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obsidiancreates · 3 years

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Born This Way (Because Of Negligence Towards Basic Scientific Safety)

(IDK how far apart the Fenton kids are in age, so Jazz is an Undetermined Age Where She's A Toddler But Also Very Verbal. Maybe it's the Genius Genes letting her learn faster. Let's go with that.)

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Maddie coughs, spitting out another glob of ectoplasm. "Well, at least know it's not an issues with the cooling system."

Jack sneezes out the ectoplasm stuck in his nose, and then grins and stands triumphantly. "Still a step towards success!"

Jazz frowns from where she's playing with her doll, safe within a Fenton Anti-Ghost Toddler Chamber. "Mommy, you should cover your mouth." She points at her own mouth. "Mr. Wummy on TV says dat getting weird stuff in your mouth is bad."

"Mr. Wummy is a cartoon, dear. We're seasoned scientists, we know what we're doing." She wipes herself off, and sits down. "If there were any side-effects to accidental ecoplasmic consumption, we'd know."

"But what if Danny doesn't like it?" Jazz point at her mother's belly.

Maddie pats her belly. "The baby is still just a fetus, sweetie. It can't tell what it does and doesn't like yet. And why are you so sure it'll be a boy?"

"Because I'm your baby girl. So now you need a baby boy!"

Maddie tilts her head and smiles lovingly at her daughter. "Oh, you're adorable." Nothing cuter than Child Logic.

Maddie stands back up, and puts her hands on the workbench. "Now, let's see about that firing mechanism..."

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Maddie brushes her teeth, sighing when her toothbrush comes away glowing green. "We really messed up a lot of experiments today. I think I swallowed a whole ghost's worth."

Jack spits a similarly colored mouthful of toothpaste foam out. "At least it doesn't taste as bad as it smells."

Maddie puts her hands on her belly, the bump now quite obvious. "II hope we're right about it not having side effects."

Jack's expression softens. He gently pulls his wife into a comforting hug. "The doctors all say he's as healthy as can be, Mads. You don't need to worry."

"I still worry anyway, though."

"Of course you do. You're his mom! But we'll worry together, and if you ever need me to, I'll do the worrying for us both! While you relax and give him more tips on how to avoid ghosts once he learns to walk."

Maddie giggles, and sighs. It'll all be fine... nothing to worry about.

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Jazz has her arms crossed, a teddy bear hanging from one hand. "Five times!"

"Yes, and did we mention we're so proud that you can count so we-"

"Five times!" She shouts again, waving her little sticky toddler hand at them. "I saw you eat the bad green stuff five times!"

"We didn't eat it," Maddie says patiently, "It got into our mouths by accident."

"You swallowed it!"

"Only a tiny bit, only on accident, dear."

Jazz puts her hand on her mom's belly. "Danny is gonna be here soon and he's gonna be mad!"

"He won't even know it happened, sweetheart."

"Yes he will! He'll be the smartest ever, just like me and like you and like daddy! And he'll be so upset and never stop crying!"

"Babies do that anyway, sweetie." Maddie rubs her belly. It's true, Danny is due any day now. And yes... there's been some extra Ectoplasm Incidents lately. Maddie just can't stay awake sometimes, and... well. That's not exactly good when working on ghost hunting machines.

"Your baby brother will be perfectly fine," Maddie assures. "He's a healthy baby boy, and he'll be just as healthy when you meet him."

Jazz lights up at the mention of meeting him. She can't wait!

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Jazz bounces excitedly in her dad's arms. She gets to meet her baby brother! Finally! She's going to read him bedtime stories, and protect him from closet monsters, and show him how to throw a tea party!

Jack chuckles. "Calm down, sweetie, you don't get to play with him quite yet! He's still very fragile."

"But he's okay?"

"Yes, he and Mommy are both okay. Better than okay."

Jack knocks on the hospital room door, and they enter.

Maddie is holding Danny, and it looks like she fell asleep. Jazz gasps, even though all she can see so far is the blanket bundle.

"He's tiny!"

"Very." Again. Ah well. Jack had always hoped one of his kids would groww up to be taller than him, but maybe it'll have to be a grandkid.

He walks over, and smiles at his sleeping wife. "Okay, let's be quiet," he whispers. "We don't want to wake mommy."

Jazz nods seriously.

Jack sets her on the bed, and Jazz carefully crawls closer to Danny. She moves the blanket to get a good look at his face, grinning widly-!

She frowns. "Where is he?"

"What?!" Jack hurriedly picks up the bundle, making Maddie startle awake. "Holy-"

"Jack? Honey? What is it?!" Maddie's tone becomes increasingly panicked.

Jack, looking a bit pale, hands the bundle back to her. She gasps.

It's empty, and freezing!

"Where- where is-"

And then suddenly. He's there.

Fast asleep, wrapped up snug and tight. His little face still red from being brand-new to the world, his tiny tongue sticking out of his mouth slightly as he snoozes.

He disappears again.

Maddie thinks she's about to pass out.

Finally, Jazz breaks the horrified silence. "I told you to cover your mouths!"

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Danny sleeps all the way home, and all the way up to his room. Jazz is waiting by the bassinet, and peeks in as soon as he's placed down. She frowns. "Mommy, his hair is white. He's not old."

Maddie sighs. "No, he's not. Apparently it just... does that, sometimes."

Danny yawns, and opens his little eyes. Jazz's own eyes widen as well. "He's glowing!"

"Yes... that happens too."

Danny screws up his face, and starts crying. Maddie picks him up and rocks him. "Poor baby... he's so cold."

"Why?" Jazz tilts her head.

Maddie sighs. "Well... your father and I... we think he's half-ghost."

"How?"

"... Probably... the ectoplasm," Shame burns in Maddie's veins.

Jazz, wide-eyed, reaches to to try and touch Danny. "Is he dead?" She doesn't sound sad, because it looks to her like even if he is dead, he's still alive.

"No!" Maddie shuts the idea right down. "He is a very healthy, living boy! But he's... different."

"Are you gonna trap him?"

"Wh- Jasmine, why would you ask that!"

"He's a ghost."

"No! No, we never treat him like any other ghost. And he's only partly ghost, so it barely counts. Now, Mommy has to feed him so he can go back to sleep. How about you go pick a movie for tonight?"

Jazz nods. She takes that job very seriously. There's a science to picking movies.

She heads off, and Maddie looks at Danny's sniffling little face. His eyes are back too baby blue, but his hair isn't quite black yet.

At least he's still visible.

At least the side effects seem mild.

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It's about 6 am when Jack bolts up too use the bathroom. On his way back, he decides to check on the kids.

Jazz is asleep, cuddling a stuffed animal. Jack smiles.

Danny is also asleep, wrapped up in a cute little onesie and floating above the bassinet FLOATING ABOVE THE BASSINET?!?!

Jack runs over and grabs Danny from the air, pulling out a Fenton Ghost-Whapping Baton!

And then he looks at Danny, who's whining, and sees sleepy glowing green eyes looking at him.

"Oh. Um, sorry, son." He puts away the baton. "I thought a ghost was stealing you."

Danny yawns. Jack sees a cold breath puff out of his son's mouth, despite the room being temperature-controlled to keep him toasty during the nights.

Jack puts Danny back into the bassinet. He leaves, and comes back a little bit later with some equipment.

He sets up a rudimentary ghost-shield to keep Danny from floating away during the night, but won't trap him. He can still float a little, if need be.

"The scariest ghost we've faced yet," Jack mumbles. He kisses Danny's forehead, and sits there until Danny falls asleep. By then, Danny is human again.

Jack leaves, and in the morning he and Maddie begin working on some upgrades for Danny's room.

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Danny babbles happily as Jazz plays peek-a-boo with him.

"Boo!"

Laughter.

"Boo!"

More laughter!

"A-boo! A-boo!" Jazz can't stop grinning. She's a great older sister! Look at her go!

She takes Danny's hands, and moves them over his face. "Now, where's Danny? ... Here he is! Oh."

Danny isn't there. But his clothes are, and something's inside of them. And Jazz is still holding two chubby baby arms, even if they're cold and invisible.

Jazz stares for a second, and then speaks. "... Peek-a-boo?"

Danny reappears, and squeals with laughter!

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Maddie sits down to give Danny his bottle. She's brought him out shopping with her so she can grab some replacement parts that fried in their latest invention, the Fenton Ecto-Extractor!

Jazz had thrown a fit when she'd heard the name, and it startled Jack so bad he'd turned it on too early and it completely collapsed on itself! It took half an hour to convince Jazz that they weren't trying to use it to make Danny normal, just using it for themselves now that they know it can cause... strange things, to happen.

Danny drinks the bottle with no issue, and burps as soon as she starts his back. Really, he's a pretty easy baby. Except for the ghost part.

Maddie is getting him back in the stroller when Danny's face screws up. She watches a cold, visible breath leave his mouth, and then he starts to scream. Sobbing, wailing baby screams, attracting the concerned and/or annoyed attention of most people around them.

"He's just tired," she assures loudly. His breath is still puff out in cold clouds, even though it's perfectly warm in the mall.

Maddie quickly picks him back up and hugs him, bouching and singing to try and calm him down.

Danny starts to quiet down. She puts him back in the stroller, but as soon as she does (as soon as he looks behind her with those bright, bright green eyes) he starts crying again.

She sighs and picks him up, hurrying back to the car. She'll just come back for the parts later. Clearly, something is upsetting him.

Something that she just can't see.

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Jazz leans away from Danny, grinning. "There!"

Danny is propped up on her bed. Maddie and Jack needed to quickly decontaminate themselves, and so Jazz had to watch Danny for just a minute.

And in that minute, she's does some redesigning.

Danny's fluffy white hair has a little bow in it, and she's put some of her kiddie makeup on him.

Danny disappears for a second, and the bow falls. When he reappears, it's not on his head anymore. He looks at Jazz blankly.

Jazz crosses her arms. "No fair! I was making you pretty!"

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Maddie stumbles into Danny's room. She flicks on the light, and turns off the Fenton Ghost-Shielding Hanging Mobile. She reaches in and pulls the crying Danny out of the bassinet, shushing and rocking him.

Danny's eyes are bright green again, and Maddie can see his breath. "Oh, you always get so worked up when this happens," she says softly. "Is the cold upsetting you?"

Danny doesn't answer, just cries more.

Maddie takes him to her and Jack's room, and lays down with him on her chest. Jack rolls over in his sleep and puts his arms around her, cradling both of them.

Danny falls back asleep soon, and Maddie sighs. She can still see his breath, but at least he's calm now.

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Jazz holds up her drawing, and shakes her head. She goes back to scribbling, and moves closer to Danny. "This is black," she says to him, pointing at the crayon she's using. She picks up another color. "And this one is red."

Danny stares as Jazz keeps scribbling. Jazz assumes that means he's learning.

"I'm going to let Mom and Dad know I saw this in my closet," she says seriously. "I think people know you're special and want to steal you!"

Danny blows a spit bubble by accident, and laughs when it pops.

Jazz's eyes hold more determination than ever. She scribbles with the fury of a million warriors. "You're very valuable." She learned that word yesterday. "So you need lots of protecting."

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"Do you think this will make her feel better?" Maddie asks as she closes the panel.

Jack lifts his soldering mask and nods. "If one thing can make a person feel safe, it's fifty anti-ghost devices hidden in their walls!"

"I just worry about that doodle. What if something really got in?"

"Mads, you personally handcrafted every single sensor put up in the kids's rooms! If a ghost had gotten in, we'd know! To get past then they'd need deep knowledge of exactly how our deigns work and how they detect ghost energy, and no ghost has that!"

"You're right, you're right. Still, I hate to think she might be having nightmares about something like that. It looked like it had devil horns."

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"Peek-a-boo!" Jazz grins at Danny. "Peek-a-boo!"

It never gets old for him! No matter how many times they play, Danny loves it!

"Peek... a-boo!" Jazz does little jazz-hands.

Danny disappears, and Jazz grins. "Where's Danny? Where'd he go?"

Danny reappears, and-

"B-b-boo!"

Jack and Maddie dart into the room! Maddie swoops Danny up, eyes wide!

Danny giggles, and says it again. "Boo!"

Maddie and Jackie both tear up. In unison they shout, "HIS FIRST WORD!"

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Danny gnaws on the toy with his little baby gums.

"I can't believe it. Already teething," Maddie sighs, holding him. "Seems like only yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital."

Jack wipes his eyes. "He's growing into a young man already."

"Oh, Jack, stop it, he's not nearly a young man."

"But he will be before we know it!"

Maddie pats her husband on the back comfortingly as he begins to blubber.

Maddie closes her eyes, thinking about those early months with Danny, figuring out how to prepare for his floating and invisibility, learning to not panic when his eyes and hair changed color, learning that sometimes when they do his clothes change color as well...

She's startled out of her thought by something warm and wet on her lap.

She looks down to see the teething toy on her thigh... and a whole lot of nothing where Danny's head should be.

Then it' back when she blinks, and he's beginning to whine for his toy.

She quickly picks him up off her laps and retrieves it, giving it back to him.

