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dooptown · 3 years

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S2 Finale

for once i’m actually going to watch the episode again and get my thoughts down as i do cuz holy hell was this well done, i think

“Comet” playing first instead of the OP was brilliant. Also, as a note, the full music video of that came out, along with some killer animation inspired by the manga.

youtube

A detail i love about this music video is Ibuki spotting Free’s motorcycle light in the side mirror before he stops the car and, well, yeah

They actually show Louis reaching for his gun pretty early on into Ibuki’s monologue. I don’t think the manga showed that, but I could be wrong. He definitely has it pointed to him when it’s pitch black same at the anime, but the fact he reaches for it so early means he obviously knows what’s going on, even if he couldn’t pull the trigger.

predictably, the anime does the “darkness” as it always has, with the dark-blue background and bright lines for the characters. The Comet music video does this part of the scene better imo, but it’s not too much of an issue. Free’s whole bit is obviously rushed, and I think the anime suffers for that, but i understand that they couldn’t fit it in. We do miss him escorting Louis out of the BAM though, and also saying he’ll eat Louis if he comes back. That said, I don’t know how Louis gets back...I guess Free drives him back still but we just don’t see it

The Riz and Legosi fight has Riz getting the idea of eating Legosi in his head now that was seemingly missing before. In the manga he was thinking about how he’d become friends with Legosi by eating him, and that never came up in the anime until kinda now. Like I said before it’s an interesting part of Riz’s character so i’m glad it’s touched on a bit at least.

The moth scene is just as confusing here as it was in the manga...and without explanation or confirmation that it’s imaginary chimera (a part of the manga plot that was completely dropped), it just seems like...something. We don’t have Moth-san talking to Riz here or him questioning what he’s seeing so...it could be seen as purely metaphorical but it still remains a mystery (and just like in the manga it accomplishes nothing here cuz Riz just gets up and wails on Legosi) It looks fucking cool though! Word of Power: Respect for Life! It’s all one shot here, so we see every wound inflicted on Legosi, which is only a few slams. In the manga it’s implied he endured way more. That just follows the pattern of the anime, though, where violence is toned way the hell down. I’m not complaining, though. I don’t want to see Legosi hurt...

I knew what i was seeing when it was in motion, but damn does it look fucking good! Orange really is showing how to do CG right by properly stretching models for intense movements and actions! They’ve done this subtly before but here it’s very clear, but not distractedly so (unless you pause frame by frame) However, I still do think the models look a bit stiff when just...like...walking normally sometimes. Like we have this great fight animation but then Riz picks Legosi up and drags him a bit and he looks...off. Ah well

The whole bit about Legosi exposing his stomach doesn’t have the subtleties explained here...and really the anime leaves out a lot of character thinking but i think if they left it in it’d be a bit too hammy and crowded, so it’s fine that they cut it out. But still...tell me more pose isn’t as funny here :(

Legosi’s voice acting shines again here. He sounds really fucking hurt...

The moon cut and then them laying together is nice. Also i do like how there hasn’t been music up until this point at all. Riz talking about everything is nice too...I don’t remember him saying he feels like he could cry in the manga, due to him not remembering anything about Tem but his taste.

Legosi says: “I almost went through the same thing Riz did. If someone hadn’t snapped me out of it, my love for Haru might have made me eat her.” I recall he says something similar in the manga too...but like the only time he ever got close to eating her is when he didn’t know who she was. It really doesn’t seem like the same thing at all...it ties back into Legosi really seeming to have a really firm grasp on everything, all things considered, and he’s just selling himself short. I guess he could also be talking generally but really, he never had a moment where he wanted to eat her again after that first night. And the “someone” who snapped him out of it...Zoe???? Like, I’m just a bit puzzled on this part. I think what it really is is a reference to what he says to Louis later, how he’s the one that guided him and ensured that he is the way he is. Ensured that he did so well to begin with. Like, writing it out like that makes sense, but I guess I’m taking the words too literally.

Anyway, was typing my thoughts out there. I don’t think it’s entirely clear that Louis’s influence is what caused Legosi not to eat Haru after they started spending time together, but if Legosi says that’s what it was, that’s what it was. I felt that Louis’s guidance for Legosi was more about him accepting himself as a carnivore and using his abilities for what he believes in instead of thinking he can only do harm with them...not about controlling his meat eating instincts. I guess it kinda goes hand in hand. Anyway

The hand touch is, well, touching like it was in the manga, however Riz firmly regrasping Legosi’s hand to hoist him up and continue fighting and Legosi sounding surprised isn’t what i pictured. In the manga i saw it more as Riz slowly doing it and Legosi just being too weak to do anything about it. Riz has the advantage, so he can afford to make the action slow and deliberate

Ok here’s where things get interesting. Louis’s appearance is entirely different in the anime, whereas in the manga he appears behind Riz while Legosi is talking to him, with Legosi spotting him and using a distraction to escape with him. HERE!!! Louis actively stops Riz from attacking Legosi again, clearly out of breath as he ran all the way there, but he still has the mind to appear cool and collected and make a lil quip that pisses Riz off. And then when Riz charges him Louis is just walking calmly toward him like!

Like yeah, he does stop and react a bit, but he sees Legosi coming up to stop him so I suppose that’s why he stands his ground (honestly though was he gonna pull his gun? Did he have a plan? I feel like he just got there without one, which makes sense. He just had to stop what was happening no matter what)

And Legosi ragdolls Riz aside to protect Louis. Love wins

Pina scene is the same here. Although previously we didn’t get his thoughts about how he never wanted to get involved with carnivores ever again cuz of these two, but that ties into the whole “anime doesn’t say every single thought that’s in a character’s head like in the manga” thing. I think it’s interesting that they even bother showing him retrieving his phone from the trash bin, since he could have easily just got it from his pocket but it shows that Riz was smart enough to take it away from him (but not smart enough to destroy it or chuck it somewhere or hide it where Pina couldn’t see)

The next scene with Legosi and Louis up on the outcropping..Legosi mentions how this is his last New Year’s. He’s more convinced he’s gonna die than it seems in the manga (although depends on the subs i guess) The part where Riz is looking up while Legosi is talking about their fight to Louis...i never knew if he was supposed to be hearing that or not, here or in the manga. I guess it’s up to interpretation.

Legosi delivering this line in the manga: determined, stoic

Legosi delivering this line in the anime: clearly in love

we finally get one of these scenes for Louis! Season 1 had a few of these for Legosi and Haru when they had moments where they were deep in thought about the other. I thought that Louis’s would have been in his initial meetup with Legosi in the manga, but that scene got cut. It’s cool that they put his here, though! Also correct me if I’m wrong but I think this is the only shot like this in season 2

When Louis’s theme starts here when he’s acting strong, trying not to cry, I thought it’d slowly start to break down as he did and transition into a new track but it just kinda...keeps going. It sounds like a more somber, shaky version at the very least but I think the music at this part is a bit lacking...thankfully the animation and Louis’s voice acting more than make up for it

Boy, does Louis really cry. I’m glad they let him let loose like that but the bad thing about seeing it animated is...they don’t hug! I always wanted a hug here...one that Louis fully embraces unlike the earlier one on the balcony. It makes sense the Legosi doesn’t try to do anything and is taken aback, of course, but damn...and considering how Louis is treated later and at the end of the series...it stings a lot

Idk what to say about this scene...it’s done so well. Louis having his internal monologue, talking to Legosi...Legosi looking so damn guilty that he wants to go back and fight...the transition to the foot reveal...it’s all so good

A change here in the anime...Louis is a lot more steadfast. He offers his foot and is like, completely at peace with it. In the manga he’s still shaking and his expressions are like, more unsure, but here he seems a lot more convinced that it’s what he has to do

jeez

Legosi’s thoughts about how eating his leg feels almost ritualistic and it actually makes him desire and hunger for it is gone...which like, idk why it is. We just hear Legosi say that he wants to but we don’t feel it (we do see his lips pull back and reveal his teeth tho)

Enter: Buffgosi. This happens in the manga but since Legosi’s model is so much smaller in the anime it seems like a much more drastic difference.

intimate...

Legosi doesn’t apologize for not being able to stop growling, but it seems like they did a lot to remove any humor Paru put into these scenes. I guess it doesn’t work that well in one continuous scene vs. chapters broken up by weeks

Louis’s funny deadpool moment is changed with him just...telling Legosi to be a hero again. Guess he really likes that line. The way it’s delivered really feels like a video game, like Legosi is recovering from a hit and Louis pops in to heal him with some words

Seriously, Louis just keeps making this face...after an entire season of being super serious and stone faced he’s looking softer

the Riz and Tem story isn’t changed at all, and can still be read as either romantic or platonic. Seeing it in motion makes it hit harder though, for sure

Legosi still wishes Riz a happy new year here. He seems a lot happier here than in the manga. Also Louis doesn’t berate him for it, instead opting to speak up and talk to Riz here after hearing about his heartbreak. He does it without the pressure of the cops being there, and it truly shows that he really does like carnivores and sympathizes with their struggles now.

Yeah, so the cop scene is gone, which kinda condenses and cuts out a lot (including Pina’s small appearance) but I kinda like it better. It allows all the characters to breathe. Legosi thanks Louis naturally for the meal, and Louis telling Legosi to wipe his face is done in a friendly, joking manner...it just all feels a lot softer and friendlier without the cops being there making it all fucked. Just like in real life

THERE IT IS THERE IT FUCKING IS THEY EVEN GAVE LOUIS HIS LIL SMIRK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

god i keep tearing up around these parts IT’S BEEN ALMOST 2 HOURS SINCE I STARTED MAKING THIS POST GOOD FUCKING LORD

I kinda thought they might put the aftermath in a sort of credits scene, and i think it works, even if it does pave over some important stuff

god it’s just so validating to see Legosi care for Louis and Haru equally. Like we all know it’s the case but they’re both dear to him

Now this is a far departure from his thoughts in the manga. I suppose it only fits with the ending of the season to make it more optimistic, but we skip the while “you can’t marry an herbivore cuz of your record” thing...but here he still cherishes it in a way. Very interesting. Wonder if they’ll backpedal on it in season 3

Legosi actually tells Haru he’s dropping out here too! He still does in the manga but it seems more abrupt there, like he already did drop out and then goes to tell her instead of telling her before he does. He’s also not suffering through his meat withdrawal here like he was in the manga at this scene (or at least the manga’s counterpart at Haru’s house)

The ending convo mirrors what Haru says to him in that scene too. It’s a funny way to leave off on the season without a stinger or anything. It just kinda makes the audience question their relationship (and now that Lougosi is pumping through everyone’s veins...hehehhehehe)

uh, well, anyway, i kinda wasted all of my time off after work writing this so...i hope you enjoyed it? Not gonna get one of these for a while...i know at least some of you like them

Also...what the hell was the extra “broadcast only” scene??????

Well, anyway, I hope you all have a good day, night, whatever, wherever you are. And remember: Legosi and Louis are in love

#ok this is long #this is kind of my love letter to the series too almost #this is the definite high point of the story and it delivered #lougosi always and forever

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mallowstep · 3 years

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tpons initial/reading thoughts

keeping my "liveblogging" in one place to maintain my mortorium on spoilers

tpons spoilers below the cut. obviously.

prologue

i swear to god if bramblestar comes back and i don't get squirrelstar i might actually seek out the collective representation of erin hunter and kill her

chapter one

bristlefrost.

bristlefrost, can you hear me [1].

jayfeather is under exactly the same stress as alderheart. so either you're implying alder is weak or you're in the "adoption isn't real" camp and i'm neutral on you as a character, i don't want to dislike you.

you know, i thought the scene in mtbnsof where all of thunderclan is like "yeah, let's just exile squirrelflight" [2] was exaggeration, and honestly i spent a long time workshopping it to make sure it felt natural, but apparently i didn't have to do that, because the characters are canonically OK with it!

do y'all want your leader back or bramblestar? (i'm not salty nope not me.) also twigbranch the fuck do you mean "it would be wonderful if bramblestar came back" like what he barely let you stay in thunderclan stfg.

fuck, i can't tell whether or not sparkpelt is denying lionblaze and jayfeather as squilf's kits, but they're really ruining my good faith in adoption. or just proving my point that it's not about adoption.

does thunderclan care about shadowsight? what is going on i swear did they forget he killed bramble and is responsible for the entire mess right now?

chapter two

shadowsight you did a bad of course they're not hiding how disappointed they are you did a bad my son

lmao it's the reverse of tawnypelt's clan [3], shadowsight is being kidnapped against his will for the tribe. also please can we go back to the tribe but only if it's good

he listed dovewing next to "clan leader" not "clan leader's mate" which implies dovewing has shc's respect which yes i stan

aww siblings being siblings. i miss that from po3. nothing has captured it as well. well, like, the sight.

chapter three

you know, i think part of why i've struggled so much with this arc is because i just don't like any of the pov characters. i don't dislike any of them but i don't like them.

yeah! tree defending rootspring!!!! fuck. good fathers in warriors.

so rootspring calls lionblaze TC deputy which means squirrelstar [4].

god they go, like, ages without caring whose parent is who and suddenly they're covering it all over again but like, in an adoption bad way, and just, fuck you erin hunter [5].

it's good to see lionblaze does care about her, fuck, can we just get some consistency here. (i mean god rootspring he lost his mom too --- i mean, if anyone should know this, your mom was violetshine, posterchild for bad adoption, who fought w twigbranch over adoptive mother shit)

i want a bernie meme like "i am once again asking for adoption to be treated like a legitmate form of family."

chapter four

wait why the fuck is bris faster than windclan their whole thing is being fast

also that moonkitti video about harestar having no personality[6] is painfully real i know nothing about this man

oh huh we were just talking about windclan camp[7]. this is actually pretty similar to the first ever description, right down to bris wondering how people sleep there (they don't.) well, uh, credit where credit is due, good job for sticking to your guns on windclan sleeps outside.

i love how crow and breeze being difficult is just common knowledge.

oh, so crowfeather gets credit for the three? fucking hell man i'm done.

also fuck you crowfeather for victim blaming i will be making a call out post so help me [8]

okay i'm ngl it feels like bris is crushing on lionblaze. i don't think that's supposed to be a thing [9], it just feels like that.

okay okay okay i'm confused in earlier books the great battle was like a well discussed thing. god, avos had that whole the names of the fallen thing. and now, not even a full generation later, and bris doesn't understand the dark forest? (also who's even in the dark forest?)

(oh wait this book is going to answer that. uh for the record, now, squirrelstar/mtbnsof has been fully plotted and will disregard whatever this book says, unless it's good.)

oh wow i guess we're just throwing out the concept of the moonpool why don't we. really, everything i heavily justified/couched in mtbnsof is happening unironically in canon.

mothwing and willowshine god fucking damn. they're prob my fav mentor/apprentice relationship. mistystar's omen stg.

what is it with everyone and bouncing all the fuck around with squirrelflight? like, okay, i'd get it if they doubted her because yeah, i could make a strong argument about clan morality and her actions [10]. but they're so on and off about it i hate it.

shadowsight.

shadowsight, can you hear me.

you're literally saying, "i could solve this, if i had a solution to the problem."

well ig we know who he takes after.

chapter five

what's up with this "darkest thoughts" bullshit come on you're really going to invalidate ivypool like that?

lionblaze really do be going back and forth. can't blame him he's not used to having a character.

also, i really love jayfeather standing up for alderheart [11].

mothwing wtf how're you getting to hell you don't believe in it. how do you have faith in shit. also please stop trashing shadowsight [12]. that said, she's absolutely right, she would be the ideal cat for the job, considering she has warrior training.

jayfeather what the fuck dude why are you suggesting it. although i'm glad at least he acknowledges his connection to squilf. good job. good job for being the one fucking character.

willowshine. willowshine baby no. don't do it. willowshine. willowshine no. don't do it. baby. no. please. i'm crying please don't do it.

"well, Mothwing, I admire everything about you" holy fucking shit what a line that's a line to inspire so much fic [13].

willow please baby no. please. send kestrelwing or something. puddleshine. anyone but you please baby.

damn okay what is with the connection between mothwing and.

no.

no no no no no.

they're killing willowshine.

why.

she's. baby. please no. she's not read. she's too. no. i can't.

ffs moth please stop dissing shadow like this he doesn't deserve this. (also, unrelated, did, uh, did puddleshine name shadowsight for spiresight, a cat he never met and had no connection with? fuck i forgot what happened there.)

you know, out of the med cats, mothwing and jayfeather are the oldest. it's nice to see that dynamic have weight: when jayfeather speaks, people listen. it's been a while since we've had that role of the med cats in thunderclan.

god willow is dead and i'm going to sob.

chapter six

I FUCKING CALLED IT I HATE EVERYTHING

why did they have kill my baby [14]

when did rootspring get fucking responsible this is worse than when i got responsible

also mothwing i'm so sorry.

fuck.

i didn't cry i was too angry and i cried about it last night because i knew it was coming just.

they didn't have to do her dirty like that.

chapter seven

just, before we begin, still sad about this willowshine bs. give me back my baby.

oh gee bristlefrost i wonder why lionblaze can't talk about his mother being taken away

does this mean they're going to acknowledge adoption again? please let this not be me raising my hopes too soon.

also really with all this lionblaze = deputy stuff...i just want squils [15]

oh lionblaze is back on his bullshit again. like, dude. he was instructed to treat ashfur. he was ordered. jesu maria.

uh. spotfur. what the fuck?

okay, first of all, squilf was chosen as deputy, so yes, she does in fact inherit leadership. that's...that's just wrong.

if you want to complain about lionblaze, sure, i hate it as much as you [16]. but squilf?

yes, yes, please give me ivystar [17]. if i can't have squilfstar (and i don't think i can, hence the existence of mtbnsof [18]), please let me have ivypool. (although mousewhisker? who said that lmfao.)

uh, lionblaze? there are so many better choices. i think bristlefrost would do a better job. (that's not an idea please don't give me bristlestar.)

ayyyyy! graystripe! what a man. what a time.

(graystripe and his gd dramatic entrances.)

also it's good to see elders getting the respect they deserve. (wait what what what the fuck happened to him.)

hehe (mtbnsof spoilers) i'm glad at some level that like, i identified key things that need to happen to make the story interesting and compelling, and they're happening. tbc really is picking up with the good writing. i have a lot of thoughts about this, but mostly, like, these books have changed since when i started them, but i'm happy with where they got. also, lmao i'm dying because like, yeah fuck i don't even know, i can't believe both the worst and best parts of mtbnsof have made it into this. god. what a world.

oh thank god lionblaze is stepping down.

hey, uh...is anyone going to follow up with what graystripe was doing? this is getting sus i can't take another thing i just need to trust someone.

chapter eight

i'm still not over willowshine

i. can people decide if dark forest is punishment or. wasn't lionblaze against sending shadowsight? i can't remember shit i should be taking useful notes i have a memory problem xd

aww dovewing mom.

you know i have a quick q: in skyclan & the stranger, leafstar's kits call her mama. but i don't think we've seen any adult cats say that. what's up w that?

oh dovewing i love you but...nah i just love you

that said, uh, can shadowsight's behavior be treated consistently? i don't know something is just bothering me.

oh yeah icewing exists lmao. forgot about that. can this continue like can shadowclan be the new home for wayward souls? they kind of deserve it after all of the villains they've had. and the earliest books kind of implied shadowclan used to do that.

i really, like, okay. cats like icewing are all "durr hurr dark forest very bad" and then others are like "bruh hell is real?"

uh. nope. i hate this implication that the dark forst is poisonous. very bad very bad very bad.

aww tigerstr being a good dad. breaking the cycle. first one [19].

i really, like, why do cats blame shadowsight? he wanted to go? he wanted to be the one? like, wtf?

urgh who wants to be warriorcatsfandommisandry [20] would praise shadow's rule breaking while victim-blaming squilf for the same behavior.

well, uh, ig i'm glad mothwing secretly cares about shadowsight? like, that's kind of fixing her character. kind of.

chapter nine

wow this post is getting long whoops i mean it is all of my notes on a book. usually i condense em into the good stuff.

lmao shadowsight b like "yeah if i die sorry my dad's gonna kill u luv u thanks for coming >3"

seriously mothwing was definitely the cat to choose considering she could 100% fight. also, like, his body is at risk?

you know, i think mothwing is supposed to be having a jayfeather arc here, but it's crippled by the fact that we're not in her head [21].

how many cats are even in the dark forest wasn't this the whole plot of oots that they're all dead?

also, like, i'm glad mothwing is back to herself. i don't even care about the inconsistency i'm happy to have mothwing back.

seriously it's starting to get to me that the knowledge of the great battle is so inconsistent.

okay i like that we've ditched the "darkest thoughts" thing that was kind of stupid

squirrelflight

(i am crying she's here again fuck)

chapter ten

okay yeah valid gotta maintain that tension (altho fuck you erin hunter [5])

huh. i still kinda hate rootspring for basically no reason ngl

you know, i've never questioned this, but how the fuck does moss ball work? moss doesn't work like that god no no no i can't over think it [22].

you know, forbidden romance might be "overdone" but it's worth pointing out that we very rarely get the perspective of the cats in the forbidden romance

lmao what is it with greystripe? like? is everyone in love with him? i'm not being fair to him just...what?

emotional support wife dovewing [23]

i really wish there was a deeper bond between bris, rootspring, and shadow. i appreciate the viewpoints into different clans, but with no meaningful differences in culture, it's just weird because we're used to po3 and avos and stuff where our leads are really close to each other.

willow

willow baby

you know it's occurred to me i've never vocalized my love for willowshine on this blog before now? xd see i don't actually talk about my favorite characters that much. i talk about dovewing the most out of my top 3 (dovewing, jayfeather, willowshine, in no particular order), but they just kind of feel...too personal? because i have really specific reasons to connect with all of them.

dovewing just happens to be for reasons i'm most able to share >3

willow please don't be corrupted

chapter eleven

please i just want to know squilf is okay

bris u fucking idiot we've established the moonpool is deep. don't you remember literally yesterday?

flametail imagery

"drypaws" what a word. interesting ik leopardstar just avoided water, but here bris can't swim. i don't care i'm just happy for some gd culture

okay i've said it before and i've said it again: i draw the line at cat cpr

wait what is daisy doing? fuck was i supposed to read the novellas first? is this what daisy's kin is about? when did daisy leave? did i miss something? what's going on??

okay can we...like, cats who aren't elders trained in the dark forest. this wasn't even a full generation ago. lionblaze. breezepelt. just...guys.

tigerdove...so cute. i love them [23].

where tf are the sisters they got here so fast

like bruh...i liked the sisters but now they're like, clan on demand ghost summoners? i think? idk clearly i'm missing something very important

emotional support wife dovewing

chapter twelve

i see shadowsight and i don't see squirrelflight and i have a complaint

oh uhhh who's snowtuft again?

also i feel like, i feel like i made my point about it being empty

a light in the mist title drop dodoododod

bruh what is ashfur even

oh series one cat xd yeah that checks

look. if they're not in the allegiances, i don't remember them for shit, okay? my series one memory is excellent, it's just that series one cared about thunderclan, and, like, tallstar

squilf squilf squilf squilf squilf if she's not in this chapter i'm going to scream it is 2am bitch

I AM SCREAMING BITCH

chapter thirteen

the scream lengthens

just give me her

at least i get to spend time with willowshine?

wait mapleshade is still alive? i thought someone killed her oop

also uh yeah how did ashfur amass power like, that bitch is an incel he's done nothing but fail to kill three cats and get murdered and go to heaven

are there even enough dark forest cats for that?

rootspring this is a bad idea don't do this haven't you seen horror movies stop being the white chick

sad ghosts r sad sigh

chapter fourteen

when did warriors get all "oh no can't do multiple chapters of the same narrator in a row" please nobody fucking cares that bris is sad i just want to see squirrelflight

lmao bris like "it's illegal to be atheist" bitch i read code of the clans exactly once i know it's dovestar who tried that and the answer was no.

ah, tree. actually mediating, for once.

god, bris...why is firestar's legacy so large? like, fuck, i know why, i just...

also, tree, she said a nobel and true Clan, not the clan. so like, maybe chill out for a moment [24].

hnnnng family drama also i really like that tree loves his wife very good very good

dfskj okay mothwing missing riverclan would be much more impactful if we actually knew what was going on in riverclan. (like, say, if willowshine was a pov in this arc [25]?) also, you know, riverclan has had so many problems with treating cats badly? god, a shadow in riverclan. wait, like, shouldn't mothwing also remember/reflect on this? wait this would be so much better if we had more pov for this fuck

also fuck off bris about being proud you are so fucking priviledged your forbidded romance drama is as intense as like, idek, the notebook? from someone who lived through, uh, forbidded romance that involved threatening to send someone to conversion camp [26], fuck off

bruh. why is she acting like thunderclan is gone xd you have no idea what it's like for a clan to almost fall apart yeah i stand by my comments on shadow/skyclan.

