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gust-jar-simulator · 1 year

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Okay this was completely self-indulgent and mostly a challenge to myself. Is it good? Debatably. Was it fun? Yes. Written with the intent of being a masc reader, but honestly you could improvise with any pronouns you please.

My basic premise was “the Chain tried charming their way past a guard and he let Four win because it was funny”. Lightly suggestive, but nothing much happens.

This is my first time writing an x reader so I’m just. Flinging this into the void and running. Enjoy.

•⛰️❄️🐉❄️⛰️•

You weren’t expecting him to follow through.

You’re well aware of how to play along with a good joke, and it was funny watching them try to bribe and connive and flirt their way past you. Even funnier had been the Hero of the Four Sword’s double entendre- all serious eyes and matter-of-fact head tilt, I’d… appreciate your discretion with a hand running just so down his scabbard. The one with the ponytail had wolf-whistled, another snapping it’s not like that obviously.

It was even funnier to nod and stand aside and watch the others get offended about it. Still, it was a bit of fun. You really weren’t there to be a real problem.

But that was then and this was now, and the little hero was leaning next to your barstool with the low lights catching oddly in his eyes.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

You raised a brow slightly, considering him and the pretty cut of his hair, the rough callouses on his hands. “What kind of drink?”

“Whatever you like.” He tipped a glance at your empty mug, feather earring catching with fey iridescence in the grimy tavern fugue, tunic a little too rich but boots rougher than yours. He was almost half your size, with a voice twice as low, and you caught yourself angling to hear him better. “Sorry my friends gave you a rough time on the road.”

Ah, that’s what it was. You shrugged. “It was funny. If I’d been off the clock I would have flirted back, no harm done.”

He flagged down the barkeep anyway, asking for another of whatever you’d ordered and a glass of the local red, passing over the gems for it with something almost challenging in his eye, daring you to argue.

I wonder how much effort it would take to pin him.

You paused, looked the thought in the eye, and quietly set it aside. The fact that the Hero reportedly had the strength of four men was a fun fact, nothing more.

He looked at you like he was seeing the next twelve moves ahead and he was just ordering a drink, there was no need to complicate things. You cleared your throat a little, fidgeted with the handle of your mug, and he watched you do it.

“You… really don’t need to apologize.” The mug was fascinating to look at. You’d faced bears and hinox and worse, but looking at him right now was a little much. “I-“

“I understand,” he interrupted smoothly, “but I’m not.”

“Oh?”

He grinned back, just the edge of a smirk as the barkeep brought the drinks over, tilting his chin up in a way that made his teeth flash as he passed your drink closer. “Take it as gratitude, if you want. I did say I’d appreciate your discretion.”

“Is that what you’re appreciating right now?” You took the drink, let your own sword-calloused fingers brush past his and watched the clockwork tick of his mind register how much taller you really were. Not Gerudo-tall, but definitely something. The tattoos around your neck ached with the force of folding you in, keeping you safe to handle, but the hero did a double-take when he caught your eyes and leaned in like a moth to flame. You grinned, let the lamplight catch on fangs, and checked him out right back. “My discretion?”

“I. Maybe.” Watching him get distracted was really, really cute actually, particularly because he didn’t look nervous. He looked at you, broad-shouldered and tattooed with binding runes, fanged and scarred, and you quite literally felt the climbing enchantment on his ring flare briefly.

You grinned, and settled in to lean against the bar while his eyes got stuck on your lips. “You can sit down, you know. Or do you need an invitation?” You let your voice dip on it, a touch of suggestion, and watched him very nearly scramble up onto the barstool like someone snapping out of hypnosis. You managed to rein the laughter in to a small huff, but it was hard with him blushing that brightly, taking a drink from his wineglass less for pleasure and more to cover his fluster. Did he not get flirted with, much?

He tucked his hair behind an ear, sharp and functional and slightly pink, head tilting with a flash of pale throat. “I don’t believe we caught your name? My friends call me Four.”

You tipped your mug at him in a half-toast, and gave him yours, letting him stare as you took a drink of your own with a satisfied hum. Glancing back at him at the tail end of a long swallow showed his eyes blown black, mouth a little open as he stared, and it took a very gratifying moment for him to hide it again as you thunked your empty mug to the bar, waving off a refill.

“You…” He took a flustered swallow of his own, fingers twitching against the bar, and had a couple of false starts before finally finding words. “Do you come here often?”

You were tempted to return fire, ask if he came here often when you knew he didn’t, but it wouldn’t get either of you anywhere. So you raised a brow at him instead, let your voice rumble in your chest like dragons’ smoke. “Is that really what you want to ask me, Four?”

“…no. No, it isn’t.” He took half a moment, thinking, something in the set of his shoulders and the lay of his hands becoming more settled, looking into the middle distance. There was a very subtle sigh, and a nod, before he turned back to you with eyes like gleaming emerald. “Are you staying here?”

“At the inn? No.” You didn’t do this kind of thing often, but you had a suspicion that inviting him back to your place might not be the right move. Not with a group of friends like that. So you eyed the door a moment, and then the short hero in the barstool next to you. “But if you are, I can cover the room.”

He licked his lip briefly like someone parched for water, and nodded. “I am. It’d be a shame to pay for a room you don’t sleep in, though.”

That got a laugh out of you, low and rolling like storm clouds, and when you slid out of the bar stool you watched him map out exactly how tall you are again, boots to bracers to the sharp want in your eyes. “With someone as handsome as you inviting me up, I’ve never been more awake in my life.” A teasing smirk, and he answered with an expression like a man starved, a little overwhelmed but not complaining either. Twelve moves ahead, ticking like clockwork behind jewel-bright eyes. “I guess you’ll have to find a way to tire me out.”

He tried to speak. It came out more like an inarticulate noise, and you turned to track down the innkeeper with a quiet grin.

#x reader #lu four #my writing

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tovaicas · 1 year

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@vexatious-knight sure, I can get into it! I know I make it seem like I utterly hated HW in those last few points but I actually don’t, it’s one of my fav expacs. it’s mostly just that I like to bitch abt the weaker parts of things I like bc constructive criticism is love and the finest form of flattery to me.

details under the cut. this is gonna be real long lol I’m sorry

ARR: full warning, I did ARR in a complete state of ‘near mental breakdown from uni stress’ kinda fugue, combined with me being more focused on Learning The Game than paying close attention to the writing (as it goes with the early stages of a new video game), so my initial memories of ARR are a lil’ hazy. regardless I’m in the camp that it Wasn’t That Bad, and knowing the backstory behind its existence makes it easier for me to forgive a lot of it’s flaws. it’s slow and a little poorly paced and very long (and the scions have little character, and the less that’s said abt their voice acting the better, tho I miss some ARR voices like ARR-ysayle, misgardsormr, and merlwyb), but it’s otherwise a fine introduction to the game. I disagree with the fandom optic of ‘skip ARR you don’t need it!’ and how people act like it’s the worst content in the game, bc ARR sets up at least some of the basics for what happens down the line, and again I don’t think it’s that bad. it’s definitely not winning any narrative awards, but it’s serviceable (esp. for smth cooked up quickly after the near-demise of a previous game version).

HW: so far competing w/ ShB for my fav expac. something to note is that I’m a writer, not a game designer, so some of my criticisms are petty just because I theoretically have the time and ability to expand as much as I want on the things I feel could’ve been done better, because I do. I understand that sometimes game design and MMO writing is just Like That bc of time and scope restraints. okay.

I generally really enjoyed HW - though I think it had a couple of missteps, it generally kept a tight narrative and kept sight of its themes. Ishgard is still my favourite setting (bc who doesn’t like rubbernecking a dumpster fire) and I like how it flipped a lot of character genres on their heads (estinien is the broody dark character but he explicitly isn’t an asshole, he’s just traumatized; aymeric is the cool collected golden boy but displays an impulsivity (that gets someone he respects killed) that you’d more expect out of someone like estinien; ysayle is almost sisterly in how much she cares for other people, and instead of being the violent cult leader you initially knew her as she’s literally the matron for a group of outcasts abandoned and harmed by the system). I like how uncertain it initially feels, I enjoy the couple of moments where the wol starts feeling less like a player avatar and more like a realized person by having character reactions and traumas (they’re utterly devastated by haurchefant’s death, and are shown to be explicitly traumatized and worn down), it does a good job of not sugarcoating how much of a hellhole ishgard is, and for the most part it does a fairly good job of having people like aymeric recognize they’re complicit in why their country is this way and making real meaningful steps to change it. I liked the revelations abt what was really going on w/ the dragonsong war.

also i’m native, so seeing a catholic church analogue get thoroughly dunked on, acknowledge, and make actual steps towards reparations (while acknowledging that an apology requires actual action and not just words) for a crime they committed is a little bit more personal to me than it might be for some others.

as for things I think were weaker....I’ve mentioned a few of them before. like I said a few times I think estinien was an exceptionally flat character and that the reveal could’ve been so much better had he been allowed to have a modicum of growth and agency and actually been made to grapple with the reality of the situation and what it means for him and his sense of self. HW has a weird fixation on humbling ysayle (ravana, focusing on how ‘wrong’ she was during its most important scene despite the fact her not knowing makes little sense bc vidofnir) and the reveal + her completely unnecessary death makes it harder to enjoy for me. speaking of, I find the fact that after she dies the heretics are completely forgotten abt to be a particularly big fumble, bc the entire reason they even exist is a huge portion of HW’s message (they’re not all evil fanatic dragonfuckers, many (if not most) of the heretics are otherwise normal people who have been harmed by the system often through no fault of their own, ex. heustienne as shown if you did HW DRG quests, and will be killed if they go back to Ishgard), so it’s a little strange to me that their voices and plights are quietly dropped as soon as they can when they really should be some of the loudest, as should brume residents. another sore spot for me personally (that I’ve mentioned) is that neither aymeric nor the game wants to acknowledge the awkward truth that aymeric, as leader of the temple knights, is directly complicit in their many (not secret at all) crimes and how his failure to control them reflects back on him as lord commander. that he can’t seem to reconcile with this and blames everything on his father is a fun character flaw, but I’d like to see it more acknowledged (both canon and fandomwise) that aymeric fails in some pretty important ways and makes some weird decisions (like restoration-era ishgard still has the inquisitors. aymeric. you kept the fucking heresy police?). I’d like to see his characterization of ‘perfect golden boy’ to be challenged more often, but I’m not gonna hold my breath lol.

StB: oh boy. as you probably know, stb is obviously (so far) the weakest expac in terms of writing - it fails in a lot of ways, sometimes to the point things actually get offensive. what I liked abt it was mostly mechanical. a lot of it’s fights were really fun, and stb is abt the point (other than fights like nidhogg) where the game starts upping the ante on mechanic difficulty across the board and starts taking the training wheels off (just a little), and I think a lot of its maps were nicely designed and are nice to look at. omega was a fun raid storyline, and I also liked little details, like how this expac’s ‘beast tribes’ are treated as equals in contrast to the uld’ahn assertion that eorzean ones are violent savages that need to be monitored and put down when they get too uppity (this is why I have very mixed feelings on the scions as an organization, but that’s for a separate post).

narrative-wise tho.....stb is a mess. it’s the classic case of biting off more than it could chew, bc it tries to do two storylines at once and fails at this hard; the ala mhigan sections are too short and underwritten across the board, and they spend too much time faffing abt just getting to Doma that that section feels too short as well. shinryu is a massive sore spot; a bahamut+ level primal is born, disappears, and just.....is never mentioned again except at the very end, where you had no buildup or way to predict this happening. I spent literally the entire expac wondering when people were gonna worry abt shinryu on the loose potentially causing another dalamud situation at any moment. things that are super interesting and have a lot of implications, like zenos’ (fake! manufactured!) echo, which is hydaelyn’s power, giving him the ability to body hop (which is in all previous appearances something only granted by or exclusive to ascians) is inherently interesting and a good segue into the shb revelations but it’s literally never brought up again.

