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crinkled-emotions · 1 year ago

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Day 11: "Can you stand?"

It's Friday night, I spent $300 on a new battery for my car yesterday so I'm sitting quietly, eating cereal for dinner and watching the Taylor Swift Folklore doco thing on Disney+ which is honestly such a vibe. I wish I could write songfics again I have so many thoughts all of a sudden lmao.

Initially this was a whump prompt, but I wanted to write something happy so here are some dumb (drunk) Daggers on the sauce :)

Little treat of suggested Hangster; it's Friday night and yeah. Hangster, right?

The Daggers had all dressed warm for the occasion; even Phoenix who was from Colorado and used to subzero temperatures had donned her puffer jacket and a warm hat. Hangman, having not really seen a real Texas winter since he left home at 18, was pouting and almost shaking from the cold as he stood close to the fire. The team had joked that Rooster was going to show up in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans even in freezing temperatures but he’d dressed warm, beanie on and moustache turned downward as he tried to get Hangman to move over in front of the wood fire.

“Remind me again why we did this?” Payback muttered. He and Fanboy had curled up on the nearest couch, fully dressed and a blanket to counteract the cold air. They’d all only gotten to the cabin in the snow about an hour ago and were still waiting for it to warm up. Bob was standing off to the side with Coyote but both moved when they realised Hangman had managed to get the fire going a little harder.

“Because last Christmas, no offence guys, fuckin’ sucked,” Fanboy commented. No one could disagree; it had sucked. There was no particular reason... it just sucked.

“And we could do with some time out of San Diego,” Phoenix agreed. She glanced over her shoulder at Hangman, an eyebrow raised.

“Are you good?”

“I’m cold, of course I’m not good,” he complained. Everyone snorted in amusement, then Bob quietly cleared his throat.

“I did... bring something that might help with that.”

“Bob, sex toys are not group conversation topics,” Coyote deadpanned which earned laughter amongst the group. Bob rolled his eyes.

“No, asshole, I meant the hot chocolate in my bag.”

“Wait; I have schnapps.”

Fanboy kicked the blanket on to Payback who happily took it and went to grab said alcohol while Bob produced the hot chocolate and went into the kitchen to start making it. Rooster smirked at Hangman, who glared straight back.

“You still cold?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

Payback patted the spot Fanboy had left empty.

“It’s so much better under the blanket, man.”

Hangman grumbled, but promptly flopped into the spot. Payback tossed him the spare blanket on the back of the couch and Phoenix stifled a giggle when the only piece of him visible was a tuft of blonde hair. Fanboy waved the bottle of peppermint schnapps on his way into the kitchen to help Bob, which earned cheers and clapping. Coyote nudged his best friend.

“At least it’s not tequila; you’re a slut on tequila.”

“Everyone’s a little slutty when tequila’s involved,” Hangman muttered. He yawned and Payback grinned.

“Think he’s finally warming up.”

“The only person more of an asshole when they’re cold is Mav,” Rooster mused. The smell of hot chocolate wafted through the room and they all admitted to themselves that they’d probably be hungover tomorrow... except for Bob, who would do what he usually did and make a solid hangover breakfast. That and make sure everyone was drinking water before they went to bed.

Considering they were in the middle of nowhere in a cabin in the snow, the Daggers were actually enjoying themselves. Maverick had declined the invitation, happy to spend Christmas with Penny and Amelia but had requested photos when they managed to get into the small town nearby. They’d done a food shop before arriving and were now thoroughly sloshed on peppermint schnapps hot chocolate, the nachos they’d managed to put together tipsy and the episode of Bondi Rescue they’d started but had to stop because they were too busy giggling at the worst moments (Fanboy) or complaining that they weren’t able to follow the story (Rooster). Phoenix had managed to convince Hangman to share his blanket and she was now sitting beside him, pretending she gave a shit about some college football thing he was ranting about.

Truly; if you asked her, she’d tell you she had no idea what he was on about.

She just knew she had a warm cup of hot chocolate in her hands and she was leaning on his shoulder as he talked a million miles an hour. Bob was watching the others as they milled about the cabin, warming up with said spiked hot chocolate and the wood fire Bob was now (firmly) in charge of considering they were all sloshed. He’d already had to shoo away multiple drunk Daggers from turning it into a cabin fire rather than a comfortable warmth.

“Don’t you think y’all should get to bed? You’re warm enough now to sleep through the night,” he suggested. To his surprise none of them complained, gathering their phones and each other to go to bed. Bob had been planning to share a room with Rooster but when he watched Hangman lean in to whisper in his ear and receive a positive response he made the educated decision that it was better for him to sleep on the couch. From past experience, they did tend to seek each other out but nothing actually happened; they’d wake up fully clothed, hungover and tangled together. He wasn’t going to get between them, other than making sure they were in the recovery position before he went to sleep. It was his past EMT training; they were all mostly responsible adults but he always checked on his friends before going to bed when they’d all been drinking considering he wasn’t interested in that activity.

The next morning, sure enough, Hangman stirred with his head on a warm chest and what felt like a sledgehammer in his head. He groaned, lifting a hand to his forehead. Rooster huffed.

“Dude; I was really enjoying that.”

Jake glanced up, smiling at Bradley.

“Happened again?”

“Just like any other time. At least you’re warm now. S’lot more quiet when you’re warm.”

Hangman reached up to take Rooster’s phone from him, interrupting the tiktok he’d apparently been watching. He went to move on to his stomach but Rooster stopped him.

“I wouldn’t if I were you. There was a lot of spiked hot chocolate last night.”

“Don’t remind me.”

They lay there together for a little longer. Finally Rooster sucked in a breath.

“I need to get up.”

“Can you stand?”

Silence.

“Fuck off, Seresin. Can you stand my ass.”

Jake shifted off his chest, watching Bradley make his way to the end of the bed. He paused on the edge, grimacing.

“Still findin’ your legs?” Jake grinned sleepily. He got a middle finger salute for his efforts.

“Go find Bob; he’s probably starting breakfast.”

Bradley finally stood, making his way into the bathroom down the hallway. Jake watched him go, groaning.

“Of course you had to mention breakfast. Hey, fuck you asshole.”

“Ask nicely!”

That was the last glimpse Jake got of Bradley before he went into the bathroom. The door softly closed behind him and Jake sighed.

Time to go find Bob... and the others, potentially. He did hear whispers of a snowball fight the night before.

“How is everyone this morning- woah, Tash. You look like... don’t worry, I won’t finish that sentence.”

Apparently Phoenix had gone to bed with her mascara still on and hadn’t had a chance to scrub it off yet- she was hunched over at the island in the kitchen, cradling the cup of coffee and the bottle of water Bob had placed in front of her. Coyote looked up when Hangman came in, smirking.

“You and Bradshaw?”

“What- no, not like that man. He’s like a furnace.”

Coyote snorted, but offered Hangman the Tylenol and a bottle of water anyway.

“Sure, whatever you say. How is he this morning?”

“Showering I think- Bob, you’re my favourite person right now.”

“Oh!”

Bob turned from the stove where he was frying bacon and scrambling eggs, a blush covering his cheeks.

“I- I guess I just thought because I wasn’t hungover I’d make y’all breakfast.”

“We always appreciate it, Bob, thanks... and for keeping us safe. You think we don’t know about the recovery position or forcing us to drink water so we don’t wake up dehydrated and hungover? We’re so grateful.”

“Payback’s right, man,” Fanboy affirmed, “you’re the newest to our group but we do appreciate you.”

“Damn, what’s this? Appreciating Bob hours? Without me?”

Hangman stared dead ahead when he felt a kiss pressed to his temple as Rooster passed by him, smelling clean and like he’d brushed his teeth. Coyote met Hangman’s blank stare and stifled his laugh into his elbow as a cough, nudging Phoenix who was still curled up on a bar stool.

“You good, ‘Nix?”

“Fuck off, Bradshaw. I get it, you’re big and strong and alcohol doesn’t affect you as bad-“

“-do you not remember that one time I literally hurled in Penny’s carpark and she came to see if I was alright?”

He was in a good mood; Fanboy and Payback exchanged a glance, then stood to help Bob with finishing breakfast.

Hangman was starting to get cold again and glanced over his shoulder at the wood fire that had kept them going overnight. It was out and by the looks of it would take a while to get going. He took a look around and did the next best thing; plastered his body against Rooster’s side and internally hoped the warmth radiating from him would keep him toasty while Fanboy and Coyote got the fire going again.

“You good?”

Rooster’s moustache twitched in amusement as he glanced down at the other aviator glued to him. Jake nodded, slipping his hands under Bradley’s jacket to get them warm too which earned a hiss.

“Fuck, your hands are cold. A little warning next time would be nice.”

“Tasha lift your head up and open your eyes enough you can see what I’m giving you.”

Bob, forever the former-EMT and good friend, was coaxing her to drink water and take Aspirin whilst the others put everything for breakfast on the coffee table instead of the dining table. He took her cup of coffee from her, leaving her with water.

“Down that and then try to eat some toast. You missed out on Hangman blue-screening because Rooster kissed him.”

“It wasn’t a kiss-“

“-more like a check in-“

Phoenix lifted her head. Fanboy went to get her a makeup wipe, too scared to ask. He figured it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

“I have no doubt I’ll see it more than I really wanted to later, don’t worry.”

Despite the teasing from their friends, neither Jake or Bradley make a move to separate. Bob shrugged.

“Let’s get you guys some food, maybe we could go see town today if you’re not still legally drunk.”

“We gotta get more hot chocolate... and schnapps.”

“Absolutely not,” Phoenix said at the same time Payback enthusiastically agreed with Coyote’s statement. Rooster glanced down at Hangman and the face he made was so similar to the one he made on the carrier after the Dagger mission that Hangman just burst out laughing.

"They're gonna be so obnoxious this whole trip," Payback sighed.

"Least Hangman's not bitching about being cold," Fanboy supplied. Everyone agreed, including Rooster, and Hangman glared at him.

"Fuck all of you."

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onceuponalegendbg · 2 years ago

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Top Ten Ace Attorney Games

So this seems appropriate given recent announcements. Note: I’ve never played the Professor Layton crossover so it will not be on this list. Can’t really rank something you never interacted with, you know? Also, goes without saying but all opinions expressed in this are fully subjective and should be taken with a grain of salt. Like, seriously, guys. I’ve warned you.

10) Apollo Justice - Okay, so I just want to say that AA4 is not a bad game, but good lord is it the one I have the most problems with. Good things first, however. I love the dynamic between Apollo and Trucy. Their banter is so fun. I like this version of Phoenix. Really seems like he’s grown a lot in the time between games due to circumstances. I feel his relationship with Trucy could have been explored more but what we do get is good. Ema’s back, and I’ll never say no to that. Klavier is a good rival for Apollo. All that said, man do I remember barely anything about any of the cases of this game. Outside the main cast I remember Lamoire, Kristoph, and that a couple of Gramaryes are in this one. That last case also just... gives me a headache if I think about it too long.

9) Justice For All - Oh boy. So outside of introducing my favorite Prosecutor of the OG trilogy, JFA is a bit meh overall. Don’t get me wrong, Case 2 with all the Fey Drama is very solid and the final case... Come on, do I really need to say how good the Engarde Case is? I don’t even hate the Berry Big Circus case as much as most people (except for the very uncomfortable love triangle, that I detest) but even I can’t deny it’s one of the weaker cases in the series and the first case is... the whole amnesia device is more annoying than clever. Again, I’m sure I’m not saying anything new here.

8) Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright - Man, I wonder if this is some form of sacrilegious putting the first game this low on the list. Honestly, there’s not much to truly criticize with this one. It’s a very solid first entry into what would grow into such a beloved franchise. But I also just don’t have a ton of things to say about it in general? At least not many that haven’t already been said by more articulate people than I. It’s a good game. Solid starting point. Weakest case is the first one but... It’s the first case. So. To be expected.

7) Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth - Admittedly, this is only so low because I love the other games more and the last case is.... unbearably long. It was brilliant of Capcom to take what is likely AA’s most popular character and give him his own games, and even better to give us characters like Kay and Lang while also giving us Tiny Franziska. We did not deserve Tiny Franziska but they gave her to us anyway. A very enjoyable foray with a new game-play style.

6) Trials and Tribulations - Oh man, I am going to get so much crap for this one. Before anyone comes at me! Yes! T&T is a near flawless entry. Genuinely, the writing for this one is insane and Dahlia is such a well used antagonist. The through line for this game is masterful. Even the third case, which is indeed the weakest case, I find some charm in. So don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that objectively this probably should have at least been in the top three. But this isn’t an objective list. This is my list. And while I do love T&T, I just adore the games in the top five more.

5) Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Path - An improvement from the first Investigations in almost every way. While I do think that the last case is still a bit too long, I think it’s overall more interesting than the first’s. More of Kay, Miles, and Gumshoe having the best dynamic. The addition of Ray, Sebastian, and Justine only making the cast all the better. Again, I’m a sucker for Justine being the best mom ever and her dynamic with John (and even Sebastian) is something I wish we’d had more of.