"what will my place be?" it will be a fucking warrior of thunderclan??? all you've ever wanted???? god she's...look i get it she's like, my age. and lord knows i don't react gracefully to shit. she's stressed, i get it. i do. but also, just, ffs bris. get it together.

"you die in the dark forest, you die in real life" can we meme that?

oooh okay it would be really good to get all three pov cats in the dark forest [27].

also, how long has rootspring been down there? how does this work? what's up with shadowsight? what is anything even? how long has it been?

thank you mothwing for pointing out bristlefrost is extremely unexperienced.

also can i just say, i really like bris' name? like i think bristlefrost is an extremely cute and good name. cute in that it's cute and good in that it conveys her character well.

god i want mothwing pov on this [25].

why is bris so convinced that if she doesn't act, rootspring isn't coming back?

chapter fifteen

wow i had a lot of notes on last chapter huuuh

oh vibe do i finally get squilf

stopping caring about bramble shadow no one fucking cares

seriously when did ashfur get this, uh, good at being a villain?

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

she's

here

fuck i'm crying

poor bb i just. poor baby.

okay. ashfur. let me making something clear.

i do not understand why in the world squilf would ever choose bramble [28]. but you're fucked as a choice.

ffs yellowfang this is why we don't say "his only crime was loving too much"

okay well as much as i'm confused by his power his characterization here is fantastic. i'm really glad we got ashfur back as a villain, you know.

good job squirrelflight. do not take unnecessary blame.

(also please learn to transfer these skills to your pos husband.)

#when you can't get her to love you by killing her husband and dragging her into hell so you think you can make her love you by showing her how you're torturing the souls of her loved ones

you know i had the snowtuft thing spoiled for me i just forgot who snowtuft was so it had 0 impact

damn bramblestar is still alive.

dammit.

people kept calling lionblaze deputy don't do that to me if you're not following through on it ffs

okay not to pimp out my own fic but if you're interested in a squirrelstar au, "may there be no sadness of farewell" is my squils (squirrelstar) au and it does have an imposter arc. so you know. if that's your thing.

hnng my thoughts on bramble [29] aside i can appreciate the drama

ashfur. ashfur. ashfur you fucking idiot you're the one fighting her. also fuuuck i love this character. if i was bookmarking this on ao3 you know it'd get the "hot damn" tag.

huh. uh, wow. good chapter. hot damn. loved it. loved it so much.

hate what it means for my hopes and dreams, but very good. very intense. i approve.

chapter sixteen

eh, wasn't she going to the dark forest? did i forget something?

ohhh dream

huh this is interesting

and cute.

i love the "everything is fine" trope so much tho

does...did no one ever describe ashfur to bris?

you know, i think this is why so many people, me included, go with the we-don't-talk-about-our-villains thing. sure, it makes some bits awkward, but...yeesh

huh. weird chapter. both impactful and kinda meh.

chapter seventeen

you know i'm feeling a lot of things right now, and i might have to just give in and finish this damn thing.

we'll see.

willow willow willow willow willow

sigh ffuuuck she's dead. i'm sad. i'm going to write a fic about her. "under a willow tree" i have plans. it's going to be good.

yeah see okay. i made a joke about warriors needing to make not talking about shit part of the culture and i'm glad they did because it works

squilf!!!!!!!!!

oh fuck i'm crying again. my girl. she's here. she's here.

of course they saved you!!!!!! you're!!!!! squilf!!!!!!

please get nine lives.

please.

let the body be dead.

let bramble die.

please.

chapter eighteen

okay seriously i really want to memify "if you die in the dark forest, you die in real life"

oh rip shadow's ear. that sucks. huh. i'm gonna have to explore this, too. esp. w dovewing.

eeeeee mothwing being mothwing again i'm happy

willow

mothwing stick to ur guns for a moment

also i appreciate the "u can't tell me what to do i'm a med cat" thing going on

hehe tigerdad (where's dovewing my beloved)

chapter nineteen

wow okay i'm 3/4 of the way through

dammit rip squilf something something exploring some canon complient stuff.

huh, shadowsight. do you think maybe. being in the dark forest. is bad. do you think. maybe.

bruh shadow way to go call out your own father smh.

mothwing, my dear, you're the one who didn't want to treat him like that. i mean i'm glad you're standing up for him but this kind of makes your whole treatment of him feel like a plot device.

okay, i'm glad that's a formal thing, med cats > leaders, that makes me happy

i really want to know what alderheart is up to.

yeah really why have they waited so long. i mean i forgot about them too but the sisters seem like an obvious choice? since they're here?

(also i'm still really confused by the daisy thing.)

heh i really do need to read squilf's hope. i've been putting it off (i don't want to read cft, but...), but i think it's about time.

rootspring what? okay going to read it now ig

okay okay i'm really glad the sisters are like fuck we're done w y'all cause that's been a long time coming

what debt where the sisters in to the clans XD???

chapter twenty one

"moonpond"xxd i'm dying

awww tigerdad

don't the sisters know the basics of herbal healthcare?

poor tigerstar. no no guys. his wife was in a dangerous prophecy, and now his son is. :(

tigerdad!!!!!!!

ohhh this chapter hit hard

chapter twenty two

"the sign of a true leader" is...talking fast?

dfsjadfskj rootspring you are lead by leafstar the best and most capable leader the fuck are you talking about

:((((((((( brambles........alive

is squirrelstar so much to ask for

y'all're lucky i was going to release "ilex aquafolium" tonight as a follow-up to "better left unsaid" because freyja (my cat) chose it to be next in the rotation but i might end up finishing chapter three of "may there be no sadness of farewell" first because coping

chapter twenty three

you know writing that chapter did not take me better i forgot mtbnsof is angst until like...the epilogue

heyyy they're back....i'm.....soo....happy...about......this [30]

i mean i feel like every one is way too trusting how do u know it's the real squilf?

shadowsight bris rootspring polycule? just a thought

oh. so that's it, then.

you know, i enjoyed it.

citation: a moonkitti video ↩︎

see here to read it, but...you could probably get it in canon ↩︎

legally i have to tell you i haven't actually read this yet ↩︎

please let me have this. ↩︎

where "erin hunter" refers to the collective who writes warriors ↩︎ ↩︎

it's called "leader chance" if you're interested ↩︎

okay, techincally i was talking about riverclan dens, but it's close. ↩︎

for my own personal reference, pg 50 on phone. about 19% ↩︎

warrior cats still hasn't invented cheating. also, no, i'm not going overboard on the footnotes. ↩︎

nts, do this. or add on to like "daughter of mine" or "secrets passed over in the dead of night" ↩︎

gives more weight to sunset and evening star. ↩︎

although also guys it's not that out of character for her. like, she's always been quick to do what she thinks is right, and this time, it's the wrong thing. you know? ↩︎

including my own fuck. ↩︎

spoilers for mtbnsof. i mean i know i killed willow for exactly the same reason but...why'd they have to lift all of my least favorite parts of squilfstar. ↩︎

squilf but for squirrelstar. coined in my drafting notes for mtbnsof ↩︎

to be clear, he's wrong, i just wouldn't bother arguing because it's annoying having lionblaze as clan leader. ↩︎

nts: do something with this. mtbnsof spoilers. even if i don't end up going through to squils death, i want to do something with ivystar, preferably before the entire clan is ocs. ↩︎

in case you're new here, my ao3 is mallowstep and mtbnsof stands for may there be no sadness of farewell, a squirrelstar au that begins at the end of lost stars. ↩︎

"love knows no bounds (but maybe it should)" (unannounced) spoilers. ...i say, knowing about how he's, uh, not in lknb. ↩︎

hopefully, i'm speaking ill of the dead and not summoning the devil. hopefully. ↩︎

yes of course i will now be writing that thank you for calling me out. we will also be exploring her relationship with religion. title? unsure, but we might reuse "i'll believe the wind is calling me" since that has been scrapped and salvaged ↩︎

only valid kit play scene is now the one at the beginning of the sight. ↩︎

no tigerdove discourse please. i'm not in the mood for it. play nice. ↩︎ ↩︎

although to be clear, the only actually noble and true clans, at least time of this book, are shadowclan and skyclan. ↩︎

nts - "under a willow tree" ↩︎ ↩︎

oh. so that's why i don't like her. ↩︎

it triples my odds of seeing squilf. ↩︎

i do. i really, really do. but until the erins acknowledge it, i try to ignore it in canon. otherwise i get too sad. ↩︎

as mentioned before, when i'm interacting with canon, my standards are a lot lower. because i like to enjoy the stories. that's why i write fix-it fic. ↩︎

i'm crying ↩︎

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orangeoctopi7 · 4 years

Text

A Nostalgia Trip

: Chapter 1 : Chapter 2 : Chapter 3 :

The end of the school day finally rolled around, and the twins met up at the STNLYMBL. Stan's bag was noticeably heavier and bulkier than it had been this morning.

“Take a look through there and make sure I got everything you need.” Stan said as he handed his pack over to Ford.

The scientist pulled out three different sized spools of copper/nickel solder, and a thin, almost needle-like soldering iron.

“And these are the smallest spools they had?”

“Smallest I could find.”

Ford sighed. “I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s an auto-shop in a high school. I’ll make it work.”

It was an unusually warm day for January, and they drove home in the melting slush. “Wait, stop here!” Ford commanded as they passed the beach. “I’m going to need fine sand for molding.”

Stan pulled into a nearby parking lot. Luckily he had a shovel in the trunk of his car, although he couldn’t remember why, and they found an empty paint can in a nearby dumpster they could use as a bucket.

Ford strode purposefully down to the edge of the surf, where the finest sand would be, when a dark shape at the corner of his eye caught his attention.

"Oh…" he breathed when he turned and saw several tarps that concealed what they were protecting from the wind and snow. He knew exactly what was underneath.

Stan came to a stop beside him, eyes locked on the same tarp-covered shape sitting just far enough up the beach that no waves reached it. They stood there in silence for a solid minute, their errand to collect sand completely forgotten.

"Great…" Stan finally spoke, reaching up and wiping his eyes with the back of his coat sleeve. "Guess it's my turn to get hijacked by hormones."

"Do… do you want to go give her a look over?" Ford asked hesitantly, "For old time's sake?"

Stan just nodded mutely.

They two of them strode solemnly to the tarp and gently removed the layers, revealing the almost-completed Stan’o’war underneath. It was so much smaller than either of them remembered, not even half the size of the repurposed tugboat they’d turned into the Stan’o’war II. The little schooner was just big enough to hold two teenage boys who had reached their full height, but not their full girth.

Stan reached down and picked up the neatly folded sail sitting at the base of the mast. They’d originally just used some old bedsheets they had ‘rescued’ from the trash, but after doing some research and tests, Ford had found the soft, thin fabric wouldn’t hold up under the strain of a sail. So, over the past three years, they had been hunting down and saving every scrap of sturdy canvas they could find. Stan’d had to carefully stitch them together. That was when he’d first learned how to sew, a skill that had come in handy when he was living on the road, and when cobbling things together for the Mystery Shack.

Ford was appreciating the worn wood of the mast. When they’d first found the wrecked hull as children, most of the structure had rotted out, and they’d had to find a way to replace and attach new wood to the old planks and boards. He had researched old ship-building techniques, and learned a lot about woodworking along the way. He remembered using those woodworking techniques a lot later in life, to make repairs to his research cabin that would later become the Mystery Shack, and to build shelter, transportation, and weapons as he traveled the multiverse.

“D-d’you know what happened to her?” Stan eventually asked, pulling them out of their thoughts.

“...I’m not quite sure.” Ford admitted. “I know mom kept it because Shermie liked to play on it when he was little, but I didn’t ever go home after I got my degree, so… I don’t know what happened after he grew up.”

“Hmm.” Stan grunted in reply. He wasn’t sure what to feel about that. Should they call Shermie once they were out of this, and ask him what happened to it? Or was Stan better off not knowing?

The two of them stood in a pensive silence, taking in this unexpected opportunity to see their old childhood project one more time. They probably could have stayed there all evening, reminiscing and appreciating the hard work they’d put into the schooner, but it was winter, and the sun went down early in the afternoon. As the sun dropped, so did the temperatures.

“Come on, we’d better get that fine sand before we completely lose the light.” Ford finally said, pulling himself away.

* * *

Once they returned home, Ford traced out tiny circuit lines in the sand with a toothpick he'd filed to a fine point. He then melted the solder spool into the miniscule mold.

"Ok, that will need to set all night, then I'll have to pick out all the sand grains and file down all the points and areas where it's leaked out of the mold."

"And how long will that take?" Stan asked.

"As long as I don't break it while I'm filing, another day."

"And if you do break it while filing?"

"Then I'll have to start over again and melt a new circuit into the mold. If I had a smaller soldering iron, I could just piece it back together, but this one is too big and clumsy."

"So what I'm hearing is we're not gettin' back to our own time before my boxing match with Crampelter tomorrow."

"Probably not."

"Heh, looks like I get to pound that bully's face in one more time."

Ford turned away from his work desk. "I almost wish we could switch places for that."

"It's not worth the hassle." Stan shook his head. "Besides, I dunno if I have the heart to do that again after… y'know, last time."

"I did say almost."

They shared a small chuckle, and Ford started climbing up to the top bunk.

“Kinda early for bed. Especially for you.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“And I didn’t bounce back from it nearly as well as I thought I would.”

“Guess all that junk they say about teenagers needin’ more sleep is true.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

* * *

Going to bed earlier seemed to have helped Ford’s mood, come morning. He wasn’t nearly as groggy and grumpy as he had been yesterday. He still insisted that Stan stop by the doughnut shop on the boardwalk for coffee on the way to school, but he at least had the good sense to swipe enough coins out of the change jar at home to pay for it himself.

Stan, for his part, seemed a little more confident going into school today. Perhaps it was because he was looking forward to the boxing match tonight. It was something familiar, something he and everyone else knew he was good at.

It was another day of trying to lay low. Another day of coasting through classes. No one seemed suspicious of them. No one seemed to notice how Stan was actually answering questions in their math and science classes. No one seemed to notice that Ford actually managed to climb all the way to the top of the rope in PE. Stan wondered about it out loud to his brother at lunch.

“I believe it’s the timeline resisting change.” Ford mused quietly. “We know changing the greater flow of time is difficult, even when someone is actively attempting to change the past. So far, we’ve been going out of our way to keep things more-or-less the same, so perhaps the time stream just… diverts their attention elsewhere. It makes me wonder: what kind of enormous act would it take to make people notice? To actually alter the flow of time?”

“Ford, we’re not gonna test that theory.”

“No, of course not. Not on this trip at least.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “I’d prefer not on any trip, but honestly I’d be worried there was something wrong with you if you didn’t say something like that.”

#Gravity Falls #Fanfiction #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #My Writing

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vespiiqueen · 4 years

Note

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of the last 10 people who reblogged something from you (if you want !! 💛💖)

Wow I rambled a lot with this but i can't add cuts bc I'm on mobile rn DHSISHSJ sorry :"))))

1. Ik Ik "haha how cringe are you" of me to say, but honestly? Homestuck. Homestuck helped me in a time of need and when i so desperately wanted something to latch onto. Finally, I caved into my friends telling me to read it-- and it's been a blast!! The epilogues / hs^2 make me feel kinda sad though, because so much of what I loved about the original was yeeted through the nine circles of hell and into the trash. I love Y/ffany's (I call her Yippi tho) design, the art is really pretty at times, Harry is a major dork, I LIVE for seeing Vrissy bc honestly?? Her design is 10/10, very early 2000s emo style and I also live for that. Tavros is cute and a nerd and I think that's swell!

But in terms of story and how any of this happens, it makes me sad to see it happen. If Vriska could return as Vrissy, why not OTHER beta trolls? Where's my Eridan fish man, writers?? Give me the boy or perish by my fury.

2. Also super "haha how cringe are you" but,,, murder cats (Warriors), esp the early 2005-2015 amvs and stuff. I remember watching Flightfootwarrior's "I Will Not Bow" Scourge amv for HOurs and having no clue what was happening, but all these edgy kitties were KITTIES! It's introduced me to a lot of music I still listen to to this very day (Imagine Dragons, Young/the entirety of Hollywood Undead, Breaking Benjamin). And yknow what?? This new arc is absolute chaos, but in the good way.

I'm an "OG Fan". I prefer the first arc, The Prophecies Begin, to almost any of the other arcs. I just could never get into the other arcs-- not to say I haven't read them, I HAVE and the Fire Scene was probably one of my favorite moments beside grumpy Jaypaw, god complex Lionblaze, and fear the gods Hollypaw. I thought the build-up for it was SUPER satisfying. Gray Wing is my baby and I fully embellish in the Gray Wing is Silverpelt theory.

This new arc is definitely something new for the universe. While I didn't read aVoS (but I may do that if i can find the files for it), and so I don't know the major events of it other than what I've seen M.A.P.'s (Multi-Animator Projects, for clarification,,, bc unfortunately that term is also something disgusting). There's fucking cat possession and all the Clans questioning their belief system, yo. Shit be on fire.

Also the Imposter is 100% Ashfur, that's canon now, yeah??? Also im sorry but fuck Root x Bristle that's the dumbest shit I have ever seen. Give me Root x Shadow or face the wrath of my dragon plushies.

RiverClan is my Clan and my gov assigned warrior name is Fireshell 🌟🌟

3. As much as I hate the author,,,,, Harry Potter. It's been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember. I can never really remember why, but I've always just loved it- the movies, the books, the extra little merch that would pop up in my local Walmart. Of course my favorite character is Draco Malfoy. I could go on and on and ON about how I think his character arc was SHIT and JKR didn't have the balls to make him a confident gay man that was always implied through the text (at least, my lesbian ass thought it was implied but i may just be projecting, idk). I could ramble about Draco for HOURS and what I think his character SHOULD have been and how his parents are horrible (more specifically, Lucius bc Narcissa [?] Actually showed a few good moments), and a child should never have to pay for their parents sins.

Oh noo, Draco's a villain because he's a victim of major abuse and peer pressure? He's a villain because a literal child can be horrible and they'll always always always stay as a horrible little fiend?? Fuck that. He's a child.

Unlike manchild grease pan Snape, who was a racist piece of shit and shouldn't have became a fucking school teacher but it's okay because he was ~~~in love~~~. No, fuck you, he was a creep. James Potter n Co may have been a little posh bitch to you, Snape, but that's no fucking excuse to continue to bluntly be a little cunt all the way into adulthood. You're an adult who flatly changed your PATRONUS to imitate Lily's. You have no excuse. And Harry went and named his child after you LIKE JESUS CHRIST, DID RON'S SISTER NOT HAVE A SAY IN THE NAMES TOO?????

I also fully adore the idea that Muggles can run into Hogwarts and their patronus can 100% be a made up, fantasy creature. Imagine you learn the patronus spell and suddenly fucking ARCEUS comes from your wand. Imagine learning the spell and CHTULU (i did not spell that right but im so tired) comes from your wand-- an entire ass fucking Lovecraftian, Eldrith horror is just the embodiment of you. What if it was a fucking Homestuck character like Vriska? How fucking METAL would that be?? Hskajssowjjsjs get on it fandom.

4. Hee hee very evident by my url but Pokemon is another major thing of mine. While vespiquen isn't my favorite (that title goes to Hydreigon), it is definitely up there!

I've ALWAYS enjoyed the idea of Pokemon. You run around, training up these fight monsters and collecting them. I remember playing my sister's Ruby version on her flip-up Gameboy. I couldn't even read but I ran around catching god only knows how many of the same pokemon wherever she was. Apparently, I had fought for hours in the same area and leveled her Blaziken up to lvl 50 something and left her lvl 30s in the dust LMAO.

I got my first game when it was Pearl/Diamond. It was Pearl, and it still holds a very fond place in my heart. I could barely read, I could barely write-- I had named my Turtwig something along the lines of "MmorpHy" and my player boy "ZbsibJ". Yes I remember the names slightly. I really didn't get far-- I barely got to the first gym but I was just so happy to play it.

I eventually lost the game, as a 5 year old would do, but I can still vividly remember what was happening when the game arrived. I had just came back from the dentist and was quite tired from fighting the dentist bc I was super scared. Mom suddenly handed me a box and said it was mine-- my overseas (at that time) dad had bought me Pearl and my sister Diamond, because I lost my shit about it when he visited one time.

Well, tdlr, I played it for about five minutes while struggling to stay awake against the loopy gas they made me take. I fell asleep listening to Twinleaf Town's soundtrack. Every time I play a rom of Pearl and I get to where the player's house fades in and I hear that first tune of the song, I get a huge smile on my face and cry-- as.. Weird as it sounds.

A few years later, I had gotten Pokemon Black bc I liked Reshiram on the cover. Now, this one I could actually READ when playing, but I don't remember a lot of things about it. I probably lost this one too, as a 8/9 year old would do. I DO remember, I chose Snivy and my sister chose Tepig (hrmm there's a theme here of grass/fire goin on......) and vibing to the music. I was so amazed by the sprites moving, I just kept getting into encounters to see the sprites move (oh boy, no one tell younger 7-9 y/o me about Zelda......oh wait....)

Playing Pokemon NOW, as a 17 year old """gifted""" chick, I stil have very fond memories. I recently beat Pokemon Black again and GOD the OTS SLAPS. I fucking adore the soundtrack-- the track that plays when you battle a trainer, the low health dings being turned into a legit song that also slaps, the battle! gym leader themes-- and oh my gOd, the legendary theme is amazing? It really tells you just how glorious these pokemon are supposed to be. It's not intimidating like Groudon/Kyroge/Rayquaza's themes. It's not action packed like Palkia/Dialga's is, it's not filled with tension like Giratina/Arceus's is-- but it radiates the GLORY that the beasts portray. And I live for that. (Also, Kyurem's version is my favorite because it glitches in the beginning and that's rly cool)

P/D/P and BW/BW2's stories, imo, are some of the greatest ones. Yeahhh, US/USUM's is cool and I haven't played XY nor SwSh-- but the ones I can find memorable are PDP and BW/BW2. I love N. I love Barry. They're my sons. Ghetsis is fucking terrifying, Cyrus needs a hug. Giratina scared the piss out of me when I was younger, which was NOT helped by Giratina and The Sky Warrior.