I also didn’t really enjoy it character-wise; papalymo and lyse have absolutely no depth or development in ARR or HW so his death is utterly wasted and the reveal that yda is a fake persona has literally no punch (haha) to it bc yda had no character beyond comic relief in ARR anyway. lyse unfortunately never gets out from under the shadow of her comic relief designation, and due to pacing issues her arc is anemic as fuck (she never really grows and keeps asking the same questions over and over) and never actually materializes into what the devs wanted it to be; lyse as resistance leader was a point that was never going to work as-written, and that’s before the colourism issue comes into play. I don’t think she’s necessarily an awful character, but she was definitely mishandled.

I’m not going to talk abt hien or gosetsu here. know that I absolutely despise them, hien especially, for a lot of reasons. but if I get into these reasons I’ll write a 5k word essay on just that so I’ll spare you the pain and save it for a different post. but hien makes me angry as a character so. yugiri is the best character here by process of elimination, fight me.

yotsuyu’s arc is unsurprisingly a mess, and the post-patches fail to actually engage with it bc her main deal is that she’s been horrifically mistreated, especially by men, her entire life, and the entirety of the post-patches are hien treating her like an object to traded around and gosetsu making funney ‘jokes’ abt women. it’s awful. note that I’m not excusing her actions - yotsuyu is an awful person who’s done awful shit, and the inherent moral dilemma of how to handle her crimes as tsuyu is an interesting beat - but everything abt her is mishandled and so...egregious that at times it almost feels exploitative. it makes me wonder that as written if she’d been better off literally just being an awful person because she’s an awful person, and not awful bc she’s a sexual assault survivor (which, I want to stress, this is not the first time this game has made the implication that women who are sexually assaulted are just morally broken afterwards (the first was eline roaille) which is quite the stance to take). all in all I think stb is just across the board unsatisfying and is just a complete mess of an expac. fun fights, tho!

ShB: this is as far as I’ve gone and I’ve not started post-patches yet, so I’ll only be talking abt base ShB. like I think I mentioned right after finishing - I liked it! I think it did a good job of keeping to a tight narrative, and one of it’s bigger strengths is that none of its zones overstay their welcome (like. cough cough. ruby sea. cough cough). other than a couple areas I think it did a genuinely good job of telling what it wanted to tell, and it’s competing w/ HW for my favourite of the bunch.

it’s maps are super pretty (lakeland has some of my favourite bgm so far), it’s fights are fun as hell, and the lightwarden narrative is genuinely gripping. I really enjoyed the bleaker, more dark fantasy tone starting out, I enjoyed how it didn’t pull its punches regarding how ever-present and how...inevitable the sin eaters feel as a threat (it reminds me of ishgard somewhat, in that way). after an entire expac of feeling like a weapon and almost background character just here to solve problems through violence, shb’s narrative of the scions actually (finally) coming to care about your wellbeing as a person as you’re literally dying for the world and working as a team and the MMO player tendency to just follow quest objectives being somewhat used against you as it’s your ‘but thou must’ violence that ends up nearly killing you is a nice subtle meta thing. the worldbuilding for the first feels fairly grounded (by final fantasy standards) and I don’t really have any issues with it. I wasn’t expecting to like the emet-selch arc at the end but I actually really did, I feel they delivered on that front.

eulmore is my biggest sore spot for this expac, bc I think that while their viewpoint re: the end of the world is interesting I don’t think they’re used well. I get that their existence is to highlight the forces keeping norvrandt divided, but just...hm. I didn’t find them super compelling or dangerous as a threat. you really get the sense that without ran’jiit these guys are just hilariously incompetent. and though I’m not going to talk abt it, it’s not my place, eulmore is fatphobic as fuck.

speaking of ran’jiit, he’s obviously the weakest part of the whole show. I find him to be an utter waste of a character, especially once you consider his hook is kinda interesting in its own right; he’s the only eulmoran we see to be in it and loyal to vauthry for reasons that don’t appear to be selfish, but we never actually learn what these reasons are. nothing abt him is explained (he has a dragon? how are there dragons on the first when dragons in this universe are space aliens deposited on the source? he can fuse with it? how? the only other time we see draconic transformations is in ishgardians bc of ratatoskr’s latent aether. is this a real dragon or just smth shaped like one? what is it? we never see any other creature that looks even similar (the closest is alte roite in omega raids). how is he so strong?), and what little character he does have is often ignored if it’s in the wol’s favour (this is a man who kicks y’shtola and his own man off the side of a bottomless pit, but for some inexplicable reason fails to do the same to the wol, his greatest enemy, when they’re distracted by it). his unwinnable fight schtick is not only old at this point but it’s infuriating - I can forgive zeno’s scripted fights bc it’s reiterated over and over again that he’s not exactly normal when it comes to his combat prowess, and the first go around is shocking in its own right bc it’s the first time you’ve lost a fight soundly, not through any trickery or magic or anything. He’s legitimately just stronger than you. ran’jiit just shows up. wrecks your shit. the exarch gives a weak ‘oh no, ran’jiit!’ as explanation. nothing else is ever explained. he’s just this inexplicably strong dude following you around as an unnecessary motivator to kill lightwardens faster, that’s it. it’s a disappointment in an otherwise strong expac. ryne is however my baby.

I’m not entirely sure on how to feel abt the exarch/g’raha rn, that will probably depend on how the post-patches handle him. know that I intensely disliked him for much of shb, bc I read his actions as deeply horrifically manipulative and genuinely thought he was going the be the main villain he was so fuckin shady. no I don’t really care he was doing it for a good cause, he still forced the wol into a war he knew could kill them without giving them full information abt the consequences and held their friends as ransom and only told them the barest of information after they were already in the shits (holminster). so we’ll see how it goes.

my other quibbles are pettier, and are more the result of time/mmo constraints. like I said once, I’d have liked the lightwarden corruption to be more obviously present (as the game pointedly goes out of its way right at the start to show you exactly what being mid-change looks like) and for maybe at least one more containment failure scare in the tempest to really hammer home how little time you have left (was genuinely surprised there wasn’t one) but that’s easy as fuck to fix in writing when you have unlimited scope.

tl;dr: it’s not that I hate what happened in HW, it’s that I think that while it’s an overall good scene a lot of it’s potential was wasted by a failure to give certain people (estinien) agency or depth (despite the fact he has massive stakes in them), and focuses on the wrong aspect bc it wants to laugh at a woman being wrong instead of the big picture. I think that all of the expacs have their fumble points, and I think these deserve to be talked abt critically. I otherwise really enjoy and even love HW/ShB.

StB is however an entire trip into a minecraft canyon of an expac. I don’t think it’s irredeemably awful, but you can definitely feel the writing issues. the less I say abt hien the better.

#spoilers #major spoilers #long post #these are kinda just my general thoughts. if you have specific questions on what I thought abt specific areas or plot beats #or characters or whatever feel free to throw them at me #all in all I think each expac has it's ups and downs bc that's kinda just how it goes #I think shb/hw manage to deliver pretty well on their narratives while stb utterly biffs it.#like I said I know I make it seem like I utterly hate the content. that it's deeply flawed bc I just bitch a ton but I *really* don't #I'm just a writer who's love language re:media is ripping it the fuck apart bc I like seeing how it ticks.#when it comes to media made by huge companies at least.#saint.txt

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quirkwizard · 1 year

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I know that this is not your usual request, so I apologize if this does not interest you as it normally would. This question also includes a character from a different fandom, so if you have not seen that show then you do not have to answer, I would rather you answer if you are familiar with the show, but if you are interested the show is called Arcane and its on Netflix. I currently have an idea for writing a story where Jinx is with the LOV and I am trying to decide on a quirk for her.

My leading thought right now is a quirk called Cancel, where transformation and emitter quirks have no effect on the user and only a mutation quirks work, but I didn't know if I should make a quirk based around her character instead. Another thought I had was that she could be quirkless, since she is known for inventing her own weapons she could just fight with them, and one last minor thought I had was that she could have a quirk based on Act 3 of the show.

She is given a substance called Shimmer which gives her heightened senses, strength but she is a lot more unstable. I am sorry that this is long, but I tried to give you multiple options to work with since I am really stuck. Hope you are having a great day/night wherever you are and remember to eat and sleep well :).

This is an odd request, but it's not too far out of left field that I can't talk about it.

Let me start this by saying that the idea of "Cancel" could not work. Besides being overpowered, rending the user totally immune from a majority of Quirks are no real risk or cost, I fail to see how it really works with the character. I don't believe that anything inspired by Shimmer works that well either since that doesn't really fit with the character's abilities or skills. It's basically a one off ability for how little it's used. That being said, there is a lot of other options you could do for the character. You could simply make her Quirkless. She's know to be a tinkerer and what she makes isn't that far off from what Mei makes. If you want inspiration for a power, aside from the whole game the series is based around that you could pull from or the various other skills she has shown through out the series, there are her various weapons that you could base a Quirk around. And if you want to make it more varied, you could to fit them under one Quirk or take aspects from the game. The best option is to make a Quirk centered around tinkering as that is the most defining ability in the series. "Makeshift" is basically perfect for this for her, going into fugue states to build up random junk into dangerous tools.

#My Hero Academia #Quirks #Quirk Reviews

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cytocutie · 1 year

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tagged by @chiropteracupola :)

last song: Washing Machine Heart, Mitski... i think the melody would make a good thesis for a fugue so i was transcribing the basic harmonization. we'll see how far this project goes lol.

currently watching: finally got my parents to watch atla with me (interestingly, what finally convinced my dad was not my recommendation, but graham's) (from high school), and we're progressing through it at an alarming rate. ALSO s2 of strange new worlds is HERE and im so love it

currently reading: House of Leaves. it's, pretentious, which in this case is not a judgement but an observation: the book is like 70% pretense by volume. i mean the actual story about the house is wrapped in at least 5 layers of framing device. i'm currently in the middle of a chapter of academic commentary on some UC Berkeley professor's paper on Ovid's telling of the Echo and Narcissus myth. so for those playing along at home we're talking about the words of a man in the voice of a nymph in a poem in a dissertation in a literature review in a manuscript in a... whatever's going on with that guy in a fake novel in a real novel. it's great

current obsession: the phenomenon of fictional characters who are "just like their dad but a girl". it's a whole gender of its own and i've just been circling it like a museum display. i want to collect more examples of these. if i had any reach on this internet i would make a tournament, but, well. anyway if you guys can think of any instances please share them with me :) i won't see your messages because my blog is still messed up, but i'm sure they'll turn up eventually

i apologize for the redundancy but i'll also tag @what-even-is-sleep ✌️ thank you Em for the excuse to ramble

#mine

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pushovermediacritic · 2 months

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Fantasia Short Rankings

Here's my ranking of all the shorts in both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, from best to worst. And I apologize, but I will be ranking these almost entirely based on the animation and how the music pairs with it. The songs are classical pieces, so there's no reason to rate one higher or lower based on just how much I like the song itself, it's not like Disney made them.

Firebird Suite (forest sprite vs volcano bird). Absurdly gorgeous animation, cute character dynamics despite only having 3 characters, and a really nice character arc of curiosity, fear, trauma, hope, and rebirth that perfectly demonstrates a real scientific phenomenon (life springing back after an eruption) is a beautiful manner.

Rhapsody in Blue (people in city). I love this short. It probably has the best music-to-animation synching out of any Fantasia short. This is one of the few Fantasia shorts where I can't imagine the song without this animation put to it. The animation style is fantastic, the four interweaving stories are great, and the overall tone is sympathetic and fun. My only gripe is John's wife getting way too harsh of an ending.

Pomp and Circumstance (Donald Duck Noah's Ark). The classic Noah's ark story with a different classic "two lovers separate and think the other's dead, just barely missing each other constantly" comedic set-up. I think this short is great, with gorgeous animal animation and great comedic timing. I think this short is better than The Sorcerer's Apprentice, though just by a hair.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Mickey the magic novice). I think Mickey's short is the best of the original Fantasia, but it doesn't hit the same highs of 2000. It has a really fun story, with lots of extremely iconic scenes and segments. There's a reason it's the only short that got remade into a full movie and even included in 2000.

Pines of Rome (flying whales). As nonsensical as they are, I like the flying whales, I'm a defender of this one. The CGI works better here than in The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and the use of light, ice refraction, and water is really pretty. And I don't mind the simple story, with the baby whale getting separated from its parents. The final sequence is beautiful.