4) Dual Destinies - I don’t care what ya’ll say, AA5 is a fun addition and Athena is an amazing new character. I freakin love Athena. Like, I’m sorry but any character that has been through that much crap and still manages to smile and cheer up the people around her even when she’s feeling the absolute worst is a good character and I will die on this hill. Not to mention Blackquill being an equally fantastic rival for our protagonists. And that reveal in the last case while Aura is forcing them to do a retrial for her brother! “Oh but Phoenix is back to being goofy and it’s like AA4 never happened.” “Oh, but Apollo is angsty for no reason.” Sorry, doesn’t bother me. Like, I’m not even willing to call these things nitpicks because they’re just such non-issues for me. The only thing I’ll say is that the models do look a little off sometimes. This is a good game, ya’ll are just mean.

3) Spirit of Justice - So confession, SOJ was the first AA game that I saw from start to finish. I’d tried before but I’d never found the right let’s play of the AA franchise. Then I did find one, and I watched SOJ through start to finish. And I really enjoyed it. I love the setting of Khura’in, Rayfa, the final boss looking like a Power Rangers’ villain. Also, while we do get a lot of father son stuff, I’m such a freakin sucker for the mother daughter stuff between Rayfa and Gharan and Amara. Also, the Magical Turnabout is just... such a fun case? And of course, Maya can’t be in a game without getting accused of murder. But her growth as a character is great. I just really really enjoy this game, guys.

2) Great Ace Attorney: Adventures - I’m sure this comes as very little shock to anyone who knows me. The first GAA game is astounding. I love this cast of characters so much. Susato, Ryu, Sherlock, Iris, Barok, Gina, Toby, they’re all great! The new mechanics with the jury and multiple witnesses on the stand are great. The story is great. Yeah, the first case goes on for too long, but at least it feels fresh due to the new setting and characters. I feel like I can’t properly articulate how much I love this game. Which, speaking of...

1) Great Ace Attorney: Resolve - Yeah, yeah. Predictable, I’m sure. But what can I say, this took everything I loved about the first game and just made it better and expanded on it. The story takes so many twists and turns and it takes the characters and their bonds from the first game and makes me love them even more. WE LOVE THE FOUND FAMILY TROPE! Kazuma comes back and he becomes such a fascinating character. Rei, Courtney Sithe, Esmeralda Tusspells, Drebber are only some of the memorable new characters for this part 2. The fight against Stronghart (Vortex is still the cooler name) is such a triumphant moment! And playing as Susato in the first case!? That was amazing! And Ryu’s growth throughout all of this!? Like excuse me! I love this boy!

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valhallaas · 2 years ago

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That’s My Girl

pairing: bradley rooster bradshaw x sunshine!reader

word count: 3.1k

warnings: SMUT (18+, minors dni) vaginal fingering, p in v, cream pie (wrap it up, pals) jake stirring the pot like the shithead he is

summary: when everyone but rooster sees it, there’s always a texan willing to step up to the plate.

a/n: not me cackling while writing this like some crazed woman. ya’ll can blame @glen-powells for this. the text messages can prove it.

Part 2

Part 3

It surprises you every time you come back to the Hard Deck how it hasn’t changed. At least the atmosphere. Civilians and aviators alike. Penny grins at you when you walk in. Elbowing your way through the crowd, you take a seat at the bar, leaning far enough over to let her kiss you on the cheek. Her and your mom had been best friends. Penny’s known you since you were in diapers, helped your mom through the divorce, and helped you when she passed away. You always did your best to come visit her when you could. You’re on leave for the next two months and you aren’t wasting it anywhere else but here.

“Long time no see.” Penny says as she grabs you a drink.

You only grin. “You’ll be seeing so much of me, you’ll be sick of me.”

“Is free labor included in that?”

“Always.” A two toned whistle catches your attention. Turning to look behind you, you sigh at the sight. Holy shit. They’re all here. Your eyes narrow at the blonde, his grin widening when he catches you staring. “Maybe not tonight, Pen.”

Penny shakes her head. “I didn’t think so. Go on, then.”

Throwing her a grateful smile, you’re up and heading towards the pool table. It’s a reunion, no doubt. You’d been overseas the last few months. Seeing everyone here is a blessing. You can’t help the splitting grin on your face when Bob wraps you up right in his arms. How the two of you hit it off, you’ll never know, but you aren’t complaining.

“Look who it is, folks. Our Sunny girl. Did ya’ll see it get brighter in here when she walked in?”

Your eyes roll so far into the back of your head you’re surprised they don’t get stuck. Turning, you come face to face with the blonde who’d called for your attention.

“Hangman,”

He pulls the toothpick out of his mouth and winks. “Sunshine.”

“What’s got y’all here?”

“You.” Phoenix answers, standing from where she knocked two solids in at the pool table.

You turn to look back at the bar. Penny’s already looking at you with a smirk. What a little sneak. You should’ve known she let you go too easily. Shaking your head you step forward and snag the pool stick from Hangman. He smirks, but doesn’t say anything. You quirk an eyebrow. Lieutenant Jake Seresin keeping his mouth shut? It’s a goddamn miracle. His eyes never leave you as the game finishes. Phoenix grumbles at her loss, you were three shots behind when you started. It’s not your fault that you’re good, that you’re very good. Handing the stick off to Bob, your eyes scan the bar. It’s been almost thirty minutes since you got here. It’s a Saturday night and the bar is busy.

No Hawaiian shirt in sight. No porn mustache spotted anywhere. Your shoulders deflate. If everyone else is here, why isn’t he?

“Who you looking for, Sunshine?”

You glance sideways. “Wouldn’t like to know.”

Jake only grins. “Your bird boy ain’t here yet. Had a meeting with Maverick, I believe.”

Fucking Christ. Are you really that hopeless when it comes to him? So exposed that even Bagman can tell that your head over heels for Rooster? It’s not like it’s your fault. If you had it your way, you’d be happy with your own company. But the heart wants what the heart wants.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. Because as much as you pine for him, Bradshaw is a dumbass.”

“What do you mean?”

“He hasn’t noticed, Sunny. You’re still that kid from down the road. You need to do something to make him see you.”

The thought has crossed your mind. You’ve known Bradley so long that he probably didn’t think of you that way. Your teeth bite into your cheek, hands fiddling with the hem of your dress. You don’t miss the way Hangman’s eyes take you in. His gaze lingering on your bare thighs. You huff out a small laugh, pulling his attention back to your face.

You and Jake have a weird relationship. He annoys you to no end but you trust him with your life. Pretty sure you’re the only one in the bar that does. Jake’s been protective of you since you met at Top Gun. A relationship without the relationship, you suppose.

“Can always stir the pot,”

You blink. “What?”

“Make him jealous, Sunny.” A snort escapes you and you slap a hand over your mouth. Jake’s smile is wide, his head falling back with a deep chuckle. “Oh, Sunny girl.”

“I have no one to make him jealous. Even if I did, that’s a stupid idea. What am I, in eighth grade?”

“Honey, look at who you’re talking to.”

Green eyes devour you when you look up at him. He is right. No one gets under Rooster’s skin more than Hangman. You bite your lip, unsure. You shouldn’t. You really, really shouldn’t. But there’s a fire in Hangman’s eyes, like he’s got a point to prove. Playing with the hem of your dress, you scrape the toe of your shoe against the floor. Fuck it, really, what do you have to lose?

“What are we going to do, exactly?”

Jake raises his hand, cupping the side of your face. His thumb lightly drags over your bottom lip before pulling it down. He pulls it away and looks down at the faintly smeared mauve color now on the pad. He lifts it up to his mouth and rubs it in.

“What are you doing?”

His lips tilt into a knowing smirk. “Teasin’.”

He’s going to get you in trouble. Lifting a hand to your own mouth, it’s smacked lightly. Sharp eyes glare at him.

“Go pick out a song. Let’s dance.”

“Dance?”

“Yeah, Sunshine, dance. Now go, and pick out a good one.”

You roll your eyes but do as you're told. Eyes follow you the whole way to the jukebox. You lean over, just a bit, the bottom of your dress rising up to tease. Was that why you wore it? Maybe. You wouldn’t tell. Flipping through the songs, you pause a few pages back, a knowing smile taking over your face. Putting the money in, you twirl back to face Jake. When the song starts playing he laughs.

“Honey, you are playing dirty.”

“You started it.”

“Well, you do have your boots on.” He says toeing your Ariats.

“Come on, Texas. Show me how to boogie.”

“You are asking for trouble.”

An eyebrow raises. “Pot, meet kettle.”

Jake doesn’t say anything else. His hand grabs for yours, his arm wrapping around your waist and pulling you tightly to him. You can’t help but gasp when his thigh slots between yours. Tightening your grip on his shoulder, he twirls you both out and makes room to have a dance floor. The other patrons cheer while watching. A few cat calls thrown your way. A carefree laugh makes its way from you. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt this way. It’s silly, really. To think that teasing a grown ass man made you feel this way.

“Just a heads up, Sunny girl, Bradshaw’s been watching since you went to pick out the song.” Your heart drops. What now? You go to turn your head, to try to find him, anything, really, but are stopped short. Jake slides his hand into your hair keeping you still. “Stop. You’re going to ruin it. I can see his fucking vein bulging from here.”

This is a good thing, right? This is what you wanted? His attention? Jake knows what he’s doing. He’s never led you astray before. Hopefully he won't start now. Jake lets you go, hanging you out with one hand before twirling you around. You’re facing away from him now, and you come face to face with Rooster. You inhale sharply, the smell of him overwhelming you.

“What’s going on here?” He asks, no preamble.

“We’re dancing, I know you have eyes, Bradshaw.”

Bradley looks from Hangman down at you. Head to toe his eyes blaze over you. A fire touching your skin. Licking at the top of your exposed breasts and down your thighs. You can see his lips twitch. The man knows you. His hand reaches out, pinches the fabric of the dress, rolling it between his fingers. It’s his favorite color, and by the look in his eyes you know he knows you wore it just for him.

“Hey Sunshine.”

“Hi Rooster.”

“Couldn’t wait for me, huh?”

You frown. Opening your mouth to talk, you’re promptly cut off. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Rooster shrugs. You follow after him to the table where all your friends are. Most of them try their hardest to look as if they aren’t watching this scene play out like a movie. You jump up to sit on the table, grabbing your drink and taking a sip. You hand Hangman his beer, his glare still on the man beside you. Neither of them say anything for a long time. They just stare, having a silent conversation that you don’t know how to decipher.

“Didn’t know you had a thing for Bagman, Sunshine.” Rooster finally says.

You snort, ignoring Jake’s smirk. “He wishes.”

“That why your lipstick is on his mouth?”

“Who’s mouth should it be on? Wouldn’t want it to go to waste.” Jesus Christ, he’s trying to get you into fucking trouble. Widened eyes look at Jake, his face more stoic than you’ve ever seen it.

“What does that mean?”

Hangman huffs, taking a pull from his beer. “All I’m saying Bradshaw, is that you’ve got a hell of a woman hanging off every word you say. Waiting on you to finally do something. So, you better fuck her before I do.”

Did he know you could hear him? You’re sitting like two feet away. Neither of the men back were backing down and it’s making your anxiety spike. They’ve always been at each other's throats. You’re not sure when their little feud became about you.

“Did she say that?”

“Say what?”

“Did Sunshine say that she wanted you to fuck her?”

There was no hiding the smugness in Bradley’s tone. Hook, line, and sinker. A muscle twitches in Jake’s jaw from how hard he’s clenching his teeth. Suddenly, he glances over at you and you know you must look like a deer caught in headlights. He sighs but it doesn’t sound like one of defeat. More like he’s losing his patience.

He steps towards you, thumb trailing over your bottom lip. “If it doesn't work out with him, Sunny. You know where to find me.”

Hangman turns without looking at either of you again and makes for the jukebox. Your lips quirk up when you recognize the song.

***

The sound of the door closing is your only warning. Hazel eyes meet yours in the mirror as you roll your neck. Your body relaxes when you feel him press up against your back. He’s so warm it sends chills running down your spine. The bathroom isn’t all that big. Bradley stands behind you, invading your space and swallowing it whole. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. It’s easy to see that Hangman’s words have gotten under your skin. Your heart thunders in your chest at what’s going to happen next. A small prayer is sent off that Penny never finds out.

“You look good, flower.”

You smile at the nickname. “Thanks. It’s always fun when you can dress up in civvy clothes.”

He huffs. “The dress is really something,”

You grin at him through the mirror and you see Adam’s apple bob, hazel eyes fixated on your lips. You swallow, your throat thick. Tearing your gaze from his, you smooth your hands down the soft material, fingers playing with the hem of it. You took a chance with it, and you’re grateful it’s working out in your favor.

The tension is thick and heady. It clings to your skin, his callouses catch on your skin, gluing themselves to you. The music from the jukebox beats against the bathroom door, it’s the only thing accompanied by your heavy breathing. Your eyes shut when his hand pulls your hair to rest over one shoulder. A light yank of your hair has them snapping open. You meet his eyes in the mirror. One eyebrow quirks up at you. With a shaky breath you nod. Bradley leans in, lips lightly brushing against the expanse of your neck. His gaze rests on the soft spot right next to where it connects to your shoulder. You tilt your neck not only to give him more access, but permission too. Your lips tilt at the groan he lets out before his lips are on you.