So... the ghost abilities are still developing, then. She'll have to let Jack know about this later.

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"Daniel Fenton," Jack says, the most serious Jazz has ever seen him, "You're in big trouble this time, mister. I don't know how you did this-"

Jack shakes the empty tube of baby snacks, safe for teething babies.

"But I will get to the bottom of it!"

"Look like he already did," Maddie jokes, setting Jazz's breakfast down for her.

Jazz laughs, because it sounds like a Smart Adult Joke and she thinks those are funny, even when she doesn't understand them.

Danny babbles, smacking his chair's food tray.

"Oh no you don't, mister! You're getting regular baby food this morning and that's all!" Jack grabs the jar of food, and holds up the spoon. "Now, here comes the Fenton Ghost-Tracking Copter!"

He puts the spoon up to Danny's mouth-

-and right through his head.

He gasps and pulls back, and Danny's head reappears. He babbles, smacking the tray again.

Maddie drops her fork. "I can't believe I forgot! That's what I was going to tell you about!"

Jazz looks at her parents. "You didn't know he does this?"

They both gawk at her. "You did?!"

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Danny reaches up and grabs Jazz's nose. Jazz wrinkles it, and he laughs.

Jazz sticks out her tongue and crosses her eyes, and Danny laughs even harder!

Jazz looks at her parents as they finish setting up the picnic blanket. "I'm the funniest big sister ever!"

"You sure are, sweetie!" Maddie scoops Jazz up and gives her a kiss on the cheek. "You get it from me."

Jack laughs. "It's true! Your mother could get the whole Ghost Hunting Club laughing out HAZMAT suits off all day long back in the day! ... 'Course it was just the three of us, but still, three's a crowd!"

"May as well have been doing stand-up," Maddie says, setting Jazz down on the blanket.

They enjoy the little outing, the sun shining but not beating down, the cool breeze just enough to crispen the air but not freeze.

And then Jazz looks at Danny. She sees glowing eyes, and a puff of breath come out of his mouth. "Uh-oh. Mommy! He's gonna cry!"

Maddie picks Danny up right as he starts to wail. She hugs him, and is shocked. He doesn't feel cold this time!

Is he just cold inside?

Or is there some other problem?

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Jack rubs his ears. "That child wails like a Banshee!"

"He could very well be doing exactly that," Maddie points out. "We still don't know what other abilities he'll develop as he ages!"

"Or how well he'll be able to control them. ... Mads... should we homeschool him?"

"It's a little early to worry about that, Jack."

"I know that tone, you're worrying about it too."

"... We can't just keep him isolated from the rest of the world, Jack. It'll be unhealthy for him. And what if it makes him lean into his ghost side too much?"

"So you think we should let him go to school."

"Yes. ... But not pre-school. We'll teach him to not use his abilities around other kids, and then send him to Kindergarten."

"... Alright, Mads. If you think that's what's best, then that's what's best!"

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"Come on, that's it! Yes, yes, WHOO!" Maddie picks Danny up as soon as he walks over. "Who's a strong little Fenton? Who's the best little boy at walking in the whole wide world?"

"Danny!" Jazz cheers from the couch.

"Danny!" Maddie and Jack both cheer at once.

Danny laughs and squeals, kicking his legs and flapping his arms. His first proper Walk! Not just a step or two and then crawling, that was real walking!

Jack takes Danny, holding him aloft. "You're a real butt-kicker in the making, son! You'll be as strong as your old man someda-"

Jack feels something bump him, hard.

He shouts as he goes down! Danny going with him!

But as Jack meets the floor, he feels Danny's weight disappear from his hands!

He lands with an "oof", and looks up to see Danny floating above him, surrounded by a faint white aura. Danny looks down and babbles, sucking his thumb. Then... he moves.

He's only ever floated in place before. But as he looks down at his dad, he kicks his little legs and moves! Moving right across the room!

And then he looks behind his dad, and his breath comes out in puffs. He starts crying and wailing hysterically.

Jazz peers at where Danny is looking. "Mommy, hit the air with the stick!"

Maddie gently grabs Danny. "Why, sweetie?"

"Danny is scared! So we have to protect him!"

Maddie grabs her Fenton Baton, and gives the area Danny was looking at a good thwack. She expects it to go right through the empty air.

Instead there's a loud zap! There's a cry of pain! And then a semi-transparent form zooming out of their house!

Maddie's jaw drops. Jack scrambles to his feet and grabs every ghost weapon in radius, forming a protective circle around the family with them!

Maddie looks at Danny, who's now calm.

And his breath isn't visible.

Hmm...

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"We're just seeing if my hypothesis is right," Maddie assures.

Jazz sobs, clinging onto her leg. "NOOOO! HE'LL GET HURT! OR STOLED!"

"Stolen, sweetie. And Mommy and Daddy would never let that happen."

Jazz scream-sobs again.

"What if we can promise you the ghost will be in a big, big box?"

Jazz looks at her mom with watery eyes. "Like around Danny's crib?"

"Yes, like that."

"But-but he's so little."

"It'll just be a second, sweetheart."

Jazz sniffles again. "... Can I hold the stick?"

Maddie smiles softly. "Yes, sweetie, you can hold the stick."

A couple hours later, Jack and Maddie return home with a ghost in a box. It's yelling something, but the box is soundproof.

Jack sets the box down, and goes to grab Danny. He comes back, and holds Danny firmly while walking towards the ghost. Danny's eyes are covered by a too-big hood on his little shirt. He can't see, or hear, that there's a ghost nearby.

Danny's breath comes out a visible puff about two feet away from the ghost, and he starts crying. Jack steps back a ways, and Danny's breaths become normal again. He settles down.

Jack walks closer. Puff of breath, and crying.

Jack steps back. Normal breath, calm Danny.

"He can sense ghost's," Maddie says, looking in awe at her baby boy. Her face breaks into a grin. "He's his own portable ghost detector! He'll never be caught unawares, he'll be able to always defend himself!"

She runs up to Jack and hugs them both, kissing Danny's little forehead. Danny babbles.

"He'll never be caught unawares," Maddie says again in relief. "Oh, this makes me feel so much better."

"Mommy? ... Does that mean we're haunted all the time?"

Maddie's relief hardens and breaks in her chest.

All those times Danny's Ghost Sense has gone off inside! All those times!

She pulls away. "Jack, we're upping our security!"

Jack nods. "Time for FentonWorks 2.0!"

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Danny giggles as his dad chases him around the house. He phases through doors and turns invisible in hiding places, always giving himself away with laughter.

Jack grabs Danny just before he phases through the next door. “Gotcha!”

Danny laughs, happy little kid squeals that you can hear through the whole house. Jack puts Danny on his shoulders and heads into the kitchen. “He’s getting pretty good at running! Say, whatcha making, Mads?”

“Meatloaf. Would you mind helping?”

Jack sets Danny down at the table and helps Maddie make dinner, while Danny eyes something on the counter.

“Cookie.”

Maddie looks over. Danny is staring at the cookie jar. “No sweetie, no cookies yet.”

“Cookie!”

“Not yet.”

Danny starts to cry. “Cookie!”

Maddie walks over, and gives Danny his binkie. Danny refuses it af first, but once he has it he calms down fast.

He looks at the cookie jar still, though.

And, slowly, he lifts out of his chair. He kicks his little legs, pushing himself forward. He plops down on the counter, and reaches into the jar with an intangible hand.

He pulls out not one, but two cookies!

He gets so excited that he starts waving his arms, making happy noises.

Jack looks over. “What? Maddie, he’s gotten into the cookie jar!”

“I’ve got it!” Maddie walks over and scoops Danny up in his old Anti-Ghost-Phasing Blanket. Soft, warm, and totally ghost-proof.

Danny whines. “Cookie!”

“I said not yet, honey.” Maddie grabs the cookies and puts them on the counter. She safety pins the blanket around Danny like a little cape, except it takes away his powers.

Danny sits in his chair, throwing a fit! But to no avail. Eventually he just sits there, tear-faced and angry.

And then Jazz walks in. She looks over at the cookies, and then at Danny.

She walks over and snatches them off the counter as quick as she can! She casually walks over to the table, and hands them to Danny.

Danny brightens up. He shoves one cookie in his mouth, and gives the other back to Jazz. His original intention.

Jazz smiles, and scarfs the cookie down just before Maddie turns around.

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“Why?” Danny looks at his mom with wide, innocent eyes.

Maddie’s heart aches. “People might get scared.”

Danny frowns. “Scawy?”

“No, no, you aren’t scary. But the... idea of ghosts, for a lot of people, can be scary.”

Danny thinks, and then walks over to the fridge. “Scawy.”

Maddie looks at the drawing Danny is pointing at. It’s Jazz’s drawing of The Ghost.

The one that’s been haunting them for months.

Black horns, it looks like. Red eyes. Deathly blue skin. It makes Maddie shiver, knowing it had direct access to her children for so long.

Danny starts to cry. “I scawy!”

Maddie scoops him up. “No, no sweetie! You are nothing like that monster, nothing like it at all! And you never will be, I promise!” Maddie hugs him tightly. “Oh, my poor baby... how about we take a break? Do you want to help Jazz paint something?”

Danny sniffles, and nods. They head upstairs, leaving the talk for another day.

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“Kindergarten, Jack,” Maddie says, packing the little lunch box. “He’s already in Kindergarten!”

Jack is already openly sobbing as he makes Jazz a sandwich.

“Do you think he understands what he needs to do?” Maddie asks no-one in particular, just worrying.

“He understands perfectly!”

Maddie jumps a little, and turns around to see Jazz smiling proudly. Danny stands right next to her, a shyer smile on his face. Maddie tears up at the sight of him with his little backpack and school outfit on.

Jazz looks at Danny. “Go ahead! Show them what we practiced!”

Danny puffs out his chest to look strong. “I won’t go through anything, turn invi-invisi- um, turn not-seeing-me, I won’t fly, and, um... and if I feel another ghost, I’ll use this!” He pulls his little Fenton Emergency Pager out of his pocket.

Maddie wipes her eyes. “Perfect, honey,” she says, letting the pride seep into her voice. “Oh, my baby boy! Growing up so fast!” She picks him up and kisses his face. Danny wraps his arms around her neck.

“Do I have to go, mommy? They’ll think I’m scary.”

“Oh, honey. You aren’t scary, I promise.”

“... What if I need to be scary?”

“Mommy will come be scary for you.”

“She very good at it,” Jack chimes in, shivering a little as he remembers the time a ghost attacked while Maddie was buying Danny’s first pair of little shoes. By the time it was over, Jack almost pitied the thing.

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Maddie gives Danny one last hug. “Remember, calls u anytime you need us, okay?”

He nods. “I love you, Mommy. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Jazz.”

“You’re just going to school, not saying bye forever.” Even as Jazz says it, her lip wobbles and her voice cracks.

Danny floats up to the car window give her a hug, before being quickly held up by Maddie to cover the power use.

“That’s the only time today you’ll do that,” she reminds him.

Danny nods.

Eventually... the goodbyes are done being dragged out. Danny’s family drives away as the teacher leads him inside.

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Danny sits on a swing by himself, not sure what to do.

Usually at home he plays using his powers. He doesn’t know how to be good at tag without making it so people can’t touch him, or how to play hide-and-seek without turning invisible.

He kicks the sand. This is stupid. He misses Jazz. He can play with her.

“Hi.”

Danny looks up. Another young boy is standing in front of him, holding some kind of electronic. The boy holds out his hand. “I’m Tucker.”

Danny shakes his hand, focusing very hard on keeping it a real hand. “I’m Danny.”

Tucker shows him the electronic. “Want to play my game?"

Danny looks at it. It’s a coloring game. He nods.

They pass it back and forth between each other for a while, both coloring in different parts of the same picture.

Eventually it’s time to back in. Danny and Tucker ask if they can sit closer together.

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“So, how was it?” Maddie asks, gripping the steering wheel tightly as she picks Danny up. “Have fun?”

“I made a friend!” Danny yells! “His name is Tucker and he’s really nice!”

Maddie relaxes. “Oh? How did you meet?”

“He let me play his coloring game!”

“That’s wonderful!”

“We made a tower out of blocks and it was the strongest ever! And I never used my powers!”

“I’m so proud of you, sweetie!”

Maybe Maddie can stop worrying now. ... Probably not.

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“What if we gave it big scary horns?” Danny says as he doodled something in crayon. “Like the thing that watches my window.”

Tucker looks at him with wide eyes. “A monster watches you?”

“My parents don’t let it touch me. They hunt ghosts.”

“Oh. Do you hunt ghosts?”

Danny shakes his head. “I’m too little.”

“Oh. Me too.”

“You should give it bat wings.”

They both look up. The quiet girl who usually sits in the back is standing in front of them, her hair pulled back in a tight black braid and her clothes perfectly pressed.

Danny looks at the drawing, and nods. He adds the wings. “We’re drawing the monster from that story we heard today.”

The girl sits down. “I bet it had claws. And could breathe black fire!”

Danny adds them on. “You’re really smart!”

The girl nods. “I am.”

“I’m Danny.”

“I’m Tucker!”