Dance of the Hours (ballet of ostriches, hippos, elephants, and alligators). It's always funny to me that this is one of the more iconic Fantasia shorts. After Yen Sid and Chernabog, Hyacinch Hippo seems to be the most iconic Fantasia-original character. This is also one of the few genuinely hilarious Fantasia shorts. Even if half the jokes are fat jokes, they're usually fat jokes on the alligators being out of their depth as predators trying to hunt hippos and elephants, not on the hippos and elephants, who are as nimble and graceful as ballerinas should be. And the dancing is really creative and energetic.

Symphony No. 5 (light butterflies vs dark bats). Pretty basic "good vs evil" story, with abstract shapes to introduce the animation to music concept, similar to Toccata and Fugue in the original Fantasia. Except this short is much better than Toccata and Fugue because it actually has characters and a plot.

Night on Bald Mountain (demons and monks). As cool as the demons are, the entire second half with the monks really drags it down. That's probably just a me thing, though. As a Jew, anything Christian is just super annoying. I totally understand other people rating it much higher.

The Rite of Spring (dinosaurs). I liked this one as a kid, but nowadays, the inaccuracies in the dinosaur portrayals are too infuriating to ignore. The beginning with the world forming was longer than I remember, and the water animation here is really nice.

Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102 (The Steadfast Tin Soldier). Well, it sure is "Disney's 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier'", complete with a changed happy ending. Obviously it was inspired by Toy Story, but it doesn't really get across the same feeling. Not bad, just kind of mediocre.

The Nutcracker Suite. (flora, fauna, and fairies dance the changing of the seasons). This short always reminds me of Little April Showers from Bambi. Would rank better, except there's quite a bit of racism. Between the Chinese mushrooms, Arabian fish, and Russian flowers, literally half the short (3/6 segments) is stereotypes. Not sure why Disney isn't more ashamed of this short, since they censored The Pastoral Symphony.

The Pastoral Symphony (greek centaur party). Racism issue. Even in the censored version, there's still some racism left like the black zebra centaurs who carry Bacchus in and then don't get to participate in the party. The story is also lame and doesn't really amount to anything. They were gonna have a match-making centaur party, but then Zeus crashed it. That's it.

The Carnival of the Animals, Finale (flamingo with a yo-yo). Cute, but really underwhelming. Decent music synch, but it's just forgettable. Doesn't help that the flamingo is actually annoying to the audience.

Meet the Soundtrack (a white line). Boring. More interesting and humorous than Toccata and Fugue, but still lame.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (abstract lines and shapes). The first short of the first Fantasia sucks. I thought it was boring as a kid, I think it's boring now. I guess it's okay as an introduction to the concept, but I don't really think "animation set to music" was such a revolutionary idea that it needed an introduction, even in 1940.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Reprise). Sorry, but I legitimately hate that they just repeated Mickey's short again in Fantasia 2000, with no changes. Complete waste of time.

#fantasia #fantasia 1940 #fantasia 2000

0 notes

jaynovz · 11 months

Note

copying my reply verbatim to do the thing Properly:

hello public use silver 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

I decided to answer the first one and just tag the others who asked heheh 😂 @hms-tardimpala @etoilesombre

So a very long time ago, in 2021, I was sort of batting ideas around with various folks about ship's whore of the Walrus John Silver instead of ship's cook. As in, to make up for stealing the page he would be thrown into the fuck tent because he can't cook anyway and he can't sail so what good is he ahem, except for certain things? And historically sailors were all very gay about getting needs met while at sea ESPECIALLY using pretty little boys like John Silver bc uh. Look at him?

Around that same time then I read a hazing fic by @asterofthevoid which was particularly inspiring and I wrote a lot of notes down in my concept doc but then went on to other projects for a while.

And so anyway I was starting to think about it again recently and about how no one even made any crass remarks about fucking him and that's not very historically accurate, is it? Like even if they didn't actually go through with it, sailors are pretty vulgar and need to blow off steam by making ribald jokes which is a thing they do all the time in other representations of this period and they would ABSOLUTELY make mention of how pretty Silver was it's frankly NOTICEABLY ODD how Black Sails avoids it.

Anyway all that to say I started drafting a Silver messes up with the pig during careening ep somewhat alt canon where they don't immediately go after the Andromache and the crew are Done with his shit and want a piece of his ass to soothe their tempers. And so instead of having it forced he sets it up all snakey scheming but still very dub con.

All of this is of course a setup to make Flint very possessive and have weird feelings about it and then a funneled into a borderline fetish hurt/comfort with its own FASCINATING powerplay/power imbalance sort of scenario after the actual public use Silver part comes in with the entire Walrus crew.

Some prelim dialogue notes for your viewing pleasure --

(Silver gathering the crew in the galley, addressing them very 2.2 style, dramatic, flourish-y, sultry, showman) "I humbly apologize for joining under false pretenses. And I wish to make it up to you. All of you. By offering myself as a gift as apology for leaving you unsatisfied in your suppers. But I will improve and in the meantime I guarantee full satisfaction for every man in this ahem, particular endeavor." -- (Flint reaction during the act, hissing at Gates) "You have to stop this, it cannot be allowed to continue." (Gates eyeing Silver and the crew publicly fucking him, all cheering etc, with calculating expression, then makes a face, shrug) "Nah, the lad is right, Captain. It would have happened one way or another. Pretty little thing like that on this ship? He's a good lad, good that he knows it. Look at him, it's like he was made to take it." "If I were a few years younger I'd give him a go myself." (ironic chuckle, completely unfazed by this) "It'll keep the crew happy, even more so that he's doing it willingly. Unless you're keeping him all to yourself, might as well let it play out." (Flint turns to Billy with wordless rage/frustration but he agrees) (Billy distasteful expression but resigned) "Hate to admit it Captain, but they've been restless since the disastrous careening. It'll stay another mutiny attempt."

Anyway!! this will probably get written in a fugue state one weekend (because I'm finding it very hard to write things during the week when I'm working.) But I have basically the whole thing outlined so it'll just burst out of me like a flood of... Well. 👀

Thanks all three of you for asking!!

#hms-tardimpala #etoilesombre #lichfucker #thoughts #ask game #John Silver #my writing #black sails #long post #dubcon #cw dubcon

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pesterloglog · 8 months

Text

Rose Lalonde, Dirk Strider

Meat, page 16

ROSE: When I was a child, I wrote a novel.

DIRK: Another one of those Lalonde childhood wizard fics, I presume?

ROSE: Complacency of the Learned.

DIRK: Ah. The wizard fic, then.

ROSE: Yes.

ROSE: Of course, it was nothing like the polished masterpiece penned by the middle-aged version of myself from your world.

ROSE: Nor did the saga span as many volumes. Thirteen-year-old Rose only managed to draft the one, it shames me to say.

DIRK: How pathetic.

ROSE: I know.

ROSE: Though I must say, in defense of Young Rose’s literary integrity,

ROSE: Having carefully studied all volumes of the elder’s work, and then revisiting my youthful preteen scribbles of passion...

ROSE: I observed more power and emotion in the single ragged notebook than the full span of the bestselling series.

ROSE: It’s more raw. It betrays considerably more sincerity than my young self was surely ever aware of stitching into the prose.

ROSE: It meant something.

DIRK: Hmm.

ROSE: For all its plainly evident amateurism as the literary product of a child, I’ve come to believe it’s a much stronger work standing alone as a single volume, its meaning and symbolism potently compressed, and its message shining through more nakedly, undisguised by the cleverness of a more seasoned writer.

ROSE: But the basics are the same as the series you’ve read. The plot concerns the machinations of twelve wizard children.

ROSE: They revolt against the complacency of the wise, kind wizards, and go on to become responsible for great evils.

ROSE: It isn’t their intent to commit atrocities, or within their nature to do so originally. They become corrupted by an overabundance of knowledge. The kind never meant for the mortal mind to grasp.

DIRK: Yeah, this sounds pretty close to my recollection of it.

ROSE: It certainly wasn’t the most fucked up thing I’ve ever written.

ROSE: But it was the most... psychologically potent? The most personal, easily.

ROSE: But the personal aspects to it were all telegraphed through allegory and esoteric symbolism.

ROSE: I wrote it in what would be best described as a fevered haze, as if I were pulling inspiration from beyond myself—channeling the story, rather than writing it.

ROSE: You could almost call the process...

ROSE: ...enlightened.

DIRK: That sucked.

ROSE: Yes.

DIRK: It also sounds like it’s the opposite of what was going on?

DIRK: Sounds more like you were trapped in a sort of dire creative fugue state causing you to chart your own mental profile using metaphor revolving around murderous, omniscient children.

ROSE: Well, consider the playful pun rescinded.

ROSE: Apologies for diminishing your presence with my suboptimal health and the toll it has taken on my wordplay.

DIRK: Thanks. It’s been very difficult for me.

ROSE: You’ve been a real trouper.

ROSE: Anyway, my point is that I’ve long suspected my story was a pre-manifestation of my Seer of Light powers. I was seeing beyond my universe into another.

ROSE: My original thesis was that the children represented the twelve trolls who created our universe.

ROSE: But over the years, I have come to see how malleable any apparent fact of numerological significance can be.

ROSE: Adaptable, actually. Adaptable to shifting circumstance. Changes in setting, stakes, and allied ensembles.

DIRK: Twelve. That’s how many players went through the door at the end of our game.

ROSE: Exactly.

ROSE: My friends and yours, as well as Kanaya, Karkat, Terezi, and Calliope.

DIRK: You describe this as a fact of numerological significance.

DIRK: Which makes it seem you suspect these correlations are something less than utterly providential. As if there is a part of you holding on to the belief that certain figures are coincidental. That their significance and repetition smacks of bullshit.

ROSE: Do they not smack of bullshit?

DIRK: They smack of a bunch of things, and a bunch of other things also happen to smack of bullshit. But the network of relations isn’t perfectly traceable, nor can they all be mapped on a one-to-one basis. It’s unclear exactly which things are smacking, just as it’s unclear that when it comes to bullshit, whether or not smacking accurately describes what is being done per se.

ROSE: Could it be that it is you who is smacking of bullshit, dear father?

DIRK: Nah, I smack of many admirable qualities, as well as keen insights.

DIRK: I’m just saying it’s all evidence of a grand design. An immortal, metatextual apparatus beyond our ken that we can only catch glimpses of when we’re proverbially shitting our brains out through our nose.

DIRK: Which both you and I know.

ROSE: Which only you and I know, apparently.

ROSE: Which is precisely my question.

ROSE: In my story, all twelve of the disciples fell victim to the vagaries of power.

ROSE: They were filled with the light of knowledge and one by one they succumbed to it, turning insane or evil or, most often, both.

ROSE: If this is the effect unchecked powers have on players living in a post-canon victory state, then why isn’t it affecting any of our other friends?

DIRK: Well.

DIRK: I got a few theories.

ROSE: Only a few?

DIRK: I mean, some of us have stopped using our powers completely. Not a whole lot of need for emergency resurrections or complex timeline manipulation on a planet that’s never had a conflict more serious than a sportsball riot or a rumpled hat shortage.

DIRK: But even aside from how often they’re used...

DIRK: Some powers don’t lend themselves to the infinite expansion of one’s mind, the way ours do.

ROSE: I see.

ROSE: So what you’re saying is, it’s more a matter of one’s aspect than it is whether one’s powers are practiced further, or allowed to atrophy.

DIRK: Yep.

ROSE: In that case...

ROSE: In that case, perhaps Terezi had the right idea.

ROSE: Getting away from this place, I mean.

ROSE: Maybe I was a fool for imagining I could settle down here.

ROSE: How... How are you handling this so well?

ROSE: I assumed it was just that feigned Strider Stoicism, but you seem to be taking this...

DIRK: In stride?

ROSE: Ugh.

DIRK: I won’t lie, it’s definitely making me feel pretty crazy.

DIRK: But I’ve got more practice at this than you do. I spent most of my life before the game multitasking my entire fucking subconscious. I’ve had several times my age on paper to contemplate these mysteries.

DIRK: Years of prying open can after can of worms filled with answers I don’t like.

DIRK: Cut yourself on the edge more than once and you stop getting surprised by all the blood.

ROSE: I see.

ROSE: It’s not the headaches that concern me most.

ROSE: In fact, I don’t think it’s the expansion of my powers that is causing the headaches, but rather my own resistance to it.

