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writing-the-end · 3 years

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LoL Chapter 30- Shadow Fox

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

Doc, Zed, and Scar have made their way to the city of Foresta, deep in the forests where animals are going missing and the nightmares grow worse daily. Meeting with a local shepherd, they find allies in the most unusual ways.

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“Oh, yeah, watch it with the Zhenniao, their spit burns like mad.” Zedaph crows as he

pets the soft white feathers of a Caladrius, the two having a conversation about their favorite seeds.

“Uh… is this thing supposed to have three legs?” Scar leaps back, narrowly avoiding the corvid. He laughs though, and preens the beast’s wing.

“Yep! Yatagarasu are born with two legs, but the third one grows when they learn to fly!” Zed sets the Caladrius back. As much as he loved the insightful debate he held with the bird, it’s not the kind of help they need. Besides, it would bring as much attention as an alicanto. “What about it, you three legged birdy? Want to join our team? Phoebe can teach you all the best ways to get letters to us- and the best places to peck at the hermits to get them to wake up.”

“I swear to god I don’t want to have to build another eye.” Doc sets the acid spitting bird down, and waits for Zedaph to respond. But the blond hermit was always having a thousand different conversations at once. On their way here, he had a whole horde of forest creatures following him.

The city of Foresta was open, patches of grass and trees older than the kingdom sprouting between houses and wide streets. Between the throngs of people, creatures of all shapes and sizes wandered down the dirt paths. Satori swing from the horns of a chimaera, leaping over the massive bodies that create the baku. Birds of all shapes, sizes, and different heads fly through the high canopy, fluttering to stop on the stone tower of the postal office. It’s here where the hermits are searching for another carrier bird. Poor Phoebe can’t do all the work herself, especially with so many hermits off hunting down reports.

And that was the other reason they were in the city of Flora and Fauna. Sent here to discover the whereabouts of missing familiars and family beasts. Carrier birds, farm beasts, even a family’s own cerberus have gone missing in the past few months. While Doc had his suspicions of their fate, Scar and Zedaph wanted to confirm his beliefs.

“Alright, so that’s two more feathery friends added to the family.” The Zhenniao jumps from Zed’s shoulder, pulling on a tassel of Scar’s outfit.

“I’m sure Grian will make fast friends with them, he already has Phoebe wrapped around his finger.” Scar chuckles, holding the bird close. “But what about the missing familiars? Did you get any information on who we could speak to?”

“Actually, yes. A very talkative pegasus told me that a few streets down is where a whole herd of shleep went berserk a few days back.”

Doc doesn’t waste another second. Marching down the street, eyes set on the direction Zedaph pointed. His gaze so intimidating, even a brigade of baccas part to stay out of his way. With one bird holding onto Zed’s hair, and another clasping Scar’s elongated ear, the other two give chase, Zed yelling turns to the marching beast that is Doc. He only halts in his tracks when he hears Zed yell “Stop! We’re here!”

Screeching to a halt, Doc is left standing in an open field, sunlight blazing on the bright grass. Dotted with white patches of flowers, the pasture is empty. Unlike the busy city, even the parks in Foresta, this moorland was empty.

Mostly empty. A young boy, laying beside a three headed sheepdog, is weaving dandelions into a flower crown. One for each head of his friend, and one for his own. Doc trains his mismatched eyes on the boy, and makes his presence known.

Unfortunately for Doc, his presence is impending at best, downright terrifying at worst. The boy opens his eyes, and squeaks like a mouse at the sight of the hermit. He curls up, hands raised. “Please, just take my money I don’t got anything else!”

“I’m not here to rob you.” Doc growls, rolling his eyes. Years of being a hardened criminal never really fades off his face. “Are you the shepherd?”

“I’m sorry the shleep have been acting up lately! I don’t know how to make the nightmares stop, they’re still alarmed from the attack the other night.” The cerberus nuzzles one head beneath the boy’s arms, while the other two growl at the intruders.

Until Zed steps up, a smile and a soft cooing voice turning one head from foe to friend. All it takes is one scratch of the ear, and he’s got the sheepdog wrapped around his finger. “That’s actually why we’re here. We came to help.”

The boy lifts his head, looking at the unusual troupe. Two innocent, smiling faces surround the hardlined scowl of the hybrid hermit. Scar nudges Doc in the stomach, and the puppeteer sits to his knees. Looking much less impending when he’s not towering over the shepherd. “We heard that some unusual things have been happening in Foresta. Familiars going missing, pets getting lost left and right. Do you know anything of what’s causing that?”

“What’s your name, kiddo?” Scar chuckles, plopping down next to the shepherd and beginning to weave his own flower crown.

“I-Isaac.” He twists a blade of grass in between his fingers. “I...yeah, yeah I’ve seen a lot of it happen. When you’re a shleep herder, you see all manner of things happen in the night. But no one believes the boy who cries chupacabra. Or bakunawa, or ‘oh gods the neighbor’s cactus cat is suddenly an ash monster’!”

“We’ll believe you. We came here just to hear those stories.” Scar chuckles. He looks over, and sees Doc’s expression start to soften, and the puppeteer reaches out to help Isaac finish the knot of his flower crown. Doc hates to admit it, but they all know he’s very good with kids. When he’s not being a hardass. “What have you seen?”

“I...I’ve seen these critters, sneaking through the streets at night. All kinds of critters, actually, but...different from the normal. They look like they’re falling apart, like a cherry tree’s bark.” He runs his hands over his arms, attempting to find flakes of his own skin as proof. “They scare the shleep every night, and disappear into the city. And then I see more, and more. They drag other critters out of their homes and barns, and turn them into more flake monsters.”

“Husks.” Doc whispers, his suspicions confirmed. Dark magic has even made it into the depths of the Evernight forest. But Isaac is hardly listening. Like any child, he has more story to tell.

“The other night, those flake critters went after my herd. A chupacabra. But...I thought they never went after shleep! Shleep aren’t tasty- I don’t think so, at least. They’re all cosmic wool and gristle.”

“Husks aren’t exactly looking for a tasty meal.” Zed whispers, “They’re looking for magic, and shleep are full of them.” He would know, he was once a shleep farmer when he was young. It’s how he honed his magic.

“They come every night, stealing more critters. Soon, all that will be left is shleep causing nightmares and those husky things.” Isaac shakes his head. “Foresta won’t be much fun without all the critters here.”

“Don’t worry about it, kiddo. Us hermits are here to stop it.” Scar announces, grinning and tossing his short brown locks of hair over his shoulder. Trying to look as heroic as he sounds.

The shepherd giggles. “Hermits? But you aren’t alone, you can’t be a hermit!”

“Ask Hypno why we’re named that.” Doc laughs as well, even though he knows the story full well, it’s still funny every time someone points it out. “Don’t worry, kid. By the time we’re done here, you’ll all be having sweet dreams again.”

“You’re the coolest bad guy ever.” Isaac whispers, and places the flower crown on Doc’s tangled mess of hair.

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He refuses to take it off. Even as the sun falls and the city goes quiet, only nocturnal creatures lurking among the streets, he keeps his flower crown secure on his head. All three hermits watch the ruminants bleat and make their way around the town, cosmic wool spinning with stars and galaxies, entire worlds for their fur promising night rest. Wisps of the shleep’s fleece dance into the damp, warm air of Foresta. But it’s dancing in the air that the soft mist turns to harsh dust, slipping through open windows and under closed doors. Delivering nightmares to the people.

In the distance, Scar frowns at the sound of someone crying. Waking up from the bad dream. It’s not the poor shleep’s fault, they can’t control their own magic. They’re just sleep sheep, it’s the husks that have them all bothered. If the hermits can stop the husks, the shleep can be happy again and the entire city can finally get a good night’s rest.

Doc waves to Isaac, walking out with the last shleep from the pasture. Zedaph opens his eyes, blinking away the embers of magic. Oddly enough he feels the desire to chew grass now. The shleep are scared. Scared of the creatures that lurk in the dark, bodies lacking souls or even life. Just corpses- husks- forced to move by dark magic. One ram told Zed they were never afraid of the creatures of the night, their fellow nocturnal beasts, until that chupacabra turned on them.

Doc and Zed share a quiet conversation about the information they’ve gathered, and Scar lays back in the grass. Watching leaves shadow the sky above him, stars twinkling in the same way they glimmered on the shleep’s coat. The distant titter of dyads among the trees, the soft hoots from various birds in the post office sound like music to Scar’s ears, and he closes his eyes to bask in the quiet night. Hunting dark magic isn’t that bad, if it leads to quiet, serene moments as well as exciting action. He feels himself dozing off, figuring that Doc or Zed will keep an eye out for some creepy dark beast.

He’s alone. Sitting up in a dark alleyway, the sound of yelling echoing from his parents’ silk shop. Something warm pools on his cheek, burning along his very namesake, mixing with saltwater. Scar raises a hand to try and staunch the blood, and discovers his hand is covered in mud, adorned with gemstone rings of gold.

“You’re not a farm boy, Forest.” The words spit out in his father’s voice, but the lips that speak them are none other than the Magistrate’s. “Stop playing in dirt, this magic of yours is a disgrace as it is. You’re going to ruin the family image. And you’re clothes.”

“But I like my magic.” Scar whispers, turning his hand over. The mud changes color, dripping through his fingers into pools of blood.

“You should have let your magic wither away, or better yet- give it to me.” Dolios grabs Scar’s wrist, dragging him into darkness.

Dragging him from his nightmare. But while Dolios was a dream, something tugging on his wrist was very real. Scar leaps to his feet, retreating from the creature that is pulling his bag from his clutches. “Hey, no that’s my stuff! My snacks!”

Scar stumbles to his feet, kicking Doc on the way up. “What the hell Scar?”

He doesn’t look back, chasing after the black furred monster. As dark as a husk, with white glowing eyes and all. He can’t see the creature’s form, just the illumination of white light from it’s eyes, Scar’s purple bag swinging from it’s mouth. He needs to catch up, get his stuff back. Rather than scooting around a fallen tree, he makes the ground rise from beneath him, flinging him over with a much less graceful landing. “Get back here you little cretin!”

Behind Scar, Doc and Zedaph stumble through the forest. Tripping over roots and twisting their ankles in holes, they lose sight of the terraformer as moonlight is engulfed by the trees of the Evernight forest. The only light is the soft glow of bioluminescent mushrooms, moss, and leaves. At the interface between Foresta and the Evernight, the glow was indistinguishable. But Zed knows the deeper they go, the brighter the bioluminescence should get.

But it never brightens. He continues to get caught in roots, eyes never finding enough light to see where he’s going. A stone halts Zed’s forward momentum, and he tumbles to the ground. “How can Scar keep up such a pace?”

“Because he’s Scar, how does he do half the things he does?” Doc sighs, collapsing to his ass and looking around. The darkness of the forest is endless, leaves stitched together to be a roof that blocks out all light from the sky. He toes a mushroom, watching the fungi glow weakly. Shouldn’t it be brighter this far in?

“Oh, Doc, look!” Zed slaps Doc on the shoulder, harder than he realizes, pointing in the direction opposite of where Scar went running.

“What, I can’t see shit.” Doc growls.

“Perytons!” Zed crawls forward, light appearing under one arm. “They can help us, we just have to make friends with them! They’re very skittish cre-”

In one swift motion, Doc casts his magic. In one blink, he’s watching Zedaph crawl through the mossy floor, the next he’s grazing on a nearby tree branch. The Peryton gave almost no resistance, and now Doc can control the beast. See through it’s night-adjusted eyes. Lo and behold, Zedaph looks stupid no matter what eyes are watching him. Zedaph sits up, pouting. “Well that’s no fun.”

Doc can’t answer him, not while he’s in control of the Peryton. Stepping his hooved feet over Zedaph and fluttering iridescent green wings, he takes care of his own body standing still as a stone. One eye remains glassy, as if looking through a lens, but the red oculus of his other eye has disappeared completely. He can see the glow in the metal of his arm emanating from the deer creature, as he picks up his body with his rack of antlers and places it on his feathery back.

By the time Doc has cared for his vulnerable physical form, Zedaph has cast his own spell. Such similar results, but completely different magic. Zedaph shepherded the mind of the creature into helping him- Doc just took full control. Either way, the two are able to follow the direction that Scar disappeared. Deeper into the forest, away from the city.

Zedaph notices that the bioluminescent of the Evernight Forest is missing, no matter how deep they go. The darkness remains, clinging to the branches and bark like a tapestry slung across the forest. He’s not even sure where Scar could be at this point- this wilderness expands on for thousands of hectares.

Until he hears the spluttering mix of a laugh and a whimper, the noise so uniquely Scar that both Doc and Zed turn in the direction it arose from. Even through the eyes of the Peryton, it becomes almost impossible to see around them, darkness consuming everything around them.

Because that’s what it is. Returning to his own body, Doc stumbles to his feet and rushes to light up a torch. A few paces ahead of him, Sca has trapped himself in a bramble bush, a tiny shadow fox dangling his bag just barely out of his reach. “Come on little guy, I’m sorry I mistook you for a husk. You’re cute, I promise! It’s just with your eyes and coat, you looked like a darkness monster.”

“Need some help, or have you learned from Zed?” Doc snickers, pulling Scar from his thorny trap by the collar. The shadow fox chirps, ears turning to the side in joyful mischief. It approaches the hermits, dropping Scar’s bag at his feet. Glowing eyes, bright as sunshine, cast the shadow that creates the fox’s body. Zedaph can’t help but reach down to pet the shadow creature either way.

“She guided us here. To...this.” Scar whispers, feeling the tension on his body already. The weight in his lungs, watching the light from the fox’s eyes and Doc’s torch be consumed by the black cluster of crystal.

“This is what’s making the husks in Foresta. Just like in Gildara, it’s draining the forest.” All of the light, Limal’s creation with the goddess of death, vanishing as Dolios’s thirst for power drains the forest of life. Doc shakes his head. “We can’t let it continue. Scar, why don’t you…”

Scar is gone again. Disappeared from between Zed and Doc, though not as far gone as before. Just a short distance away. Being attacked by another creature. This one, however, isn’t aiming for Scar’s bag like the thieving fox.

It’s aiming for his throat, naked tail and matted fur thrashing and foam snarling from scraggly teeth. But unlike the shadow fox, the monster’s body is flaking and breaking apart with each movement, tufts of fur turning to smoke and ash. Zedaph sighs, more tired than before. “Great, now we got a ROUS to deal with as well as a creepy crystal.”

“Massive rat first, please!” Scar cries, snapping his boots up and digging the spurs into the massive beast’s stomach. He rolls away, gnarled roots and dirt barricading him and the ROUS.

Doc and Zed look at each other, then the ROUS before them, the darkness-crazed animal clawing through the barrier. It has a taste of Scar’s flesh, and he tastes sweet. Alive. Neither of their magic can work. There’s no soul to shepherd. Dark magic is already controlling the ROUS. They have to resort to another method.

A much more combative, cutthroat method. One that Doc knows well. Grabbing the bone handle of his knife, dark metal and nicked, toothed edges of kaber blade pulling free of old leather. “Scar, can you try to pin it down?”

“I'll add it to the list.” A startled squeak harmonizes with the viscous growl. The muzzle of the ROUS reels back, spittle glistening and falling from ivory white blades, and snaps. Scar rolls out of the way and slams his hands down on the ground once he’s been freed. The dirt erodes into sand and water, a pit of quicksand opening it’s maw beneath their feet. Scar scrabbles backwards, the mud water attempting to pull him in as well, gasping for air. With another wave of his hand, the ground resolidifies. The naked hands and feet of the enormous rodent are trapped in solid ground.

Doc wastes no time. Freeing the body of the ROUS from the claws of darkness, his blade cuts through the empty body like he’s cutting fabric. The darkened for withers away into dust, and Zedaph kicks it away from the pile for good measure.

The three boys sit on the silent, blighted forest floor. Ignoring the angry crystal, or the darkness consuming around them. Scar is panting like he ran a mile, Zedaph petting the soft shade ears of the fox that led them there, and Doc twirling his own knife. They just need a moment, a second to recollect themselves. Doc looks at his blade, forged in False’s fires. No matter what, no matter how strong a mage can be, sometimes they have to resort to the same tools as every other person. “Alright, enough sitting down. Let's put this crystal to ruin and let Isaac and his shleep finally get some peace.”

#hermitcraft #light of lairyon #lol #hermitcraft fanfic #hermitcraft au #wizard au #wizard hermits #wizard zedaph #wizard zed #wizard scar #wizard doc #docm77 #gtwscar #zedaph

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rhaenyratargeryn · 4 years

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Who wants to read the first part of a Mando x Reader fic I’ll probably never finish???? If it had a title it would be “For a Few Credits More”

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For you, the fall of the Empire had come too late. It was still an event worthy of celebration and you had done so, joyfully and wholeheartedly along with your fellow farmers and miners in Mos Eisley.

And when the voices had died down and the drinks stopped flowing, you had found a space to quietly and somberly remember the man who had died so you would be here today and not in the ground alongside him.

To say you’d always been “different” felt somehow shallow and silly. To say you’d been cursed was perhaps more true to point. You knew little of your life before the age of five, only that you were born to the lights and bustle of Coruscant and when your parents had died during the Resistance conflict with the Empire, you were shipped off to an orphanage who in turn packed up and moved to the Outer Rim planet of Lah’mu. The Empire paid incentives for settlers to take on the harsh landscape of the planet, the orphanage using its charges as little more than hired hands.

You hadn’t minded the dark rainy skies, finding they were easier on your light sensitive eyes, a genetic gift from your Miraluka father, who had been born with none. But that was not the only gift he had granted you with.

You dreamt of a man. Older, wiser than most and with a gracefulness to his moments and his thoughts you’d had never seen before. Through the dreams he had found you and explained to you the existence of a force. An energy that lived through all things, that lived in him, lived in you. Lived in the planet and the plants atop it as well as the rocks beneath.

Caston Rik was his name and he bought you from the orphanage, braided three strands of hair at the base of your neck where it could be pushed back and hidden easily... and called you “Padawan”. The word brought forth memories of a shining temple, of gold and silver and an age of balance and peace. It also brought a feeling of taboo, of dread, for even if you had never heard of the Force, you knew the word “Jedi” all too well tied to the word “Inquisitor”.

And that was how it all came to end. Fifteen years old and orphaned again by the red plunge of a saber through Caston’s heart.

You took everything he taught you, everything you had learned and buried it down beneath the sands of Tatoonie, your newest home.

Farming was pretty much the same no matter where you were in the verse, even if it was for metal parts instead of plants or moisture. Junk trading was an easy enough job. You’d learn how to spot a good compressor, a functioning booster or so-so thrust coil. And it felt good to take something back from the Empire, to build something new and beneficial for the people rather than a Destroyer or a blaster.

You’d spent years enough now on Tatoonie that you appeared every bit as native as the rest, skin warmed by the sun. Not much happened at Mos Eisley and you had begun to like it that way.

And that of course is always when things would go spectacularly to hell.

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It all started with a ship. Not a fine piece of machinery, but a ship all the same. Held together with metal and sheer force of will. You spent only a passing moment eyeing the haul and the several imperfections that dotted it's surface. Evidence of shoot outs. Of tight squeezes. Of in general, either some pretty fine piloting or some of the worst. Depended on how you judged success.

Peli was hunkered down near the landing gear, flanked by a few droids as sparks flew around her. At your approach she paused, flicking up her welding helmet to reveal a soot streaked face you’d come to know and admire.

“Still kickin’ huh?” she said with a smile, turning to look at the scrappily constructed bag you dragged behind you.

“Those my parts?”

“Those your parts.” you said, smiling with pride.

“Let’s take a look! You, take this--” she handed the welder to one of the droids, “Don’t weld yourself to the haul. Guy hates droids, remember? Alright. Let’s see what you got.”

You followed Peli to a work table, picking up the bag and setting it with some care onto the surface before the older woman untied it and pulled out the product within.

“Not bad, not bad. You sand spray off the rust?”

“Always do. Corrosion wasn’t too severe to start with that deep inside the Destroyer.”

“How far’d you crawl in that thing?”

“A ways.”

In truth, it hadn’t been difficult at all when one could simply reach out, find the device they were looking for and then move aside debris and fallen haul walls with your mind. But that wasn’t a trick you were prepared to share.

“Surprised it ain’t been picked clean alrea-- sweet damn!” Peli exclaimed, pulling out a smooth metal barrel about the size of a small keg.

“Is this…?!”

“Alderaanian white. Probably the last container in the whole galaxy.”

“This was in there?!”

“Yep. Commander’s quarters under about three tons of scrap metal. Figured you knew someone who could help me move it and we’d settle on a percentage.”

“Hell, it ain’t a part, but it’ll buy some! You got it. Let me talk with some folks and we’ll get a buyer.”

You nodded, “90 percent finder fee.”