I think my favorite movies are the gen 4 ones. The Rise of Darkrai having a tear-jerking theme for such a mysterious pokemon (i still tear up when i hear Ocarion), Giratina being spiteful is a mood and Shaymin was cute, Arceus being angry is also a mood. Yeah, Pokemon 4Ever made me cry my eyes out over Celebi, Mewtwo Returns made me again cry because Mewtwo accepting who he is, I remember how vastly different the BW movies are-

I just. I have a lot of memories with the series, even if Gamefreak and Nintendo kinda do the series dirty a lot (your top-grossing thing and you made That monstrosity for the Switch? How dare you.). It's comforting to be stressed and pull up my roms for the games and to play them. Mystery Dungeon is incredibly fun to play, Pokemon Ranger is really fun with the concept (Shadows of Almia continues to kick my ass to this very day and FUCK the Jungle Relic, I hate the Water Challenge fucking gyarados bullshit). I remember the pokemon I got for MD (I got Time, my sis got Darkness) was Mudkip, if that is any help.

I love my little fictional pixel monsters.

5. Yup, someone told tiny 7-9 y/o me about console games. The legend of Zelda. My first Zelda game was Twilight Princess on the Wii and BOY did I play the fucking SHIT out of that game.

Honestly, looking back and looking at playthroughs now-- I still love TP. Twilight Princess is still one of my top favorite Zelda games-- yes, even after playing OoT, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Skyward Sword, the anniversary four swords edition for the DS where you could play by yourself (Nintendo pls bring that back, I don't have friends to play it with ;-;), Phantom Hourglass- ect.

Something about Twilight Princess grabbed me by the head and yeeted me into the world. I can remember playing it for hours with little to no breaks. I, a tiny 9 y/o, had gotten the hang of the controllers and managed to get past the tutorial quite easily. And then, I was launched into the game and I wasn't stopping for NOTHING. Mom and Dad would have to force me to save and get off to go and eat dinner. THAT sucked.

I had done everything on my own up until the first temple, the forest temple. Not where/when you saved the dumb kid, but when you were saving the spirit's light. Theeeeeeennn I got stuck on the fucking Forest Temple for deadass six months straight. I'd play for hours, running around in circles, unable to figure out where to go, and because I didn't grasp the temple's purpose of being that way- I'd get angry and get off. It wasn't until dad looked up a walkthrough and talked me through what I was supposed to do that I learned how to get through temples.

I had gotten to the last little fight with Ganondorf before the Wii broke and i could no longer play. Despite the Wii being broke and we got rid of it, I was ADAMANT on keeping the game, and I kept that game for YEARS. It was an original copy out of a sealed box, and I eventually lost it when I left it accidentally at my now ex-friend's house.

She had a Wii and I went "hey I have a Wii game!" And I brought my Zelda over. Worst fucking choice of my goddamn life. Mom called me to come home and said I couldn't sleep over like the original plan was, and that was it. My ex-friend stashed my Zelda and I never saw it again. And, even if I wanted to-- I couldn't get it back, which makes me upset. We had a BAD falling out. She likely doesn't even remember it's there, or sold it to the local game junkie kid who buys ALL games.

But I still love the game. Midna was amazing, and I loved how snarky she was and she has a very cute design! The game's OST is fucking phenomenal. Midna's Desperate Hour makes me cry bc goddamn it really sells how serious that situation is. I love Hyrule Field's theme in this game. I love the Twilight Realm's song. Zant was fucking hilariously scary. Ganondorf's design in this game scared the piss out of me when I was younger.

Midna and this game's Link and Zelda are def my favorites. Yeah yeah, Sheik is cool and all I Guess but dhsushwishs Midna holds the special place in my heart. She was totally my gay awakening BUT

For other game antagonists, I adore Ghirahim-- let's go you funky little queer-coded villain. Skull Kid was great, I love the entire dynamic of him. Prankster lost soul stumbles upon Majora's Mask and the mask makes him act out due to powers-- which, I actually took very heavy inspiration from for one of my OCs. The moon falling to Hyrule was a fucking terrifying looming threat.

But the game series holds a place, and I've yet to be able to play BoTW-- although, I'm fairly certain I'll like it. The playthroughs I've watched of it are all fairly decent! I just. Gotta save up enough money to buy it haha.

Dang guess I gotta go watch a Twilight Princess playthrough again.

Honorable Mentions:

Avatar: the Last Airbender, specifically Book 3

my OCs definitely make me happy, they're my children and I'd ramble A LOT longer if given the chance WHEEZE

My friends, but I didn't add them here bc it's more fictional stuff, I presume

Baking. I love to bake cupcakes.

Painting is fun. I'm an artist and goddammit im going to use painting as an excuse to make a mess.

Fire. I rly like fire, down to a pyromaniac level. However, i hate the fires that happened to my home town, the Great Smokey Fires of 2016-- THAT pissed me off. How dare you burn mountain landscapes to the ground. Perish.

History. I'm a history nerd.

I'm also a science nerd.

But fuck math, I cannot comprehend math to save my life.

For some reason, I rly like learning how the human body works??? like did you know, organs are actually sticky when touched by a bare hand?? Did you?? How fucking cool is that.

Bakugan. I love Bakugan, esp the DS game. I love my Darkus Leonidas. Give me back the online world, you peasants-- I want my Darkus Dragonoid. (Also fuck all my friends from when I was in kindergarten- my theory that Alice was Masquerade was somewhat correct.)

#admin ace #admin ace speaks #communistvriska #inbox tag #homestuck #warrior cats #harry potter #pokemon #legend of zelda

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rosesanthology · 4 years

Text

Escape Plan | Matsukawa Issei x F!Reader [mafia!AU]

This took me SO MUCH TIME to write aaaaaah it's not surprising that it's so long :0 i just have many many feelings for Matsukawa Issei ALSO im begging y'all to listen to the playlist before/as you read please !!

Im kinda pissed that i cant add a "read more" option since im on mobile tho :\

(Also ngl at first i planned to get one of the 2 shot but i didn't have the heart to go thru with it)

Warnings : Fluff, it starts with humor but at some point it gets angsty ???? Idk y'all tell me

- Au that could be considered as a ennemies-to-lovers type of situation

[Tags] : @raevaioli and @haikoo like i cannot stress this enough @haikoo this your main manz

- if you could only use one sentence to describe your job to a Karen it would be : stealing from the rich in order to trick other rich people

- you had been what the people would call a spy for most of your life now, the Tokyo based Nekoma Organisation being something close to a family

- you worked with both of your very good friends, Kuroo Testurou and Kozume Kenma

- Kuroo, the leader of your little squad, had been the first one to open up to you when you joined

- he was a gifted chemistry genius and you were sure he could make any poison or soporific out of the most random stuff

- he also had insane combat and physical abilities which made him fit to act in a lab as well as on mission grounds

- Kenma was a little more reserved at first, he was the same age as you but still was really reluctant to accept you as one of his own at first

- when he saw how much Kuroo trusted you and how interested you were in his work he slowly but surely found himself caring for you

- to put it simply Kenma, better known as "apple pi" was a hacker. His job ranged from creating computer viruses to full on enabling the security of whole museums

- despite his cute appearance and shy demeanor he was probably the scariest of you three

- finally, you Y/L L/N was the infiltration and weapons expert of the group, you could weild literally anything from guns, to swords to,,,,,metal rods (but you don't wanna talk about this one) and you were of great help when deciding which infiltration angle was the best in missions

- Kuroo, under the orders of Boss Nekomata, quickly taught you the dangers and ways of the job during your first months working with them, the organisation specializing in outsmarting rich bastards and stealing their precious ressources in order to make "better use of them"

- if they were hoarding a particularly efficient brand of medicine, your goal was to steal it all, and sell it to people in need for free or a low price

- if they were in possession of some important object like let's say,,,,,the construction plans for the emperor's new vacation house, you stole it, made copies to sell at a high price to the highest bidder and your good affiliate, the Fukurodani Corporation would keep an eye on the original as part of their personnal collection, you were fine with that

- yeah they were others organisations like that in Tokyo, your friends from the Fukurodani Corp of course but also the Shiratorizawa elite crime group with who you had worked a couple times before

- ah and there was the Yakuzas too....honestly they were the only group in Tokyo with whom you were still on dangerous terms with

- they didn't like Nekoma in their affairs and you didn't like them in yours, but you tolerated each other

- your boss had established a truce with the representant of the big Yakuza group of your area, Kondo "the viper" Takara, a truly scary woman who had blasted her way to the one of the top positions of the hierarchy

- she even had a cool nickname ヾ(｀ε´)ノ

- but you knew better than to mess with them

- all in all y'all kept doing your jobs well, not bothering anybody

- except for one remaining rivalry with some Miyagi group

- the Aoba Johsai Institution.

- well, rivalry would be a strong word because you kinda got along with that Iwaizumi guy, he was a great hand to hand combat fighter and you respected that

- the others however ? Trash. 👁3👁

- they seem to act like Tokyo will be their territory in the next 5 seconds flat like ??

- THEY DON'T EVEN GO THERE ????

- "they be acting like they can just swoop in and eat OUR rich" you had told Kuroo and Kenma one day over ramen

- spoiler alert : it was a bad idea cause Kuroo snorted and almost made the noodles go up his nose

- no but seriously they always seemed to take advantage of YOUR missions to attract attention

- how did they even know which missions you were on anyway ??? (Kenma and Kunimi are actually good friends cause they play video games together but he'd never tell you that)

- it's like that one time you infiltrated a business company's heir's residence and then you came across a dude named Hanamaki and you had the HARDEST time whisper shouting to him how blowing up the whole place was a bad idea to retrieve one (1) diamond

- at the end you felt so tired that you gave it to him anyway ಥ_ಥ ("just take it ffs" "really ??" "Don't make me regret this")

- they also had the single worst person ever on one of their teams.

- Matsukawa Issei

- just thinking about it made you want to take your metal bat and break something in your shared room with your two other friends

- seriously that guy was like the epitome of clownery

- he's also supposed to be his team's gun expert except that's not the best task for someone who refuses to take anything with him but his freaking FISTS

- the first time you had met y'all ended up being on the same case to assassinate some guy who had kidnapped some cute freckled kid from a place in Miyagi called Karasuno

- EXCEPT HE WAS IN TOKYO SO IT WAS YOUR DUTY !!! NOT HIS !!!!

- you had Kenma on the earbud telling you about the guy's position in the club you were currently one street away from. You were posted on the rooftop of a building with a sniper rifle ready to get done with it and go save the kid but GUESS WHO COMES IN FISTS SWINGING WHEN YOU LITERALLY HAD THE TARGET IN SIGHT

- and he had the nerve to look straight toward your rifle's aim and flip you off while smirking

- sir you're about to catch these hands🚶🏽

- he had knocked him out alright and he got the young boy out but you were NOT ready to let that slide so you quickly got down and crossed path with him at the back exit of the club

- "what exactly do you think you were doing in there ?" Listen. You may have sounded confident enough saying that but you had NO idea that this dude was like a whole ass giraffe

- and he knew he was tall so he had the audacity to say

- "sorry can't hear you so well from down there midget, i was just doing my job (▰˘◡˘▰)" if it weren't for the karasuno boy being right there you would have stabbed his kneecaps on sight

- anyway after that y'all just seemed to run into each other wayyyy too often

- insults were shared just as often tho

- "well butter my buns and call me betty broker if it isn't my sweet little midget shooting people !"

- "stfu before i choke you"

- "kinky but can you reach my neck ?"

- "you've sunk low enough"

-so yeah f u n t i m e s

- aside from that, business was going great but Kuroo had had news of a very important mission for you but he insisted on letting Boss Nekomata tell you about it himself for some reason

- he'd never done that :(

- you were kinda hurt that your best friend was hiding stuff from you tbh :(

- and Kenma did not seem to know more than you for now

- so you spent a whole week just mopping around

- sometimes you would go and poke fun and the newbie Lev Haiba but it wasn't the same

- Kuroo and Kenma kept working on missions while you were left waiting for that one assignment that Nekomata seemed to keep you for

- until today when Kuroo finally told you that the boss was requesting you in his office

- ngl you were EXCITED

- maybe you would have to zipline down the Tokyo tower (σ≧▽≦)σ maybe he was going to let you take a chainsaw with you this time (σ≧▽≦)σ

- maybe he- "oh" you deadpanned, stepping foot into the office and seeing none other than your arch nemesis, Matsukawa Issei in all his pisces clown glory

- "why tf are you there shitty eyebrows"

- "i had a good day too Y/N ! thanks for asking :D" today was the day. You were 100% ready to kill him and the knife that was attached to your thigh strap seemed like such a good option rn-

- "stop it you two. Y/N take a sit" Nekomata gestured, as you didn't hesitate to listen to your superior even fully aware of Mattsun's eyes annoyingly following your every movement

-"Okay so. Y/N i know you may be wondering why Matsukawa's here but to put it simply we've been informed that a rich family have gotten their hands on one of Aoba Johsai's rarest item : a gold engraved katana that belonged to their first boss"

- "so what do you need us for ?" You didn't mean to use "us" but you knew better than to piss off your boss, he was like a parental figure come on

- "i need you guys to infiltrate an auction held by said family and steal it back in the span of one week. It's up to you to work together or not but keep in mind that our arrangement states that we're autorised to make copies of the katana for future sells."

- you guys nodded, after all you were professionnals before everything and you were about to leave when Nekomata put something on the table

- "here are the keys to your appartment near the auction site it'll be your hideout !"

-.....now this had to be a cruel joke-

- "id rather sleep under a bridge then live with her for a whole week"

- "wow this is the first time we agree on something Mattsun" the oh so familiar nickname dripped in venom as you said it, unsure of what was supposed to happen

- "oh yes you could but i suppose that you don't have the supplies and tools that you will definitely need during that mission :)"

- you locked eyes with the brunette for a minute before reluctantly stomping to the table and grabbing hold of the keys and adress written on a paper, storming out of the door, letting out a loose "come on shitty eyebrows we have data to collect" to your new....partner ? Ugh it was about to be a long week

- it turns out the appartment was a lot smaller than you hoped for, with two single person beds, a computer post and different storing purposed furniture

- it was a common thing however, because the last thing an undercover spy would want is to draw attention with a flashy hideout

- the first step was to gather information on who would be at the auction which shouldnt be too hard

- "hey ill take the lead and contact my friend so that he can determine who is going to be here" you said as you sat on the chair in front of the computer

- "mm yeah you do that ill check what kind of weapons have been provided to us" Mattsun had no difficulty finding them as the drawers well full of them....this was very promising

- Kenma had just sent you the list of people that had been invited to the event, and you recognised many names as being members of the powerful Yakuza group lead by Konda Takara, of course.....the infamous viper herself

- you called out to Mattsun to show him and briefly explained what they were up too and how they usually fonctionned

- the auction was to take place the last 3 days after an opening party, leaving the rest of the week for preparations

- they usually took their time in comitting their crimes so you thought that stopping them mid plan by taking advantage of it was the best way to get the sword

- Mattsun didn't have anything to say for the moment, seemingly thoughtful about the whole situation

- "just so you know" you started, already regretting the decision of talking in your head, "i don't plan on being friends with you anytime soon but i feel like for this we should at least try not to rip each other's hair out"

- "i never planned on that second option"

- "huh ?"

- "i hope you know that we've never had a single conversation without insults of some kind before so for the sake of both of us it would be better to actually get to know each other since we're supposed to work together"

- you hated to admit it

- but he was right

- however you didn't comment on it, opting for throwing him a dry "let's sleep" before plopping yourself on your own bed on the other side of the room

- this is about to be one hell of a week

-3 days had passed in the crammed appartement both you and Mattsun struggling to inform yourself on each specific individual that was going to be present at the auction

- right now, you were both sitting on the floor, wearing simple oversized shirts and pyjama pants and shorts, cheese pizza box laying on top of the document covered surface

- "Mattsun, pass me the paper about Okuda Takeda please" :000

- Matsukawa froze, because he knew that in 2 days of living together y'all had establised that you wouldn't be at each other's throats

- but hearing you using his nickname unironically and saying please ???? That was still something he had to get used to

- "what are you staring at ? Give me the paper shitty eyebrows >:[" ah there she was

- "thats my girl" he thought, handing you the document and resuming his own reading

- here's the catch : Mattsun was head over heels in love with you since like day 1 that Hanamaki told him about this pretty girl who let him take the diamond from his mission. He tried to repress his feelings as he had noticed that you seemed way closer with your friend Kuroo who he had seen on missions with you

- maybe you liked him

- he would understand, he seemed way more confident than him and he was also probably way smarter since he was a genius and all

- also the way you were always soft to him and not Matsukawa kinda got to him

- he wanted you to hug HIM after a mission too and NOT insult him

- but he judged it for the better as he still got to be close to you in his own way with the playful fights you always seemed to pick with him

- it was easier than confronting his feelings or rejection

- this mission proved to make things so much harder for him tho

- like yeah he saw you being a badass plenty of other times but now ?

- he got to see you being all clingy and grumpy in the morning (he never knew being called a dumbass while you were falling back asleep on his shoulder was his thing but hey) , got to see your nose scrunch up when you were focusing on mapping out the position of the vent system of the venue

- he could go on for hours about how much he loved you and your plan was not making it easy.....profiting off the yakuzas' plan took way too much waiting and he understood that you wanted it to go as well as possible but he just couldn't keep living like this until then

- it felt like torture

- and he did not want to see you in that gorgeous dress that you were supposed to wear at the auction during the infiltration

- he knew that a couple more days could drive him crazy and make him do dumb shit like kissing you

- he had thought about that a lot of times but never brought himself to do it because je knew it was pointless

- he had to take action now

- the night of the opening ceremony, the day before the Yakuzas would start their scheme

- both of you were laying in your beds, awake, that was a habit you had developped over the past nights, you were just, aware of each other's presence and then sometime you would ask him something about his life, his friends, himself

- it made his heart beat too fast everytime and he could feel himself falling even more by the second when he heard you giggling talking about the time you pulled a prank on your friend Yaku with Kuroo

- he knew that you were already very sleepy from the way you were slurring your words

- "Y/N do you hate me ?" He said, abruptly and he heard a strangled laugh coming from you followed up by the question

- "what's that for dummy ?"

- "please answer" he asked in a whisper, sounding almost desperate

- you took a second to think about it

-you had grown quite close to your tall partner in such a short period of time, even letting your guard down and stopping from being so defensive

- "i don't hate you....i could never" you said the last part more to yourself tho but Matsukawa didn't miss it, he wished he did as he heard the soft sighs coming from your now sleeping form

- his heart ached as he got up, putting on his black coat over his mathing turtleneck shirt, taking his gun and spare map of the auction venue

- you were totally going to hate him now....

- and then he left for the opening party

- the rain was pouring outside

- for some reason you couldn't sleep well that night

- that only happened whenever Kuroo was out on a mission at night or Kenma was working in his office

- you hated sleeping alone, you couldn't do it

- being alone was the one thing you dreaded the most in your life, death was nothing if nobody knew where you were, if nobody aknowledged your existence you weren't alive

- but Mattsun was there and you trusted him.

- yeah you were kind of an ass to him during like 90% of your interactions with him but you just didn't know how to talk to him ??? He was so strong and good at what he did so you couldn't help but feel admiration but also intimidation

- yet you've felt probably more comfortable with him than anyone in your life (yes even Kuroo and Kenma weirdly enough)

- it was a nice feeling

- maybe it was because you saw him differently than them...

- but anyway

- you felt like yourself around him

- and yet

- why couldn't you sleep ?

- "Mattsun ?" You called out to him, voice cracked from not having used it for a while

- no answer

- maybe he didn't hear you over the rain....?

- you had a bad feeling about this

- "Mattsun ?" You called out a little louder, sitting up

- yep definitely

- you turned on the light and to your surprise, Matsukawa was nowhere in sight

- your heart sunk at the realization

- you were alone

- what about the plan ? Ah its true that he never said anything about it

- did he not trust you enough with it ? Did he think you were too assertive ?

- you wanted to cry but it seemed as if your brain wasn't working, your body rushing on its own to check the date and time on your phone : past 10pm on thursday night.....

- the opening party !

- "shit shit shit he must have gone there to take them by surprise wtf is he thinking doing this alone?" You thought aloud, maybe it would trick your body into not being scared

- at this point you were terrified, rushing to get the red dress on as well as putting your 2 guns under each of your thigh straps

- is he alone ? Surrounded by highly trained and dangerous Yakuzas ? What if....you were too late ?

- you didn't have time to think too much about it as you knew that this kind of thoughts led nowhere.

- you had to infiltrate that party the fastest you've ever done in your life and see for yourself, luckily, the venue was only a few crossroads away from your appartment

- truth was Mattsun's plan was not so bad

- after all you had insisted on making him find info on every staff member there too so it's thanks to you if he just so happened to know what type of guy that one waitress liked in order to flirt with her and convince her that he had forgotten his watch in one of the closed off aeras of the venue

- the place was absolutly gigantic, after all it was a mansion bought will illegal money

- he hated this, he just wanted to get it over with, retrieve the sword, gtfo and go back to Miyagi forever so that he wouldn't feel the pain of the illusion of being by your side when you were clearly far ahead of him

- you'd always been anyway

- he had finally reached the generator room and opened the vents with much difficulty as the room was a mess of cardboard boxes and storage shelves

- he was just going to cut the power, which would take about 15 minutes to get back, allowing him to go thru the vents to the main hall that was right thru the wall to his side, retrieve the sword and just make a run for it

- hopefully the rain would cover most of the sound he made so that was even better

- see that would have been great if he hadn't felt the icy cold metal of a gun at the nape of his neck as he was fiddling with the generator

- he had been caught.

- it was the end.

- shit he fucked the whole mission over and now even you didn't have a chance to-

- "what exactly do you think you're doing Mattsun ?" You said coldly even tho the hurt in your tone didnt go unnoticed by the taller man

- "haha Y/N whatchu doing here on this fine night ? You look stunning btw"

- "Cut the crap shitty eyebrows i asked you a question"

- you finally lowered your gun allowing your harsh glare to show how upset you truly were

- damn, Matsukawa really felt shitty :\

- he'd never seen you like that- well not soaked from the rain but....so vulnerable to him

- all your feelings talks happened in the dark of night in your hideout, he'd never seen your face look so pained before

- "I did what was best for both us..."

- "bullshit." He wasn't sure that he believed himself either to be honest

- "what the fuck are you even doing anyway ? I thought you and i were in this mission together ?? Did nothing matter to you ? I finally think that i found someone who i could trust other than my fucking family and that's what you do ? Ditch me for your own profit ?? You did what was best for your damn self Matsukawa"

- you were upset. He got it really, his insecurities had gotten the best of him like they often did....except he didn't have the strength to confront them, to confront you about it. So he got it and he didn't retaliate.

- "so what ?? You're not even going to say anything ?? Not even TRY to fucking apologize ? Do you really don't care ?" You searched for his eyes, but little did you know that he just....couldn't talk nor maintain eye contact with you right now

- "Mattsun...i thought you and i had...something ? I don't know maybe i hallucinated or some shit but i thought we were at least friends you know ? D-did you ever tolerate me at all ?"

