, i miss his "wrong door, ghost" "THIS HARDWARE IS BLOODY ANCIENT" interaction with soap so very dearly, but 2022 ghost is a character with a real personality.

ghost shows emotion, numerous times throughout the game. "alone" and that first mission of the game are just two examples. i could be here all night listing examples about how ghost is so in depth and, if anything, i'd say he's extremely emotional for everything he's been through.

these people claiming that ghost doesn't smile, that he doesn't laugh or experience happiness, really don't know what they're talking about. trauma is a lot to handle, yes, but it doesn't stop someone from being happy. ghost can express happiness. he absolutely can. he didn't in this campaign, but that doesn't mean he can't.

i really hope those with extensive trauma that have seen those comments dont think they're making all their struggles up because of it. and if you are like that, hey. listen to me.

i have a lot of trauma. i have. a lot. of trauma. i have dissociative identity disorder - one of the most complex forms of ptsd that the psychology community is aware of. being happy and experiencing joy and good things does not make your trauma invalid. it's okay.

#i am. very very passionate about this #not only is that take of ghost being unable to smile ableist #its also just fucking harmful #and severely dehumanizing #our system actually has a ghost fictive and seeing that like #really really fucked with him #and that pissed me off!! #like r u kiddin!!! #people w trauma are still human #they can still laugh and smile #they can experience joy #idk #i got some onions #couple of em are spoiled #yknow how it is #shrug #sources: #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare 2 2022 #codmw2022 #characters: #simon ghost riley #post type: #character discussion #character study #kinda?? #answered asks ☁️ #skitskatdacat63 #posted by: #znmjr 🦈

[ennaih]

Fave moments in Steamboat Bill Jr (1928)

#buster keaton #steamboat bill jr #my gifs #that ankle cross is so fucken sarcastic #i can't even #like i don't even know whether it's actually his feet or not #but the attitude is absolutely him #lookit the great stoneface in that fourth gif #yeah totally stoneface #i could watch him haul on those ropes all day

[mcheang]

Mlb prompt: What if Adrien finds out the scarf was Marinette's & so had no reason to give Gabe the benefit of doubt? If he just snapped & started to push back, threatening to go to the media, & really doing so when Gabe thinks he's bluffing? Since Gabe thinks locking him in an empty room for a few weeks without phone, pc or games etc. would make him back down, he doesn't take it seriously. But Adrien has Plagg, so he escapes. Cue media shitstorm. Even worse if this is after "muse Lila", so Gabe also gets accused of either being a pedo, not taking sexual harassment (Lila towards Adrien) seriously, using his son as a bargaining chip or all of it. I just wonder what it would be like if magazines & newspapers going "protect sunshine!" mode exposed both Lila & Gabriel as Hawkmoth, and if by that time Adrien were DONE, & so felt way less heartbreak.

Teenage rebellion

Post party Crasher draft

As Adrien opens up his presents at his party, he comes across the standard pen gift from his father. He is surprised and disappointed.

Luka asks what is wrong. Adrien admits he hoped his father would have given him something more meaningful than a pen. At least the scarf was warmer than cold metal.

Adrien even gets the scarf out but while the boys look angry and upset, Luka identifies the scarf as Marinette’s, having spotted her signature.

Adrien: he commissioned Marinette to make me a scarf? I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Nino exhaled. “Dude, no. Marinette made that scarf for you. It was her birthday present to you.”

Adrien stilled.

Nino: your dad stole her gift and presented it as his own. Marinette didn’t want to tell you because you looked so happy.

Kim: yeah, we got that. But I still say we should have exposed the old man from the start if he wasn’t even going to improve his gifts.

Adrien is noticeably upset by this. The boys soon try to cheer him up again.

When Gabriel returns home, he coldly confronts Adrien for having an unauthorithized party, calling it a betrayal of trust.

Adrien: Hmm, then what do you call stealing someone else’s gift to pass off as your own?

Gabriel: I have no idea what you are talking about.

Adrien: grounded? Fine. Leaving me alone on my birthday? Sad, but also fine. Lying to me while lecturing me on trust? Priceless! (I totally copied this from W.i.t.c.h. H is for Hunted)

Adrien storms off, leaving Gabriel confused. Nathalie nervously tells Gabriel the truth. Ouch...ok so his son does have some right to be angry at him. But it’s not like he forgot his birthday date!

So Adrien is grounded without use of any technology. So what? He can just sneak out as always.

It’s bad enough that his father was distant, that he denied him the rights of a birthday party or friends, but to be a hypocrite and hurt his friends, that was unforgivable.

Gabriel no longer deserved any respect.

Just in case, Adrien asked Plagg to destroy any surveillance footage in his room. He then transforms and sneaks out to have fun with friends. No more screen Adrien. Now, they were getting the real boy.

Everyone was delighted. But Marinette worried about Gabriel until Adrien promised Marinette he had it all under control.

Oh, and did I mention he also invited Wayhem. The latter was obviously outraged when he learned what Gabriel has done to his idol/friend.

He wants Adrien to rebel. Marinette warily reminds them that Gabriel can still take Adrien out of school.

Wayhem: not if he wants to face media backlash once Adrien’s fans hear of his treatment.

Indeed, Gabriel’s hands are tied when Adrien launches this ultimatum, either give him freedom, or the spotlight will be shone on Gabriel’s parental abilities.

Gabriel hires Lila to persuade Adrien to behave or get his friends to back off. But the gang just dislike Adrien’s father and Adrien just dislikes her, so even she fails when the others just stare at her in disbelief for suggesting they give Gabriel a second chance.

Ivan: he’ll get his second chance when he earns it. Trust has to be earned.

Gabriel wants to make his wish so this can all be erased. So Lila proceeds with the expel Marinette plan.

Adrien sees Lila at a photo shoot and grows suspicious. He cuts a deal with Lila; either she gets Marinette back or he becomes her enemy.

Knowing that Adrien was serious about turning his fans against his father, Lila knew he would also set them on her easily.

She got Marinette back. But like hell Adrien was going to play nice with the liar.

He reported to Wayhem and his friends how Lila was his father’s muse and she really needs to learn personal space.

The guys are horrified she would side with Gabriel just to become a model.

Chat Noir also visits the principal to investigate the expulsion thoroughly. The footage clearly shows Lila framing Marinette.

Damocles triés to defend Lila because of her disease but Chat uses his star power to appeal to The Owl, saying the truth must be revealed for justice to fully prevail.

As a result, the principal exposes Lila’s disease for the whole school to hear, fully clearing Marinette of all suspicion.

Now this clearly exposes Lila as a liar, and her classmates turn on her, refusing to believe in such a phony disease.

Not to mention that Lila’s debut as a model has quite a bad reception. Thank you Wayhem!

When confronted, Lila finally throws Gabriel under the bus and admits he hired her to separate Adrien from his friends. While she is still despicable, she makes it clear the origin of her plans was all Gabriel.

That’s it. Adrien no longer has a father.

Wayhem and Adrien accuse Gabriel of bad parenting online. It creates a public scandal.

Adrien is confined to the house to prevent contact with anyone else, but this gives him time to go digging into his father’s office to retrieve his contract and payslips. Plagg is tasked to look for any incriminating evidence. So he just floats around, making a mess of things, and accidentally activates the hidden elevator while looking for hidden floor panels.

Boom, they discover the butterflies and Emilie.

Adrien tells Ladybug as Chat Noir.

Gabriel and Nathalie are arrested, but he also returns Lila’s betrayal by admitting she was a willing accomplice.

Adrien watches this stonefaced. When asked how he feels about seeing his neglectful parent taken away, brought to justice by his own son, Adrien responds, “A father is supposed to care for his son. All Gabriel has done was provide for me materially. But this does not excuse his crimes for neglect, hurting my friends, or even trying to manipulate me emotionally by blaming me for his akumatization into the Collector. As far as I am concerned, my father died a long time ago. I don’t know this man anymore.”

#miraculous ladybug fanfic #miraculous ladybug fic #ml fanfic #ml fanfiction #ml fic #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #Lila salt #Gabriel salt #ml salt fic #Lila karma #gabriel karma #lila busted #lila is exposed #lila gets exposed #post party Crasher #Gabriel is exposed #Gabriel gets exposed #Adrien disowns Gabriel #rebellious adrien

[pallasperilous]

Occursus

Castiel/Dean Winchester Gen/Teen, 4341 words 15x20 coda  AO3 version “The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” Cas says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.” 

Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two. “Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes. “It was a poor analogy. I apologize.” “So what’s a better one?” Castiel drums his fingers for a second. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.” “Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

It’s half past midnight by the time Dean gets another run at Cas.

Granted, what the fuck does half past midnight even mean here, where time is as free as tap water? Why does anybody even bother? For all it matters, Dean could set his watch to eleventy minutes past twenty o’ nope and still never miss last call.

Then again, somebody felt it necessary to invent the idea of Tuesday in the first place, and Dean’s not gonna volunteer himself for the task of replacing it with something better. What’s important is that he’s survived (or rather, he hasn’t survived) a battery of poignant moments and tearful reunions. He and Sam hugged out burdens registering in the triple digits. They even had a little fight, pretty much for the fun of it, while Ellen fucking Harvelle watched them over the bar with her eyes shining. She still charged them, though.

Right at the beginning of the party Dean and Castiel had their eyes-across-the-room thing, followed by the same magnetic, exhausted embrace they’ve shared on just about every plane of reality now. Dean supposes he could ask Cas for a nickel tour of the Empty just so they could hit for the cycle, but he’d really rather not. Sam let them eke out a few gruff, tear-choked monosyllables before diving in, sweeping Cas up in a bear hug and laughing like a fucking kid. Dean doesn’t push it, because it’s been longer for Sam, after all. Or something.

 And now it’s quiet, just the jukebox and the clink of glasses back in the kitchen, a few folks murmuring in booths. It might be dark outside, it might not; it’s waiting on Dean’s opinion before it commits to anything. And so is Cas, who is standing in the warm glow of the jukebox, hands in his pockets.

 Dean walks up, leans against it, bottle still dangling from one hand.

“C’mon, sunshine. I’ll show you yours, you show me mine.”

Cas looks up and into Dean’s eyes with the wary, elegant patience of a deer. “What is it that you would be showing me, Dean?”

Dean gives him a long, languid blink and bites his lip, and Castiel lags for half a second before rolling his own eyes. “I see death hasn’t refined your sense of humor.”

“Nope. Guess the billionth time aint the charm.”

Cas remains stonefaced, which means a corresponding you dumbass blush starts crawling up the sides of Dean’s neck. The jukebox switches records like it’s making a suggestion.

“I’m gonna sit down outside,” Dean says. “C’mon and sit down with me. There’s a patio somewhere, right? Ellen was always talking about adding one out back. No way she hasn’t bossed somebody into buildin’ it.”

“There’s a patio,” Cas says, taking his hands out of his pockets.

 Heaven’s patio is pretty nice; twenty square feet, some scattered picnic tables, fences covered in ivy and string lights. It still smells like fresh pine boards. There’s even a fire pit, which seems kinda bougie for the Roadhouse, but hell with it, it’s warm and pretty, and since when did pretentious people get to lay claim to “a hole with a fire in it”? There’s no moon overhead, and so the Milky Way is giving them the full monty — the runnelled spine of it, the ribcage packed with galaxies.

“Are they all alive?” Dean asks. The warmth from inside leaks out of his collar, wisps away.

“Who?”

Dean points up. “The stars. They always make a big deal about how most of the stars you can see from Earth have been dead for millions of years by the time we get the light from ‘em. That still true here? Or is everything on auto-renewal?”