“70.” Peli countered without so much as looking up from the container.

“85.”

“80 and I throw in a speeder.”

“Done.” you said with a sharp nod, taking the hand Peli offered you with a smile. You could probably have easily bought a speeder with the funds, but Peli’s quality was without question in these parts. The wine would make a tidy profit hopefully, enough to maybe book passage closer to the mid-rim.

Your senses sharpened, honing into a presence that you’d failed to notice approaching. That was odd. No one snuck up on you, no one. And yet when you turned, there was… no one there.

There was a tugging at your boot, drawing your eyes down to a tiny green creature with bat-wing sized ears.

The creature cooed happily, lifting up its hands and jumping a bit as a child did when it wanted to be picked up.

“Um…” you turned to Peli for guidance but found the woman busy working through the other bits and parts of your bag. Looking around and seeing no parent, you gently bent down and picked the small creature up.

“De wanna wanga. Hi chuba du naga?” you said, but to your surprise, the child did not respond, simply tilting his head and squeaking.

“You don’t speak Huttese, little guy?”

“Ah! No. He’s just a baby. Doesn’t speak a word yet.” Peli said, noting your visiter. She looked around with a frown.

“Must have gotten away from his dad. Where did that hunk of beskar get to?”

You gave Peli a confused frown of your own, gently bouncing the child in your arms to his delight as he squealed and shrieked happily. Before you could advance forward to ask Peli more about the baby who had wandered into her shop, a voice, modulated and terse called out.

“Put him down.”

Now Peli’s words made sense. Beskar. Lots and lots of Beskar. It was impossible not to hide the awe in your eyes as your mouth threatened to drop open at the sheer weight of credits this man wore on his body.

The Mandalorian strided forward, hand on his hip. The child in your arms resisted your attempts to put him down on the floor below, fussing and holding tight to your sun bleached clothes.

“Put him down.”

“I’m trying.”

Peli spoke up thankfully, “Relax, Mando. She’s good people. Brought the parts to fix your ship right up.”

If the Mandalorian had relaxed, it was by so small a fraction it was lost to your eyes. His hand came away from his blaster though and that was all that mattered. The child settled once again, content to remain where he was.

“You shouldn’t go up to strangers.” the Mandalorian’s voice was low and chiding, directed at the child, who blinked up at him with a smile. Seemingly unimpressed (it was hard to tell beneath the helmet) the Mandalorian held out his hands expectantly. The child made a faint noise but did not go to him.

You heard the click of the Mandalorian’s tongue against the roof of his mouth as he reached out further still and you tried to pass the child into his waiting hands. The child screeched in fury.

“Fine!” he said with a huff and brushed passed you without a second glance, “But don’t wander off again.”

The child giggled and turned its large dark eyes up to you. Something… something inside your heart softened at his face, feeling something familiar and nostalgic somehow despite never having seen a creature like him before.

With his small hands, he reached up towards your face and you felt obligated to lean down, to let him press his tiny palms to your cheeks. He cooed happily and closed his eyes… and the Force moved within you for the first time in more than half a decade.

#star wars #fanfiction #star wars fanfic #mando x reader #mando x f!reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x f!reader #i mean i can barely call it that because THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING ROMANTIC ABOUT THIS SCENE #reader is a force sensitive person #and a little bit trained #honestly its less a reader and more an OC but reader fic gets read more than oc fic #the Mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction

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a-trying-writer · 3 years

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[story of seasons mineral town fic, based on a super old idea of farmer/huang or rather his older version, won. same character, with small differences between the incarnations. my farmer will be called Lluvia, the same as my SDV farmer, so pardon me for any confusion. I can’t think of a clever name atm, and I was dealing with an art block when it comes to sdv fics. anyway, here we go~.]

After running her horse through town so many times, the villagers of Mineral Town learned how to dodge the farmer during her visits around various stores and homes. Since she was a kind woman, who knew her way around her farm, and could gain money as easily as she spent them, they grew to not mind her eccentric nature after a year since she moved there. Even the children loved her, and often played with the horse whenever she went shopping.

Shortly after she was done for the day, Lluvia went to Mineral Beach to visit Zack in his shack. However, he wasn’t the real reason why she visited the gentle giant. Instead, her attention was on the man in the yellow coat, named Huang, that almost always seemed to have an apple in his hand for one reason or another.

“Ah, farmer Lluvia!” he greeted her with a smile. “Came to do business again, yes?”

“Pretty much,” she replied with a nod, then turned to Zack. “Hey.”

“Good to see you again, Lluvia,” the blonde said. “Getting ready for the coming season?”

“Yep. I came by to buy some seeds that only Huang seems to sell, that I’m surprised Jeff doesn’t. Actually, thinking about it, do you usually get them from people who come by Mineral Town through the sea?”

“Sort of,” Zack replied. “I do supply Huang the things he needs to sell, but considering that not many people come here, and not many know that he does business here at all, we have quite a storage filled to the brim with these items. Honestly, I’m glad you come by so often, because of that. I got to make room for shipment, you know.”

“I assume it’s a major pain, then.” She chuckled, then turned to Huang. “But, sadly, I might be adding more to your storage today, given that I found some goodies that I plan to sell.” The farmer placed down her bag to take out some bottles that had strange labels on them. “Van’s favorite, I think they are called.”

Huang’s eyes sparkled behind his glasses as he took the bottle to examine it carefully. His lips curled into a satisfied smile as he counted the numbers in his head and said, “Fifty-six thousand for this one. Is that good enough for you?”

Lluvia’s eyes widen with an enthusiastic nod. “Oh, yes, please!”

“Very well, one moment!” As the merchant pulled out a stack of money from a crate behind him, Zack kept a keen eye on the two with a smirk.

The way the farmer looked at the man was way too familiar too him. In fact, it reminded him of the days when he too was in love, but they never really became a thing. But he still remembered the days he spent with the young pink haired woman during their youth, and yearned for her. He found her so beautiful still, after so long, but she became a married woman, to a man that has not returned to Mineral Town for some time.

That has got everyone worried for the married couple, especially considering that the woman’s health has been rather worrisome since her birth. But Zack never dared to breach his friends’ trust and wooed the woman. Instead, he simply did what he could to help her and her family out, until the day comes that her husband will come back.

But, he couldn’t deny the fact that he had grown regret for not confessing his feelings soon.

And as he watched the farmer take the cash from the merchant, he’d hope she wouldn’t find herself in the same predicament.

“Wow, this is definitely going into expanding my house!” Lluvia laughed. “I owe you so much, Huang!”

“I’m honored, dear customer! Truly, I am! I only ask that you return here, yes? I can’t lose my number one shopper after this!”

“Oh, don’t you worry, I will come back!” She paused as soon as she remembered something. “I almost forgot, actually! I need to buy some seeds from you! Well, I guess I will have to return some of the cash you gave, eh?” She giggled. “Not that I mind...”

Zack grinned, as some part of him was suddenly aware that Lluvia knows what she is exactly doing.

#Blah blah blabbity blah #rough draft #ok to reblog/like #its a bit rough but im happy with it.#im glad to have this out of my system after so long.#might write another at some point.

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years

Text

My sweet buttercup; Eugene Sledge x reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys well this only took me a couple days to write this little genius but now I’ve got it done and ready for you all to enjoy. Now I really wanted to try something different with this Eugene fic, I really wanted to DIVE right and get to the heart and root of the blossoming relationship b/t Eugene and the reader in this fic. So more n the lines of what they were like as kids together, early teen years, basically a Pre-WW2 fic mostly before the ending.

Warnings: Fluff, bit of angst, family disownment, mentions of PTSD, forbidden love.

But I hope you all enjoy this fic so much and until next time ;)

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@dancingcoolcat

@queensdivas

@geek-and-proud

@queendeakyy

@kairosfreddie

___________________________________________________________

*June 14th, 1928*

It was a warm summer day in Mobile, Alabama. In the center of town stood a farmer’s market shop run by Sheldon (L/n). Sheldon (L/n) was once part of the 1st Marine division back during the Great War. After the war he settled back home in Mobile to run himself a farm where he was known for growing the brightest, freshest, most delectable apples in the whole state of Alabama.

Why if you asked people where the stores got their apples from, nine times out of ten they would tell you they came from (L/n) farm. Sheldon while having his shell shock moments from the war, still managed to have the American dream.

He married his high school sweetheart Marianne Lewis and they lived a good life together and had a beautiful baby girl they named (y/n) (l/n).

Sadly though, when little (y/n) was just a year old, her mom died of breast cancer. Sheldon was devastated but he tried to keep trudging on by being both hard working man, and loving father to his little girl.

Walking through the town was Dr. Edward Sledge, his wife Mary Frank and their two sons, Edward Jr. Sledge and Eugene Sledge. Eugene was five years old, going on six come the fall.

His bright auburn hair bounced off the summer sun and as they came right towards Sheldon’s shop, Edward stopped his family in their tracks.

“Maybe we best find another way around.” Suggested Edward warily.

“Edward, it was five years ago, can’t you learn to let it go?” Mary Frank told her husband.

“I have, but Sheldon on the other hand…..that man’s as stubborn as an ox.” It was then Sheldon came out with some crates of food ready to be shipped off to the stores.

As soon as he saw Dr. Sledge, a gruesome scowl came across the farmer’s face.

“Just what do you think you are doing here Sledge?!”

“Now Sheldon calm down, we were only passing by.”

“If you think I’m gonna do any type of business with you, think again! After what you had done…..”

“Sheldon there was nothing my husband could do to help Marianne.”

“Mary Frank you keep out of this.” Her husband warned her cautiously.

“You best listen to him Mary Anne. This is no concern of yours. Now get yourselves as well as those little monsters of yours away from my shop!” he spat down at the ground in disgust before slamming the door of his shop closed.

“Why does Mr. (L/n) hate us so badly mama?” asked Edward Jr.

“Oh never you mind that Edward. It’s just grown up business.” Mary Frank assured her eldest son.

“Come along boys, we’re gonna head back towards the barbershop and go through the back alley there to get to the fair.” The two boys groaned.

“But that’ll take longer!” whined Edward Jr.

“Why do we have to go back!?” groaned Eugene.

“Now boys don’t argue with your father. Now come along, or else we can just head right back home and forget about the fair till next year.” Their mother scolded them. That immediately got them to stop whining and soon they turned back around and went the long way to the fair.

They barely got a block away from Sheldon’s market shop when Eugene heard someone calling out to them. It was a faint psst sound so he stopped right by a flower cart and soon peaking out from it was a young girl around his age.

She had curly (h/c) hair and bright (e/c) eyes that sparkled like the stars at night. Eugene knew this girl very well, it was his best friend (well secret best friend) (Y/n) (l/n).

Yep. Even though Sheldon has repeatedly drilled into his daughter’s mind to never, ever, ever under any circumstances go anywhere near the Sledge family. But due to the fact that the two kids were in the same class as one another, they just—clicked immediately.

Her, Eugene, and Sydney Phillips were like the three Musketeers. But Eugene and (y/n) well—they had a special bond with each other. They were just like peas and carrots. Different in every way but somehow they managed to click with each other.

“Eugene, over here!” he smiled before turning to see his parents and older brother who hadn’t noticed he wasn’t with them anymore. He smiled and ran up to (y/n) who had a basket filled with wildflowers in them.

“Hey (y/n). Mrs. Mulley said you were sick last week and that’s why you weren’t at Sunday school, what did you have?”

“Just a bad tummy ache. But I’m all better and I’ll be back in Sunday school tomorrow.”

“That’s good. What did you find?” he said gesturing to her basket. Sometimes, if they could manage it, Eugene and (y/n) could be seen going out to the fields picking wild flowers together. They would even have contests to see who could pick the most flowers in a certain amount of time.

“Mostly pink and blue flowers. But check this out,” she then held up a yellow buttercup flower.

“That’s a buttercup flower. My mama sometimes grows those in our garden.” Eugene said.

“Buttercup huh? I like it, it suits it.”

“You know my mama says that if you hold a buttercup under your chin, it’ll make it glow. I tried it once but it didn’t work.” (y/n) looked at it with curiosity before putting it under her chin.

“Does it work for me?” and well and behold, her chin was glowing right over the buttercup flower.

Even at the tender age of five, Eugen B. Sledge always knew he held more than a friendship feeling for (Y/n). Whenever she’d laugh, his heart would beat faster and it felt like he was being tickled by a billion butterflies in his tummy.

His face would go red every time they would pick wild flowers together, and his heart ached every time she had to mention that her daddy didn’t want her talking to him.

“It sure does buttercup.” He said softly.

“Did you just call me a—”

“(Y/N)! Oh now where is that girl at? (Y/n)!” her father’s voice soon called out from the market. He whistled for her like she were a dog and that’s when she turned to Eugene and whispered.

“I gotta go, see you at church Eugene, bye!” she quickly ran off with her flower basket towards her daddy. As Eugene watched her father kneel down in front of her giving her a soft but firm lecture about running off, Eugene couldn’t help but feel those butterflies again.

“Eugene! Eugene!?” at the sound of his brother’s voice, he snapped out of his daze and quickly ran off before Mr. (L/n) could take notice of a Sledge boy staring at the two of them.

*September 17th, 1938*

It was a hard time in America. For five years now, the whole country was under a Great Depression. Every American was affected and of course that didn’t exclude the Sledge’s or the (L/n)’s. Without enough payment for the extra help, it was all up to Sheldon and (Y/n) to work the farm.

And in order to help bring extra money and food on the table, the Sledge siblings both got jobs helping their dad out with his physician at home job.

Right now Sydney and Eugene were walking along the outskirts of Mobile. Along for the ride was Eugene’s new little pup, Deacon. He had gotten Deacon as a ‘job well done’ gift from his dad. A client of his had a dog that recently had a litter of pups but times were tough and if they didn’t get the pups adopted soon they’d be taken to the shelter.

So Edward being the kind hearted gentleman that he was known for, got the dog and decided the pup would be a good gift for his son Eugene, as a token for being such a big help through these uncertain times.

As the two boys walked over the tall hill, they soon came upon the (L/n) farm. Sydney and Eugene were both shocked to see just how much the Depression had affected the farm.

The soil that they remember being a rich stretch of fresh soil was now dried up and cracking. Weeds were growing up in almost every spot imaginable. Without the extra help, it was almost impossible to keep the weeds in check.

And of course there was hardly anymore livestock anymore. Save for the horse, 2 cows, and the chickens. All the other animals the (L/n)’s once had, had to be sold off in order to get the money they needed to survive.

“Man, I heard (y/n) was struggling but—never did I think it was this badly.” Sydney said with a solemn shake of his head.

“No wonder why she said she had to quit school and be with her dad.”

“Are you sure it ain’t for another reason why you miss her?” teased Sydney. At that moment (y/n) had came out of the chicken coop with a bunch of eggs in a crate and the two of them watched her enter back into her family home.

“You wish you were right Sid.”

“Oh I know I’m right. I’m always right when it comes to you two. Don’t think I didn’t know about the time in 3rd grade when you offered to do her side of the book report when she broke her leg and had to stay at the hospital.”

“I was being polite and didn’t want her getting held back.” As the two of them bickered back and forth, the 10 month old pup had raced down the hill catching scent of the chickens and crept towards the chicken coop.

Deacon slowly stalked towards the door before entering inside of it. The young pup stared at the chickens before one of them caught sight of the unfamiliar creature that stood in their coop.

The pup then let out a series of barks which sent the chickens running mad with fear. From up on the hill, Eugene looked down to see Deacon was gone and from the barks that came down below, he immediately put two and two together.

“DEACON NO STOP!”

“Eugene wait you can’t go down there!” Sydney raced after him.

At that moment, Deacon came out of the coop chasing after the flock of chickens who were racing around frantically trying to escape this wolf-like creature.

(Y/n) immediately peeked out from her bedroom window and was shocked to see what was going on. The chickens being chased by the dog, the dog being chased by Eugene, and Gene being chased by Sid.

“Oh hey (y/n).” Sid stopped by her bedroom window.

“Sid what in the samhell is going on out here!?”

“Funny you should ask, but uhh—mind helping us out?” she quickly got on her shoes and crawled out of her window before running beside Sydney to try and round up the chickens.

Running around like—well chickens with no heads, Eugene, (Y/n) and Sydney all tried to calm the situation down before he father would return home.

“WHAT’S GOING ON OUT THERE!?!?” at hearing that thunderous voice. (Y/n) stopped running as she held a chicken in her arms and froze in fear.

“You guys need to get out of here, now!” she urged Eugene and Sydney on. Eugene who had finally gotten hold of Deacon turned towards (Y/n) but before he could say a word, a gunshot was heard and the shot landed just a few inches away from his foot.

“C’mon Eugene lets go!” Sydney pleaded and soon the two men took off running for the hills. The backdoor slammed open and there stood Sheldon with his shotgun in hand and his jaw dropped at the sight before him.

All the chickens out of their coop, now finally calm, the chicken coop now lay there in rubble (when (y/n) and Gene tried to wrangle Deacon and a few chickens that had gotten back into the coop, the sudden jostling and heavy weight of both humans trying to calm the situation down, forced the coop to collapse under their weight).

“What-gup—what happened here!? (Y/n) (m/n) (l/n). You were supposed to be gathering the chicken eggs!!”

“I know daddy.”

“Then why the hell are they out and about!? How did the coop get destroyed!? JUST WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING GIRL!?!?”

From up on the hill, Eugene’s heart broke at hearing (y/n) getting yelled at by her own father. She had nothing to do with this. So getting the courage, he held Deacon once more and walked down the hill back towards the farm.

“Eugene, Gene don’t you dare! He’ll kill you if you go over there. Eugene!” Sydney hissed out quietly but Gene refused to listen to his best friend.

“I—” (Y/n) began to respond till Eugene’s voice called out.

“She didn’t do it sir.” The two of them turned around. Gripping his gun tighter, Sheldon stood in front of his daughter and said lowly.

“What was that boy?”

“The chicken coop. And the reason why the chickens got out. It was my fault. (Y/n) had nothing to do with it. You see my dog—”

“Great, the Sledge’s have a dog. One more thing to worry about.” Sheldon muttered angrily to himself.

“Please Mr. (L/n), don’t blame (y/n) for this. She was doing her job just like you told her to do. If anyone’s the blame, it’s me. And I’ll do anything to make it up to you.” Hearing Eugene confess, it made (y/n)’s heart flutter and place her hand over her heart.

“Oh you can be damned well sure you will boy. As much as I hate to say this. You’ll be helping me out for the rest of the Harvest season, as well as repairing the chicken coop! And you young lady, come with me.”

He dragged his daughter back to the house as he whispered harshly to her.

“Throughout the time he’s here repairing and helping out, I don’t want you anywhere near him. No daughter of mine is gonna be seen with a Sledge.” As her father continue to rant out his hatred towards the Sledges, (Y/n) turned back towards Eugene and softly smiled at him and mouthed out a thank you.

Eugene smiled softly and seeing her smile it was like cupid’s arrow had struck him as he made goo-goo eyes at her. Even as Sydney snapped his fingers in Gene’s face to get him to snap out of it, Gene was stuck under the love spell he was on.

As agreed; Eugene worked with his father helping him run the at home physician and on his breaks, he’d ride his bike over to (Y/n)’s place to repair the chicken coop, as well as pull out the weeds.

Of course that didn’t stop Eugene and (Y/n) from sneaking puppy love eyes at each other as the two teens were put to work. Throughout the harvest season, it only allowed Eugene and (Y/n) to grow closer than they ever were before.

*June 14th, 1941*

Eugene and (Y/n). Never has there been a couple more meant for each other. Sid always referred to them as childhood sweethearts, and now for these past several years, they’ve really seemed to just hit it off. And with him being the only real person who knew of their ‘more than friendship’ relationship, he kept that to himself.

Of course Eugene’s parents never turned (y/n) away. From the early days when they were kids, they welcomed her with open arms. What they didn’t know was their blossoming relationship. Neither of their parents knew of their courting with each other, and they wanted to keep it that way for just a little while longer.

The two of them were at their favorite hillside where they once picked wildflowers when they were kids. Splayed out along a blanket cuddled close together watching the summer sunset. Eugene lying on his back with (y/n) lying her head against his chest, their hands intertwined with each other’s and their thumbs stroking the back of each other’s hands.

“Happy Anniversary my love.”

“What do you mean Gene?” she looked up at him.

“You heard me, happy 131, 456 hour anniversary.” Eugene said with a small grin as he picked up a buttercup flower and tucked it behind her ear.

“What? That’s way longer than when we first met.”

“I know. But it’s the anniversary of the day I first called you my buttercup.” He said as he cupped her face. Inside (y/n) felt warm and fuzzy remembering that day by the flower cart when Eugene had called her buttercup after finding out one glow underneath her chin. “But it’s fine if you forgot and didn’t get me anything.” Teased Eugene as he sat up trying to hide a grin. She rolled her eyes at Eugene’s teasing.