- your voice cracked, it got lower and it cracked, and at that moment he was sure his heart broke right at this instant too

- he wanted to tell you that that was the farthest thing from the truth

- he wanted to tell you that he loved you

- but you were too far. Once again, you were miles ahead of him, more than ever

- and the sound of voices coming from the corridor did NOT HELP

- you could not afford being found here so with the professionalism left in you, you pushed your feelings away and pulled Mattsun behind a shelf, crouching and waiting

- you were so close he could feel you shivering from the cold and he felt so so bad

- but now was not really the moment

- "didn't you hear shouting ?" Shit. Maybe you should have waited until getting out of here for your heart to heart because this guard was definitely not trippin

- there were 2, luckily they didn't have the idea to split up to search the room, all you had to do was move low and close to the walls in order reach the door and well....the katana literally could not matter less to any of y'all rn

- at this moment you really regretted going out in such a hurry completly forgetting to contact Kenma, he could have hacked into the camera system and told you were they were so easily.....

- anyway, despite that you guys were stealthy enough to get out if the room

- now the problem was getting out of here.....

- you held Mattsun's wrist loosely as you ran thru the corridor of the building, thunder raging and labored breathing filling the silence

- "Y/N we could get out from the rooftop !" Right....if you could only get there then maybe you could just parcour your way out of this by getting on other rooftops....damn you were glad Matsukawa always thought of every escape plan possible

- you didn't really mean what you said earlier

- yes, you were disappointed but, you were also scared for his dumbass

- and rn may not be the best moment to realize it as you were most likely in a life of death situation but....you loved him

- fuck you loved him so much that you were running in a goddamn dress right now

- "i truly hoped it wasn't you" said a voice from the end of the lobby

- of course it just had to be the Yakuza boss you dreaded so much

- Kondo was just standing there, arms crossed but you knew better than to take her lightly

- "did you come to retrieve it ?" Its funny how her voice seemed to dominate even the full on storm outside, the occasional lightning bolt shining light from the huge windows into the corridor

- "No....let us pass please we just want to leave" Mattsun felt how tensed you were and immediatly rested his hand on his gun handle under his coat

- "yeah sure sweetheart but only if you tell your guard dog to calm down unless he wants me to cut his fingers clean off" she threatened nonchalantly as her hand met the handle of her own katana strapped to her belt

- Matsukawa was deadass glaring at her so hard you didn't recognise him

- he honestly looked like he could take her on but...you didn't feel like testing this theory tonight

- "hey hey, it's alright" you soothed him, putting your hand on his arm and squeezing slightly

- it seemed to work because he quickly let go of his gun even tho he was still glaring

- "let us go" he said firmly

- she pushed herself out of the way and motionned with her arm as if to say "go on~" in the most theatrical way

- you passed her without issues and soon found yourself on the roofs as planned in Mattsun's escape route and made it safely to the streets, rain still pouring

- you were finally letting out a breathe you didn't know you were holding all this time

- you were alive and most importantly, so was he

- you turned around and were ready to say something when he cut you off by grabbing your arms and pulling you into a kiss

- it was short but it managed to get his point across very well as well as warm you up when he wrapped his arms around your waist, resting his forehead against yours

- "i love you Y/N....i swear i didn't mean to hurt you and put you in danger like that....if i knew i would have done things differently i-"

- "i love you too Mattsun and it's never been a problem to me, i've done way more dangerous things in my life than rescue my boyfriend from getting killed dummy"

- in the end, you weren't alone

- somehow he had become, your escape plan from it

#haikyuu x reader #matsukawa x reader #mattsun #mayhaps i cried #haikyuu au #haikyuu!!#hq x reader #hq!! headcanons #hq!! fic #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu matsukawa #aoba johsai #aoba jōsai #alternate universe #spy!au #mafia!au

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vagrantblvrd · 5 years

Text

Tabula Rasa (1/1)

Summary: In a shocking twist, Ryan finds it annoying when he stumbles over a body when it’s not one of his. Especially when it’s obvious whoever left it there for just anyone to find didn’t even try to hide it.

Notes: Prompt fill for Anon who asked for FAHC AU Ryan finding amnesiac hitman!Gavin who unbeknownst to Ryan was hired to kill him.:D?

(Read on AO3)

In a shocking twist, Ryan finds it annoying when he stumbles over a body when it’s not one of his. Especially when it’s obvious whoever left it there for just anyone to find didn’t even try to hide it.

It’s sloppy and unprofessional, even in a city like Los Santos where the news outlets don’t cover stories about dead bodies being found unless they’re a celebrity or otherwise well-known figure in the city.

So this, literally tripping over one in the middle of an alley when he’s taking a shortcut back to his apartment after a quick run to the corner grocery story is galling.

“Aw, come on,” he mutters, staring in dismay at the groceries that didn’t survive the cartoon clownish balancing act he did trying to keep them from tumbling out of the paper bag he was carrying. “Not cool.”

The eggs continue to ooze their way along the dirty asphalt, seeping into cracks like some kind of terrible metaphor for his life.

Or maybe it’s been a long goddamned day and he should just go home and order takeout and drown his sorrows in diet soda.

But then what he assumed was a typical dead body has the temerity to groan, this awful, pained sound followed by a soft scrape. Rustling, clattering nose as it tries to pull itself out of the pile of trash and whatever else it fell onto.

“Dammit,” Ryan says, as he turns to look at it.

There are eyes – well. An eye, the other doesn’t count with the way it’s swollen shut, focused on him.

Battered face with dried blood all over and whoever they are, they must have pissed someone off in a major way because they look like hell.

“You look awful,” Ryan’s mouth says without his brain’s okay because he’s tired and it’s been a hell of a week for him and it’s only Tuesday.

The body makes this horrible rasping, croaking sound, and after a moment Ryan realizes it’s laughing at him.

Mouth pulled up in this little smile as they give up on trying to sit up and slump back down, zombie noises giving way to this breathless laugh.

“Oh good,” they say, hand flopping around as they gesture vaguely at themselves. “I’d hate to feel worse than you think I look.”

There’s a pause.

A frown.

“Wait, that doesn’t sound right.”

========

You’d think Ryan would know better than to bring strange bodies home with him given his line of work, but you’d be wrong about that.

Horrifically, astoundingly wrong.

By all rights he should have left it there and gone about his business, but he’s not as heartless as all the rumors say he is. Had regarded the body for a long, long moment considering his options before that last shred of a conscience he had goaded him into making what’s turning out to be a grievous mistake on his part.

“Oh, what a lovely place you have,” the body says, slumped sideways on Ryan’s couch as he roots through his first-aide kit. “Urban modern?”

There’s no theme to his “décor”, just whatever the place came furnished with or whatever he needs from a furniture store catalog.

Ryan side-eyes the body, suspicion in the back of the mind why someone would want to kill him because he’s proving to be an annoying bastard.

Kept talking all the way here, odd little comments and hasn’t shut up since.

Oh, there was the expected trepidation when Ryan set his bag of groceries aside in the alley to approach him. This pathetic attempt to move away from Ryan that ended in a soft hiss and hand clamping down on his side. (Wary expression and tense as hell like he expected Ryan to finish the job someone fucked up.)

“Do you ever wonder,” he asks, words twisting oddly with that accent Ryan can’t quite place. Bit of a twang to it, but more something you’d find in a bad movie rather than the Texas panhandle or thereabouts. Might be down to the split lip and everything else, or someone with a bad grasp on accents. “Do you ever wonder if hands could have toes?”

Normally it would seem like a bizarre question coming out of the blue like that, but considering one of the body’s hands is a bloody mess, broken fingers and such?

Not so much.

“Well I mean,” Ryan says, and shrugs because somehow that’s not the weirdest thing anyone’s ever asked him. “There’s a surgical procedure for that.”

Not your typical elective surgery, maybe, but it is a thing. Ryan remembers reading about some poor bastard a while back who had it done after an accident where they lost their thumb.

The body looks up from staring at his hand, and does his best to smile.

Painful to look at, and right, okay.

Better get him cleaned up and patched up before he makes things worse.

========

Ryan’s still trying to figure out what the hell he thinks he’s doing bringing strange bodies home with him when Meg calls.

Meg’s one of the smartest people he knows, one of the best and brightest in the assassin-for-hire field, and all around terror when she gets something in her head.

They’ve know each other for years, professionally and personally, and he’s learned to be terrified of when she gets a particular tone to her voice.

The same one she has when she asks “What the fuck did you do?”, the moment he picks up.

Ryan freezes as he runs through recent events, eyes going to the body on his couch that fell asleep as he was stitching him up.

First time that’s ever happened to Ryan, what with the whole stitching someone up without proper anesthetic being an unpleasant sort of thing.

“Uh,” he says, watching the rise and fall of the body’s chest, hears the faint wheeze of his breathing. “What?”

Meg sighs, something she does a fair amount when dealing with Ryan and his everything.

“Did you know,” she asks sweetly, which means whatever she is seriously doubting his intelligence and self-preservation skills. And, like. Everything else to do with him. “Ryan, did you know there’s a price on your head right now?”

Ryan doesn’t roll his eyes because she would know about it (Meg always knows) and also -

“When isn’t there?”

Ryan’s one of those well-known figures in Los Santos the news would have a field day about if he ever turns up as a dead body. (Statistically speaking, it will happen one day. Can’t do what he does and not expect to.)

He’s made his fare share of enemies over the years, stepped on the wrong toes and worse. And even if by some miracle he hadn’t, there’s bound to be someone who wants to prove themselves by going after the big, bad Vagabond like something out of a Vinewood western.

Meg sighs again, and Ryan likes to think it’s a fond sort of sigh, not the eternally exasperated kind.

“You know what I mean, smartass,” she says.

Ryan doesn’t smile because she would know about that too, and he’d rather not have to worry about her being one of the people out to collect the bounty (bounties?) on his head because he pissed her off.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah I do.”

========

The body wakes up when Ryan’s trying to decide what to make for dinner, or if ordering takeout is still on the table.

Makes a pained noise, and then goes quiet and still as he tries to figure out where he is and how the hell he got there. (Why he feels like shit and if there’s a chance of more pain headed his way anytime soon.)

“Hey,” Ryan calls from his kitchen. “Does pizza sound good to you?”

He’s too tired to bother with cooking anything resembling edible, and it doesn’t make sense to kill his house guest after all the work he put into keeping him alive.

When he doesn’t get an answer, Ryan goes to make sure the poor bastard keeled over on him.

“Er,” the body says. “Yes?”

Trying to get his preference for pizza toppings is more of the same bafflement.

All, ”That sounds fine?” and “I suppose?” and ”Does anyone like anchovies on their pizza?” which is the firmest opinion he seems to have on the subject.

“Probably,” Ryan says, wrestling with the app for the pizza place a few blocks over. “Otherwise you think they’d take it off the menu.”

He gets a noncommittal noise from the body – and honestly, it’s getting weird for Ryan to refer to him as that even in his head.

“Not to be rude,” Ryan says, pocketing his phone once the order’s sent off. “But do you happen to have a name? Something I can call you?”

The body stares at Ryan – he does that a lot – and frowns. (Also something he does a lot.)

“Er,” he says (yet another thing he seems fond of doing). “I honestly don’t know?”

========

Ryan’s seen his share of terrible movies, watched more than enough terrible television shows.

Grew up watching old soap operas with his grandmother, so naturally the first thing to pop into his head is amnesia.

The body makes a face when he floats that little idea in front of him as a – perfectly valid – answer why he can’t seem to remember anything about himself.

His name.

Occupation.

Reason for ending up half-dead in one of the many glorious alleys Los Santos has to offer.

The usual things people have a decent grasp on in their day to day lives.

And since there’s not much that can be done about finding answers to most of those questions tonight, they settle for choosing a name for him in the meantime.

“You don’t really look like a Gunther,” Ryan says, picking up another slice of the pizza that arrived while they were taking stock of what they know. “Sorry to disappoint.”

He’ll ask around in the morning, go to his contacts all nice and discreet because it’s dangerous not knowing what, who, he’s dealing with here. More so, considering the condition he was in when Ryan found him.

“What about Edgar?” Ryan asks, and no, he doesn’t have a problem. It’s a perfectly fine name. “Reggie?”

========

The real question in all of this, Ryan muses as he searches through piles of trash and other horrible things looking for clues, is what the hell does he think he’s doing?

He knows how Los Santos works better than anyone. Knows you don’t go around looking for trouble if you want to keep doing that thing where you’re the opposite of dead. Knows you sure as hell don’t go poking into the kind of trouble that’s landed him with a house guest who has amnesia, for God’s sake.

And yet he still made a few calls to the handful of contacts he trusts to be discreet – extra discreet – without prompting.

Mark, as he settled on rather than any of Ryan’s suggestions, looks somewhat more human with all the blood cleaned off. (Sure, he also looks like someone who should probably be in a hospital but that’s beside the point.)

So, yes.

The two of them are back in the alley where they met (if you want to call it that) looking for any kind of information about Mark.

There’s a scrabbling noise behind Ryan as said house guest searches through his own pile of trash and God knows what. A far more difficult task for Mark given the fact he has one functioning hand at the moment along with his other injuries.

They’ve been here for a while, and Ryan’s starting to think it’s all in vain when Mark makes a triumphant noise, catching his attention. When he turns around to see Mark holding up a phone that looks like it’s had better days.

“Found something,” he says, wiping it off on his pants.

Ryan moves closer and watches as Mark turns it on and runs into a fingerprint lock screen.

They share a look before Mark unlocks it – and they’re faced with the a home screen littered with app icons and the most adorable looking wallpaper with fluffy kittens.

“Huh,” Ryan says, as Mark’s face softens and he makes the quietest little noise.

Either Mark has a thing for cluttered home screens on phones or he’s a sucker for adorable kittens. (Ryan’s fairly sure it’s the kittens.)

Overhead the clouds that have been threatening one hell of a thunderstorm all week rumbles threateningly and they share another look.

“My place or yours?” Mark asks, wry smile and a lame attempt at an eyebrow waggle that has Ryan coughing to cover his laugh.

As far as they’re concerned this alley is Mark’s place, and just, no.

========

They don’t quite make it back to Ryan’s place before the storm hits, rain pouring down in one of Los Santos’ thunderstorms, because of course they don’t.

As a courteous host, and since Mark’s teeth are chattering by the time they get inside, Ryan lets him have the first shower. Sets out a pair of old sweats that might offer some bit of extra warmth while his own clothes are being washed.

To kill time, Ryan rattles around his kitchen to make them something to take the chill off. He doesn’t have coffee on hand because Ryan’s not the biggest fan of it, but he does have is several kinds of hot chocolate.

He’s debating whether he wants mini-mini marshmallows in his or regular mini marshmallows when he hears Mark shuffle in.

“I may have used all your hot water,” Mark says, something like a smile in his voice and not sounding apologetic at all. “Sorry about that.”

Ryan glances at him, and ends up staring longer than he should.

He was concerned his clothes would be too big on Mark from the outset, but other than forcing the poor bastard to go around in wet clothes and risk catching a cold or worse there wasn’t much choice.

It was a short-term fix until Mark’s clothes were dry, but now?

Ryan’s unsettled at how much smaller Mark looks in Ryan’s clothes. Bruises and other small hurts standing out in the harsh lighting of Ryan’s kitchen. Dark and ugly against his skin, split lips giving him a lopsided grin as he moves over to the kitchen bar and takes a seat.

“Is one of those for me?” he asks, teasing note to his voice.

Ryan’s a hardened criminal. Gun for hire with a reputation that has people running scared with all those rumors about him out there, and yet -

“What?”

Mark’s lopsided smile is distracting, and the quiet laugh of his as he points at the mugs in Ryan’s hands is even worse.

“Uh, yes,” Ryan says, when Mark’s eyebrows go up when Ryan doesn’t answer right away and all that staring he’s doing doesn’t stop. “If you’re into that kind of thing?”

- Ryan is a human disaster.

========

Ryan doesn’t flee the latest scene of his complete and utter failure to human being, no.

He just.

He’s wearing wet clothes and the shower’s free and look, alright, look.

No one would take the Vagabond seriously if he came down with a cold and had to deliver a message or other menacing threat with a stuffy nose.

So, yes.

When he he goes out to the living room it’s to see Mark sipping his hot chocolate and scrolling through his phone, furrow between his eyes as he does.

“Find anything useful?” Ryan asks, and stares as Mark jumps.

This startled little thing, quickly followed by the phone falling from his hand as he hisses in pain and Ryan catches a quiet, strained, “Oh, God, that was a mistake.”

Ryan moves closer when Mark lifts his head to give him a wan smile, not sure what to do to help.

“I’m alright,” Mark says, pained note to his voice as he slowly straightens up. “You just startled me is all.”

Obviously.

“Are you - “ Ryan stops himself before he can ask Mark if he’s okay because it’s clear he isn’t. “Do you need help?”

Mark laughs, this painful sounding wheeze, and waves Ryan off with a soft thanks and an apology of all things.

Ryan frowns, but when Mark waves him off again he backs up a step to give him space and notices the phone’s been kicked under couch just out of arm’s reach. Feeling guilty about startling Mark, Ryan skirts around him to retrieve it, taking a curious look at the screen to see what Mark was looking at - and freezes.

“Wait - “ Mark says, but it’s too late.

Ryan’s staring at the phone’s screen and the grainy photo Mark was looking at before Ryan surprised him.

Black and white and grainy as hell. Blurry and out of focus. Something off a surveillance camera, if Ryan had to guess.

Odd to be sure, but not the strangest thing Ryan's seen.

No.

The thing that’s caught his interest is the focus of the picture.

Someone in a leather jacket looking at someone or something just off camera. Looks to be in a parking garage of some kind.

A mask that looks like a skull.

“There’s more,” Mark says quietly, getting up to walk over to Ryan.

Ryan lets him take the phone, watches as he pulls up the messages and tilts the phone so Ryan can read the latest ones.

Nothing overtly incriminating to them, but it’s clear there’s a business transaction taking place.

An interested party contacting Mark for a job they have for him.

Carefully worded and if this wasn’t Los Santos, if Ryan wasn’t what he is, he could almost think it’s just someone concerned about potential leaks or unscrupulous business rivals.

But this is Los Santos and Ryan is very much what he is, and he’s had more text conversations like this than he cares to remember.

He darts a look at Mark, sees the expression on his face and realizes that while Mark may not remember who he is or what series of events landed him back in that alley, he’s not stupid.

Can read between the lines just as easily as Ryan can, and that’s a little troubling in itself, but -

Mark scrolls down to the most recent message and opens the attached file.

The still from the surveillance video pops up again.

Too much to hope that Mark just happened to have a still of Ryan on his phone, that it was disconnected from the series of messages Mark showed him.

“I think,” Mark says, with a disbelieving laugh like he knows most people in his position wouldn’t have expected something like this when Ryan doesn’t say anything. “I think I was meant to kill him, whoever he is.”

#freewood #ragehappy #fahc au #Prompt Fills #Kings of Nowhere #vagrant fic #Anon #:D?#:D???#???#¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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panickypeachboy · 6 years

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RULES: Answer the questions you’ve been given, then write your own and tag 11 people.

//Under le Read More, because 11 answers for 11 questions is long!

1. What’s your favorite thing about your muse(s)?

Oh goddess I’ve answered this twice already, but here’s me gushing over his clothes, cuz the face is just cute. There’s just surprisingly okay/good design with Momotaro that is overlooked because of all the pretty ladies that do the fan-service.

2. What’s your least favorite thing?

About Momo? Or ever? I would say losing close friends, over drama. That’s impacted me a lot, and why I can get really anxious over rping. But if you mean an actual object/show, then disposed (but there’s still notable remnants) food. Y’know the stuff in the trash. I’m allergic to bananas and that’s the most common thing rotting in the there. Makes it real tough to breathe, particularly when it comes to class too.

Don’t worry, I do have an inhaler for those sorts of things but...it’s only one inhaler and I end up mixing up where I last placed it. I just hope to the goddess that I don’t have to deal with a disposed peel during class...

3. Seeing how they’ve lived their lives - if you were in their shoes, what would you do differently?

Honestly, I’m not too sure. I would’ve said I wanted to speak up against the others (i.e. bullies, the girls) more often, but that’s just against Momotaro’s nature...and how Japan culture works. Also I would totally try to (re)tame Momotaro’s mutated friends. Come on, that Chimera is awesome! Let the boy have an awesome steed!

4. How independent is your muse(s) from your control? How much do you approve of their actions?

Hoh boy, usually I’m like “Momo no”, so that’s pretty clear that I don’t have all le controls over him. He’s simple minded so there’s not much I would need to fuss over, I suppose. HOWEVER, I do have to restrain ourselves from doing too much in the subject of triggers/pstd, because I’m still learning about that...and not many folks are fine with muses suddenly attacking their precious muse just because they tried to be affectionate.

5. If you were friends with your muse(s), what would you do together?

We’d probably go visit animals at shelters and zoos...and befriend the crud out of them. Help care for those buggers, if possible! Also I would try to learn how to cook with Momo too, if he had my headcanon-trait of being a good cook.

6. What’s one of your favorite fandoms, and why?

H.ow to K.eep a M.ummy is one, out of the sheer fact that no one has produced r34 of it yet...or at least something that’s easily found. Also the fans are pretty cool with their enthusiasm and arts. I’ve seen some cute plushies of the main critters that are fanmade! ...I probably ruined that streak didn’t I?

Also the anime is adorable, and I look forward to reading the manga. I just don’t like the heavy focus on the protagonist. I wanted to learn more about the other peeps in the gang, AND THEIR MYTHICAL FRIENDS. Especially the baku and dragon.

7. Are there any fandoms that you want to interact more with? Any AUs that you haven’t gotten a chance to try out yet?

Utapri, and kinda Idolm@ster??? I don’t know I’m working on interacting with folks in this fandom because they’re neato folks, and I fallen in love with the idols! Gah! I had this headcanon for the longest time that Momo’s guilty pleasure is idol music, but he’s only remember how melodic the voices are, and not the names or faces! It would be really cool to well, have the boy be weak but not in a depressed manner, ya know? Actually I wanna see more muses fangirling over each other, particularly if one has a publicly known job.

An au I haven’t tried out yet is actually...Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. I did rp Momo as a pokemon...ONCE, but nothing mystery dungeony. Just a “what if he was reborn as a pokemon” or “experiment gone wrong” thing, and he had a human trainer too. Now I wanna actually find a better Pokemon to suit him and do them mystery dungeon stuff...maybe someday. There was this cool group verse!

That and I wanna try out a verse where Momo is a live-in servant/butler. Seriously I gave him too many traits that fit that sort of job...and I watched too much gakuen babysitters which has the amazing Saikawa. I hear Black Butler is cool too.

8. What was one of your favorite video games as a kid?

Lemme see, Melee is VERY popular, but I loved fooling around in that game, not being a competitive smasher with all them wave dashes. Actually there’s a fair amount of games I liked that are still popular amongst the internet so let’s go something more obscure:

Mario Party 3

Dunno how the fam got it, but that was the game me and my sister played a ton of as kids, and we still came back to it when the Gamecube was around. It was part of our like strange pseudo rping thing to jump around the games to emulate the activities our characters partake in. Start in smash bros, kick some rivals butts and go on adventure! Then visit Mario Party 3 to celebrate with a giant pizza! Oh no, we need to collect some goodies, let’s go do a round on one of the boards! Kick the impostor star’s butt again! Jump to another Mario Party to run through the dungeon and ride the bus! It was kinda our way of playing pretend...I think. Good times, which is why I see the appeal in rping, ya know?

9. What’s the best song you’ve heard for the first time in the past few months?

S.O.S, by Weaver. Holy cow it’s catchy, but like so amazing in its beats. A close second would be Nijiro ⭐ Over Drive! by Otoya Ittoki...I mean his va. I love me some energetic beats man.