“That’s a very complicated question,” Cas says, not looking up, only at Dean. He does that a lot, Dean knows, but it turns out to mean something different than what Dean had always assumed, which was ironically pretty similar to what it actually meant, but was reassuringly unactionable and therefore unfuckupable.

“I’m a very complicated guy,” Dean says.

Castiel smiles at that. “I don’t actually know the answer,” he admits. “And it would take an extremely long time to investigate. There are some other things I’d rather do first.”

“What, you can’t just call the kid for directory assistance?”

Castiel lets a good-humored sigh. “Like many young people these days, Jack prefers to avoid the phone.”

This is a solid riff, and Dean respects it. He picks the table closest to the fire and takes a bench and Cas sits next to him, instead of opposite. Dean thought he managed to break him of this habit a few years ago, but here all things are made whole again.

“So what,” Cas says, without a single molecule of playfulness or seduction, “is it that you want us to show each other?”

“Yeah, I was…it was a dumb joke. But I mean it, just not in a ‘playing doctor’ way.”

Castiel frowns, tightens his lips; the firelight throws a fluttering shadow across his face.

“I mean…Christ.” Dean takes a medicinal slug of his dwindling beer. “I don’t really look like this anymore either, right?” And he gestures at his usual shitshow personal presentation, which death has also noticeably failed to refine.

Castiel frowns, smoothes his hand across the surface of the table. “This is a corporeal world, Dean. It operates on a different set of rules, but your body here is no more of an illusion than it was on earth.”

“Seriously?” Dean ponders a second, squints through the dim light at his fingernails, at the high-resolution grime contained therein. “Jesus, that sounds like a lot of work. At least compared to Holodeck Heaven.”

“It is. But we didn’t build this place to be a...a…doorprize. It’s a real world,” Castiel enthuses, looming forward. “It’s the one that should have been created for all of you in the first place.” He pauses, glances down. “For all of us.”

Dean shrugs. “Okay, so no holograms. I’ll keep all that in mind next time Charlie tries to convince me to go skydiving.”

Castiel snorts, but not in pure aggravation, so Dean feels like he’s finally got a point on the board. “What I’m sayin’ is…physical or not, this place has different rules, right? So could I look at you without my eyeballs exploding? The…you know, the angel parts of you. Not just your vessel,” and Dean fwippies his hand at Cas to indicate that true beauty is contained within and Dean is completely indifferent to the fact this dork-ass alien managed to bodysnatch a guy who’s never dipped below an 8.5.

“It isn’t a vessel anymore. We can create our own bodies, now.”

“Peachy,” Dean clips, because that shit is a little late coming off the line.

Castiel sighs. “You could see me in that form without coming to harm. But you should know that I don’t consider it any more a reflection who I am than this form. Not anymore.”

Dean rolls the bottle towards him, nudges a knuckle. “You’re a real boy now, huh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Castiel says, and smiles a smile so small that Dean would need a microscope to figure out if it’s pleased or pained.

So Dean thwacks the bottle down on the totally-real table and claps his totally-real hands. “Well then let’s go. Hit me with that angel weirdness. If we’re gonna do this, I gotta taste all thirty-one flavors.”

Castiel smiles a little more convincingly, but it still doesn’t reach his eyes. “There are really only the two,” he says, and holds his palms out to the warmth of the fire.

“Great, then we’ll be done in time to catch Letterman. Then if you’re good maybe you can help me shimmy out of this thing.”

Cas cocks his head. “Out of which thing?”

“This super real heavenly meat-suit, dude. It’s not fair if only one of us gets naked. Peep show has to go both ways. I see your angel-face, you see my soul.”

Cas looks stricken, like Dean is asking to suck on his toes next to a playground. “I mean, unless that’d fuck you up,” Dean adds.

“No,” Castiel replies, a little absently. “It wouldn’t fuck me up. But it…wouldn’t really accomplish anything, either.”

“What, no soul kink? That’s bullshit and you know it. You love this crap.”

Castiel replies, “Your soul is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” with the easy confidence of a regular latte order. With the same uncanny, 2 Blessed 2 B Stressed face he had when Dean plowed Ruby’s knife hilt-deep into Jimmy Novak’s sternum, that he had when the Empty collapsed him  like a carcass in an acid bath.

That face shuts Dean right the fuck up, because it sends him skipping backwards into that fucking basement, where his phone is buzzing and the gritty concrete chill of the floor is seeping through his jeans into the useless meat of his legs and leeching into the hot, wet channels of his piece of shit heart.

Turns out you can work up a good little panic attack in heaven, which seems like a significant oversight.

From a million miles away he feels Cas’s warm, dry palm slide over the back of his hand –– there’s a ring there now that Dean lost down a motel sink drain ages ago, is nobody spotting continuity errors here?—then Cas’s hand tightens on his and it feels like a Xanax kicking in. (The good kind, direct from the hot nurse with the little paper cup, not the kind you get in a from a shady burnout at a truckstop, that’s been ground up with baking soda or benadryl and carefully remolded, as if you could possibly give that much of a shit when you’re freaking out bad enough to buy Xanax at a truckstop.)

Point being, he calms the fuck down.

Cas has good hands. They can do a lot of impressive shit, and they look nice doing it. They don’t look like –– they’ve never looked like –– they belong to somebody whose main job is destroying people, places, or things. They’re hands that how to play the cello, or make tables from reclaimed wood, or give soapy, encompassing handjobs in the shower on cold evenings.

“It’s been years, though,” Dean rasps, not looking up yet. “I was a kid when you got me out of Hell, Cas. I’ve done a lot of shit since then. Maybe souls get stretch marks.”

Castiel’s hand tightens on his, clamps it down on the table. “I’ve always been able to see it.”

“Okay,” Dean mumbles, but Cas keeps on going –

“The only time I couldn’t see any part of your soul was when I was without grace, and I promise you that was one of the greatest deprivations imaginable.”

Dean snorts, looks away, but his hand is still on lockdown. “Worse than going hungry, huh?”

“Much.”

“Hey, what about Sam? Or, hell, fucking Donatello. They both were both walking around minus their creamy filling, and you didn’t say boo.”

Cas shrugs. “I can’t see their souls under ordinary circumstances.”

“So what, mine’s just extra loud, or day-glo, or what?”

“It’s both of those things, but that isn’t why,” Cas answers, and the boy is downright wry.

Dean tugs his hand out, raps his knuckles against the wood. “Okay, so stop bein’ coy and tell me before I get a complex. And if you say it’s because of love or some shit, I’m bailing to Rowena’s.”

“You infected me,” Cas says.

“Uh,” says Dean.

The fire pops and a log shifts; Cas glances over at the kerfuffle, absently lifts his fingers to his chin like he’s looking for an old scar. “In Hell, when I retrieved you…I had to grip your raw soul. I was meant to wear a gauntlet, so I wouldn’t be burned.”

Dean snickers. “You’re telling me you were supposed to be wearing a soul condom. What happened, you get too excited and forget to suit up? It’s okay, I know I’m a lot to take in.”

Castiel purses his lips. “No, I was properly armored. But my arm was torn off in combat shortly before I reached you.”

“Ouch.”

“Ouch,” Cas agrees. “I didn’t have time to retrieve the arm or its protection from the pit, so I had to grow a new one very quickly.”

Dean really should’ve switched to whiskey before starting this. “What, you didn’t pack a spare?” He wheezes.

“Ordinarily, yes, I would have had the resources, but I was equipped very lightly for that mission. It was a raid, not a siege. You understand the difference.”

“Sure, yeah, you left your emergency arms in the trunk. So you just popped out a new one. No big.”

“It was a big. Your soul was close enough that it forced me to grow a human arm, instead of a much quicker and more powerful extensor.”

“Okay, uh,” Dean pinches at the bridge of his nose, “there’s a lot to unpack there.”

“What part of it confuses you?”

“I dunno, the bit where apparently angels are I guess heavenly octopuses,”

“The plural in the Greek is octopodes,” Cas interjects, not without pleasure.

Dean glowers. “Or the part where you can apparently swap in different drill bits,” Dean continues,

“Mm,” Cas notes, careful not to open his mouth,

“Or that I, like, accidentally bullied you into growing a person arm,” and Dean pauses for breath here, which Cas evidently takes as permission to dive in with more Planet Earth commentary.

“The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” he says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.” Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two.

“Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes.

“It was a poor analogy. I apologize.”

“So what’s a better one?”

Castiel drums his fingers for a second, listens to the fire pop in its little cage. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.”

“Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

“What I’m trying to avoid saying,” Castiel sighs, “is that you rubbed off on me.”

Dean nods. “Yeah. That’s fair. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to say that around me, either.”  He lays a couple little pats on Cas’s hand. “Lookit you, though, seeing around that corner. I’m proud of you, man. That would’ve totally flipped your breaker back in the day.”

“Just one of the many ways you have reshaped me, Dean,” Cas says, with warm sarcasm.

“Alright, so you rawdogged me, I whammied you. Chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter, chocolate.”

Cas’s forehead wrinkles in skepticism. “I still prefer the cockroach. But some part of your soul injected itself into one of my more exposed frequencies. Under different circumstances, I would’ve stopped and excised the affected area before it spread, but. I was being pursued, and the mission had taken much longer than any of us anticipated.”

“Us? Thought it was just you down there.”

Cas looks vaguely offended, straightens and folds his arms like he just remembered he’s giving a deposition. “No, of course not. Michael assigned sixty-six angels in eleven groups of six, each escorted to the field by a seraph. We struck simultaneously at six different areas in perdition. From there we dispersed to individual targets –– to cause as much chaos as possible in order to help obscure the object of our mission, and to increase the odds that one of us would actually find you.”

“And you were the lucky winner.” Dean pushes down a touch of sick shame at the thought of it — he’d been coiled up like a snake around somebody else’s torment, anesthetized by it. It was one of the random rags of infernal time where his own pain decreased in proportion to how much he dealt out, and that was the closest thing Hell had to a Friday night.

“I was,” Castiel nods. “I took some liberties with my assignment,” he adds, squinting. “I flattered myself that I shared a special affinity with The Righteous Man.”

“That guy always sounded like kind of a cunt to me,” Dean notes. “You know, not withstanding the fact that I’m him.”

Castiel shrugs. “I found you, and I did what was necessary to save you, and my siblings did what was necessary to save me.” A little falter enters his voice. “Only twelve of us returned from that mission.” Cas looks up, out, away. A dove coos somewhere nearby of the Roadhouse; did it have a run-in with the windshield of an eighteen wheeler one day and show up here, Dean wonders, or does heaven make its own birds from scratch? That’s gotta be a softball compared to whether Betelgeuse is still open for business.

Castiel waits until the bird shuts up, then says, “Of those twelve surviving angels, I personally murdered nine, in everything that followed.”

After a moment Dean says “Yeah,” with practiced neutrality. He’s got some similar tallies, written in Sharpie on the back of his eyelids.

Cas sighs and his attention comes back down to the table. “By the time I received the authority to restore your soul to your body, the infection had spread almost past the point of containment. That’s why I resisted taking a vessel at first. I worried that occupying a human form would speed up the process.”

“Hey now. I thought you showed up naked because you thought I’d be one of those special people,” Dean quips, “Who can handle angel stuff without going all kibbles ’n bits.”

“That was only a partial truth.”

Dean tips the beer bottle in salute. “You’re a real special flavor of asshole, Cas.”

“So I’ve been told. I was right, though. When I took Jimmy as a vessel, I contracted — condensed — myself very severely. The infection had a much shorter distance to travel to reach all of my extremities, and a human form was the most hospitable environment possible.”