“Actually I did.” She crawled towards a log and pulled out a guitar case. Eugene’s eyes widened and as she opened the case up he said.

“Oh darlin you shouldn’t have but uhh—I don’t really know how to play.”

“Quiet you.” she teased back as she took the guitar (which was actually hers) and she began playing a soft tune. After letting the soft tune play for a bit she opened her mouth and began to sing.

As she sang; she began to remember all the times she and Eugene had together. From sharing secret letters/drawings with each other (with Deacon being the messenger dog), nature walks together, or secretly waving at each other from her father’s shop.

Their times doing out to the soda shops every Saturday night to go dancing. Always dancing together

We're far apart in every way

But you're the best part of my day

And sure as I breathe the air

I know we are the perfect pair

On a prickly path that goes on for miles

But it's worth it just to see you smile

And I cannot be pulled apart

From the hold you have on my heart

And even if the world tells us it's wrong

You're in my head like a catchy song

“I’ve always loved hearing you sing.” Sighed Eugene lovingly.

“The song’s not too gushy is it? Be honest now.”

“It’s everything but gushy, please sing more for me.” He said as he laid his head close to her thigh. (Y/n) continued to sing while Eugene just stared at her with loving eyes.

More memories came to both of them from their nature walks through any type of weather whenever they had free time. The stargazing’s they’ve done, and even one time when (Y/n) was struggling with the farm one spring that she ended up working till nightfall.

When morning came that morning, she found herself being covered with Eugene’s jacket and just a couple feet away from her, laid an exhausted Gene. He had actually came by and done the rest of the work for her so that she could get some sleep. As he slept, she had sat down beside Eugene and stroked through his auburn hair.

The seasons change and leaves may fall

But I'll be with you through them all

And rain or shine, you'll always be mine

On a prickly path that goes on for miles

You're the only one who makes it all worthwhile

And you should not blame me, too

If I can't help fallin' in love with you...

At the last verse, the two of them went red. While they have called each other their love or life, and while they were technically courting, neither of them has actually those three binding words. (Y/n) covered her mouth with her hand and looked down shyly as her face went red.

“Well that’s unfair. I was gonna tell you that first.”

“Yeah right.”

“I’m serious, I was gonna pull you up,” he stood up and helped her stand up. “Cover your eyes,” he covered her eyes. “Lead you over here.” He then guided her as he kept his hands over her eyes towards the wooded area of the fields. “And say surprise!” he uncovered her eyes and (Y/n) saw the sweetest thing she would ever see.

There along the willow tree they used to climb when they were kids, was a heart engraved at the center of the trunk and written in that heart were their initials. E.B.S + (F/I). (M/I). (L/I). She walked up towards their willow tree and placed her hand over the engravement.

“And then you’d say ‘Oh Genie. It’s—it’s so beautiful. I love it’.” He said imitating her Southern bell voice. “And then I’d say, ‘well, not as much as I love you’.”

“Guess I’m glad I beat you to it then.” She teased as she playfully bumped into him.

“I can accept that.” He said with a proud grin as he wrapped his arms around her waist while she wrapped her around his neck before the two of them finally kissed each other.

It was the kind of kiss that wasn’t deeply passionate that you couldn’t breathe. It was the kind of kiss that just felt like you found your missing half. Gene and (Y/n) were meant to be together and right as they kissed, it felt like it was right.

They were right for each other. And they began to dream of their bright future together. But of course no happiness lasts forever.

After returning from the fields later that evening, she came home to see her home filled to the rim with boxes. She asked her father what was going on and that’s when her father told her the grim truth.

They were moving to North Dakota.

Her father explained to her that the property here was just too dry to farm at anymore. Ever since the Depression decade the land hasn’t been the same. So he hired a contractor to tear the family home and the farm down, he had sold off the rest of the animals, and in two days they were gonna get a fresh start in a new land, with new people, and most important for him it would get them away from the Sledges.

(Y/n) was devastated. Two days and she’d never get to see Sydney Phillips, or Eugene ever again.

When she broke the news to Eugene the next day at the Willow tree, Eugene couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He held onto his weeping girl waiting for her to calm down before he finally spoke to her.

“But you’re practically an adult now (y/n). He can’t control you anymore.”

“What do you want me to say Eugene? I love you, I really do but—he’s the only family I got. And I—I have to stay with my family. I’m sorry!” with that she took off crying, heartbroken and alone.

Eugene looked towards the carving that he had done with his father’s old doctoring knife he used in the Great war. He placed his finger’s over (y/n)’s initials and knew what he had to do, but he knew he didn’t have much time so immediately he got on his bike and pedaled off as fast as he could into town.

By nightfall as (y/n) was solemnly packing up her stuff, Eugene came knocking at her window and he told her to come with him. He made up a story that Deacon wasn’t feeling to good and he needed his ‘mama’. Knowing how much she loved that dog, Eugene and her rode off on his bike.

They soon arrived at the church garden, which was an odd place that Eugene would bring Deacon at, but when she saw the candles all lit up and a beautiful flower archway standing near the back entrance of the church.

Wide eyed in awe, (Y/n) couldn’t believe what she was seeing. When she felt Eugene take her hand he got down on one knee and said to her.

“I don’t ever want to be apart from you. I don’t know what’ll happen in the future but—all I know is now. And I know that I love you so much that I’d marry you today. If you’ll have me that is?” tears of happiness filled her eyes as she said to Eugene.

“I’d like that too.” Eugene smiled and stood up as he embraced his fiancée and spun her around, the two of them cheering and laughing with glee.

After settling down, the two of them walked arm-in-arm with each other towards the pastor (who was actually their own Sunday school teacher who had since went up the ranks and was now one of the head pastor of their church). With Sydney Phillips as their witness and Eugene’s best man, the ceremony began.

The two young teens shared their vows together before the house of God and proclaimed their loyalty and love to each other.

“Then by the name of our Holy Father and in the eyes of the law; I now pronounce you—”

“Pastor Jacob! Pastor Jacob! Please can you help us our son is—Eugene? (Y/n)?” coming behind Sydney were Eugene’s parents.

“What is going on here?” asked Eugene’s father.

“(Y/n)!? Where are you girl you’re supposed to be packing!” soon coming up behind (y/n) from the bushes was her father. As soon as he saw his daughter with the Sledge’s he sneered out, “What are you two doing?” As both families came closer to see just what was going on, that’s when Eugene spoke up as he wrapped his arm around his future wife.

“Mother, father, Mr. (L/n). (Y/n) and I are getting married.”

“What!?” all three parents shouted in shock.

“That’s right. And we’ll officially be married as soon as Pastor Jacob says…..” (y/n) said firmly as she looked back at the pastor.

“Oh right, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.” He stepped aside as he closed his Bible.

“Mrs. (Y/n) Sledge, has a nice ring to it don’t you think?” Eugene said as he cupped his wife’s face.

“Indeed.” The two of them kissed each other finally sealing the deal.

“What are you talking about married!? You both are too young to be married!” Mary Frank scolded as she came between them and pushed Eugene aside.

“Finally something we can agree on.” Sheldon spoke as he now stood beside his daughter. “(Y/n) (m/n) (l/n) you listen to me and you listen good, girl. We’re moving and that’s final. And you have got to stick with your family! So enough of this foolish teenage fantasy and come home!” he grabbed her wrist and began to drag her away.

Finally having enough of her father’s grudge against the Sledges, she broke free of his grip and proclaimed.

“No daddy!”

“No?” her father asked as if he had been punched in the face.

“The Sledges are my family now too. In the eyes of God and the law as Pastor Jacob has said.” Eugene brushed past his mother and stood beside his wife to give her backup.

“You can’t be serious. Are you really choosing to be family with the ones responsible for your mother’s death over your own flesh and blood?!”

“Are you making me choose?” she spoke with a trembled lip as tears filled her eyes.

Her father stood there in shock and everyone around them grew tense. Could a father really force his daughter to choose who she sides with?

“Yes. I am.” Her father demanded. Finally hearing that answer broke (y/n)’s heart but she stood her ground as she spoke in a broken voice.

“Then yeah. I guess I am.” Her father’s face showed absolutely betrayal before his eyes grew red and he snapped at her.

“Then I guess I have no daughter anymore.” Without another word he stormed away from the church.

Heartbroken by her father’s words, (y/n) wept out a river of tears. Eugene held his new wife close to him trying to comfort her, meanwhile Dr. Sledge walked up to the young newlyweds and placed a comforting hand to his new daughter in law’s shoulder. She looked up at the old physician and he told her.

“You’ve always been like family to us (Y/n). You’ve always had love here with us. Right Mary Frank?” after witnessing what she had seen, she couldn’t deny the fact that ever since they were kids, her son and this young girl were just destined to be together.

“Even though I don’t condone you both being married so young while you’re still in school Eugene, there’s—I cannot stop the bond that it is you both share with each other.” Hearing those words coming from her new mother and father, it repaired some of the damage that (y/n)’s heart had taken.

“Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Sledge.” She thanked them.

“Oh sweet pea, call me mama.” Mary Frank said as she came up and cupped (y/n)’s face.

“And whenever you feel like it, you can call me dad.” Dr. Sledge said with a warm smile. (Y/n) never felt so grateful to the Sledges, she continued to weep as she now hugged her new parents and they warmly embraced her back. Welcoming her to the family officially.

*August 29th, 1945 1st Person POV*

I lot has happened in the past few years. Six months after Eugene and I got married, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and America was officially in the war with the Axis Powers.

Eugene wanted to enlist so badly but dad said that his heart murmur prevented him from enlisting, they knew with that he would never get it. So he always begged his father for frequent checkups every day until one day it was gone. That was the day my life changed forever.

I begged and pleaded with Genie to not go but he kept saying he had to do this. He’d feel like a failure if he were stuck doing bond trades or collecting scrap metal, while so many men including our dear friend Sid are fighting out in the front lines.

At that point I knew I couldn’t argue with him anymore and so he enlisted. Of course the night before he left, we made sure to make that night extra special because we both didn’t know if this would be the last time we’d see each other. We memorized each other’s kiss, scent, and touch (and I knew Eugene was trying much harder than I was since I knew he’d suffer the worse).

I went back to school, got my high school diploma and I’m currently now working as a teacher’s work assistant as well as a part-time librarian at the local library. I had remained with mom and dad taking care of house as well as Deacon (God rest his little soul) just trying to distract myself from missing Eugene.

It was (for once this past few weeks) a cool Summer’s day. I was tending to the garden outside planting a few roses, daffodils and of course buttercup flowers but I didn’t expect to suddenly get jumped by two little body masses.

Soon enough I was in the dirt and two 3 year old kids were piled on top of me. One was a little boy who looked so much like his daddy when I first met him, except he had my hair and eye color, and the other was a girl with the same curly hair I once had as a kid and her daddy’s auburn hair and brown eyes but the rest were my looks.

“We gotcha mommy now say you surrender!” my son proclaimed as he held up his toy gun at me, while my daughter had a couple of sticks, pretending they were a bow and arrow.

“I surrender, you both got me.” I held my arms up in surrender. They cheered as they got off of me but that’s when I tackled them both to the ground and began tickling them both.

The two of them laughed as they tried to escape my clutches but soon our moment was interrupted by one of the servants, Octavia.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Sledge?” I stopped playing with the kids and the look on her face was—unreadable.

“What is it Octavia?”

“Just come inside (y/n) dear, there’s—someone who you need to see.” Oh god please don’t tell me. Not when the war was finally over do I get the news.

“Mommy, what is it?” asked my son.

“Gene, you and your sister stay with Octavia okay?” I told him as I stood up and brushed the dirt off my dress as best as I could.

Slowly I walked through the back entrance towards the dining room where I knew mom was at stacking the dishes. I almost didn’t even want to turn the corner to see an officer in uniform telling us now that Eugene was dead. Finally I worked up the courage to turn the corner and there my heart stopped.

Standing right there by his mother and father in full Marine uniform, was my Genie.

He slowly walked towards me and I him until we finally met in the middle. For years I’ve dreamed of this day to come that—now it feels like it is a dream. He raised his hand to my face and the moment I felt his touch, I knew this couldn’t be a dream.

“You—you’re as beautiful as the day I left buttercup.” At that moment, the tears poured down my face as I felt myself collapsing against him. Eugene kept me steady as his head rested against mine and he rocked me back and forth.

“You’re back! You came back…..” I wept into his uniform.

“I told you I would.” He whispered to me.

“Mama?” Eugene and I separated from each other to see Octavia bringing in the kids. “Why are you crying?” asked my baby girl. When I looked up at Eugene, his eyes were wide and his body fell tense.

“Genie, I—I didn’t want to share this with you through letter. But—I’d like you to meet two very special people of mine. Kids come here.” Shyly they walked from Octavia up to me and Eugene as we now knelt down to their height.

Our kids soon came up and our daughter hid behind my back while our son fiddled with the ends of my dress as he curled himself around my arm.

“Eugene, these are our kids. The oldest of the twins is our son, Eugene B. Sledge Jr. and our baby girl, Daphne Eliza Sledge. Kids—this……is your daddy. He’s come home to us.” My son looked up at me hesitantly and I nodded to him telling him it was okay to go see him.

Little Gene walked up to his daddy and just stared up at him in both awe but a hint of fear.

“Little Gene, suits him. Guess you managed to convince Sid to not let us name our first boy after him.” Eugene teased at me as he gently ruffled his son’s hair. Knowing that this strange man in uniform wasn’t going to hurt him, little Gene smiled and immediately embraced his daddy.

Eugene embraced his son and kissed the top of his head and it just made my heart soar at seeing both my boys finally meeting each other and already loving each other. After giving his son some of his love, he looked behind me to our baby girl who was still shyly trying to hide from him.

“It’s okay sweetie bell. He won’t hurt you.” I assured her. Slowly but surely, she came out till she stood by my arm and clung onto it just like her brother.

“My, my, my. You—you look exactly like your mother when I first met her. Guess now I’ve got two buttercups.”

“How did you know my name?” Eugene looked at me confused so I explained to him.

“She likes to be called buttercup. Says it sounds more prettier than her real name.”

“Well whatever name you prefer darling, it sounds beautiful. Just like your mother, and just like you.” he gently booped his daughter’s button nose which made her giggle and finally loosen up around her daddy. Before long she too cuddled into her daddy’s chest and he gave her the same love and affection he gave his son.

Seeing him hold our two kids just—finally felt right. I always knew Gene would be a natural dad, and even now after being through such hell for the past 3 years, he can finally have some peace knowing his family has now grown.

The rest of the day it was just the four of us bonding and getting to know each other.

Of course I knew life wouldn’t be the same as it was before. For example the nightmares. Every night Eugene would suffer terrible and horrifying nightmares. Some nights I ended up staying awake all night just to make sure he didn’t suffer alone.

There wasn’t much I could do except to just assure him that he wasn’t there anymore and that he was home. Sometimes the kids would ask him why they would hear their daddy scream and cry but I told them to not ask him such questions yet.

After Eugene had returned with his dad from the dove hunting, I could see from the tearstains on his face and the slight red in his eyes that it didn’t go so well and that he had suffered flashbacks (I still remember when—well my old father still suffered from them night after night).

So Eugene and I, along with the kids decided to head out to Genie and is old favorite spot out in the fields. He and I were lying on our backs cuddled close to each other while the kids went off to pick wildflowers.

“How long till you found out about them?” he asked me. I looked up at him before turning towards our kids.

“A couple weeks after you left for bootcamp. I just felt so sick till dad checked me out and that’s when it was confirmed that I was pregnant. I would’ve mentioned it but—something like that can’t be said through letters.”

“They’re beautiful though. Just like you.” he said as I felt his nose bury itself into my neck.

“And you.”

“Mama! Daddy!” soon our kids came running up to us and Buttercup held up a buttercup flower. “Look what I found!”

“Yes sweetheart, you found the flower you’re named after. Did you know of a legend that goes with this flower?” she shook her head no. I took hold of the buttercup and told her, “If you hold a buttercup under your chin, it’ll make it glow. See how it works on me?” both my children looked at me in pure awe.

“Let me try! Let me try!” Little Gene called out as he reached out to take the flower. He took it and held it under his chin asking repeatedly if it was working. When Buttercup shook her head, Little Gene pouted, god he really was just like his daddy.

“No worries little Gene. It never worked on me either when I was your age, see?” his daddy said as he held the flower under his chin.

“Can I try it next daddy?” asked Buttercup. Gene nodded and held the flower under his daughter’s chin and low and behold, it worked on her. He smiled as he shook his head softly scoffing.

“Does it work?” she asked him.

“It sure does Buttercup. Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, huh (n/n)?” I smiled as he picked up his daughter and began kissing her all over her cheek making her giggle.

“Mommy can you sing for us?” asked little Gene as he crawled his way into my lap.

“What would you like me to sing?”

“The catchy song!” The kids both proclaimed. I smiled and said.

“Okay. But you both know I don’t have the guitar with me to play it.”

“Please mommy!” they both gave me the puppy dog eyes they inherited from their father.

“I swear Eugene this trick came from you.”

“Uhh excuse me? You’ve done the puppy dog eye trick on me way longer than I have. Don’t you put this on just me.” Eugene said trying to point the blame on me. I scoffed that’s when Little Gene said.

“Mommy sing for us now!”

“Now, now Little Gene, that’s not the way to get something from your mother or from anyone. If you want something you ask politely.” Eugene gently scolded his son. Little Gene nodded and apologized to me. I told him it was fine and that’s when I began singing the song that I had made for Eugene what felt like an eternity ago, which now became the kids’ favorite song.

Eugene set our baby girl down and laid his head across my lap while I stroked through his auburn hair as well as down his face. And every time my fingers came close to his lips, he would pucker them out and give each of my fingers or the back of my hand a kiss. The kids all lay down close to us with my boy laying his head near my knee while our baby girl cuddled herself tight against her daddy’s side, like a little kitten.

After I finished the song, Eugene and I thought it best to head back home and put these kids down for their nap. I grabbed our son while Eugene held our baby girl, both our kids clung onto us once they knew we had hold of them. Eugene and I looked at each other before leaning in and giving each other a soft kiss before heading back to the house.

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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Kingdom of the Spiders

Yep, this is the one with William Shatner in it. It was directed by John ‘you really undermine your authority when you put Bud in the middle of your name’ Cardos, who did the same job for The Day Time Ended and Outlaw. It’s also available on Rifftrax, so I think we’re fully qualified for EtNW status… but if you need one more returning star, we have of course the much-maligned Mexican Red-Knee Tarantula.

The Shatmeister is Dr. Robert Hansen, the vet in these here parts. He’s not sure what caused Mr. Colby’s prize calf to suddenly fall sick and die, so he summons help that arrives in the form of Dr. Diane Ashley, an expert on venomous animals. She quickly determines that the area is being invaded by huge, pissed-off tarantulas! The over-use of pesticides has forced the spiders to evolve, and they’ve become social hunters with a more concentrated and deadly venom. In large numbers they’re capable of taking down cattle, dogs… and maybe even humans. The soundtrack consists of terrible country songs, all of them by the same guy you’ve never heard of.

As 70’s Nature’s Revenge movies go, Kingdom of the Spiders is… adequate. It’s not remarkably bad, but there’s nothing particularly creative or interesting in it, either. The direction is nondescript – none of the shots are visually striking, but anything artsy would be out-of-place in a film that’s intended to look as down-to-earth as the farmers and cowboys that populate it. There’s a county fair that stands in for the Fourth of July Weekend from Jaws, and a ‘spider hill’ that serves as the Smaller Shark, but both of them are mentioned and then just kind of go away, rather than fulfilling any role in the plot. They’re there for the same reason as the love triangle, because movies are supposed to have those.

The love triangle is what’ll make you hate Shatner’s character. Dr. Hansen seems dedicated to his work and he’s kind to his neighbours, but he’s an absolute ass to women. He seems to have a thing going on with his dead brother’s widow, Terri, which is very Claudius of him, but he rejects her almost violently when she accidentally calls him by her husband’s name. In one scene he teases that he might marry her himself, and then a day later he’s bringing Diane by to introduce her, which results in Terri fleeing to the kitchen to cry. The impression we get is that he can read her signals, he just doesn’t give a shit.

He’s a jerk to Diane, too. He asks her on a date moments after saying he has to go see ‘his girl’ that afternoon. It turns out he’s referring to his four-year-old niece, but he didn’t clarify that until after he asked Diane out, which can only mean he deliberately led her to think he wants to cheat on somebody with her. Later when he wants her attention, he runs her off the road and basically kidnaps her for dinner with him, and then he drives her car after she’s angrily told him not to. He teases her about her feminism and makes her open beers for him… and of course this is supposed to be Twu Wuv.