10. What’s the best meme you’ve found in the past year?

Okay maybe it’s not exactly a meme but it can be a culmulation of memes...of sorts... Anyways, there’s a channel called “ColeyDoesThings” and she has a series of videos where she visits a room containing a representation of a fandom...represented by her donning various personas based off of personalities found in a fanbase. This series is called “Entering the ___ fandom”. While she can’t catch all the quirks of a fandom (because some are so freakin huge), this woman catches a lot the traits I’ve seen in the places she visits. It’s hilarious to me at least.

I highly recommend the Ship Wars video, at the very least!

11. Is there something you’re looking forward to in the next few months?

Yes. Hatchimals Season 3...oh okay, not a lot of folks are into the collectible toy things. Fair enough, YouTube has fostered the growth of creepy toy channels! I am hyped for obtaining Bayonetta for the switch sometime soon, the end of the semester...I think Blade Strangers is coming out within that time period and I’m hyped to see Curly Brace in that games! Also MORE AMIIBO. That’s all I can recall, at the moment.

Eleven questions for everyone else!

1. What’s your favorite toy from childhood? Do you still have it around?

2. Do you like to collect anything? If so, what is it?

3. Who’s one of your favorite YouTubers?

4. How did you first encounter your main muse?

5. Are there any headcanons for a muse that is related to a trait/experience of yours?

6. What’s your favorite thing to look up when it comes to researching for your muse?

7. Are there any characters (or muses) that influence your muse?

8. What is your favorite, very random, headcanon for your muse? Like something that seems improbable in canon, but is too hilarious/good that you gotta keep it?

9. A memorable, but sweet moment in rping? Could be a thread, or having fun with another mun ooc, or whatever!

10. Are you more keen on rping older muses, or younger muses? Are you fine with rping your muse at different ages?

11. What’s your favorite meme-related song? (i.e. Caramelldansen, Numa Numa, Levan Polka, Momotaro, Kobini Store, etc.)

Tagged by: @notevenjupiter, thanks a lot!! :D Tagging: @maracanight, @ultimate-impostxr, @plumeriaxskull, @patixntia, @gattaimuses, @pinkdressed, @yesfxckyxu, @inkybluez, @embersiisms, @niji-iro-melody, @zoolinguistics, @queenxfjustice, @ahogedetective, @hopeprevaiils, @jabberwockis-lupus, but anyone can do this, or not!

#meme time #notevenjupiter #long post #long meme #ooc #ooc meme

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supergirlimaginesfic-blog · 7 years

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The Danvers Sisters (the youngest sibling)

Request: could you write some headcannons on being alex and kara's little sister?

a/n: HECK YEAH I CAN. These are always so fun to do lol, bring it on!! These are more dumb than emotional, I think... I live for the trash and the crack, y’all LOL

Also a little sidenote, headcanon requests (for now, anyway, in my absence) are something I’d be more likely to do since they’re much quicker than coming up with actual prose - those are the ones I really want the most time to focus on. These are just quicker as little flashes of inspiration, and they even help in creating some backstory for the other requests. So that’s just the reason why I’m getting to them before the other prompts, in case anyone was wondering. Have an awesome day y’all :D

- - - - -

it wasn’t always that you were close to your sister, Alex. Life seems to have a different way of handling things than you expect, and you’ve come to learn that things fall into place exactly as they’re meant to; when they’re meant to

you were much younger than Alex, and you figured you had a relationship as ordinary as any other siblings would have. She wouldn’t annoy or pester you, but she would tease you quite often whenever she had the chance - for the most part, you took it in stride, never having seen your sister get close to anything that could be described as malicious

she was always so cool and even at a young age, she just seemed to know what she was about

you, on the other hand, were both parts rambunctious as you were delightful. You spent as much time feeding your untamed imagination as you did swimming the depths of the deep ocean or chartering the vast distances of outer space

Alex never failed to mention how lame you were, but nonetheless joined in whenever the two of you were outside and parkouring on nearly every single thing you could find in your wild savannah adventure

your parents eventually put you into sports to expend your impressive abundance of energy - needless to say you thrived at it, albeit a little too eagerly, if the bruises you got and the fiery competition in your eyes were any indication

you never thought Alex’s loud music was scary or perplexing, you just wouldn’t come to appreciate it until years later on your own; your parents, however, often had to remind her to turn it down several decibels to a humanly acceptable level

when freakin’ Superman himself brought a girl maybe about Alex’s age, maybe a little bit younger to your house and your parents told you she was going to be your new sister, you were ecstatic

now that you saw him, you didn’t really think he was as impressive as you thought he would be, and you said as much. Your mom chastised you and your dad laughed, and Superman winked at you as he took off

Alex, however, was wary about her - she had a better understanding of the implications of having an alien sister; you just thought about how awesome it’d be

your new sister, Kara, shared your room. You were more amenable to the arrangement than Alex would have been (if they’d even asked her, which they didn’t)

you let her pick which bunk she wanted to sleep in, and she merely stared wide-eyed and alarmed at your excitement. Your parents had to remind you that Earth was an entirely new world to her, and it was only then you really considered just how much your new sister needed you

she didn’t talk much, and you were fine with that. You’d get her talking eventually. You spent so many nights speaking seemingly to yourself, but Kara always looked at you with rapt attention, and you always knew she was listening

“What do you mean you don’t have Harry Potter in space? No- wait, you don’t even have to say anything for me to know that look on your face. I have to fix this. I’ll read you every single book, okay?”

much credit should be given to you, because you did, and Kara would start asking you questions about the story or the characters, her mouth still trying to form around new words of an entirely different language

“So magic is just human technology but more advanced?” “Well, not exactly, it’s just... it’s magic.” “Is alien technology considered magic to Earth?” “I mean, I guess it could be.” “Does Hermione love Harry?”

you’d seen less and less of Alex, she was a teenager in high school after all, but sometimes you’d all get together on some nights and watch the stars, all of you intimately aware of Kara’s place in them

rather frequently, you’d hear Kara sniffling from her top bunk, and you’d never fall asleep until you heard her crying cease - you never said anything to her when she did and you never made mention of it in the morning

in your young mind, you thought the best course of action was simply to just distract, and damn were you good at that

you taught Kara how to play soccer, and you think you nearly peed your pants from laughing so hard when you watched her kick an old car tire just a little too hard, and Alex stood watching on the porch like she’d just seen a ghost

you dragged Kara to the park with you constantly, and you’d spend a good majority of your afternoons on the swings - it was a nice feeling to know this was as close you’d experience of the powers of flight that Kara was bestowed with. You suspected it humanized her in some way, and if the content smile she had whenever she swung back was any indication, you think she appreciated the normalcy it gave her

when Kara eventually learned to have much more control of her new powers on Earth, your family spent a day at an amusement park, and you loved the way Kara laughed when she was on the roller coasters

you let Kara go through all your Backstreet Boys and N’Sync CD collections, and you adored her for being the only person you think you ever knew who loved both as undivided and fiercely

Alex absolutely loathed when you two started singing in your bedroom, but you think you’d seen a hint of a smile on her face whenever she stood scolding at your door, but you might have imagined it

she spends less and less time at home and more time being out, and you thus spent even more time around Kara. Alex, in her frequent socializing, simultaneously became more closed off, and you wondered about it - Kara did too

“Does Alex hate me?” “What? No, Alex is just... Alex. She’s always been like that.” “Really?” “Yeah, really, she still loves us though.” “I didn’t have any siblings on Krypton.” “Well, now you have two.”

when Alex was to go off to med school, it wasn’t without proper farewell, and when she spoke to you personally you began to realize just how much you’d miss your oldest sister

“Hey, take care of Kara alright?” “I have, and I will” “Yeah, I know you have. You’re doing a great job... you’ve always been better at it than me.” “We’ll miss you.” “I know.”

Kara went off to college and when it was your turn just a short time after her, you’d shared an apartment, neither of you seeming to not be able to let go of your childhood memories entirely. You got a full-ride scholarship on the basis of playing varsity basketball

throughout the entirety of your experience away from home, she still maintained her normal human persona, and you were set to believe the remainder of your life would continue on that path

Alex, for her part, had gotten into trouble, and after her stint in jail, she’s fixed herself up and found a job as a scientist, you’ve been informed. Admittedly, you were beyond relieved - finally, the sister you always thought was the smartest person you ever knew was putting her brilliance to work

you weren’t jealous when Kara came out to the world and used her powers to save Alex’s flight to Geneva from crashing into the city, but you did ponder how this new development rocked the boat entirely

nobody told you that Alex was a secret government agent working in the extra-terrestrial branch, you figured that out on your own. What was a surprise to you, however, was the fact that it took years to put together that Kara was related to Superman

“Holy shit... how did I not... wow.” “Really, (Y/N)? You’re a Danvers, I can’t believe you.” “Yep, he’s definitely my cousin.” “Clark? Honestly? Did you know I told him he wasn’t as good-looking as I imagined he’d be when I first saw him?” “Oh my god-” “For someone so brainy you’re also a huge idiot.”

you still fight with Kara over the last Ben and Jerry’s pint, but only because you’re far too lazy to have to replenish your stock literally every day

when you came home with a new tattoo, she wouldn’t stop gawking at your arm, and you thought about how adorably fascinated Kara was with human physiology - even with the more you got, Kara would never stop examining them in great length, and you always indulged her

Alex always comes over whenever she can (nearly every night, in fact) and you all have pizza and watch TV

Kara is particularly intrigued by Orphan Black and all the implications of cloning and autonomy

you’ve become more comfortable around Alex now that she’s allowed herself to be softer, and you’ve taken the mantle of being the annoying sister when she brings Maggie to the apartment one night

you live for the scowl on Alex’s face whenever you share embarrassing stories about her, and it’s only made so much better when Kara eagerly joins in and substantiates everything you say

when you take Kara to her first Comic-Con, you never loved yourself more than you did at the very moment you captured Kara’s reaction at seeing all the Supergirl cosplays, and you relished in how dumbstruck but mystified she looked

you still get texts from Kara asking you what certain words mean, or asks for your opinion on which words are better to use in different contexts when she becomes a CatCo journalist

you never would have suspected it, but Kara is as surprisingly intimidating as Alex is whenever you bring someone new home as a date

you always worry about Alex and Kara whenever the security of the city is at stake again (this happens far too often than you care to acknowledge) but the way they come crashing into your apartment and topple onto the couch every single time after a successful battle is enough to remind you that you have two superheroes for sisters

#kara danvers x reader #alex danvers x reader #supergirl #supergirl imagine #kara danvers #alex danvers #kara danvers fic #alex danvers fic #supergirl fic #supergirl fanfic #supergirl imagines #danvers sisters fic #danvers sisters #kara danvers x you #alex danvers x you

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frontproofmedia · 4 years

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Jessica McCaskill's Journey to the Undisputed Welterweight Title

By Steven Weinberg | Contributing Writer and Photographer

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Published: September 17, 2020

Jessica McCaskill’s (9-2, 3 KOs) birthday came a few weeks early this year. On August 15th, the now 36-year-old, unified 140-pound champion moved up a weight class and dethroned the First Lady of Boxing, Cecilia Braekhus (36-1, 9 KOs), by majority decision to become the new undisputed WBC, WBC, WBO, IBF, and IBO Welterweightbelt champion.

The fight, originally scheduled for April in Maryland, was postponed due to COVID and rescheduled to take place in Tulsa, OK. Despite the pandemic, McCaskill viewed the shutdown as a positive.

“I felt like Chicago really prepared us for Tulsa. We pretty much kept a quarantine life here – I came to the gym. I went home. Maybe I went to the pet store, maybe to get groceries. But I was in the gym most of the time.”

As a result, by the time McCaskill arrived in Tulsa, the “fighter’s bubble” didn’t impact her. At the hotel, the team was cut off from each other and confined to separate rooms. McCaskill was able to leave her room with a security escort for one hour per day to work out by herself. Walking one building over from the hotel to the gym, which was equipped only with a heavy bag, treadmill, bike, and scale, was the only outdoor activity for the week.

Back in the hotel room for 23 hours per day, room service was available, and Uber Eats orders had to first pass through Matchroom COVID screeners.

McCaskill said with a laugh, being stuck in a hotel room wasn’t that bad. “I love fight week. I get three times as much sleep as I normally do, and watch a bunch of trash TV to relax.”

Other than that, she conducted Zoom workout sessions with her strength and conditioning coach and phone interviews to stay busy.

Making weight has been a problem for many fighters returning during the pandemic, but not for McCaskill. Leading up the fight, which was at a catchweight of 145 pounds, McCaskill wanted to keep her weight between 147 pounds and 152 pounds. On her social media, she was often seen working out in a simple tank top and spandex. During fight week, all she had to do was work out and back off her eating to be good to go.

Braekhus, however, appeared to have weight issues, and Team McCaskill viewed Braekhus agreeing to the 145-pound catchweight as a huge tactical error. They believe Braekhus simply overlooked McCaskill to where she backed off her weight loss and gave McCaskill a head start.

On Braekhus’s social media, she was often seen in plastics, working out with weights, trying to sweat everything out. In fact, McCaskill feels that Braekhus was drained on fight night.

“She guzzled, like, 2 liters of water right after the weigh-in, and even during the face-off, I could see her chest and her abdomen, kinda uneasy breathing and anxious, like maybe she was feeling bad. And seeing how uneasy she was, was such a confidence builder.”

McCaskill emphasized, “The face-off means everything to the fighter. It tells you their mental state.”

Thus, Braekhus never having fought below 147 pounds gave McCaskill an immediate advantage.

Despite the Tulsa cityscape that served as the backdrop to the fight, McCaskill remained focused in the ring. She said not having a crowd in such a unique venue was beneficial. With no noise, there were fewer distractions, which dulled down the moment. McCaskill felt that had people been in attendance, especially in such a nice and unique venue, it would have hyped things too much. Without the distractions, she was able to level herself out and remain focused.

Additionally, the day’s heat was not an issue. Prior to the start of the fight, the temperature was above 90 degrees. But, by the time the fighters left their dressing rooms, the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees. As McCaskill made her ring walk, she felt a breeze and knew the heat and humidity of Tulsa would not be an issue. Braekhus, however, had been in Big Bear, CA, since January, and the climate of Tulsa likely weighed heavily on her.

Once the fight started, McCaskill planned to see what Braekhus was going to do. Her team thought Braekhus would either come forward as a result of new trainer Abel Sanchez, or get on her bike, punch, and move. McCaskill specifically remembered in the first minute, moving, punching, and circling to her right. Braekhus began moving forward.

McCaskill said, “I thought, oh, that’s their game plan. She’s going to come towards me. Well, let’s go.”

Rick Ramos, McCaskill's trainer, and manager said the plan was to wait the first 30 or 40 seconds. He wanted Jessica to slide off and not come forward. If Braekhus came forward, that meant she was going to try and walk McCaskill down and implement the Abel Sanchez style, the Mexican style. If Braekhus was to do that, Ramos wanted McCaskill to stop and go forward herself.

And he beamed with confidence, “if that happened, we were going to win the fight.”

Sure enough, Braekhus came forward.

McCaskill jumped in the pocket and went full throttle. “I was very surprised at how fast I was able to start.”

She continued, “I felt like a lot of things made themselves available that we practiced for. Uppercuts on the inside, long right hands straight down the middle. I had some bigger, wilder right hands, but there were a lot of punches that just snapped her head back. It made me seem like the dominant puncher.”

The result was that Braekhus was uncomfortable. For the first time in 36 professional fights, she tried to brawl. In fact, Braekhus, who never recorded a knockout, seemed to want to brawl.

Ramos emphasized, “Cecilia couldn’t adjust because she looks up to Abel Sanchez, rightfully so. So she listened to him and stuck to his game plan, and she didn’t want to go off his game plan. She tried to come forward and do what he taught her to do because she trusts him. It was bad coaching. It was the wrong style for a 39-year-old fighter. She should have tried to be more slick as an older fighter rather than a banger.”

In other words, Abel Sanchez pushed Braekhus to be a type of fighter that she’s not.

McCaskill was a bit more blunt.

“It was arrogance. Arrogance in what he [Abel Sanchez] thinks his ability is as a coach and arrogance collectively that they can just try something new on this random person, and either way, they’ll just come out on top.”

Ramos echoed the sentiment. “This will sound disrespectful, but I think it was arrogance from Cecilia and more so from Abel. They’ve been in the game so long that we’re basically fighting their names and reputations, right? I think it was arrogance. They didn’t really think of us. I always pay attention to the coaching, and I’m sure Abel Sanchez didn’t even blink an eye at me. Right before the fight, I pointed at them and said, Jess, look at them; they’re old. We should beat these guys. They are not on our level anymore.”

What’s more, Ramos didn’t think the arrogance was confined to two people.

“It was pure arrogance on everyone involved. If you even look at the championship belts [given to Jessica], they say Cecilia on them. That’s the highest level of disrespect. It wasn’t just Cecilia and Abel; it was promoters, writers, odd makers, and everyone involved.”

Immediately after the fight, McCaskill wondered if it was going to be a draw and if Ramos would be okay with that. Ramos had McCaskill winning by one round, but wouldn’t have been surprised if it was a draw simply based on being the “B-side” and Braekhus’s status in the sport.

The first score read: 95-95. After hearing that score, McCaskill thought about how she had the dominant ring presence, threw more punches, and didn’t do things wrong like backpedal and get caught on the ropes. She felt confident the win would be hers.

Interestingly, McCaskill says a key give away is how the other scores are read. If it is announced that one judge has a certain score, and another judge has a different score, it will be a draw. But when the scores are read together, it will be a majority decision. Sure enough, the next two scores were read together, 97-93 and 97-94, and McCaskill waited for what felt like a year to hear “and the NEW . . . “

The sense of relief was overwhelming. Ramos says the win cements his place in the boxing world and McCaskill's place in the hall of fame as a two-division, unified, and undisputed champion.

“I’m just happy for everything we’ve been through. Buying all of the tickets ourselves, all of the promoters and sanctioning bodies blowing me off . . . I honestly want to say “Fuck You” to everyone for not believing in us.”

McCaskill wasn’t as defiant but did say, “the haters are out there, and they’re salty, and they’re upset, but we did it. We came and did exactly what we said we were going to do, and I was very happy for the team. “

Thanks to COVID, Team McCaskill’s celebration was muted. Some close friends and gym members had driven down from Chicago, and together they enjoyed cheeseburgers, ice cream, and beer from room service. Nonetheless, a celebration was to be had. Jessica McCaskill unseated the First Lady of Boxing to become the new undisputed welterweight champion.

Immediately after the fight, Braekhus intimated that she was hanging up the gloves. But after reflecting on what she viewed as a poor performance, she elected to exercise her rematch clause.

Both McCaskill and Ramos believe that exercising the rematch clause doesn’t make good business.

Ramos said, “She’ll have to fight by the end of the year, and I don’t think she stays with Abel Sanchez, and I don’t think she learns a whole new style from a new coach in three or four months. She could go back to her old coach, and that’s cool, but there was something going on for her to leave in the first place. I don’t think she’d be putting herself in place to win. And I think whoever is managing her and promoting her would agree with me."

McCaskill holds a slightly different view. When the rematch happens, because McCaskill is now the “A” side, the fight will be at 145 pounds again, which proved detrimental to Braekhus the first time around. If Braekhus insists on the fight occurring at 147 pounds, McCaskill laughed, she’ll have to get paid more, that’s how it works.

But McCaskill also has the interests of women’s boxing at heart.

“If Cecilia fights me again and loses, or gets knocked out, nobody is going to want to see her again. If she sets the rematch aside, and Taylor v. McCaskill 2 happens, Katie has momentum; I have momentum, that’s going to be a good business plan. Cecilia can make contracts to fight both of us, winner and loser. That will give her at least two more fights, whereas if she fights me right away, that could be her last fight. A good business plan all around is to keep female boxing going; we don’t want to stifle it.”

Nonetheless, Braekhus seems only interested in attempting to getting her former belts back. But McCaskill gave Braekhus her first taste of defeat in 13 years of professional boxing. That can have a tremendous psychological toll on a fighter. With the rematch slated for early 2021, McCaskill and her team are more than willing to give Braekhus a second helping loss.

(Featured Photo: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing)

#HF #Jessica McCaskill #Cecilia Braekhus #Rick Ramos

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vol-ia · 6 years

Text

The Incident

A Perfect Spell story about Mori having to pick Chris up from school for getting into a fight! You’ve heard of mama bear, now get ready for papa kitsune.

Word count: 1598. PG: implied violence, implied animal cruelty.

Other Perfect Spell stories: https://vol-ia.tumblr.com/post/164697611963/philomela

https://vol-ia.tumblr.com/post/166005091008/write-tober-2

Mori walked up to the administration desk. Nobody seemed to notice.

In a way, it was kind of nice. After so many centuries of upheaval and effort, to have a kitsune be gently ignored in a busy office was something of a milestone. In another, much more present way, it was deeply inconvenient and needed to stop right now.

He gently cleared his throat, leaning in through the window and glancing around for the least busy looking person.

“Yes, hello! I am sorry to interrupt you but I was instructed to come and collect my son?”

***

Mori found Chris sitting in the waiting room outside the principal’s office. He looked sullen and withdrawn, and was clutching a cardboard box. He was dirty, his hands and uniform both stained, and he had dried blood on his fur around his nose.

He heard Mori come in, and looked up at him with wide, watery eyes.

Elise was much better at this sort of thing, but they’d called him, so he would have to do.

“Are you alright?”

“No.”

“Okay. I will speak to the principal and then we will go home.”

“Okay.”

Mori took a deep breath, wishing that none of this was happening. “I understand there was another boy involved?”

“It was Lewis.”

Ah. The Bennet family.

“I take it that Mrs. Bennet is currently speaking with the principal, then.”

“She wants them to expel me.”

“I expect she wants a great many things. I will be back shortly.”

Mori practiced his long trained sense of self control, forcing his tail to not swish back and forth as he straightened up. He could hear two voices on the other side of the door, now that he noticed it, one exercising a soothing, practiced calm, and the other, shrill. He took a deep breath, and stepped forward to open the door.

***

“We were all offered, assurances, that the little animal would not be dangerous!” She glanced at Mori when she spat the word, a poisonous look.

“This ‘little animal’ you are referring to would be my son, yes?” Mori interjected, trying not to growl. It made humans nervous when he growled.

“Yes! Lewis has a black eye, a sprained wrist, and bruises all over, and photos day is next week! And it’s all because your feral brat attacked him, unprovoked!”

“Mrs. Bennet,” The principal interrupted, “According to everyone involved but your son, that is clearly not the case.”

“...Are you suggesting that my precious boy is a liar?! I’ll have you fired for defending that animal, you and the whole faculty!”

“Please refrain from shouting, or using slurs. We’re all adults, madam.” The principal had interjected on his behalf, but Mori could feel his eye starting to twitch.

“I’ll say whatever I damn well like! You and this school and this whole damn town are in the pocket of this fox family and don’t think for a minute that I’ll let you get away with sweeping this incident under the rug!”

“The school has a series of rules and procedures for dealing with schoolyard violence. Unfortunately, it is a thing that comes up from time to time when you keep a thousand teenagers in the same building every day. We will be following those procedures to the letter with regards to this incident, and if you are dissatisfied with our conduct, you are of course more, than welcome to raise a complaint with the board of education.”

“Don’t think that I won’t! Lewis could have been killed! That freak out there needs to learn self control, or he should be made to be leashed and muzzled like the rabid dog he is!”

The principal’s mouth tightened. Mori understood that he and Chris were on very friendly terms. Chris had a solid rapport with most adults. Mori spoke first, saving him the hassle of trying to reason with the woman.