“You got a raging case of the Deans.”

Cas’s head kicks back in a laugh that kinda surprises them both. “Yes,” he says, grinning. “I did. I was very displeased, and very concerned I’d be found out and judged unfit for duty. And I very much was. Unfit, that is. Though I was not found out.”

“C’mon, never? You went rogue on the company.”

“Uriel suspected. Naomi certainly detected it later, as did Metatron. But in the moment, no. The Host’s attention was focused on the Apocalypse ahead, not on debriefing a mission that was considered a success. After the Cage was closed, I had too much influence to come under that level of scrutiny.”

“Hmh.” Dean realizes he’s been systematically picking down the label on the beer bottle, so he sets it on the ground before he gets sticky little shreds everywhere. “So I gotta ask. My little souvenir, the handprint. That’s where you grabbed me, with your lil…Mister Potato Head human arm?”

“It is.”

“If I’m the one who infected you, how come I’m the one who got burned?”

“My hand didn’t burn you.”

“Well, it ain’t fingerpaint.”

“Your own soul burned it, as it flowed out of your flesh and into mine. It burned until the moment when I finally released you from my grip. My hand healed itself; your arm did not.” Castiel gives a thin scoff. “I hadn’t planned to leave you interred.”

“Oh, no? Well that’s nice to hear, you know, a decade after the fact. I still have nightmares about that shit.”

Castiel winces. “It’s no excuse, but I was in a great deal of…the equivalent of pain. It took an immense effort to break off the inflow of your soul, and when I did manage it, I was thrown quite a ways by the recoil. By the time I recovered enough to return, you were already looting a gas station,” He finishes, dryly.

“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t think much of leisure as a virtue. Also I was thirsty, because I’d just crawled out of my own grave.”

“And I was distracted, because I’d just fought my way out of the inferno while being digested by a demented human soul.”

“You wanna call it even?”

Cas lifts his brows. “If you don’t mind.”

 There is a long, dark breath, during which their little smiles fade. 

 “So, all that,” Dean says, because he’s a fucking coward.

“All that,” says Cas, because he isn’t.

 Dean clears his throat. “That means you can see my soul-stuff 24/7, huh?”

Castiel slides one leg up onto the bench, shifts to sit astride it, like he’s maybe about to deliver an after-school PSA on the Real Deal About Drugs. “I can always see myself, and extensions of my self. And since your soul made itself into an integral part of me…I can see you.”

“I take it that’s not exactly in the manual.”

“No. I didn’t entirely understand it at first — for a long time, I convinced myself it was because you were designed to be a celestial vessel, and that I had been destined to save you from Hell.”

That thin, acidic feelings starts to rise up in Dean’s chest again. “Do you…” A dry swallow reflex grabs his throat. “Hm. Fuck.”

“What?” Cas asks, scooting forward. An angel. Scooting. What a world. “You can ask me anything, Dean. I hope we’re both past being offended.”

“Have you ever thought that. This whole deal. Our…thing.” Dean lets out a breath. “The way you feel about me. The way I feel about you.”

“Do I worry that its only basis is our shared material?”

Dean licks his lips, works a jaw muscle, forces out a nod. 

Cas frowns, sets one elbow up against the table, then lets his head tip to the side. “Why do you love Sam?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I get it, he’s my brother. We got shared material, too. But we’re not talking genetics.”

“Genes were the initial basis of your love for Sam. But you share half as much material with Adam. Do you love him fifty percent as much as you do Sam?”

“One, love doesn’t work that way and you know it, and two, fucking of course not. I barely know the guy, and what I’ve seen didn’t exactly blow me away.” Not that the poor dumb kid ever really had a chance. “Sam’s Sam, he’s earned it a million times over just by bein’ him.”

“Then you understand.”

“But Cas, man…I…” Dean laughs, which is an abbreviated form of screaming, “I treated you like shit.”

Cas nods. “You did.”

“Okay, the rules say you’re not supposed to agree with me.”

“But the balance remains in your favor. Dean, are you genuinely afraid that you — care for me…”  and Dean can hear the FCC live-bleep in that one, like does his total cowardice have a special color Cas can see with his soul-o-vision? “Only out of some compulsion?”

“No,” Dean says, to the great surprise of his frontal cortex, which was busy kicking the shit out of itself. “No,” he says again, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, that that answer actually came out of him and entered the living air between them.

Then the wave is rolling towards him and he enters that slim moment of body-physics where you either take a lungful and commit to diving under the break, or you kick out against the undertow, arch your back to meet the blow, and let yourself be flown all the way up to the waiting shore––

“No,” Dean says, “I love you.” And he chokes up a little, first at the release of saying it, then at how much of exactly jack-shit it changes anything so what was he even scared of, and then at the look on Cas’s face: how he’s frozen. Like that dog from that video, the one that loved tennis balls so goddamn much that his owner bought him a thousand fucking tennis balls and dumps them out all at once and the dog absolutely stalls the fuck out, just seconds on end of underspecced dog-brain hang time before he finally snaps back to reality and loses his absolute shit scrabbling all over the porch.

Castiel comes back online with a little choking noise of his own, and a kind of awkward scrabble for Dean’s hand.

“I have for a long time,” Dean continues, because apparently he’s continuing, “I’ve loved you for fucking ages, Cas. In people years, anyway, I’m sure that mean’s fuckall to somebody who’s a zillion––”

“I don’t,” Cas says thickly, “really give a damn about the age difference, Dean,” and cracks into a chuckle.

“So how come you never knew it?” Dean asks, feeling freedom turn into a hunger or something like vertigo. “If you can see my soul, how could you not know?”

Cas shrugs, a bit helplessly.

“Seriously,” Dean laughs, “how did I manage to hide that shit so well? Sammy found every nudie mag I ever shoplifted.”

Cas shakes his head. “You’ve never actually been able to hide anything from me.”

Dean scoffs. “C’mon, man. I snowed you plenty, or else we woulda had this conversation dirtside a long time ago.”

“Whatever I missed, Dean…it wasn’t because you succeeded at hiding it,” Castiel says, softly. He takes a slow, shaky breath, and meets Dean’s eyes with a smile. He lifts a hand to Dean’s face, bone and flesh on flesh and bone. “I just loved you enough to look away.”

 It’s a long time before they go back inside. By any measure. {AO3}

#spn fanfiction #spn 15x20 #destiel #deancas #dean winchester #castiel #bless you all for your sexy and angsty coda fics please enjoy this massive wodge of angel lore wankery dating back 11 seasons

[xstarsarewrong]

introducing you to: all my WIPs

It’s the second time I’m writing this post because tumblr hates me and deleted it for no reason. Ugh. So, since I have to put some order in my brain, I’ll list here all of the wips I’m currently working on. But here comes the funny part: you get to choose one of these, and I’ll start working on it as soon as I can—and you’ll get a dt when I post it here and on ff.net. Also yes, you got it right; this is basically a way to make me start working on them faster. Here we go.

Olympus (chapter 5). If you know me and have read some of my fics, you probably already know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, “Olympus” is a bookshop AU, in which Reyna is the owner of a cute second-hand-books shop in San Francisco, and Jason is just some guy who happens to be maybe a little too in love with the shop (and its owner).

Sugar paper (chapter 1). You’re probably so sick of me talking about this fic. This is the fake dating AU I’ve been talking about for months, perhaps?, but never wrote. I’ve already started writing the first chapter, but I don’t like it at all, so I think I’ll just delete all I’ve got and start again from the beginning. Anyway, it features Percy, Nico, Jason’s and Reyna’s families and the fabulous Hazel Levesque.

The three times Reyna fell in love with Jason (and the one time she didn’t). If you think this title screams angst, you’re totally right. Slightly—highly, actually—inspired to my shitty love life, this fic is set in the canonic universe, and takes place before HoO. I think the title is pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t give you any details; only that New Rome plays a huge role in this fic. Oh and it’s a one-shot.

Rewrite the stars. Rey is going to hate me because I promised I’d write this ages ago and I still haven’t begun. This is a Star Trek AU in which Jason is the captain of a starship, and Reyna is his cold, stonefaced, calculating first officer with Romulan origins. When he asks her out for dinner, she has to remind him of the Code they had agreed to respect back when they were at the academy. Also a one-shot.

Illicit affairs. Obviously inspired by Taylor Swift, because how can you be a jeyna shipper and not listen to Taylor Swift. In particular, this fic is going to be a three-shots based on her new album “Folklore”’s teenage love triangle. In fact, this is not exactly jeyna. It’s more a study of the Piper/Jason/Reyna love triangle in the books. Mhh I don’t know if I’m ever going to write this anyway, so let me know.

The city of echoes. I’ve been thinking about this idea for the last week and I’m so in love with it. The subtitle is “All the times Jason and Reyna came back to each other”; the main plot takes place after ToA, but I want it to have as many flashbacks as possible. This one is going to be hot and sweet and rude, all at the same time. Both smutty and angsty. It’s mainly based on the myth of Phosphorus and Hesperus—the morning and the evening stars—, always thought to be so apart, and yet being the same thing. Exactly like Jason and Reyna. Three-shots.

Let me know which one you’d prefer reading first, or which one you’d like me to star working on. I think I’ll write most of these anyway, because I love each one of these ideas, but as I said, I’d like to write faster; plus I love receiving feedback and talking to you so yeah.

(Tagging some mutuals—please don’t hate me: @more-like-reyna @knowitowl @1ooo-w0rds @chocmarss @cometlite @kasoe21 @aadya23 @cyra04 @evolving-into-icarus @theresnourieandme @aureateargentum @pearlseleganciess @fanvergentinanexistentialcrisis @hayliemyers-agentofshield @pandora-allan)

#jeyna #wips #jeyna fics #writing update #olympus #sugar paper #three times reyna fell in love with jason #rewrite the stars #illicit affairs #the city of echoes #jason grace #reyna ramirez arellano

[sunflowerdigs]

Little Malex Thing

In general, I think Tyler more often hits the little, almost unconsciously cute beats of Malex that I relate to as a fellow gay. His body language and the places on Michael's body where his eyes snag and the eagerness - I just see it more. But. I have to say. My favorite subtle Malex moment is the one right after Michael kisses Alex for the first time.

(Gif by @capmanes)

Michael just looks so fuckin' proud of himself for actually going through with it. And I love it, because that smile tells you that he spent all night and all day thinking about Alex and hyping himself up to make a move after freezing up the night before (the whole scene tells you that, actually, it's a beautiful character study of Michael himself). And he's been tense and nervous and afraid, so much so that it takes him a second to register - oh, yeah, I just did the thing and it went AWESOME.

This is the moment, honestly, that the show recognizes that there's more to Michael than the shiftless, angry drunk who wouldn't know a lifelong goal if it bit him in the ass. That Michael is clearly afraid of something, and that fear isn't letting him move forward. But this Michael, the one who kisses Alex, faces his fear head on and goes out on a limb for something he wants really badly. And for once, life doesn't totally blow up in his face and HE GETS THE THING. And he's so proud of himself for taking the risk. It's glorious, honestly.

Additionally...Michael's expression here is also a little shy and nakedly overwhelmed and I LOVE THAT almost more because Michael doesn't easily give up control. He tries so hard to maintain a poker face no matter what. But he can't really help it when it's Alex, he WANTS to give up that control, and he wants Alex to know that he wants to. It wouldn't have been easy to pull out of that kiss stonefaced but Michael could have tried. But he didn't. And not only did he not try, he deliberately faced Alex head on, paused, and smiled right in his face in a way that he had to know was goofy and a bit wobbly.