Slowly his hands pull your sleeves down your arms. Goosebumps rise on your exposed skin. It makes you feel a little vulnerable. But then Bradley pushes himself even closer. He’s got his Hawaiian shirt on, jeans, and his boots. You can feel him breathing, his chest warming your back. It’s when he pushes his hips against you—you can feel him. All of him. A whimper escapes you and you see him grin in the mirror.

A hand trails down your side while the other moves to your chest. Your head falls back when a nipple is taken between his calloused fingers. You’ve only dreamt of what his hands would feel like. Your imagination didn’t do him justice. The heat coming from him is intoxicating. You’ve been so caught up in him that you haven’t realized a hand has been slipping down, down down. Fingers toiling with your dress, pushing the skirt up slowly. A hum rumbles from him when his fingers finally find your core, slipping between your folds. You’re completely soaked. You’ve been this way since he appeared right in front of you. Your breath locks in your throat when he slips a digit in.

“Christ,” he mutters, voice thick like honey. “No panties, flower?”

You whine, you can’t help it. You push your hips back into him, arching your back. His voice, the accusation in his tone. You knew what you were doing when you left your house. Maybe he’d come home with you, fucking you good and proper in your bed. Not pressed up against the sink of the Hard Deck. Bradley pulls his finger out only to push it back in with another. He does this, warming up your body, until you’re moaning, your own hand wrapped around his wrist and guiding him. You can’t stop your hips from grounding down on his hand. Desire has taken over. Bradley has left your nipple, hand now wrapped around your throat, holding you hostage to watch yourself in the mirror. He grunts when you clench around his fingers. You’re close, so close.

“Bradley,” you whine, fingers digging into his arm.

“I know, flower. You want it real bad, don’t you? Let me feel it. Let me feel you gush all over my hand sweet girl. Would you like that?”

You’re going to come off his words alone. A moan falling from your lips as the pressure tightens. It’s only moments later when the band snaps, hot liquid flooding throughout your body. Your head falls back against his chest, another moan filling the small space.

“That’s it, that’s my girl.”

You can feel him moving behind you. The distinct clinking of his belt being undone. Your whole body grows hotter in anticipation. Searing heat hits you, a hand stroking himself while the other is spreading you open. Heat pulses between your legs. There’s no doubt that he’ll split you wide open. After what you just pulled with Jake, you’d be surprised if he was forgiving at all. It’s a little fucked up, but it warms your belly all the same. Lifting your head, you gasp when his eyes meet yours. Bradley’s pupils are blown, lust and primal desire have taken over. His lips pink and full, he bends down and kisses right between your shoulder blades. Traveling up your spine, over your shoulder, he digs his teeth in where it meets your neck. You don’t miss his smirk when you moan.

He slides a hand across your ass, slapping you just hard enough to leave a red handprint behind as he thrust deep, bottoming out. A hand clamps down around your mouth, muffling the scream trying to break free. He’s big, so fucking big. He’s filling you up like never before. It hurts, a pain that you will never get enough of. Your knuckles turn white with each rough, lazy thrust. Bradley slides a hand along your spine, up the back of your neck and into your hair, your breath catches as he pulls your head up and you’re meeting his gaze in the mirror. He’s watching you come undone around him. Each stroke pulling more and more pleasure. Your cheeks are flushed, pupils blown with lust, and lips parted as each of your clipped breaths turn into whimpers.

“Flower,” he grits, hand tightening in your hair, “you feel so fucking good.”

You stare back at him, feet spreading wider to let as much of him in as you can. His teeth dig into your skin again, this time leaving bruises behind. It makes you whine. Little secrets that litter your skin. He thrusts harder, rougher until your hand is pressed against the mirror just to keep you balanced. He’s fully claiming you. Cock punching into the deepest part of you. Neither of you are too worried about the sounds escaping you now.

“Bradley, I–” you're cut off by a whimper when he reaches that spongy spot deep inside you. Over and over again, you feel it approaching, your orgasm is going to come crashing down and you’re ready to bask in it. Your face lifts up, like a sunflower searching for the sun.

“Flower? Are you going to come for me again? Are you going to let me feel you come around my cock?”

“Yes! Yes, I–Rooster, fuck,”

You come on his cock like a tidal wave, and when you collapse against the counter, your body trembles, heaving desperately for air. Bradley groans, pulling you up until you’re flush against him. His lips meet yours in a messy kiss, bucking his hips harder until he’s chasing his high right over the ledge with you.

“Good girl,” he praises, wiping the sweat off the back of your neck. “Good fuckin’ girl. That’s my good girl.”

The jukebox is still blaring when you exit the bathroom. Slowly you make your way back to where your friends are. Ignoring all of their knowing stares you reach for your drink and down it. When Bradley finally makes his appearance beside you, a possessive arm thrown over your shoulders and a quick kiss to the crown of your head. Hangman’s watching the both of you, a knowing look in his eye.

“So, Bradshaw, how was she?”

#bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw x you #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x you #rooster bradshaw x reader #rooster bradshaw x you #rooster bradshaw one shot #rooster bradshaw smut #bradley rooster bradshaw one shot #bradley rooster bradshaw smut #bradley rooster bradshaw fanfic #rooster bradhsaw fanfic #top gun maverick fanfic

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secondsonaym · 2 years ago

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Hi! i just wanted to say i absolutely love the story and designs you’ve made for all your oc’s! there designs are just so amazing and i can’t wait to see what happens next (but i also fear the emotional attachment i’ve gained from them and how badly my heart strings may be ripped apart)! keep up the amazing work!

out of curiosity though, how do you get ideas for the designs of the characters?

Thank you-thank you! Character design is such a big hobby of mine, I'm glad people have been enjoying what I make!

As for my process, that's a bit complex as to how to explain. I have a sort of 'go with the flow' kind of style, just doing what feels right without any real conscious considerations for thought to it until I get to the coloring, but let's see if I can try to explain my process for one...

This may be a little lengthy, so I'll put it below the cut!

I think I'll use the work for the archbishops as an example as to what my more 'focused' design concepting goes, so let's dive in!

Now, to start from the very beginning, originally, I had only intended to have Michael. I knew I wanted to make a sort of 'mentor' figure for Narinder, the previous Red Crown bearer, and I wanted them to have a sort of stark appearance--albino, red/black robes, and all that.

However, I hadn't decided on the species. I won't elaborate on why I asked this specific question, but I asked twitter what bird they would most strongly associate with a phoenix, or think of as an interesting kind of phoenix--the options, if I recall, were Flamingo, Secretary Bird, and Peacock. There might have been a fourth one but idk.

Anyway, as I let the poll run to decide where I would start, I began to get more solid ideas on the character that this design would end up being, thus, in the end I decided to override the poll and go with flamingo.

Then began the visual concepting.

First I did a more 'realistic' pass at a flamingo, to try and figure out what the key details for the species were that I would want to adapt into my style. Then I moved onto the more 'my' style, messing with how they would look as a bishop--It's here I decided the more snake-like details for the neck, noting how it looked in the reference picture I grabbed.

Now, usually I don't type or write out my concept thoughts, but I was sharing these on twitter as I was working with them, so I jotted some stuff down so people could see my thoughts.

The name was probably the hardest to settle on. I know I wanted to go with an angel name, but there were a few good options.

But it was when I was looking up names that I found some other interesting angels, and that's when the idea for the other archbishops came, and then this whole section of story.

So, concepting for the others began.

I hadn't originally planned to make all the archbishops birds, but when looking at the species I had from the poll as well as some other thoughts I had, eventually I applied species that I thought would best fit the themes of the crowns--Secretary Birds, for instance, are quite vicious with their kicks when handling snakes, so that would be the Purple Crown's bird.

Verchiel was actually the first one I had 100% decided on the name for, after seeing what the angel Verchiel was representative of. As you can see, I found the basic sketch pose for Verchiel's concepts strong, so I pretty much directly lifted them for his ref.

The only major difference from the sketch is the shape of his tail--When I started the linework, the feathers actually ended up looking quite like a pair of upturned palms. It was a coincidence, but I liked it a lot, so I went with it.

As for why I thought a peacock would fit the Blue Crown--That largely ties into my rambling about the sin crowns from a while ago and how the I handle the domains of the Major Crowns based on these--With Pestilence, it's the vibe of haughtiness when it comes sickness. Avoiding the ill and seeing them as 'disgusting,' while also not doing anything to help them. Thus, a peacock was the perfect fit.

Phanuel's species was also influenced by this, due to pelicans having those large pouches, being able to swallow up a lot of stuff at once. I had also considered a shoebill, but in the end decided on pelican... Namely because of a certain meme.

He didn't have much in-detail concepting, a mix of my hand wearing down by that point and not really knowing what to do in terms of sketches, so I was content to save more work for when I moved on to the actual ref.

As for Zuriel... Yep, originally I had planned for her to be a hummingbird! It was largely because of the fact a lot of species are brilliant shades of green, and also the 'small, but turns into Many for eldritch form' idea I had.

However, as I was prepping to do refs, I wasn't sure how much I vibed with that, so I decided to do a last-minute change to a lyrebird.

This is pretty much all I have in terms of 'concept' for Zuriel's final appearance, and what pushed me over the edge to deciding that, yes, this is what I wanted, was the fact lyrebirds are wonderful mimics for sounds. I realized, if I was going to do the flashback stuff I was prepping for, that could open so many possibilities, and this she became a lyrebird.

Now, in terms of colors, I think I will switch gears to focus on a different set of birds.

The owl siblings!

I had the help of a couple of friends to design the basic concepts (namely for Eligos, Zagan, and Decarabia), but I made the final tweaks to their colors and stuff, because that was the main design aspect I had in mind for them.

Each of the owl siblings is supposed to be faintly reminiscent of the crowns, and this is reflected primarily in their plumage--they have desaturated tones of the respective main hue of the crown they resemble.

Recall, in Stolas' original design, he was much more brown:

But when I decided on this aspect--with the intention of Stolas being the one representative of the Red Crown, I took the updated ref as an opportunity to also adjust his colors to be a bit more red.

When working with colors, I work best with analogous palettes--I can definitely do complimentary ones, but I tend to save complimentary colors for accents rather than the main portion of a design.

And as far as how I decide on colors, it's really just a matter of me fiddling with things until I think they look right.

Polly is an example of a character's palette that took me a bit, because it's more varied than what I usually do. But as I sketched her, she reminded me of Hatsune Miku, so I knew I wanted a kind of teal palette with pink accents, so... Well!

Members of Verchiel's order are also giving me a bit of an exercise with this, because compared to others, they're supposed to be a bit more colorful/extravagant due to the views in said order--Hell, Verchiel xemself has the most varied palette of the entire archbishops, because of that whole vanity thread that's such a strong aspect of xer character.

Color palettes can also help get the aspects of the character across on the first glance, so that's another bit that Verchiel's more gaudy appearance ties into.

I've been making OCs and the like for YEARS, so a LOT of this stuff is second nature to me at this point, so sorry if it doesn't really get to what you want or even makes much sense... But I hope it's eye-opening in any case!

#babble

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blossom-hwa · 4 years ago

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so I joined an ateez collab yesterday and was yelling to mai about a possible elemental kingdom au kind of like avatar but also not really anyway it doesn’t fucking matter mai was yelling back and now we have this. you have been warned

(I have bigger plans for seonghwa mostly because he’s the one I'm writing for this collab.............. seonghwa brainrot commence)

tagging: @applejongho @mangomingki @wingkkun because all of you need to see this SUFFER

anyway without further ado

ATEEZ ELEMENTAL KINGDOM AU OR WHATEVER IDK WHAT TO CALL THIS

tw: cursing

seonghwa

magma prince, born of an earth/water dalliance gone too far :/

lives in the water but is an outcast, so he’s forced to live on his own by the underwater volcanoes except when he has to come to the palace for ceremonies and such

doesn’t really manipulate water specifically but can control magma hence why I'm calling him a magma prince

he’s a prince because his mom was ocean royalty, anyway she disowned him so we don’t really care about her (fuck everyone who made seonghwa feel like an outcast :/)

has scales on parts of his body like the rest of the ocean dwellers because they descended from sea serpents, his range from black to deep royal blue which INFURIATES the court because those colors are the purest meant for ROYALTY like even his mom’s scales aren’t as deep/pure as seonghwa’s so ha in your FACE

except seonghwa isn’t a fan of the scales because it just makes him feel even more like he doesn’t belong in his own skin :///

friends with fire prince hongjoong and ocean prince san, both of whom are some of the few who treat seonghwa like an actual person and not just an outcast :/

takes very good care of the animals who live around the volcanic vents! a lot of the other ocean dwellers are scared of them because they look so different but seonghwa knows what it’s like to be an outcast so he keeps his little area as clean and welcoming as possible :)

it gets lonely around the volcanoes but honestly seonghwa prefers that over when he has to be at court for ceremonies n stuff. like yeah there might be water snakes around his place but they’re nothing compared to the snakes in the palace badum tss

hongjoong

fire prince of the dragon clan

there are two clans of the fire kingdom, one descended from dragons and the other descended from phoenixes, and they’re Rivals

dragon clan is allied with the ocean dwellers since sea serpents are related to dragons, phoenix clan is allied with the air dwellers because they all can fly n stuff

but anyway more on phoenix stuff in mingi’s part

has scales too, though his are more on the neck while seonghwa’s around around his ribs/waist, also they’re bright red/orange not blue