“Mrs… Bennet. Just to be sure, you are accusing my son of losing control and attacking your son in something like a blind, ‘feral’ rage, correct?”

“Yes!” She opened her mouth to complain more, but Mori continued.

“Did you know?” Mori clicked his fingers, causing a small flame to spark up at the tips. The woman gasped. “Kitsune are born into a knowing of fire.”

“F-... D-don’t you threaten me!”

“I am not threatening you, I am just teaching you about my species, in an attempt to clarify a miscommunication. Do you agree?” Mori motioned to the principal, who had leant back slightly in his chair.

“...Of course.”

“But-!”

The flame on Mori’s fingertips flared, causing the woman to gasp and fall silent. After a moment, Mori continued.

“Often, my kind cast our first spell of fire before we can see properly. Long before we can talk. We learn the language of fire first, and see our own light before we ever see the light of the sun. For many of my kind, fire comes easier than speech, easier than thought. Maybe too easily.”

Mori juggled the flame from fingertip to fingertip, playing with it as he had so often in his youth.

“It is, perhaps, a failing of my species that we tend to solve so many of our problems with fire. But, you probably understand, when it’s what you know best… Well, they say here, that when all that you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, yes?”

The flame grew, engulfing Mori’s hand. It was cool against his fur, although he knew the heat it was projecting would be singeing the eyebrows of the woman sitting next to him.

“And you mean to suggest that my son lacks self control? If he was truly the wild beast that you delight in suggesting he is, well…”

Mori snuffed the flame out.

“Your son would be dead.”

There was complete silence in the room. Mori clapped his hands together, popping the bubble, making an effort to force some cheer into his voice.

“It is fortunate for us all that you are as wrong as you are unpleasant to talk to. Now, if there’s nothing else, I understand that my son is to be sent home early today?”

***

“Omae wa hontou ni taido ga warui na…” Mori muttered to himself as he pulled the door shut behind him. Some people, honestly.

Not so long ago, dealing with belligerent people had much less civil and a lot more straightforward. Clearly, the present was better than the past and its violence, but sometimes, Mori found himself wistfully reminiscing about the good old days, back in the 1600’s when he’d been young and strong and nobody in their right mind dared to talk back at him about whatever inane garbage was polluting their minds.

Sometimes, the weight of centuries was very heavy indeed.

Still, there were reasons to remain here, in the present. Mori crouched down, touching Chris gently on the shoulder, startling him out of whatever trance he had been in.

“Ready to go?”

“I… Will they let me back?”

“Based off of the accounts of everyone involved, it has been determined that you will not be expelled. You and Lewis both will be punished for getting into a fight, although if it’s any consolation, he has been suspended for a week and you have only been suspended for the rest of today and tomorrow.”

Chris whined, cringing down in his chair, clearly more focused on the suspension than the leniency. Mori could barely stand to see his son so upset. There would be plenty of time for holding him later, once he was home and away from this place.

“D-do you think the witches’ association will want me still if I’ve got a record?”

“That is what y-?” Mori stopped himself. “...From what I’ve gleaned, they consider multiple childhood misdemeanors to be a requirement for entry.”

“Oh.” Chris looked back down at the box he was cradling. Right. The box.

“This… This would be the bird that was mentioned, yes?”

“Yeah. They were gonna just… Throw it out, like it was trash. It was alive, this morning.”

He sounded so small and fragile as he said it.

“We can give it rites and lay it to rest in the garden. I’m sure that will appease the bird’s soul.”

Mori heard a tiny sound. There was a small wet spot on the box.

“If I’d… If I’d done something sooner, t-then maybe it might still be alive.” Chris’s voice cracked, raw with sadness. “Why can’t I fix it? I-I messed up and I wanna fix it.”

“There’s no spell that will heal death, son.” The words sounded a lot calmer than Mori felt.

Remaining calm and being strong for him was important, now. He could feel it. Mori considered his next words as best he could, mindful of the potential negative repercussions.

“...As a… A witch. You will sometimes be called upon to act, that we might not lose something we can never get back. Magic can be dangerous, yes, but also powerful, and as caretakers of that power, we must be responsible. Do not act in haste, but also... Do not be afraid to act.”

Mori gently took the box from Chris. Inside, the weight of the bird shifted slightly. It was surprisingly heavy.

“I won’t let it happen again.”

Mori could have wept. He was so young, and tender, and caring. Too young for such anguish. Instead, he smiled.

“Come on, let us get you home and cleaned up. Your mother will mur- ...Uh, yell, at me, if she comes home and finds you scruffy like this.”

#perfectspell #chrisbrooks-hiki #moritoshihiki #writing #fiction

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russdoc · 7 years

Photo

A collection of only a few logs of messages from Murdoc Faust Niccals to Russel Hobbs Jr between 2012 and 2014. Most of these are, er, left unanswered. Continue with caution. (also on ao3)

[LOG 1]

[08:14] Long time no see big drummer boy

> I know, I know. You miss me terribly. Spare the details.

>Have you checked your mail? You might see a little package sent from yours truly

>I can't exactly spell it out for you across the interwebs, babe, with all of these thousands of bots watching. I've been listening to these tech geeks and while their fashion sense is abhorrent they have raised a few good points about what I can and cannot let go uh. Leaking on here.

>What I'm trying to say is that once you've checked your daily mail UK I do expect to be...hearing back from you. In person, that is.

[15:47] And please don't feed me that “hurrr I don't no how t reed a mahp!” crap because if I remember correctly YOU were the one that got on MY case about getting lost in Vegas and somehow ~magically~ got us back in Miami.

>You were so proud of yourself it made me gag.

> Take the map and get your butt in gear, Hobbs. You get lost in the middle of the ocean I'm sure as hell not searching for you.

[23:22] I mean. The map behind the cocopuffs cereal I sent you! Very difficult. I always end up making the monkey drown. Hopefully you can take him to shore, Russ! Haha.

>You know what forget it that monkey deserves to fucking drown. I hate his stupid face.

[23:55] Fuck it.

>If you're not on my beach in a month, Hobbs, I'm making this album without you.

[LOG 2]

[17:33] I'm going to assume from your silence that you're right on your way then. Good choice.

>This album is gonna be fooking wild, Russ. La Soul is back, I got snoopy the dog on board and even Womack man himself! What a banger.

>I actually feel sorry for you, man.You're really missing out.

>See you x

[01:12] the x was a typo

[LOG 3]

[09:14] These cyberfreaks tell me the connection is “beyond excellent” here but clearly that's not true if I'm being ignored by you like this.

[LOG 4]

[12:55] Lisfen, Rus, I know you're big deal is being the shy, qieut one in the band but honestly tht shtick is starting to wear thin on me.

>answer me asshead

>you realy wnna play ths game huh

> Fine. Fcuk u 2.

[LOG 7]

[19:23] Christ I wish you were here.

> Not because I miss you

> These fucking dolts don't know the difference between their left and their right when it comes to music.

> If you were here you'd slap some sense into them

> With a fish

> Get it because we're on a beach

> Cmon that's hilarious

[LOG 13]

[16:03] I've already got a song that needs drums so you better move it drummer boy.

> you wouldn't want me use the drum machine again do you

> you know the fans fucking hate that thing

> everyone wants acoustic but I can't exactly deliver when you're not here

> it's not for me

> it's for the album

[LOG 16]

[07:13] you're lost. Admit it

> I get it. It must be hard doing anything without me

> the album is going great without you. Fantastic. Amazing.

> Splendid

> Groundbreaking

> Inspiring

[10:33] pls get here soon

[LOG 20]

[11:18] Russ if you don’t get here soon I’m gonna pull out all of my beautiful hair

>and it’ll be a tragedy for everyone

>do you wanna be responsible for that, hm? The loss of murdoc niccals’ gorgeous locks? The world would be in tears

[21:09] it’s not like I’d expect an egghead like you to understand

[LOG 24]

[14:49] wtf did you need all of these hats for

>you never wore them when we went out to the club

>a shame really. They make a fella feel real classy

>they smell like you too.

>like coconuts

>you’d think I’d be sick of the smell since I’m on this island

>but its you, russ

[17:22] I didn’t type that.

[LOG 30]

[13:55] this fooking island man

> I must say I'm very proud of myself

> I made it all pink. You'd like that yeah

> I didn't make it like that for you

[17:18] it fucking stinks tho

> like, its literally all trash

> I gotta get super extra drunk just to numb it lol

> luckily I got all these hats too lololool

[23:59] how do you delete messages that have sent

> FUCK WRONG TAB

[LOG 36]

[12:57] wanna know what 2d’s doing with that mask

>👋👺

>😏👌👈

> 👅🍆💦

>wanna know what I wanna be doing

>🛁🍆🍑🚿 >🔥👌👈😫💥💦 >🍴🍑👈

[15:47] cmon these are genius

[16:02] I want your 🐓

[16:18] the internet is a wonderful place

> I want you to 👏 my 🍑

[20:18] god I'm bored

> I hope you know you're responsible for this

> if you were here 💋 my 🐓 I wouldn't have to resort to this

[LOG 43]

[15:38] russsssss were r u

>I'm sso drunk right no lol

>2d got a waterlemon for a head snoops soo gud at party trix you'd lov him mmnrydk

>whops

>I hope ur safe on ur way here

>pls talk 2 m

>zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

>I'm sleeping

>zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[LOG 45]

[00:00] god I'm such an asshole

[LOG 50]

[02:44] I'm sorry I didn't visit after noodle disappeared

> or called

> I thought you hated me

> which is understandable

> and I didn't want you not wanting to see me

> so I just avoided you

> which is shitty, I know that now

> you were hurting. We all were.

> and I left you like a coward

> but I'm sure

> I'm sure you're doing good for yourself

> I just wish we were um

> friends. like we used to be.

> I got in a bad crowd, Russ. Like I always do.

> but this time I'm not sure I'm gonna recover that easily

> and I ju

> I think what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm sorry

> I'm sorry

> if this island is still standing when you get here

> I hope you know that. At least

[LOG 67]

[18:07] D kept babbling to me about this dumbass dream he had

>where you showed up but with noodle

>he’s convinced it’s true. The fucking nerve of him

>can you believe I have to deal with this shit

>he’s the only other company I have around here since the collabs esc

>left

>I bet if you were here you would’ve shook some decency in him lol

>fuck its so boring here without you

>now that I think about it there’s really not that much about this place

>i mean

>you can get some plastic trees

>and me, of course

[20:02} oh wait that’d make a wicked lyric

>at least there’s one good thing from you ignoring me like this

>hurry up fatass

[LOG 88]

[07:23] I'm sure you know about her already

> cyborg noodle, that is

> pretty impressive, right?

> looks just like noodle.

> talks like her. plays like her

> honestly, she kinda weirds me out sometimes

> sometimes I think

> maybe she's the real noodle

> and she's gonna kill me. For what I did. At any moment

> and I think of shutting her down

> but then she looks at me and I sense this...Fear, maybe. Like she understands. And I feel bad. So I don't.

> like I feel sorry for her. Maybe because she looks like noodle helps too.

> or because she's the only other person or, well, thing I can talk to on this miserable beach

> I don't know why I'm telling you this

> maybe it's because you're the only other person I can talk to too

> not that you ever answer lately

> like a broken robot

> haha

> went full circle didn't it

[08:03] I'm so lonely

[LOG 102]

[00:17] I'm convinced that a shark ate your phone or something

> so I don't feel the least bit scared about sending you anything anymore

> I love you

> it hurts a lot not saying that

> so typing it is the best next thing

> I love you

> I hate this fucking island. I hate it more than 2D. But I'm waiting and I'm hoping that you'll come to me. And I'll play you this wicked album and maybe you'll love me again. I'm always so close to finally taking it too far with my drinking and throwing myself into that boogieman’s arms and ending it. But I just wanna see you one last time.

> I love you.

[06:18] for once I'm hoping you didn't read that

[LOG 119]

[22:12] I thought inviting de la soul onto the album would really spice things up

>instead we got some fucking jingle about jellyfeet or whatever

>ugh

>it wouldn't be that good if it was all just sad songs I suppose

>I guess I'm more angry that I can't come up with anything as poppy as that lately

[23:00] aw fuck it this song grew on me

> you ever tasted jellyfish? I'm kind of tempted now…

> we can have some when you get here

[LOG 155]

[05:17] Hey remember that one time Noodle got mad at us because we were mixing “our” cereal with “hers”

> so we went out and bought specific branded stuffs

> and then YOU got mad because you thought I ate yours

> but I didn't

> 2d did

> asshole admitted it to me last night.

> not that you would believe me anyway

[06:09] oh fuck

> that was like, 8 years ago, wasn't it?

> holy shit

> I feel so old

[06:15] I miss you

[LOG 176]

[03:55] 2D keeps looking at me with his wide white-out eyes and it makes me so angry because those are your eyes

>But I'm not looking at your face

>I didn't think it was possible for me to hate him even more but here I am

[LOG 177]

[13:33] who am I kidding

> everything reminds me of you

> I hate it so fucking much

> I think I'm losing my mind

> its been what? A year? A little over a year? And I'm still hanging on the hope that you'll appear out of nowhere

> and whisk me away

> I think I'm really hitting the lowest point, Russ

> It's finally caught up with me

> please

> giygcyuvyrsdhijkbijuygre

>auj

[LOG 205]

[11:27] I'm sorry for all of that. Jesus. I'm such a mess.

> I don't know what to do anymore

> I think

> I think if you've somehow.

> Somehow missed all of these messages. And stumble upon them now.

> I want you to know that um

> I want you to delete them.

[LOG 212]

[09:57] welp. These live shows are a fucking sham.

> I don't even know why I bother.

> you know what I'm just gonna fucking kill them.

> I hope those weirdos are reading these messages

> so they know I'm coming for them

> 2d is no help. Whimp can't even knock tin can over when she's asleep

> that's what I call cyborg noodle sometimes. She likes it

> if you were here you would've knocked albarn into another planet with one swing

> I think I swooned a little at the thought of that

[10:34] I know you're out there. Somewhere. Those tech geeks showed me on their drones

> I mean, you look forty times your size but they're speculating its just the camera

> sure

> hey, Russ, if you've turned into some kind of whale, could you visit 2ds window for me? I think he'll love it

[LOG 239]

[00:36] you know

> I slept with plenty of people since we separated

> but tonight was the first time

> I imagined it was you

> it made me sick. Not gonna lie

> I think you ruined sex for me

> that sounds way more sinister than i intended

> i guess what i’m saying is that i would sooner vomit on strangers than not be with you

> is that romantic enough

> answer me whale man

[14:22] my whale man

> i like that

> i mean i wouldnt ever use it again

> like ever

> but yknow

[LOG 240]

[23:44] i chnged my mind

>i crid on d2 shouulder toniet.

> that was my lwst pont

[LOG 254]

[19:27] (external image)

> (external image)

> shit second last was sent on accident

> please don't think my dick looks like snoop doggs manicured nails now

> though that would be epic

[LOG 260]

[22:19] not to sound gay or anything

> but the sunset today was fantastic

> the purple blue pink kind

> i hope you got to see it wherever you are

> i mean

> it would’ve been nice if you were HERE

> but yknow

[23:55] or maybe if I was there.

> shit

[LOG 277]

[17:29] I'm feeling a lot better lately

> I mean, I'm still drunk and hating everyone

> but ever since the album has been officially done

> I've been working on this radio show

> have you heard it? Its pretty good

> its mostly me talking to myself but yknow

> I've gotten quite good that

[LOG 283]

[18:59] that's it

> I'm dumping this laptop

> and this phone

> and you

> I'm not gonna wait around anymore, Russ

> when you show up, you'll show up

> but don't expect me on my knees grovelling for you like I have for the last pathetic two years of my life

> it was good while it lasted

> and if you miraciously happen to open your messages and see this then I hope you know there nothing you can do to stop me

> sayonara baby

[LOG 284]

[19:37] holy shit

>holy shit

> is it working??

> i think it is

> so um

> a lot just happened huh

> you’re alive

> and so is noodle

> we didnt have much of a warm reunion huh

> not at all what I imagined at least

> i’m so relieved you’re alive

> i havent cried in a long time but that

> im so glad i didnt die

[20:00] im gonna try and find you, ok?

> ive sat around for long enough

> see you soon

[LOG 299]

[12:56] haha

> guess who got himself in hot water

> that’s right

> im gonna be in the slammer for a long time

> a real long time

> and I just

> i know this is probably too much to ask

> but if you can

[13:00] wait for me

> i love you

[LOG 300]

(/RUSSEL HOBBS/ CONNECTED)

(08:15) i love you too

#russdoc #mussel #god this is so self indulgent im sorry #time to be a lame tool yet again on this blof #idk why i feel like i need to clarify this but #its ok to rb

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wellamarke · 7 years

Text

ULTIMATE PLAYLIST: 2016 EDITION

Woops, it got to be March without me posting these. Here’s a little thing I’ve been doing since 2010, where I make a playlist of my favourite songs from the year. The 2016 list is very Lenka/Ingrid Michaelson heavy, for various reasons (but a big one being that Ingrid’s newest album ‘It Doesn’t Have to Make Sense.’ is one of my favourite albums of all time. The entire record features on this list - that’s never happened before.)

Putting the track listing under a cut because I tend to ramble on!

1. Blue Skies - Lenka “It's gonna be blue skies for you and I, we'll step out of the shadows and walk into the light” In some ways this song doesn’t feel very Lenka-y, being a little bit techno-y with echoes and such, but in all the ways that matter it’s a classic piece of Lenka goodness, uplifting and cutely cutely cute.

2. Somewhere Out There - Danny Pudi and Donald Glover “And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby, it helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky!” So, if you’ve been following me for any amount of time you probably know that I became utter trash for the show Community this year (like, we’re talking, top 2 TV shows of all time level of trash, I love it so much, I don’t know how or why I lived before it) and especially Troy and Abed and their friendship. They sing this song as a duet to their rat in season 1 episode 10, aka the episode where my soul was finally consumed into Community hell never to return. The whole end section of that episode is a true gift, and it’s overlaid with this song. Which then becomes HORRIFICALLY APPROPRIATE for the two characters later in the show, leading to me just wanting to cry and/or die every time I hear it. So y’know. Top quality stuff.

3. Another Life - Ingrid Michaelson “It's in the galaxies and all the history books - I think we shared another life, don't you?” A beautiful song to start off the torrential downpour of tracks from this album (I’m not joking, every multiple of 3 on this list is from ‘It Doesn’t Have to Make Sense’. This is serious obsessive business.)

4. Get Together - Lenka “Now we're all together and I hope it lasts forever, got my people here tonight” Listen, show me a song that somehow alludes to a group of friends who love each other, and I’ll show you my new favourite song. I can’t. Get. Enough. (If you were wondering what appeals to me about the aforementioned Community, I’ll, er, give you 3 guesses?)

5. Ampersand - Bittereinder “Daar’s iets primitief in ’n stem en ’n beat, dis die eerste musiek, dis die voete om ’n vuur” I think this is the first year that Afrikaans has made it as the only extra language (not an Italian track in sight, woops) and this is prooobably the first song that’s ever got on one of these lists that could properly be called a rap, haha. I don’t know what it is about Bittereinder...I don’t usually like anything like this....but... it’s Bittereinder. They own me.

6. Celebrate - Ingrid Michaelson “This is my throwback song, it’s just like the ones, the ones that we used to know” My my, is this a nostalgia song? Welcome to my favourite songs ever, you rose-tinted bag o’ wistful feelings!

7. No Harm Tonight - Lenka “Nothing will harm you tonight, all of your darkness will turn into light” This song is sooooo beautiful, lyrically and musically and gaaaaah, it’s just so adorable. In a year when I have become even less emotionally demonstrative than ever (I know, but yeah apparently there was room to go further) I have compensated by collecting some of the mushiest songs going. Ya gotta reroute it to somewhere, I guess.

8. Toe Vind Ek Jou - Francois Van Coke (with Karen Zoid) “Ek het genoeg gegee, ek het genoeg geskree, ek het lankal terug geleer, maar nog steeds het ek probeer” AAAAH this song maaan. So good. If you’ve ever read one of these lists or just in general seen me talking about music, you may know I have a bIG weakness for duets, and particularly male/female duets, so, with the added bonus of it being Francois, this was always going to be a winner for me. Such a good song UGH.

9. Drink You Gone - Ingrid Michaelson “Like a sinking ship while the band plays on, when I dream you're there, I can't even sleep you gone” This song is honestly so painful. Aaah the emotion in the chorus is just, that shouldn’t be allowed in mp3 format. No, Ingrid, stop. (By which I mean never stop.) A deliberate misinterpretation of this song makes it an EXCELLENT and DEVASTATING Karen/Pete song (Humans ship of sadness). She can’t drink him gone, she can’t smoke him out... she can’t eat away the way that he ate her heart out.... because she’s a robot... ha .... geddit.

10. Joni Was Right - Marit Larsen “Time just sent me off to bed, love was just a word we said, I thought someone would always keep me safe” For obvious title-based reasons, I would have loved this song even if it was three hours of a duck trying to play a harmonica, but as it turns out, it’s my favourite kind of nostalgia-laden, bittersweet lyric and it’s so, so beautiful. Like, Marit Larsen didn’t even have to try to win me here but she still brought this masterpiece. Amazing. (More on the ridiculous levels of coincidence surrounding this album later in the list.)

11. Grow - Frances “You know I'm here holding on, tying up your loose ends and your drifting esteem” I can’t remember how I came across this song now... was it a fanvid for something?... but I’m glad I did, because it’s beautiful. You know how my writing is so often in a kind of wannabe hurt/comfort genre? Yeah, my music isn’t all that different. Supportive friendship is such a great concept! The application is... ew.... but the theory’s great.

12. Hell No - Ingrid Michaelson “Stop crying, stop crawling, can’t you see that I have stopped falling?” This sooooong has the kind of attitude I strive for, I LOVE it. As much as it’s a rage anthem, it has a positive message about self-reliance and is SO FUN TO SING. That’s an important ingredient for me. (Also, there are lines in it - like the ones quoted - that are scary relatable.)

13. Roll With the Punches - Lenka “When life tries to knock all the wind out of you, you've got to roll, roll, roll with the punches” Now THIS is the Lenka I have known and loved for so long - she made my first Ultimate Playlist and she’ll probably make my last. But for so long I had only ever heard ‘The Show’, the album I was obsessed with in 2010. This year I discovered, like, 3 other Lenka albums, which was a joy, and this song....SO FUN. SO CUTE. SO SINGABLE. SO LENKA. I can’t say enough good things about it.

14. Fools - Lauren Aquilina “I don't want you to go but I want you so, so tell me what we choose” I kind of wish this song had come to me earlier, because it really caught me on the very tail end of its relevance to my life, but then, these things often do. I like having a concise way to look back on things, though, so this works just as well in hindsight as it might have in realtime :D

15. I Remember Her - Ingrid Michaelson “Things they fade, things turn to grey. As much as I try to save them, they turn to grey.” Just. I cannot. This song is sooo sad. It might be the saddest one ever to make it to one of these lists, unless I had ‘Song for Josh’ last year, which I think I did, so call it the joint saddest. I mean I guess both subjectively and objectively 2016 was a pretty sad year, so it makes sense. Damn it, Ingrid!

16. Kwaad Naas - Bittereinder “I grew up in the Moot, but my Afrikaans is limited to net ‘n paar woorde” Another awesome bilingual raptastic track from Bittereinder, my loves. This lyric especially illustrates why I love it so much, for I too communicate sometimes in a mixture of Afrikaans and English (usually when trying to Afrikaans and forgetting half the words. Dis ‘n curse, ek kan nie help dit.)