(Listen, listen..., speaking of wobbles...when they reunite and have that next first kiss, I have a MIGHTY NEED for Michael's knees to actually go weak, and for Alex to catch him, and for Michael to be visibly delighted by that like the big puppy he secretly is)

But also, ALSO (how much can I read into one look?), it's a very pleased smile. This goes back to the pride thing but it's like you can see there isn't any shame. Kissing Alex is cool, it is, without a doubt, everything that Michael had hoped it would be and more (as well as hyping himself up, obviously Michael also dreamed all night about what kissing Alex would be like). There's no sadness or fear or anger or disappointment or attempt to dominate or anything toxic like that, just...this is where I want to be because obviously it's where everyone should want to be but they can't be here because I got here first.

Idk. I just love this moment a lot. Gay first kisses in fiction can go a lot of different ways - they can end in violence, tears, or just silent shame a lot of the time. So, it was nice that this one was so normal. Delightfully so.

#malex #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell nm #wowwowwow positivity can be so fun #i have a lot of feelings about baby Malex

[fusion-ego]

57 from the prompt list of sarcasm with Eddie

57. “This place holds a lot of memories for me. Some bad, some... No. No, no, all bad.”

This ended up way longer than I meant for it to, lmao, so it’s under the Read More

Takes place post-series so like I guess minor spoiler warning? It’s very vague but eh

It had been nearly ten years since the last time Eddie had set foot on the Valliere farm four miles outside of Du Quoin, Illinois.

It felt fitting that he’d be going back with Rufus right on his heels, and that the whole place would look almost exactly the same as it had all that time ago. The late summer air had bitten into his skin and prickled him with sweat as soon as they’d climbed out of Rufus’ ancient pickup truck after arriving. He’d been pulled straight into a hug by his Ma and, laughing, had picked her up totally without the help of any of his powers. It got him a raised brow from his ever-stonefaced dad, but not near as high a raised brow as the engagement ring on his finger had.

“Hey, Pa,” He’d greeted, drawl and all, opening his arms in an offer of a hug, willing to put everything behind them right then and there - no reason to dwell or hold things from three or five or ten years ago against him. “Been a while, aint it?”

His dad had eyed him a moment, then, sighing, face melting, stepped off the porch and drew him into a bone-crushing hug as he said, “Sure has, boy.”

When they’d pulled apart, Eddie had noticed his mom looked near tears with delight and even Rufus seemed mildly impressed, and then his dad had asked the million-dollar question - “Who’s the lucky’un?” with a nod of his head toward the ring.

And Eddie had laughed toying with the ring, “Well, Pa,” He said, and threw a look over his shoulder at Rufus, “I dunno. Why d’ya think I brought ol’ Scruffy?”

Rufus had scoffed, thoroughly amused, as he stepped forward and wrapped an arm around him, “Pretty sure I brought you, Princess.”

“Semantics.” Eddie had snorted in reply.

And, shockingly enough, his Pa had looked... Pleased.

Still, that was before dinner - and what a crowded affair that had been.

All of his siblings and their spouses (if they were married) had showed up, and it had been the first time Eddie saw his eldest brother, Harvey, in twelve years. To say he’d been almost overly pleased to find the youngest had taken after him in, well, preference might be an understatement. But he’d been very pleased, nonetheless, and very congratulatory on Eddie being engaged.

As were the others.

But with his six siblings, four siblings-in-law, Ma, and Pa, and then he and Rufus as well, there was no way they were all going to fit into the dining room. No matter how nice a dining room it happened to be, it couldn’t fit fourteen people.

So they’d pulled out all the plastic tables and chairs and they’d set up outside.

And it was nice, really it was.

But now, with the sun sunk down below the horizon and his siblings having departed back to their own homes, and his Ma and Pa having gone off to bed, he found himself wandering back out into the back yard.

The screen door swung shut behind him, quieter than he’d expected - but he was thankful for that. The air was filled with the sound of crickets, the distant call of some bird out later than it was meant to be, and the heaviness that country air had always had in the evening, and although he’d thought he’d never miss any of this... Well, that first breath of evening summer air after being inside for another few moments hit him hard somewhere in the heart and he realized, Oh my God, I missed this place.

He wandered his way through the yard, brushing the edges of the empty fields that had likely only finished being harvested about two weeks ago. He remembered he and Rufus chasing each other through the corn, through the wheat - the memory hit him in the heart just as hard as the sudden realization of homesickness had.

He found his way to the barn, at last, and staring up at the half-ajar doors he let himself sigh. He’d close them up and lock the barn on his way back, he guessed.

He squeezed in without pulling the doors open too much further, breathing deep and looking around. This had been his refuge so many times, and like everything else on the farm it didn’t seem to have changed at all. The hay bales that had always been piled in the corner had been replaced with new bales, as they usually were, but they were still there. The floor was still dirty and dusty. The rope dangling from the roof that he and Rufus had tried to use to climb into the loft instead of the ladder on countless occasions still hung there, fraying at the ends as it always had been but still holding strong.

God.

This place.

“Little surprised this is where you ran off to,” Rufus’ voice startled him just a little bit, but he’d felt the prickle of being watched before he’d spoken so he wasn’t... Terribly surprised as he turned to look at him.

He cracked a smile, “So am I. You know as well as I do that this place...” He turned back around, gazing around, “This place holds a lot of memories for me. Some bad, some...” He paused, screwing up his face, “No.” He sighed, “No, no, all bad.”

Rufus snorted, wrapping his arms around him from behind and resting his head atop his, “All of it?”

“I mean, this is the place where you told me y’were dating Charlotte Byers, so,” Eddie half-joked, nudging him with his elbow.

“Ah,” Rufus followed along easily, “Spoiled all the good memories with that, dang.”

Eddie laughed, leaning into his hold and relaxing. “... I missed this place. Like,” He sighed again, “In general.”

“Yeah...” The sigh was mirrored by his fiance, “I did too. We’ll have to visit more often.”

Eddie hummed his agreement, closing his eyes and finding his lips quirking up as a thought occurred to him. It’d be fitting...

“Y’think Pa would let us have the ceremony here?”

Rufus chuckled, “I think he’d let you burn the damned thing down if it meant you’d visit more often.”

He laughed, “Probably.”

“Hey,” Rufus finally said, after a long moment of comfortable silence, mischief curling around that one word in a way that let Eddie know right away what kind of suggestion would follow, “Fancy a roll in the hay, sugar?”

Rather than giving a verbal answer, he twisted in Rufus’ grip to kiss him.

#my writing #Eddie Valliere #Rufus Crider #Manipulatore Series #Post-Manipulatore #fusionego.txt #Anonymous #prompts #sarcastic dialogue prompts

[nofliight]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

tagged by: stole it from @sternenteile​ and honestly others tbh tagging: TAKE

my muse is:  canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. [ for better or for worse, he’s THE face of kid icarus, after all. he’s a dork and funny and likeable and even if the fandom tends to get him WRONG (thanks smash bros) there’s no denying his popularity ]

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ i don’t??? think so??? most people are too busy talking about how they think he’s like 5 ]

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ EVEN THE FANDOM AIN’T GONNA MESS THIS UP. MAN FIGHTS GODS. CALL THAT WEAK. ]

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK. [ make no mistake - pit’s got fans and plenty of them but he’s so MISTREATED by the fandom. his character is a lot more complex than he gets credit for and smash bros in particular is a big reason people think he’s just Big Dumb Baby Man ]

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. [ HE’S THE MAIN CHARACTER, THE CENTRAL FIGURE UPON WHOM THE NARRATIVE IS STRUCTURED AROUND, YEAH HE’S PRETTY RELEVANT. Uprising is literally made to tell the story of a war exclusively through the perspective of a single side and Pit (and Palutena) are the EMBODIMENT of that whole side. ]

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ and a perfect one at that. he’s literally a perfect protagonist don’t tell me i’m wrong cause i’m not ]

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. [ pit is beloved by humans... and mocked by the Gods. seen by most as a spineless extension of palutena’s will, most “respect” of any variety goes to palutena while he gets treated as a joke 99% of the time... and it’s not like Palutena gets too much respect either ]

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. (????) [ Uhhhhhh... it’s an odd one. Short answer is that Pit’s a good samaritan who’s done a lot of good BUT most of the gods think protecting humanity is a Folly and a Joke and that Pit’s just a pawn of Palutena’s and while the humans do hold a lot of respect for him, uh............. let’s just say, some humans on the surface have reasons not to be too happy with him. ]

How strictly do you follow canon?  —  about as much as I need to to respect one of my favorite video games of all time. while kid icarus uprising is a comedic game most of the way through it has a lot more nuance and depth to itself, its world, and its characters than one can see at first glance, even after a full playthrough. if you let yourself get invested in the characters, take a closer look at the dialogue it provides, and acknowledge the central, core storytelling message of the game for what it is, there’s a lot more to pull out than one would think. that being said, it’s still a comedic video game and one that I think could use some more expansion. though the game is inconsistent there seems to be the consensus that pit is like a child and I’m not into that, mine’s a bit more showing in his cynical and snarky side after all he’s been through and overall there’s a lot of expansion on the base while building it into something unique.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  imagine your typical bootstrapped anime protagonist. someone who, when younger, was a runt who couldn’t meet the expectations of others, was looked down on, and found himself crushed and hurt and near-killed by a great tragedy that he was forced to claw his way out of to make himself stronger. Now imagine all of that with a character who comes out still able to have a very real smile and ultimately comes out of it a self-assured, chipper goofball with a good heart. now put that together with all of the darkness and depth you would have expected to be there, but scattered realistically throughout the attitude of someone who does genuinely want to keep a positive attitude. someone who is sincerely an optimist who’s grown past his weaker days, but isn’t quite so simple as he’d like to believe. all of that combined with someone who can’t read, is willing to eat ice cream off the floor in times of duress, is extremely easy to fluster and can channel his goddess’ power to slay GODS? you got one strong man.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  his positive attitude is what most people will see when speaking to him, because for what it’s worth, he’s not actively lying about his depth. he’s a cheerful, jovial man with a big smile and a love of the world around him - which is all well and good, but his depth is something you have to find, even if it is reasonably clear if you’re willing to look. he’s also portrayed as a bit unreasonably dumb at times, and though I personally justify the worst of it with proper explanations, I can understand reducing some of the value of the character in favor of seeing all of his Jokes

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  i made my original pit blog, flightlesswarrior, on a total whim after playing kid icarus uprising. cute character, fun premise, why not? but over time, and with numerous plots I was able to take part in exploring the serious, not so serious, shipping, tragedy, and going back through the game to keep my muse rolling, it occurred to me more and more with time just how nuanced and interesting pit and co. really are. pit embodies many of the things i really, truly love in a protag, falling firmly on the side of good, having a heart of genuine gold, and having nuances and parts of his personality that are less than savory without making him seem like a contradiction. he’s got depth, he’s got story, there’s a lot to explore and flesh out... and he’s also just a nice, friendly guy who gets along well with others. plus, i’m drawn to dorks.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  a) love for Kid Icarus: Uprising. a game that helped me gain a deeper and more insightful understanding of character development, subtle storytelling, optimism still tinged with legitimate and healthy cynicism, and overall something that changed my understanding of character development and storytelling forever. and b) spite. the fandom treats him like an idiot baby and smash DOES NOT help matters so i have to remind others that he is a veteran of a war, a socially inept loser with few real friends, and someone who’s kindness and optimism was shaped and molded by its hardships in a way that doesn’t require a near-breaking point or a reminder that “this guy could be evil you know” to show how someone can still keep a positive attitude in spite of all the shit life throws at him.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO [ i’d like to think i have?? but i also acknowledge that he’s become something of his Own in some ways that do intentionally diverge from sakurai’s intentions. ultimately though, even though i may not play him completely true to text, i try to be as loyal as i can be to the spirit of the character. ]