The girl grins. “I’m Samatha.”

“Wow... that’s a long name,” Danny says, eyes wide. “My sister has a long name too. Do all girls have long names?”

Samantha thinks. “I dunno. I haven’t met all girls.”

“Oh. We don’t know all boys, either.”

They spend the rest of free time coloring. Once it’s over, Samantha moves to sit with them.

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“So, how was today, sweetie?”

“I made another friend! She’s really good, and her parents make her have long hair but she wants it short, and we made this with her!” He shows Maddie the drawing.

Maddie grimaces a little, but turns it into a smile. “It’s lovely, dear. Looks... a little like Jazz’s picture.”

Danny nods.”The monster in the story lived in the window. So does this ghost.”

“... What?”

“He lives by my window. But he can’t come inside, so I make faces at him and make him mad.”

Maddie speeds up a little. “Danny, we’re going to be altering your windows when we get home. Okay?”

“Okay.”

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Danny leads Sam and Tucker to his room with his tiny arms full of snacks. He brings them inside, and proudly stands in the middle. “This is my room!”

"Cool!” Tucker exclaims. “Whoa, you have a computer?”

Danny shakes his head. “That’s to keep ghosts out. Ghosts hate us.”

“You’ve seen some?” Samantha asks, eyes wide.

Danny grins. “So many!”

“Can we see some?”

“Sure, I can even-”

They hear a gasp in the doorway. Turning to look, they see Jazz. “Danny, you didn’t let me meet your friends!”

Danny looks horrified. “Oh no!” He runs over and pulls Jazz into the room. “This is my big sister Jazz! She’s the coolest big sister!”

“I’m Tucker!”

“I’m Sam!”

Jazz grins. “Guess what I learned yesterday?” She points out of the room. “How to use the remote!”

The trio of toddler’s eyes sparkle. They cheer for Jazz as all of them descend, ready to Take Control Of The TV!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“-and this is The Box Ghost,” Danny says, showing his friends the doodle him and Jazz made at home. “He’s silly. He wants to be scary, but he isn’t.”

Tucker and Samantha nods like it the most important thing they’ll ever learn.

Danny pulls out the next drawing. “This is Scary, the ghost from my window.” It’s a new drawing, a little more detailed thanks to Jazz being better at drawing now. And Danny having seen the face so, so many times. “I don’t see him anymore. Mom and Dad kicked him out of the window.”

“He’s ugly,” Samantha says, wrinkling her nose.

“He looks stinky,” Tucker agrees.

Danny looks over at the window. “Shhhh! He’s here!”

Tucker and Samantha look at the window. They see nothing.

They look back at Danny. They see little puffs coming out of his mouth, and his eyes are the wrong color.

Danny pulls his pager out. “It’s okay. Mommy will come scare him away.”

“We can’t see him,” Samantha says.

Danny nods. “He’s hard to see.”

“Do you have to have glowy eyes like yours?” Tucker asks. “I have to have glasses. Are your eyes like Ghost Glasses?”

Danny thinks, and then nods. “I guess so. ... OH NO!” He covers his eyes. “You aren’t supposed to see that!”

“Why not?”

“Mommy said it’s a secret! You’ll think I’m scary!”

“But it’s not scary.”

Danny tilts his head, still covering his eyes. “It’s not?”

“No, it’s cool!”

He slowly uncovers his eyes. “... Do... you think this is scary?” He holds out his arm, and makes it invisible.

Tucker and Samantha gasp! Danny pulls his arm back, about to cry. They think he’s scary, they won’t be his friends anymore-

“That’s so cool,” Samantha says.

“I wanna do that!” Tucker exclaims.

Danny can’t believe it for a second. And then he grins. “I can do more stuff too! I’ll show you at my house!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maddie paces the floor while Danny sits on the couch, his little face burning with shame.

Jazz sits next to him, arms crossed. Jack stands in front of him, Maddie pacing beside her husband.

“You told your friends?” Maddie asks again.

Danny nods, keeping his head low. “I didn’t mean to. I saw Scary, and my eyes turned green, and I can’t fix that.”

Maddie sighs. “I know, sweetie, but you showed them more after! We caught you flying them around your room! How can you even carry both of them at once?!”

“It’s easy when I’m a ghost,” he says, still keeping his head low. “Everything’s easy when I’m a ghost.”

Maddie stops pacing. “Oh, sweetie... I know it must be strange for you to suddenly have to hide it.”

Danny nods. He sniffles a little.

“It’s for your own safety, son,” Jack says. “You understand that, right? We just want you to be safe.”

“Other kids can be mean, Danny,” Jazz says. “I’m smart, and some kids are mean to me for that.”

“But Samantha and Tucker aren’t mean!”

“No, they aren’t,” Maddie concedes. “... I guess what’s done is done. Danny?” She kneels down in front of him and gently lifts his head up, wiping his tears away. “We aren’t mad. We’re worried. They’re your friends, but they also don’t understand this the way we do.”

“... Can you make them understand?”

Maddie nods. “We’ll absolutely have a talk with them. You can go get them from your room right now, even. But Danny? No-one else. Okay? These two kids are the only kids you will ever tell. Promise?”

Danny nods, still sniffling. “Promise.”

Maddie puts on her HAZMAT glove and holds out her pinkie. “Fenton promise?”

Danny links her pinkie with his, letting it go ghostly. “Fenton promise, Mommy.”

“Okay. You can send your friends down now.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny waits for his mom to come pick him up, Samantha and Tucker sitting next to him.

Samantha looks up suddenly. “I don’t like my name.”

Danny and Tucker look at her.

She stands up. “From now on, my name is... is Sam!”

Danny and Tucker clap, because they learned that’s the polite thing to do when someone has a dramatic moment like this. They learned it from watching the older kids do a play.

Sam sits back down. “I’m Sam,” she says happily. “Sam.”

“Sam is a good name,” Danny says.

“Easier to write,” Tucker says.

“Yeah.” Sam is very proud of her new name.

They wait a bit longer, and a long black car pulls up. Sam stands up, but her parents don’t step out.

A tall, white-haired man does, one none of them have ever met before. He smiles down at them. “Hello, Danny. Hello, Danny’s friends.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of Danny’s parents,” he says, giving a slight bow (or maybe just bending over to hear them better since they’re so much shorter than him).

“I don’t know you,” Danny says, accusatory. “Mrs. Emma told us about people like you!”

The Man shakes his head. “I’m not a stranger, I promise. Your parents and I are very close.”

“I don’t know you,” Danny says again. He steps between The Man and his friends. “I’m gonna tell Mrs. Emma on you.”

“Danny, really, your mother called and asked me to pick you up.”

“You liar! She always picks me up!”

“She’s fighting a ghost right now.”

“She leaves fights to come get me!”

The Man sighs. He grabs Danny’s arm. “Stubborn like your parents. Come on, I promise you’ll be fine.”

“NO!” Danny yanks his arm, trying to get away. “LET GO OF ME!”

“Stop making a scene!”

“LET GO! YOU-”

Danny gaps, a puff of breath coming out and his eyes turning green.

“S-Scary,” he whimpers. “SCARY! MOMMY! MOMMMYYYY! SCARY HAS ME!!! HELP!!!”

Danny yanks again, Tucker and Sam finally running inside to get Mrs. Emma!

The Man scowls. “I’m trying to help you, little badger!”

“YOU’RE THE SCARY IN THE WINDOW!” Danny looks at him with bright eyes, tearful and afraid. “GET AWAY!!!”

Danny’s little hand glows green, and suddenly The Man is clutching his stomach instead of Danny’s arm. Danny runs inside, right into Mrs. Emma’s arms. He sobs to her as she frantically calls the police, trying to read the plate of the car speeding off into the distance.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maddie hands Jazz a Baton. “This is in case this ‘Scary’ come after you,” Maddie says, still shaking a bit. “Okay?”

Jazz nods.

“Danny, this is for you.” Maddie hands him a black-and-white suit. “This is to keep other ghosts from sensing you, okay? So wear it under your clothes.”

Danny nods, still crying.

Maddie looks at Sam and Tucker. Their parents were late picking them up, but with the attempted kidnapping it was decided that they’ll stay with The Fentons for a few hours until their parents could get them.

“You two get these.” She hands them Fenton Pagers, and Fenton Fun-Sized Ghost Stunners. “They can hurt people too, so only use them on ghosts. Or if someone tries to do... what you saw today, ever again.”

Sam and Tucker nod.

“And Danny? From now on, wait with Mrs. Emma until we come inside to get you.”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“And when I get my hands on this ‘Scary’, I promise you’ll never have to worry about him again.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny looks around to see if anyone is watching. He, Tucker, and Sam are crouched under a desk in the classroom while everyone else is out at recess.

He holds out his hand to the stack of paper, and closes his eyes. For a second, nothing happens.

And then it glows green, and a small beam shoots from his hand! Tucker and Sam gasp!

“You’re like a superhero!” Tucker exclaims, standing up.

“A ghost superhero!” Sam says, standing up too. “You need a superhero name!”

Danny shoots up, smiling widely. “What should it be?”

They all think for a long, long time.

Sam perks up. “I know!”

She grabs a book from the corner. The book is a Halloween one, mostly for pictures with just a few words. She flips to a page, and points to it. “This word! It means Ghost!”

Danny and Tucker peer at it. “How do you say it?” Tucker asks.

Sam grins. “Phantom!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Phantom?” Maddie says, looking at the doodle.

Jack nods. “Apparently Sam came up with it! Our boy wants to be a ghost hunter after all!”

“Superhero, this says.”

“Same thing!”

“Jack, what’re you making there?”

Jack holds up the suit, one of the prototype Anti-Ghost-Detection suits for Danny. “I got out my old needlepointing stuff and am making him a superhero costume! See, it’s a P!”

Maddie squints, trying to get a better look at the outline. “It looks like a D.”

Jack looks at it. “Hmm. I guess from some angles. But it’s a P! Or, DP! Danny Phantom!”

Maddie’s expression goes soft. “Awww! Okay, you keep making that, and I’ll hang this doodle on the fridge! But no actual ghost fighting until he’s at least fourteen, right?”

“Absolutely!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny steps into the school “Halloween Party” with his hands on his hips and a bright grin, looking like a mini-version of his dad behind him.

“Aww, and what are you dressed as, Danny?” Mrs. Emma asks.

“A superhero ghosthunter!” Danny says proudly. “My parents made this for me!”

“It’s great,” Mrs. Emma says genuinely. “Alright, go mingle! We’re going to make paper jack-o-lanterns later so now is the time to trade candies!”

Danny walks over to his friends, still striking the pose. Tucker, dressed as a robot made out of cardboard boxes, pouts in slight jealousy as Danny comes over. Sam, dressed as a vampire, grins. “P for Phantom!” she yells.

Danny runs over faster. “Yeah! My dad put the logo on!” He shows it off proudly. “I’m gonna be the best ghosthunter ever!”

“You can work from the inside!” Tucker says, getting over his jealousy thankfully quick. “Make them think you wanna haunt stuff too!”

“Yeah!” Danny strikes another pose. “But I’m actually going to catch them all, because I’m Danny Phantom!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny and Jazz are playing with dolls in the living room. “Pow! Take that!” Danny shouts, making his doll punch Jazz’s.

“Nooo!” Jazz cries out in a husky voice. “But how? I’m The Scary! Nothing can not fear me!”

“I don’t fear you!” Danny waves the hand of his doll, making laser noises. Jazz shakes her doll around, making dying noises. “I’m Danny Phantom, the strongest ghost boy ever!”

“Nooooo!”

Maddie chuckles, watching them. “That Scary better watch out for more than just us.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Where are we going?” Danny asks again.

“It’s a surprise!” Jack says again, still as excited as when the road trip started.

Danny huffs, looking out the window again. “Why couldn’t Sam and Tucker come?”

“Because they’re spending Summer visiting their families,” Maddie says. “And so are we, sort of.”

“I though Auntie lived in Spittoon,” Jazz says.

“She does! This is different.”

After hours (years in the minds of the kids), they pull up to a mansion. All fo the boredom washes away instantly, Jazz and Danny cramming into the window to see it!

“Are we rich?” Jazz demands to know.

“We’re well-off, but not quite. Welcome to your honorary Uncle Vlad’s house!” Maddie cheers.

“Vlad was out best friend in college!” Jack says, grinning. “He got back in contact with us a few years ago and we’ve been thick as thieves since! He asked us too come over this weekend, and we thought we’d surprise him and let him meet your two at the same time!”

Danny and Jazz cheer! THEY GET TO STAY IN A MANSION!

The family piles out of the car, and stand in front of the door! Maddie and Jack make sure Jazz and Danny look extra nice, and ring the doorbell!

It takes a long minute, so they ring it again!

Finally, a man opens it up! “Oh, Maddie, Jack, I’m so sorry I didn’t hear-”

Danny shrieks. His eyes are glowing bright as they can, his breaths giant puffs! He holds up his hand and send a little beam right into Vlad’s side!

Vlad falls back with an “Oof!”

“Danny!” Maddie scoops him up. “What on earth has gotten into you? Oh, Danny!”