can produce and control dragon fire, which is destructive and primarily used for offense, so hongjoong’s been trained for an early age how to use it for max power/destruction

meets seonghwa on one of the few times hwa comes to the surface to chill in the sun and he’d just accidentally set fire to a small part of the beach and when he sees hwa he’s like HELP ME PUT THIS OUT

except hwa can’t control water he can only do magma so. yeah

san was nearby though and helped deal with it and later joong was like what the fuck kind of ocean dweller can’t control water and seonghwa was like. I'm half you dickwad

obviously they become friends after that. if they didn’t I'd give you permission to slap my face

but also after that hongjoong learns to keep a much tighter rein on his powers, like yes he’s being trained for destruction but he has masterful control over his abilities

could be considered a fire prodigy in all honesty

yunho

earth boy!! very powerful earth bender

can definitely do a lot of destruction with his powers but prefers to help things grow instead! talks to his garden and swears up and down that his plants grow bigger and taller when he does

good friends with both mingi of the phoenix clan and hongjoong of the dragon clan

earth dwellers aren’t allied with any side of the fire rivalry so they serve as the arbiters/judges when disputes come into place which is fair because earth is solid and stable and just (most of the time)

which is why yunho is able to balance this sort of friendship between the two boys :) does NOT meet with them together though that would be a recipe for disaster (not necessarily because of hongjoong/mingi themselves, they know how to behave, but the neurotic clan elders would throw a hissy fit)

runs a small restaurant in the capital that mostly caters to the working class, people always ask why yunho doesn’t try to do “more” with himself, that he’s wasted potential running a restaurant when he could potentially be a general or something in the army because of his earth bending prowess

but yunho doesn’t care, he’s happy where he is and he develops his bending as a way to protect and help himself and others, and from his friendship with hongjoong/mingi he’s pretty sure he wants to avoid clashing with earth royalty at all costs ksjndksjh

yeosang

air prince :) also he’s blond in this au you can’t change my mind

not particularly one of the strongest benders, but he’s very intelligent and wise which people value a little less than they should but yeosang doesn’t really care, he’s just going with it

imagine! yeosang in flows white robes!! floating on the wind!!!

yes air dwellers can fly sobs because they control the wind

and while yeosang isn’t necessarily the greatest at using his powers for fighting or whatever, he’s very good at flying and has a lot of fun with it along with air noble wooyoung

best friends with wooyoung by the way, no one really gets it because yeosang is quieter and doesn’t yell as much while wooyoung is the definition of Chaos

but wooyoung brings out the rowdy side in yeosang and their screams/yells echo in the air when they get together

a little wary of wooyoung’s friendship with san mostly because he’s a prince and understands the consequences of wooyoung, an air noble, being friends with the allies of their supposed enemy (water is allied with the dragon clan)

(maybe he’s a little jealous too)

but in the end it’s always still woo + yeosang against the world, floating in the sky and doing what they can for their people <3

san

WATER PRINCE WATER PRINCE WATER PRINCE

he’s actually the reason I birthed this au I couldn’t get ocean prince san out of my mind

flowy clothes and a crown of shells and pearls! likes shiny things and will trade with earth dweller merchants for new bits of crystal and jewelry!! tell me he isn’t a dream!!!

one of the beloved princes of the ocean, honestly probably the most loved because he’s so smiley and handsome and all around a very good boy until it’s his turn to perform the ceremonial dances and he turns into a demon

the brightest blue scales run up from his waist to his ribs, another one of the purest colors of royalty

uses his status to get away with being friends with seonghwa (aka people won’t yell at him if it’s obvious he disappeared for a while to the volcanic vents) but keeps their friendship kind of under wraps because hwa is afraid of retaliation when he has to visit the court :/

truly does not give a shit about hwa being half earth, if anything kind of envies it because he’s always curious to explore the volcanic trenches but as a normal ocean dweller the heat would be too much for him if he stayed too long

kinda scared of the animals near the trenches but he warms up to them after some periodic visits

friends with air noble wooyoung! even though it’s kind of (?) breaking alliances but neither of them really cares because they’re so much fun together :D

mingi

phoenix nobility, not quite a prince but close

phoenix fire has defensive and healing properties, so it can’t actually burn people but it can heal and protect from dragon fire/regular fire!

mingi is well-versed in the art of healing even though he’s a little clumsy sometimes :/ luckily phoenix fire doesn’t burn or there’d be major issues skjnsdkjh

can fly! phoenix descendants have a limited ability to fly, not as much as the air dwellers who can literally control the wind to help them, but it’s often enough to get them out of tight spots

only problem is mingi doesn’t like to fly very much skjndgjhn heights kinda suck

but when he does it’s fucking majestic, these orange flaming wings extending from his arms that clash beautifully with his red/orange hair

imagine seeing it at sunset oh my god that’s a dream

the phoenix and dragon clans are in negotiation with each other most of the time because ~hostilities~ but mingi doesn’t often participate in the direct talking because he’s better at working behind the scenes

ridiculously smart and likes to debate with yunho over things because seeing issues from a neutral perspective is very helpful and something mingi doesn’t think people do enough

what he’d really love to do is talk to hongjoong because an opposite perspective would be even better, but people don’t like that happening :/

secretly admires dragon fire because it’s so cool how dragon descendants can control so much destructive power with such ease

(he doesn’t know it but hongjoong admires phoenix fire just as much because god damn sometimes he wishes he was born to heal rather than destroy)

wooyoung

air noble!!!!! bitch if you thought I was making this man ANYTHING but an air dweller you do not know me

likes to watch the sunrise from his vantage point in the mountains :) sometimes wakes yeosang up to watch with him but only when he’s certain yeo won’t cut off a limb if he does skndjsgh

if yeosang is like the soft sea breeze against your face in the summer, wooyoung is the biting, almost playful nip of wind against your nose and cheeks in the winter

very playful! loves to make collect friends!!

can play the flute and absolutely 100% uses it to annoy said friends

you can often hear his screeching laughter and the yells of yeosang + others bouncing off the mountains skjdnsgk

is always on duty for patrolling the mountains because he’s one of the best at flying, but it’s fine because wooyoung enjoys being able to make his rounds and talk to people along the way

sometimes gets a little sidetracked with talking (and maybe eating the food people sometimes give him) but wooyoung is a lovable person no one can get mad at him for too long (which is a problem because he knows it)

thinks the rivalries between elements is dumb af, is literally friends with ocean prince san and earth dwellers 2ho and would like to make friends with mingi (yunho has mentioned him before) if he could just stop being in twenty places all at once

(mingi’s a busy guy wooyoung give him a break)

almost lost his shit when san told him he knew a magma controller, but hasn’t met seonghwa yet because hwa is shy and not very open to strangers

anyway I just think wooyoung air noble who has a personal mission to make as many inter-elemental friends as possible. shrugs

jongho

IF YOU TRY AND TELL ME THIS BOY ISN’T EARTH I WILL CLOCK YOU

earth boy and a prodigy at that! his bending is more advanced than some people twice his age

originally got stuck in training for the army because his bending was just that good, however he really hated having to use his powers solely for fighting so he left and became a blacksmith instead

why a blacksmith? here’s a secret

jongho can metalbend

which is why he sort of has this very good touch with metals and which types to use with which sorts of crafts

in very high demand for weapons like swords and such, but also makes jewelry and toys and pots and pans for regular day to day life

he also gets the “wasted potential” thing that yunho deals with a lot, but jongho has thick skin and those sorts of comments roll of his (broad) shoulders very quickly

LOATHES IT when generals and officials come to him with commissions and expect them to be done first and foremost like jongho doesn’t have around ten other projects hanging out in the background, but he just has to receive them with a smile

(maybe leaves a tiny unnoticeable dent in a general’s sword or something bc even if it’s unnoticeable, jongho knows it’s there and there’s some satisfaction in that)

friends with air noble wooyoung mostly because he is able to deal with woo’s bs, air prince yeosang is always asking for tips

meets yunho through wooyoung and 2ho strike up a nice friendship!

really just jongho stronk boy who can move the earth and will not hesitate to cause a subtle earthquake if some official gets uppity with him <3

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roseofithaca · 4 years ago

Text

Little Blue Eyes

A brief follow-up to this. Eleanor visits Michael during his reforming.

She had to hand it to Jason. If anyone had told her that it was possible to break a Janet out of Hell and get her away from an army of demons using just a Molotov, a single demon exploder gun, and a bag of weed, she’d have been very sceptical. But somehow he managed to bring their not-a-girl home, riding back in that hand-cart, grinning away as if he’d gone to a Jaguars game with her.

That was one problem dealt with. Now only a billion others to sort out.

As overjoyed as she’d been to see Janet back, safe and sound, she hadn’t been looking forward to reliving the most awful night of the year by explaining to her why their tall, dandy dressed demon wasn’t at her side, or hadn’t gone to save her.

It was easier to hand her the note that Michael had wrote (or possibly snapped into being after she slammed the door as she was sure even he couldn’t write that fast) before he’d pulled the trigger on himself.

I’m sorry.

I don’t want you to be worrying about how I might betray you or let you down again. If I’m locked up, you’re just going to worry that I’ve escaped. Just leave me in a tank on the other side of the map, or in Janet’s void if you bring her back, or just leave me in the Bad Place. If anything I just wanna ask that you make sure I’m all in there as I’d rather not come back shorter. Also if you can make sure no dogs are around to lap me up, I’d appreciate it.

I only ever wanted to save you all. I’m sorry I did nothing but screw up. I understand if you don’t want me back in the group after I’m back to normal. Please just get Janet back safe, even if it does mean going to the Judge. And give my best to Chidi when he wakes up.

I wasn’t lying about one thing; I really do love you all so much. I’m sorry it could never be enough.

Michael.

Reading the goo-stained letter with shaking hands, she’d struggled not to burst into tears of anger or throw up. Standing in the middle of the empty room, her friend dripping all around her, she’d wanted to scream at him for this being his best attempt to make things up to her - to forking leave her! To take the cowards way out.

Being angry was so much easier than accepting the guilt of what she had said to him before that moment. Of questioning if she had gone too far...if she’d just taken a moment to listen to him...Usually the dude had trouble shutting the fork up but that night, all he’d done is stand there and take everything she threw at him...until there was nothing left standing. Literally.

If she’d had any idea he would do something so reckless and stupid then of course she would never have said...

But you did know. You knew exactly what he was prepared to do to help you, if it’s what you said you needed. What you wanted.

She never wanted this, she admits to herself, barely a couple months later.

Running this experiment basically single-handed was...not overly difficult. In fact, she was pretty confident in saying they were doing okay, considering the circumstances.

But it still sucked. She was alone. Again.

Obviously there was no way she was going to have Michael’s goo abandoned in some random, isolated location. She was mad at the guy but she wasn’t a monster...so she told herself. At the same time, she couldn’t give up the role he’d thrusted upon her by suddenly taking up the role of nurse-maid, as hot as she might have looked in the uniform. He’d chosen to do this so she could work without distractions. Without a liability.

“He sacrificed himself to save me. We’re on our own now. Let’s make it count.”

Just get the fork on with things, same as before. No point in looking back.

Tahani is the one who volunteers. She’s able to separate herself from the other humans without causing too much suspicion, claiming the need for a private getaway up in the hills, deep in the valley, a hidden fancy lodge by a stream, surrounded by peaceful deer and mountains. Definitely not Eleanor’s scene, anything involving the wilderness or even resembling camping.

By the time Eleanor sees her off on a private car Derek conjured up, Michael’s goo already reached its first form. The blind, helpless demon larva showed no signs of awareness of his surroundings, curling up as small as possible, malleable as Tahani swaddled him in her fluffiest blanket. Eleanor was almost impressed at how quickly the sexy giraffe had overcome being grossed out at the slimy, squidgy creature, able to look almost maternal as she carried him into the car. And she made sure to say as much.

Tahani’s heavy hearted response would stick with Eleanor for the next few weeks; “I didn’t reassure him when he asked us if we could ever be friends with a gross monster. Best I can do is show him how much we truly care.”

Ouch. Way to kick her in the girl-nads.

“You sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’ve helped out in multiple animal sanctuaries and used to fly out to work with deprived children with my dear friend Angelina...But this is definitely new territory for me.” She’d said as she looked over the larva demon, making the tiniest cooing noise in his sleep (or what they assumed was sleep). “I’ll try my best.”

That was all any of them could do. She’d contemplated attempting to speak to the larva Michael in her arms. What could she possibly say? Could he even understand her?

She was still angry. And yet it was difficult to connect the anger towards the one who abandoned her to the pathetic looking being in the blanket. Best to save all those harsh words on the tip of her tongue for when he was back to being tall and slappable.

Is he really the one you want to slap?

The question comes back to haunt her more frequently each night that follows, whenever she thinks back on that night, or wonders how the two of them are doing. She and Tahani send letters often via the birds who are happy to act as messengers. They just have to be careful none of the humans intercept them. She lets her gorgeous friend know how the experiment is going and Tahani offers her tips on how to improve John, in particular. Every time she goes to write ‘how is Michael?’ she erases it, chest tightening. Tahani tells her anything important.