ROSE: Sometimes I get this feeling that I could, if I really wanted to, just let go.

ROSE: It would be as easy as opening my eyes.

ROSE: It’s like that feeling you get when you’re far enough out of a dream to be conscious of it, but not yet awake.

ROSE: I’m caught in the liminal space between reality and reverie, where people once believed demons dwelled. But the only reason the demon is still sitting on my chest is because I refuse to banish it. All it would take is looking directly at it.

ROSE: I’m forcing myself to stumble through my life as a sleepwalker. All this pain and sorrow could go away if I would just allow myself to wake up.

DIRK: Then why don’t you?

ROSE: Because I’m not sure that the person opening her eyes will be me.

DIRK: I understand completely.

ROSE: Hm?

DIRK: I know I sound pretty nonchalant most of the time, but actually I’m scared shitless of myself.

DIRK: I’ve always had this uncanny ability to chart a course from A to Z and not give a fuck about any of the letters in between.

DIRK: I’m not sure anyone should be allowed to have that much foresight. Especially a guy like me.

ROSE: What upsets me most, I think, is the distance this is all putting between me and everyone I know.

ROSE: The farther above the board you fly, the harder it gets to care about the pieces.

DIRK: I hear you. And personally speaking, things usually work out for the best when all of those pieces do exactly what I say.

DIRK: So I’m also probably not the kind of guy who should get to be right all the time.

ROSE: There’s really not an inch of humility in you, is there.

DIRK: I’ve just spent a lot of time in my own head.

DIRK: Maybe absolute self-absorption is the inevitable outcome, when the self is all you’ve ever known. When you’re drowning in it.

DIRK: I know there’s plenty of things that suck about me. No point feigning humility about the things that don’t.

DIRK: And yes, I may be a shitty human being, but,

DIRK: As a mechanic, I’m off the fucking charts.

ROSE: All the pieces in their place.

ROSE: The mechanisms all running smoothly.

#homestuck #homestuck epilogues #rose lalonde #dirk strider #meat epilogue #page 16

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swaps55 · 4 years

Text

Cafune

Shepard’s cabin is a hell of an upgrade over crew quarters. Considerably less foot traffic, for one, private bathroom for another. The dim lighting alone is heaven. It’s always too bright on the crew deck. Hell, Kaidan even kinda likes the fish.

But it’s the company he really enjoys.

He shifts in his spot on the couch, nestling a little deeper against Shepard, who tightens the arm looped around his waist in response. Kaidan is still at least attempting to read through the reports that have been piling up. But Shepard has spent the last several minutes ignoring his datapad in favor of gazing at Kaidan.

It’s…nice. Really nice. Especially when the datapad gets tossed aside entirely and Shepard’s fingers start carding through his hair.

A smile curves Kaidan’s lips. “Hey, you.”

“Hey,” Shepard says softly. “I missed this, you know.”

“Touching my hair?”

“Mmm. Also the rest of you.” He presses a kiss to Kaidan’s temple.

A contented sigh slips out of Kaidan’s throat. “Believe me, I missed it, too.”

Shepard’s fingers continue working, making the datapad in Kaidan’s hand less and less interesting. But then they still, followed by a deliberate intake of breath. After a few seconds, Shepard exhales and starts moving his fingers again.

“What is it?” Kaidan asks.

Another pause. “Nothing.”

Kaidan hides a smile and keeps skimming his datapad, even though at this point he isn’t reading a word. Shepard doesn’t hesitate to say what’s on his mind. Only Sam does. “Uh huh. Well, whenever you change your mind, let me know.”

Shepard grunts. But a minute later he drops his hand and shifts his position a little. “Can I ask you something?”

There it is.

“Of course.”

More shifting. “While, uh, while I was dead, did you…?”

Kaidan tightens up without meaning to. Those two years are never going to be an easy subject, especially when Shepard throws the word dead around so easily.

As if sensing his discomfort, Shepard draws Kaidan a little closer to him. “Never mind.”

Kaidan sets the datapad down and settles against him. Shepard’s death certainly isn’t a pleasant topic, but bridging it while tucked in his arms…helps. “No, go on. Did I what?”

“It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“Sam. There are things about…that I’d rather not talk about. But doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it at all. What do you want to know?”

He clears his throat, expression a little sheepish. “Just…wondering if you, ah…met anyone.”

Kaidan blinks. Well. That’s…not what he expected. “Are you…asking if I dated anyone after Alchera?”

“I mean, it’s fine if you did,” he says quickly. “Two years is a long time. People move on.”

A hoarse laugh escapes Kaidan’s throat. Move on. He’d spent the first year in a fugue, and the second convincing himself that functioning wasn’t enough; he had to live, too. He hadn’t quite mastered it by the time Hackett dropped the Freedom’s Progress file in his lap.

Move on. Everyone told him he would, eventually. Some days he’d even believed them.

“Sam…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shepard says, voice gentle. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Why do you ask?” Kaidan asks, curious. If there’s one thing they’ve generally done right, it’s believe in the way they feel about each other. Well. Once they’d mustered the courage to say how they felt about each other, anyway.

Besides, dating is all but a foreign language to Sam. Not that Kaidan has a much better track record of it.

Shepard’s fingers return to Kaidan’s scalp. Kaidan’s not sure if it’s meant to reassure him, or reassure Sam. “I guess…your thing with Joker reminded me…I’ll never know what kind of hell you really went through.”

Ah, right. The thing. While Shepard was with Cerberus, Joker apparently hadn’t mentioned just how contentious things had gotten after Alchera.

“If you found something, er, someone, who made it a little less hellish,” he continues, “Well.”

Kaidan closes his eyes and revels in the gentle churn of Shepard’s fingers. “I don’t really…date, Sam.”

Shepard makes a noncommittal sound.

Kaidan opens his eyes, sensing a challenge. “Come on. In the five years we served together, did I ever date anyone?”

A hesitant look crosses Shepard’s face. It takes Kaidan a moment to understand it, but when he gets there he chuckles in disbelief.

“You’re actually going to say the researcher we ran into on Arcturus, aren’t you.”

Shepard withdraws his fingers from Kaidan’s hair and gestures. “Come on, you can’t argue that wasn’t a date.”

“We had drinks,” Kaidan reminds him. “Once. At your insistence. You literally wingmaned me.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I was doing you a favor,” Shepard grumbles. “The one that got away, and all that.”

“She was not the one that got away,” he says with amusement.

Shepard sniffs. “That’s good, because she was not right for you.”

“Then why…” Kaidan’s eyes widen as realization dawns. “You were jealous.”

“What, of her?”

“Yes. You were jealous.” He chuckles again as the pieces fall into place. “You were in a horrible mood when I came to find you after. Since you wingmaned me I thought you’d want to hear how it went, but you nearly took my head off. I thought you were pissed at Pendergrass for being impossible to take out in public. But you were pissed at me, weren’t you?”

Guilt flashes across his eyes. “No.”

“Sam.”

His brow furrows. “Ok…in retrospect…I was probably jealous.”

“You insisted I buy her a drink!”

“Yeah, because you kept talking about how much you enjoyed her company when she was…researching you.”

Kaidan sighs in exasperation. “She was researching my implant. We were friends. Saw each other a few times and went our separate ways. Well before you and I met, I might add.”

“You were still into her,” Shepard insists. “Come on, I know you.”

“You ass, I was into you,” Kaidan says with a laugh. “I didn’t want to have drinks with her. You’re the one I wanted to spend that evening with.”

A smirk curves his lips. “Yeah, well, I know that now.”

Kaidan shakes his head. “So if I’d come into your quarters that night and kissed you instead of telling you about my so-called date, would that have put you in a better mood?”

Shepard grins. “Why? Did you think about kissing me?”

“When didn’t I,” Kaidan mutters.

“Boy you had it bad for me, didn’t you?” Shepard says, tracing Kaidan’s jaw with a finger.

Kaidan raises an eyebrow, not about to give in to the gesture of affection. “I’m sorry, who shot out the window of a quarantine lab and exposed themselves to a bio engineered virus for no reason?”

Shepard squawks in protest. “What do you mean no reason? You were in that room!”

“And I’d already been exposed,” Kaidan points out.

“So I was just supposed to leave you in there was some deadly virus? I kinda like to think I’d have done that you whether I loved you or not. You think I would have left Garrus in there?”

Kaidan holds up a finger. “No. No, no. If it had been Garrus you would have used that tactical head of yours for at least a nanosecond, realized the damage was already done and taken the extra five minutes to go through the decontamination process. Or at the very least, put your helmet on to avoid exposure. But no, you shot out the glass and came after me because you were in love with me and didn’t stop to think. Or grab a helmet.”

Shepard sputters, then glares. “Ok. You might, might, have a point.”

A slow grin spreads over Kaidan’s face. “And because of it you had to spend all that time with me in quarantine. You literally took care of me when I felt like I was going to die.”

Shepard draws Kaidan back to his chest. “Kinda thought you were going to die. Scared me to death.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan says. “I won’t lie…I was glad you were there. Even if it was a little humiliating to be that incapacitated around my commanding officer.”

“I’ll take you at your worst over most people at their best,” Shepard says. His fingers return to Kaidan’s hair, and Kaidan leans into the touch with a hum. “Like hell I was going to let anything happen to you.”

“I know,” Kaidan says, and it’s true. As reckless and unnecessary as that stunt had been, the sound of that glass shattering followed by Shepard’s voice in his ear had made him feel…safe.

Shepard clears his throat again, shifting uncomfortably. “Is it, uh, is it weird if I admit that I might have…done this a little, when your fever spiked?”

“Touched my hair?”

“Yeah.”

Kaidan chuckles softly. “Thought I dreamed that.”

“No,” he says after a pause. “I just…I don’t know. This is probably really incriminating, but I always had this urge to run my fingers through your hair.”

Kaidan smirks. “You can admit you just wanted to mess it up.”

Shepard huffs.

“You loved me,” Kaidan says with a shrug. “You may not have known it, but you did.”

Shepard nods. “In retrospect, it was really fucking obvious, wasn’t it?”

“Little bit, yeah.”

“In my defense, I have literally never been attracted to anyone before. How was I supposed to know that’s what it felt like?”

Kaidan snorts. “So it never occurred to you that being jealous when I went on a date, or unnecessarily exposing yourself to a deadly virus because I was in trouble, and wanting to touch my hair all the time, might mean you were in love with me.”

“Yeah, the porch swing also should have been a clue,” he muses.

Kaidan rearranges himself to meet Shepard’s gaze head on. “You mean back at the orchard? When I feel asleep and drooled on your shoulder?”

Shepard nearly shoves him off the couch. “So you admit it. You’ve been denying that happened for years.”

Kaidan narrows his eyes as something else clicks into place. “Did you touch my hair then, too?”

Shepard blinks. “This is about you, not me.”

“You did.”

He rolls his eyes. “Ok, maybe…very briefly…I might have.”

Kaidan laughs and settles back against him. “I knew it.”

Shepard grumbles, but snakes an arm around him once more. “Well if it was so goddamn obvious why didn’t you just kiss me and get on with it?”

“Because how could I be sure?”

Shepard stares at him. “Boy, kinda hard to believe we saved the galaxy, isn’t it?”

Kaidan grins. “You said it yourself. How good can first timers really be?”

“Not first timers anymore, are we?” Shepard asks, in a soft voice that puts a flutter in Kaidan’s chest.

Kaidan shakes his head.

Shepard’s fingers flirt with his hair once more. “So…you didn’t actually answer my question.”

The flutter dissipates. “I didn’t date anyone, Sam.”

He runs a thumb along Kaidan’s hairline, expression growing solemn. “You know that would have been okay, right? You know…I’d want you to be happy.”

Kaidan catches his hand, heart jumping into his throat and I’ll be fine echoing in his ears. “Sam.”

So that’s what this whole thing’s about. The next Alchera. The next Mars. The next time they inevitably gamble their lives and lose. Kaidan swallows and tries to pull away from him. “This…this is one of the things I don’t want to talk about.”

“Yeah,” Shepard says, keeping him close and cupping his cheek. “But you need to hear it. I want you to be happy. Always. Whatever that means.”

“I am happy,” Kaidan argues. “With you.”