Danny is sobbing pointing at Vlad. “It-it’s him! The-The Scary! He-he tried to take me!”

Maddie and Jack freeze. Slowly, they both look at Vlad. Jazz pulls out her Baton.

“Vlad?” Maddie says coldly.

“Didn’t I only invite you two?” Vlad wheezes.

Jack points a ghost detector at Vlad. It goes off.

“Now, now, I can explai- AGCK!”

Jazz starts happening him with the Baton before he can finish his sentence. Maddie hands Danny to Jack. “Sweetie, close the door and take Danny back to the truck. I need to have a word with Vlad.”

Jack does as told, holding Danny in his lap and soothing him.

“He-he tried to take me,” Danny sobs again.

“Don’t worry, son.” Jack hugs him tightly. “No-one’s ever going to be able to do that. We’ll always keep you safe. We promise.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“And what do we always wear while testing new devices?” Maddie asks, handing Danny a Fenton Ghost-Zapper that would use Danny’s own ghost energy to work.

Danny grins, and puts it on. “Face mask!”

“Because?”

“Because lab safety is very important!”

Maddie grins. “That’s right! And who do we thank for reminding us of that every time we’re in the lab?”

Danny points. “Jazz! Thank you, Jazz!”

Jazz grins proudly.

#danny phantom #Danny Fenton #Jazz Fenton #jack fenton #maddie fenton #vlad masters #vlad plasmius #kidnapping tw #attempted kidnapping #fanfic #my attempts at fanfic

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tranzfalgar · 3 years

Text

okay it’s time for some stardew valley headcanons for the bachelor/ette(s) so let’s GOOOO

Alex:

- he always awakes before his grandparents, and on warmer days he’ll go down to the beach to watch the sunrise.

- friends with elliot! the two of them sit on the side of the dock sometimes and just chat about life.

- knows how to make cookies, as evelyn taught him when he was a bit younger

- wary of the saloon, as he doesn’t really like the smell of alcohol and only goes into it if he’s forced to!

- if you marry him, he can and will pick you up randomly to surprise you while you’re working!

- if married, he will “bench press” your kids once they become toddlers, and it always makes them giggle

- hates the winter and gets cold really easily. on the first day of fall he’s already bundled up wanting it to be summer again.

Elliot:

- willy is like a father to him. the two of them sit on the docks and watch the fish swim by together

- sometimes he’ll braid his hair, and leah will bring flowers from the forest and weave them into his hair.

- has a rlly pretty singing voice, and likes to record piano covers in his spare time

- if you marry him and the two of u have kids, he’ll always braid their hair in the morning and tuck flowers behind their ears.

- he brings home fresh fish he caught and makes himself dinner every night. that’s why he’s an excellent cook.

- has actually caught a legendary fish before!

- his eyes change color, they can go from blue to green to brown in the same day. people call them the “prismatic shard of eyes”

Harvey:

- he’s so clumsy that sometimes he’ll even trip over air. due to this, he has little bruises all over his knees and elbows.

- his favorite animals are birds. sometimes he’ll go outside and just give them some bird seed. he loves watching them fly around.

- not only is he fascinated with planes, but he’s also fascinated with the weather. as a kid he used to watch the weather channel, and he dreamed of becoming a weatherman.

- when he needs to focus really hard, he’ll pull his hair back with a headband

- him and his mother were and still are very close, and he writes letters to her at least once a week

- he cannot cook to save his life, but he’s an incredible baker! will make you little treats if you’re friends or married

- he always wears a wristwatch, but the time is always 6 minutes behind. he likes it because it has a plane engraved into the side against his wrist.

Sam:

- he had adhd, and his stims include flapping his hands, tapping his foot and strumming his guitar

- he has a beautiful singing voice, think like wilbur soot but a bit more high pitched?

- the reason he likes cactus fruit so much is because he just plants them and lets them grow. he loves succulents because they don’t give him an allergic reaction!

- cannot play video games for shit. sebastian and abigail have banned him from multi-player games because he just sucks so bad.

- love language is acts of service, simply because he likes singing for people he cares about and doing little things for them!

- if you marry him, he will bring his guitar into the coop and/or barn and sing to the animals. they have learned to run over a greet him, since they love his singing.

- his hair is actually curly, but you’re unable to tell due to how much he gels and straightens his hair.

- has mastered the art of the puppy dog eyes

Sebastian:

- loves the hell out of halloween, but is scared of literally everything. he nearly cried watching a horror movie with sam and abigail.

- really good with a slingshot! so if he were to go into the mines, he would wreck some monsters shit with his slingshot skills

- he had glow in the dark stars on his ceiling, but removed them. he used to love the stars and space, but came to resent them because it was his sisters thing.

- he like…irl blushes. like an anime character. when he’s embarrassed, upset, flustered, his face will go all pink. everyone picks on him for it.

- has/had a crush on most of the towns singles. he is a bisexual disaster and secretly a romantic so….take from that what you will.

- a natural born ginger, but dyes his hair. he also has freckles on his nose! and he has an eyebrow slit because of a scar!!

- for some stupid reason, he takes really good care of his hands? like he always makes sure they don’t get calloused, and his nails are always painted black, despite using his hands all the time for work.

Shane:

- he cannot cook. he burned pasta noodles because he didn’t know you had to put water in the pan.

- he still has a chicken plushie from when he was a baby, and it still sits on his bed. and if he cuddles with it at night? no one needs to know.

- has a huge birthmark on his side shaped like a heart

- really good at mixology, so i think that when joja gets shut down, shane works at the saloon and makes the drinks while gus cooks. he adds a whole new section on the menu!

- friends with sebastian. they paint each other’s nails from time to time, or sit in the rain together and just talk.

- kinda strong as hell? he lifts boxes in joja for work, as well as carrying around jas, so i’m assuming he could just….pick the farmer and his friends up?

- he has the most contagious laugh, it used to be a rare sound, but now that it’s a pretty common occurrence, shane makes people laugh all the time with his own laugh.

Abigail:

- buff. she is buff as hell. her and alex work out together sometimes, since she expressed a desire for adventure. she has picked up sam and sebastian with no warning and thrown them into the ocean

- can talk to animals due to her being the daughter of the wizard! so sometimes she’ll go to marnies farm and just chat with the cows or something

- if she sees a tree, she WILL climb it. she loves it so much, it’s just so adrenaline inducing for her.

- her and sebastian tried to go into the mines before but sam stopped them because it wouldn’t have been very safe. they were all 14.

- trying to learn to play the ukulele with a little help from sam. it’s frustrating, but she really likes the sound of it, and she’s determined as hell.

- absolutely cracked at any and all video games he plays. mario kart? she will kick your ass. animal crossing? her island has 5 stars. pokémon? she always wins. you can’t stop her, she’s too powerful.

- she has glasses, but prefers contacts, since glasses would get in the way of her adventuring.

Emily:

- not only can she sew, but she also makes her own soaps and candles! any form of creation she adores.

- loves flowers, and has a lot of little potted ones in her room. she raises them, gives them little names and personalities, and then brings them to sandy and tells her all about each flower

- she can roller skate, and it’s her preferred method of transportation. she can do a bunch of fun tricks as well!

- has an eyebrow slit

- making cute little baskets of homemade gifts is her favorite thing to do for her friends. sometimes she’ll just leave them on their doorsteps for no reason other than she wants to!

- can SPRINT in heels. like even 6 inch heels she can just RUN and it scares everyone who sees it.

- she loves the sounds of birds chirping in the morning, and she’s able to identify the name of the bird by its chirping and calls

Haley:

- is able to perfectly crack and drink from coconuts. that’s why she loves them so much.

- has the worst sense of direction. she’s lucky she lives in a small town, or she’d get lost all the time

- the spring is her favorite time of year, simply because she loves to capture life coming back in those spring months. baby animals, blooming flowers, her friends on the beach or just chilling in the sun, all of it

- her most prized possession is the very first picture her and emily took as kids on their parents polaroid. it’s taped to her mirror

- has a little beauty mark under her lip, but it normally isn’t visible due to being covered with makeup!

- she’s able to do her own nails! this is because she is ambidextrous, yet she doesn’t know, because it’s never been brought up

- she fucking LOVES learning about and identifying plants, trees and flowers. she knows so many it’s crazy. she has a great memory.

Leah:

- resident true crime enthusiast and ghost hunter. she drags elliot with her around town to go hunting for ghosts. they also watch documentaries together!

- has a bunch of little scars on her hands from her artwork

- to get inspiration for works, she’ll go on walks at different times of the day, different seasons, different routes, and she’ll turn each walk into a work of art. depending on all the environment and those who she runs into, each piece is vastly different.

- animals love her, and will sometimes just follow her around for no reason. she doesn’t mind at all, she kinda loves it.

- friends with emily. they are currently teaching each other their own forms of art, since they love learning from each other!

- really good at dancing, she’ll dance while she’s working on projects and she’ll hum a song to herself

- her favorite statue was created after she went on a walk, ran into abigail, and the two of them went swimming in the ocean and stayed there as the sun set and the stars came out. she has a little crush on abigail.

Maru:

- her hair is ALWAYS tied up, it’s impossible for her to work if her hair is in her eyes

- when she was a kid she wanted to be an astronaut, because she loves the stars, but she found she prefers the science and math behind it all

- she pierced her own ears, she has little star earrings!

- watches cartoons and geeks out about them with penny when they meet up in town!

- for some odd reason, she is terrified of butterflies. no one who knows her, or even maru herself have ANY idea why, but she will run away if she sees one.

- her favorite memory was the one night her and sebastian stayed up really late as kids and snuck outside to look at the stars (back when sebastian still loved them) and they ended up seeing a meteor shower

- she presses flowers as a hobby, and just keeps them in a little notebook alongside her ideas for projects and gadgets.

Penny:

- while she’s cleaning her and pam’s home, she finds herself singing to herself. she has yet to be caught by anyone

- each day, her hair is done ever-so-slightly different. each morning, she likes to change it up, and sometimes jas or vincent will give her something to put in her hair

- also interested in ghosts, will occasionally join elliot and leah on their adventures

- she is naturally really warm, so she doesn’t have to bundle up as much during the winter. the kids cling to her because she’s like a human space heater

- has a bit of a geeky side, and she loves to watch cartoons a lot. when she can find the time, she always watches them. they being her lots of comfort.

- has a small scar on her side from when she tripped over as a child onto something sharp. she likes it because with two freckles, it makes a little smiley face

- loves the water and the feeling of sea wind in her hair. she secretly wants to learn to drive a boat, so she can feel that wind in her hair whenever she wants.

#stardew #stardew valley #sdv alex #sdv elliott #sdv harvey #sdv sam #sdv sebastian #sdv shane #sdv abigail #sdv emily #sdv haley #sdv leah #sdv maru #sdv penny #stardew valley headcanons

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sweetsbfreex · 3 years

Text

a styles vacation to Hawaii

Summary: a little continuation of this family. The styles take a vacation to Hawaii with mild bumps in the road.

a/n: no warnings, but harry is not famous in this. I’ve never been to Hawaii and do not much of the hawaiian attire/culture, i just did research and put what i found. If there’s any misconceptions or if i’ve offended anyone by accident pls lmk!

Pairings: Dad, Husband!Harry

“Honey, you have to let go so we’re not late for the plane” Harry grunts, trying to stealthily pull Ava away from her hold on Milo.

“No! We can’t leave Mimi” she cries out, cuddling her face into the pup’s fur even more.

“Mimi has to stay with nan, honey” From his tone you can tell he’s losing patience.

It’s a definite eyesore. The whole situation takes place on your mother's porch. You were all meant to say your goodbyes before the three of you–– no Milo–– go off on a small vacation to Hawaii.

Ava is holding on to the australian shepherd, not letting up one bit. You would think she glued herself onto him without anyone knowing, with how she latched on.

Milo in front of your mother's feet, enjoying what he thinks is a hug it seems. Only letting out long whines when Ava's sobs get out of control.

Harry is standing behind Ava, bent at the wait trying to pry her off her best friend.

You're crouched beside her, a hand on her back, trying to convince her to let go.

Ava's poor grandmother stands in the doorway. A look of agony on her face as she watches it all go down.

The–– now three year old–– has been throwing a hissy fit in the car, holding onto Milo's paw. Ever since Harry informed her how they were going to her nan's house to drop off Milo and then hurry to the plane. She saw the news like a terrible taste in her mouth, while she stared at you both in the rearview mirror eyes widened.

You know how much the two love each other, but you didn't expect her to throw a fit like this.

“Ava I know you’re upset but, you gotta let go honey so Mimi can have fun with grandma. Don’t you want to go on the airplane, hm? Weren’t you excited about it?” You ask her, beginning to unclasp one hand and go for the other, trying to bring into your arms.

But with quickness, she remembered the only way she would be able to go on this vacation. Without Milo, she wraps her arms around Milo again.

“Baby, Milo has to stay. Dog’s aren’t allowed in Hawaii” At this moment, Harry is willing to try anything.

“They’re not?” she asks, tilting her head back a little to see her father’s face.