The slug monster form that follows the larva is a lot more challenging, she reports. He’s now the size of a Tibetan huskie and just as hungry.

I just let him roam the fields and eat what he can find. Sometimes I have to pull him in on a leash if he doesn’t tire himself out, otherwise I worry he’ll slither off in the night. I try to talk to him but he just grunts or roars at me until I tell him off. I was a little worried he might try to eat me but I found playing music - 80′s classics, mostly - calms him down and makes him rather docile. I don’t think he knows quite who I am or remembers anything. Perhaps it’s like when Janet is rebooted? He may need time to restore his memories, as she did.

Oh, darn, I must finish - he’s in the rose bush again!

Sometimes the image of her prim socialite friend trying to restrain a two-hundred-pound slug monster is so hilarious she can’t help but laugh. Other times she feels more guilt tugging at her soul to go lend a hand.

Is Michael really little more than an animal, in his head, right now? She’s hardly proved herself the best at pet care, though it sounded like Michael overeating was the least of their worries. It pained her to imagine what his head must be going through right now. Is he scared? Confused? Lost? Does he have any emotions other than the instinct to feed?

Does he still blame himself? Does he miss her as much as she...?

The more she sits in that chair in the office, the smaller she feels. It doesn’t belong to her; she’s merely filling it in while he’s gone. She has lunch in silence, remembering the jokes they used to share, the games of trying to aim food in the others mouth across the desk. She remembers him snapping a margarita for her when he knew she needed it most. She remembers his hand on her shoulder. She remembers him finding her at her lowest point, when everyone else had doubted her, turned their backs.

She remembers him, always there. And now she’s lost him.

Was wanting him gone over a stupid lie really worth all of this?

When Jason returns with Janet, on the same day she’s hesitating whether to jump on the nearest unicorn and head towards the mountains, she takes it as a sign. She has no excuse to stay away now - not with Janet back to watch over things, though she’ll probably be paying Michael a visit soon too.

She rides up on the train Janet conjures for her, saving her from trying to figure out how to ride a unicorn without breaking her neck. Something tells her she might have more luck at taming a slug monster than her British friend, not that she has any experience, just a few encounters with the grosser men in Arizona. Besides, it was Michael, at the end of the day. Their Michael.

The same Michael willing to sacrifice himself to help a bunch of cockroaches.

It’s such an idyllic landscape she arrives at. A total holiday card photo, without the snow. Nothing but grass and trees for miles before a backdrop of purple mountains. She looks around, seeing the evidence of devoured flower gardens and broken fences. At least the solid, oak cabin by the stream stood in tact, smoke billowing from the chimney.

Eleanor is so focused on keeping her eyes peeled for a rampaging slug monster that she almost fails to spot the little person sat on the front step of the veranda.

She frowns. That has to be the whitest child she’s ever laid eyes on. Granted most kids growing up in Phoenix were smothered in fake tan before they were three by their moms, but this is something else. The kid has long white hair, half-plaited, down to the shoulders of the cream dress she’s wearing. Her skin is so pale it’s nearly translucent. Fork, is she looking at an actual ghost?

Wait...She’s a ghost. That really shouldn’t freak her out.

There’s just something so eerie about the little girl, from her sickly appearance to how weirdly quiet she is for...However old she is. Six? Seven? Thirteen? Eleanor really knows nothing about kids, just that they’re usually much louder than this one, sat alone, playing with a set of shining...

Oh.

“Michael?”

The kid looks away from the chain of a paperclips they were linking, gazing up at Eleanor on the gravel path. As soon as she sees their eyes, she has her answer. Even without a pair of glasses, she’d recognise those sparkling blue eyes anywhere. It’s only then that she remembers the third form.

Spooky little girl.

Though far less spooky than she imagined. More...sad.

Despite her surprise, she tries to smile, not knowing how badly she needed to see those eyes look at her again after this past month.

“Hey, buddy. How’re you feeling?” She starts to approach.

The kid drops the paperclips and jumps up to their feet, beginning to tremble terribly, eyes wide as saucers.

Eleanor stops. Is he afraid? Of her?

“Michael? D’you remember me? It’s Eleanor, dude..”

“‘Hani!” The child cries turning and running inside the cabin. Fork, she knew was bad with kids, but shirt! Eleanor rushes in to follow, unable to hold back.

She enters the cosily furnished cabin to see the pale girl run up to the leg of the six foot beauty standing at the stove and cling to her skirt for dear life.

Tahani looks over from the pot of spaghetti, face fearful at first before lighting up when she spots her friend stood in the foyer.

“Eleanor! What a lovely surprise.” She beams, turning the stove off; “I’m so glad you decided to visit.”

“Wow...You’re kinda rocking the whole rustic single mom look here, babe.” Eleanor says, looking around the place, everything making her feel so warm and comforted from the open fireplace to the heavy air of recently baked bread.

Tahani looks down to her charge hanging onto her dress, reaching down to pick the little fingers off carefully.

“Well, it was rather nice to have a project to myself, and Derek was surprisingly helpful. Everything else I acquired myself, having learned to survive in the wild from a well known ‘Bear’ friend of mine.” She holds the kid’s hands and bends down to their eye level; “Michael, sweetheart, look who’s come to visit. Remember Eleanor?”

The demon child whimpers, throwing their arms around Tahani’s neck and hiding in her luscious dark hair.

Eleanor bites her lip; “He’s a lot more shy than the slug monster, I take it.”

“Oh, I don’t understand. They were fine with Jason this morning, they were playing video games for hours - he and Janet teleported over briefly to check in on us. So glad they got back safe.”

So Jason gets a teleport but she takes the train? The first time she’s not an immortal being’s favorite to spoil.

Eleanor shuffles her feet, trying not to feel wounded at how terrified her friend currently is of her, when apparently there was no issue with Jason. But then, Jason makes it difficult for anyone to dislike him. Eleanor makes it an open invitation.

The kid whispers something to Tahani that causes the woman to pick them up.

“Oh, darling, don’t be silly.” She responds, rubbing their back; “That was just a nightmare.”

“Nightmare?” Eleanor asks. Is she the stuff of nightmares?

Tahani eventually convinces the pale kid to go back outside to continue playing while she catches up with Eleanor.

Questions Tahani has about the experiment and the subjects get quickly brushed aside. Eleanor is unable to focus on anything but the image of Michael’s eyes looking at her with so much fear. When Tahani hands her a fresh cup of cofffee, she wants to stick her hand in it, just to scold herself for the sake of it.

“He’s having nightmares? I mean...she’s having...” Eleanor frowns.

“I find it easier to use ‘they/them’, which Michael seems to prefer as well, currently.” Tahani explains; “Most of the time, they’re a calm, affectionate child. Such a welcome change from the beast I was putting up with a fortnight ago, as much as they grew on me. It’s just at night, while their brain is still reforming and all these memories are flooding back...It can be rather distressing. Trust me, it’s heart-breaking just to see them crying and screaming...”

She can’t imagine that recalling centuries of brutally torturing innocents along with the knowledge of why that was wrong is easy for anyone, least of all in the form of a small girl, creepy or not.

“Honestly, the creepiest I’ve encountered so far is them levitating at the end of my bed - and that’s usually when they’re just looking for a cuddle.”

Eleanor smiles a little, Michael never was the best at being a truly ‘frightening’ demon.

“And I’m in these nightmares?”

Tahani sighs; “I suppose the memories of their last night are mixed up with everything else. They just...were worried you were here to say something mean or...you wanted them gone.”

Fork-sake.

“I never wanted this, Tahani. I never wanted him to...Shirt, I didn’t even think he could, but...” She struggles to hold back tears; “I shouldn’t have come. I’ve just made him...Them more upset. Fork knows what I’d be in for if I stayed for the Teenage Boy phase. He’d probably set my hair on fire as payback.”

Bratty Michael in his fully grown form had been enough to handle. A hormonal one with amnesia was a whole other level.

“Eleanor. Just go talk to them.” Tahani presses; “This whole distancing thing you two are doing to deal with your falling out is dangerous. You’re not going to fix anything by staying away from them. As I kept telling my good friend Courtney when she had a row with my other friends, Lisa and Jennifer - you just need to communicate!”

“Babe, they’re afraid to even be alone with me.” She’s the monster under the bed now. All because she took one sin he committed to heart and forgot about all the good he’d done for her that outweighed it.

“Then stay, there’s plenty of room. Even if it means we swap and you stay here and I return to help with the experiment. Either way, this needs to be sorted out. I don’t believe demons are supposed to be this upset during their growth...You could help with that.”

Can she? She’s not the nurturing type, like her hot friend. She melted her own doll in the microwave as a kid. And she unwittingly talked her own demon bestie into exploding himself.

Tahani’s hand squeezing her wrist gives her some strength.

“...Okay. I’ll try.” she meets her eyes; “Is Michael the only one allowed to snuggle in bed with you when they’re scared?”

Ten minutes later, she goes to find the creepy girl outside, this time sat among the flowers, being far more gentle with them than her previous slug form was.

Eleanor approaches slowly.

“Michael? Buddy?”

The kid gasps, standing up again and flinching back. Eleanor raises her palm.

“Please don’t run away. I promise I won’t hurt you...and I won’t be mad.” She says, soft as she can manage, getting down to the ground; “And I’m not gonna make you go away anywhere. I just wanna chat...That ok?”

Michael doesn’t look too convinced, glancing over at the cabin. Looking for the one constant they’ve had, who’s been here for them, caring for them. Where Eleanor should have been, at least sometimes.

Okay. Time for the trump card.

“I got you something. Tahani said you have trouble sleeping. I thought maybe this guy could help?” She produces the minion toy from behind her back.

Michael’s eyes sparkle and he instantly reaches out to take it.

“So ugly!” They cheer, hugging it to their front.

Eleanor chuckles. Still so easily impressed.

“Can’t argue there...Also, I picked up those paperclips of yours. Did you know you can do this with them?” She holds up the chain; “Gimmie your wrist a minute.”

Michael frowns, hiding behind the toy a little.

“I won’t bite, dude. Kids are way too gross to eat. You’re too stringy and bony.” She wrinkles her nose.

They blink at her before slowly holding out their wrist. Eleanor takes the paperclips and links them around Michael’s arm, forming a bracelet.

The child gasps, clearly thinking they’ve seen it for the first time; “Holy motherforking shirtballs.”

“Damn, you kiss Tahani with that mouth?” That must have been another residue memory tucked away.

Michael sneers; “Kissing is gross.”

“It’s pretty weird if you think about it, yeah.” She concedes, glad they’re at least talking, as much conversation as she can have with a billion year old immortal that’s lost their mind as they regrow in the body of a haunting little girl; “...What about hugs? You like them, right?”

The kid nods, eagerly.

“...Maybe I could have one, someday? If we can be friends? I’d like that...” More than they could know right now. More than anything else, even having Chidi remember her. This...This is just as painful, because she can’t be sure if this is fixable.

Eleanor crosses her legs as she sits, facing her friend.

“I’m so sorry, Michael. I know...you don’t understand that right now but...I’m sorry for why you’re scared of me...I wouldn’t ever wanna hurt you. Please believe me.”

Trust me? God, she’s such a hypocrite.

The kid eyes her, up and down, before turning to the flowers. They bend down, picking a few up into a small bouquet of daisies. Michael turns and hands it out to her.

“Oh...Uhh....Thanks...” Eleanor reaches for them.

Michael’s blue eyes flash red. The flowers burst into flames.

“Forking shirt!” Eleanor jumps.

And still the kid holds them out; “Pretty, right?”

A heartfelt laugh tumbles out of her; “...I can tell Jason’s been here.” Or maybe that was part of her friend’s demon nature. Either way, it was adorable. “Thank you, Michael.” she says, taking the flaming daisies. “You know...if you want, I could show you how to make chains out of these? We could make a crown for Tahani?”

“And ones for me and you?” Michael asks, hopeful.

Eleanor’s lip quivers, a sudden lump in her throat. She reaches out to run her palm over her friend’s white hair, soft as it’s always been; “Yeah...Me and you too, bud.”

#rose says she can't fix things #then immediately writes something to fix it #as weird as this is #like borderline crack fic #but still works within the canon #fluffy angst #hellstrop brotp fic #michael x tahani sistp #genderfluid michael #hints of future cottagecore teleanor? we'll see

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corvus--rex · 4 years ago

Text

Another one that's been put down for a nap. I actually have the four planned chapters outlined, it just takes a particular head space to write. It's a 90's au, which means that there is period-typical homophobia involved. Our boys are musicians still in the town they grew up in. Note: they both smoke (I'm sorry), and there's a brief mention of underage sex (both are high school seniors).

@jilli-bean, this is more of the au my paragraph came from. I remembered you asked if I would tag you when I wrote more of it. Here it is so far!

~*~*~*~

~~*~~ present day – June, 1997 ~~*~~

“So, like, I guess he’s gay or whatever. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just, like, y’know?”

The voice belonged to a girl in a sundress talking to her two friends while walking by. Keith stayed where he was leaning against the side of the building and flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke in a sigh. Saying “there’s nothing wrong with that” was just the same as saying “no offense” and then being offensive. He’d lost patience for that phrase a long time ago. But even as done with it as he was, it was still better than getting kicked out of his last foster home three weeks before his eighteenth birthday after being outed by the family’s biological son.