17. Sad Song - Lenka “Everyone's compelled to look into the mirror when they're crying, but just because your tears are pretty doesn't mean they'll get you by” Oh Lenka, you sound so happy but you talk so wise. I love this song so much, it doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be deep when you hear the general sound of it, but then it is. That’s kinda Lenka’s thing, I guess. The chorus especially is IMMENSELY singable.

18. Light Me Up - Ingrid Michaelson “Well you’re not what I was looking for, but your arms were open at my door” There are a whole bunch of repetitive lyrics towards the end but my oh my, what a beautiful sound. Just gorgeous.

19. Morgan, I Might - Marit Larsen “I might have been guilty of thinking one day I'd find myself waking up with you.” Listen, Marit Larsen has always had a timeshare on my brain. I just accept that now. That’s the only way it makes sense that she can write things so exactly right. But she used to be subtle with it, you know? She used to leave the names out, so that I could sleep at night able to tell myself that it might just be a coincidence, that she can’t have actually stolen my diary. But this year? All of that went out of the window. She wrote the sequel to the first song that ever made me go, “damn, somebody gets it”, she splashed that name all over this song, and then she splashed my name all over the album title. Honestly, woman, was it so hard leaving room for reasonable doubt? (At least she had the decency to get the timing a little off, because this isn’t how this is anymore, but it so, so, so was.)

20. Mr Brightside - The Killers “Jealousy, turning saints into the sea, turning through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis” This song is such a classic but it became much more meaningful to me this past year, mainly because it featured on our group’s roadtrip playlist for Scotland in May, and...yeah, it’s just a #quality song and finally its time has come. 21. Miss America - Ingrid Michaelson “I am the one who is always singing, louder than the rest, louder than the others” Songs that mention singing are the best songs, okay? I don’t make the rules. However, I wish I could get out of the habit of singing ‘I wanna be Miss America’ instead of the actual lyric, which is ‘I’ll never be Miss America’. I mean, there’s basically no way to get the song’s ethos more wrong. Shame on my tongue’s faulty muscle memory.

22. When It Comes to Us - Frances (& Ritual) “You and I, we're one too many worlds apart, it really shouldn't work, but it does” Oh what have we here? It’s another male/female duet. Which is a shame, really, because if it was a female/female duet, it would be a really great Nistrid song. But anyway. Beautiful track with beautiful words, yes please stay with me forever thank you.

23. The End of the World - Lenka “At the end of the world, we will kiss for the last time, and we won't feel the earth collapse into a mess of flood and fire” Listen up, The 100 and other angst-fest post-apocalyptic nightmare shows. This is how you do this. Cheesy and cute and with lots of “aahhh-aahhs”. Get on it. (No, but this song is adorable, truly.)

24. Old Days - Ingrid Michaelson “Heaven help the ones who fly away, heaven help the ones who have to stay and place the blame” Honestlyyyy, what a haunting and beautiful song. All of the lyrics are just so... atmospheric? Like, in an almost eery way but still so pleasing to listen to. I dunno what it is, but this is a damn fine song from my main girl Ingrid.

25. Quicksand - Tom Chaplin “Love's gonna leave you broken, time's gonna work you over; you get up, you get up, you keep rolling on” Awww, it’s Keane’s voice but without the rest of Keane! I love this guy, what a pro. Considering that a massive part of my early music life was taken up by Keane, I really haven’t grown out of my love for his voice. Aaanyway. This is actually thematically quite similar to Roll With the Punches. Was it really that hard of a year?! Ha.

26. Unique - Lenka “No, I don't really make sense, but I know that you know what I mean” Hehe, such a cute song. I want to be Lenka if I grow up.

27. Still the One - Ingrid Michaelson "We dance in the living room, and we dance to the beating of our blood” Aaaah this song is so great, so singable. This was one of the first ones I fell for before hurtling deep into the abyss of adoration for this album.

28. No - Marit Larsen “You could give up, I won’t give in, ‘cause where you end is where I begin.” Another beauty from my girl Marit. A little lighter on the coincidences in this one, thank goodness, because I don’t know if I could take another hit, but still solid gold.

29. We Are Powerful - Lenka “We fell in love on the same dark night, when the moon was high and the stars were bright” Another adorable song, another catchy, catchy tune. Lenka, my love, never stop with your beautifully singable tunes. (When I say singable, I mean both fun to sing and not vocally challenging enough to make me have to swap octaves halfway or sit out the middle 8 because the tune is too crazy. Aka the best kind of music.)

30. Whole Lot of Heart - Ingrid Michaelson “I said, "Let's rule this kingdom now, let's live and love and tear it down, to build it up"” Well, when I listen to this playlist in order, I will fittingly be left with the achingly catchy notes of this last Ingrid track in my head once it’s over. By faaar the catchiest of the bunch, this kind of addictive pulsating sound I can’t get enough of. I think this is might be my favourite from IDHTMS, but that changes regularly, so I won’t commit. Suffice to say it’s a fitting song for the end spot, down to the very last ebbing notes.

.....

Well, that’s it!

I haven’t done the math for every year, but I think this is the most female my playlist has ever been. Only 1/5 of the songs have male lead vocals, compared to the copious amounts of Frank Turner etc that have dominated previous years. GIRL POWER!

If you’ve actually read this post, I applaud you, and I also worry about your apportioning of time. What should you have been doing instead?!

As always, if you make your own one of these lists, please tag me for the sake of my ego and to give me new songs to listen to, because if we’ve learnt one thing from 2016′s list, it’s that I could do with some variety! ;D

#joni's ultimate playlists #music #ingrid michaelson #donald glover #lenka #bittereinder #francois van coke #marit larsen #frances #lauren aquilina #the killers #tom chaplin #jonisultimateplaylists

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justastormie · 7 years

Text

I’m doing two, because I can.

Ancient Historical meme from my drafts;

First things first: What’s their name and when and where did they live? If there are any/ you have one, add your favourite picture of them.

Erwin Johannes Eugene Rommel (1891-1944), Germany, lived around Württemberg for most of his life, the occasional world war aside. Of historical note for being a masterful tactician, writing an important book of military theory about wwi and commanding the german forces in the north african campaign of wwii.

Napoleon (1769-1821), France technically but had a great deal of fun on camping trips all over Europe. Of historical note for one-uping Alexander the Great. Created landmark legal, military and social organizations. List of fuckups is longer than most people’s list of accomplishments. One of the most enduring military and political legends of the modern era. Bees.

1. How and when did you first hear about them?

Rommel- I honestly can’t remember. My father is a wwii nut so i was raised on the stuff. I got serious in my interest of him about 12/13 when I first read the collection of his papers translated into English.

Napoleon- fourth grade (about ten years old). We had a section of world history, dismal though it was. In one of the little “fun facts” thing they had a tiny little box describing Nap’s return from Elba with an itty-bitty reproduction of Steben’s Returned From Elba. I thought that sounded like the most badass thing I had ever heard, and was also a little in disbelief because surely someone can’t just walk back and reclaim their kingdom. Like, that shit didn’t happen in real life. So I bought my first biography to find out the real story.

2. What do you like most about them?

Rommel

he tempered his ambition and leadership with compassion and a fierce sense of honor

genuinely seems to have been a nice dude

he and his wife are cute as fuck

was later cute as fuck about his son Manfred

was incredibly clever

was a peach eating lunatic adventurer masquerading as a srs prussian soldier

he was a romantic both in the age of chivalry sense and the modern sense

Napoleon

SUCH A BADASS, oh my god

was an over-invested mono-maniac at all times, which I can related to

incredibly capable in many fields

i have been napoleon and josephine trash since day one

crowning himself. i just love that moment.

was really smart. on a ‘holy shit’ level. (even if he did some massively stupid shit sometimes)

meritocratic promotion structures

hamilton WISHES he were this non-stop.

never gave up, never gave in. even on st. helena he started dedicated his energies to preserving his legend and legacy, to great effect.

3. Is there anything about them that makes you angry or that you don’t like at all?

Rommel

literally worked for nazis

pretty sexist

there’s a lot i disagree with him about, but very few things that make me truly pissed off. ie he was of the period opinion that military men shouldn’t be involved in politics, as he thought that would mean the military as an organization would start defining germany’s political future which would turn into military rule and he was catagorically against that. which i think is both wrong and allowed him, and others in the german army, to disclaim responsibility for political shit they didn’t agree with that was being done by their government. but i can absolutely see where he was coming from, and i think his concerns were reasonable and legitimate.

so yeah. a lot of disagreements, but very few things that just piss me off.

Napoleon

w h e r e d o I b e g i n

allowed his obsession with legend and conquest overwhelm his moral values

sold his honor and his moral principles in order to maintain power

frequently only took into account the human cost of warfare way too fucking late

rampant misogyny

really fucked over Junot

really fucked over tons and tons of people who were loyal to him, from close friends to the soldiers who followed him

got a truly staggering number of people killed on account of his own short-sighted obsessions

to paraphrase the old tv show Wiseguy, You don’t get to shove people around just because your fire burns brighter, no matter how brilliant that fire is.

never gave up, never gave in. even when he fucking should have, looking at you reasonable peace terms of 1813.

4. If you had one day with them in our present time - what would you do together?

Rommel - Aviation museum, he’d absolutely love it. I’d get him to pick some German place to eat and interrogate him ruthlessly about what inter-war rural Germany was like.

Napoleon- Smack him repeatedly in the face for invading Spain Walk and talk. Have him show me around Paris and have a debate over legal systems. Nerd out over Ossain. Show him a modern bookstore. Let him see how much of his work has survived into the present day. Shove him into at least one shrubbery.

5. What would you like to talk about with them?

Rommel - Engineering, aviation, dogs and funny army stories

Napoleon- All of the things. I can only imagine the conversation would be a pinball game of madness as to topics covered. And okay. I’d have to ask about Waterloo. I’d be that person. I don’t think he’d do it, but I’d love to hear him talk about Corsica.

6. In which way do you identify most with them or a figure they created?

Rommel - He was an intensely practical man who tried very hard to do the right thing and frequently failed. I hope that one day I’ll have the strength of character to try to rectify my mistakes as he did his.

Napoleon - I too am an over-invested, bossy weirdo.

7. Thoughts about their death? E.g.:Was it too early, was it deserved, woud you have tried to prevent it and how?

Rommel- oh god TOO EARLY, UNDESERVED, that poor brave bastard. I mean the fact that he was murdered because of his role in a plot to overthrow hitler and make peace with the allies is reason enough. would have definitely tried to prevent it, but would need like. the a-team to stop it. because you’d have to rescue not only rommel but his family that was being used as leverage against him. unless you’re allowed to go really far back and then i’d just start slapping the shit out of everyone at the versailles peace conference.

Napoleon - hoooo boy. uuuuuuuh. i mean. do i like it how he died? no. does that dislike come from a rational place? ...nooo. best case scenario for me would be he gets shot before the last charge of waterloo. hell if i had my way i’d go back and convince him what REALLY needed done was him personally leading the imperial guard up the hill. heroic, dramatic death and historians get to fight over wellsley actually beat napoleon for the rest of forever. europe also gets a break from napoleonic insanity. which doesn’t happen if napoleon gets to live. once more if you’re allowed further back, i slap the shit out of him before he invades Spain and point out that Ireland is lovely this time of year (it’d still be a clusterfuck, but less of one).

8. Is there a book or movie etc. you would recommend to someone who’s new to the person and would like to learn more about them?

Rommel - The Rommel Papers is a good place to start, there are frequent letters to his wife but the content is primarily military.

Napoleon - Shannon Selin’s website and book. The book is fiction but she is the lord our god in this fandom for her mad research skills. She provides sources for everything, which makes her the perfect jumping off point. (Now if I can just convince her that what she REALLY needs to do is write another book starring josephine)

9. What can we learn from them?

Rommel - when in doubt, bluff like a motherfucker right action is not a mystical, obvious thing at all times, we must do what we believe is right to the best of our abilities while being willing to let compassion guide us onto different paths.

Napoleon -

human beings are capable of astonishing intellectual and physical feats, and the best of our stories can still be written, they are not confined to antiquity.

find friends who will support your goals and then listen to their good advice even when it challenges your ego.

if loud, bossy weirdos can find devoted friends and romantic partners than we’ve got a pretty good shot too.

don’t invade spain

propaganda is half the battle

love, in all its forms, is a resilient motherfucker

don’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake

strive to be so badass that hundreds of years later, the historical fiction that is all about fighting you has their characters become complete fanboys any time you actually show up (ft. Richard Sharpe in Down With The Tyrant But OMG Harper Look It’s Napoleon *SWOON*, hon. mention also goes to William “Why Aren’t I French” Laurence).

a willingness to take charge is half the battle for power

bees are a cute fashion accessory and go with anything

10. Would you want to be friends with them if they were still alive?

Rommel - I think he’d be a good Dad Friend to have. Someone to ask for advice and go to reenactments with. A good person for moral/personal advice even if their political/social views are outdated. Definite bonding over dogs.

Napoleon - Would entirely depend on how we met. I feel like we’re similar enough on a personal level that it’d be very easy for our personalities to clash, and we’d have to declare ourselves mortal enemies and neither of us would back down from that because what is admitting you might have been hasty. Or, if fate were kind, we’d get on splendidly with constant low levels of dry sarcasm and prank wars. There would also be lots of emotions everywhere, at all times. People would hide. I have to admit I’d still stab somebody if it meant I got to be a Marshal.

11. The most powerful quote by or about them?

Rommel - have short one and a long one

"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general."

- Winston Churchill during 1942. During the fucking war. I mean damn, it doesn’t get better. Though since this is easily the most famous quote about him, have a personal favorite;

“Living legends, they project, each in his way, the classic image of a the warrior: brave, vigorous, sharp of eye and mind, rapid in decision, alert in danger, faster and bolder in the fight than his enemies. of this extraordinary brotherhood is Rommel-the brotherhood of Hector, of Rupert of the Rhine, of those who can only be described as heroes; and it is curious that so determinedly practical a modernist as Rommel-the least fanciful of men- should have joined a company so bonded by myth.”

-David Fraser from Knight’s Cross: A Live of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Napoleon -

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

i mean;

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

- Napoleon at some point, i’m not sure. But i’ve always loved it and found it apt.

#stormie cares about dead people #and blathers on #i'm cleaning out my drafts

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madamedeher · 5 years

Text

When You Hear the Sirens Coming

I did it. Another DA fic. This time Dorian with my inky Julian! This fic is modern au where Julian is a detective and Dorian is a lawyer. Enjoy chapter 1! Also for those who prefer, link to ao3 here

+++

From the other side of the shop, Bull turns to Julian and throws a look approaching annoyance.

“Do you like them?”

Cole’s voice rings soft and clear as it always does. In his spindly hands is a large box of donuts, two of which are long gone from the box and stuffed unceremoniously into Julian’s eager mouth. They’re maple bacon flavoured which is his all time favorite, of course. Finding the young man’s bakery was the detective’s best and worst decision according to the ever expanding waistbands.

“Obf courth I lige mem—”

Julian reaches for another before Bull finally steps in, pulling Julian’s arm out the shop and into Bull’s giant truck.

The truck, of which Julian has to wipe his fingers on his slacks so he doesn’t make the leather greasy, is almost comically large to account for his partner’s size. Julian stands at 193 centimeters yet the truck made him feel like he’s in a Barbie car.

“You know, man, the whole ‘cops love donuts’ thing isn’t helped when you pig out like that.”

Julian shoots him a glare before pointedly licking his fingers.

“Yet, here I am, loving Cole’s donuts. Besides, we’re detectives, not cops.”

Bull snorts something about a hole euphemism and drives to their next scene. Julian read about it briefly before they set out for the morning. A seemingly random man disappeared out of thin air, leaving a heavily pregnant wife behind him. Usually a case like this just means some scumbag guy couldn’t handle the pressure of settling down and skipped town, but the house had been trashed and looked like a bad robbery.

The house is deep into the suburbs, where all the houses look printed out and the lawns are all fake bright green grass. Personally, Julian hates going out here. The inner city of Denerim is real, hard, and fast. In the suburbs you saw the true dredges of society and Julian always left feeling more depressed than curious.

It took about 20 minutes to get to the home. It’s a sick yellow and has the same fake patch of grass front yard like every other house. If it wasn’t for the broken window and clear trail of blood leading from the door to the driveway, it would look like just another cog.

The inside of the house on the other hand is a trainwreck. Furniture is flipped, it smells so heavily of bleach it makes Julian’s eyes water, and pretty much every fragile object in sight is shattered to pieces. It looks damn more than a robbery, that’s for sure.

Bull ducks behind him to enter the house and sighs softly.

“That ain’t good.”

Julian shakes his head. No, it isn’t.

Snapping on gloves, Julian steps carefully around the home. Voices came from another room, presumably the dining room, and as Julian got closer he hears faint sobbing and the fake sweet voices of cops trying to console someone who is clearly hysterical.

Turning a corner, Julian is greeted by shattered dishes and several broken appliances. Sitting at the dining room table is a blonde woman with short hair sobbing into her arms. Cassandra and Blackwall stand on both sides of the woman, gently patting her and looking very awkward.

“We are very, very sorry for your loss Mrs. Cousland.”

“Fergus wouldn’t just leave! Someone to-o-ook him!” The woman, Mrs. Cousland? Punctuates most of her syllables with hearty sobs.

Blackwall is the first to see Julian and pleads with his eyes for the man to walk over and turn on the charm so they could walk away from the situation. Julian relents and puts on his most buttery voice. He needs information, and a sobbing victim made no use.

“Miss? My name is Julian Trevelyan,” he flashes a badge at her when she looks up with puffy eyes. It’s pretty obvious he is another worker bee around here, but flashing his badge always comforted scared civilians.

She sniffs loudly and nods curtly. “M-my name is Oriana, Oriana Cousland. Are you one of the, um, detectives they were talking about?”

Mrs. Cousland motions towards to the two officers behind her who are slowly drifting away from her and out the room.

“Yes, my partner, Bull, is looking around the house.”

Speak of the devil, Bull saunters in, ducking under undoubtedly one of many doorframes. Julian sits down while Bull stays standing. Chairs too small.

“Ma’am.” He tilts his head towards her and does his best to look as least-threatening as possible.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright with you.” Julian pointedly ignores his partner’s arrival to keep her attention on him.

Mrs. Cousland sniffles and thinks, nodding after a moment.

“Yes, that’s fine.” she croaks, wiping her red nose on the sleeve of her dress.

Julian hears Bull pull out a notebook and click a pen.

“First of all, I’d like to know how you’re holding up, Mrs. Cousland.”

Mrs. Cousland waves her hand, “Please, call me Oriana. And terribly. Thank you for asking. It feels like everyone here doesn’t even see me. I’m just another person to interrogate, my husband, the father of my child is missing for Maker’s sake!”

Julian sighs. Knowing Cassandra and Blackwall, Oriana no doubt got the reaming of a lifetime.

“Okay, Oriana. I have no plans to interrogate you. I simply want to ask a few simple questions.”

The woman visibly relaxes. With a heavy sigh, she nods. Julian continues,

“So, to start off, I’d like to know about your morning. Tell me about your routine.”

“Well, Fergus wakes up before I do. He was gone before I woke, but, but that’s normal.” Her eyes gloss over and stare out a window as she speaks, “I get out of bed, take a shower, and have breakfast. An omelette. Then, hm, I watched television for a couple hours, then went to have brunch with my mother-in-law.”

Oriana’s nose begins to scrunch with unshed tears as she recalls the day’s events. Julian puts a sympathetic hand against her shoulder which seems to comfort her just slightly.

“And when you got home, you saw the house as it is?”

She nods, hot tears rolling down her blotchy cheeks.

“Yes, I came home to— to— to this.” she motions her hands wildly around them before she begins sobbing again.

“Right, I’m sorry. When you came home, what exactly did you see?”

“My home a mess! Everything absolutely disarray. I called Fergus, but he didn’t answer. I called his work, and they said he never showed.”

Bull can be heard scribbling on his tattered notebook. Julian simply raises his eyebrows.

“Hm. He left before you woke, but seemed to have stopped home while you were away and then..?”

“He disappeared! Fergus wouldn’t just up and leave, he wouldn’t.”

The edge of her voice causes Julian to backtrack. He honestly wasn’t trying to imply anything. Taking a breath, Julian collects his wandering thoughts and zones into Oriana.

“I believe you.” He lies, “I just want to get all the facts straight.”

“Right, right, I apologize.” Oriana dabs daintily at her nose, suddenly remembering she’s in front of people. “Yesterday, did everything seem normal? Fergus didn’t act out of the ordinary?”

“Oh, well…”

Julian looks back at Bull who’s giving him a hard look that says, ‘oh, here we go.’

Oriana frowns and looks down between her shoes. “We had a fight.” she says very quietly, as if she was a child caught in the candy.

“A fight? What kind of fight?” Unless this woman is a makeup wizard, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious signs of a physical fight.

“Over the baby. He… he wants us to move into his family’s estate. So he’ll have more room to learn and play.” She lovingly pats her swollen belly, continuing, “I didn’t want to. I like this area. It’s quiet, and saf-” she stops on the word safe. Obviously, it isn’t as safe as she thought. Julian is still having a hard time at the thought of a grown man getting kidnapped. Probably killed and dragged off to be dumped somewhere.

“Is there anything stolen from your home?”

“That’s the thing!” Oriana jumps at the subject switch. “Nothing was taken! Not one thing. I checked, the police checked, everything is here.”

Bull grunts behind him and the scribbling stops at the sound of the pen clicking.

“Interesting.” is all Julian can say without furthering the woman’s worry. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a look around.”

Oriana nods softly and turns away from them, lost in thought.

Once out of the room Julian finds himself back in the living room. Large smears of blood stain an off-white wall leading into the house’s hallway. Fingernails seem to have dragged across the floor in an effort to hold onto something as to not get dragged away. Huh. Julian figures it must be more than one person who dragged away Fergus Cousland. The force’s photographer, Dagna, bounded into the room with her large, expensive camera. She stops at the fingernail marks, steadies the camera, and Julian hears a stream of shutters.

“Hey, Jules.” Dagna doesn’t look away from her camera, adjusting and fidgeting with whatever is going on in there.

“Hey, D. Anything particularly gruesome you want me to take a special look at?”

Dagna chortles to herself but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Yeah, did you check the bedroom?”

Julian walks past her and pushes open the creaky door. He certainly wasn’t expecting what he saw.

The bed is absolutely covered in blood and gore. It’s clearly a king size and every inch is drenched in some sort of human. Oddly enough, the rest of the room is spotless. Julian takes a sample of whatever… parts were on the bed and goes to patrol the rest of the house.

The bathroom, second bedroom, and backyard are all clean. In fact, the they’re the only spots on the land that weren’t tainted in some way. It didn’t take long for Bull to finish up his business and Julian is back in the truck on their way to their headquarters.

Another thirty minutes and Julian manages to submit the evidence he collected and sits down at his desk. Bull skulks off to the break room of the office before Julian can discuss what they found. Bull was never a quiet man, but after every introduction to a case he goes to compartmentalize whatever it is he just absorbed. Julian, on the other hand, hates that, and is buzzing to bounce ideas off the first person who will listen to him.

He’s about to go search for the new temp, Krem, that Commander De Fer hired when a bustling at the front of the station draws Julian’s attention.

Loud voices and a haughty laugh follow. If Julian strains, he hears Cullen’s sputtering at some joke and Sera’s shrill laugh.