“Nope, Milo won’t have fun there. He’ll have more fun with Nana” he tells her, bringing his thumbs down to wipe away the tears.

“...I wanna stay with Mimi!”

Milo doesn’t eject this idea, letting his chin rest on her small shoulder. You and Harry huff in frustration, glancing at each other. Your mother...well she’s had enough of whatever foolishness you and H are pulling right now.

“Okay enough of this” your mother starts, gaining everyone’s attention. “Ava, honeybee, Tell Milo and your grandma see you later and let go of him so you can have fun on your trip with your parents.” She says this with a stern, yet loving tone. Down to business and nothing else.

“Yes nana” she mumbles, placing a few kisses to Milo’s cheek and glides to your mom.

You and Harry look at each other in an instant, eyes wide at the way your mother fixed the problem in less than a minute. A mutual look of what the fuck, as in the what the fuck were you possibly doing wrong.

“Thanks mum.” Harry says sheepish, looking at the calming little one swaying in your mother’s arms.

“Yeah thanks mom” you say, standing up straight.

“No problem, Now get going, before she fusses again”

You all exchange your see you laters. Ava has yet another sweet moment with Milo. While Harry tells her she won't be staying in Hawaii forever and Milo won't stay with Nana forever. As you're driving away you all wave at the two, Ava yelling to Milo.

“Bye Mimi! See you soon! Don’t chase a squirrel when I’m gone!” She yells out the window, her arm waving in the wind.

You and Harry share a chuckle. Despite what she may think, Milo has never chased a squirrel in his life. She's watched it once on a cartoon and it somehow filled her heard with the imaginary scenario.

When both her grandmother and bestfriend are out of sight, she turns her head to the other window. A solemn look on her face, looking out the window like the Kermit the Frog meme.

You play the Frozen 2 soundtrack for the less pouty girl behind you. But when you don't hear the shrill sound of her singing, you look behind you to see an upset look upon her cherub face.

Her bottom lip is juts out, her hands fisted and arms crossed.

“You okay?” you ask her, turning in your seat to cradle her knee.

She’s dressed cutesy in a matching sweat set and a cute beanie rested over her plaits.

“No. I’m upset and I wanna yell” she looks at you, resting her case, before she turns her head back to its original spot.

Harry peeks at the interaction through the rear view mirror; an eyebrow quirked. One hand on the wheel while the other takes its natural spot in your lap, your fingers tangled with his.

“Why are you upset?” you ask.

“Because…” she groans, trying to figure out her ‘big feelings’. “You left Mimi and now he’ll hate me”

“He won’t hate you, you’re his favorite person”

“You guys don’t love me either!” She whines, glaring out the window. Wigging in her spot, causing your hand to fall from her knee.

“That’s not true! We love you” you exclaim, in a loving manner.

“Then get Mimi”

“Mimi is staying with grandma Ava, enough.” Harry’s voice catches her attention immediately. “ It's okay to be upset but Hawaii doesn’t accept dogs, remember?”

She only huffs, dropping her hands from her chest.

“Can you play the when I am older song, please mommy?” she almost whispers.

You accept her request, turning so you’re seated right. Playing the song and hearing her sing eases your glazed stare a bit. Releasing a breath and closing your eyes as you rest your head against the window adds a bit to your release.

Harry raises the entangled hands away from your lap, placing an adored kiss to the back of your hand. Sending a quick questioning look your way.

“I’m fine” you send back, in a smile. No mother wants to hear those words.

He can’t do much with him driving and with Ava in the car. So he places a kiss to the back of your hand once more, and extends his hand so he caresses the back of your neck.

“You’re doing a great job, stop being so hard on yourself” he encourages.

If your mom was here she’d give you a tip or two on how you and Harry are too soft on Ava. You couldn’t help leaving all the disciplining to Harry, you probably were definitely too soft on her at times.

Through all the pouting, belting of kid songs, and Harry's annoying jokes and teasing. Five hours later you've made it to the resort.

At the moment, Harry was checking you both in while you and Ava looked around the gift shop. When you feel someone’s arm come around your shoulder, you jump. But the feeling of his cold rings and brings you down.

“Scared me, don’t do that” a breath of relief follows as you tilt your head back onto his shoulder. He gets the memo immediately, leaning down for a peck to the lips.

“Made a friend in the lobby.” He tells you like nothing. Eyes shifting at his little girl looking through the stuffed animals and keychains.

“Are you okay?” you ask in disbelief.

“What?” he laughs, one eyebrow perched.

“Like in the head”

“I’m not following…”

“Why are you so good at making friends with strangers this easily? Seriously.”

He laughs you off like it’s nothing, but it’s uncomic. You wish you could blame it on being shy, but compared to Harry it was not that easy for you to chat up strangers enough that you become acquaintances.

Your husband could make friends with a duck if he wanted to. Everywhere you went. Whether in the ice cream shop a few miles away at home or the park where you took Ava all the time .He was always chatting with someone, in the end pulling you in.

He only laughs it off, beyond doubt enjoying the look on your face. “We agreed to save each other a seat at the Luau tonight, for whoever gets there first. Talked to the husband actually, but you’ll see”

“You’re insane” you tease him.

“Can I have this?” A teal, stuffed sea turtle is thrusts in the direction of you and Harry.

“How do we ask nicely” you say.

“Can I get this?” she smiles, a smile so sweet, your tooth hurts from looking at it. She’s the most adorable thing and knows exactly how to use it to her advantage.

“My sweet little baby.” Harry crooned, advancing to her, lifting her into his tattooed arms. Placing a series of kisses to her plump cheeks. She giggles, never wanting the affection to stop. “You can have it,” he tells her. “Let’s go to the till.”

“Harry you didn’t even check the price” you chimed in.

“Shh. We’re having a moment” he acknowledged. He outstretches his arm, so his palm meets your face gently. You laugh into it, before you smack his wrist away, then placing a light kiss to his wrist when he whines.

It’s some hours later. You’re all getting ready for the hotel’s hosted dinner/Luau tonight. The three of you took a two and a half hour nap.

You were touching up your light makeup while Harry got Ava ready. He lost two rounds of rock-paper-scissors and now must deal with the havoc that is dressing Ava.

“Baby, get the trousers mommy picked out for you” you Harey him tell Ava.

“Trousers?” She says the word with confusion, “Don’t have trousers babe? That’s a silly word.”

Then you hear the raspy laugh of Harry.

“Your pants, get your pants and your top too”

Not even a minute later do you hear Harry asking her to stop wiggling around.

Harry walks in the bathroom, a giggling Ava sat on his hip.

Harry adores a very laid back...dad look you could say. The back of the white wife beater he’s wearing get’s covered by a black button up shirt with flamingos patterned all over it. He’s also wearing a pair of shorts and his favorite vans.

Ava’s tucked into a set. a cami top with matching flared pants and sunflowers ornamented the black fabric.

“Oooh look at mumma, beautiful huh?” he asks Ava, extending one hand towards you, once you clasp your hands in his, he spins you letting his eyes sink in.

“Yeah!”

“Thank you both” you smile as Harry tugs you in for a swift kiss.

You had picked out an angelic, ivory crochet set. The top you’re wearing shows off your midriff and the long, flowy skirt matches with beautiful lace detailing.

You turn to Ava to give her a kiss on her cheek. “You look so handsome.” you tell Harry, letting your hand run through his hair. “And you look so adorable, you like your outfit?” taking her from Harry’s hands.

“Yeah, I like the flowers–– Can I have some too?” she points to the plethora of makeup products spread over the bathroom counter.

Looking over at Harry for his confirmation, he nods. You take the brush running it over the blush, before brushing it over her chubby cheeks and her nose.

“Tickles,” she laughs, pushing your hand away.

“Are you ladies ready to go?”

“Wow! Look the fires!” She points at the lines of tiki torches submerged into the sand, jumping as she sits on your hip.

The layout is stunning. There’s a stage for the performance, round tables spread out everywhere across the beach, and a buffet in the back.

Most of the tables are already filled, albeit the show was to start in like twenty minutes.

“There they are, over there” Harry indicated, his hand waving back at a family of four.

With Harry’s hand settled on your back, he weaved the three of you to the table.

“Hey Shawn.” Harry greeted, their hands clasped together as they brought each other in, clapping each other on the back.

Shawn was a tall man, a few inches taller than Harry, and very built. He had amazing brown skin, clear like a mirror, and was bald––which he pulled off effortlessly.

“This is my wife, y/n and my daughter Ava” he smiled at the two of you, while you shook hands with Shawn and asked Ava to say a hello. Which she did, like bursting a ball of energy as put her hands out for a handshake like she watched her parents do. It caused a laugh out of everyone. She didn’t know why they were laughing at her, but she enjoyed the attention.

“This is my wife Avni” you hugged, as close as you could, with a petite, expecting Indian woman. She was radiant as she smiled at you and Harry. “These are my kids Grey and Aster” you shook hands with them both.

Grey looked about Ava’s age, bouncy coils moving as he bobbed up and down in his seat. His sister, who looked in her tweens, sported the same hair texture. Aster more silent of the two sent her greetings kindly.

“And the third is still cooking in here” he laughed, setting his hands down on Avni’s early protruding belly.

With that joke, you understand exactly how the two of them got to know each other, as Harry joined in with his laugh. The wives chuckled amongst themselves.

“How far along are you?” you solicited.

“Three and a half months” Avni smiled proudly, rubbing both hands around her belly.

You cooed, “It’s amazing, you’re literally glowing. You're making me miss being pregnant” you joke.

“Okay! Enough of that. One little devil is enough.” Harry tickles your side, as a result you jab his side with your elbow gently, as he grins down at you. “We’re gonna go get some food,” he informs the couple.

Now everyone’s sitting around the table anticipating for the show to start. Conversation running pretty smoothly. The four of you were even able to make a few plans for the week you are here for. You had gotten a high chair for Ava to sit and eat in, but she wasn’t having it. Failing around while reaching for you.

In result, she’s now sitting in your lap, bouncing side to side. Munching on her French fries, chicken, and sipping on her pineapple juice.

“Taste good?” Harry asks his toddler.

“Mhm” she hums, shoving her thumb into his face.

“I can tell” he chuckles, extending a napkin to wipe her face clean.

You tilt your head down closer to hers, to see sauce around her mouth, some of it on her cheek even.

“Daddy.”

“Hm, baby?”

“Mimi would like this, he loves the chicken mommy gives me”

“You give Mimi your chicken?”

“No”

You both laugh it off, not seeing the point in correcting her.

“Who’s Mimi”

“Mimi is our dog, he's big and he can talk!” Ava answered, her voice ringing with excitement.

“Dog’s can’t talk!” The high-pitched voice of Grey argued, eye brows pitched together.

“That’s a fib, Mimi talks to me all the time!” she defended.

Thankfully, the show was beginning, two young women and four young men came out on stage. Dressed in their traditional Hula attire.

You and Avni shared a grateful smile, knowing neither of you would know how to suppress their little spiff.

The dance is mesmerizing and it was nice with the sun almost setting as a background. Light hues of orange shaded the sea as the night took over the rest. Everyone watched in awh, clapping when it was appropriate. The women’s skirt flowed amongst the air like water.

Harry’s arm propps on the back of your chair. During the performance you feel his fingers run against the back of your neck.

You turn your head towards, trying not to disturb the entranced little girl on your lap. “What?” you mouth.

“It’s beautiful” he whispers to you.

“I know” you tell him, smiling when he rolls his eyes at you.

At some point in the show, the original dancers plus a few more stepped off the stage. An array of Lei’s on their arms, watching as they put Leis around their chosen person’s neck. During this time a woman walks behind Harry, setting one around his neck.

You laugh at the shocked look on his face and the way he fixes his posture. She places a grip onto his arm, making him stand up so she could guide her to the rest of the others. Avni gets chosen too.

The smile on your face makes your face hurt as you watch Harry “dance” up there. The man definitely didn’t have the bet rhythm but he’s having fun and you loved that.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!...” Ava cheered on her father, clapping her hands. Harry looks towards her, waving. She gets even more excited chanting his title louder.

She's Not interrupting anything, you’re surprised he heard her in the first place. But also not, she always knew how to project her voice when needed.

A little over a minute goes by when Ava raises her hand and keeps it up there until you’re able to flag down someone for a lei, which you both get. The both of you walk up to Harry and you set Ava on the ground.

A slight circle forms as you three hold hands together. Just swaying. Sometimes letting go because Harry wanted to spin the two of you. It’s a beautiful image, you're sure. All the glee you could hold in your body transpires in the way you danced with them.

When you’re walking back to your hotel room, your arms are hooked with Harry’s and your head rests on his shoulder. An almost asleep Ava in his arm. He stops to bring his free hand around your neck, pulling you in for a kiss.

“Thank you for giving me this, I love you” he whispers against your lips.

Last night, after the dinner and the Hula, Ava had facetimed Nana. To be honest, she had wanted to say a goodnight to Milo, but talking to her grandmother was always a plus. She was still dressed in her outfit, you and Harry getting ready for the night, so you could then focus on her.