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? [ when i can!! but??? the problem is my mind really, really likes to reiterate the Same Damn Points i have to make with characters that draws me to them - and you know, writing the same hcs over and over is generally considered poor form?? ngl i also prefer to let the writing do the talking unless it’s something that’s not gonna show so 90% of the time pit’s open enough that all but the darker sides of his mind are lain out before you. ]

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO [ maybe??? once or tWICE???? but i need to write more ]

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO [ I REALLY DO, HOO MAMA. i have a lot of thoughts about him, his depth, potential relationships, goofy thoughts, more serious fanfic ideas im never gonna write and don’t get me started on how many SHIPS i have to think about for him ]

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO [ my portrayal is made out of spite for portrayals in the fandom and some supplementary material that gets him wrong - it’s kinda hard to do that without the confidence ]

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / ??? [ it’s uhh........ complicated??? i don’t think writing is my expertise, tbh. but it is the best way i have to show the passion i have for characters, by putting their nuances into actions, by allowing them to shine from who they are their core, by exploring relationships and scenarios and struggles and hope and everything that can flesh a character out. whether or not i’m a good writer is something i’m still sorting out - but i’m proud of my ability to develop a character, and to that end i feel like i’m doing fine ]

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. / SORTA. [ on one hand......... very. i have a tendency to overthink everything i do and look back at moments i made an ass of myself that keep haunting me throughout my day - they haunt me. i only have two fears: what my immediate friend group thinks of me and the crushing existential weight of worrying one day i’m gonna ruin everything i am SOFT. that being said, i’m also hardheaded and stubborn and i’m not afraid to go off on someone i don’t have much respect for if it comes down to it. i’m easy to anger when it comes down to it you know i guess that proves the point huh i’m not stonefaced at all ]

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  i try to? it’s a bit touchy for me I admit just because I do take portrayals and try to make them my own, but i am willing to listen if someone has any points they’d like to make that i haven’t acknowledged properly. if criticism IS had, lemme know, i do wanna hear it!

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —   Y  E  S

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  not that everyone who disagrees with my opinions has to explain themselves of course, but i do sincerely like the chance to learn if something i’m doing doesn’t quite feel right. even if it’s one-sided and i’ll come to disagree, i’m happy to listen! even if i don’t agree with the disagreement head-on, i like to keep them in mind and see what i can shift around to acknowledge them if necessary

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  — neutral?? i mean don’t be mean about it, but if you just think my pit doesn’t seem right or it doesn’t click right with your muse i’m not gonna throw a fit about it. everyone’s allowed to view a character in their own way - and even if i may get salty about those who oversimplify him, it IS anyone’s right to view him how they will.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  — agree to disagree tbh. i can’t pretend it wouldn’t disappoint me, but it’s not like, worth ending a friendship over or anything. everyone’s got their own viewpoints to run on

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  sure, within reason! i take pride in my grammar but i know that with my fast typing and often running on only a few hours of sleep some problems do slip in through the cracks. while i generally either catch them or just Die with them i’m all ears if i mess up

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  uhhhhhhhhhh well i’m?? kind of a socially anxious mess honestly which DOES make being easy going a bit difficult BUT i do try and be friendly and sociable as i....... can. i’m too scared to talk to people and CAN say some dumb things but i’m not a hardass or anything!! i like to talk and Yell and shitpost and pretty much do anything but write tbh DHFLKSJDF

#about. #ooc. #hi! i Die for Pit #god this has been in my drafts for MONTHS thanks to my dash for finally reminding me to post this hsdfdfs

[heatherofthenight]

Reaction to Exit Strategy

Usual warnings apply to the following.  I’m feeling more anxious than humorous (good storytelling although it’s messing with the equilibrium of my ship!) but I’m definitely still pinging on the shallow meter with my musings.

Shall we begin? First up are scenes featuring the good ship, D&A.

A Dark Tie for Court

I have heard either blue or black ties are preferred for court so maybe Adrian’s Public Defender knows what he’s talking about.  Trafficking carries a minimum of 15 years and a $250,000 fine?  In that case I hope the Public Defender doesn’t know what he’s talking about because Adrian?  He’s not going to white-collar resort prison, no, no, no, he’s going to federal pound me in the ass prison (quote brought to you by Office Space).  At least Adrian upgraded Deran from roommate to boyfriend; perhaps the whole ‘Adrian can’t lie’ mantra made an impact on his behavior.

Shallow Observation: Is it possible to pale on cue?  I’m pretty sure STC managed that because I could suddenly count the freckles on the bridge of Adrian’s nose at the end of that scene.  He’s not just a pretty face!  Although Adrian cleans up quite nicely in his suit.  I still pine for the birthday suit.  

Point of Comparison: Adrian admits to being Deran’s boyfriend while Pope hammers home what family means (helping your bro bury a dead body?).  I don’t like the parallel thus my increased anxiety.

Jess Might Be Small But She’s Mighty

Adrian’s sister is a badass.  And she’s no fan of Deran’s.  We knew that from previous ep when she had to check if Adrian was at her house but wow, she did not hold back what she felt about Adrian’s boyfriend in this scene.  I guess sass runs in the family.  I got excited for a moment when Adrian stood up from the table because I thought a hug was imminent but it was a false alarm. Gypped again!  I like that Adrian continues to take responsibility for his actions (there’s no way to fix it, it is what it is) although his rant about Codys never being caught and he gets caught with one bad call…*shakes head*.   Adrian, dear, you knew the surfboard was too heavy.  You tried to do the job anyway.  I believe in consequences for actions so you don’t get my sympathy vote this time.

Shallow Observation: Deran looked mighty fine (and I want to hug him!) in this scene although he was completely out of his emotional depth.  He didn’t know how to defend himself against Jess, or he didn’t want to because he knows he’s not a great influence on his friend/lover/soulmate.  He also didn’t know how to comfort his boyfriend; he only had to squeeze Adrian’s shoulder as he asked about his bad news instead of cradling his bottle awkwardly.  Come on, Deran, you know it’s Adrian you want to cradle.  Get to it, man!

Party Like It’s 1999

This is probably wishful thinking on my part but we didn’t get to see the scene first hand between Smurf and her cop informer about who’s been talking to the feds.  I still think it’s Angela so what if her initials are the same as Adrian’s and that’s the info Smurf received—initials!  If that’s the case then she goes shopping for answers by asking Deran (while smoking a joint with him—that’s some excellent mother-son bonding there) how long he’s known Adrian’s been talking to the feds and to handle it and Deran, blank gaze intact, tips his hand to her because that’s his tell--stoneface. Maybe that was the confirmation Smurf was looking for and Deran gave it even though it’s Angela.  Too convoluted of a theory? Hey, I’m grasping at any life preserver I can latch onto because an Animal Kingdom without Deran and Adrian is like a PB&J sandwich without jelly.

Movie Nod: Smurf hugging and kissing Adrian after telling Deran to handle him or else she’d have to turn it over to Pope made me feel like I was watching a Godfather movie.  Or even Goodfellas.  Perhaps one of the scariest Smurf moments I’ve witnessed recently.  Run, Adrian, run!

Actual Movie Nod:  Smoky and the Bandit was on the movie theater marque where Smurfette and her Gang pulled their job.  Oh, sweet irony!

Pope the Family Man

Pope has taken the hardline about family.  Either you’re in or your out.  It’s interesting considering last year he was willing to kill Smurf and make it look like suicide.  J wondered if after Smurf shuffled off this mortal coil if they’d continue to reside at Casa Smurf and keep doing jobs and Pope seemed mystified at the question (why the hell wouldn’t we?).  I did enjoy J’s response that Deran has his bar and he’s got Adrian (he’s got a life!) but Pope was having none of it—Nobody’s going anywhere.  As a side note I wonder how many bruises Shawn and Emily got filming that scene with him trying to find her injection site…holy crap, that was intense.

OJ

Here I was thinking Olivia had some balls when she laid out her evidence and demanded J cheat for her. That was one hell of a one-up by J as he tattled to the professor and then totally crushed her when she told him she’d cared about Josh and he informed her he couldn’t stand trust fund twits. That flat affect.  Shark eyes.  Yeah, J is officially in the running for most unstable Cody.  

Nick

I approve of Renn’s baby name suggestion!  I approve even more of Craig’s staunch defense of Renn to her mother.  I’m with Deran—I have a hard time picturing Craig as a parent—but maybe these two crazy kids have a shot at normal. Although Smurf did not seem pleased about being a grandmother again, did she?

Parting Thought:  If you stay, you’re dead.  I had convinced myself that Adrian would be around next season—in prison, but still very much a part of Deran’s life—and with that preview my anxiety level hit an all-time new high and I can’t even blame @meghangrove83 for glass half empty thinking.  I don’t want Adrian to go on the run although that is preferable to six feet under.

Ugh.  If Adrian isn’t going to be around then I want sex, cuddling, and tears for the rest of the season.  In any order but in every episode.  Whose with me?!

#deran x adrian #Adrian Dolan #deran cody #(shallow) review

[anamelessknight]

Quarter Thoughts

Since I’m only like a quarter done and all lol...

This will be mostly focused on my experience with the Black Eagles’ path and almost exclusively with their units.  Plus Lysithea.

I’ll start with gameplay stuff and non-spoilery things like graphics and music for this post, then do another one for character gameplay, characters themselves and plot analysis.

Gametime for the route was 50ish hours (since I don’t feel like grabbing the switch to make perfectly sure).  35 for the pre-timeskip and 15 for after.  That’s sure lopsided.  Without mass recruitment from other houses the monastery ends up so depressingly empty.  That’s a good run of time for a JRPG. 

But this makes pacing... different then, well, really every other Fire Emblem.  Yeah you can grind a bit and do some paralogueing in others but most of the rest are pretty snappy on the plot-to-pacing ration.  Here it’s plot-do a month’s time of stuff-plot-plot fight-plot.

This isn’t bad but it sort of skews the fighin’ gameplay to meandering around the monastery gameplay.

Meandering isn’t the right word since it’s really more prep for the month and talking with everyone.  And everyone is just lovely.  Seriously, not a loser character in the bunch (yes, I’m including stoneface Byleth in this and will go into more detail why).  Even NPCs have a lot of charm (Oh Gatekeeper NPC).

Coming into the game I was most interested in Edelgard and the Black Eagles (obviously) and they safety met and exceeded my expectations.  A rare thing indeed.  Edelgard may be the greatest Fire Emblem character there is in my mind and I do not look forward to her fate in the other routes (unless it’s happy.  Please be happy).

As for actual gameplay I’ve never been a Fire Emblem guru or whatnot.  I just do what I want and I was able to play through with what I wanted and minimal time resets.  Sure, I was on the easiest difficultly but considering some times I can’t even get out of Chapter 1′s without dying I’d say it’s better.

There’s a decent blend of creative map design and bog-standard, which is good since it balances things out.  Helps the special feel special.  But you can easily run into repeating maps in free battles.  Also movement typing is pretty relevant.  There’s a lot of tiles that hinder horse move.

Graphics need to be evaluated in two camps.  Character models, faces in particular, and battle actions and modeling are incredibly good.  But some character details can fade, and a lot of background details are just... bad.  This isn’t a big deal and damn near noticeable on an actual Switch screen instead of a TV but it’s there.  Those fruits in the market are a joke.  Map appearance isn’t the best either, though the zoom-in on the fights themselves are great.