Like a lot of useless love triangles in a lot of useless movies, this one is resolved when the third party dies. Shatner therefore doesn’t have to choose – if Terri had lived and he’d chosen Diane instead, she might have decided to reduce Hansen’s time with her daughter Linda, whom he clearly adores. With Terri dead, he gets Diane and the child all to himself. Terri was nothing but an inconvenience, and is summarily disposed of.

I did like Diane, though. She comes across as kind of a snotty bitch when we first meet her, but she warms up fast. My favourite part of the movie is when she sees a gigantic tarantula crawling out of a drawer at her hotel room, and she immediately picks it up, pets it, and tells it it’s pretty! How could I not like this lady? Apparently actress Tiffany Bolling got the role mostly because she was willing to do that while their first choice, Barbara Hale (of The Giant Spider Invasion) was not. She deserved way better than to be William Shatner’s love interest.

The unfortunate thing about this sequence is it, and a couple more in which Diane happily handles the spiders without harm, rather undercuts the idea that they’re supposed to be aggressively seeking out human prey. There are other scenes in which we watch humans run around madly, screaming and flailing, while the spiders merely sit there not doing very much. Worst of all are two separate sequences in which a fatal accident seems to result not from spiders attacking people, but from people freaking out because a spider was in a vehicle! It makes the whole movie feel like an over-reaction.

I do realize this may be my personal reaction, rather than the average one… somebody who’s actually scared of spiders might find this completely horrifying. But… you know spiders move at like one mile an hour, right? The Creeping Terror could catch them. Just go get in your car, and drive away. It would have worked for the sheriff if the crowd hadn’t slowed him down!

Moving along – the characters of the Colbys, a farming couple who’ve poured everything they have into their herd of cattle only to see their livelihood destroyed, are people we can pity but we know better than to get attached to them. The opening scene is Mr. Colby bragging about how his calf is a shoe-in for first prize, and you know right away that he’s destined to lose everything. The series of tragedies that ensue for the couple are all similarly telegraphed.

At the end we see a terrible matte painting depicting the entire town draped in spiderwebs. This looks so bad it’s actually difficult to figure out what we’re seeing, and I’m not at all sure what it’s meant to tell us. Diane had talked about the spiders ‘migrating’, implying that they’re just passing through. So are we meant to think that now they’ve killed everyone else, the spiders have moved on and our so-called heroes can escape? Because there are no actual spiders in the image, just their webs. On the other hand, Diane also talked about spiders storing their food by wrapping it in webs. So are they gonna come back to eat everybody later? But it’s just a spiderweb… the humans can rip it apart and go. Did the characters win, or lose? Are they going to live or die? The movie just runs out of ideas and ends.

This is a bit of a shame, because the core idea here is kind of neat. The spiders have become monsters not because chemicals or radiation has mutated them, but because evolution did. Diane explains that over-use of pesticides has done two things: one is to create DDT-resistant spiders in the same way as misuse of antibiotics creates drug-resistant bacteria. The ones that can tough it out survive and produce similarly tough offspring. Second, the pesticides have killed off the spiders’ usual prey, forcing them to turn to alternative sources of food. Spiders with more potent venom are better able to kill large prey – as are those that work together.

I actually like this better than the idea of monsters made by pollution. The toxic monster genre can’t really be about nature striking back because the creatures in it are truly un-natural. When it is evolution that makes monsters, that is nature demonstrating that it is more powerful than we are. It’s also more realistic, I guess, though only in a movie-science-y kind of way. It’s not very plausible that the spiders could evolve so fast – the major changes in their behaviour would probably take many, many thousands of generations – but at least we know that evolution is a thing that happens, whereas exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals just kills stuff. Too bad the concept seems to make for terrible movies.

Unfortunately, if the movie’s point is supposed to be that nature is tougher than us, the vague ending kind of undercuts it. As I mentioned, we don’t really know if the protagonists are going to live to see another day. Diane says that if insects turned on humanity we wouldn’t last long, but at the end the main characters are still alive. There are movies in which an open ending is perfectly appropriate, but in this one it just feels incomplete. If I were writing this, I would have the humans escape to another town or city, onto to find that the spiders have gotten there first. That would be a little cliché, but it would make the point that while minor victories are possible, in the end the battle of man versus nature can only have one winner.

Kingdom of the Spiders is fairly well-known as a ‘bad movie’, and I expected I would either love it or hate it, but in the end I did neither. I dislike Shatner’s characters rather strongly, but I’ve seen worse, and he’s not as stilted here as he is in some of his work. The rest of them are okay. The music sucks but it’s pretty forgettable, as opposed to things like The Sad Mushroom Ukelele Anthem that crawl inside your ear and nest there like a botfly larva (if you don’t know what that is, do not google it, I refuse to take responsibility for what you’ll learn). I think a big part of the problem for both this and other spider movies like Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo and Arachnophobia is just that live spiders don’t make good actors. You can’t direct them. It’s really hard to take something seriously as a threat when it’s just kinda wandering around.

Speaking of Arachnophobia, apparently producer Igo Kantor believed it was a deliberate ripoff of Kingdom of the Spiders. He didn’t do anything about it because, and I quote, “you don’t go and sue Spielberg.” That’s a good enough excuse, I suppose, but I bet he and the makers of Parts: the Clonus Horror would have a lot to commiserate about.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #kingdom of the spiders #tw: spiders #70s #non hamlet reviews that mention hamlet

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maviemesregles · 5 years

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Once I was an Eagle

[ Okay, so I don’t even know why I’m posting this since I have only two followers and I’ve never uploaded any of my fanfics before, but I feel like I’m ready to share a story with the readers. I have no beta, I’m also not a native speaker so I presume there might be mistakes but I thought let’s try, see if at least somebody likes it. I love writing and this story definitely would continue no matter if anyone reads it or not.

* This is Modern AU (Outlander) Claire x Jamie

* Mature content is on the way (definitely)

* This story is about established relationships with flashbacks

* Angst. Yep, angst. But dinna fash, some fluff will be there (of course)

So if you’re willing to take a risk and read this attempt at writing Outlander fanfiction then buckle up for a long journey :) ]

________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 1: The beginnings

It was the little things that Jamie loved about Claire. Small, perhaps, insignificant things in the eyes of strangers, but they created her, bits and pieces of the way she was.

The way she was cursing under her breath 'Fuck' and 'Jesus H.Roosvelt Christ' whenever she found herself annoyed, stressed or angry.

The way she was getting ready for work - always organized, calm and quiet.

The way she always mumbled her sleepy 'thank you' to him for the cup of steaming coffee he'd make her in the weekends, her face still slightly puffy and creased from a deep sleep.

The way her unruly mass of hair made something steer deep inside his belly, wanting to cradle her into his laps and hold there forever.

It was the way she would laugh so hard that she snorts and he would follow her, laughing as well, till his eyes water.

The way she smelled after the shift at the hospital, sterile and clean, with a slight scent of her perfume (musk and honeycomb), which imprinted on the bedsheets forever in their bedroom.

The way she sighed and came alive under his touch in the darkness of the night, stilling everything around them.

The way she would snuggle next to him on the couch, pressing her body into his, almost curling into a ball, covering them with a quilt, falling asleep sometime later lulled by the noise of TV they'd watch.

The way she would get annoyed at their cat Adso for biting off the wee herbs she planted on their kitchen windowsill, deep crease appearing between her perfectly shaped eyebrows as she made a hissing 'shush' sound.

Quiet rustling of the sheets on his left made Jamie open one eye, abandoning his thoughts as he watched her silhouette sitting down, her long arms rising to the air and then slightly behind her head, as she stretched muscles, shaking off the remnants of her sleep.

Normally he would run his hand on the expanses on her back, letting her know he's awake. Claire tended never to wake him up knowing he had troubles sleeping. But now he silently watched her, his mind registering all the things she did in the room (pulling her sleeping t-shirt over her head that had been discarded to the floor evening before as they made love, her feet making the wooden floor squeak on the way to the hall, where she would switch IKEA stand lamp, never using the table one on her side, worrying the light might wake Jamie, he would hear the bathroom door softly closing and the water running, as she took shower for five minutes strictly, later she would curse quietly trying to find a fresh pair of knickers in the drawer)

All those things Jamie knew by heart, that was swelling with the feeling, he thought it would burst. Same little things that made him like her, want her, love her. The things that had imprinted upon his heart since the first time they met.

* * *

I knew that Geillis's idea of weekends getaway to Highlands would not end very well and I was bloody right. I grimaced at the loud sound of a car door closing when we finally stopped, the loud thump made my headache harder, and I moaned reaching for the second Ibuprofen pill in my purse.

" Ye ken, yer face looks like chicken arse like that?" Geillis clicked her tongue, the car keys ring swinging in loops around her slender finger (she was my long-time friend from college, who despite her reckless character was an exceptional pharmacist).

" Yer never get laid with that look, love" She unceremoniously grabbed me by the elbow, marching towards colorful market stands. " Let's get some food, I'm starvin'".

I mumbled incoherent 'mmmmh' not being able to move my dry tongue. Hangovers started to catch up with me in my late 20s and with each year it got worse and my drinking less and less harmful. A dram or two of the whisky, couple of gin tonics, or maybe red wine was fine but student-like parties were big No for me so now I regretted very much our yesterdays late night activities. Walking from pub to pub, mixing up all alcoholic drinks imaginable, eating greasy kebab on the street and staying up till 4am did not do me much good. I was dying, listing each step of alcohol intoxication in my head when Geilli interrupted me by suggesting to go to the local farm market for some fresh groceries. Though any mention of food made my mouth water with bitter saliva, my stomach growled at the prospect of fresh bread, eggs, and some ripe vegetables, along with a strong cup of coffee.

So now we were heading towards noisy farmers of Lallybroch (the name I had troubles pronouncing, apparently, as Geillis made fun of me every time I said it).

With each passing stand of colorful fruit and veggies, various types of pastry, fresh meat, and fish, Geillis's backpack was filling with the promise of our breakfast, my eyes stumbled upon a bright blue van with bold letters saying " Coffee, tea and homemade biscuits". Hoping that fresh roasted black liquid will make me feel less awful I tugged my ginger-haired friend on the sleeve, pointing to the van. With her approval and request ( cappuccino with double espresso shot, soy milk) I wiggled between mass of people, the glance of my look ( tangled hair in a top knot, treating to escape the elastic band, raccoon dark circles under my eyes, chapped lips, oversized jogging pants, tucked into old Uggs, and Geillis's beige parka) reflected in the puddle as I finally stood in front of the van, inhaling rich coffee aroma. Feeling a bit more cheerful, with two paper cups warming my cold fingers, I turned to head back.

As my nose bumped into a soft woolen coat that smelled slightly of hay and something else I could not recall, I felt my eyes began to water at the impact of my face meeting a broad chest and through my blurry sight I saw rainbow of vegetables running away from the fabric bag that said ' Take me with you, I am eco-friendly!'.

I cursed (louder than intended to) and tried to sniff, feeling snotty now.

" Jesus. H.Roosevelt Christ! I think I've broken my nose". I blinked twice when my eyes finally could focus on the obstacle on my way.

"Nay, lass. When ye break yer nose it makes this nasty crunchy sound and ye bleed like a pig. Yer fine". He said to me, inhaling swiftly, lips curling into an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I didna mean to hurt ye though".

I shot him a look that probably made him feel even more confused as his cheeks blushed deep pink, almost matching his red hair. I sighed and then my attention returned to his discarded tote bag. Not wishing to create more tension with a stranger, I bent, wanting to collect his groceries. That moment he decided to do the same and leaning at the same time, he punched my side with his elbow, by accident of course, but my hand shifted, coffee spilling on the cream-colored fabric of Geillis parka.

" Oh, fuck." I growled, now feeling really annoyed. Someone from behind called " Uncle Jamie!" stealing his attention from the brown stain on my coat and before he could apologize again, I raised my hand and mumbled " I'm fine" walked away followed by his guilty gaze.

Later that day I felt slightly guilty by snapping at this Jamie, thinking that hangover clouded my better judgment but soon enough forgot about it until the Thursday evening. I was just changing into my clothes, getting ready for home, when Joe opened a door. " Claire, just this last patient, nothing hard, he needs stitches. Please?" I sighed but nodded, remembering that he had a booked restaurant for a dinner with his wife. Then James Fraser stepped in.

#outlander #fanfic #jamie x claire #jamie fraser #claire beauchamp #outlander fanfic #angst #modern au #outlander fanfiction #once i was an eagle #*sweats nervously*#just a wee chapter #omg

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jojos-stardew-adventure · 4 years

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stars and stardrops

Chapter 2: New InTown

<<last chapter | next chapter>>

Ao3 Link

Summary: You start farming and meet some of the towns folk.

-------

The unpleasant noise of your alarm forced you to drag yourself out of bed and get ready for the hopefully productive day ahead of you.

Today you would officially start farming and even though this was completely new to you, you had a broad idea of what you needed to do. Most of your time would probably be spent clearing the overgrown grass, weeds and rocks. Then you could plow the land and start planting. At least that's what you got from the farming book you read.

You would also need to find out where to get more food. There was only enough to last you the next couple days and, fortunately, there was a tiny fridge so that was one less thing to worry about.

After finishing getting ready, you stepped outside into the fresh air. The sun was just beginning to rise but the weather felt pretty nice regardless. In fact, it was the first day of spring so you had plenty of time to plant some decent crops.

Noticing the flag on your mailbox was up, you head down the steps towards it and pull a white envelope from the box. It was addressed from Speedwagon:

Hello Y/n,

I hope your first night was comfortable!

I just wanted to inform you of a couple of things to help you get started:

-I left some tools for you in the shed at the side of the farm.

-You can get seeds and produce from the Koichi’s general store.

-If you get hungry, there's a restaurant in town, Trattoria Trussardi. It’s marked on your map. You can also get food from the general store.

Also when you get the chance, why don't you introduce yourself to some of the people in town?

P.S. Here’s something to help you get started.

Mayor Speedwagon

You looked inside the envelope and found a decent sum of money. You'd have to thank Speedwagon for his generosity later. Before moving to the valley, you saved up some cash to survive without income for a while but any way to cut back on using up your money before you made any was great.

You went to the side of the farm to find the tools left for you. The shed looked very old, like it would collapse if a bit too much force was put on it. You gently opened the door and walked in. The panels under your feet were damaged and rotted in many places. Maybe this could be the first thing you fixed when you saved enough cash.

You found the tools Speedwagon left and some big farming gloves laying on a table at the back of the shed. There were also some older tools nearby, but they seemed unusable.

After you grab everything you thought would be useful for the day, you exit the shed and set the items near your porch. Now you just needed to make a quick stop in town.

-----

Unfortunately, the general store didn't have frozen food but the owner, Mr. Hirose, was very nice and even gave you extra seeds for free. You had also decided to buy some fresh produce so you could try to cook at some point.

You had put all the produce you bought away and started working, but had come to one conclusion very quickly. Farming was extremely tiring. You've been working for a few hours and you felt like you did enough exercise to last you the rest of the week. On top of that, you only managed to get a small area cleared and plowed down.

Yawning, you placed your hoe on the ground to go sit down on the steps in front of your home and take a quick break. This was going to be much harder than you imagined but you definitely preferred being under the sun than in a dingy cubicle.

You leaned against the railing. You really couldn’t understand how your parents could leave this. Just listening to the birds in the trees and the leaves rustle in the wind made you feel at peace.

"Y/n!"

Your eyes snapped open and you look over at the path next to your home and see a man pushing an old lady along in a wheelchair.

You stand up to greet them. "H-Hello?"

"Oh y/n you've grown so much."

They seemed familiar but you weren't completely sure how they knew you.

"Do you remember us?"

"I'm sorry ma'am, I don't really know…"

"You can just call me Erina dear. You were so young the last time you were here, so it is to be expected. Me and Jonathan would babysit you when you were just a toddler."

Those names did sound familiar. Your pretty sure your parents had brought them up before too.

"I see that you've already started working," the man behind Mrs. Erina commented. He was probably one of the tallest men you've ever seen.

"Yep, just taking a quick break! I definitely underestimated the workload..."

Jonathan smiled. "You'll get stronger and be able to handle it soon enough. Make sure not to push your body too hard though."

You talk a bit more with them. Even though you couldn't really remember them you felt a great sense of comfort being near them. Erina reminds you to eat and leaves you some gifts and a pie. Jonathan also gifts you a book about crops.

As they depart, you wave goodbye and then grab your hoe to begin working again. That was enough rest and you needed to gain your farming muscles!

-----

The next day, you could feel the soreness within your muscles with every movement you made so you decided that you should spend most of the day introducing yourself to more people in town to give your body a rest.

You checked up on the few seeds you planted, lightly watered them and headed to town to see if you could find anyone. Hopefully most of the residents here would be on the more welcoming side just like Mrs. Erina and Mr. Jonathan.

Unfortunately, you weren't really sure where to actually go and left your map back on the farm in your eagerness to meet new people. Maybe going to the general store would be a good idea but at the same time, the girl with long, wavy, black hair there was kind of frightening. You were sure she was glaring at you when you went yesterday...

"Hey, I've definitely not seen you around here before."

You stopped zoning out and realized someone was standing in front of you. Before you could reply he asks you a question.

“Wait, are you that new farmer Speedwagon was talking about?”

“Yes, that’s me! I’m y/n, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Guido Mista but you can just call me Mista. You're definitely cuter than what I expected!”

You weren’t sure how to react to that. “Thanks?”

“Are you doing farmer things?”

You chuckled. “Oh I was actually trying to say hi to some of the people in town and introduce myself, but I think I’m lost…”

“Oh! Then let me introduce you to my friends! They’re waiting at Tonio’s restaurant. Have you been there yet? The food’s really good. Cheap too!”

You got so caught up in this man, that you ended up following him to the restaurant without question.

“Fugo isn’t very friendly but don’t be deterred though. He’s pretty nice once you get to know him.”

You and Mista had made it to the restaurant and he led you to a table where two people were already sitting.

The man with messy dark hair stopped his conversation with the other person sitting next to him when he saw you two approaching. “Eyy Mista! Who’s that?”

Mista motioned you to sit down as he took his seat. “The farmer that just moved in. Don’t say anything weird.”

“You're the one who starts the weird conversations!” He turned towards you. “Hi I’m Narancia and this grump next to me is Fugo.”

The blond politely acknowledged you “Hello.”

“Don’t worry, he’s just shy.”

“Shutup dumbass you're just overly excited!”

Mista interrupted before Narancia could respond. “Sorry, they’re good I swear.”

You gave a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. you all seem super close.”

“See they don’t mind”, Narancia chirped.

Fugo deadpanned at the man before turning his attention back to you. “What’s your name?”

-----

The food at Trattoria Trussardi had to be the best you’ve ever had.

You spent most of the day hanging out with these silly boys while you introduced yourself to a couple other people in town. They were definitely a very energetic group but you enjoyed being around them, and Mista and Narancia seemed to like your company too. Even Fugo seemed to warm up a little to you.

By the end of the day you were exhausted but you hoped to spend more time with more people in town like this soon.

------

<<last chapter | next chapter>>

#ill name the chapter later lol #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken #stardew valley #stardew x jjba #guido mista #narancia ghirga #pannacotta fugo #Erina Pendleton #jonathan joestar #a lot of ppl show up this chapter #fic #my writing #reader insert #x reader #chapter 2

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lilyvandersteen · 5 years

Text

Facing Your Dragons Chapter 6

Here's a new chapter for you, from Kurt's and Pam's point of view :-) Enjoy!

From now on, the updates will be a bit slower again. I've got no ready chapters up my sleeve anymore. I promise I won't keep you hanging for too long, though. Thank you for your patience!

You can also read the story on AO3 or on FF.net.

Chapter 6: Unexpected

When Kurt and Blaine walked in holding hands that Wednesday afternoon, Dolores cooed at them. “Blaine made his move, did he?”

Kurt quirked an eyebrow. “How do you know it wasn’t me?”

“You’re too cautious, honey. And I can’t blame you, knowing what you’ve been through.”

Kurt sighed. “Touché. And… It was the leather pants, really.”

“Thought so. I saw you drooling. Well, about time somebody tapped that ass.”

Both boys blushed, and Dolores cackled, so they made a hasty retreat to the snoozle room.

Cheers went up when the children saw them hand in hand, and Blaine grinned and pecked Kurt on the cheek. Kurt felt his lips stretch as far as they could go, and he knew that he must look dopey, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

After singing a few songs, Kurt told the children another story about Thomas and Dalinda.

“One day, Thomas and Dalinda were travelling through a region full of farm land. They saw grazing cattle, corn fields and big, well-maintained houses, and Thomas was glad. Rich farmers could always use an extra hand in return for a bite to eat and a place to sleep.

Only, when he knocked on the first door, nobody answered, though he heard panicky voices inside the house.