The boys were the same age, and Keith’s foster brother Wyatt was upset at the time for Keith having better grades and, more importantly, attracting the attention of the girl Wyatt had a crush on. The ensuing fight over the girl led to Keith confessing his sexuality, and petty jealousy led to Wyatt telling his parents. His social worker was a godsend, and after a conversation with his best friend’s parents, Keith found himself moving in with them that night. The guest room became his permanently after that. He’d moved out into his own apartment with his best friend Lance McClain-Sandoval when he started college, but the McClain-Sandovals were one of the closest things to a real family he’d ever known. That first night felt like coming home for a second time, and the midnight conversation they had while lying on Lance’s bedroom floor would be forever burned into memory.

~~*~~ October, 1991 ~~*~~

They were supposed to be in bed already. The next day was a school day and both boys knew that Mariana would have their asses if she knew they were still up, but they didn’t care. Lance knew how bad Keith’s foster family was and had nearly crushed his mother in a hug when she got off the phone with Keith’s social worker. He had been the one to pick Keith up from his social worker’s office. And he’d been the one to drive to the Jacksons’ house with him to retrieve everything Keith had left behind. They found it all boxed up on the front step with a note reminding him that they just couldn’t have “someone like him” in their home and around their children. Keith, and Lance, took great pleasure in watching that note go up in flames in the fire pit in Lance’s backyard.

Keith had been fostered in the same large town of Arus for the last three years, and he and Lance had been friends since the first day Keith transferred to Arus High School only two months after the beginning of their freshman year. They had come out to each other in the summer after sophomore year, both relieved that they wouldn’t lose their best friend. They were even more relieved when Lance’s parents Mariana and Diego told the boys that they would love them both no matter what, and that it was no one’s business who they loved. Now it was only one month into their senior year and life was changing again.

“Tomorrow’s gonna suck,” Keith sighed.

“Yeah, it probably will. Wyatt’s an asshole and he’ll tell everyone. Probably starting with what’s-her-tits and blowing any chance he has with her,” Lance agreed.

Keith couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up. “Michelle? Yeah, little fucker never had a chance with her to begin with. She’s been banging Chris Proctor all summer. Won’t shut the fuck up about it, even when she’s hitting on me.”

That made Lance roll to face his best friend. “Wait, seriously? I thought she hated him. Something about basketball players not being as good as football players.”

Keith rolled onto his side. “Yeah, that’s what I’d heard, but I guess she doesn’t hate his dick.”

Lance snorted, but when he saw how the strings of fairy lights lit Keith’s face and the sparkle of laughter in his deep violet eyes, his breath caught. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it was a bad idea. It had been only hours since Keith was kicked out of the Jackson house, and this wasn’t some summer sleepover spent fantasizing about the future. The crush he’d been nursing for his best friend burst into full bloom, and he couldn’t stop himself.

Noticing the change, Keith’s brows furrowed. “Lance? What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head, “You’re beautiful, y’know that? I’ve been wanting to tell you that for so long.”

Keith’s expression softened. Lance confessing to feeling something more than just being best friends made a warmth settle into his bones. He’d thought his own crush would go unrequited forever and had begun to adjust into the idea that they would remain best friends and nothing more. Lance had just given him hope, and he wasn’t going to let the moment pass.

“Yeah? So are you. I thought I wouldn’t ever get to say it. But if we’re confessing…”

Impulse overrode higher thought, and Lance found himself inches away Keith’s face before he realized what happened. “Can I?” he asked in a soft whisper.

“Whenever you want,” Keith answered just as quietly.

Their first kiss was soft, gentle. It carried the relief of finally knowing how the other felt, and the promise of exploring those feelings. It was hesitant, nervous. It felt as though they were both worried that it was nothing more than a dream and that they’d wake up sore from falling asleep on Lance’s bedroom floor. But the very physical sensation of touch – Lance’s fingers threaded through soft black hair, the light touch of his thumb across high cheekbones, Keith’s hand sliding up soft t-shirt fabric, gripping the lean, compact muscle – it reminded them that they were very much awake, and that their kiss was very much real. When they separated, Lance pulled them back down, Keith nuzzling into his neck.

“I never thought kissing my best friend was something I’d ever do,” Lance said, basking in the afterglow of their kiss and the feeling of Keith in his arms.

“Mm, maybe not, but what about a boyfriend?” Keith asked, delicate fingertips tracing patterns into the t-shirt he had been holding so desperately only moments before.

“Yeah, I could get used to that.”

~~*~~ present day – June, 1997 ~~*~~

Keith was so lost in the memory of his first kiss with Lance he didn’t notice he was no longer alone until there was an arm on his shoulder and the cigarette was gone from his hand. He startled, then realized it was Lance. Keith was well aware how much Lance loved his leather jacket rocker look. It went well with the core of his music taste – a little punk, a little grunge, a splash of metal, a healthy dose of rock. He didn’t look it, but Lance’s tastes ran pretty much the same; it was one of the things they became friends over. But as much as Lance loved Keith’s daily wardrobe, Keith loved Lance’s more casual outfits, almost always topped off with the denim jacket whose back panel he had painted with a dragon and phoenix before gifting it to his boyfriend for his 18th birthday.

“Fucking hell, don’t do that!” he hissed. “Also, excuse you, that was mine.”

Lance just laughed through the smoke. “What, you worried about germs? We do a lot more than just swap spit, babe.”

Keith heaved a sigh, shaking his head at his boyfriend. “Yeah. I know that, and you know that, but I don’t think all of Arus needs to know that.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ve figured it out by now. I’m not exactly subtle, and almost the whole town knows about you after senior year of high school.”

“Fuck I still hate that asswipe. Ok, I’m done talking about him. You, me, Mario Kart, and the six-pack in the fridge.”

Lance crushed the cigarette butt under his sneaker. “Ooh, Mario Kart and pizza night. I still need to beat your ass at Rainbow Road.”

“Not gonna happen,” Keith threw over his shoulder as he walked away. He took off running when Lance gave chase, barely beating him to the truck.

As much as Keith’s true passions lay in art and music, he was also a skilled mechanic thanks to his foster father Carlos. He’d been with the Villalobos family for two years before a family emergency meant that they had to leave California for their parents’ native Mexico. If there was any other family that had felt like home, it was theirs. Carlos and Pilar treated him like one of their own children, and Keith got along with Daniela and Alejandro (Alex to his friends) like real siblings. They were back in California now, and he’d been able to reconnect with them and fill them in on what had happened with the Jacksons and how it had ended well despite them. After hearing about what had happened after they left, Carlos and Pilar had immediately called Lance’s parents, and now the two couples were good friends, the Villalobos slipping seamlessly back into Keith's life.

Keith had worked his way through college, and kept him working currently, thanks to the skills Carlos taught him. It was also those skills that got him his second most prized possession, the first being his his guitars. Keith had been working when the truck’s first and only owner brought it in on the back of a tow truck. He had bought it new, but the transmission on the ’94 Toyota Pickup blew out, and it wasn’t worth fixing. Keith said that it was a total waste of an otherwise solid pickup, and the owner told him that he could keep it if he promised to fully repair it. Six months of working on it in his spare time, and Keith had a rebuilt transmission and a fully working Garnet Red Pearl, extended cab Toyota Pickup.

~*~*~*~

Links to the rest of the series:

1 | 2 | 3* | 4 | 5* | 6* | 7 | 8 | 9* | 10 | 11 | 12* | 13 | 14 | 15* | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19*

#my writing #abandoned wips #klance #keith x lance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender

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refinedbuffoonery · 4 years ago

Text

Flawless (6)

masterlist.

Content Warning: swearing, violence, sex, PTSD

Not gonna lie, this is a bit of a filler chapter. But the NEXT chapter...that’s the one you’ve all been waiting for. Also, I’ve had “bad guy” by Billie Eilish stuck in my head for DAYS, so that’s the song playing during the runway show.

*****

A week after the job at the director’s house, Riley sank into her first-class airplane seat and immediately opened her laptop, the tan pleather chair squeaking slightly as she crossed her legs beneath her. Dimming the brightness, Riley angled her laptop so no one could see it but her. She’d been profiled plenty of times in the past while writing perfectly benevolent code. Riley certainly didn’t need anyone catching her working on something more nefarious.

If she did this right, then she’d be able to just connect her phone to whatever Louvre computer that controlled security and be free to do whatever she wanted.

If she didn’t...she’d need to brush up on her French.

Nikki dozed in the seat beside her. She’d been bouncing off the walls all morning in anticipation of getting to see Fashion Week in person after Riley had promised to go with her to as many fashion shows as they could sneak into. Nikki’s excitement was infectious. While the priority was to see the runway show of the designer whose Louvre afterparty they were crashing, before they boarded the flight, Riley found herself sifting through fashion blogs to determine which other shows she wanted to see. All couture, of course.

Across the aisle, Jill had her nose buried in an incredibly thick book Riley couldn’t see the cover of, and behind her, Cage and Desi curled together like a human pretzel as they watched a movie. They were disgustingly happy, and that made Riley happy too.

When they were somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic, Nikki awoke, grumbling, “You’re going to ruin your eyes if you stare at that screen any longer.” She was right. Riley’s vision had started to blur at the edges hours ago, and she knew she’d have a hard time focusing on things in the distance when she finally looked up. Riley saved her work and shut her laptop.

Nikki still hadn’t budged from her awkward curled position, but her eyes were open. Riley figured now was as good of a time as any to make Nikki answer her last lingering question. “So you still haven’t told me why you and your boyfriend broke up,” she probed. “You know, the one who hacks everything else.”

Nikki sighed, rolling her head to glare at Riley. “Do I have to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.” Nikki sat up. “When we met, he told me he worked for a government think tank. Really nerdy stuff, does a lot of consulting. I figured he was smart but harmless.”

“I remember.”

“That was a lie. He’s a government agent, all right. But not the nerd kind. The double-O-seven kind.”

Riley nearly choked. “A spy?” she hissed. “You dated a fucking spy?”

“Surprise.”

“How did you find out?”

“The same way he found out about me. I originally told him I was a freelance art appraiser”—not far from the truth, actually— “and the IT job was to help make ends meet. We both bought each others’ lies at first, but over time we both struggled to keep our stories straight. And then one day it all just...fell into place, I guess. We had a massive fight, and by the time the dust settled, I think we both knew there was no going back to how things were before we knew the truth.”

Riley laced her fingers through Nikki’s, conveying her empathy through touch rather than words. “What agency does he work for?”

“The Phoenix Foundation.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s DXS. The name changed while you were gone.” At least Nikki couldn’t still say the P-word either. But DXS...DXS could move Christmas. If Nikki’s boyfriend told anyone about her real job, they were all in trouble. Big trouble.

“Think he’s going to come after you? Come after us?”

“I don’t know.”

Trying to lighten the mood, Riley said, “Ignoring the part where he knows you’re a criminal, it must’ve been pretty cool to date a real-life black-ops spy. I bet he knew all kinds of tricks.” The innuendo easily rolled off Riley’s tongue.

Nikki smacked her shoulder. “We were having a nice moment and you had to go and ruin it by being gross. What the fuck, dude?”

Riley rolled her eyes. “Love you too.” And she did. Despite the grudge she may or may not be holding, Riley loved her. She never stopped.

*****

They landed in Paris at night, and the Five Eyes crashed the moment they made it to their swanky, overpriced hotel room. The next day, they bounced around the city attending as many runway shows as traffic allowed. Riley didn’t understand the hubbub and overdone romanticism; Paris was just like any other major city—loud and overcrowded. And snobby. So very snobby.

On their second day in Paris, the women chose to divide and conquer. Desi, Cage, and Jill teamed up to scope out the Louvre. Riley and Nikki attended the runway show of the designer whose masterpiece they intended to steal.

As she and Nikki found their seats along the runway, Riley made a mental note of all the exits. Their seats were in the back, against a wall. Nikki hoped for a better view, but Riley liked it better this way. Sitting by a wall, she had something solid behind her and could see everyone come and go without having to turn around. Riley had always kept meticulous tabs on her surroundings—that’s what made her so good at her job—but the fear of not being able to see what’s coming was new.

She didn’t tell Nikki about it.

The blonde blended right in with the highly fashionable crowd, wearing a floor-length, gray plaid coat with hot pink lining. Nikki was completely in her element here, and sometimes Riley thought her friend would’ve been better off legitimately pursuing a career in fashion rather than letting Riley drag her into the world of shadows, secrets, and cons.

While they waited, Riley fidgeted with a button on her black blazer. Her whole outfit was the same shade of her signature color—blouse, blazer, leather leggings. But her boots were the real showstopper—thigh-high black suede with intricate gold embroidery down the entire front. Riley saw them in a window yesterday and had immediately gone inside to purchase them. The boots were outrageously expensive, but it didn’t matter. Riley Davis was already a filthy rich woman, and after this job, she’d have more money than she would ever know what to do with.

The house music quieted, and the designer—older man, favored his left leg, voice thin and raspy like a smoker—strutted down the runway, microphone in hand, welcoming the audience and beginning the show. He rambled on, ruminating over his inspiration for this collection. Nikki hung on every word. Riley tuned him out.

So this was the man who was renting out the Louvre. Riley couldn’t even imagine the amount of money and favors it took to secure such an ostentatious party venue.