And the music MY GOD.  This is one of the best video game soundtracks I’ve ever heard.  Right up there with Chronos, Ace Combats, Dark Souls, NIERs.  There was not a single track I heard that wasn’t amazing.  Even before the game was released listening to the opening theme (Lady of Hresvelg, or whatever it got localised as) was what finally convinced me to get the game and the Switch.

Yeah, I bought a Switch for this. 400 dollars for game and system.  Was it worth it?

As an overall product I can safely conclude already that this is easily my favorite Fire Emblem.  Slots into Top Ten games of all time and has a fighting chance of Top Five.  Probably my Game of the Year and considering Resident Evil Remake 2 and Total War: Three Kingdoms?  High praise indeed. 

I spent 50 hours over five days.  My usual pricing guide is if I can get 1 hour of entertainment for a dollar it’s worth it, and this is looking damn likely to “pay” for the system.  Like, only Dark Souls has otherwise accomplished that in my entire life.

So, I like the game.  It’s not without some quibbles and one particular moment is a real slap of annoying, but as a whole the good well outweighs the bad here.

If I had anything resembling a mental state for fanfic at the moment I would absolutely go for a (non-deer) Gold Ending.  (Even if it half-spits in the face of the themes I don’t care I want all my precious students to survive.)

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem: Three Houses #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Three Nameless Houses

[mama-germany]

19 and 43 (I'm looking forward to this one)

Summer camp and dance of romance

Oh that one’s cute.  I know where you want me to go with this.

How about a summer camp AU with Violeta and Jamie, but they’re counselors, not campers.  Violeta is in charge of a cabin of girls and Jamie and another guy are in charge of a cabin of boys.  Their cabins are assigned to do their nighttime activities together around the campfire and Jamie’s teaching his boys some campfire (song) songs and

OH MAN Jamie and the boys belting out C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E-S-O-N-G SONGPATRICK!*inarticulate blabbering*SQUIDWARD!!*stonefaced silence*

But yeah, then Violeta brings her girls, everyone with the flower crowns they made earlier in the day, and the boys groan that the girls are here Girling everything up, but Jamie’s like hey hey be nice to the ladies.  They switch to some more traditional campfire fare and Jamie’s playing the guitar along, not like he’s an expert or anything, but they’re having a good time.  Violeta is leading her girls in the song and they’re still too energetic from some candy bars after dinner so they’re running around and dancing, so Vi gets up after them and starts dancing with them to organize the whole thing a bit more, so they’re like maypole dancing without the pole and Jamie cannot take his eyes off her.  Eventually he hands off the guitar to his co-counselor, says you play this one, and stands and asks Violeta if he can have the next dance.  All the kids are either like ‘ew gross!’ or ‘oooooOOOOOOO’ and so Vi takes his hand and he twirls her around the fire and it’s like she’s his fairy princess and for a sec they totally forget the kids are even there.

[takaraphoenix]

So.

I’m rewatching the Ice Age franchise because I haven’t watched the latest one yet and figured it’d be good to just... watch all five of them. Never watched them in English before, so I thought that might be neat.

It is not neat.

Holy shit. I am now fully aware why those movies basically are totally unpopular in the US but do well overseas.

Your voice actors. They suck. (Queen Latifah excluded. Damn, you rocked that mammoth.)

I was literally stonefaced while watching the first movie. I mean, I didn’t just not laugh, I didn’t crack as much as a single smile. Throughout the entire fucking movie.

And it didn’t go far beyond smiles either with the following movies. (Aside from Ellie, because yeah, Queen Latifah is literally the best thing about this dub.)

Like. Woah. Damn.

John Leguizamo is... so freaking boring and makes Sid simply annoying with no other features.

Otto Waalkes is a hoot. I mean. He generally always is, but the man makes Sid funny and laughable. The delivery is just... so important...? And those movies are funny in German. I know that. I remember laughing at them. I went and saw the second one in theatres. And I would not have done that if I had seen the English version, because fuck me is that boring.

So, I’ll be taking Ice Age and put it on my slowly-growing list of “Things that were vastly improved by their German dub”.

Also kinda trying to work through animated movies I have never seen in English, because curious. This one made me more frightened though.

#Ice Age (2002) #otto waalkes #like damn #i did not realize how much of that movie lived from otto #german dub #superior german dub #why you no cast comedians for roles that should be funny america?

[glowyjellyfish]

I had a little pre-Thanksgiving drama, and to get my mind off it I started thinking about what Thanksgiving Drama would look like in the 2017 McDuck household. And it started out just as little fun script scenes but somehow morphed into an entire fanfic that I can picture as an episode in my head. I considered making an attempt at fleshing it out into a full prose story, but... I lack both the time and the wherewithal for such things, and anyway it wouldn’t be done before Thanksgiving so what would be the point? I think the ending comes a little abruptly, but the ideas were drying up, so...

Donald: (trying really hard) Um, I know it’s been a while, but… Thanksgiving’s coming up, and… what do you usually do?

Scrooge: Oh, I don’t usually celebrate, really. I don’t see the point. Actually, now that I think about it, I do always ask Mrs. Beakley to make a few of my favorite Scottish dishes. For old times’ sake, you know. Shepherd’s pie, haggis--

Donald: WHAT??

---

Webby: I’m so excited! A real Thanksgiving dinner! I’ve never had one before! What kinds of special traditions do you guys have? Can I help?

The nephews look at each other.

Louie: You mean the tradition where we all fight over the remote, or the one where Uncle Donald gets super stressed out because he has to do everything but also won’t let anyone help with anything?

Huey: He let me set the table last year!

Louie: Only because he went outside to cool off and you set the table while he couldn’t stop you!

Huey: Maybe, but maybe this year he’ll remember how helpful that was and let me do it again!

Dewey: Look, you just forgot the golden rule of Thanksgiving: stay out of Uncle Donald’s way, let him do what he wants, and food will magically appear. Oh, and always wash your hands thoroughly. That one got us into trouble a couple years ago.

Louie: (laughing) Oh yeah, but it was worth it! We actually made him think he was dead! That was amazing!

Dewey joins in laughing, fondly reminiscing. Webby looks at Huey uncertainly.

Webby: Is that a… normal Thanksgiving tradition?

Huey shakes his head, stonefaced.

---

Launchpad: Wow, a real Thanksgiving dinner! That sounds great for you guys! It’s been a long time since I had one.

Webby: What do you mean? Don’t you go home to your family over the holidays?

Launchpad: No, no, I was pretty young when I left and, you know, I can’t really face my parents and I can never go back. So… no.

Webby: Oh. Well, why don’t you join us? I’m sure there’s room!

Launchpad: (tears in eyes) Really???

Webby: Sure! It’s Thanksgiving! The more the merrier!

Launchpad: Yes!! Oh, this is gonna be so great, I gotta hit up the stores before they run out of pie!

---

Dewey: Wait, you didn’t invite Launchpad, did you?

Webby: Yeah-- was that wrong?

Louie: Uhh, we’re never allowed to bring friends to Thanksgiving. It’s strictly a family thing.

Webby: But it’s Launchpad, he’s... practically family?

The boys are skeptical.

Webby: Come on, he didn’t have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner, and he was so excited about coming! I’m sure it will be fine.

Dewey: Okay, but you invited him, you’re the one who has to tell Uncle Donald, got it?

Webby: Oh, because of the amount of food, right? I’m sure it won’t be a problem, he said he was going to buy pie!

The boys look horrified.

Huey: ...storebought pie??

---

Donald: GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!

Beakley: It’s MY kitchen, Donald! We had an agreement!

Donald: And you’re not holding up your end!

Beakley: I KNOW how to make mashed potatoes, Donald! It’s hardly rocket science.

Donald: YOU’RE MAKING THEM WRONG!! Louie won’t eat the skins and Huey hates lumps!

Beakley: We don’t need two kinds of potatoes any more than we need two whole turkeys! Is this what you always do?

Donald: You try telling the boys that one of them has to go without a drumstick!

Beakley: One turkey is more than enough, even for eight people!

Donald freezes for a moment.

Donald: ...EIGHT people??

---

Launchpad bursts in the front door, super excited, with six pies and a giant bag of stuffing. The boys are there to see him and are horrified.

Louie: Six… six store bought pies? Why would anyone--

Huey plasters on a grin and steps forward.

Huey: (loudly and brightly) Hi, Launchpad! So glad you could make it! Wh--what what kinds of pies you got there?

Launchpad: I was only going to buy two, but they all looked so good! I got… two pumpkin pies, chocolate mousse, chocolate pecan, blackberry, and apple! Hope you guys are hungry!

The boys continue to be horrified.

Dewey: (quietly) but uncle donald’s pumpkin pie is perfect, who eats store bought pie?

Huey: (loudly) Sounds great! And… the stuffing?

Launchpad: I’ve never had stuffing before and I got kinda stoked.

Huey: Okay, cool! We already have stuffing, I mean our turkeys are already stuffed, but we can probably pop that in the oven and make it nice and crunchy, at least--

Launchpad: Awesome! I’m gonna go put these babies in the kitchen where they belong!

Huey: Wait!

Launchpad blithely marches into the kitchen with his armload of goodies, and things go terribly quiet in there. The boys watch in horrified anticipation. A moment later, Donald storms out of the kitchen, furious and barely containing himself. He throws his apron on the floor and stomps off to the front door.

Donald: I’M GOING OUT FOR SOME AIR.

Huey: Wait, Uncle Donald!

Donald: NO.

He goes outside and slams the door behind him, leaving Huey torn between wanting to fix everything RIGHT NOW and knowing that the best method is to leave him alone for a while AND knowing dinner will probably be ruined if left alone. Dewey and Louie look at each other and race into the kitchen, with Huey a little bit behind.

---

The kitchen is chaos, but that’s fairly normal when Donald cooks. Mrs. Beakley is frantically hunting down enough clean pans for Launchpad’s stuffing, pots on the stove are starting to boil over, and the oven’s alarm is beeping. Launchpad is standing just barely out of the way, looking distraught.

Launchpad: What did I do wrong?

Beakley: It wasn’t your fault, Launchpad. Boys! See to the potatoes, will you?

Huey and Louie rush over to the stove; Huey turns down the burners while Louie grabs a spoon and takes the opportunity to drool over the food, but he picked the wrong pot.

Louie: Uh, I think you guys forgot to peel the potatoes--

Beakley: Those are smashed potatoes. You leave the skin on. They’re much easier to make, but the plain kind are in the other pot. Your uncle insisted on making them.

Louie checks the other pot and is relieved.

Louie: Whew! Got worried for a minute there!

Dewey: Hey, what about my baked potato? Cause--

Beakley: Seriously? Is this what you do every year?

Dewey: Uh, yeah! That way, everyone gets what they want!

Louie: Yeah, you get to make your weird potatoes, don’t judge us.

Beakley: I’m not judging--I was only trying to show Donald--oh, never mind, the vegetables will be done roasting in a moment, we need to have the stuffing ready to go--

On cue, Huey pulls the slightly singed roasted vegetables out of the oven and puts them on the counter.

Huey: Vegetables are ready! Although I noticed we are way behind schedule on prepping the salad, we are three cans of whipped cream short, and I don’t see any cranberry sauce anywhere! Someone’s going to have to go to the store.

Beakley: It’s too late, we’ll just have to--

Launchpad: Cranberry sauce and whipped cream! I’m on it! Anything to help!

He charges out of the room before Beakley can stop him.

Beakley: Launchpad, don’t bother--ugh. ...So why do we need a salad in addition to the vegetables?