Thomas shrugged and walked away, but when the same thing happened everywhere he tried his luck, he became alarmed. What was going on?

Just then, he caught sight of movement. He whipped his head around and saw a girl beckon him. She started a little when he came closer, but didn’t run away.

“If you’re hungry, you can have this,” she said, and she gave him a bread roll filled with scrambled eggs and a goblet of milk.

Thomas was hungry, and scarfed it down quickly. “Thanks! What can I do for you in return?”

“Nothing, nothing! Please leave as soon as you can, before the giant finds out you’re here.”

“The giant?”

And then the girl told him about the greedy giant who’d arrived in her region two months ago. “He said he’d bought the castle and all its grounds from count Stanislav, and he invited us all for a feast, because he was our new landlord now. Count Stanislav was a good man, and had the habit of inviting us often, so we didn’t think that was odd. But then at the feast, the giant drugged us. The food or the drinks, I don’t know, but we all fell asleep. And when we woke up, one person of every family was gone.”

“Gone where?” asked Thomas.

“Thrown into the dungeons,” the girl scowled. “The giant told us that we’d better work hard and give him our entire harvest, or else he’d kill the people he detained.”

“Who is it from your family?” Thomas asked.

“My little brother. Pjotr.”

A tear rolled down the girl’s face, and she impatiently rubbed it off with her sleeve.

Thomas rubbed his chin, thinking hard. “Why did you help me, anyway? Everyone else seemed scared to death of me.”

“No, no, not of you, of the giant,” the girl explained. “What he would do if he found out we gave his food to an outsider.”

“So why weren’t you scared?”

The girl blushed. “You look like my boyfriend Peter. The giant took him, too. I thought you were him, at first. That he’d been able to escape. That’s why I wanted to help.”

Thomas hummed, an idea forming in his head. “He looks like me, you say?”

“Your eyes are different, though. And he’s a bit taller.”

“But from far enough away…”

“Yeah, it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Thomas asked the girl to give him directions to the castle, and Dalinda flew him there.

“Ready to play some tricks on the giant?” he asked her, and she flashed her teeth at him in a scary pointy grin.”

Kurt saw a few children shudder, and winked at them with a grin of his own, so that they let out a sigh of relief and a hesitant chuckle.

“First off, Thomas had to find the prisoners in the dungeon, and set them free without the giant noticing. That proved easier than expected. The giant was eating, a huge meal that could have fed the whole village, and paid no attention to anything else but his food, slurping and smacking and burping up a storm.

Thomas found the key to the dungeons and set the imprisoned villagers free, asking the boy named Peter to stay behind. “If you don’t mind? I have a plan to scare off the giant, but I need your help.”

“Anything!” Peter promised. He became a little less enthusiastic when Thomas introduced him to Dalinda, but she solemnly promised not to harm him. They put their heads together to strategise, and then Peter went to the great hall to lure the giant out.

“Giant! Listen to me!”

The giant, now spooning an entire kettle of custard into his mouth, paused and looked around. “Who’s there?”

His voice boomed through the room, and Peter’s knees knocked together, but he didn’t run away.

“It is I, the great Corineus. I killed one of your kin before. Begone before the same lot befalls you!”

The giant stood up and peered at the tiny boy in the doorway. Then, he laughed so hard he had to hold on to his belly, and bellowed, “You, little mouse? You’re no match for me!”

A flame coming out of nowhere singed the giant’s beard, and he yelped.

“I may be small, but I have magic,” said the boy, who was now sitting on one of the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, swinging to and fro as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Another burst of fire hit the giant, setting the back of his pants ablaze, and he screamed and tore out of the hall and out of the castle to sit down in the moat until the water had put out the flames and soothed his burnt buttocks.

“Wait ‘till I get my hands on you,” the giant growled, getting up and heading back inside.

Just then, a shrill whistle sounded, and the boy waved from the top of the battlements.

The giant shook his fist at him and thundered up the stairs until he reached the castle’s highest point.

The boy was still there, standing on the outer wall, his back to the giant.

The giant grinned in triumph. If he could just reach the boy without being noticed, he just had to give a little push and he’d be rid of the pesky little nuisance forever. That side of the castle was built on the edge of a mountain cliff. There was no way anyone would survive a fall like that, especially since the rocks below were jagged and sharp.

He advanced as quietly as he could, but just before he could shove the boy, somebody yelled, “NOW!!”, and a lot of things happened at once.

The boy jumped to the side, the floor under the giant’s feet gave way, and he fell, fell, fell, all the way down, and was never heard of again.

The villagers rejoiced, especially when they found out their old landlord, count Stanislav, had been one of the giant’s prisoners, and had never sold his castle nor moved away.

Everything was put to rights again, and Count Stanislav and the villagers threw Thomas and Dalinda a lavish party, and rewarded them with so much money that Thomas didn’t have to work a day the rest of that year.

THE END”

Lou sighed happily. “Can we hear more about Thomas and Dalinda next time you come?”

Kurt laughed. “Maybe. If Blaine doesn’t have a story to finish.”

The children cheered, and came to hug him and Blaine before they left.

Kurt was still grinning ear to ear when they passed Dolores’ desk.

“Going on a date again?” she wanted to know.

“Meeting the parents, actually,” Kurt told her, and his good mood deflated a little.

“My mother,” Blaine clarified, and squeezed Kurt’s hand. “She’ll love you, I promise.”

Dolores whistled long and low. “Good luck with that, Kurt! Blaine, you’ll be back tomorrow?”

“I… Maybe Friday?”

Dolores cackled. “Rachel not doing it for you?”

Blaine shrugged. “She doesn’t need me.”

“Kurt doesn’t either, sweetie. But Friday’s fine. See you then!”

K & B

Pam paid the taxi driver and rolled her suitcase up the driveway. She let out a weary sigh as she looked for her house key. She was exhausted and hungry, and could only hope that the freezer and pantry still held a few staples she could turn into a quick meal.

When she stepped inside, she heard singing. It wasn’t coming from the living room, nor from Blaine’s room. It came from… the kitchen? Did Blaine leave the radio on?

She quickly took her coat and shoes off – oh, what a relief not to have to wear heels anymore! – and hurried to the kitchen.

Blaine was nowhere to be seen, and the house was strangely neat. No bowls or mugs or pizza boxes on the coffee table. The living room looked like it had been vacuumed recently, and in the dining room, the table was set. For three? Now that was weird. And there was a vase with flowers on the table, artfully arranged. Even weirder. What was going on?

Pam stopped dead in her tracks when she arrived at the kitchen and saw a total stranger stirring a sauce on the stove, singing and swaying his hips.

Pam yelled, “Who are you and what are you doing here? I warn you, I’m carrying pepper spray!”

The guy whirled around with a squeak, and she saw that he had tons of piercings, and a tattoo on his neck. Panicked, she rummaged in her purse for the can, and was just about to point it at the stranger and spray into his eyes when a voice from behind stopped her.

“Mom? Mom, you’re home!”

Blaine hugged her, beaming ear to ear, and then tugged her towards the stranger. “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Kurt. We’re making you dinner, as a welcome home surprise!”

Pam must have looked like a fish on dry land, eyes bugging out and mouth hanging open, but who could blame her… Blaine had a boyfriend now? After barely a week at that school? And he hadn’t been beaten up about it yet?

She scrutinised Blaine’s face, and detected some puffiness around one eye. Yep, definitely a black eye on the mend. Well, thank heavens it wasn’t worse. She guessed the money she’d spent on Blaine’s summer boxing course had paid off.

Blaine’s boyfriend turned back to the stove with a sigh, and continued stirring, his shoulders stiff and hunched up now. Blaine handed him a spice jar he’d fetched from the pantry, prattling on happily about how wonderful the sauce smelled, and how Pam had arrived just a little bit too early since the sauce would have to simmer for a while and they still had to cook the pasta.

Since when did Blaine cook?

“You’re… You’re cooking?”

Blaine beamed at her again. “Kurt is teaching me. He’s an amazing cook, Mom, you’ll see.”

Pam nodded. “I can tell. Thank you. This is… Wow. I wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting this. At all. Kurt, it’s nice to meet you. And I’m sorry about threatening you with pepper spray.”

Kurt turned his head around, eyes wide, and then sent her a cautious smile. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

Politer than he looks, that one. Good.

“You did what, Mom?!”

Pam held up her mace can. “In my defence, I had no idea this was your boyfriend, Honey Bee. I was scared.”

“I understand,” Kurt said. “But I’m glad Blaine arrived in time to rescue me.”

Pam giggled. “You should show Kurt your Nightbird costume sometime, Honey Bee.”

“Mo-om!!”

Kurt’s eyes sparked with interest. “A superhero costume? Remind me to introduce you to Sam. He started a superhero club at McKinley a while ago. Seems like you two will get on well.”

Blaine cocked his head to the side. “The Sam that reads to the children at the home every Tuesday?”

“That’s the one. I don’t think he’ll be able to do that the coming weeks, though.”

Kurt let out a long sigh and continued. “His dad lost his job, and they lost their home, too. They’re living in a motel for now. Sam’s been babysitting his brother and sister after school, and working as a pizza delivery boy at night.”

“That’s rough.”

“Yeah.”

Pam felt a pang of commiseration for Sam’s family. “That’s horrible. And here we are with such a big empty house.”

She’d kept the house after Edward moved out, but found it hard to scrounge up the rent every month. As soon as she found the time, she’d go house-hunting for something smaller, especially since Blaine would be off to college next school year.

“It’s way too big,” Blaine agreed. “I mean, I like the garden, but we have six bedrooms. For just two people. That’s just insane.”

Pam moved towards the pan with boiling water, put the pasta in and set the kitchen timer. “It’s what your father wanted.”

Blaine scoffed. “A house big enough for all the wives he cheated on and all the children he never wanted?”

Pam swallowed with difficulty and looked away.

She felt strong arms envelop her in a hug.

“Sorry, Mom…”

She kissed Blaine’s cheek. “It was hard on you, honey bee. I get it.”

“It was hard on you, too, Mom. Dad moving out, and then Dalton refusing to grant me a scholarship because Dad’s rich and he’s still my father, even if he doesn’t pay a cent for me. And then they beat me half to death at Westerville High and I was the one who got expelled.”

Pam gritted her teeth thinking of Westerville High’s principal. He hadn’t wanted to get rid of his most promising football players, so he’d chosen to get rid of the queer kid instead. She’d wanted to rage at him for hours, but she knew it wouldn’t make a difference.

“Well, this time around, you’ve been able to defend yourself, I can tell. Is that black eye the only injury you got?”

Blaine gaped at her. “Yes. But… How? Kurt put on concealer and everything! You shouldn’t have been able to see!”

Pam quirked an eyebrow. “Blaine. I sell make-up for a living.”

Blaine shared an ‘Uh-oh, busted!’ look with Kurt, and jumped when the kitchen timer went off.

“Well, dinner’s ready,” Kurt announced chipperly. “You can go sit at the table and catch up. I’ll be right there.”

Pam took a bottle of red wine out of the pantry and a corkscrew from the drawer and followed Blaine to the table, staring down her son until he told her what had happened. She was relieved he wasn’t hurt worse, but horrified that Blaine had knocked his assailant into the hospital.

“What did you do, break his leg?”

Blaine snorted. “His head, more like. Knocked him out cold with an uppercut, and while he fell, he hit the lockers just wrong, and he bled like an ox. Never woke up, either.”

Pam blanched, and hoped that the kid would regain consciousness and get better. And that his parents wouldn’t make her pay the hospital costs. She really couldn’t afford that. Still, wouldn’t they have contacted her before now in that case?

She smiled at Blaine, determined to look at the bright side. Blaine hadn’t been expelled, and he seemed to enjoy the community service he’d been sentenced to.

“So you have to volunteer at that home now for how many more hours?”

Blaine scratched his head. “I dunno… I could ask Dolores? I don’t really care, though. I love going there. The kids are amazing.”

“They are,” Kurt chimed in, setting a steaming plate of food in front of Pam and handing one to Blaine too.

A moment later, all three of them were enjoying their pasta, and Kurt told Pam all about the children at the home, leaving her wondering how in the world she’d managed to be spooked by such a sweet boy. Camouflage. The hair and the metal and the tattoos. They had to be camouflage, just like Blaine’s outfits and make-up.

Pam complimented the boys on the meal they’d made, which had Blaine grinning ear to ear. The grin only widened when she started discussing Kurt’s use of herbs in the sauce, and it warmed her heart to see her son so happy. She couldn’t even remember the last time he’d smiled so freely, but it had been way too long.

When they had finished eating, Blaine jumped up immediately to clear the table, and he and Kurt started doing the dishes as a matter of course, jabbering and chattering and even singing as they worked.

Pam was used to a disgruntled teenager, who lived on take-out when his mom was out working and who had to be reminded to bin his soda cans, take-out cartons and pizza boxes, so this was a welcome change.

Thank you, Kurt. I think we’ll keep you.

#klaine fanfiction #my fic #facing your dragons #chapter 6

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sailolive93-blog · 4 years

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The best Guide to Reddit Marketing around 2019

"Yep, i do all my modelling in C4D as I just know the tools so well there. I do minimal retopology in Zbrush on organic shapes but any hard surfaces I make in C4D. I'd recommend the "Introduction to Subdivision modelling in C4D" by Shane Benson on Vimeo (he goes by Sheppard O'Neill on YouTube if you prefer that) and it was his tuts that got me into box and subdiv modelling.

I'm also releasing a modelling workshop in C4D and models from the kitchen scene that these belong to will be in there to learn. Just not these two as they belong to marketing for the workshop. very well "Brand new Reddit account with two extensive comments defending Boa Vista Orchards huh...? We joked earlier about spotting the Boa Vista account in here but it looks like we actually have lol! > I just talked to the dude who does the marketing for Apple Hill and he sent me this So you just randomly talked to the guy and he emailed over his entire statement...? " "I too wonder why they didn’t just create a new line and call it the mach-e instead of mustang, I believe it has something to do with the marketing department since they knew it’ll stir a lot of discussion" "Precedent suggests it depends on the marketing around the product being sold and the implied purpose. " "Wow, ha. The fact that you think that it’s ok for the government to strip away my personal health insurance so that I HAVE to be on the same shitty plan on everybody else is crazy. If healthcare is “free” and universal, the quality of healthcare is bound to decrease. I can choose to pay for whatever the fuck I want and whatever healthcare I want. I give to charity and I have plans on giving a lot more to charity as I get further in my career and start making more money. Believe it or not, you aren’t the only one that cares about people just because you want “free” healthcare for everybody. And there is also no such thing as free healthcare. It has to be paid somehow and middle class taxes will go up no matter how complicated you try to make the source of payment sound. And regarding free college, that will also raise middle class taxes. You keep bringing up this. 02% of financial transactions bullshit as if that’s going to cover all costs. Have you done studies on this yourself? Do you even know that? You act like all these things can be magically paid for without anybody in the middle class being negatively affected. I have a bachelor’s degree and I didn’t feel like college was very challenging. It was more like a series of annoying classes I didn’t need when all of college could have been boiled down into one year of the core classes of my major of marketing. College is a fuckin scam and it’s only truly necessary for a very limited amount of majors. You’re just another minion that kisses the feet of big-government Democrats that try to make us feel like horrible people for not allowing them to sucks insane amounts of money out of the economy and spend it how they would like to. inch "That's including the localization teams for every language though, as well as PR and marketing. >! Some of them might even be legacy accreditation for the Gen 6 models they're *still* using.! < " "Time is a cost and you should track where that cost is going. That said, if you are working on general administrative/nonbillable stuff within your own department, it's pretty easy to have that time automatically go to the right cost bucket, so generic entries for that sort of thing are fine imo. The stuff that really has to be tracked is anything for clients or for departments that are outside your default (e. g. engineer writes a blog post, that's marketing time etc). micron "I believe there are some lessons on Google Academy for Adss (now called Skillshop) but hands-on experience is tricky. Two ways are possible, 1) is for you to have your own website and use Google Ad Sense, but this is more from the advertiser side rather than publisher or technical side 2) ask a digital or marketing agency that is near you if you can shadow/assist/internship/work experience for a week or so. This may be difficult depending on where you live and agency people are always very busy, so if you do ask tell them how you could help THEM not the other way around. To be honest, start with Analytics and Paid Search as they are arguable more accessible and have more out there for you to learn" "We are in the same boat, but different industry. Here's my approach, starting this week: I'm joining business groups that my target clients are a part of, for example, manufacturer groups. Then I'm going to target that organization with our services. I'm then going to offer to speak about the service I offer and how it helps businesses. Not a marketing spiel, an educational talk. Good luck" "One might consider a lawsuit if a car or alcohol company advocated or implied the action of drinking and driving in their marketing" "This post has been removed for breaking Rule 1. No Spammy Titles. Do not mention anything about selling anything in the title. Absolutely ZERO marketing in the title. Do not even ask for people to contact you for more. Be enticing. Post quality pics with quality titles. Read the rules for info on how to market yourself here. If your posts keep getting removed then you will be banned. READ THE RULES! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Remember to[contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/? to=/r/feetpics) if you have any questions or concerns. *" "I came of grew up and came of age in Chicago during Jordan's time with the Bulls and the shortest answer is that it's almost incomparable because the level of fame basketball players before Michael Jordan was laughably lower than now. Even today MJ has a logo that might be more identifiable than the company that created it. I would argue no athlete in any sport has surpassed MJ's level of fame. MJ pioneered so many avenues of endorsements, its like comparing planes in the era of propeller planes with jet planes. Jordan like most greats, stood on the shoulders of giants, specifically Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Those two spent the better part of the late 70's and early to late 80's dominating the sport of basketball. Also add in Isiah Thomas of the Pistons and arguably "Dr. J" Julius Erving of the 76ers and those four were the superstars of the four teams that won EVERY NBA championship of the decade. Before Michael Jordan won his FIRST NBA Championship in 1991, he was arguably bigger than all of them. Before MJ, being a big name athlete meant getting your name on a breakfast cereal box called Wheaties, and doing the commercial saying the plug line "Gotta eat your Wheaties! " That's not a joke. Check 'em out on youtube, they're cringe worthy. MJ's meteoric rise in my opinion was helped by a few special advertising campaigns. I think first would have been his Nike commercials with Spike Lee, another pioneer. He just made "Do the right thing" at a time when black people making movies with black people in the movies wasn't really a thing. Spike Lee also happens to like playing characters in his own movies and Mars Blackmon was a character in that movie that Spike Lee chose to portray in a series of commericals with Michael Jordan. Again, pardon me for repeating, but I have to say it again for context. You have a supremely talented and charismatic young athlete being marketed by a young shoe company (Converse Chuck Taylors were still THE basketball shoe) hiring a visionary and ground breaking director to do something that had not been done before. And they crushed it. Again, at this time Michael Jordan wasn't winning NBA championships. He was having savant level performances, but get bounced out of the first round by the Celtics, or getting manhandled in the playoffs by the Pistons. By the time he did win it all in 91, MJ was doing things that no one had done in fields well outside basketball. Michael Jordan in Flight is one of the first videogames to have 3D. He had already supplanted Dr J in the one on one basketball video game with Larry Bird. Gatorade put out a marketing campaign with the song "Be Like Mike" and that song was the top song for the summer of 92 in Chicago on most radio stations regardless of genre. You're already familiar with Space Jam, but before Space Jam, the Looney Toons were relegated to afternoon after school syndicated (rerun) television stations. Michael Jordan made Bugs Bunny cool again to a whole new generation that knows of them only through MJ. I hope that helps. inches "Yeah I don't want to turn it around and criticize Musk over this or anything, but Tesla is great at PR and marketing while convincing people they don't actually try to be. inches "No, you dont need more parties, you need to ban all parties and establish government funded elections where everyone with a certain amount of support by the people can run using government money and marketing channels. Equal funding, equal marketing, equal candidacy, by the people, for the people. Sounds too good to be true? Well fuck you, because parties are corrupt barbaric cavemen shit. " " Funny Cartoon Images for website content - Family Funny Images and illustrations, Ultimate single panel funny cartoons used for websites, social media and emails https://www.freecartoonsdaily.com https://www.cartoons.cafe www.cartoons.cafe www.acmeblanks.com sign up now! Funny Cartoons, Funny family cartoon images, Custom Cartoons, Niche Cartoons, Humorous Illustration Services, Business Cartoons, Medical Cartoons, Custom Comic Strips, Book Illustration Services, Political Cartoons, funny hospital cartoons, cartoons for marketing, corporate cartoons, work cartoons, business cartoons, Computer Cartoons, farmer cartoons, farm cartoons, tractor cartoons, Pig cartoons, pig farmer cartoons, cor farmer cartoons, wheat farmer cartoons, soybean farmer cartoons.... inch "That's including people associated with the marketing and promotion of Sword and Shield, which means people at Nintendo and the Pokemon Company rather than actual programmers at Game Freak working on the game itself. The same article you're looking at gives 200 at Game Freak - which is likely wrong since Game Freak had 143 employees, and Game Freak openly stated most were working on Town. You could include the modelers from Creatures Inc, but given that the models are the same as those developed for X and Y by Creatures Inc years ago, they are likely still being credited for "work" on this game that was actually done quite some time ago. " "Imagine what a lucky break JonTron was for FlexSeal. Their products are actually pretty decent, but their marketing was almost typical infomercial stuff that no-one over fifty would've seen. Next, out of nowhere, some YouTuber makes them famous amongst younger customers. People make "that's a lotta damage, " and "I sawed this boat in half, " memes. Everyone knows who they are. Chances are, when you need some stuff like this you'll at the very least know about their existence and you might buy their stuff because at least you know they're legit. Some people will buy it when they need something like that, literally for the meme. All they have to do is keep the ball rolling with tweets like these (because, of course, people actually follow them on Twitter now). " "That's my point. The pub you linked to is disney land. I'm looking for somewhere that recreates the a more authentic historical experience. I think these places have got their marketing wrong which is why they are closing. They should be trying to recreate an experience closer to that in the Pathe news reel. If you just sold fresh baked bread, potted Hare, a variety of local ales you could heat with a poker while smoking a hilarious pipe you could capture a huge slice of the real ale / hipster / foodie market. " "No game in the genre had been competition for the Diablo franchise since it's inception. D3 no matter how you look at it was a huge commercial success being in the top 10 video games sold of all time at one point. Diablo now has become what WoW was before, tons of games saying they are a WoW killer and none of them doing it. So now we looming at Diablo killers but they all end up falling off somewhere because they don't get the same $$$ support / marketing. inch "8M opening weekend bad = bad marketing. Bad quality movie would be revealed in the multiplier (word of mouth and no rewatches). In this case I don’t think there was anything compelling from the movie they could focus the marketing around which led to the 8M OW. " "I’m in the same boat. I have to get 14 credits by may2020. In the last 2 weeks I did principle of marketing 3 credits score 66 and principal of management 3 credits score 62. This week I’ll take precalculas which is 5 credits and calculus which is 4 credits. I did not pay the $89 for the test because I did modernstates which pays the testing fee. It also reimburses me for the $20 testing fee" "Marketing. McAf€€ gets money from users, Micro$oft gets money from McAfee. They beget the green, motherfuckers that they are. Sometimes http://tipofmytongue.topreddit.info who install 3^^rd party stuff tho, it's not only Microsoft. Anyway, it's a motherfuckery of bloatware if not malware. "McAfee antivirus is one of the worst products on the planet" -John McAfee" "You're arguing entirely from marketing hype instead of actual quality, which is entirely stupid and comes down entirely to Sont having far greater of a userbase and them having less games to pump more money behind. Besides, let's not pretend Sony has an actual library of games here. Both Xbox and Sony have completely shit the bed this console generation in terms of exclusive libraries. Sony has had like, 8 good games this entire generation as exclusives. You have Death Stranding, Uncharted 4, Horizon, Until Dawn, Bloodborne, God of War, MLB The Show... That's about it? I guess you also have Detroit and Last Guardian depending on who you ask, but I defo don't wanna throw Days Gone on that list. But in any case, you could lump all of those games into loke 3-4 genres. Am I missing anything? But yeah, stop saying dumb shit like "Well its not a household name so its irrelevant" because you're entirely missing the point and reducing the entire industry to what can or can't be marketed. As well, its telling that Sony has stated their goal next-gen is to have less games release but have them be bigger, where Microsoft is going the opposite direction. Keep the the big titles, bur also have a little something for everyone. Diversity is important. Your Battletoads reboot might not sell as well, but its important to folks who like it. Games shouldn't be live or die based on how well they fit in established and marketable trends. Its absurdly reductive" "I actually never had injected one, whats the main difference? And is it really a big improvement or rather a marketing bait" "It’s all part of his NYC persona. Marketing. inches