What she could imagine, however, was that she’d surely be subjected to yet another one of these long-winded speeches at the afterparty tonight. On the bright side, that would buy her and her team extra time, making the job that much easier.

The show began with a sweep of the lights as the music dropped to a low, pulsing beat Riley could feel just as much as she could hear. The crowd murmured respectfully as the first model appeared wearing a shiny black gown that looked like a trash bag had been melted to her body with the excess pooling on the floor. She told Nikki as much, earning an eye roll.

The next gown was better—sheer fabric with countless thin, metallic gold vertical stripes. The skirt had pretty lines, giving the model the illusion of curves she didn’t have. After that was a strapless canary yellow ball gown with a full, pillowy train.

“I don’t understand why designers keep making yellow clothes,” Riley hissed. “No one looks good in yellow.”

“That model does.”

“No one looks good in yellow.”

Nikki twisted in her seat and glared, which Riley ignored. “Are you going to say anything nice?”

“You’d miss my commentary if I stopped.” Riley’s snide comment earned her an elbow to the ribs, but she caught Nikki’s smile all the same.

The next gown was cherry red satin, with huge ruffles on one shoulder and the opposite hip. The extra fabric was a lot, but there was something elegant about the gown nonetheless.

Leanna would look good in that one, Riley stopped herself from saying aloud. Nikki—nor anyone else, for that matter—hadn’t said another word about Leanna since Riley first asked weeks ago. Suddenly their longtime friend was taboo, and Riley didn’t want to disrupt the tentative peace she had with Nikki just to push for answers she probably wouldn’t get.

Another ugly gown, this one feathery pink with a sort of netting over top.

But the last one...the last one caught the eye of every single person in the audience.

Including Riley.

The sheer dress was covered in intricate silver beading that accentuated its long sleeves and mermaid silhouette and left little to the imagination. It was the kind of show-stopping gown one wore when they wanted to be the center of attention.

Despite the audience’s rising hum of approval, Riley still heard Nikki murmur, “That one is all you.” And it was. Riley would wear that gown in a heartbeat if she had the opportunity—too bad most jobs required her to blend in, not stand out.

She was too busy lusting after the gown to respond.

From her seat, Riley could just see into the wings, and she spotted who could only be the designer’s assistant, running the show behind the scenes. Even from a distance, Riley had a feeling the young woman’s hawk-like gaze missed absolutely nothing. The designer would be easy enough to bamboozle during the heist, but this woman could very likely become a problem.

Riley committed the assistant’s appearance to memory and set the thought aside for later.

*****

Later that afternoon, the Five Eyes reconvened in their hotel suite. They still had a couple hours until they needed to get ready for the afterparty. Since only Cage and Nikki had been there before, Desi, Cage, and Jill had spent the day scouting the Louvre. It was good for Jill to work with Desi for a change; because of her military background, Desi’s way of thinking through a job diverged greatly from everyone else’s.

Team meetings like this were one of Riley’s favorite parts of the job—swapping intel and strategizing the best way to pull off the job. Or the most fun way, which was usually also the riskiest. But tonight, the team was in unspoken agreement that they would play it safe, both because of Jill and the importance of this long-awaited job.

Piled onto one plush, king-sized bed, the five women sat tangled together as they tore through the box of pastries Riley purchased on the way back to the hotel. For the first time in forever, Riley was hungry. She avoided dwelling on that fact as she licked her fingers and picked up stray crumbs that fell on the off-white comforter.

“So, what did you learn?” Nikki quizzed Jill.

Jill pushed up her glasses with her middle finger, speaking with her mouth full. “The room the party will be in is super fancy and at the far corner of the building.” She swallowed. “First floor.”

“Good. What else?” Riley prompted. “How do Nikki or I get to security and the building’s system control?”

“There’s an employee door in the hallway…” Jill trailed off. “Wait. This is a test, isn’t it? You already know.”

Riley smirked. “I do.”

Disbelief etched Jill’s face. “How? You told me yourself that you’ve never been there!”

“I have my ways.” Riley would tell her eventually, but for now, it was more fun to lure trade secrets over Jill’s head. She reached for another buttery pastry, selecting one topped with slivered almonds.

But before Riley could continue her taunting, Desi spoke up. “There’s something you should know.” The mood plummeted into seriousness.

Riley and Nikki both raised their eyebrows. Go on.

“Nikki’s ex was at the museum.”

“Which one?” Nikki asked cautiously. Riley could hear the dread in her tone, the same dread that churned in her own stomach.

“You know which one.”

Riley swore. Nikki’s ex, the spy, was at the Louvre. “Did he see you?”

Cage answered, “We have to assume he did. And we also have to assume he recognized Desi and me as Nikki’s friends.” Riley set her pastry down, no longer hungry as the heist of her dreams started to crumble before her eyes. She refused to let that happen.

“He was with a middle-aged man who definitely had a gun tucked into his belt,” Desi said. “Based on that and his haircut, I’d say he’s probably ex-military.”

“Mac is too.” Tucking her knees to her chest, Nikki’s voice was uncharacteristically small as she spoke. Defeat wormed its way across her features. Nikki thought they couldn’t pull off the job now, Riley realized.

No way. She wouldn’t let one stupid ex-boyfriend get in the way of her dream job. And her grossly large payday.

“It’ll be fine,” Riley reassured. “He knows you’re into fashion, right?” Nikki nodded. “Then he has to assume you’re there for innocent, legitimate reasons. Innocent until proven guilty, remember? All we have to do is avoid looking suspicious, which we already do anyway. He won’t have any evidence to pin it on us besides a hunch, and even if he shares that hunch, he’ll get in trouble for not disclosing information about you and your relationship sooner.”

Jill said, “That seems overly optimistic.”

“Which one of us is the expert?” Riley snapped. Jill flinched, and the other three watched Riley warily. “Sorry,” she grumbled.

The tension only somewhat dissipated.

“Anyway,” Riley redirected. “We picked up the replicas.” She gestured to Nikki’s Balenciaga bag sitting open on a nearby chair.

“Replicas?” Riley fought the urge to sigh at Jill and her constant questions.

“What did you think we were going to do? Just take the jewelry and run like hell?”

Jill’s silence was a resounding yes.

“Pickpocketing 101. What did I tell you?”

Understanding dawned in Jill’s wide, blue eyes. “When you steal something heavy, put something else in its place.” A pause. “We’re going to replace the jewelry with fakes so no one even realizes the real set is missing.”

It was Cage’s turn to smirk. “She’s catching on.” The blonde leaned in. “So, can we see them?”

Nikki was off the bed in an instant, retrieving a package wrapped in plain brown paper from her purse. She let Cage have the honor of unwrapping it and revealing the masterfully crafted jewels.

The faux-sapphire and diamond necklace and earrings were stunning. And exact replicas of the real set. The only difference was a tiny, insignificant bump Nikki’s jeweler added to the back of each piece so they could quickly tell the difference between the replicas and the real deal.

Desi whistled. “Damn. Those are stunning.” Beside her, Cage nodded appreciatively. “You would look so hot wearing those,” Desi murmured to her girlfriend. “Wearing only those.”

Blushing furiously, Cage shoved her girlfriend off the bed.

Riley knew that if she let them, her friends would spend hours examining the jewels. Clearing her throat to get everyone’s attention, she asked, “Everyone clear on the plan?”

The four other women nodded in turn, first Desi, then Nikki, then Cage, and finally Jill.

“Good.”

“That’s it?” Jill questioned. “No team pep talk?” The other women chuckled, but Riley just rolled her eyes.

“That one,” Desi pointed at Riley, “is the wrong person to ask for a pep talk.”

Riley’s jaw dropped in mock outrage. “Hey! Speak for yourself.” Desi shrugged. Directing her attention back to Jill, “You really want a pep talk?”

Jill blinked.

“Don’t fuck this up.”

~ Tag List ~ Want to be added? Send me an ask.

@macrileyedits / @hellishrose / @incorret-macgyver-quotes / @mylifequotesshowallofthem / @thecarrieonokay

#beth writes #flawless au #macgyver #riley davis #nikki carpenter #desiree nguyen #samantha cage #jill morgan #macgyver fanfiction

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rwbyvein · 4 years ago

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Firen Lhain: Chapter 804: Phoenix: Part I / III

Fed, dressed, and caffeinated, RWBY + JNR sat around the table with their cards in their hand. A tiny noise could be heard.

"I do believe we are under attack." Ren voiced.

"You call that an attack?" Yang asked, "More like a cry for attention."

Ren's face was slightly judgemental before returning to a much more neutral look. "Indeed."

"Aurora?" Weiss asked.

"Mistress." Aurora affirmed, and walked passed the table to the staircase.

"Aurora was here?" Nora asked, "She's like always here."

"Indeed." Ren stated.

"Almost as much of a stalker as Ilia." Nora continued.

"That's your cue to come out." Blake said, and a Ilia returned to her ordinary colouration, appearing in the nude.

"Oh, shit, I mean, Hi Ilia, I mean?.." Nora tried to say.

"I assure you she meant no offence." Ren said from beside her.

"No." Ilia said. "I don't know why I would take offence. Honestly, I do have a terrible habit of stalking Jaune..."

"I wouldn't say terrible." Jaune said to her, and she looked at him with disbelief.

"Why Jaune?" Ruby asked her.

"Because he gives me strength?" Ilia asked, "How to describe it? He is solid."

"That he is." Yang added.

"Implacable." Ren added.

"And he is the one who has most taken me under his wing." Ilia stated.

"He has indeed done that." Weiss added.

"I'm so sorry..." Blake pleaded, but Ilia held up her hand. There was a pregnant silence as she breathed in deeply.

"You don't have to apologize." Ilia stated, "I know what I asked for. I know that you denied me. I know that you don't want to give me the false impression. I understand why you want to keep me at a distance. I'm following you because I don't have any other choice."

"You don't need to..." Blake tried to say.

"I'm not doing it because I don't have a choice." Ilia pleaded, "I just don't know what choice to make."

"She's here to learn how to choose?" Ruby asked.

"That seems a decent summary." Weiss stated.

"I fell for Adam." Ilia continued, "Not like Blake did, personally, no, I fell for him spiritually."

"Personally, she fell for Blake, right?" Nora asked. Ren sighed while placing a hand on her shoulder, letting out a grumbling affirmation.

"I know how toxic, and diseased, and destructive, and spiteful Adam is." Ilia said. "I just need help finding the difference between him, and what we thought he was."

"Which was?" Nora asked.

"Justice." Blake stated. Ilia nodded.

"Jaune might not be justice, but he his fairness." Ilia said, "And maybe that's what I need help with?" she asked.

"And for the record," Jaune interjected, "while she might - technically - be stalking me, like all the time, I actually count on it, nowadays."

"Indeed?" Weiss asked.

"Well, it has saved me a couple of times." Jaune said.

"He does have like a really good point." Yang added.

"Question?" Nora said, raising her hand, and everyone turned to look at her, "If Ilia gets to be naked, does that mean the rest of us get to be naked, or is she like special?"

Everyone looked at Jaune as he hung his head in his hands. He then breathed in deep as he looked at Nora. "You know what?, she is special." Jaune stated, and Nora seemed to accept that.

"Because it's for her Semblance?" Ruby asked, and Jaune nodded. "That makes sense."

"So?" Yang asked, "Just so we're clear, everyone can wear less clothes because of their Semblance, right?"

"From the girl wearing short-shorts and a tube top?" Blake asked.

"Didn't see you complaining." Yang replied.

"Not complaining." Blake voiced.

"Then what?" Nora asked.

"I believe," Ren interjected, "she is pointing out that Yang is already, shall we say, scandalously dressed?

"You judging, yo?" Yang asked him.

"Not in the slightest." Ren said with a smile.

"Sorry." Yang replied, "You're just like really hard to read. Still weird having Jaune staring at a naked woman who's not, you know, us?"

"I concur." Weiss stated. "Though I am perhaps not as well advised about relationships such as ours."

"Meaning?" Ruby asked.

"We're writing the rules as we go along." Blake stated.

"I'm pretty sure not staring at other naked women should be one of them." Yang added.

"It's not like he told her to get naked?" Ruby asked.

"Alright, true." Yang replied. She then looked at Ilia, "If she's going to be naked and not, you know, chameleon, could she pretend to have clothes?"

Ilia shifted to give the impression we was wearing a teddy with stockings, garters, and long gloves.

"I am not sure if that is any better." Weiss stated, "Jaune-dear seems to be even more enthralled."

"Maybe General Ironbutt can come up with something?" Yang asked, and everyone glared at her. "General Ironheart?"

"Implying he has heart?" Qrow said as he walked into the room, followed quickly by Aurora. "I think your little friend has something to say to you."

"Indeed." Aurora stated. "It seems Cinder would like to speak to you."

"About?" Weiss asked as the others quickly stood up. She found Jaune standing up, who effortlessly lifted her to a standing position.

"Everything." Aurora simply stated.

"And Yang?" Qrow asked.

"Yeah?" Yang replied.

"I like Tinman." Qrow said with a smile.

"Okay, yeah, but General Tinman sounds kind of weird." Yang stated.

"Perhaps mechanical onomatopoeia?" Weiss asked.