Louie: Huey hates the texture of cooked vegetables.

Beakley: You boys do realize that you’ve been making your uncle prepare enough Thanksgiving for a dozen people all these years, don’t you?

Huey: Oh…

Louie: Yeah, but that just means more leftovers!

Beakley sighs and pinches the bridge of her beak.

Beakley: Alright, here’s what we’re going to do.

---

Webby peeks her head in the kitchen tentatively.

Webby: What’s going on? I just washed my hands again to be safe, and when I got back I couldn’t find anyone. I thought no one was allowed in the kitchen? Where’s Donald?

Dewey races past the door with a pan of stuffing held above his head.

Dewey: Outside! Getting air!

Huey is washing dishes, with his eyes glued to a hastily-written schedule he taped above the sink.

Huey: We’re making sure everything will be running smoothly when he gets back! Dewey, make sure to turn the oven down when you put the pies in!

Dewey: Got it!

Louie is very carefully arranging a basket of rolls.

Louie: He’s totally gonna still be mad, but at least dinner will be ready and not, like, burned and gross.

Huey: No, Louie, it’s going to be PERFECT and he will be DELIGHTED, okay? We all agreed this would fix everything!

Webby: (slightly skeptical) Wow, okay um, sounds like a good plan! How can I help?

Beakley looks up from where she is tossing the salad.

Beakley: You can set the table, darling. Go fetch the formal dining set from the china hutch in the parlor.

Webby gets determined.

Webby: I’m on it!

---

Outside the front gate of McDuck Manor, Launchpad screeches to a halt in the limo, parking perpendicular to the road, and leaps out of the car with three bags of whipped cream and cranberry sauce, nearly barreling over Donald.

Donald: Watch it!

Launchpad: (out of breath) Sorry didn’t see you there! Had to go all the way to St. Canard before I found any cranberry sauce! Why are you outside?

Donald: (frustrated) I went for a walk to clear my head and I got locked out! This is a disaster!

Launchpad helpfully pushes the intercom button; no one answers.

Donald: No one’s answering, I’ve been pushing that for twenty minutes! Dinner’s going to be ruined and it’s my fault!

Launchpad: I thought it was my fault?

Donald: ...yeah, sorry. Thanksgiving is a very stressful day for me, and… look, it took years to find a recipe for pumpkin pie that we all like. We don’t need any backup pies. I can handle it.

Launchpad: Okay, but you can never have too much pie.

Donald wearily pushes the button again. This time, it crackles!

Scrooge: Where is everyone--yes, what do you want?

Donald: Uncle Scrooge, it’s me! We got locked out!

Launchpad: I got cranberry sauce!

Scrooge: why is Launchpad--oh, whatever.

He buzzes them in; Donald and Launchpad both race frantically for the kitchen. Scrooge suspiciously follows at a more leisurely pace.

---

The kitchen and dining room are a choreographed whirlwind of activity, with Webby and the boys placing dishes rapidly and barely avoiding ramming into each other. There are two turkeys, three kinds of potatoes, five pans of stuffing, a small mountain of roasted vegetables AND a salad, two baskets of rolls, a sweet potato casserole, haggis, and the whole kitchen smells like pie. Mrs. Beakley is stirring up the gravy when Launchpad bursts in with his groceries.

Launchpad: CRANBERRY SAUCE!

Beakley: Well done, Launchpad. Why don’t you grab a bowl and a can opener and get that ready quickly? No, the can opener’s over there--over there, third drawer on the left. Left, I said.

Donald: What’s going on?

Dewey: We finished making dinner for you. Because we’re awesome.

Donald: But--

Huey: I never realized just how much work you put into this! But you really don’t have to do it all yourself anymore.

Donald: I just try to make everything perfect for you boys!

Louie: And we appreciate that… now. But you can ask for help, you know, we might complain about it but it’s actually kinda fun? And nobody wants you to have to do all the work. Besides, you got Team Thanksgiving now!

Webby and the boys: TEAM THANKSGIVING!

Donald: Well… I don’t know what to say. It looks like you did a wonderful job.

Beakley sets the gravy on the table, and invitingly pulls out a chair for him.

Beakley: You might consider saying “thank you”.

Donald: Thank you, everyone. Happy thanksgiving!

Scrooge: …happy what now?

...because nobody actually consulted him about this Thanksgiving dinner in all the chaos. It’s fine though. Scrooge enjoys his haggis and convinces Dewey to try a bite (no one else will, though); Launchpad discovers that he loves stuffing and eats two pans all by himself, Louie accidentally takes a scoop of the wrong kind of potatoes and is disgruntled to learn that they are delicious. Each of the boys and Webby get a drumstick, and they mock-swordfight a little bit; Launchpad eats all four wings. Everybody tries every different kind of pie, with varied results, but they all agree that Donald’s homemade pumpkin pie is the best pie; there are no surviving pieces for anyone to eat later.

#ducktales 2017 #fanfic #still can't quite believe i am writing duck fanfic but here we are #there's lot on my phone I've been writing that will never see the light of day because it will never be finished #i'm just happy i'm writing regularly and have inspiration and all #this is the only one so far that is entirely script

[achelllies]

Something to make you guys feel better this barricade day ;)))

Wait okay you guys know in the movie when the national guard are all like who goes there and enjolras is all like FRENCH REVOLTION? Yeah imagine this: - It starts off at a party - The Amis are all there and an undoubtedly hammered Courf would dare a stonefaced brokdy Enj to tell a joke and like it essentially goes like “knock knock” “who’s there” and Enj deadpanning “French Revolution” - The second time he does this is when he finally gets drunk thanks to the combined efforts of Courfeyrac, Bahorel, and Grantaire. - He then proceeds to walk (stumble) around the club asking people the fucking joke (punctuated by tons of hiccups) - “Enjolras, let’s go. I don’t think he wants to hear the joke.” Enj’s bottom lip begins to puff out just slightly, and his eyes grow wide and begin to water. If there’s one thing he’s better at than speeches, it’s puppy eyes “But everyone likes the joke ! (everyone’s really done with the joke) Please, R, last one ?????” And he is undoubtedly way too sober for this as he rubs a rough hand across his face, wearily mumbling his agreement - Hint: the guy isn’t the last one - He tells the joke to anyone in his sight and fuck why did R think this was a good idea? - They get kicked out bc Enj got into a fistfight (really he was sort of waving his arms around talking about robespierre and the bourgeoisie????) when he slurred his joke into a girls ear while falling all on top of her and her boyfriend notices and confronts him and Enj just sort of launches himself at him accusing him of being bourgeoisie scum????? - The next time it happens is during a les amis meeting - Because unfortunately when Grantaire said he found someone new who wanted to attend a les amis meeting he failed to mention it was someone who was hot and funny and very good at flirting with grantaire and very good at keeping him and courf distracted with his face!!! And he’s totally mildly, keep in mind MILDLY pissed because the cause!!!! Courf and Grantaire need to pay attention!!! And damn straight Enjolras can be funny too! He can make Grantaire laugh too!!! - And so that’s how in the middle of a meeting he shoves Combeferre to their music stand podium and shoves fifty people and their beers out of his way as he makes his way through a cramped room to slam his hand down on Grantaire’s table, and say with a straight face, “knock knock who’s there? French Revolution!!!!” - (Grantaire was too shocked by the whole situation to say the “who” in response.) - (Grantaire also laughed like never before at all the disgruntled patrons rubbing their bruised arms and picking up their spilled drinks death-glaring at Enjolras, looking more intense than ever, scaring everyone in the Musain. Enjolras takes this as a win and if he can’t stop smiling as soon as he gets home because of Grantaire’s fucking laugh, that’s no one’s problem but his) - The fourth time, as everyone has expected, Enjolras has overworked himself to the point of passing out and is sulking™. Les Amis had a huge role in organizing this pride march in Paris and he was going to give this super cool speech he spent a month toiling over but guess what his body cannot handle sixteen hours without water so of course, he passed the fuck out and passes the time watching pride on the tv in his hospital room - He watches Combeferre give his speech and sees all the Amis (save Grantaire, which he finds weird because Grantaire loves going to pride a lot???) crowded at the front of the impromptu stage, cheering, decked out in glitter and rainbows and Jehan with their they/them sweater they spent two months knitting and Enjolras is very very jealous and sulking very very much - And then, a knock sounds - Grantaire pokes his head in, smiling sheepishly, hands full with flowers (all in pride colors, of course), and a rainbow teddy bear signed by the amis, and he’s decked out in daisy chains and decked out with flower crowns courtesy of Bahorel, Feuilly, Courf, and Jehan’s combined efforts - “Knock knock” “who’s there” “French Revolution! Coincidentally, also what I’ve named this teddy bear. His middle name is Voltaire.” - Enjolras is very very happy and can’t stop smiling and after a bit of arguing he manages to persuade Grantaire to climb into his hospital bed with him. He falls asleep to Grantaire taking off some of the flower crowns on his curls and placing them atop Enj’s head. - (He wakes up to the Amis giggling about just how proud they are of having their two gays finally making moves on each other)

#enjoltaire #exr #grantaire #enjolras #les mis #barricade day

[ozocho]

17/20 Bob as an amateur Photographer

He no longer needed an alarm clock. He would wake up at six and once awake he would be awake for good.

Unless it was raining. The steady, window tapping kind; buildup rolling off the gutter and knocking like a grandfather clock, massaging the plaster on the ceiling through the boards and shingles. Under the drum around him the paralysis would allow his neck just enough range to check the clock and look out the window.

He woke up at eight twenty three, and the room was so bright that he had to  remember where he was. He felt like an intruder in his own bed. Somewhere past the cracks in the window frame the rain and the cold air stirred together and landed on everything, and without being at least half awake he was already on his feet and at the dresser, pulling on a fat sweatshirt.

When he opened his bedroom door the smell of cooking grease was in the hallway. He swung down the stairs, and when he reached the landing he saw that Jane had boosted herself up with a kitchen chair and had a black pan on the gas range sizzling with eggs. It was loud enough for her to not hear Bob, and he saw that Wagonwheel was just off to her right with his nose over the cast-iron edge, lusting after either the blue flame or the eggs, Bob couldn't guess which.

Jane knew how to cook without setting the house or herself on fire, but Bob had made a point that if she wanted to he absolutely must know ahead of time. Waking up at six, he would have enforced this small but important point by taking over and wagging the spatula at her, maybe telling Wagonwheel to never have a part in it again whether or not he did now. Waking up at eight twenty three, he saw himself as having no business interrupting something that was going relatively well, and he turned around and went back up the steps.

In the bathroom he fumbled around, relieved himself, cut up his neck with a safety razor and got blood on the collar of sweatshirt. On the way back to his room he heard Jane doing an impression of himself downstairs. He pulled out  a new sweatshirt. There was a broad orange stripe around the chest of it and when he looked into the mirror on the back of the door he thought it made him look swollen and feminine. He put on another one, but paid no attention to his ragged pajama bottoms or the bare feet with the uncut toenails.

When Bob went back downstairs both Jane and Wagonwheel were sitting at the kitchen table eating off of painted porcelain plates Bob had never seen before. Jane spotted him first. She already had a mouthful of egg and rose up in her seat, getting all the air ready for what she had to say by taking it through her nose and trying to choke down the bite as fast as possible. She spun in the chair and pointed towards the counter.

"We made you eggs." Swallow. "We didn't want to wake you up."

"It's alright, just ask next time."

There might have been a combined total of two eggs swimming in a pool of lukewarm grease. Their shape, and material, was almost unrecognizable. But it wasn't burnt, and after beaching the more solid chunks on the edge of the plate with a fork, it actually looked appetizing.