#tag #statics

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dukereviewstv · 5 years

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Duke Reviews Tv: Smallville 1x05 Cool

Hi Everyone, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Tv Where Today We're Continuing Our Look At Smallville By Talking About Episode 5 Of Season 1 Cool...

In This Episode, A Jock Named Sean Kelvin...

Oh, I Get It Like The Unit Of Temperature, Ha Ha Ha!

Accidentally Falls Into A Frozen Crater Lake Only To Emerge With An Insatiable Hunger For Heat Thanks To The Meteor Rocks In Crater Lake, In A Effort To Stay Warm, Sean Sucks The Body Heat Of Anyone That Will Talk To Him, Including Chloe Sullivan. Will Clark Ruin His Date With Lana So He Can Save Chloe From Sean's Frozen Personality?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Cool...

The Episode Starts Near Crater Lake, As Clark Kent And Chloe Sullivan Arrive At A High School Party...

Chloe Goes To Sit By The Fire As We Get An Introduction To Our Bad Boy Of The Episode, Sean Kelvin, Who Asks If Chloe Is Flying Solo Tonight With Clark Telling Sean That Chloe Isn't His Type...

But Going Over To Talk To Her, Sean Asks If He Can Warm Chloe's Hands For Her And Saying That He's Read Some Of Her Articles In The Torch...

Asked To Play A Game Of Toss With Whitney And The Other Jocks, Sean Asks For Chloe's Number, And She Gives It To Him Despite Knowing He'll Never Call...

Talking To Whitney And The Other Guys, We Find Out That Sean Is A Douchebag As He Says That Chloe Is Just Another Notch On His Belt...

However, In Tossing The Ball Too Far Onto The Frozen Crater Lake, Sean Accidentally Falls In And Drowns Only To Be Resurrected The Next Morning As Solomon Grundy!

No, Just Kidding, But Wouldn't It Have Been More Interesting If That Actually Happened! But Still Sean Is Resurrected The Next Morning With Severe Hypothermia To The Point He Can Only Stay Warm By Sucking The Heat Out Of Something Let's Say This Fire...

Meanwhile At The Kent Farm, They're Not Doing So Good Money Wise To The Point They May Have To Take Out Another Bank Loan, However, Clark Has An Idea...

Wait A Minute! How Is Clark Walking With Chloe And Pete When He Used His Powers To Get To School? And If He Just Ran Out To Them, How Did They Not Get Startled Or Discover That He Has Powers? Because...

Spoilers!

At This Point In Time, Pete And Chloe Do Not Know That Clark Has Powers!

Anyway, Chloe Tells Clark That Sean Didn't Call But Despite Pete Saying That Maybe Something Came Up, Clark Is Determined That Sean Is A Horndog...

Meanwhile At School, Sean Is Starting To Feel Hypothermic Again But When He Starts Sucking The Nurse's Body Heat He Starts Feeling Better...

Back On The Kent Farm, Martha Is Chopping Wood Using A Chainsaw When Lex Enters....

I Thought You Were Something From My Childhood!

Turns Out Lex Needs 30 Of Their Artichokes For A Dinner He's Hosting Tomorrow Night For The Local Farming Community About Financial Options. With Lex, Offering His Hand As An Investor, He Wishes To Help The Community Modernize And Expand, And Despite Knowing How Jonathan Feels About Him, He Invites The Kents To Hear His Pitch...

After His Talk With Martha, Lex Heads Down To The Beanery Where He Runs Into Lana Who's Planning To Take Whitney To Some Museum Exhibit In Metropolis But Unfortunately, Whitney Has Given His Money To His Pals So They Can Watch A Fight Tomorrow Night On Pay Per View...

Well, What Can I Say Except Bros Before Hoes...

Taking Advantage Of Whitney's Fumble, Lex Offers Clark Radiohead Tickets For Tomorrow Night In Metropolis But Only If He Asks Lana Out...

Now The Question Is Clark, Deal Or No Deal?

We Have A Deal!

Going Inside, Clark Tells Lana About The Tickets And Asks Her If She Wants To Go Just As Friends...

Telling His Friends About His "Not A Date" With Lana, Clark Thanks Chloe For The Well Deserved Push...

Sean Goes To Talk With Chloe For 2 Seconds Before Going Over To Talk To His Ex, Jenna To Which Chloe Gives A What The Hell! To...

That Night..,

Ooh, A Hot Girl In A Shower!

Oh, Wait A Minute, I Know This, Hot Girl Takes A Shower, Guy Creepily Watches From The Other Side Of The Shower Curtain Till Finally....

Sucking Jenna's Body Heat, She's Murdered By Sean Who Shatters Her Guts All Over The Floor

The Next Day At The Kent Farm, Martha Tells Jonathan About Lex's Offer And He's Put His Foot Down That He's Not Going...

Knowing That Lex Has Been Nothing But Generous, Martha Has Already Told Lex They'll Be There Because They're Running Out Of Options...

With Clark Bursting In To Tell His Parents About His "Not A Date" With Lana, Jonathan Isn't Exactly Pleased That Lex Gave Him The Tickets...

Meanwhile At Sean's House (I Guess?) He Calls Every Girl He's Ever Dated To Try To Steal Their Body Heat But None Will Talk To Him (No Surprise There) Except 1...

Calling Chloe, She Tells Clark That Sean Apologized Saying That He Didn't Feel Well, And Asked Her If She Wanted To Get Together Tonight Just To Talk...

That Night, The Kent's Pop By To See None Of The Farmers Are There, Despite Martha Believing That They're Just Early...

I Don't Know Martha I'm Beginning To Think That Maybe...

Well, Technically It Is And It Isn't....

1. Lex Lied To Martha, There Is No Farmer's Meeting But 2. He Only Did It Because It Was The Only Way To Get Jonathan And Him In The Same Room Together So Jonathan Could Hear Lex's Offer To Help Them...

So Yeah, Lex Lied But It Was For A Good Reason...

Picking Up Lana In A Limo, They're On Their Way To The Concert, But Before Clark And Lana Can Even Leave Town, They See A Report On Sean's Now Dead Ex Jenna And That Sean Is Wanted For Questioning On Jenna's Death, Parking The Limo, Clark Drops Lana Off At The Beanery Before Racing Off To Check On Chloe Who's Being Attacked By Sean...

Saving Chloe From Sean, They Research What's Going On With Sean At The Torch, Finding A Sort Of Medical Condition Where There's Damage To The Thermosensative Cells In The Brain Creating A Permanent Case Of Hypothermia....

Taking Chloe Home, Clark Knows That Going After Sean Means He'll Have To Cancel His "Not A Date" With Lana But She's Already Out The Door As Clark Is Concerned As She Gives Pete And His Date (Who We Will Never See Again) The Limo And Goes Home With Whitney Who She Tells Everything Too...

Meanwhile, Sean Starts Stealing Power From The Smallville Power Plant In An Attempt To Get Warm, While Lex Talks With Jonathan About Saving His Farm But Jonathan Goes On About How His Father Taught Him To Solve His Own Problems But It Turns Out That Jonathan's Father, Hiram Lived On Government Subsidies....

Driving Lana Home, Whitney Takes Lana's "Not A Date" With Clark Pretty Well...

You're Doing It Right Now, Whitney! So Shut Up If You Know What's Good For You!

Pulled Off The Road By Sean, Whitney Gets Lana (Who Twisted Her Ankle) Out Of The Car And Down To The Luthor Mansion With Lex, Jonathan And Martha Who Are Liking Lex's Proposal But There's One Question Jonathan Wants Answered...

Meanwhile, Clark Finds Whitney's Truck On The Side Of The Road To Discover That Whitney And Lana Are Gone...But Sean Isn't!

Taking Clark's Body Heat, Sean Is Returned To Normal For Now. With The Gates Shut And The Alarms On The Luthor Mansion Is A Fortress That Sean Can't Get In Or Can He?

Yep, Turns Out Sean Got In Before Lex Shut The Damn Gate!

Greatest Mind The World Has Ever Known My Ass!

With The Generator Frozen, Power Is Completely Off, With Jonathan Going To Check The Gate, Martha Goes To Check The Generator Where She Runs Into Sean However Clark (Still Alive Despite Sean Stealing His Body Heat) Arrives To Fight Sean In One Last Battle...

Fighting Sean, He Steals Clark's Body Heat Again But Still Okay...

The Next Day At The Kent Farm, Lex Visits Jonathan After Hearing That Jonathan Took Out Another Bank Loan Meaning That Jonathan Is Not Going To Accept Lex's Offer...

Telling Jonathan That When He Changes His Mind, His Offer Will Still Stand, Lex Walks Away...

Meanwhile, At Smallville High, Chloe Stands By A Memorial For Jenna, Counting Her Blessings That That's Not Her And Swearing That The Next Time A Guy Asks Her Out She's Gonna Do An In-Depth Background Check First...

After Talking With Chloe And Pete, Clark Goes Over To Talk With Lana As He Apologizes For Screwing Up Their Date. Asking If She Would Like To Do It Again Maybe Saturday But Lana Turns Down Clark Because Whitney Is Taking To That Exhibit In Metropolis Because Was Freaked Out By Their Non-Date..

And That's Cool And It's A Good Episode

The Story's Good, The Characters Are Well Written, It Had A Great Villain In Sean But I Do Have A Problem With That One Scene I Talked About At The Beginning Of The Episode, Jonathan's Resilience Towards Lex And Whitney's Growing Jealousy Of Clark And Lana's Friendship/Relationship But Despite Those Reasons I Say See It...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

#smallville #the cw #the wb #tom welling #kristen kreuk #michael rosenbaum

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thebrewstorian · 5 years

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Beer and botany

I spent a lovely Saturday morning walking around Luckiamute Meadows, specifically Cliff and Gay Hall's property in King's Valley, for the Greenbelt Land Trust's 2019 Beer & Botany event. I was joined by two of my SCARC colleagues, who are always game for some walking (and beer). We were joined by staff from Greenbelt, 15 or 16 other walkers, and Paul Miller from Sky High Brewing, who shared past beers inspired by these walks and how wild ingredients could be used in beer.

We met at the King’s Valley Charter School, which was established in 1848, and learned more about the history of the school as well as the ways the kids use the area as outdoor school. I will also note that beyond the kids a herd of elk as large as 70 also uses the area.

Nahum King arrived in the Kings Valley area in 1847. He was a financier of wagon train from Missouri and who took out a land claim in 1846. You can learn more about the ”Heart for Any Fate” book by Linda Cruz.

The Hall's used to have cattle, but over the past 20 years they have shifted to more active land management and conservation on their property. In partnership with many groups, including the Greenbelt Land Trust, they have planted over 20,000 trees (most? all? of which are native species).

As we walked we learned more about how ingredients all around us could be used in beer. Miller said anything with sugars works, you just need a lot.

"Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people."

Spruce tips, rose, lemon balm? Yep. Camas, the starchy tuber used by the native Calopooians? Yep. Fungi? Maybe.

Speaking of traditional knowledge, one of the people on the walk asked about whether Native Americans made beer. Miller said he wasn't sure but he knows they fermented tea made from flowers and leaves; this drunk was used in small amounts mostly during ceremonies.

Two years ago I did a beer/botany walk with this group around the Owens Farm in north Corvallis and Joel Rea from Corvallis Brewing Supply carried a "fermenting bucket" with him to capture the wild yeast. From that he made "Owens Farm Funk," a beer that lived up to its name. Ingredients, including the yeast, capture a sense of place, literally, in the beer that is made from them. It's the terroir, of course.

Other things I learned? They’ve focused on planting Valley Ponderosa Pine, a native to the Willamette Valley, which was almost wiped out due to over logging.

We stopped at Maxfield Creek, which wasn’t really a creek but a gravel deposit when they moved here 20 years ago.

Originally, the creek split into 5 fingers, but farmers wanted to get water out of the fields in early 1900s and they altered the land until there was virtually no water in the creek. Log jams resulted, and the "old timers" cleared these jams out because didn’t think it was good for fish. It turns out that log jams were actually good, and as a result of the cleaning out for a long time the fish population was quite low. Now there are lots of fish (lots of cutthroat trout, steelhead, even coho salmon (!), and lamprey), and they report there are no invasive species. Later in the walk we talked more about the OSU friends in the water. Beavers are here (!), but in this spot they don’t build dams on the creek, instead they burrow into the bank. I also learned that beavers are an indicator species of a healthy watershed.

Beavers gnaw on trees.

And birds peck at them.

The Hall land was a sheep farm 20 years ago, and besides that there were some big trees and very little undergrowth (because the sheep ate the low stuff). In the future they hope to move away from using chemicals; right now they are spot spraying and trying to find a healthy balance. So it's no surprise that fresh water is number one important for all alcoholic beverages, but Paul talked to us about why brewers work with conservation groups. Beer is directly connected with agricultural as a secondary product, and we all benefit when that product is protected from runoff. The more treatment to land, the more Paul has to do to get it out of water for beer. The treatment he needs to do varies based on which of the two water sources we draw from in Corvallis, what time of day or what time of year it is.

Brewsheds? We didn't talk a lot about them, but I'm definitely keen to learn more about them. Here's the Oregon org: Oregon Brewshed Alliance.

Not directly related to beer, but worth pointing out is this big railroad flat car that runs across the creek, which the cattle used to cross.

Paul talked more about some of the challenges and opportunities in the brewing world for sourcing new beer ingredients. Referencing that Owens farm walk, he talked about how it inspired him to make a "Strawberry Pinot Tart," which featured local flora and fauna, and how that led to him starting the Sky High barrel aging program in lobby. He's very interested in local ingredients: they get their hops from Crosby, grain from Madras, and yeast from Hood River (which is salmon safe) and Portland (which is organic). Paul (and Sky High) also work to support local organizations that are committed to sustainability, renewability, and biodiversity.

We walked by many lovely trees, including redwoods (they are thinking of climate change wants to plant things that grow in California), Indian plum...

Smaller oaks planted 20 years ago.

And a wonderfully big and old oak tree. How old is it? There were 260 rings!

And a little tree growing out of the big tree.

And some mushrooms. Mushrooms in beer? Yep.

Brewers usually use them as a flavoring agent. I learned that some produce the same chemicals present in tropical or maple syrup flavors. I also learned that some toxins could remain... You have been warned.

We learned that this area is an "oak forested wetland," which was left alone by the farmers because it was too wet for cultivation, is what Oregon used to be like. Sloughs and trees keep streams cool and keep fish fed.

There was also a BIG black cottonwood - maybe biggest in Oregon - and we appreciated our time gazing up at it.

Speaking of oak... You may have heard that people use oak to make barrels. I learned that the Halls planted white oaks, which are taking a long time to grow, and that white oak is the choice for barrels because they are water tight (unlike red oak). Something to do with the veins holding water because they swell and close up? Sky High has sources bourbon barrels from Texas and other southern states, but also from wine barrels used by the winery Spindrift in Philomath and House of Spirits in Portland. This cycle reversed too: bad batches of beer can be given to a distiller. Brewers can reuse these barrels over and over, and they appreciate the different flavors imparted into wood. Paul said that organisms squirrel into wood, dry up, then rehydrate in fermentation.

As we walked more we learned more about the opportunities OSU students have had on the property. A group came out several years ago and prepared a report on native plants - they suggested planting poison oak! We all got a good laugh out of that because no one knew where you’d even buy it.

And for those wondering, we had a Blueberry Berlowitz with rose hips.

#greenbelt land trust #Sky High Brewing #beers made by walking #ethnobotany #oregon beer #brewshed

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rainythefox · 6 years

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Deviant Heart (Detroit: Become Human Fanfic)

Chapter 4: Searching for Answers

"Wow…it's amazing how one place can change so much yet not really change at all," Kara said, her blue eyes scanning up and down the streets of bustling downtown Detroit.

"Told ya," Rose said with a little half-laugh.

Kara held Luther's hand while he carried Alice on his shoulders. Adam walked slightly ahead of them while Rose stayed pace with the androids. Kara, Luther, and Alice had helped the Chapmans with their farm earlier that morning, and came with them into the city to take care of a few things and see the sights.

To Kara, the city didn't seem as dark…as despondent as it was when she and Alice were on the run. The sunny, summer atmosphere helped with part of that, she was sure, culling away the memories of rainy and snowy nights in unfortunate predicaments. Part of it she could feel. Something in her wiring, her sensing modules that told her things were better. Far from perfect. But better.

It was aspiring to see so many androids walking around the streets, and not as obedient machines carrying shopping bags following their masters. These androids were in control of their own destination, making their own decisions, being their own master. Some walked while talking on phones like a normal human, some conversed with other androids and even humans while walking along to their objectives. There wasn't an android parking station in sight.

"There are good days and bad days, but…one day it will all be good. I just know it," Rose said optimistically, smiling as she looked around.

The suburban farmer wore a simple outfit today, jeans with a purple flannel shirt. Her son wore cargo shorts and a loose shirt. Kara sported jeans and a dark blue blouse. Alice wore shorts, sandals, and a striped tank top. Luther was always a simple man, wearing pants, boots, and a grey muscle tank top.