“And believe me,” Shepard assures him, “I hope that never changes. But I just…need you to know.”

Kaidan’s hands shake as he slides back into his waiting arms. “Please don’t talk about this.”

“Ok,” Shepard murmurs, wrapping him up tight. Kaidan closes his eyes and breathes him in. Solid. Real. Alive. And his. “How about, instead, we talk about all those midnight meals you fixed over the years?”

“What about them?” Kaidan asks, palm slipping under his shirt in search of a heartbeat.

Shepard’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Started as just ‘hey, there’s a stash of peanut butter and crackers in a drawer if you need a pick me up.’ Next thing you were fixing full entrees in the middle of the night.”

“I was hungry,” Kaidan replies, hiding a small smile.

“Uh huh. You’re telling me the extra plate and fork you always had waiting had nothing to do with hoping I’d show up.”

“Mom always said that if I wanted to impress someone I should learn how to cook.”

Shepard nuzzles his neck before burying his fingers back in Kaidan’s hair. “Mmhmm. So you wanted to impress me, huh? Keep talking.”

Kaidan scoffs. “What, you want to try and tell me that you appearing like clockwork was pure coincidence?”

“You caught me,” Shepard concedes. “I fell in love with the Alenko family risotto recipe.”

Kaidan huffs. Shepard plants kisses up and down his throat, letting his corona flare just long enough to send a current through Kaidan’s nerves.

“Mmmm,” Kaidan murmurs, tilting his head back to give Shepard better access. “Must have been some risotto.”

“Yeah,” Shepard mumbles between kisses. “Except it turns out it definitely wasn’t the risotto I looked forward to all those nights.”

No. It wasn’t. For either of them. Eight years ago when Kaidan had walked into a bar on Arcturus and found Shepard sitting there, it was like something had just snapped into place. For both of them.

“Quarks,” Kaidan says softly.

Shepard pauses. “What?”

“Something Tali told me a long time ago,” Kaidan explains. “That certain types of quarks are tuned to one another on a quantum level, bonded across space and time. The more you pull them apart, the harder they try to snap back together.”

Shepard lifts his head and searches Kaidan’s face. Under Kaidan’s palm, Shepard heart beats strong and steady.

“I didn’t see anyone after Alchera,” Kaidan says. “It never occurred to me. Maybe…deep down I still felt that pull.” He runs a finger along Shepard’s cheek. “Because it turns out you were still out there.”

Shepard swallows, voice catching. “You are such a romantic. You know that?”

Kaidan’s gaze drifts to Shepard’s mouth. “Say it. Please?”

“I love you,” Shepard whispers.

Kaidan brushes a finger across Shepard’s lips. So many times he’d wanted to kiss them and hadn’t. So many times he’d wondered what it would be like and never had the courage to find out. So many chances they’d lost in the debris now buried under the snow on Alchera.

Not tonight. Tonight Kaidan kisses him slow and deep, drinking in every sigh, every soft sound that slips from his throat, reveling in the feel of Shepard’s fingers tangled in his hair. It won’t make up for all the times they’ve missed.

But it’s a start.

#mshenko #kaidan alenko #mass effect #my fic #i swear it's fluffy #and basically an apology for fugue #see?!?! everything's fine they're all fine #ok #they're MOSTLY fine

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withthehorrors · 3 years

Note

Hey not to be weird, but can i ask what's the thing about Damon and Taylor Swift? Feel like im missing something

ok basically damon was talking out of his ass as he usually does and he said that taylor swift doesn’t write her own songs and to be clear he wasn’t like Choke Ugly Talentless Bitch he said something incorrect and moved on to talk about something else incorrect probably and she tweeted about it sounding like a white mother of three leaving a one-star review for an applebees saying she used to be such a fan and how DARE you ACCUSE me of this WOW and now her congregation of children think she ended his 30 year career by typing out a truly embarrassingly angry response to what shouldn’t be that big of a deal to a wealthy and famous adult anyway damon’s twitter account (that he has no control over because he knows he’s stupid and cannot be trusted with unfettered access to a public platform) apologized saying the comment was reduced to “clickbait” but it was not at all altered for a headline that’s just literally what he said. so I wouldn’t be surprised if damon is currently playing the pan flute in a yurt in the andes or something recording his next 8 albums while a 32 year old woman with more money than there are seconds in a year spikes her blood pressure over something that a man in his 50s said while in his usual perpetual fugue state as if he gives half a fuck

#hope this was even more confusing <3 #that is literally what happened tho

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agent-cupcake · 4 years

Text

Garreg Mach Café

Episode One: Dead Eye (Dimitri x Reader)

Yes this is a coffee shop AU and yes I intend to do a few of these because I am basic and this is fun to work on while violently procrastinating and yes I’m a little sorry. Just a little.

From the moment you keyed your employee code into the machine and clocked in until your shoes met the cracked pavement covering the parking lot out back, the hours you spent selling coffee and faking smiles were slotted into a strange fugue state in your mind. Existence in only the most technical sense.

Morning shifts were the worst for that sense of customer service depersonalization. After the initial rush, which you usually got through with the crutch of obscene amounts of caffeine and focus, weekdays always fell away into an exhausting kind of lull. You might as well have been living in a private world where only you, the radio with a station you weren’t allowed to change, and a minifridge of overpriced mineral waters that needed restocking existed. Which was pretty fine, all things considered. The downtime was nice.

Until you were disturbed by the swooshing sound of the opening door, a rush of cold outside air, and the distinctively familiar jingle of bells. At this point, you were pretty sure that perky tinkling sound activated some sort of twisted fight or flight mechanism deep in your gut. Despite that, you stood up straight from organizing the display and put on your best service smile, sidling up to the register. Just in time to have the air knocked right out of your lungs.

Well, not literally. You were pretty sure that cliché was a line used in books to convey the inherent frailty of the female condition. There was no such romanticism to your reaction. It would have been more accurate to say that your caffeine-hyped brain shorted out when you got a good look at the customer who had just come in because you were simple and weak and that amount of handsome on your abysmal amount of sleep made you forgot how to breathe for a moment or twenty.

The most obvious and immediately striking aspect of the man was the eyepatch. Not some basic pastel goth kind of white bandage attached with ribbons, but a properly utilitarian black piece that cut harsh lines of black across his pretty blond hair. Had you ever seen somebody in real life wearing one? Your spastic thoughts lingered on that for a second before deciding it didn’t really matter. It was barely even a factor in your undoubtedly impolite staring. You dealt with exhausted people from every demographic while selling, making, and serving coffee. Snappy, loopy, mean, giggly, you knew sleep deprivation in nearly every form and function. Never did you realize in full that it also came in its premium form: devastatingly handsome.

He was gorgeous. Like, drop-dead level gorgeous. So, yeah, maybe it wasn’t too corny for you to say that this tall blond with a sharp jaw, nice cheekbones, and broad shoulders covered in a dark blazer/blue sweater combo of expensive if understated business casual took your breath away. You were, after all, occasionally subject to the frailty of the female condition.

Be professional! Your sane mind —or at least the part that wasn’t dominated by the giddy mix of shy nerves and creepy admiration— urged.

Right. Professional.

“Good morning!” you greeted him with belated cheerfulness, managing to pull your jaw up from the floor before he stopped in front of the counter. “Are you ready to order, or do you need a moment?” He didn’t respond at first, which almost made your smile falter. His eye, ringed in the telltale shadow of a sleepless night, was blue. Really, ultra blue. You forced yourself to keep up the act, to stick to the script. “If this is your first time here, I could walk you through the menu.”

The man cleared his throat, shaking his head a little as he glanced —awkwardly, like he wasn’t actually looking but he needed a reason to avert his gaze— up to the menu. He’d gathered about half of his longish hair into a tail in the back, but the shorter strands framing his face fluttered with the movement. Did you have a thing for guys with long hair? You couldn’t remember, but you were pretty sure you did now. “No… Thank you,” he replied somewhat apologetically. His voice was low, holding this kind of rough, husky tone. In other words, it was nearly enough to send you right back out of your customer service mode and into a swooning catastrophe. “Could you make a dead eye?”

The request was made, accepted, and then it registered. And, really, you liked to think you were a good person. You really, really did.

“A dead… eye…” you repeated slowly, internally screaming at yourself to not stare at the glaring black eyepatch covering his right eye or crack a smile at the horrible joke. Good Lord. You didn’t like to think that you were a bad person, or a mean person. You were a professional, you’d dealt with a lot while keeping a straight face. So you cleared your throat. “A black coffee with a triple espresso shot, right. Is that to go?”

“Yes,” he agreed with a sharp nod, ready with cash and very obviously not realizing the dark humor of what he’d ordered or the reason you were trying very, very hard not to make this all very, horribly awkward. No, he looked exhausted. And attractive. You were a very bad person. So you told him the total and broke the twenty and quickly turned to make the drink because a good cup of coffee was just about the only way you could apologize for your wicked, terrible thoughts.

Since there were no other customers queuing up, he was fine to wait at the counter, watching you make the drink. You pretended like you couldn’t feel his intense gaze, bobbing your head to the piped-in indie music playing in the background. The song was awful, truly, you really didn’t think there was anything you wanted to hear less than some young nobody with a guitar butchering the English language in an ode to their unrequited love. At the very least, not at ten-thirty in the morning on a Tuesday. At least you didn’t mess up, so there was something to be said for your so-called professionalism.

“Here you go,” you said as you handed him the to-go cup with as wide of a smile as you could muster all the while working very, very hard not to think that it was a dead eye for a dead eye. You were going to hell.

Ignorant to your thoughts, he met your gaze intently —his iris wasn’t any sort of bright, intimidating electric blue, but something softer like cornflower or powder or the dreamy gentle pale afternoon sky— and accepted the cup with a black gloved hand. “You have my most sincere thanks.”

You heard yourself laugh a little in response, but it was a bright and overly jittery sound, not only because you were trying desperately to be polite but because you couldn’t help but feel a bubble of strangely excitable disbelief that he would be so serious about something that was so mundane. Not to mention the fact that he was so handsome or that his voice was as candid as his words implied and gruff in a way you really liked. At the very least, it drove out all intrusively poor taste jokes.

“Oh, it was nothing,” you said, the words coming from your lips without so much as a thought that it was definitely not apart of the preapproved corporate script. “Wait ‘till you see what I can do with the mixed drinks.”

He considered you for what felt like ages before finally nodding. “I will look forward to it.” Despite the lack of irony, there wasn’t even a hint of a smile playing on his lips to match your own. Just more of that discomforting, intense sincerity that you couldn’t tell if you liked or not. And that was basically the end of that because you had no idea what to say other than to wish him a good day. He left, your handsome strange customer, the bells jingling merrily behind him.

After the door closed to the temperamental winter air, you melted, bracing your arms on the counter as you felt jittery nerves work through you. It took a moment to collect yourself, but when you did, you realized that he’d left a great tip, too. Fantastic tip, actually. Which, ultimately, was what got you. There was something uniquely sexy about rich guys who were kind to the underpaid and overworked wait staff.

That comforting customer service fugue state didn’t return after that. You were too caught up wondering about his name, or why he was so tired that he’d need such a potent drink, or if you were to take his words to mean that he was coming back. You probably shouldn’t have hoped for that as much as you did, but you could blame it on the inherent frailty of the female condition.

#fire emblem three houses #fe3h #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fe dimitri #fire emblem dimitri #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd x reader #fe dimitri x reader #fire emblem dimitri x reader #my writing #this is dumb #i don't care #yuri or felix next #probably #maybe #who's to say #i've been reading rhythm of war and it's TOUGH so i need cute

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anxiousstark · 4 years

Text

S2 02 | Shape Shifted

BIG MASTERLIST | TW REWRITE

Stiles Stilinski x Reader! Half-sibling!Mccall Word count: 2736 Warnings: Mentions of dead bodies, injuries, blood, angst, swearing (always). A/N: I’m not really proud of this chapter. It is fast and not too long. At first, I thought about skipping it, but I totally needed it to be able to introduce Isaac Lahey. Furthermore, the black backpack it’s truly important for Y/N’s past with her mother, and for her relationship with Scott!

↪ PLEASE RESPECT MY WORK. DON’T COPY, TRANSLATE OR CLAIM THEM AS YOURS. NOT ON THIS WEBSITE OR ANOTHER. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED.