She sat up against the headboard, Your giant phone–– compared to her hands–– held in her tiny ones. You were looking through her duffle bag for her pyjamas when you heard…

“Look Mimi, I saved you chicken”, her small teeth bared, holding up a piece of her chicken from dinner. Your phone is now being propped up against a pillow.

You looked up to watch her pull a piece of chicken from her...pant pocket.

That was the point you reavulated yourself as a parent and had to think about what kind of kid you and Harry were possibly raising.

“Harry!” you called for him.

He walked out, an eyebrow quirked.

“Look.” you hiss, voice low.

‘God…’ Harry thinks. “Where’d she get that chicken from?” he asks, running his towel over his hair.

“Her pocket! Why are you so casual about this?”

“Angel...you had a baby with me, what’d you expect?” he questions, seriously questions you this.

“You’re fixing it then, Mr. mini-me”

Presently, you’re all at the beach. Three towels and three umbrellas lay in/on the sand. You’ve rubbed sunscreen on Ava twice now and have had to remind Harry three times. After last time there was no way you’d be rubbing aloe vera on him all night.

“Baby you’re dripping it.” You sigh, reaching over to wipe her chin of the chocolate ice cream she was eating, from a cup you might add. “Do you want me to feed it to you?”

“No, thank you” she replies, kicking her feet out.

You’ve all swam a bit, but now are on a mini break from the water and saw they were selling ice cream close by.

It’s pretty quiet between the three of you, too busy enjoying your treat.

She gasps, “Daddy you’re a fibber” Ava says indifferently, slurping even more of her ice cream from her spoon.

He guffaws, caught off guard from her statement. He shifts towards the two of you. The way the wind blows his hair and the sun makes the green in his eyes even brighter catches you off guard–– the sight of his abs doesn’t hurt either.

You also knew it wouldn’t be long until his hair gained some highlights and his freckles would be more prompt. You couldn’t wait.

“How’m I a fibber, messy?” squinting down at her.

“Look!”she points, “There’s a puppy right there”

There is, you turn your eyes to where her fingers point to see a woman walking a black Dachshund.

Harry turns his head towards him, a sad look on his face. “You’re right baby. I’m a fibber. I’m sorry”

Ava hurls from her seat to latch her arms around his neck, “It’s okay daddy, now Mimi can come next time” she tells him.

If there’s one thing about Ava, it’s how much she hates sadness. Unless it’s from her. Then it’s perfectly okay. She hates sadness so much, she particularly had a dislike for the character from Inside out. Until you had to explain to her how sadness is something that is okay and needed from time to time, Like in the movie.

After her round of affection towards Harry, she emplaces herself into his lap.

“Daddy. Mommy.”

You both hum an answer.

“It looks like a hot dog” she eyes the dog while it trots down the sand.

“It does huh?” Harry answers, brushing her flyaways back. All while you laugh into your palm.

Your hands feel tingly when you wrap it around Harry’s neck, pulling him into you. His head lays against your shoulder.

Definitely a vacation to remember and cherish.

if you enjoyed pls don’t forget to reblog or give feedback if ur up to it <3

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cloudteawrites · 3 years

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chapter: five ( 4.7k ) rating: mature (death, past abuse, eventual smut) genre: mystery | romance | hurt/comfort tags: bts x reader | ot7 x reader | hybrid | poly summary: when an estranged uncle leaves you his massive fortune you wonder if the universe is playing a joke on you. when that fortune comes with seven hybrids, you know for sure that it is. << first < previous | next > last >>

The grocery store was a mess of color and light. You swore you’d never seen so much food in one place.

Back when your mom had been alive, you’d never really gone to traditional grocery stores. You’d always just visited markets where your mom knew the vendors and could talk down their prices on ugly produce and day old bread. After she’d died, you’d eaten whatever the staff in the group home had provided, then whatever you could scrounge up from convenience stores. Most of the time since you’d aged out of social services, you survived off the free rice and kimchi available in your goshiwon.

Occasionally, you’d eat at work with your free staff meal, but you tried to avoid it. You knew the sight of you wolfing down ramyeon and cold kimbap as fast as you could made Jiah worry. If she ever saw you looking too haggard, she’d try to slip some home made meals to the front desk of your goshiwon when you weren’t looking and that was as embarrassing as it was helpful.

For as long as you could remember, the question of where your next meal was coming from had hung over your head like a dark cloud. It didn’t seem like that was going to be a problem any longer.

Aisle after aisle stretched out before you, blindingly bright. It looked like an amusement park. You were finding it hard to stop staring. You reached out in a haze and picked up the juiciest apple you’d ever seen. Sure, you sold them all the time at Quickstop, but they’d always been dull and just the slightest bit bruised. This one was perfect: fire engine red and still wet from the mister. It was cold and heavy in your hands. You almost felt like crying.

“You good?” Yoongi is beside you, leaning over on the shopping cart, his chin in his hand. He looks dreadfully bored.

“Yeah,” you tell him, setting the apple gently back in its place. “Yeah; just got distracted for a second.” You give a single tug on the front of the basket to move him along, and he follows, shuffling against the bright white linoleum.

“Why aren’t you getting that?” He calls, just before you can round the corner into the dry goods aisle. You turn and look at him over your shoulder, confusion slightly furrowing your brow. “Don’t you want it?”

Your eyes flick from his face back to the glittering heap of fruit. You gnaw at your lip. “...They’re 6,000 won a kilo.”

Yoongi purses his lips. “That’s not what I asked you.”

“I don’t need them,” you huff, trying to stave off the beginnings of another argument. “There’s more important things...like you three and getting you clothes and better furniture and-” Before you get the chance to finish, the gray haired man has ducked back around the corner. He returns with two three kilo bags of apples and dumps them unceremoniously into the cart.

He looks up at you, brows raised and his eyes daring you to say something. All you do is sigh. “Yoongi-”

“Jimin likes apples.” He says, before you can get a word in edgewise. “They’re for him.” You can’t argue with that. He pushes the basket forward and you two drift down the next aisle.

There’s a question resting on the tip of your tongue and as you compare brands of rice, you spit it out. “So...what do you guys eat? I read an article that said to mainly feed cat hybrids fish, but...”

“But we’re not house cats.” He finishes, flipping over a box of cereal to read the back. His nose wrinkles at something he finds and he slides it back onto the shelf. It’s cute, you think- or would be if you couldn’t see the tips of his razor sharp incisors poking out when his lip curled up. Yoongi senses your gaze and looks over at you. You look away quickly and make yourself busy reading a label. “We can eat pretty much anything you’d eat. Not too much processed shit or we’ll get sick. Whole foods are better.”

You nod, making a mental note to forego sodas and chips. “And when you’re shifted?”

He shakes his head. “We don’t really eat when we’re shifted down unless we plan on staying there for a long time.”

You choose a 10 kilo bag of rice, tug it out from the shelf with a little grunt and plop it onto the basket’s bottom shelf. That was good, you supposed. You were worried you were gonna have to watch three big cats rip into raw meat whenever it caught their fancy. “Why don’t I push the basket and you can pick out things Taehyung and Jimin would want?”

He nods and shifts to the other side of the aisle. “What’s my limit?”

You pause for a moment, then stand and fix him with a strange look. “What do you mean?” He isn’t looking at you. He’s comparing two brands of cereal, scanning the nutritional facts on the back.

“How much am I allowed to spend on food?” he questions, simply. “-and what foods are we allowed to eat?”

You balked at him. “.. .you want me to control your diet?”

“I don’t want you to, but most owners prefer a certain look.” He turns his flat, yellow-grey eyes on you. “So what is it? No carbs? no sugars? Low fat? No fat? Dairy-free-”

“Oh my God, no!” You yelp before he can list any more diets. You’d said it a little louder than you’d intended and a well-dressed mom at the other end of the aisle fixes you two with an odd look before hustling her twins into another part of the store. You wince, but continue in a quieter but no less urgent voice. “I mean, I’m not gonna tell you what you can and can’t eat that’s…”

“It’s not unusual,” Yoongi cuts in before you can give voice to your thoughts. He sets one of the cereal boxes, decorated with bright colors and little cartoon animals, back on the shelf and tosses the other -something in a dull green and white box with a little piece of wheat on the front- into the cart. “You didn’t feed us last night.”

A pang of guilt shoots through you. You curl your fingers around the bar of the cart, stare at your knuckles. “I’m sorry,” you tell him, with all the sincerity in the world. “I was tired -and I know that’s not an excuse- but I fell asleep without thinking of you guys. It won’t happen again.”

“Relax,” Yoongi drawls.”It’s not the first time we’ve gone hungry; I’m sure it won’t be the last.” He starts drifting toward the end of the aisle, but before he can go, you catch him by the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

There’s barely an inch of fabric between your thumb and forefinger, but the look Yoongi gives you makes it look like you’d yanked him back by the collar. He whirls on you, eyes narrowed and lips twisted into something sour. You’d overstepped by grabbing him. Still, you speak. “That was the last time. I mean it.”

The hybrid’s face shifts from irritation into something unrecognizable. He’s looking at you like there’s an equation written behind your eyes that he’s trying to work out with his own, like if he looks deep enough into them he’ll find the answers etched across your sclera. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up as the seconds drag on, but you don’t look away. Instead, you hold his gaze and let the moment swell under almost unbearable tension.

Yoongi gives first. He tugs his sleeve out of your grip and shuffles back out of reach. “Whatever you say,” he scoffs, stalking off into the next aisle, his ears tilted back and tail tip flicking in irritation.

You sigh. You’d done it again. The urge to catch him again wells up in you, but you tamp it down. ‘Time and space,’ you remind yourself. ‘Give him time and give him space.’ Satisfied once the distance between the two of you is enough, you go to follow after him, but hesitate as you pass the cereal he’d been looking at. You tug it off the shelf and place it in the basket underneath a few other things so it’d be hidden. You don’t know why and if he asked you about it later you were sure you’d draw a blank. If nothing else, you told yourself as you hurried to catch up with your hybrid, he’d have a choice.

The rest of the grocery trip passed in silence, just as it’d begun. Yoongi didn’t so much as look at you, but that was fine. You were focused on watching him. Anything that he gave more than a passing glance went into the basket. If the bobcat hybrid noticed your rapidly increasing haul, he didn’t say anything about it. He was silent. Even when you flinched as the cashier announced the total and you waffled between trying to walk home or calling a taxi. Even in the lobby then the elevator on the way up as Mr. Park talked both of your ears off and you had to stop him from carrying your groceries in and stocking the fridge himself, Yoongi had remained eerily quiet. It’d given you time to think.

You didn’t know much about hybrids. If you were honest with yourself, you hadn’t known anything about them prior to what you’d anxiety-googled yesterday afternoon. You were so far out of your depth, it was miracle you hadn’t drowned yet. Still, you weren’t completely oblivious.

In between Yoongi’s open hostility, Jimin’s blase attitude toward his own objectification and what snippets you’d heard about Taehyung’s early life, you knew something must’ve been very, very wrong with the people who’d had them before they’d been foisted upon you. The expectation that you were supposed to treat hybrids like actual pets made you uncomfortable enough without the assumption that you’d be dressing them up like dolls and locking the snack cabinets at night.

A spike of anger shot through you. They might’ve been different than humans but they were still people. They hadn’t deserved whatever shady things their owners had done to them and you didn’t want them to come to expect them from you. You shift the grocery bags up your arm, freeing up a hand so you can punch the code into the door. There was no way around it. The four of you would need to sit down and have a good long talk.

The second you punch the code into your door it swings open. “Hey, Jim-” the greeting dies on your tongue. It’s not Jimin who meets you at the door, but Taehyung, freshly showered, the curly ends of his hair dripping water onto the white tile and the front of his sweatshirt damp. His eyes were still hidden behind his hair but you could see more of him than you’d been able to that morning when he’d shifted.

Well, not more of him. He was wearing clothes now, for one- a dark brown version of the sweat suit Yoongi and Jimin both wore. He was taller than you, which you’d known when he’d wrapped his arms around you, but looking up at him now you have to tilt your head back a bit. “Oh,” you say, a little dazed. “Wow.”

The corners of his mouth quirk up in a smile. “Hi.” His voice is still as deep as it was this morning. Was it always like that? He turns his attention to the hybrid behind you and his lips part in a blindingly bright boxy grin. “Hi, hyung.”

Yoongi hums a hello and slips past you through the door. His shoulder brushes against Taehyung’s and the younger hybrid chuffs happily a little in his throat. He leans down as the older man passes and bumps their foreheads together affectionately. Their tails twine together briefly before the gray-haired hybrid is out of reach and dropping an armful of groceries off in the kitchen.

“You shifted up,” you remark “Did something happen?” There’s a tick of concern in his voice. You step to the side of the doorway so the pair can talk without you in the middle.

Taehyung shakes his head, water droplets scattering. His hyung let out a hiss that erred just on the wrong side of animalistic as some of them hit him. You freeze, but the tiger hybrid just laughs. “No, Jimin and I were just-” His smile falters. You can’t see his eyes but his ears have twitched downward and his tail is suddenly stiff, only the tip ticking back and forth. The hybrid lowers his head, and you finally catch sight of eyes, gleaming amber and full of fear. Behind him, you see Yoongi catch a whiff of his junior’s souring scent and his head whips toward the pair of you, ears straight up and his whole body on high alert.