Besides the constant foot traffic, and the ever-invariable movement of vehicles on the road, downtown had a lot of flashing monitor screens and advertisements. The surrounding businesses showcased their products or played what was on the news.

Rose and Adam led Kara, Luther, and Alice into a coffee shop for a rest. While Rose and Adam ordered some coffee, Kara, Luther, and Alice waited for them nearby at a table next to the large window of the store. Alice walked over to a section in the coffee shop that had books for sale. There were digitalized tablet books mostly, similar to magazines, and there were also old paper books as well.

Kara shook her head with a smile, glancing at Luther. "We go to a bookstore practically every day, you'd think she would get tired of them."

Luther smiled, chuckling softly. "Maybe she thinks she will find something new in this place."

Alice looked through the books, eyes reading every title on the spines. She rounded the corner and ran straight into someone else.

"Oh, sorry," the person said.

"Sorry!" Alice apologized, realizing it was a human boy around ten years old.

He wore glasses, had tan skin and dark eyes and hair. He gave her a sheepish smile as he drew the book he was carrying up to his chest.

"T-that's a good book," Alice said shyly. "I've read it."

The boy perked up. "Y-you like to read? P-paper books?"

Alice nodded, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear. "Mhmhm. They are the best ones."

"Yeah…they are. Wow, I usually get so much flak for reading paper books. My friends say they're for old people. M-my name is Kevin. What's yours?"

"Alice."

"You from here?"

"Well, I did live here for a while, but moved away. We're just visiting."

"Kevin, c'mon, let's go!" the boy's mother called from across the store.

Kevin slouched. "Gotta go. Hey! Add me on Hang-n-Chat. My username is KevinMoon728."

"Okay."

"Bye," he said, but paused again. Turning to look at her again. His face flushed. "By the way… yourreallypretty."

He ran for it after that. Alice stared after him, slowly smiling at his retreating back. She skipped over to her parents, who sat with Rose and Adam at their table, looking out the window. She took her own seat next to Kara.

"I would've never guessed that this was where Markus led the demonstration," Kara said, looking around outside. "It looks so different from what I saw on the news back then."

"Yep…Hart Plaza. Right over there, that new shopping mall? That's where the recall center was."

"So where is Markus now?" Kara asked.

"Still here," Rose answered, taking a sip of her coffee. "Still the chosen leader of your people. Don't think he could get out of it even if he wanted to."

"He's got a pretty big community center thing for androids," Adam added. "Not sure what all they do there, but Markus and his followers do their best to help."

Rose nodded. "Yeah, the Jericho Center. We can swing by another day, you should definitely see it. I'm sure Markus would be happy to see you guys, he's asked about you a few times when I've bumped into him."

"Really?" Kara asked. "That would be great."

"Does Markus's center have other android children?" Alice asked curiously.

Rose smiled. "I've seen many. You would fit right in!"

Alice smiled in response, glancing to her parents.

"Oh, speaking of Markus," Rose said. "Adam and I got to meet that famous deviant hunter you told us about that chased you around Camden and through the freeway. I had heard he became a deviant in the demonstrations months ago and was the one who infiltrated the CyberLife warehouse and woke all those androids. He somehow was able to return to work at the DPD and is now an active detective on the force."

Kara recalled that event and the deviant hunter and slowly nodded. "Yeah…Connor. We spoke a little after Jericho was destroyed. He apologized to me and Alice…said he had been a machine only taking orders and it wasn't him, that he had changed. When did you meet him?"

"Around two months ago. We had gone there to pick up one of Adam's friends that needed a ride after getting out of jail. I saw him, and after Markus told me about him, well, had to introduce myself. He's very sweet."

Kara weakly laughed. "He wasn't sweet chasing me through that freeway. I was so scared. Alice and I…we were almost killed. I'm glad he broke free though…there's no telling what would've happened had he stayed obedient and not have freed all those androids to help turn the tide."

Kara lowered her eyes, feeling a little guilty now. "To be honest, I was so freaked out after Jericho was destroyed, I was scared for Alice, worried about Luther…I didn't give him the proper acknowledgement to his apology. Guess I was still a little scared of him. I know a lot of deviants within Jericho blamed him for what happened, accused him of being a traitor, said he was just pretending to be a deviant and still serving humans. Before Alice and I left, he was the outcast, off by himself in that shelter unless Markus was talking to him."

"I think we're all glad to have that night behind us," Rose said, frowning. "C'mon. We should get back home. We can come back into the city tomorrow to visit the Jericho Center."

There was a soft ambience, still, undisturbed, down in the evidence room. The dead WR600 Sam laid on a table up against the wall. One mangled eye left a cavity that oozed blue blood down the cheek and neck. Damaged, jagged polymer hands from breaking out of handcuffs lay at the sides, the right one soaked in Thirium.

Connor looked the android over and prepared it to be shipped to CyberLife. They did not have the correct equipment here to run the diagnostics. Hank was probably still on the phone with the company. And Connor knew Hank well enough to know that once the seventh minute had passed while on hold that the lieutenant would start to get mouthy.

Connor made sure he didn't miss anything. He was puzzled by Sam's behavior and the glitchy feedback. Scanning the android over, he pulled up their chances at getting a successful diagnostic run.

[Probability of success: 17%]

Connor sighed, stepping away from the dead android. The core processor was beyond repair, enabling extraction of any information as to what happened highly improbable.

Footsteps echoed through the chamber, and the RK800 turned around, expecting Hank. Instead it was Gavin, and the irritable detective sneered his way as he came towards Connor.

"The fuck you still doing down here, tin can?" he greeted with bite, scratching the scar on his nose.

"Preparing the WR600 for shipment."

Gavin rolled his eyes. "Still?"

Connor looked away for a moment. "Well, I was a little distracted with my thoughts on the matter. Perhaps I missed something at the crime scene that could have told me what was wrong with Sam."

He received a glare for his words as Gavin folded his arms with a huff. "What the hell does it matter? He killed a girl. Then he killed himself. It doesn't change anything. You're starting to take after your so-called partner and not let shit go."

"There has to be a reason that-"

"Listen jackass," Gavin interjected. "There's not always gonna be a goddamn reason. You work this career long enough, you'll see it. No use dwelling on the how or why when it doesn't matter. The case is solved. Move on."

Gavin pushed Connor aside, walking over to the dead WR600. He sat down a folder next to the android body, along with his keys and cell phone. He opened the folder and checked through it, slapping it back down on the table and pointing at it. "There's a copy of the case report and a copy of the recording from the interrogation. Make sure that gets sent too. Hurry along, I'm sure the lieutenant is missing his pet."

Connor cocked his head slightly. "Why do you dislike Hank so much, Detective Reed?"

Gavin laughed. "Jesus, don't take it so personal. I hate everyone the same amount."

"Why do you hate people then?"

Gavin tossed his hands, accompanying it with a shake of his head. "What are you, a shrink?"

"Just trying to comprehend your behavior."

Gavin stepped in close, glaring up at the taller android. "Comprehend this, prick. Hank's a fucking loser, all he does is tread on my toes and gets in my way. His self-destructive behavior should've cost him his job but he apparently kisses too much ass with Fowler. And then there's you…he's gotta be using you to make himself look good because he can't fucking do his job on his own. He used to be so anti-android…hell it was the only thing we could agree on. And now he suddenly likes you and wants to be buddy-buddy and help your fucking cause so we can all be replaced? Fuck that."

Connor felt a spark in his circuits, his LED going yellow. He did not like Gavin insulting Hank when his partner wasn't around to defend himself. Why did Gavin make it so hard to understand him?

"Say what you want about me, Detective Reed, but I advise you to respect Hank. He is your superior and I will not stand by and let you insult him."

Gavin sneered but didn't move away. "You wanted to know! Now you're all pissy that I talked shit about your "partner"? Why don't you do something about it then?"

"We both know how that will end," Connor replied smoothly. "With you laid out on this floor like last time."

Gavin responded with a punch directed at Connor's stomach, but the RK800 caught it mid-swing and held it there, the two glaring at each other.

"Gavin!"

They responded to the voice by looking towards the source, finding Ben Collins entering. The older officer beheld them for a moment, suspicion riding on narrowed eyebrows.

"You boys better be playing nice down here," he stated.

"What's up, Ben?" Gavin asked, stepping away to face his coworker.

"You got a call upstairs from that Mr. Turner guy, says he's got some new information for you on that bank robbery last week."

"Bout damn time," Gavin said, immediately departing from Connor's side to leave with Ben.

"Detective Reed, you-"

"Shut up, asshole. If you wanna be a shrink then find Hank, he could use it."

The detective laughed as he hit the stairs, Ben shaking his head with a grumble right behind him. Connor blinked, his LED slowly returning to blue. He was frustrated. He wasn't one to let Gavin get to him. If he insulted Hank, his partner was usually there to defend himself, and did a good job at it. Gavin's insults thrown at Connor didn't faze him, having learnt to associate Gavin with petty affronts. Connor gathered it was because he wanted to understand Gavin but was only ever met with confrontation.

He looked down at the table where Gavin had left his keys and cell phone. Connor had tried to tell him about it, but Gavin blew him off. A small, mischievous smile slowly twitched on his lips as he reached for the cell phone.

"Let me get this fucking straight," Hank growled, rubbing his temples. "You're gonna allow Gavin to go, but not Connor?"

He couldn't believe he was thinking it, but Hank was starting to think he would've been better off still dealing with CyberLife on the phone over this. He was already agitated by dealing with the company, and now Fowler decided to drop this on top of it.

The Captain of the Detroit Police Department closed his eyes for a moment, looking over the holographic computer screen at his lieutenant and old friend. "I didn't make the choice, Hank. The mayor and city council did. Human event only."

"That's bullshit, how could they decide something like that with them being at the core of android rights?!"

Fowler rolled away from his computer, knowing he wasn't going to get any work done with Hank bitching across from him. "Hank, it's not a council meeting or any shit like that. It's just an appreciation banquet."

Hank grounded his teeth for a moment. "Oh, so Connor didn't do enough to be appreciated?"

"I didn't say that."

"Because of Connor we've been able to solve nearly four times the amount of homicide cases, Jeffrey! With him alone! He's fucking done more in this department in eight months than I've seen cops do their whole careers. Connor hasn't failed at any interrogations and hasn't lost any suspects he's had to chase down."

"Jesus, Hank, I know that!"

"You expect me to just sit there and let the fucking mayor recognize Gavin for his hard work when my partner isn't even allowed inside like he's some kind of goddamn lower being?!"

Fowler pointed a long index finger across his desk at the lieutenant. "I most certainly do. Fuck Hank, you're taking this too personal. It's not a big event, not a big deal. There will be plenty of other opportunities. I promise Connor will get recognized for all that he's done. There's just nothing I can do about this one."

Hank pointed his own finger at his superior, rising out of his chair. "He fucking better! And of course, it's personal. I'm not gonna let my partner get shoved aside because of some bullshit discrimination when he deserves a lot more than what he gets here!"

Fowler actually had the nerve to laugh. Hank paused in his striding for the door of the captain's office, and he turned. "What the fuck's so funny?"

Fowler showed his hands to show he meant no harm. "It's nothing…it's just…you're so protective of him. I never would've thought to see you come to care about a machi-" Hank glared daggers at him. "About an android so much…"

"So?"

Fowler offered the chair that Hank just got up from. Grumbling, Hank slowly came over and sat down.

"I should've told you this already, Hank, but…It's really good to have you back. I was starting to worry about you. Worry about your health…worry about the man you were becoming. Now I'm starting to see more and more of the man you once were as the days go by."

Hank looked away, clenching his jaw, not out of anger, but of discomfort for being put on the spot. He ran a calloused hand through his graying hair. "Yeah well…it's because of Connor. I owe him…my life."

Fowler dipped his head. "I know, I heard he saved you a few times during the deviant uprisings."

Hank shook his head. "Not that…I mean he saved me…from myself."

A long moment of silence passed between the old colleagues. Hank, thoroughly uncomfortable, stood up once more. He ran a hand under his nose, catching Fowler's eyes. "So…make sure he gets the recognition he deserves, alright?"

The Police Captain slowly nodded his head, taking in Hank's words. The lieutenant then left the office after that, feeling a bit disheveled but also surprisingly content. He made his way over to his desk, noticing that Connor had yet to return to his. He looked around, phones rang away, police officers moved around or sat at their desks. He spotted Gavin talking on his desk phone with his legs propped up at the end of his desk, using his shoulder to hold the phone while he dug at his nails with a pocket knife.

"Lieutenant!"

Hank responded to the call, smiling upon seeing Chris Miller approaching. "Hey Chris, what's up?"

"Just got a call about an android attacking a group of people near Grand Circus Park. Two people are in critical condition and four others are also injured. It apparently used a gun and is still at large. I know you were investigating the one that killed the girl at the clothing store, and was interested in the report I took yesterday about the protesters being attacked."

"On it," Hank said. "Send all the info to Connor's computer, I'll have him download it while we're heading that way."

"Will do. Ben should be there by the time you arrive also," Chris said.

Chris left and Hank went over to his desk to collect his badge and gun. He opened the drawer on his desk to fish out his keys. He saw Connor not a moment later coming around from his way back from the evidence room. Hank waved him over.

"Con, come on, gotta go."

He tossed Connor his keys and the RK800 caught them with grace. The partners started heading for the exit side by side. "What happened?"

"Another android attack. Chris is gonna send the info to you, shouldn't take him but a few minutes. Did you finish up getting that android ready for shipment?"

"Yes."

"Why are you smiling?"

"No reason," Connor replied. "Although, I do suggest you call Gavin later. I heard he changed his voicemail message."

"Wait a minute," Hank paused just as they got to his car, pulling up his phone. "I got a text from him saying "I'm a little bitch" and then a video of him getting kicked in the nuts from that Asian girl last month in the interrogation room. What did you do?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Hank."

"You hacked his phone, didn't you?"

Connor opened the car door and slipped into the driver's seat. Hank laughed as he slid into the passenger side.

"That's fucking great, my partner the savage. How many people did you send it to?"

"Just everyone in his contacts list that had a phone number or email address. Including everyone at the DPD."

Hank busted out laughing as Connor put the car into gear and took off.

The suburban street had little appeal to it, full of decrepit houses and overgrown lawns. Cars rarely passed by over cracked asphalt. Only a few houses had residents within, not as worn down or ugly as the abandoned houses. There was more foot traffic in this part, and most of the people were humans that either avoided them or were too strung out on red ice or other drugs to care.

"Where are you taking us?" Josh asked.

"This is way off from where we last spotted Gus," North said, looking around the sketchy neighborhood.

Simon walked slightly ahead, leading his friends. The few humans who stood around outside would either glare them down and not say anything or make a retreat inside their homes. Some were too high to care about their presence. Even though Simon, North, and Josh wore regular human clothes and no longer had LEDs it was as if the humans here knew what they were.

"We're going to Gus's old home. He could've gone there to hide. We better make sure," Simon explained.

"Whatever you say," North said skeptically.

"We've been at it all day. We should return to Markus and inform him that we lost Gus," Josh grumbled.

"We can just send him a mind message, no big deal," North said, kicking a can along the broken sidewalk.

"Have you seen where we're at?" Josh scoffed. "We're too far."

"Guys," sighed Simon, wanting to preventing a potential bickering match. "We're almost there. If Gus isn't there, we'll return to Jericho Center and see what Markus wants to do next. Alright?"

The PL600 turned onto an overgrown driveway to a crumbling two-story house that looked as though it had been abandoned for many years and had remnants of a fire.

"Here we are."

"That looks…unsafe," Josh said, gulping.

North half-rolled her eyes. "Ugh, then stay here. We'll be right back."

Josh didn't listen and went with them up onto the collapsing front porch. Simon tried the front door. It was open. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, looking back at his friends.

"Be careful. Not only is this place falling apart, if Gus is here he might attack. So be ready."

They nodded and Simon flung the door open. A wave of musky mildew and old smoke wafted into their faces. The three androids stepped inside, looking around a dark, dirty living room. They split up to check the bottom floor, but all was quiet save for the creaking of the floor below their feet and the occasional moaning of the house's structure from the wind outside.

"Gus?" Simon called out. "We're here to help you. Come on out if you're here."

A crash upstairs made them jump. Simon looked to North and Josh and they nodded. They moved to the staircase, hitting it one at a time. One step collapsed under Josh's weight and he had to grab the railing to catch himself. Once on the second floor Josh remained at the staircase to prevent anyone from escaping while North and Simon combed through the rooms.

North thought she heard movement in the back bedroom and left Simon's side to check it out. She called out for Gus, imploring him with gentle reassurance to come out.

She pulled open a closet door and was met with a tall figure with a knife drawn. He screamed, she screamed and kicked him straight back into the closet. Simon and Josh burst into the room but the assailant remained in the closet.

"Ralph?! What the hell are you doing here?!" North hissed, holding her chest as her mechanical heart went up a few beats.

The scarred WR600 moved out into the room, holding himself nervously. The Jericho crew hadn't seen him in a while, as Ralph was not one to stick around, even when people were trying to help him. He was a nomad, and moved throughout Detroit to various places to avoid most people. He had calmed down some in the past few months, but still remained moody, fluctuating between emotions by the fly.

"W-what? Why you ask that? You scared Ralph! Why are you here?"

Simon cut to the chase. "We're looking for Gus, have you seen him?"

"Gus lets Ralph squat at his old home when he doesn't stay with the Jerrys," Ralph said innocently. "Haven't seen Gus in a while. Was starting to get lonely."

"You have any idea where he could be?" Josh asked, knowing it was a long shot.

Ralph thought it over, fidgety as usual. "N-no. He's been at Jericho Center a lot. Ralph doesn't know anywhere else he likes to stay."

North grumbled. "Ugh, useless as always."

Simon glared at her. "North."

Josh stepped forward, closing in on Ralph, but giving him a friendly smile. "Ralph, you should come back to Jericho Center with us. You know Markus wants to help you."

"Y-yes, o-of course Ralph knows that," Ralph laughed nervously. "B-but all those androids make him anxious. Not as anxious as humans, but still anxious."

Simon reached out to touch Ralph's arm. "I know deep down you want to fit in. We can help you."

Ralph moved out of Simon's touch like a nervous cat. "Don't touch Ralph! You might be sick!"

Simon drew away. "Sorry, Ralph. I'm just-wait…Sick? What do you mean by sick?"

Ralph looked between them, even more restless now. "You don't know? You can't see it? Feel it? So many androids getting sick and hurting people. Ralph is scared. Some of the Jerrys are acting sick. It's why Ralph is here. One of the Jerrys attacked him. Ralph had to kill him. T-to protect himself! But Ralph hasn't felt sick yet. He doesn't want to get sick."

Simon, North, and Josh exchanged glances.

North looked to Ralph. "How long have you noticed this?"

Ralph shrugged, playing with his torn cape. "Ah, m-maybe a couple weeks? It gets worse every day. More and more get sick."

"You think Gus was sick?" Josh asked apprehensively, turning to Simon.

Simon clenched his fists at his sides. "I don't know. We should get back. Ralph, you need to come with us and tell Markus what you know."

The scarred WR600 shook his head, backing up against the wall. "N-no. Ralph wants to stay here. It's safer here."

Simon stepped forward, reaching out to the squatter. "Ralph…listen to me. We might need your help. We promise we won't let anyone hurt you. You won't get sick. Come with us."

Ralph hesitated but slowly nodded. He stepped forward, nervously reaching to touch Simon's hand to his own for just a moment. Simon smiled and then nodded at the others.

"Let's go."

The eastern half of Grand Circus Park was alive with activity. First responders, ambulances, and police cars blocked off much of the surrounding avenues, congesting traffic. The park looked like it had been dressed up for some sort of music festival. There were food vendors, festival visitors and musicians all being questioned by police. A few humans were getting looked over by paramedics. Reporters were on scene, taking advantage of a brewing story. Drones circled the park and the surrounding avenues for any suspicious activity.

Hank and Connor showed their badges and stepped through the police line. They caught sight of Ben Collins near Alger Fountain and met him there.

"Afternoon, Hank," Ben greeted, taking notes on his tablet.

"A music festival, huh?" Hank asked, looking around at the stage that was put up with all the surrounding vendors and activities, all currently abandoned and in disarray.

"Kinda. A small country music competition I think. Did you get the info Chris sent you?"

Hank motioned to Connor, who nodded and answered. "Yes. Currently six people injured, two in critical condition. Android model is unknown but female. Supposed to have fled towards the opera house. Am I correct?"

Ben nodded. "Unfortunately, nothing new has come up since Chris registered that information. Have a look. Tell me what you can figure out."

Hank touched Connor's shoulder as he stepped by. "I'll go talk to some witnesses. Be back soon."