"Scott told me you weren't coming today." Allison stared at me, concerned.

"What's the point of staying at home?" I chuckled. I didn't remember anything about last night. I had this uneasy feeling, but I couldn't recall anything. I remembered running after Lydia when she escaped from the hospital's window, and the next thing I was lying down on my bed after being found in the woods. "Melissa will kill me when she finds out I'm not home." I laughed.

"Oh, she will kill you." My half-brother's girlfriend smiled, clutching her books against her chest. "Stiles told me that you guys are better than ever." She blushed, nodding. "I hope you guys stay like that. Scott glares at me less when you guys are together." I smirked. It was true. Scott seemed to be calmer when he was in good terms with Allison.

"I need to go grab some books from my locker." She kissed Lydia's cheek, who had been quiet most of the time. "See you guys later." She side-hugged me.

"They called it a fugue state, which is basically a way of saying ‘We have no idea why you can't remember running through the woods naked," Lydia said while I opened the door for her. "But personally, I don't care. I lost nine pounds." She giggled.

"We were out there for almost an entire day," I answered back. "Isn't it crazy that we don't remember anything that happened during the time we were wandering around?"

"As I said before," She retouched her lipstick. "I lost nine pounds." I saw Jackson a couple of meters away from us, Lydia was walking directly to him. But his eyes were fixed on me while he smirked.

"Do your ears and nose bleed a lot?"

Fuck you, Jackson.

I walked to the bleachers, sitting down behind Scott and Stiles. Again, I was surprised that Scott was a werewolf because he hadn't noticed me as he was too busy talking to his friend. I got closer to them. "Boo." Both boys jumped, terrified. Their screams were so high pitched that half of the lacrosse team were staring at us. They both turned around to look at me. "Oh god, that was so fucking fu-"

Two arms wrapped around me, Stiles. Now, I was almost sitting on his lap, arms wrapped tightly around my waist, his face hiding on my neck. At first, I didn't know how to react, but I ended up wrapping my arms around him too. My right hand rubbed his back while the other rested on the back of his neck, pulling him closer to me, which seemed almost impossible. "I'm sorry." He whispered.

"For what?"

He sighed, his warm breath caressing the side of my neck, making me shiver. "I'm sorry for leaving you at the dance just to go with Lydia." His voice cracked.

"Stiles, we talked about this." I rubbed his back in circles. "It was your opportunity to get close to Lydia." Forming those words made my heart throb, but I continued. "You don't have to apologize for something your heart was telling you to do."

"My heart was confused." He whispered. "And because of that, you got hurt."

"It wasn't your fault." My fingers caressed his buzz-cut hair. "You didn't hit me, Chris Argent did."

"He could have killed you if he wanted. He didn't do it because you are of value. Because you are something that interests him." He clenched his jaw. "He could have killed you if he wanted to." Stiles paused. "And I never thanked you for saving me from Peter Hale back at the hospital."

"Anyone would have done that for you, Stilisnki."

We heard someone cough, and we decided it was time to part ways. Even though I didn't want to. Stupid Scott.

You know when you shower and wear clean clothes. You get inside your bed with fresh sheets. The smell and freshness embrace you, and you feel safe. That's exactly what I felt in Stiles's arms.

"Uhm. So what about the plan?" Stiles stopped looking deeply into my eyes to glance at Scott, who had interrupted us.

"What plan?" I curiously asked, sitting next to Stiles.

"There seems to be another wolf in the lacrosse team." The Hazel-eyed boy explained to me. "I told coach you're switching with Danny for the day."

"But I hate playing goal."

"Remember when I said I had an idea? This is the idea."

"Oh." He didn't understand. "What's the idea?"

"I seriously don't understand how you survive without me sometimes." He shook his head. "McCall's will always need me."

Coach called the entire lacrosse team. Stiles was the first one to go back to the field while Scott stopped to look at me. "Uhm, I hope you feel better."

"Did Melissa tell you to say that?" I jokingly asked.

"Actually, yes." He grinned when he saw how my face went back to a serious one. "I'm kidding. I really hope you feel better."

I nodded, smiling. "Thank you." I looked at him directly on the eyes. "And thank you for finding me."

"It wasn't me." He pointed at Stiles when he saw my confused expression. "It was him." Then he sighed. "And please, I can smell you guys."

"Smell what? I got showered so you can't joke about me smelling or something because I promise you I will kill you."

"No," He chuckled. "I smell Stiles." He paused. "And you, you know."

"No, I don't." He groaned, going back to the field, murmuring something about it 'not being his job'.

It seems like Stiles's plan was for Scott to throw every lacrosse player to the ground, smelling them to make sure that they were not a werewolf.

I was confused when in the distance, I saw Sheriff Stilisnki marching towards the field.

The match had been stopped by the police. "His father's dead. They think he was murdered."

"Are they saying he's a suspect?" Noah Stilisnki softly grasped Isaac's arm, letting him know that he had to go with them to the station. He was a major suspect. "Because they can lock him in a holding cell for 24 hours." Scott was still trying to understand what Stiles was trying to say. "During the full moon."

"How good are these holding cells at holding people?"

"People, good. Werewolves, probably not that good."

Isaac followed the sheriff's orders, but before completely disappearing from our sight, he turned around, looking at the other werewolf boy. "Stiles, remember when I said I don't have the urge to maim and kill?"

Stiles nodded.

"He does." I interrupted Scott. I could also feel it. I could feel the rage. He was going to explode.

After what happened in the field, we had to go to class with Mr. Harris. I didn't fancy that man, he made me feel quite uncomfortable, and his subject was monotonous.

"Why would Derek choose Isaac?" I heard Scott whisper. Both boys were sitting in front of me while I was sitting behind them, in front of Danny boy.

"Peter told me that if the bite doesn't turn you it could kill you. And maybe teenagers have a better chance of surviving."

"Doesn't being a teenager mean your dad can't hold him?"

"Well, not unless they have solid evidence. Or a witness. Wait." Stiles turned around, he offered me a little smile, making my heart beat like crazy. "Danny. Where's Jackson?"

"In the principal's office talking to your dad." My interest peaked when I heard what he had said.

"What? Why?"

"Maybe because he lives across the street from Isaac."

The hazel-eyed boy who only liked to get into trouble glanced at Scott and me. "We gotta get to the principal's office."

"How?"

I saw Stiles ripping a blank page from his notebook, shaping a not-so-round ball with it. "Everyone please turn to page 73." Mr. Harris was writing on the blackboard when the paper ball hit the back of his head. "Who in the hell did that?" Both troublemakers pointed at each other. Oh god.

Gosh, Mr. Stilisnki was right. I would only be into trouble if I went along with Scott and Stiles. But I couldn't let these two fools get themselves killed. I quickly made a paper ball, throwing it at Mr. Harris, hitting him directly on the nose. Classmates started snickering while Scott and Stiles glanced at me perplexed, but with grins on their faces. "Damn guys, I thought you said we were throwing them at the count of three." I winked at them.

However, Mr. Harris didn't seem to find it hilarious as he sent the three of us to detention. We were sitting outside when Stiles's dad came out. He hid his face behind my back, in hopes that his father wouldn't see him. Stiles under pressure was as dumb as Scott in his daily life.

"Scott." Sheriff Stilisnki greeted him. Then, he looked at his son, letting a sigh of defeat leave his mouth. "Y/N," He also greeted me. "How is that wound?"

"What wound?" I smiled, letting him know that I was feeling just fine.

He grinned back. "Good. I'm happy for you." He crossed his arms, telling his coworkers to go ahead. "I suppose you three are here to go into detention." I bit my lower lip while Scott nodded. Stiles still hiding his face behind my back. "Well, Y/N, you aren't going."

I gazed at him, utterly confused.

Stiles finally decided to stop using me as a shield. "Oh, wow-Dad! What a surprise!" Mr. Stilisnki, Scott, and I rolled our eyes. Sometimes, Stiles could be a complete fool. "Why isn't she going?"

I swallowed. I could feel both boys gazing at me.

"It isn't an interrogation, don't worry." Noah intervened. "But we need you to come back to the station. It is quite important, Y/N." I couldn't help but glance at Stiles, my anxiety going up as seconds when by. Why did they need me at the police station?

Stiles smiled at me, but I could see that he was as nervous and bewildered as me. "You are lucky," He punched me lightly on the arm. "You skip this stupid long detention." He moved a strand of hair away from my face. "And you are going to be with the coolest Sheriff of the city." He winked at his dad.

"We will still talk about this at home, Stiles." He smirked. "Come get her at the station when you finish whatever you did."

The hazel-eyed boy pouted, conducting his gaze to me. "Seems like it's going to be a long day for both of us." He muttered.

"Do you want anything to drink or eat?" Noah Stilinski took a seat in front of me. We were separated by a metal table. I shook my head while placing my hands on top of the cold surface. "I know you must be nervous about me taking you here without giving you any hint."

"And I'm in the interrogation room, so I'm even more nervous." I chuckled. "Please, go directly to the reason that made me be here."

"Do you remember Sheriff Posey? Back where you used to live?" He slid a picture of said Sheriff so I could see at him.

I nodded my head. I didn't remember much of him, but he saved my life a couple of times and did his best to snap Alice back to real life. Of course, it didn't work. "He was the one who 'took care' of Ali- my mom's situation."

Noah nodded. "He is gonna retire due to some health inconveniences."

"I hope he is okay," I sincerely expressed my feelings. "But what does that have to do with me?"

Sheriff Stilinski sighed, pulling something that was under the table, letting it fall on top of it. A black backpack. "Do you recognize this bag?" I shook my head. "Sherrif Posey had it for a long time, he wanted to wait until you were older." His eyes searched deep in mines. "This is the bag your mother took to jail. It was given to Sheriff Posey when-"

"When she killed herself." I finished for him. No tears. But my hands were full of sweat.

"Inside the bag, there are items she took to jail, and the ones they let her keep." He sighed. "Of course, those who work in jails must be strict about what inmates can keep. There won't be much, maybe a couple of pictures, something that reminded her of the outside world. Sheriff Posey thought you should be the one deciding what to do with all of this."

He slid the bag towards me. "I don't want it." I was surprised. My voice didn't creak. "You can throw it away."

He sorrowfully smiled. "I had a feeling you would say that." He coughed a little. "I've been following your case since my friend Posey told me about you. I know how much you went through, from an outsider point of view." I nodded, he was the first person who talked to me that way. It was nice, and it made me think of Stiles. "I'm still gonna give you this bag. Do whatever you want with it." I glanced at the bag, nodding. "You can take your time with it. It isn't a decision you must take right away."

My eyes glistened while I peered at him. "They re-opened the case, right?" My voice came out in a whisper. "Her family re-opened the case, right?"

Noah nodded. "It wasn't your fault, okay? They are a heart-broken family. What they went through...nobody should have to experience that. But it wasn't your fault, and the judge gave you the reason." He grabbed my hands, his thumbs caressing the back of my hands. "You have all of us now."

After the conversation with Mr. Stilinski, he made me wait in his office, telling me to feel comfortable while I waited for Stiles to come for me. I was sitting on a couch, my eyes examining the black bag that used to be the most precious thing that my mother ever had. Funny, right?

The door opened, and I was met with Stiles. He smiled when he saw me, and I did the same. "Finally!" I got up from the couch. "I'm so tired. I want to go home."

When I saw his nervous laugh I concluded that we weren't going home yet. "I need to grab the keys of every cell in the station. There's a dude dressed as an officer who wants to kill Lahey. Also, seems like Isaac was being abused by his father, Scott is in his old house, trying to investigate and Derek is flirting with the receptionist. Well, distracting her, you know."

"Okay, so where are the keys?"

Stiles walked to a little grey box that was on the wall, introducing a code. But when it opened, it was empty. "Fuck, someone already got to them." Stiles ran out of the office without waiting for me.

"Yo, wait." I grabbed the backpack, throwing it over my shoulder. When I heard the fire alarm, I started running. "Stiles! Stiles?"