"General Clank." Blake added, as the group turned to the stairs.

"I like it." Yang said, and stepped towards the stairs, and then paused, looking at Ilia. "And naked-butt?"

"She does like stalking me." Jaune casually said as he reached the stairs, causing Yang to do a double take.

"Shit, man, now that you've got confidence, I don't know if we can keep up with you?" Yang asked.

"The secret," Weiss quipped said from a few paces behind him, "is to anticipate his movements and respond before he makes them."

"Uh-huh?" Yang asked, "It sounds like Little Bit is rubbing off on you."

"Perhaps she is?" Weiss said with a light blue hue.

* * *

RWBY + JNR + Qrow, Ilia, and Aurora walked out into the garden.

"We apologize!" Emerald shouted.

"She might," Mercury interjected, "but I'm not! You didn't exactly give us a choice!"

"What?!" Jaune harshly shouted, "Do you want?!"

"To talk, obviously!" Cinder snapped.

"Maybe a little less bitter and harsh." Mercury voiced.

Cinder glared him before looking back to the others, trying her best to smile. Jaune walked towards her. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Oh, you know?," Cinder asked, "everything you hoped and feared."

"And why the hell are you waiting until now?!" Yang shouted.

"Last resort." Cinder stated. "I has hoping to just disappear, but what I'm going to say here will ensure that Salem hunts us to the end of Remnant."

Jaune looked between everyone else, and they all looked back at him. He looked at Salem for a moment. "I want Neo here." he said.

"How could you?" Emerald asked, and Cinder's good hand flew up to silence her. "I'm sorry."

* * *

Jaune walked down the stairs with his thunderous footfalls. Taiyang and Raven quickly jumped to their feet, Raven trying her best to act innocuous. Jaune looked at them curiously before giving Neo a questioning look. Neo puckered up her lips and made smooching noises. Jaune looked at Tai and Raven before shrugging, and walked up to Neo.

"Alright, so, long story short, Cinder's going to spill the beans." Jaune said, and paused, letting it sink in. She then looked at him questioningly. "I want you there?" She gave him a double take and then looked at him like he was the dumbest person in the world. "Maybe?" he asked. And she gave a him a shocked look. "But I don't want to kill you?" he asked, and she gave him the same look once again. "Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to rip the cell bars off, and then I'm going to hug you, and if you're on your best behaviour, I'm going to tell you where we hid your possessions."

A hundred expressions passed Neo's face as she processed this information.

"Are you going to say anything?" Raven asked Taiyang.

"If it was up to me, they wouldn't have kept them in the first place." Taiyang nervously said. "I'm really just doing the best I can."

Jaune took a step towards the cell, and Neo's head snapped to him. Her conclusion was that he was obviously lying. Her faith waned slightly as he grabbed the first bar, and all of her senses failed her as he tore it off. Bars rained down behind him, bouncing around the room. Taiyang looked at them fearfully. Raven looked at them curiously. Neo had taken full leave of her senses, and it took some time for them to return. When they did she found herself in his arms, arms that seemed to encircle her completely. He then stepped away, and her thoughts had not caught up on her.

"Alright, so, the rules are simple, no trying to kill Cinder." Neo angrily protested. Jaune was turning away but paused and turned back, "Or Ruby." Neo angrily pouted.

"Well, whatever's happening," Raven said as Jaune turned around, "I think we should join the party." She then turned to follow Jaune.

"We both know how much of a party girl you are not." Taiyang said, turning to follow her. Raven tried to act angry but found herself smiling.

Everyone had arrived in the garden except Taj who was waiting in his airship, assuming that... something... was going to happen. Jaune walked into the centre of the garden, Neo trailing behind him, while on the other side Cinder walked in as well. It then started to rain.

"Oh, super!" Jaune shouted, "Don't I have such great luck!" he cried as the noise started reverberating off the walled garden.

"We can probably blame this one on me!" Qrow shouted.

#rwby #firen lhain #faunus au #pollinated knight

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itsbenedict · 4 years ago

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I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch.

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over.

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense.

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime.

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though)

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

#game rec #also some game non recs #long post

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough.

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style.

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start.

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up.

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL! The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all.

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team. And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men. Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast.

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else. So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut.

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one.

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes.

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly.

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly.

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art.

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr. But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that.

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now. It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form?

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy.

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition.

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look.

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults.

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense.

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying.

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future.

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is. Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on.

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable.

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option.

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass.

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good> We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack.

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet.

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble.

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing.

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does. IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her.

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around.

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay. E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye.

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chromatic-lamina · 5 years ago

Text

rascal: law and robin brotp fanfic

I have a lot of brotp Law and Robin in my fics, and one fic with them as a couple. I like the brotp interaction. Two cynical and supportive friends, but the writing is mostly in my multi-chaptered works, which are dark or canon divergent or both.

Anyway, I’m going to include an excerpt below. Robin’s painting Law’s toenails while they both chat about current and past loss and love. It’s from a three-chapter work that I don’t think will make much sense without knowing the rest of the world that it comes from, but hopefully this interchange can be followed and strikes a chord with some. I know the LawBin fans are thirsty. Post canon with canon-verse history and elements. This is an older piece.

🐞

Law sat back in the garden recliner in Robin’s backyard, a book over his face. He wasn’t in danger of burning easily in the late morning sun, but had no intention of making himself prey to melanoma. Robin perched on the edge of the recliner, holding one of Law's feet.

He'd spent the night at Robin’s in anticipation of the tea-towel convention they'd be visiting today. She’d spent the night trying to share his enthusiasm as he sat, tattooed arms spread on the table, poring over catalogues. His inked hands pointed out designs featuring disproportionate tulip-ensconced windmills, and disembodied body parts that had less to do with Dali and more to do with morticians.

She assumed all the creators were outliers. Commemorative tea-towels hadn’t quite taken the art world by storm yet, but they did remind her a little of Ryuunosuke, the very cute but badly drawn dragon that had struggled and succeeded in taking them all to the top of Zou.

That was last night though and now, soon, they’d head off to gossip and gander with the convention organisers, the Dishcloth Dames, once she’d made Law pretty.

“These are so cute.” She pulled at the few black gnarly hairs curled on Law’s left big toe.

“Freak,” Law mumbled, moving his foot.

Robin laughed, righted Law’s foot and wiped the brush over the nail of his big toe.

“When did you last clip these?”

“What’s it to you? You’re the one who wanted to dress me up.”

“You’re the one who’s letting me. You’ve got old man’s feet, by the way.”

Law arched his bridge and Robin slapped it, held it down.

“The sexy surgeon’s pedes don’t please? You said they were cute?”

She studied languages. She had no difficulty with Law’s fancy Latin terms.

“Mmm. I wouldn’t go that far. But I guess you got those tattoos to distract from your tootsies.”

The ink on the bridges of his feet matched that on the back of his hands. She felt the arc of the bone against her palm as she admired the designs, although it was one of the more simple ones to adorn Law and, historically, definitely not his favourite.

“And yet, there you are, making them all presentable and shit.”

“Does Marco like them?”

“He’s got his kinks.”

“And . . . ?”

“They remain in the bedroom,” Law grinned. At times he thought the Phoenix liked every part of his body, though they’d never had a deep conversation about those particular extremities.

“Ah, you’re no fun.”

“I’ve been told.”

Law felt her move to the next digit.

“What colour are you painting them?”

“Tch.”

As if it could be anything but black.

“Well, you sent Chopper out for the colour once,” Law said to her silence.

Bubble gum. Robin snickered, remembering. Law peered at her from under his book, her shoulders rose and fell with laughter. He liked that violet t-shirt.

Law seemed so disinterested, and therefore, Robin guessed very trusting, when she or anyone else painted his nails. He usually paid little attention to the colour, or even the action. It was something that pleased those who found it amusing to decorate him. Just so long as they let him read whatever he was researching, he indulged them. A small compromise for a larger gain.

No way in hell could someone he didn’t trust do this, though it had been done. Robin knew that trust was hard won. Law told himself that he let them all think he was vain this way so he could go for their jugulars some other time. Plus, he liked giving the Dishcloth Dames even more to gossip about.

Thinking of Chopper, Law laughed as if the sound was rationed—a clipped exhalation. The tanuki reminded him of his navigator.

“Bepo. Lord, Bepo got it into his head once to paint me. Maybe he wanted to practice so he could surprise some lucky Mink in the future, and who better to be his chump than his ferocious captain?”

Robin turned to him for a second, curious, before proceeding to the next toe. Her extra hands manipulated Law’s foot for the best access. Law’s own hand kept the book in place. She liked that silver band he sometimes wore on his wrist—a solid link—a flash of sky reflected in the metal.

“His fine motor skills aren’t the best. You’ve seen his maps. Shachi and Penguin thought I’d amputated my own toes without the benefit of a Room.” A rumble lifted Law's chest and then dissolved. He smiled easily. The book didn’t cover all of his face. “He even dabbed a paw print on my heel.”

“He chose red?” She loved that flash of teeth.

“Mmm. So. I guess it’s black?”

Robin finished the last toenail and told him not to move his feet about for a while. She then drew up the recliner next to his, lay on it, leant on her side and looked across. Law could be asleep for all she knew.

“Oi, talk to me endling. Of course it’s black.”

Law’s lips twitched. Only Robin could get away with that.

“So needy, terminarch. How am I meant to do that without moving?”

They may as well have just called each other Flevance and Ohara. They did at times, but neither could be feeling too off-colour when they did, or the devil fruits would come out to play. The town names as nomenclatures were off-limits to anyone else.

“Take that book off your face at least. I know you can’t read it like that.”

“Your makeup bag’s not nearby, is it?”

“Just the toes today, Dr. Death.”

Good. He was only happy for modification to go so far. He sighed, grumbled, but lifted a hand and picked the book up by its spine, and rested it—still spreadeagled—on his chest. He blinked into the sun, then tipped his head her way. Not the most comfortable of positions.

“Can I sit up?”

The grey of Law’s irises were sometimes shot through with gold. She wondered what his parents had looked like. “Give it a few.”

He turned his face skyward again, his arm over his shut lids.

“How about Luffy?” she asked. Luffy was before island living, before Law’s casual feet days. If they’d ever played around with nail polish, she’d never seen the results.

Law groaned.

“He approached my nails as if they were made of seastone, his hand was that shaky.” The softness in tone betrayed the annoyance in his words. “For some reason he thought a pearly pink would suit? Maybe it reminded him of marbled steak or something? Of course, he had absolutely no patience.”

Law scratched at his sideburns with his spare hand.

“He slapped it on, forgot to cap the varnish, jumped on me, bringing the sheet with him, or whatever we were lying on, wherever we were. It smeared over everything; our clothes, or more accurately, my clothes. You know, Luffy somehow always escapes his own chaos—and then he declared the whole thing stupid and boring, as if I’d dreamt up the activity and forced it on him.” Incredulity hissed through the back of his teeth.

He tapped his earrings. "Somehow the polish even managed to get on these. Nami-ya probably talked him into the whole thing for a bet."

“And you let him?”

Law didn’t need to look at Robin to know her expression; amused and bemused.

“You choose your battles.”

“Mmm.” Her captain could be quite domineering. She wondered if they were the same earrings. It wouldn’t surprise her. She’d kept the same jewellery over the years, but added to her collection with each pirates' haul. The ones that Luffy didn’t somehow swap for food.

She sat up and twisted her neck. They needed to get going soon.

“Phoenix?”

“Still trying to unearth his kinks?”

“Now that you bring it up.”

Law’s smile, the one Robin and only a few others ever saw, made her lips curve.

“I paint for him at times. I mean, my own nails. He’s got a lapis grounding stone, and his flames are blue when he’s in Zoan form. I try to match those shades—a balance between the two. Other times, I paint for myself.”

“Does he notice?” Marco had a grounding stone? But then again, they all had their talismans.

“Sometimes.”

“You don’t tell him?”

“Not always. Other things are more pressing.”

“Does he know you’re a freak?”

“I thought that was you.”

Law paused for a second. He tipped his face Robin's way again, his hand still protecting his eyes. How come she got to sit up?

“The dogs have never liked it. And you know, all that waste. It’s not really hygienic in the clinic either.”

“You operate with your toes?”

Law laughed. “When I do my hands . . . It’s not hygienic.”

Robin cast a glance at her back yard – the trees that offered privacy from the neighbours, the small pond. She enjoyed life in the New World now Luffy was pirate king.

“The dogs don’t like it, but Bepo can handle it?”

“Well, he’s a freak, too. Minks wear makeup, right?”

Robin nodded. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“Makeup?”

“Being a freak.”

“To the contrary, some of my best friends are freaks. You can’t all be Chopper.”

Law calls Robin a freak and gets away with it. heh. Perhaps. Anyway, I’ll put the link to the AO3 story as the source (just edited it in. This post has been up for long enough). It’s actually about dogs and links back to another story, and is kinda sad, and features Robin, but is about Law and Marco, and there’s plenty of humour too. If you want to read it, be my guest. It’s an older one, written a few years ago. T-rated.

#platonic lawbin #lawbin #one piece #one piece fanfic #opfanfic #marco/law mention #past lawlu mention #trafalgar law #nico robin #my writing #my stuff #one piece fanfiction

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