Connor didn't say anything and got to work. He looked around the fountain, where the attack was assumed to have taken place. There were a few chairs sitting around, some toppled over. Some food was scattered around as well as a dumped over medium soda.

[Pineapple passion soda, 520kCal, Sugar (119g)/Hank's favorite]

He spotted a stray bullet hole within a cement bench and went over to it. He scanned it over, syncing the data.

[Bullet hole/Caliber: 9mm handgun]

Upon further inspection around the Alger Fountain, he found two more bullet holes, one in a nearby tree off in the grass and another hitting the side of a food vendor's trailer. The three bullets had different trajectories, but originated from the south side of the fountain. Finding a few blood puddles further away from the fountain, in a mix of vendor tents and chairs, Connor was able to gather two more paths from the gun.

[Attacker didn't have a specific target.]

He kneeled down next to the blood, hearing the bells go off across the street at the Victorian gothic styled church, marking the time of three o'clock. He analyzed the blood by licking it, determining three victims in this area. Then he spotted it.

The RK800 rose to his feet and walked over the vendor tent, kicking aside a box of crafts. A knife laid on the ground, covered in Thirium. He licked the blue blood, processing it.

[Fresh blue blood/Model: AJ700]

He tried to reconstruct the events with what he had. The AJ700 shot into the crowd of people near the Alger Fountain, and when she ran towards a path near this vendor tent a male civilian jumped her. He was shot but it showed the knife had struck the back of the neck before it flew from his hands. The injury was tricky, most likely nicking important wires connected to the central processing unit in the head. It wouldn't allow for much Thirium loss, but Connor was sure it would cause a host of problems in the AJ700, including continual power loss and confusion.

[AJ700 too injured to go far]

The reconstruction did show her fleeing towards the opera house. He headed down the path, catching droplets of Thirium here and there. Near the bustling road, just off the sidewalk in the grass, he saw the gun.

[Ruger 9mm, reported stolen May 29, 2038]

[eRRorZen . exe]

Connor stopped in his tracks, blinking. He pressed a hand to his temple, not out of pain, but confusion, like his processor had a lapse in the circuitry. His LED blinked yellow a few times, then returned blue. Shaking his head, Connor resumed heading for the crosswalk to follow the trail.

"Hey!"

He turned, seeing Hank jog to catch up. "What the hell you think you're doing?"

"Following the trail," Connor replied frankly. "The AJ700 couldn't have gotten far from her injuries."

Hank felt to make sure he had his gun on him. "Alright, well, let's check it out. We have a couple android witnesses we can talk to who claim to be the attacker's friend."

Connor nodded. "Alright."

Connor led the way, Hank keeping at his heels as they took the crosswalk across the street to the Detroit Opera House. It took Connor longer than normal to find the trail, with so much foot traffic having smeared the little Thirium across the sidewalks. They followed the blue blood droplets on the Broadway Street side.

"Hey lady, what's your problem?! Get outta the road!"

Honks blared and there was scuffling of brakes. Connor spotted the AJ700 darting across the street, not even bothering to look both ways. Long, dark hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and she wore pants, and a dark shirt and jacket.

"There!" Connor hollered, taking off.

"Connor! Wait!"

The RK800 didn't listen, and heard Hank curse at his back. He took the same path as the injured android, dodging cars. More blares from horns echoed on the street, and it caused the AJ700 to turn and look. Upon seeing him, her eyes widened and she took off at full speed. Connor adjusted his speed accordingly, shirking through throngs of civilians in his attempt to catch her.

"Detroit Police, stop right there!" Connor yelled.

She took a street that would head for Greektown. Connor jumped over a bench to avoid a group of people, dashing down the next street she did. He started to catch up quickly, or she was slowing down, it didn't matter. He saw her grab her head, and she cried out.

[Stress level: 87%]

"Shit," Connor breathed as she darted across another busy road. By the time he evaded a bus and a few cars with his own crossing, he barely caught her back as she ducked between an alleyway.

He caught up just as she was trying to climb a tall chain-link fence. He grabbed her leg and pulled her down. With a cry, her back hit the payment. She got to her knees, putting her hands up, tears streaming down her face.

"Please…I-I didn't mean to. I-I don't know what happened. I'm so scared."

"Everything will be alright," Connor said. "I just need you to cooperate. I cannot help you if you continue to run or hurt people. Do you understand?"

[Stress level: 79%]

She nodded, a few quick movements as her eyes went up to meet his. "Y-yes."

The RK800 motioned for her to get to her feet. The female android slowly listened, a spark emitting from her neck. Connor remained wary, lest she bolted for it. She didn't though, and hung her head, putting her palms to her face just as Hank caught up.

"Good job, Connor."

Connor scanned the AJ700 over, syncing the data as a few red flags popped up in his matrix.

[Anomalies detected/Power source damaged/Systems processing corrupted/Repairs needed]

[Time remaining before shutdown: -02:01:49]

"We don't have much time. Let's get her back to the station," Connor said.

*******************************************************************************************

A/N: I don't know why, but sometimes I'm terrible at coming up at chapter titles and I'm always like "why do I use them?" xD Anyways, holy moly thanks for all the support so far in this story, getting lots of PMs and such on it. Thank you for all the responses/faves/follow, etc! By the way, I updated the first 3 chapters to use the thought and analysis thing I came up for Connor to better go along with how it was in the game :3 Thanks for sticking with the story, whoever is still reading xD have a good week everyone <3

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13002717/4/Deviant-Heart

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15393528/chapters/36185613

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jouska-the-deer · 6 years

Text

A Bit Much, Part 2

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Here’s part 2, and part 3 should be posted very soon.

Part 1: Amy helps Shadow decorate his house for Valentine’s Day.

Part 2: Sonic spends the afternoon with Amy.

Part 3: Sonic spends the evening with Shadow.

With a delighted squee, Amy ran up to her door, answering the knock she just heard. She swung the door open, revealing Sonic standing on the other side.

Before any conversation was made, Sonic got a look at Amy’s outfit for the day. She wore a long frilly red dress with matching high heels, a red headband similar to her usual one only this one was decorated with fake roses, and long white gloves instead of her usual short ones.

“Woah. You look really good.”

“Thank you!”

Sonic blushed, handing her a bouquet of handpicked flowers and a heart-shaped box of chocolates.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Amy.”

“Thank you so much! And, Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Sonic.”

They leaned down, sharing a brief kiss before Amy stepped back into her house.

“One moment. I have to put these down and grab something.”

“No problem.”

With that, Amy rushed into her house, arriving back in seconds. She expectantly held a card out for Sonic to grab, her heart racing as he took it from her.

“I made it myself- well, I bought a blank card and decorated it- but still. I hope you love it!”

Just glancing at the card showed the time and effort that went into making it look beautiful. The most noticeable thing on the front was the huge red heart in the center, with golden colored cursive spelling out “Happy Valentine’s Day, Sonic”. Looking a little closer revealed all the small details in the background, including a bunch of little hearts and roses drawn in patterns that made up larger hearts. Intricate patterns of hearts made up the edges of the card, giving it an almost professional feel.

As Sonic opened the card, he noticed that the pattern of hearts around the border of the card were the same on the inside. There wasn’t a bunch of hearts and roses drawn in the background though. Instead, there was a neatly written poem spanning both sides of the card interior. Sonic began to read it, knowing that Amy definitely worked hard on it and wanted him to.

Thank you for the unending love

You make me feel each day

Even if you’re not next to me

I feel it anyway

The past was often filled with me

Trying to be your bride

You never could evade my hugs

No matter how you tried

Today I know it was unkind

To stick to you like glue

But after decent time and space

You let me close to you

And then before I knew

You came to love me too

Sonic couldn’t help but blush bright red as he read the poem. He was only halfway through it, and he could already feel his heart pounding.

Thank you for all the time you spent

Making my life so fun

The adventures you’ve given me

Beat any vacation

There were some days I doubted that

You’d come back in one piece

As time passed and we got closer

Those worries didn’t cease.

But here you are still by my side

Despite all that you fight

Smiling the way you always do

Ridding me of most fright

Each day and every night

Keeping my spirits bright

Helping me feel alright

When Sonic looked up from the card, he noticed Amy blushing as well. She was looking away bashfully, but once she glanced at Sonic and saw he was done reading, she gave him a hopeful smile.

“Do you… like it?”

Sonic returned the smile.

“I loved it.” He stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Amy and pulling her into a hug. “And, I love you.”

Amy hugged him back, sighing happily. “I love you too.”

They held each other for a brief moment, enjoying the contact a few more seconds before stepping back.

Sonic glanced down at the poem in his hand again.

“This is even better than the one you wrote last year.”

“I hoped so. I’ve been practicing so that the poems I give you are even better.”

“I can tell.”

“Thank you.”

For a second, Amy giggled happily at the compliment, before jumping at something she was forgetting about.

“Wait! I’ve got stuff for us to do today!” Immediately, Amy grabbed Sonic’s free can and began pulling him somewhere. “Come on!”

Sonic chuckled, putting the card safely into his hammerspace.

“I’ve got a better idea.” With one quick movement, Sonic scooped Amy into his arms and held her bridal style. “Just tell me where to go and we’ll get there in no time.”

Blushing deeply, it took Amy a moment before she could reply.

“O-Okay.”

“This is it. Just stop over there.”

Sonic slowed to a halt in front of a pleasant little cafe that appeared well decorated for the holiday. Valentine’s Day balloons were tied to the outdoor tables and chairs, and each table had a bouquet of fake roses in the center. Carefully, Sonic set Amy down.

“This place looks pretty nice,” Sonic commented.

“Yep! Perfect for a romantic date with the person you love~”

Once again, Sonic couldn’t help but blush, scratching his quills as Amy lead him forward. Quickly, Sonic jogged in front of her, holding the door open.

“Aww. Thank you.”

“No problem, Amy.”

It wasn’t long before they were seated at a table for two near the front windows, with each of them ordering a drink before their waiter walked off to help the other customers.

The meals they each had were well presented and tasted nice, well worth the small amount of time they had to wait for their food to be finished. While they were eating, Sonic couldn’t help but notice how Amy kept looking at him dreamily, but he didn’t appear to mind. He continued to eat his food happily while Amy did the same.

Wit their meals now finished, Amy nervously looked at Sonic.

“Hey, Sonic?”

“Yeah?”

She looked away, her cheeks turning bright red.

“Um, would you like to…” After a few breaths, she forced herself to look at him. “...Share a milkshake with me?”

Sonic blushed just as hard, clearing his throat as his heart raced.

“Well, uh, okay- I mean, sure- I mean, I’d be cool with it. Uh, yeah.”

Amy squeed loudly in excitement before covering her mouth, letting out a more contained giggle of joy after. Sonic smiled as Amy grabbed the dessert menu.

When the milkshake was finally delivered to the table, it was about what Sonic was expecting when he heard Amy order the “Endless Love, Valentine’s Day Milkshake Special.” It was definitely a strawberry flavored shake, and he could see chocolate stripes running down the sides of the glass it came in. The milkshake was topped with plenty of whipped cream, and covered in tiny heart-shaped sprinkles. Two straws were sticking out of the top, one facing Sonic and the other facing Amy.

Amy leaned in to sip the milkshake, giving Sonic a look that told him she really wanted him to do so as well. He too leaned forward, taking a sip of the shake as she did.

For a brief moment, Sonic thought about how good the milkshake actually tasted, before his nose bumped into Amy’s and he was pulled out of his thoughts. They both blushed. Amy backed up and looked away while Sonic sat up rigidly in his chair. Sonic then noticed Amy starting to giggle, facing him after a moment.

“I love you.”

Sonic relaxed a little bit, giving Amy a smile.

“I love you too.”

A short moment later, they both went back to sipping the milkshake together. Their noses touched for a second time, but only Amy backed away that time. She smiled bashfully with her lips hovering near the staw, her eyes drifting away. Her attention was caught when Sonic leaned forward more, purposely bumping his nose against hers. Amy couldn’t help but giggle, nuzzling her nose against Sonic’s. Shortly after, he nuzzled back, causing Amy to feel even happier. They continued to share their milkshake.

Sonic set Amy down again, looking up at the building she led him to.

“A movie theater, huh? So, what’re we seeing?”

Both him and Amy began walking in.

“The Violet Nightgown. It’s a captivating love story about an adventurous pilot who crash lands in a small farm town after getting caught in a dangerous storm. As she repairs her plane, she falls in love with a beautiful farmer who warns her of a curse on the town. Everyone who stays there for more than a week is forced to stay there forever. As her days there get closer to seven, she’s forced to choose between staying with the woman she’s grown to love, or flying away and continuing her life of adventure.”

Sonic smirked. “It sounds like you’re quoting the trailer or something.”

They both stopped at the ticket counter.

“That’s because I am.” Amy then turned to the person behind the counter. “Two for The Violet Nightgown, please.”

Once they got their tickets, food, and beverages, they walked into the theatre and found a good place to sit. It was a good thing that they managed to arrive pretty early because it wasn’t long before many other couples walked into the theater as well. After sitting through a seemingly endless barrage of commercials and trailers, the movie finally started.

Not too long into watching the movie, Sonic noticed that he kinda related to the protagonist, a thin white snowshoe hare named Cirrus. She was cool, adventurous, and loved flying around in her plane. It didn’t have a cool name like ‘The Tornado’ or anything, but that didn’t really matter too much. He watched the opening shot of her flying through the air enjoying the wind, until a weird storm starts and a bolt of lightning hits her plane, causing it to crash into a farm town. A little bit later, a strong yellow silkie chicken helps her out of the wreckage, introducing herself as Fennel and asking Cirrus if she was alright. The look they gave each other made it very obvious that they were already falling in love, and Sonic reacted by awkwardly looking away from the cheesy moment of them staring into each other's eyes. He glanced at Amy, who seemed to be eating the moment up. Slowly, Sonic turned his attention back to the screen.

A bit further into the movie, Cirrus was walking around outside at night, despite the warnings that Fennel gave to her earlier. She was investigating some weird noises she heard and saw a bunch of ghosts roaming around the town. Cirrus then noticed one ghost that looked a little different from the others. Instead of a mostly featureless ghost, it was clearly the ghost of a middle-aged mouse woman who wore a violet nightgown. Sonic figured she must be important to the story if what she was wearing was the title of the movie. The ghost ended up chasing after Cirrus, but she managed to escape and run into Fennel’s house where she was staying. This led Fennel romantically comforting Cirrus, which made Sonic awkwardly look away again. Amy still appeared to be enjoying the movie though, which made Sonic smile.

An idea then popped into his head. Slowly, he wrapped his arm around Amy’s shoulders, briefly getting her attention. Despite the low light, Sonic could tell Amy was blushing, but the smile she wore showed him how happy she was about the situation. She leaned against him, letting out a sigh of content as they continued to watch the movie.

Sonic could feel the end of the movie getting closer. Cirrus and Fennel were speaking to an old townsperson, who was telling the story about the woman in the violet nightgown. It turns out that her name was Alison, and she lived in the town before the curse was cast. She was childhood friends with the mayor’s son, a red rooster named Rhubarb, until he left the town in his adulthood to follow his dreams. Alison would have followed Rhubarb, but she had children she had to take care of in the town. Many years later after her children grew up, he came back to spend some time with his father, also spending time with Alison again. At the end of the week though, Alison learned he’d only be there a week and chased after him on the last day at night still in her nightgown. She was too late and he was already way out of town. The old townsperson then said that everyone suspects she cursed the town, because, after that, she screamed about not letting anyone else leave and locked herself in her basement, never to be seen alive again. After hearing that, Fennel informed Cirrus that she knows where Alison’s old house is, and Cirrus says they should check it out. It was very obvious that Sonic was more invested, as he was listening more carefully to what was going on.

A catchy pop song played as the credits rolled, prompting everyone to get out of their seats. As Amy and Sonic walked out of the theater, Amy started a conversation.

“So, what did you think?”

“I thought it was pretty good. How about you?”

“I loved it! You could really feel how much Cirrus and Fennel loved each other throughout the entire movie!”

“Uh… yeah…”

“What was your favorite part?”

Sonic took a brief second to think about it.

“Probably the part where Fennel breaks down the basement door to get to Alison.”

“Really? I think my favorite part was when Cirrus took Fennel on the plane ride out of town at the end. It was so romantic!”

Sonic and Amy threw their empty drinks and food containers in the trash and stepped out of the theater. They both stopped just outside the theater out of the way of the entry doors. An idea came to Sonic as he thought about what Amy said.

“Hmm… How would you like it if I took you for a ride in the Tornado?” Sonic looked off into the distance while thinking out loud. “It’s at Tails’ place right now so we’d have to pick it up, and we wouldn’t have too much time in the air before I’d have to land and bring you home so I can go off to Shadow’s place… uh…”

He glanced back at Amy, her eyes shimmering with excitement and smile one of the brightest he’s ever seen. “So… is that a ‘yes’?”

Amy let out a squeal of delight and rushed toward Sonic, hugging him tightly. Sonic hugged her back with a smile, letting out a small chuckle.

“Alright.” For the third time that day, Sonic scooped her up in his arms. “Let’s go!” He rushed forward, hearing Amy giggle helplessly as he went to pick up the Tornado.

“So how’s this for a romantic Valentine’s Day experience?”

Amy giggled, leaning forward from her seat in the back of the Tornado and giving Sonic a kiss on the cheek.

“It’s perfect.”

“Sweet!”

Sitting back down properly, Amy enjoyed the feeling of the wind blowing through her quills, as did Sonic. He looked around, enjoying the sea of green below him and the sound of air rushing by. He sighed contently, quietly saying to himself, “this is more like it.”

“What?” Amy sounded concerned.

“Huh?”

Sonic jumped, trying to keep his composure in the pilot's seat.

“What did you say?”

“N-Nothing!” Sonic was already terrible at lying, but the thought of making Amy upset at that moment didn’t help.

“It sounded like-”

“It doesn’t matter! Alright?” he interrupted desperately. “Just uh, keep having fun up here.”

“Sonic…”

He let out a whine, knowing that he wasn’t getting out of this.

“It sounded like you said, ‘this is more like it.’ Did you?”

Sonic sighed. “Uh, yeah…”

“So… you didn’t enjoy everything we did today?” There was a clear amount of sadness in her voice.

“No! No. It’s just…” Sonic ears folded back as he hunched down a little in his seat. “I’m just… not really into super romantic stuff…”

“Oh… I just thought that, you know, since you looked all happy while we did romantic stuff together in the past, that you liked it.”

“Well, I like kissing and holding hands and stuff like that, but… romantic movies, poems, and meals… just aren’t really my thing.”

“Oh…”

“Hey uh, I still had fun today. Don’t think that I didn’t.”

“But… how could you? You said you didn’t like that stuff?”

“Well, I don’t really. But, seeing you enjoy yourself, it makes me really happy.”

“Still, you really should’ve told me sooner. I wouldn’t have dragged you into everything if I knew you wouldn’t really like it.”

“Hey, I did like some of it. The poem was sweet, and the food tasted good, and the movie was pretty cool… when it wasn’t being cheesy. I’m glad we did all that stuff. I still had fun, even if I wouldn’t normally like that kind of stuff. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, though.”

“It’s okay.”

“Let’s just enjoy the rest of the time we have together, alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for all the fun today, Amy.”

“It was my pleasure, Sonic. And, thank you for the plane ride.”

“No problem.”

Sonic stood with Amy in the entryway to her house, holding hands with her as they smiled together. Gently, Sonic reached to Amy’s waist as she reached to his back, drawing each other closer until only a small gap was between them. Their eyes drifted shut, slowly leaning forward and closing the gap, letting their lips connect in a soft kiss. Sonic released a soft breath through his nose, melting against Amy’s loving touch and pulling her closer. After their lips parted, they continued to hold each other in a calm embrace, enjoying the last few moments they had together that day.

“You know,” Amy spoke softly, “I wouldn’t mind doing stuff like this next Valentine’s Day.” She sighed contently. “It may not be a huge celebration, but, it’s still really nice.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.”

They gave each other a gentle squeeze before letting go, smiling as their eyes met again.

“See you later.”

“Bye, Sonic.”

With that, Sonic gave Amy one last kiss and ran off to Shadow’s house.

Amy closed the door slowly, hearing it click shut. As she turned around and began walking toward her living room, a weird feeling kept gnawing at her, like she was forgetting something important. She sat down on her couch, trying to figure out what was wrong. The realization hit her like a truck.

“Shadow!”

She immediately got up, pacing around her house in a panic.

“I made him do a bunch of super romantic stuff for Sonic, and neither of them are going to enjoy any of it!”

She quickly pulled out her phone, planning to call Shadow before Sonic got there and rectify the situation. As she got to the contacts page, she remembered something else.

“I FORGOT TO ASK FOR HIS NUMBER AGAIN!”

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