In a couple of seconds, I was able to find him. His back was against the wall while he looked ahead. Isaac Lahey has escaped from his cell, and he was fighting with a man that was dressed as an officer. Isaac grabbed the head of the fraudulent officer, slamming him against the wall. Then, he turned around, looking at Stiles. He moved to get closer to him, stopping when I firmly hissed at him. Nails coming out, ice-blue eyes and scales decorating from my wrist to elbow. He felt threatened but still tried to attack me until Derek appeared.

"How did you do that?"

"I'm the Alpha."

Derek left, taking Isaaw with him before the other officers came to the room due to the alarm. Stiles rushed to me. "Are you okay?" I nodded. "You need to calm down. The scales are still out."

I glanced at my arms. "I don't know how to control it. It just happens." He nodded while talking his plaid off, helping me wear it. We were interrupted by coughs. Uh oh, Sheriff Stilinski and other officers were looking at us.

I peered at Stiles while he looked at the man laying on the floor. "Uh," He pointed to the man. "He did it."

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People in black means it doesn’t let me tag them.

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overheardatthecontinental · 4 years

Text

Talk Chapter 6

AO3

I was so overwhelmed from the comments from the last few chapters, I managed to spit out another chapter :)

Love you all

...

Waking up from sedation is becoming a bad habit although she isn’t unhappy about the haziness. In the moments before opening her eyes, she could almost believe that she was wrapped in blankets, floating on a cloud rather than the concrete floor.

She tries to open her eyes, but they’re drawn shut, her lids just a bit too heavy to be opening right now. That’s alright, she decides.

She could stay like this a little longer, in the fugue-state that offered more comfort than reality. Embrace the warmth of her dream-like state.

She’s hopes Nick and Frankie are back today. Playing cards with them would break up the monotony of waiting for John…

John.

John was coming.

The last thing she remembers is the phone call. The warning that John Wick was coming. She had tried to hold on, to keep them from moving her. But they were going to sedate her. She thinks she had tried to escape but she couldn’t remember anything else.

They’d sedated her again.

Fuck.

She forces her eyes open to take in her new surroundings, wondering if she’d get the chance to send John another message…

He’s there. John is sitting in a leather armchair, eyes closed, under a wash of orange light.

Is the sun rising or setting? She really isn’t sure. And she can’t bring herself to care, looking at John.

He looks exhausted, slumped back. His hair is a little wild and there’s blood on his face. She sees no injuries and is momentarily relieved that the blood does not appear to be his.

He was always so put together in her presence. It's unnerving to see his suit rumpled and a giggle escapes her unwittingly.

John’s eyes open and he inhales, blinking awake.

“Are you laughing?” He asks, voice rough from sleep. John pushes himself up in the chair so that he’s fully upright. He rubs a hand over his eyes and it occurs to her that she’s also never seen John actually tired before.

“Sorry.” She whispers, covering her mouth with her hand. “You look like shit.”

John stares at her incredulously and then a small smile forms on his face. “Yeah, well. Hell of a weekend.”

“Yeah? Can’t say I did too much.” Helen draws the blankets in a bit tighter.

“Cold?” John asks and reaches out to touch her forehead. The warm of his hand feels like a godsend and she finds herself leaning into his touch as she nods. “Do you need more blankets?”

She shakes her head, “Nah, don’t want to overheat.”

He nods. “How are you feeling?”

She hums thoughtfully before deciding on “Hungover.”

“Hungover?” He repeats.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. Mouth is dry, a bit nauseous, head is pounding, and I woke up in somebody else’s bed with no memory of how I got there. All signs point to hungover.”

Only Helen, he thinks.

“I’ll get you some water. Dry mouth and nausea are common with sedation.” He removes his hand, reluctantly, from her face and stands up.

Helen nods, “Yeah, they sedated me a lot.”

John stops at the way she says it, turning before he can get her water. “What do you mean?”

“They sedated me whenever I was annoying. And I was very annoying.”

He feels his nails biting into his palm as he inhales sharply, “You know, provoking your kidnappers isn’t a great idea, right?”

“I didn’t provoke them. Just went all psycho-dynamic on their asses.”

John blinks. “Freud?”

“Mhmm. Most of his shit’s been disproven, but nobody likes being told their main problems in life come from their mommy issues. And DeLuca has a shit ton of mommy issues.”

John opens his mouth and closes it. There’s nothing to say to that right now so he turns on foot and heads back to the bathroom. He fills a cup with water while looking into the mirror.

She was right. He did look like shit. His hair hadn’t been combed, he had bags under his eyes. There’s blood on his face, in his hair, and on his clothes. His suit was rumpled.

He probably should have showered and changed while Helen slept off the sedation but he couldn’t bear to leave her side. No, instead he had collapsed into the chair and barely moved for nine hours, drifting in and out of sleep now that she was safe.

He tried not to give too much thought to the fact that Helen was in his bed.

Helen. Was in. His bed.

Sleeping in his bed.

Now awake in his bed.

John swallows. He can’t think about it. He has to focus on the matter at hand.

DeLuca is still out there and, until he is taken care of, Helen is still in danger.

Exhaling, he heads back to the bedroom and tries to ignore the way his heart races at seeing Helen propped amongst his pillows.

She smiles at him. She shouldn’t be, he thinks. He’s the one who got her into this mess but there she is, quiet and non-judgmental. Smiling at him the way she always does, accepting the water from he hands her.

She drinks it down with a soft moan that his body isn’t prepared for. Helen sets what is left of the water on the side table. She reaches up and pushes back her hair, her fingers getting stuck in the mess. So goes three days without a shower or a hairbrush.

“Thanks.” She says, looking up at him.

John nods, “I had the Doctor stop by last night when I got you home. He left meds in case your head hurts.”

Helen nods, “I didn’t feel that during the first few sedations but it’s throbbing now.”

“You don’t remember getting it?” John asks, grabbing the meds off his bureau. He pours one out into his hand and caps it as he walks over to her.

“Getting what?” She reaches to her face, her fingers trailing until they reach her bandage. She winces at the touch, “Oh. Yeah, forgot about that.”

“What happened?” John asked as he handed her the pills and the water from her table.

Helen tries to push up so she can fully sit. She winces at her own weakened state and John moves closer, moving an arm around her to help her sit up against the headboard. He tries not to focus too much on the way she feels with his arm around her.

When she’s upright, he hands her the meds.

She swallows the pill, chasing it with what was left of her water. “The guys who were watching me got a call that you were coming and they needed to move me. They were going to sedate me for the move, so I tried to run when they opened the cell. I made it to the stairs but one of them grabbed my foot and I fell.”

He regrets asking almost instantly, if only because the rage swelling inside him is incapacitating. The fact that he killed the men who tried to move her is suddenly not enough. He wants them to suffer, to hurt. He should have made them die screaming.

But, at the time, his only concern had been getting Helen to safety.

And now they were dead, and as much as he wished it, he couldn’t bring them back just to kill them all again.

But the others would pay.

Anyone else who took part in stalking them, kidnapping her, guarding her. DeLuca would suffer.

John feels a hand on his and she asks, “Do we need to do some meditations here, or are you good?”

Nothing like Helen’s no bullshit policy to pull him back into the presence.

“I’m here.” She says softly when he’s back with her, her hand squeezing his, “I’m here and I’m safe.”

He swallows at the feeling of her soft hand, wrapped around his in comfort.

She was just kidnapped, sedated multiple times, and subject to DeLuca firsthand. If anybody had the right to be losing grip of reality right now, it was her. Instead, she was doing what she always did and taking care of him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We all have our ways of coping. I insert humor into bizarre situations, you picture killing people with your bare hands. Whatever gets us through the day, right?”

He’s pretty sure that’s not a therapeutically appropriate response but he breathes a little easier for hearing it. She’s ridiculous and he loves her.

He loves her so much and he came so close to losing her.

“Thank you for coming after me.” She says and it breaks him all the more.

She shouldn’t be thanking him. It was his fault she had been taken. His obsession which had grown out of control, his lack of focus that stopped him from seeing that others were following her.

He should be on his knees begging for forgiveness and, for anyone else, he might have to. But there was no blame in her eyes. No judgement.

She wasn’t even looking at him any different than when they met each week.

And because he’s not sure how he can begin to apologize for something so unforgiveable, he asks, “Did you doubt I would?”

“Not for an second.” Comes her gentle reply.

Her faith in him is far more than he deserves.

“We kept coming up with dead ends.” He says softly, beseechingly. Like he hopes that she’ll understand that he’s so fucking sorry. “He didn’t give a name. Only a job. And I kept searching, but he was like a ghost. I didn’t know what to do and then I got this text from an unknown number--”

“From Nick.”

John blinks, “I’m sorry?”

“Nick. One of the guys guarding me. Won a bet with two of the guards and told them I’d ask you not to kill them if I could use their phone. So no killing Nick Russo or Frankie Morelli.”

"That was you?"

She inclines her head.

He’s not quite sure what to do with that new wealth of information. The fact that she was able to convince her guards to let her have a phone, that she made a bet with them, and she had bargained with said guards for their lives…

John knew Helen well enough to know she wasn’t going to fall apart easily but there was a difference between keeping it together when in a high-stress situation and gaining the upper hand when you have no control.

“You told the guards I wouldn’t kill them?”

“I told them I’d ask you not to kill them. I made no guarantees. But, while we’re on the subject, I’d rather you didn’t kill them. Frankie’s basically a baby trying to support his mom and little brothers, and Nick… Nick’s had it rough, but I think we made some real progress addressing his repressed homosexuality.”

John’s head hurts. It really does.

All this time, he had been worried about Helen handling being kidnapped. John knew a lot about psychological torture and, sometimes, being trapped in a cage is enough to make you feel like you’d be better off dead.

But no, Helen had been the one caged, but she had been playing the game as if she were a part of the world.

“You’re incredible, you know that?”

She looks up, over those long lashes and it’s almost too much for him to look at her. Baring her battle scars while still looking like an angel as she sits in his bed.

“I really didn’t do much.”

“I was losing my mind. Didn’t have a name or any indication of who had you, and you just figured your own way out.”

“I figured out how to get you a message. I didn’t manage to escape.”

“You did exactly what you needed to do.” His hand turns in hers, tentatively. Giving her the space to pull away.

She doesn’t, only pausing to readjust her grip.

John sits back down, on the edge of the bed. Her hand is in his.

He doesn’t think he’s ever held hands with someone before.

“What did he want?” Helen asks after a moment, “In exchange for me, what was DeLuca trying to get?”

John exhales, “Political advantage. There are very… complex laws associated with the Underworld.”

“That’s where the High Table comes in, right?”

He’s pleased that she remembers, “Yes. The High Table is our council, of sorts. There are twelve seats for the twelve largest factions of organized crime. The Russian Mafia, the Chinese Triad, Los Zetas, the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra. A few other bigwigs, too. But under all these big factions, there are hundreds and thousands of smaller ones, each trying to become a contender. But it’s virtually impossible to uproot one of big ones. Especially the ones run by families. Now, DeLuca belongs to a smaller crime network.”

“The Syndicate.”

John nods once, “Yes. Based in Rome but with branches all across the world. Italy already has two very predominant mafias. No one is really looking for a third large contender. DeLuca has it in his head if he can destroy the Camorra, he can gain control of Rome.”

“Except he lacks the intelligence and commitment to actually run something of that caliber.”

His lips twitch, “Yes. But, to his credit, he was right. If the D’Antonio family collapsed, it might be impossible for the Camorra to stay afloat. They’d lose their credibility; secrets of the family would go to the grave. A new challenger could rise. Probably not to the level of the High Table, like DeLuca thinks, but enough.”

Helen nods, piecing it together for herself. “So, DeLuca tried to send you after the Camorra, protecting himself from any backlash.”

John nods, not quite ready to reveal just how close he had come to openly declaring war against the High Table in order to save her.

She huffs a small laugh, which leaves John taken aback.

“DeLuca didn’t come up with that plan.”

“Oh?” He asks, cocking his head to the side.

“For something so carefully thought out, that had to have come from his mother.”

Again, John feels his lips curl into a small smile, “Is this going back to the ‘mommy issues’ you mentioned?”

Helen nods, “Oh, definitely. That umbilical cord is stretching from Rome to New York. His mom killed his father in order to get him in charge of Syndicate.”

John blinks, rubbing at his head, willing the dull ache to go away. “Exactly how long did you spend with DeLuca?”

“He lasted about eight minutes in my charming presence before having me sedated.”