Suddenly, the group appears into the main office.

A finely dressed man swaggers into the room absolutely glowing. He has a nicely trimmed mustache that matched the perfectly swooped hair atop his head. He wore an immaculately fitted black suit and is followed by an equally perfectly groomed tall blonde woman. The pair didn’t fit into the office’s environment at all.

Sera, permanently stained by mystery substances is absolutely enraptured by whatever the blonde woman is telling her, while Cullen, stubbly and tired looking still seems to try to keep up with the beautiful strangers.

Cullen and Julian catch eyes and before he can stop himself, Julian is standing in front of the group.

“Julsie!” Sera bounds over to him and pulls his tie so he slouches closer to her level. He feels slightly guilty for being over a foot taller than her. “You’re gonna love these guys! They’re from Tevinter. And dirty.” She giggles that evil laugh she does and Julian’s drawn back to the strangers.

The first stranger holds out his hand to shake and smiles— well, no, smile would be the wrong word. It’s more of a shit-eating grin, even though Julian can’t tell what the man has done to earn that smile.

“Dorian Pavus, charmed, I’m sure.”

Julian isn’t charmed, but the man, Dorian, has a fantastically confident attitude that Julian loves to feed off in a group setting. He takes his hand and shakes once. Firm grip. Nice.

“Julian Trevelyan. But my friends call me Jules.”

Dorian grins genuinely this time, quirking his brow and snorting.

“Your name is Jules?”

“Yeah, something wrong?”

“Oh, no, it’s just such a frilly name and,” Dorian stops himself before he puts his foot in his mouth further. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, you’re just rather striking to have such a name, is all.”

Julian can’t help but bark a laugh. He already likes this guy.

“Is that a roundabout way of calling me handsome?”

“I don’t know, is it?”

“I don’t know, am I?”

They share a look before Cullen coughs and rolls his eyes.

“Oh, Maker. Don’t tell me you’re like Julian.”

Julian feigns a hurt expression and clutches his imaginary pearls.

“Whatever do you mean, dear Cullen?”

Cullen turns to leave muttering something about serial flirting under breath.

“What a chipper young man.” Dorian comments.

“What!? He can be a right twat!” Sera bounces around them and it takes Julian all he can to keep from snickering. He loved Cullen, he did, but he needed a break. Badly.

Behind them, the blonde woman makes herself known by clearing her throat.

“If you two are quite finished, my name is Maevaris Tilani.”

“Julian Trevelyan. Pleasure to meet you both.”

Julian shook her hand, too. He noted how dainty and pale her hands were. They reminded him very much of Cole.

“These two are lawyer leeches.” Sera made sure to really punch out the word leeches, causing Maevaris to roll her eyes and Dorian to act offended.

“I’d think you were nicer to fellow crime fighters?”

“Ha! Since when were lawyers righteous? Shove that up your arse.”

Dorian looked at Julian for some defense which Julian has a hard time coming up with.

“Well… I guess it depends on what kind of lawyer.”

“Maevaris is the defense attorney, not me.”

Maevaris glares at Dorian and pinches his earlobe. He yelps and clutches it tenderly.

“Still, I’m happy you two are around. Was wondering when we’d get some new blood around here.”

“Vaguely suspicious. What happened to the last ‘new blood’ that wandered around here?”

Julian smiled mischievously before looking out to the backlot of the office.

“Ran far, far away. Only the real ones stick around.”

Dorian immediately bristles at the challenge.

“Ha, I suppose I now have to stay for as long as I can out of spite.”

“Meh, probably wouldn’t be a bad thing. We need eye candy that isn’t Vivienne around here.”

“My my, you’re brave.”

Sera makes a gagging sound. “Can you two stop being gross n’ shite? You met 2 minutes ago. Don’t starting rutting, nasties.”

Maevaris tugs at Dorian’s arm to pull away at the conversation that apparently she’s also done with.

Julian loves new people.

#dorian pavus #inquisitor/dorian pavus #dorian x inquisitor

0 notes

writingcommons-blog1 · 6 years

Text

“Major Defect” by Nicole D.

NICOLE I could never, in the six months I had worked for Menards, understand why it was necessary to roll the entire defective product bin all the way to the back of the store when there were only three or four items sitting in the bottom. I mean, honestly, what’s the harm in letting them chill in there overnight so we can fill it up the next day? It would make way more sense to roll it back when it was full, but I digress. It wasn’t my job to dictate these kinds of things; only to move the damn things.

Two people, each from different alternating departments, were assigned to take the two large bins back to the trash compactor. On the day this story began, the plumbing department and the cashiers fell victim to the rotation. After [not] much deliberation amongst the front-end managers, yours truly was selected to take one for the cashiers. Along with me was a young man, about my age, named Tyler. He was your typical guy who could invoke a ‘holy shit, he’s hot’ reaction from a number of women, myself included. Nothing like a tall, slender man with reddish brown hair and just enough facial hair to call a goatee to get you motivated. Come on, if that wasn’t going to motivate me to take one of those huge defect bins across the entire store, nothing was.

“Are there really only a couple things in this frickin’ bin?” he groaned.

“Yea, but sadly we still have to take them back,” I shrugged. I could feel my face was on fire and yet, no matter how much I tried to look down or avoid direct eye contact, somehow I still felt like it was obvious.

“Oh, I am not taking that back with just that shit in it. Wait here.”

“Um - ok,” I muttered as he walked away. Those cowboy boots made his ass look great, not that it was important, but damn was it a good view to pass the time while I waited. As I stood there I could hear footsteps approaching behind me. Since everyone was hustling around the store trying to get closing duties done, I didn't think anything of it until someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turn around to find the assistant manager of the cashiers, Nathan.

"Hey, who did they send from plumbing to take the defect bins back with you?" he asked.

"Tyler, why?"

"Oh, I was just curious. Are you two friends?"

"We just met, so I wouldn't quite say that."

"Ok, well I just wanna let you know that he's gay."

Gay? Well fuck. Skip to the third strike guys, because I'm already out. At the same time, however, I was really curious as to why Nathan was telling me this.

"Wow, ok. Is there a reason that is important to this conversation?" I asked.

"Everyone knows. Just wanted to keep you in the loop," he replied before walking away. Hearing his explanation really didn't provide any kind of closure to my question, but it did get me thinking. If Nathan is telling me that Tyler is gay the first time I ever get to interact with him, then how many other people talk about his sexuality behind his back? Nathan met his girlfriend down the entryway and I could see them talking and looking back at me. I guess that answers my own question; it must be everyone.

Minutes later he returned with a car full of dirty and broken parts that had pink defect stickers all over them.

“What the hell is this, Tyler?” I laughed.

“If there is actually shit to take back, I’ll take it back. There wasn’t any, so I found some. Just call me Major Defect!”

“How did you get all of this?” I asked through the laughter at his new nickname.

“I have my ways, Boo,” he said with a wink. I got all giddy inside because now I had a pet name. I guess we are friends.

“You are a lifesaver, Babe.” I could get away with saying that, right?

“Babe?” he asked with a confused look in his eyes. Damn, I guess not.

“I call all my friends that, male and female.”

“Oh, cool then. I have never known anyone who actually does that!”

“Really? I’m from a small town, so we call everyone Babe and Honey. Baby is for significant others only.”

“Believe me, I had never heard of anything like that until I met my boyfriend, Casey. He calls everyone ‘Dear’.”

Boyfriend? Nathan wasn't kidding, I guess.

“Wow!” I exclaimed with a super fake smile. “I use that one too.”

At this point I was pretty bummed. Not because I had realized that I was talking about the insane hotness of a gay guy, but at the fact that I now knew everyone in the entire store knew and was talking about it. At least, on the bright side, a hilarious friendship blossomed from the fun, albeit embarrassing, experience.

TYLER "Hey Boo!" I shouted from my desk in plumbing. Nicole was bringing some returns back from the service desk. Her arms were full of PVC pipe. I was on my way out to have lunch with Casey, so I went over to her to have a quick chat.

"Hey Babe," she said, "what's up?"

"What are you doing tonight? I know you procrastinate just as bad as I do, so you won't judge me for this. Christmas is only a week away and I need some help getting my tree home and getting ready. You in?"

"I am into it, around it, and all up in it! I'll follow you home after work."

She was smiling at the idea, her smile almost as bright as the single diamond in the center of her cross necklace. Suddenly I began to think about last Christmas. Casey tried to call his mother about coming home for the holidays. She simply told him that it’s Jesus’ birthday and Jesus doesn’t approve of homosexuals. Apparently being gay means you can’t celebrate Christmas now.

"That sounds great, but there is something I need to ask you."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Are you religious?"

"Well that's a bit random, but yes, I'm Christian."

"Shit," I muttered. Casey is going to hate me for being friends with her. Now what?

"Don't tell me you're going to lump me in with all the gay shaming sign holders."

"No, it's just my boyfriend Casey. He's going to be home tonight and he is very anti religious."

"What led to that?"

"Let's just say he had a really rough transition when he first started college here."

"Oh, that's too bad. I just won't mention anything about God around him. Not my lover, not my life," she said. I have always loved how non judgemental she is. That's probably why we are such good friends.

"Ok, and don't say anything about being Christian or going to church either. He hasn't ever met a Christian who doesn't immediately tell him he's going to hell," I explained.

"Well then we will just leave that out when you introduce us. If we decide to tell him, maybe then we just shouldn't lead with that information. Save it for later on after he likes me."

I like the way she thinks.

"Awesome, well I have to get going, Casey is actually coming by to pick me up for lunch.”

"Alright, have a good time!" she waved and carried on with her PVC pipe stocking. Not even a few moments later I noticed Casey coming in the front entrance. He jogged over to me and gave me a hug.

"You ready to go?" he asked me.

"Of course! Shall we make our way to our extravagant McDonald's lunch?" He chuckled and put his arm around me as we started walking out the door and towards the car.

As we were in line at the restaurant making our order, a woman stood by her husband staring daggers at me and Casey. She looked like the typical soccer mom. The type who would immediately pull the "my husband is a cop" card, or something of that nature. Her hubby was pretty buff looking, so I wouldn't have been surprised. They were both wearing shirts that were from a church of some kind and covered in scripture and crosses. I turned around to see Case with our bag of food ready to go. We made our way out the door and started walking across the parking lot to our car. He put the bag on the roof while he dug through his bag to find his keys. It seemed like it was taking forever.

Suddenly we heard tires screeching directly behind us. Lo and behold it was that same couple from inside pulling out of their spot and headed right past us. Next thing I know I felt a sudden bomb of freezing cold substance all over my torso. I looked up at the car and see the husband sticking his middle finger out of the window.

"Fuckin' faggots!" he shouted at us, his wife cackling in the passenger seat. As they drove off into the distance, I noticed a plethora of "I love Jesus" and "He is risen" bumper stickers. That explains the shirts, I guess.

Casey nearly charged after their car, but I threw an arm in front of him before he could gain too much momentum. He slapped me upside the head and scolded me for getting in his way. He always does things like that, so I try not to get on his nerves, but sometimes you do what you have to do. I looked down at myself, covered in what I believed to be a chocolate milkshake of some kind. Most people would think this would have been hard to explain to their coworkers, but they gossiped about me enough. I'm sure they could put two and two together.

"Let's go. I should get back to work," I muttered quietly. Casey shook his head and walked over to the driver side.

"I saw those stickers on their car," he said. "Those damn Christians will never accept us, you know that."

"I only stopped you because I don't want either of us to go to jail," I said. "And you don't think they should go to jail for half the shit they do to people like us? They are all the same, Tyler, and that's just the truth. They don't want to accept us or befriend us. They want to change us, hurt us, or even kill us," he said as he started to tear up. At that time I could only assume he was having flashbacks of his mother.

We made our way back to Menards and once we arrived, I let out a big sigh before heading to the entrance. I turned to wave goodbye to Casey. Before I even get to the door I saw Nicole pushing carts from outside. She took one look at me and gasped in horror as she ran over and began asking me what happened.

"Just more faggot haters," I sighed.

CASEY I waved as Tyler got out of the car and made his way inside with who I could only assume was Nicole. He talks about his friend at work named Nicole who has a collection of western boots. This girl had a very nice pair of American flag pattern boots, so I was sure it was a safe bet to assume it was her. I knew I should get out and introduce myself or at least wave as I drive by, but it wasn't a good time. I couldn't stop thinking about those stupid Jesus freaks in their stupid car with their stupid bumper stickers. Man, the whole thing was so stupid! I couldn't help but wonder if they didn't consider us human beings.

The seething anger I was feeling took me further back into my memories from when I first moved here. Starting community college and being bookchecked by anyone and everyone who knew I was gay. I thought bookchecking was just a middle school thing, but I guess not. At least it wasn't anything I wasn't already use to. Even growing up things were really tough. Coming out to my parents was probably the worst. I'll never forget when my mother looked me in the eye and said "I will not have a gay son". At that point, I wasn't her son anymore and I went to Tylers. We lived together from that point on.

Upon pulling into the driveway and getting parked, I sat back and just closed my eyes. I tried with everything I had to get out of this headspace and into a more positive mood. I was going to meet Tyler's best friend and then we would all decorate the house for Christmas. We both always had a hard time making friends, for obvious reasons, so this was actually a pretty big night. With that in mind, I went inside and began to make plans for dinner.

NICOLE That evening, after we both finished our shifts for the day, I followed him home with his Christmas tree strapped on his roof and through the windows. As we pulled into his driveway, I caught a glimpse of who I thought to be Casey in the living room. He looked through the window and started jumping and clapping when he saw Tyler’s car. They waved to one another before he caught a glimpse of my car parking behind his and let out a big smile. Let the fun begin.

We walked in and headed straight for the kitchen where we found Casey standing. He was dancing circles around the hardwood floors grabbing various pots, pans, and utensils to get ready for dinner. When he stopped and saw me, he glanced down at my Menards vest and realized I was Tyler’s coworker.

“Oh my gosh, you must be Nicole!” he exclaimed as he threw his arms around me.

“I’m guessing you must be Casey,” I chuckled awkwardly.

“I’m so sorry Honey, we’re huggers here. I didn’t mean to catch you off guard."

“No, I love it! That means I’ll fit right in,” I giggled along with them. I was so excited because things were going great and I was really hitting it off with Casey. That's when my phone rang. It displayed "Pastor Larry" on the screen with a big picture of him during his Easter Sermon from earlier that year. I could feel Casey's stare before I even looked up to see it.

"You’re a Christian?" he asked in a sinister demeanor.

"Yes," I choked.

CASEY Without so much as a second thought, I grabbed a frying pan with my right hand and held it high in the air over my head. Then, with my left hand, I grabbed a spatula and pointed it at Tyler. From that point on it became an extension of my arm as I continued to use it in my gesturing.

“You brought a Christian into this house?!” I shouted, pointing the spatula towards Nicole while staring angrily at Tyler with red, watery eyes. Honestly, for a hot minute, I felt scared for my life. These are the people who have attacked and ridiculed me all my life, and she was one of them? How dare Tyler bring her into our home!

“Whoa whoa whoa! Calm down, Casey, she’s cool! She’s one of the good ones!” Tyler shouted.

“Casey stop!” Nicole screamed. Tyler and I stopped in our tracks and turned our eyes directly to hers.

“Yes, I’m Christian," she stated "but no, I don’t give a flying fuck if you like men or women. It doesn’t matter what I think, or what anyone thinks, whether they are Christian or not. Do what and who you want, I’m not going to tell you any different.”

I lowered my kitchen utensil weapons and looked at her. I wondered if she could feel the inquisitive look I was giving her through the tears I could feel building in my waterline. Could she feel all the years of pain and suffering people like us have endured? I was still shaking with tears rolling down my face.

“It says in your precious Bible that people like us are an abomination,” I sniffled, “I just don’t understand how you can defend something like that and consider yourself chill enough to have gay friends.” At this point I was on a whole new level of anger.

“It also says in that same Bible that a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night is to be taken to her father’s house and stoned to death. Do you think that nearly as many people would be married today if we still enforced that rule? There is a verse that says only the person who is without sin may cast the first stone. I’m not perfect either.”

“You’re not an abomination like you people think we are. You’re not lesbian.”

“Alright,” she snapped, “first off, I am not a part of some cult that you refer to as you people. I understand why you’re on guard, I do, but you’re overgeneralizing. Second, no I’m not homosexual, but I have sinned plenty according to that book. I’ve had relations out of wedlock, I’ve consumed alcohol underage, and I’ve certainly gone through times when I did not honor my mother and father. I’ve been jealous and lusted after things I shouldn’t. Those are all sins according to the Bible, so if you want to have a stone throwing match, who goes first?”

I stared her down through my angry tears.

“There is nothing wrong with the way we are! We aren’t defective because we’re gay!” I shouted in intense agony.

Suddenly, like breaking the tension in a depressing romance movie, I grabbed my coat and left the house after slamming the door behind me. I don't know who to blame right now, Tyler for bringing someone like her into our home or Nicole and the rest of her kind for everything they had ever done to us. My seething anger continued to grow and grow. I'll figure something out.

TYLER Eventually Nicole and I found ourselves on my living room floor watching football and making decorations for the tree we had just set up. I let out a small sniffling sound, but it sounded more saddening than it did like a cold. I'm not a very good actor, apparently, because she clearly noticed.

"Tyler, are you ok?" she asked, putting her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm scared and I don't know what to do," I confessed to her. "I have no idea if Casey is ever going to get past this, but at the same time I know I didn't do anything wrong. We couldn't plan for that! He's had such a rough life and this kind of thing really gets to him. What should I do?"

"Stop blaming yourself, for starters," she demanded, "and after that just live your life. He has every right to be on guard, you both do. After everything you guys have been through and still put up with every single day, there is nothing wrong with that. Personally, even as a Christian, I don't care what other people do because my choices are what determine my life. Why should I make a big deal about what other people are doing that I can't control?"

I began to cry with my face in my hands.

"Do you think he'll come back?" I choked.

“I'm sure he will."

Later that night, after Nicole was gone for the night, I began to pick up our little arts and crafts mess. The place was quiet, which was not something I had ever planned on having to get use to. As I was walking through the living room cleaning up, I stopped by the Christmas tree to look at the ornaments. Right at my eye level there was a photo ornament with a picture of me and Casey on our first date. I felt a tear fall down my cheek, but I quickly wiped it away and continued working.

All of a sudden the door flies open and I hear someone stomping up the stairs. It's Casey. Before I could open my mouth to welcome him home or ask if he was ok, I feel his hand on my throat.

"Why would you do this to me?!" he screams in my face.

"What are you talking about?" I choked out despite his hand on my neck. He releases me.

"Don't play dumb, Tyler. You knew she was religious yet you still invited her here. To a house with two gay men living in it."

"You heard for yourself, she doesn't care what we do!"

"That's what they all say! They say that 'only God can judge' and that it isn't their place to criticize your decisions, but that really doesn't apply to us. Everyone has already judge us and made it abundantly clear. We are going to hell and that's that, obviously."

"Would you stop it, Casey?" I pleaded. "She isn't like that, and had you not acted like a complete psycho and got to know her you would know that."

"Don't call me a fucking psycho!" he shouted. After having barely finished his sentence he pulled back his right arm and launched his fist directly into my face. My right eye suffered the most. He continues his assault by pushing me down on the floor and pointing his finger in my face as he continues to yell about Nicole. I struggle underneath him, but manage to slip a leg inward and push it into his stomach, triggering his release of me.

As he laid back on the floor, one hand on his pained midsection, I tried to reason with him. Before I could get more than half of a word out, he is storming into the kitchen. I troll behind but stay on the opposite side of the room, hoping he will calm down. He stood over the sink with his arms on the counter and his head down. I could hear him gasping for air between sobs, so I assumed he was collecting himself, but I was wrong.

Next thing I know he has one of the empty pickle jars I use for planting in his hand and he is charging after me with it held high over his head. I barely blinked before he smashed it into my head. Shattered glass was now strewn all over the kitchen and small red drops fell to the floor beneath my head as I tried to rise. I put my hand up to him.

"No more!"

Casey yanked me off the floor by my elbow and pinned me against the wall, his free hand on my throat. At one point I could almost feel my face turning blue. He leaned in real close to me and whispered something awful.

"When they come for you, do you really think she'll stay on our side?"

I knew exactly what he meant. That eventually push will come to shove and things will be at their point of life or death based on my being gay. He thinks that the religious folks will all stick together, no matter what they think individually, because of the God they worship. That's what he thinks about Nicole too.

I feel a falling sensation as he lets go of my neck and I am back on the ground, curled up in agony. I tried to crawl my way to the living room to get my phone, but alas, I only made it to the staircase railing. Casey stood over me and then, as he smirked and shook his head, took his foot and nudged me just far enough to where I helplessly fell down the stairs. Once I reached the bottom I appeared to be a limp, lifeless body with my hair damp from the dripping blood.

"Don't go anywhere," he chuckled maniacally, "I have some things I need to get."

I laid there helpless, of course, and obeyed his command. Not because I was intimidated or because I wanted to, but because I couldn't move. A little while later he comes down the stairs with multiple bags in hand. He opens the door, slamming it right onto my head that he had already damaged with the pickle jar, and looks down at me.

"You'll understand someday, but by then it will be too late for you." Needless to say, after he finally finished with me and left with his things, we were over.

NICOLE "Tyler, what happened?" I yelled as I dashed over to him. His right eye was black, he also had cuts across his hairline and one on his bottom lip. Don’t get me started on the various bruises, or at least the ones I could see.

"Casey happened."

"Wait, he did this to you? I swear, if I see that boy again I'm gonna - "

"Don't bother," he said. "He's long gone now. We're over."

"I'm so sorry this happened, Babe. I never should have gone over. How can I fix this?"

"Stop blaming yourself, for starters," he smiled, using my own words against me. We both started chuckling, but not for long. Nathan and his girlfriend were approaching from down the aisle.

"Heeey Tyler," he said, mocking him in the stereotypical "gay" voice. "What happened to your eye? Infection from the money shot your boyfriend gave you?"

Tyler lunged at Nathan, but fell short after I threw myself in front of him to hold him back.

"Fuck off, Nathan!" he screamed, tears beginning to fill his eyes.

"Whoa, chill! I was just concerned for your eye is all. No need to get all pissy about it," he chuckled, his girlfriend laughing along with him as they walked away. Tyler covered his eye with one hand and held his left out.

"Do you have any concealer or foundation I could use to cover this up?"

"Of course," I reached into my purse and gave my concealer and a mirror to him. As he begins to cover up his black eye, I feel horrible for what just happened, but even worse for it happening every day and not being able to do anything to stop it. He was my friend, and he was suffering, but I was powerless to end it. I knew this was a huge problem in the community and in the world, yet I never realized just how much it affects everyone involved. Even the heterosexual friends of those who are LGBTQ are hurt, and I can certainly feel that now. That pain for Tyler and that pain for Casey, despite what he did. "I didn't realize things were this bad just because you are gay," I said to him. He hands me back my things and looks me in the eye.

"Most people don't, that's why it's such a problem in this world."

I begin to tear up along with him. We hug each other tightly.

"I hope you know that you're not alone in this. Seeing these things and hearing about everything you've been through hurts me to hear it," I said to him. "Just remember, being gay is not a defect. You're perfect the way you are."

Suddenly we hear our names called over the PA to take defect bins to the back. "Not a defect, huh?" he chuckles as he races to the bins and jumps up to sit on the side of one of them and do a superhero pose. "Then why do they call me Major Defect?"

We both busted out laughing.

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