Worry draws your brows together. “Taehyung?” you call softly. You reach out with your free hand to touch his shoulder, then think better of it. Your fingers hover uselessly and inch away from him. In this moment, that distance feels a mile wide. The line of his shoulders is rigid and he’s withdrawn into himself. “Taehyung, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you-”

“We went out.” He blurts, snapping his head up to look in your eyes. His own are wide and earnest. “You left your backpack open and I saw the list you made with all the phone numbers and passwords and the door code was on there and I really wanted to go to the park. Jimin told me to wait but I made him come with me; we were only gone for fifteen minutes, I swear. We didn’t even make it; the same police officer from earlier was still on the street.”

“Taehyung-”

“Please-” he cuts you off before you can even get a word in edgewise. “Please, just punish me; Jimin didn’t do anything. The whole time he was trying to make me go back. He only went with me so I wouldn’t be alone.”

Your heart wrenches in your chest. You do touch him, then. Your fingertips barely graze the material of his sweatshirt, but he flinches and you pull away. Your hand drops to your side, limp. “Can you and Jimin meet me in the living room?” You ask him, careful to keep your tone light and non-threatening as possible. “We need to talk.” His ears droop, but he nods and shuffles off to do as you ask. You trail behind him into the penthouse, making sure to give him enough space. The last thing you wanted to do right now was crowd him.

You drop the groceries on the counter in the kitchen and look up to find Yoongi squinting at you. He’s coiled up like a spring, ready to bolt at any moment. You try to give him a reassuring smile, but it comes out watery and wan. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “We’re just gonna talk.” You can tell he doesn’t believe you.

Still, he follows you into the living room, takes a seat on the couch while you settle cross-legged on the ottoman across from him. A few seconds later, Jimin and Taehyung slink down the stairs. The tiger hybrid is clinging to his hyung who, for once, isn't smiling. Jimin’s face is settled into a cool mask of neutrality. You almost don’t recognize him.

They sink into the couch on either side of Yoongi, their backs stiff and eyes on anything other than you. For a moment, the four of you sit there in uncomfortable silence. You speak first.

“Jimin, Taehyung, Yoongi-”

“Y/N,” Jimin cuts in, “Whatever Taehyung told you-”

“-I’m sorry.” You finish. That seems to surprise them. You interlock your fingers on your lap and look at each one of them individually. “I’m sorry that I didn’t check to see if there was food in the house last night. I’m sorry that I didn’t make sure you had the things you needed to feel comfortable here. I’m sorry that I made you feel like you weren’t allowed to leave.”

Taehyung swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. He’s got a death grip on Yoongi’s arm with one hand and the other fisted in the fabric of his sweatpants. “You...You’re not mad?” The tremor in his voice makes your heart ache.

“No,” you tell him with all the sincerity in the world. “I’m not mad at you. I’m sad that you were ever around someone who made you feel like you needed to apologize for wanting to see the sun and I’m angry that they made you think that was something to be punished for.” It was true. Beneath your sadness, beneath your shock at his expectation of punishment, anger was twisting in your gut. What type of person would reduce another to fear and trembling for the sake of leaving the house? “I’m not going to...to punish you, I need you to know that.” You tell him, before looking at Jimin and Yoongi. “Any of you. Ever. I’m never gonna hurt you.”

Taehyung’s jaw is clenched like he’s trying not to cry. All the wind has gone out of Jimin like a deflated sail and the leopard hybrid just looks exhausted. Yoongi’s rubbing soothing circles in both of their backs. You can’t tell from his face, but by the way his ears have relaxed, you think he was worried about your reaction, too.

You let out a little exhale and slouch. “Whatever happened to you with your previous...the people you lived with before? It wasn’t okay.” You’re as firm with it as you can be while still keeping your tone gentle. “They were supposed to take care of you and love you and help you grow, but if they starved you, if they made you feel this bad, if they treated you like property, then fuck them. I don’t want to be anything like them.” You admit. “I don’t want to be your owner and I don’t want you to be my pets.”

“What do you want us to be to you then?” Yoongi rasps. Despite the question, there’s no challenge in his voice. He’s genuinely asking.

One corner of your mouth quirks up and you give him a small shrug. “Friends, maybe? Eventually, if we can. For now let’s try…” you search for the word you want. “Roommates?” You supply. “We live together, but you guys don’t need to feel like you owe me anything. I’ll get you phones tomorrow, if you want, and copies of the credit card. We can get you clothes and furniture too. And if there’s anything you want to do or want to see, go see it. The door code is 0613.”

The tension that’d run between the three hybrids like a livewire is gone. Now they’re...if not relaxed, then at least relieved. There’s nothing else to be said. You stand and move to hurry into the kitchen so the trio of hybrids can have their space. The last thing you wanted to do after having a talk about their freedoms was crowd them. Before you can take three steps there’s a hand wrapped around your wrist, holding you in place. It's Taehyung's.

The tiger hybrid is looking up at you, his eyes beseeching and a nervous tremble in his bottom lip. “Don’t go,” he croaks, sounding like he’s still unsure just how to use his voice. He tugs once on your coat sleeve. “Please.”

Your eyes flick from him to his hyungs. Jimin’s looking at you with apprehension, perched on the edge of the couch like he’s a split second away from helping the tiger hybrid drag you down- but Yoongi’s face is turned away from you. As usual, you can’t tell what he’s feeling. “I’m just going to the kitchen,” you assure him. “I’ve gotta put the food away-” Your brain short circuits as the tiger hybrid flips your hand over and presses his face to your palm. His eyelashes brush against your lifeline; his lips trace the veins in your wrist.

You’d never say it outloud, but it was hard to deny you were touch starved. You could count on one hand the amount of times someone had touched you gently since your mother died. You didn’t show yourself kindness most days and you’d come not to expect it from others. The world was cold and cruel, and you were far too old to be seeking solace from strangers. You’d thought you were above it, but the feeling of Taehyung nipping at your radial artery is almost enough to make you go to pieces. “Just a little bit,” he huffs, his voice muffled against your skin.

“...The groceries will get warm,” you argue, finally managing to make your mouth move. “Do you wanna eat hot kimchi?”

“I’ll put them away.” Yoongi is up and vaulting over the couch before you can get a word in edgewise. With him gone the last of your excuses goes up in smoke. Taehyung smiles against your skin and you let yourself be pulled down.

No sooner have your legs touched the cushion, then Taehyung is snuggled up against your side, his arms wrapped loosely around your middle and the cool tip of his nose pressed into your neck. “Tell me again,” he murmurs softly. “Can you tell me again that you’re not mad?” He wanted reassurance. The least you could do was give it to him.

You slip a hand into his hair, scratch gently at the base of his ears. He chuffs happily, the sound vibrating in his chest as he presses closer to you. “I’m not mad at you, and you’re not in trouble, buddy.” You tell him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

A warm presence on your left tells you Jimin’s settled in beside you. Sure enough, a second later a golden tail is tracing the edge of your calf. “Don’t leave me out,” he purrs, settling his chin on your shoulder.

You slide a hand into his hair too, letting the locks slip through your fingers as you pet him. “Never.”

The three of you stay like that for what feels like an hour. Even when their hyung finishes putting the groceries away and returns to sit with them -albeit at the far end of the sectional- they don’t seem like they’re in a hurry to disentangle themselves from you. You’re surprised to find you don’t mind it. The weight of two grown men against your shoulders was heavy, but not uncomfortable and they were warm and the steady hum of Jimin purring is almost enough to lull you to sleep. You cut a movie on and order samgyeopsal. You think they’re gonna kill the delivery man for making you get up, and they stay glued to your back even as you pay. It’s not until the first movie goes off and Taehyung and Jimin are playfully bickering over what to watch next that you’re able to slip away to the bathroom.

You shuffle quickly down the wide hallway, trying to remember which door the closest bathroom lay behind. You careen around a corner and run smack into someone. They let out a huff and you stumble back a few steps, an apology on your lips. You look up and find Yokngi there. Guilt bubbles up in your stomach. Between Jimin purring in your ear and Taehyung rubbing his cheek against your hand every ten seconds, you hadn’t even noticed he was gone. “Sorry,” you mumble.

He quirks an eyebrow at you. “For what?”

You’re not even sure you know.

He stares at you and you stare back, frozen. Finally, the bobcat hybrid sighs and gestures at you. “C’mere,” he mumbles.

You approach hesitantly, not trusting him to not suddenly snap at you. “Why?” You ask, apprehensive. Should you have not let Taehyung and Jimin scent you? He’d been around the entire time and hadn’t said anything, so you’d thought it was fine. Maybe you’d made a mistake. You gnaw at your bottom lip and creep slowly closer to the hybrid before you. Another miscalculation, another mess-up, another mile tacked on to that incalculable distance between you and Yoongi. Should you apologize again? Would taking a shower help wash their scents away?

Before you can volunteer to do any of that, Yoongi reaches forward, hooks one finger through your belt loop and drags you toward him. You feel a yelp crawling up your throat, but it’s stopped dead in its tracks by the feeling of Yoongi cradling your jaw and his lips pressed against the column of your throat. His spine is tense and his tail is ticking in the way it does when he’s irritated. “...What are you-?”

“They’ve both scented you.” He murmurs. “If I don’t, they’ll think I’m rejecting you. My job as their hyung is to put them at ease. If I can’t do that, I’m useless.” Despite his closeness, despite the way his fingers were slipping into the hair at the base of your skull, despite the little nips he’d started giving you, you could practically feel his reluctance.

You exhale and push against his shoulders. “Yoongi…” He doesn’t budge. “Hey-”

“There’s no good reason for me to not just mark you and get it over with.” There was that word again. You’d forgotten about it in the whirlwind that followed, but Jimin had joked about marking you earlier, hadn’t he? And Yoongi’d gotten upset with him. From what you were gathering, it was a lot more serious than scenting.

“I don’t want you to.” That gets his attention. The hybrid pulls away and fixes you with an odd look, his brows furrowed in confusion.

“What are you talking about? Owners always want us to mark them.” You feel that same twinge of anger again. The articles had said scenting was a sign of trust and security. It was used to mark family members. Had the people they’d been with before forced their way into their family without the hybrids consent? Without Yoongi’s? No wonder he’d been touchy about his juniors scenting you right away.

“Well, I don’t.” You give him a gentle nudge and put a few inches between the two of you. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with or not ready for.” You offer him a smile you hope comes across as reassuring. “You not wanting to is a good enough reason for me. Besides,” you say, turning to head back to the living room, the original reason for your trip forgotten. “I’ve never been marked before, so it’s not like i’m missing out on anything.”

At that, something flashes in Yoongi’s eyes that you have no name for. It passes as soon as it’d come. “Come back when you’re ready!” You call over your shoulder, retreating back down the corridor before he can say something one way or another.

When you settle back on to the couch two minutes later, There’s a movie queued up and ready to be played. It’s an action movie, one you haven’t seen before. “Yoongi’ll be back in a second,” you tell the boys. “Let’s wait for him.”

Taehyung hums his ascent, leaning in to settle back in the crook of your neck- but something stops him. He hovers near your neck, takes a few short inhales and tosses a look at Jimin behind your back. You frown. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah!” Taehyung responds a bit too quickly, lacing your fingers together to distract you as Jimin gives the other side of your neck the same treatment. The leopard hybrid purrs, seemingly happy at what he’s found. His ears swivel up and a second later, Yoongi slinks back into the living room.

“Hyung…” Jimin starts, his voice taking on a teasing lilt.

“Play the movie.” His hyung orders. He does, but there’s still a little smirk on his lips.

The screen darkens and the opening credits roll as Taehyung and Jimin settle back against your side, careful to avoid your neck. Yoongi drops onto the couch, this time only a foot away from the three of you. You allow yourself a little spark of relief. The distance was starting to close.

#bts fic #bts x reader #bts x y/n #hybrid!bts #ot7 x reader #seokjin x reader #namjoon x reader #jhope x reader #yoongi x reader #taehyung x reader #jimin x reader #jungkook x reader

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ikeromantic · 3 years

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Bonding

A Mitsuhide Akechi fanfic, approx. 1800 words. This scene takes place well after the events of the Romantic Epilogue as part of my post-route headcanon storyline.

First: Mitsuhide and the Maiden

Previous: In the Spotlight

Mitsuhide sat on the edge of a stuffed chair, a ‘sofa’, across from his little one’s father. Minoru, for his part, didn’t look any more comfortable with the company. Neither of them said anything. Mitsuhide found that his usual silver tongue had run out of witticisms when faced with the twin challenge of a world 500 years in the future and the need to impress the father of his beloved.

In the kitchen, the chatelaine and her mother Youko were making dinner. Their lively chatter was the only sound as the two men studied each other.

Finally, Minoru cleared his throat. “So. How did you two meet?”

“The answer to that would require additional explanation. Suffice it to say, I met her in the course of my work. Initially, she was a responsibility of mine. To train her so that she knew enough to stay ali- ah, safe.” Mitsuhide smiled. “She was quite a handful.”