They sat around the breakfast table eating, quietly, until Bob commented on how nice the eggs tasted and Jane and Wagonwheel realized that they weren't going to get trouble, then Jane started prodding Bob for more critical insight towards the meal and its comparison to other meals. Bob mostly nodded and chewed. Wagonwheel slipped into the devil's advocate role, gradually. Yeah they're pretty nice eggs, but they're a little wet aren't they? Eventually Jane stopped looking at or talking to Wagonwheel at all.

Finished, Bob stared down through the shallow lake of oil and at the wreath of bluebirds staring back up at him.

"Where did you find these at?"

"The others were dirty."

Six o'clock Bob would have laughed and played the forgiving parent. Eight twenty three Bob just wanted to know.

"I really want to know where you got these from."

It took almost a minute for her suspicion to fade, replaced by the excitement of showing an adult something they didn't already know. She slid off her chair one foot at the time and led him into the parlor.

The drawers were still open, and all around its corner of the room were piled smoke colored packets and photo albums with old flaking leather covers. What was left of the set of dishes was another spare plate and a matching set of teacups, with saucers, still half wrapped in tissue paper. Bob could make out a roughly Jane shaped clear spot in the middle of it all, and once Jane was certain that Bob wasn't angry with their, she fit herself back into it again. She unwrapped and held up the delicate porcelain items for him to see, but when she noticed that he was more interested in the photographs and scattered baubles she shifted focus and started unwinding the string bindings on the packets and pulling out fistfuls of glossy cards. She did her best to get him involved.

"Who is this?"

A fat baby in a nautical outfit sat in front of a painted shoreline backdrop, it's body tilted like a bad drawing.

"It's you."

Jane smiled at the picture and then looked up and back at him. "Boy I looked stupid."

"Yeah."

She rotated it to the back and then held up another. A young man with two much hair and a chin that was little more than a smooth bump, reclining in a wicker chair. He was drowning in a sweatshirt and trying to contain a tabby kitten in his arms.

"Is that me?"

Wagonwheel was watching them from over the arm of the couch.

"I think so." Bob took it and passed it over to him. "I found you, but Jane wouldn't let me name you."

Wagonwheel held it so close to his face that Bob could no longer read his expression. He handed it back, stonefaced.

"Not anymore." And he disappeared into the kitchen.

It was late morning by this point and Bob was starting to feel his agency creep back in. Every minute he felt another year older than Jane. He started to shift things from the floor to his far hand and back into the drawer, without making it obvious to Jane, until there were hardly any more packets left lying around and they had settled into a less hyperactive process of holding and reminiscing. They had tucked away a glass mallard when Bob reached for a bright cardboard box a little bigger than his hand. He wedged a fingernail under the lid and pulled out the cardboard braces, flipping open the top. Inside were two old disposable cameras, side-by-side. He removed one from the box and held it up for Jane to see.

"It looks like a toy." She said.

"It sort of is."

Through the spyhole he saw Jane's dark, vague face, fisheyed.

He took it away from his eye and checked the counter on the top of it. It was past zero. He tried winding it and it wouldn't budge.

"It's out of pictures." He put it back in the box and lifted the other out. The counter on that one was between six and five. "Here we go." He wound it until it stopped, then held the camera up. Jane's face snapped into a predatory, broad smile. There was a plastic click. She reached over and spun the camera around in his hands.

"Do we get to see the picture now? Does it come out?"

"It doesn't work like that. We'd have to take it into town and get it developed." He put it back in the box.

"Oh."

"Maybe I'll get them both developed the next time I'm out there."

He set the box aside.

They had the rest of the stuff put away by lunch, and the two of them went back into the kitchen to make sandwiches, still running in a conversation about time and how the colors of plastic change. Jane made comments towards odd things around the kitchen that she had never thought to ask about but found the moment more opportune than any before. With only crust left on the plates, there was a pleasantly exhausted silence.

Jane got up and walked up the stairs after a while. Bob put the rest of their plates away and washed about half of them. He warmed up a pot of coffee that was sitting on the stove and sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy a small cup of it, listening to the rain on the kitchen shutters and the trickling spout outside the back door. The cup steamed. The caffeine made him a little elated, but anxious, and he rose up from the chair and started pacing the kitchen slowly, musically, one hand knuckling the handle of the cup and the other slightly curled in his pajama pants pocket. When the kitchen ran out of floorspace, he swayed into the parlor.

He had loosely planned on starting a fire, but he slid over to grab a log and spotted the small box lying on the coffee table. He sat down at the couch and pulled the lid open again, removing the camera with the spare shots.

He didn't bother looking through the viewfinder, he tipped it around in his hands and examined the cardboard shell and the texture of the winding mechanism. Then he started raising it to eye level. Almost everything in the unlit parlor was too dark to see through the foggy lens. The only clear target was the rainsoaked light coming in through the window over the armchair, and through the lens it looks like stained glass.

He set the cup down and took the camera into one fist. In the kitchen he stepped into his boots without tying them, threw on a long overcoat and opened the door to the treble of the drizzle outside and plunked out onto the back steps. The first picture he took was from the second step. It was a shot of the backyard, wet and misty as it was, with the crooked tree on one side of the frame and the edge of the shed on the other. Jane's bike was in the foreground and the stone pasture wall beyond it.

He wound it and stepped down into the rain.

The second shot was of the garage door and a large slice of the driveway, puddles included. It wasn't until afterwards that he noticed how much paint was flaking off the front of it, but in a romantic spin on it he said that no true image of it would have left something like that out. He had to keep the camera palmed up to prevent it getting too wet. The third picture was taken off to the side of the shed, of the sad face of his old truck, crying rust. The fourth was a his late wife's car, just as smothered with weeds. He thought he was out, but he wound it down again and saw through the moisture bubbled counter that he still had one shot left. There was the determination to make it count, and despite the rain picking up, he wandered all over the yard and the pasture behind it. He was out there so long that his fingers chilled and the constant patter of the rain on his hood turned into a kind of auditory blindness that disconnected him from himself. When the elements were finally getting to him he was halfway up hill and closer to the treeline that he was to the house anymore. He couldn't feel the camera in his hands. The last shot was lazy, but he had to get it over with. It was aimed uphill, at the combined smear of the shiny yellow grass and the shiny orange leaves beyond them, and the white sky above it all. The camera went into one of his pockets and he turned around for home.

And there were the footprints. They were slightly smaller than his own and they hugged the track of his own on its way up the hill and through the mud. At a grassy patch a little before him they had circled around twice and merged into his.

#prose #brewster creek #short stories #fiction #writing

[oldthe-nothing-maker]

pls I'd like each of the XYZ boys to tell me what they like about the other two

Hey !! I’m sorry I waited so long before answering this ask, I just wanted to answer this well and maybe with a drawing, but I can’t seem to be able to draw them, so !! Here’s a simple text answer (under a cut because um it got REALLY FUCKEN LONG I’m so sorry) :

Kenneth -Y : they’re like, the epitome of black romance (with red vacillation but still) :p So yeah ! To Kenneth, Y is this stuck-up guy who is 1) fat 2) way too high on morals 3) just a total nuisance all the time ? But when X’s bored, or sad, or um feeling any kind of emotion at all, he knows he can go to Yogur to start a fight and he’ll be distracted for hours and Y will never never refuse that to him because he’s super bored as well. But he’salso passionate, and really determined, and when they both work together they’reamazing, and also he’s really hot and if X shows honest emotional distress Ywill do his genuine best to help him – and they always challenge each other bypointing at each other’s flaws, so even though X is emotionally stunted anddoes not understand affection, he likes the idea of having someone who’llalways kick him awake if he ever falls. So. That’s something.

Z : it’sweird for him because as I said, Kenneth does not get affection? It scares himreally bad to know people care for him because he simply does not know what itlooks/feels like – and he’s also deadly afraid to reciprocate because it feelslike an obligation. So, he likes feeling secure around Zephyr, feelingcomforted and knowing this guy here will do everything in his power to keep himsafe from harm? But he also hates it. He’s a complicated kid. Apart from that,he likes Zephyr’s smile or blush or any hint at emotion, the way he takes careof his hair and also the fact that he can stay perfectly stonefaced in front ofa teacher even though you just told him the lewdest joke. He’s a good jokepartner.

Yogur-

X: black romanceall over again! Kenneth was really cruel to Y when they were kids– but once theygrew up they realised they were both super lost and sad and really, reallyalone? So Yogur decided, fuck this, let’s try to be honest with him for onceand not play the “let’s fight so we don’t think about our feelings” game, andhe discovered Kenneth could be smarter than expected, funnier, too, and well he’ssuper handsome, and he never gives up on anything he deems worthwhile – and Yis really all about people who do not stop trying, like, that’s so admirable(and hot)? So of course he falls for him at some point. Also, they have known eachother for 10 years, so they also share some kind of intimacy that comes withtime and closeness.

Z: theywere moirails before I even knew what Homestuck was. He’s the person Y lovesthe most in the whole world. He taught him how to speak English, and overcomehis parent’s death, and just... Wasn’t mean to him when no one else was there?And the more they grew the closer they got – they have a similar sense ofhumour, work super well together, and they just feel so incredibly safe around each other. Together theydiscover that shared intimacy is actually kind of nice, and hugging andtouching and kissing is nice too (they’re pretty much joined at the hip), andlike, Y is so glad to have him in his life because otherwise he knows he’d be alot more bitter and mean and empty, even though Z can be a total mess of abeing sometimes and he doesn’t take care of himself as much as he should anddeserves, and so every time he looks at him he’s just *diamond eyes*

Zephyr-

X: soimagine you’re that kind of nerdy, very silent kid that no one ever cared foror really paid attention too, and then the popular kid says “hey, hang out withme, I like you, let’s be friends?” just so they can mock you with their friends?That’s pretty much it, except Zephyr was clever, so he didn’t fall for that,which meant Kenneth had to really involve himself, and they spent a lot of timetogether as a result? So Zephyr saw before everyone else how alone X felt, butdespite that fear he never gave up trying to live and fight, and like. Thatmade a huge impression on him. So he likes that flame in him, the really crudebeauty, the fact that he dares saying what he thinks and doing the things hewants to do. It’s kind of inspiring, and he ends up really trying to make sureX stays ok and fighting and good (and in an alternate reality where X comes toterm with the fact that caring doesn’t mean being deprived of your freedom andthat people do not always pretend to like you just so that they can tear youapart later, they kiss a lot).

Y: sobefore meeting Yogur, Zephyr had never really had anyone truly caring for him –and suddenly there was this kid who said “hey you saved my life you’re amazing”and who did all he could to make his life better? And for the first time in hislife he felt truly loved? And he taught Y how to think critically but Y taughthim how to think in terms of morals and ethics and how to care for things eventhough they’re maybe not going to care back, like animals and plants and otherpeople, and he also pushed him to think for himself and accept he deserves happinesstoo! So he’s bad at showing it but for him Yogur is an absolute miracle and headmires him a Lot.

Here so it’salmost 1000 words of rambling, I’m sorry you must have expected somethingsmaller x) In short they like kissing each other – the end.

Thanks forasking though!! Man I love talking about these idiots, I’m sorry I didn’tanswer with a drawing or anything! But yeah thanks a lot!!

#text post #x y z #uh yeah i'm super ashamed by how long this is #like almost crying ashamed buuuut alsoooo i'm happy #wow that's bad #i just can't help rambling when it comes to these idiots because i know them so well #ahahah wow what the fuck #ANYWAY thanks !! #toastyhat #enthusiastic answers