The I love you on the tip of his tongue goes unsaid.

“I should start having you run all my mission preps.”

“You really should.” Helen agrees, closing her eyes as she leans back against the headboard. “But then, who would counsel my rebellious teens, depressed businesspeople, and wayward assassins?”

“Who indeed.”

He’s worried about what he has to tell her next.

John had been so concentrated on finding her that he hadn’t had time to plan out his next steps. There were a few dozen people who had to die to ensure her safety, DeLuca being number one on his list.

She wasn’t safe so long as DeLuca was alive. And the mobster had gone underground shortly after he had recovered Helen. A smart move on his part, John acknowledges.

Without DeLuca having Helen, there was nothing to stop John from targeting him.

But that meant that John had to track him. Hunt him down. Kill him and any other associates who might know about Helen and who she is to John.

He knew she promised those two guards who helped her that she’d ask him not to kill them and he was… considering it. He didn’t like the possibility of loose ends but saying no to Helen was an impossible task. One he was certain he might never master.

All in all, there were a few hundred reasons why she couldn’t go back to work.

There was the injury card he intended to play hard and fast.

The trauma that she hadn’t processed yet.

The fact that DeLuca’s whereabouts were unknown.

And while John was more than willing to stand guard outside her office, it was impractical for both of them.

He needed time.

John exhales, bracing himself for the argument that will surely erupt from this. Preparing himself to be strong enough to actually say no to Helen. “You can’t go back to work yet.”

Without opening her eyes, she says, “Try that again, in the form of a question. I might be more receptive.”

John swallows, “I can’t—I can’t do what I need to do unless I know that you’re safe. Will you please stay home from work until I can resolve the situation?”

Her eyes crack open, “How long are we talking?”

“A few days.”

He’s certain he can find DeLuca in that amount of time. He already had the Technician running searches remotely, already had Winston with an ear to the ground.

She was awake now and the last of his worries had been abated. Which meant that John could do what he did best. He could go out to the city. He could take out DeLuca and his soldiers and send her back to her world, knowing she was safe.

And he’d keep an eye on her. As often as he could manage without putting her at risk again. And he’d let her go.

His heart already ached at the prospect but what else could he do?

Helen lets out a small sigh, “Alright. All things considered, I should probably take a few days off anyway.” She inclines her head, “Don’t suppose you happen to have my work phone?”

John feels his face involuntarily wince, “Um, yeah, about that…”

“What?”

“DeLuca had it. Pretty sure he dropped it somewhere so that it couldn’t be tracked back to him.”

She rubs at her head but takes it better than he would have. “At least tell me he left my laptop alone?”

John nods, “I took that just in case. It’s in my car.”

Her eyes flutter shut again and he can tell she’s fighting the exhaustion.

“I’ll have to call my clients for this week.”

“Later.” John says, giving her hand a soft squeeze. “You need to rest.”

“I’ve been sleeping for god knows how long.”

“You’ve been sedated.” He corrects gently, “You’ve slept but you haven’t given yourself space to rest. You’re body’s still reeling from what you’ve been through.”

Her eyes don’t open but the corner of her lips twitch into a smile, “Look at that. You’ve been doing your homework.”

“I have a bookshelf dedicated to you.”

She hums at that, “I’ll want to see that later. And the rest of your library.” She cracks open her eyes, “You’re going to regret letting me into your home, John Wick.”

He already does, he thinks to himself. It occurs to him that seeing her here, like this, might be something he’s unable to recover from. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to sleep in his bed when the image of her lying there, amongst his pillows and sheets, has been unwittingly branded into his head. He might never get over the feeling of holding her in his arms and carrying her up the stairs and down the hall.

And it might take him time to track down DeLuca.

Days in which she’ll eat in his kitchen and lose herself amongst his bookshelves. He can see it now and it tears him apart.

While he has ceased to believe that life is fair, it’s inordinately cruel to have her like this, in ways he’s only dreamed, only to be forced to cut off contact.

But what can he do?

She needs to be here for her own protection but once the threat is eliminated, she needs to be as far away from him as she can be.

“Get some rest.” He tells her, wondering if the dull ache in his heart would worsen or improve if he left her presence.

He starts to stand but she holds fast.

She peers up at him with those big, brown eyes and he’s ready to fall to his knees.

“Will you hold me? Just for a minute?”

He really wishes he had it in him to deny her. But he doesn’t.

He nods and John releases her hand, moving around to the other side of the bed. He crawls over and under the covers which she has lifted for him.

This isn’t romantic, he tells himself. It’s not sexual or any other perverted pleasure.

This is comfort, like she’s shown him a hundred thousand times before.

John tries, hard, to push any other thought from his head and not to concentrate on how small her body feels as he wraps an arm, gently, around her.

She reaches up and takes hold of his forearm, hugging it to her as she nestles under the covers.

He hates himself for reveling in delight when she has suffered so much because of him. It’s his fault she was hurt at all, his fault she’s drained from trauma. And he’s the one benefitting, touching her in ways he’s only dreamed about.

But then, he thinks, he’s been Hell-bound his entire life.

And, if he’s right about finding DeLuca and tying up loose ends, he’ll only have days left where he can even bask in her presence.

Maybe, he can have this.

A minute, an hour of pretending the world wasn’t waiting outside his door. Pretending that this was more than just comfort.

It might hurt more, in the long run, to know how holding her feels like. But John can’t bring himself to care.

……………………………

He’s not sure when he fell asleep but it’s the dull vibrating of his phone on wood that wakes him up.

For a moment, he had forgotten where he was, what he was doing. He forgot her soft request for him to hold her while she fell asleep, keeping her safe and comforted after the ordeal.

All he can smell is her. She’s warmer now and, while usually heat makes him uncomfortable while he sleeps, it was different with her.

Helen had turned, at some point, her face now buried in his chest, her body curled into his while both his arms hold her tight.

A part of him wishes to stay like that forever.

But the phone buzzes again.

Helen stirs in his arms and he’s simultaneously in awe that she’s real and pissed that somebody is calling, waking her.

He disentangles his limbs from hers and she whines softly as John rises from the bed, tiptoeing quickly. He snatches the phone and hurries from the room, closing the door behind him.

Marcus.

“Yeah?” John answers, walking down the hall to the nook that overlooks the rest of the house, just above the stairs. He rests a hand on the balcony edge and leans down.

“You know I prefer to mind my own business whenever I can.”

John finds himself blinking at the unusual greeting. “Yes. It’s one of the few reasons I put up with you.”

Marcus hums at that, “I hate to ask, John, but what the fuck is going on?”

He stands up a little straighter, eyes narrowing, “What are you talking about?”

“My phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the contract came out.”

John’s stomach drops.

Surely, he thinks, DeLuca isn’t that stupid…

“What contract?” He forces himself to ask.

“Some woman no one’s ever heard of. Helen Kingston.” John thinks he might throw up but Marcus continues, “As far as anybody can tell, she’s a civilian but under known allies, you're listed.”

John swears, pushing his hair back from his face. Any remnants of sleepiness are now gone as he takes the stairs two at a time until he reaches the basement.

“When did it go live?”

“Half an hour ago. I’ve already fielded half a dozen calls from people trying to get information on who she is.”

“What’d you tell them?” John asks, propping the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he grabs a case for his handguns and a duffle for ammo. He opens each and begins selecting from vast array that hung on his wall.

“I didn’t tell them anything. I just asked them all if they really wanted to take the chance of going after a target who could be related, in any way, to John Wick.”

“How much is the bounty?”

“Four million.”

A string of swears escape.

Four million was considered a high price for a life. A payout of that amount, in a single kill, was usually reserved for difficult cases. Government officials with bodyguards or military targets trained to kill.

A four-million-dollar bounty on a civilian would be impossible for most assassins in the greater New York area to pass up. Even with him listed as an ally.

“Who is she, John?”

“Honestly?” John checks, emptying a shelf of various size rounds into the duffle bag, “She’s my therapist.”

He’s met with silence and John can’t help but smirk at rendering Marcus speechless. Funny, considering it was only two days ago when telling Winston a fucking nightmare.

“You know, I was joking all those times I told you to seek professional help.”

John shorts, “Yeah, well. Too late.”

“So now half of New York City is out looking for your therapist?”

“Seems so.”

He can almost feel Marcus rolling his eyes despite the distance between them, “Why would anybody target your therapist? In fact, I’m inclined to call her up and offer her a raise if she can make you less fucked in the head.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it always?” Marcus huffs a sigh, “Any idea where she is? The contract went live half an hour ago. I’m sure somebody’s already after her.”

“Upstairs.”

“She’s at your house?”

John zips the bag with the ammo shut. “Also complicated.”

John closes the lid on the gun case. He has a handful of Kevlar vests packed away in a trunk. He hoists out a few and drapes them over his shoulder as he grabs the case and the bag.

“Clearly. You know, I’m pretty sure fucking your therapist is an ethics violation of some kind.”

John ignores the comment. “Fancy earning a marker?” He asks, heading back up the stairs and crossing the large expansive living room to get to the front door.

“Depends. How much work am I going to have to do?”

“Minimal.” John lifts the trunk of his car and starts rearranging things. “Babysitting while I take care of the idiot who thought targeting her was a good idea.”

Marcus hums, thinking it over. “Is she going to be a pain in the ass?”

“Most definitely. She’ll have you mindfucked so fast you won’t know up from down.”

“Not doing a great job of selling it.”

John closes the trunk and walks quickly back into the house. He still has to pack clothes; food.

“I can almost guarantee no bodily harm and you won’t be bored. That’s a rare combination.”

Marcus grumbles for a moment but John didn’t doubt him. “Text me where I need to be.”

“Make sure you’re not followed.”

Marcus snorts in a way to signify no fucking shit and the call drops.

John lets out a breath as he hits the kitchen. While he’s bugged out in the army, bugged out from squatting, and run away more times than he could count, he’s never had to pack like this in his house. It’s almost unnerving to be choosing food from a fully stocked kitchen rather than grabbing the jar of peanut butter as he runs.

Fucking DeLuca.

What the hell was that bastard thinking?

John had already wanted him dead for daring to touch Helen and now this?

What could this possibly do for him? Four-million-dollars was a lot to spend on revenge and, while the smaller mobs did well for themselves, most didn’t just have that kind of money sitting around.

DeLuca’s reasoning, however, was the least of John’s concerns as he packed up his kitchen.

He had safehouses all over the globe, most listed under different names. A handful over the tristate area but he was reluctant to have Helen that close to the hub of assassins now gunning for her.

Fuck. He stops bagging up boxes of energy bars and pauses.

How the hell was he going to tell Helen there was a four-million-dollar bounty on her head?

Hey, remember that conversation we had earlier where I told you I would take care of DeLuca with a couple days? Well, now a couple hundred assassins are looking for you, so that plan is off the table. Sorry!

He doesn’t know how the fuck he’s going to explain this new round of bullshit and goes back to grabbing boxes of crackers and bags of rice.

“Are you… packing up your kitchen?” He doesn’t startle easy, but he hadn’t even heard her on the stairs.

John turns, in surprise, and his heart nearly jumps out of his chest.

Helen, hair wet from the shower, had traded in the nightgown for one of his white, cotton shirts and a pair of his sweatpants, drawstrings pulled tight, then folded several times over.

Her skin, still damp, forces the shirt to cling to her.

He looks away, “Yeah.”

“Is this some sort of weird coping ritual or did the shit hit the fan?”

John almost hates the way she can read him so easily.

“Shit hit the fan.” He says, glancing over his shoulder, gauging for reaction.

There isn’t one. Not really. She just nods, and honestly, he wishes that she would try to protest or argue or roll her eyes. Anything. Blame him, yell at him. Complain about the situation, whine and ask why they had to move but she doesn’t.

“When are we leaving?” She asks.

“Fifteen minutes.”

Again, she just nods, “Want to point me in the direction of your library? I’d like to raid it before we bug out.”

The casualness in her voice makes his head and heart hurt. She shouldn’t be this accepting.

He swallows back the urge to start an argument because that is the last thing they need when people are searching for her.

“Top of the stairs, just off of the little alcove.”

She spins on her heels, like nothing is wrong.

John forces himself back to packing. Time, it seems, is always against them.

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