Minoru frowned. “Safe? Safe from what? What kind of business are you in?” He leaned forward.

“Intelligence and information gathering.” He silently thanked Sarutobi for the modern words to describe being a spy and torturer.

“You work for a government?”

Mitsuhide nodded. “That is a good way to put it. Yes. For a government.”

His little mouse poked her head through the door. “Everything going ok, you two?”

Both men cleared their expressions and smiled over at her. “Yes,” they replied, almost in unison.

Her bright smile lit up the room. “I’m so glad. I wanted you two to get along. Anyway, dinner is almost ready!” She disappeared again and the smiles the two men wore faded like snow under a noon-day sun.

Minoru turned back to Mitsuhide. “How did my daughter get tangled up with some government agent? She designs clothes. She left for a job in fashion.” His voice is strained, half a year’s worth of worry and frustration pushing at the seams of his soul.

Mitsuhide nodded. “She is amazing at making clothing. That is a career she continues to pursue. But I met her the night she pulled my superior from a burning building. Had she not arrived when she did, he would have died.”

“My baby girl . . . pulled a man from a burning building?” Minoru’s eyebrows shot up, his expression one of incredulous disbelief.

“Yes, and after, he thought she should stay with our forces. For her protection and because he believed there was something special about her.” Mitsuhide’s thin smile reappeared. “He wasn’t wrong. She is very special. A wonder.”

Minoru coughed. “Well, yes, but . . . a burning building? She isn’t, that is, she wouldn’t just -”

Mitsuhide leaned forward. “You know her from her childhood. If she knew someone was going to burn to death and she had a chance to save them, would she leave them to die? Is it so unbelievable?”

He shook his head slowly. He knew his daughter was exactly the kind of girl to put herself at risk for another. “I should not be surprised. When she was five, she ran out into the street to stop traffic for a kitten. Almost got hit by a car. And it wasn’t until after the cat was safe that she even realized how close she came to dying.”

Both men chuckled.

“That sounds exactly like something my little mouse would do.”

Minoru scowled. “Your what?”

“A nickname,” Mitsuhide waved the comment off.

And then the call came for dinner. They all sat down around the table. A spread of familiar and strange foods that piqued Mitsuhide’s curiosity. He wondered which of these his beloved had made, and which her mother. To be safe, he thought, it would be wise to compliment every dish.

“So,” her mother began after everyone was served. “My daughter tells me you’re a warlord working for Oda Nobunaga?”

Mitsuhide choked in surprise, the bite of food sticking in his throat. He glanced at his little mouse for confirmation.

“It just sort of popped out while we were talking.”

With effort and a glass of water, Mitsuhide swallowed and cleared his throat. “I didn’t expect to bring this up until after dinner, but yes.”

Minoru scowled. “You’re telling me you work for a man 500 years dead?”

“I don’t know, he seemed pretty lively last time I saw him,” Mitsuhide quipped.

His little mouse grinned. “Papa, be nice! I told you, we will tell you everything.” She took a deep breath. “It started the day I arrived in Kyoto. I went sightseeing . . .”

Mitsuhide listened as attentively as her parents, this version of the tale filling in gaps and details he hadn’t known. Her timely rescue of Sasuke Sarutobi, her run-in with the forces from Kasugayama. It appeared his little one was better at keeping secrets that he’d credited.

Through the story, her mother made little sounds of agreement or surprise, but Minoru was deathly silent. His expression turned darker at every part until he couldn’t hold back anymore. “This sounds like some ridiculous cartoon! You can’t expect your mother and I to buy this. Tell the truth! What is he, some mafia? A gambler? What?”

Youko frowned at him from across the table. “Now you just hush and eat your food. If our little girl says this is what happened, I believe her. She has no reason to lie. She knows we support her no matter what. Don’t we, dear?”

Minoru’s brows lowered. “You can’t be serious. This, this man shows up with our daughter after months with no word! Not a letter! Not a post card! With this crazy story and we’re supposed to just -”

“Accept it. You know as well as I do that if our girl didn’t write or call, it’s because she couldn’t. When you think of it that way, it makes perfect sense.” Youko nodded to emphasize her point. “Besides, when have you ever known her to lie.”

“She’s terrible at that,” Mitsuhide added drily.

Minoru’s scowl deepened. “Don’t talk like you know her. Maybe you drugged her or something, and now she thinks all that is true.”

Mitsuhide sighed. He’d expected this kind of reaction after Sasuke and his little one explained what ‘meeting the parents’ entailed. He was beginning to wish he could have simply sent some gifts and a contract, or better yet, left that to Nobunaga and simply married the girl. “We did bring some proof with us today, and we have friends tomorrow who can vouch for everything.”

Youko gave Mitsuhide an encouraging smile. “Why don’t you go get it? I’m sure it will make Mino a little less grouchy.”

“I’m not grouchy,” Minoru grumbled.

“You are, papa. But it’s ok. This is really all my fault. I wish I’d been able to call you both. I missed you so much.”

Her father swallowed whatever he’d planned to say, touched by his daughter’s affection.

Mitsuhide went to their bags and grabbed his sword and the clothes he’d arrived in. He carried them back to the dining area. These were unlikely to be enough, he thought, but it wasn’t as if they’d planned to be swept to this time that night.

“Our clothes -” he set them down, “and my sword.”

Minoru poked at the clothing, unimpressed. The sword, however, got his attention. “This . . . it isn’t just some decorative piece . . .” The words were quiet, said more to himself than anyone.

Still, Mitsuhide answered. “No. That blade has taken many lives.”

“And saved some too,” his little mouse added. “Mine included.”

Minoru looked between the two of them. “Maybe you’ve both lost your minds. This thing -” He pointed at the sword, “is clearly an antique, but that proves nothing.”

“You are so stubborn,” Youko huffed.

Mitsuhide was beginning to see where his little one got that quality. Sweetness from her mother, stubbornness from her father. It made him smile.

***

Miyake and Sasuke sat at a nearby bar, drinks in hand.

“So this is called karaoke?” Miyake eyed the screen with words that moved and then emptied his sake cup. “And I can sing whatever I want?”

“Not whatever. I doubt they have any songs you know on file. But I think the enjoyment quotient will still be high.” Sasuke began tapping through the song selection, his expression focused. He stopped when he came across one with the image of a pink-faced girl. “This one.”

Miyake shrugged. “Alright.”

The music started. It sounded nothing like the instruments Miyake knew, or the rhythms and beats that were familiar to him. Still, he could pick out the melody, and it was nice - if strange.

The first word on the screen lit up and Sasuke started singing. His voice was surprisingly pleasant, even though the lyrics were senseless.

Miyake joined him on the next verse, nodding to the beat. It was a cheerful tune, he thought. Perfect to drink to. He poured another glass for himself and the ninja.

They emptied that and another as the song ended. The next pick was Miyake’s. He chose one based on the picture, a cute girl in a ridiculously short skirt.

“This is the theme song for my favorite anime,” Sasuke grinned.

“Then I picked a good one?”

Sasuke patted his arm. “A great one.”

Two hours later, both of them were too drunk to walk straight. Their singing got louder as their ability to pronounce the lyrics dwindled.

“Todokete atsuku naru omi . . .” The song dissolved into drunken laughter.

Miyake threw an arm around Sasuke. “Y-you’re my besht - besht fren.”

Sasuke leaned into the hug. “N-now I have two! Two besht frienz - friends.” He grinned but the expression slid into a sad frown.

“Wha - what ish it?” Miyake peered at the ninja’s face. “Need more sake?”

“I - I wish my other fren wash here,” Sasuke hiccuped. “An Shingen. I wash goin- going to take him to a hoshpital.”

Miyake nodded, though he didn’t understand. “Maybe nexsht time?”

“If he livesh,” Sasuke sighed.

“To Shingen,” Miyake poured them another round of sake. “And nexsht time!”

They drank to the toast.

Sasuke poured another. “And to friendsh we lef-left behind.”

They drank to that too.

After several more toasts that grew further away from the original point - to short skirts and lady’s stockings, to coffee, to the karaoke bar - the two men finally paid their tab and stumbled to the hotel.

Miyake nearly puked on the elevator, as the movement made his stomach flip. He would have taken the stairs, if he thought he could find the steps. He leaned on Sasuke as they walked down the hall. It felt like their room was miles away.

Sarutobi fumbled with the lock, and when the door opened, they fell inside.

Between leaning on each other and the walls, they managed to stand again.

“I’m go-gonna shower,” Miyake mumbled.

“Me nexsht,” Sasuke agreed. He tripped toward the beds and fell into the nearest one, face first.

Miyake made it to the shower, but didn’t manage to turn it on. He slumped to the floor and leaned his head back on the cool tiles, falling into a deep sleep.

Next: Middle Ground

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen mitsuhide #mitsuhide akechi #ikesen sasuke #otome guys #otome #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff

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ordinaryschmuck · 3 years

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What I Thought About "Hunting Palismans" From The Owl House

Salutations, random people on the internet who certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Today, I present to you reason #4,693 for why The Owl House is the best thing at the moment: It's the perfect balance of serialized storytelling with an episodic format. The story always moves forward with an exact order for how episodes should be watched, but each episode still functions as its own standalone tale. Having prior knowledge of what happened before adds more to the experience, but you can still watch whatever you want and still have an enjoyable time. Take "Hunting Palismans," for example. It adds so much more to the overarching narrative while slightly continuing other threads. But it's still something you can watch as is without remembering the past or wondering about the future.

However, to properly explain how requires spoilers. I wasn't kidding when I say that this episode adds so much, so you're going to want to be wary of that when you continue reading.

With that said, let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Coven Heads Meeting: We already saw these fellow schmucks in the trailer, but that doesn't take away how cool they are! It's not explicitly stated which head belongs to which coven, but you can already tell who goes where just from their designs alone. And I love that. I love that just by showing us some excellent character designs, anybody with half a brain can already figure out the particular type of magic each Coven Head specializes in. It's a perfect example of the show-don't-tell level of storytelling that is always at its best through animation, and I'm all for it because of it.

What the Day of Unity is: Several fans, myself included, have already speculated that the Day of Unity was that Emperor Belos planned to combine the human world with the Boiling Isles and rule it all with an iron fist. That being said, figuring it out is one thing, but being told that it's true is a whole different level pants-s**ting horror that I AM NOT READY FOR! Even when it's going to happen, I can assure you that I will not be prepared to witness it ...and I am scared of when it does.

Belos Body Horror: ...Disney, I was already scared s**tless of this guy. I DO NOT NEED THIS!

That being said, seeing Belos do...whatever the f**k that was, helps explain further why he needs the magic in palismans. I always assumed because it's like fuel for a car, giving him the power he needs. Now, even though the answer is more apparent, there are still some questions to be had. Is he cursed, and the magic keeps it at bay like Eda's potions? Or did he experiment with the wrong type of magic, and the palismans keep him stable? Only the future can say for sure...and I'm also not prepared for the answers from that either.

Golden Guard is Belos’ Nephew: Gosh dangit, THE INTRO HASN'T EVEN STARTED YET, AND THIS EPISODE IS ALREADY GIVING SO MUCH!

But, yeah, the most powerful witch on the Isles is apparently Golden Boy's Grunkle Belos. That very knowledge is incredibly interesting to discuss while presenting possibilities for future narratives. I don't know about you, but I see the Golden Guard going down the path of Zuko, learning that the magic of friendship is worth much more than whatever power he gains from being Belos' nephew. And possibly earning his uncle's love seeing how he's the only family he has. It's a situation that's vastly different from Amity's because even when she defies her parents, she'll still have Edric and Emira at the end of the day. For Golden Guard, knowing that he lost a great family to wild magic, the inclination to go against Belos is a lot weaker due to him being all he has left.

Oh, and also, Belos' family getting wiped out because of wild magic. Yeah, not only does that give the best type of motivation for Belos' distaste for it, but it also explains the Golden Guard's hesitance to use it. He's inclined to so he can save his uncle, sure. It's only the fact that he knows what happens with wild magic that causes some resistance...Also, we're less than a minute in, and I'm already getting all of this from one discussion between two characters.

HOW IS THIS SHOW SO GOOD?!

Intro Changes: It's about time too. It seems weird that the crew waited to change Eda and King's designs in the intro this late in the game, but it also tells me that Amity dying her hair lavender is the last huge change this season will present. Otherwise, why change the intro at all if you were going to alter Luz, Willow, and Gus' designs anyway? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Luz Keeping the Echo Mouse as a Pet: The fact that she keeps the most important creature in the world to her as a pet...it's...it's adorable, alright? And as we established several times, I cannot hate adorable things.

Don't judge me!

Amity Staying Home: There are two plausible ways why Amity didn't go to school that day. Either she's getting punished for dying her hair or because she's trying to avoid Luz so they won't talk about the you-know-what. Either could work and seem understandable to Luz, thus explaining why she admits how "that makes sense." Although, there is something to discuss in how Luz is curious as to where Amity is. Judging from the tone of her voice, it's pretty clear that she wants to talk about the little peck on the cheek and maybe get some confirmation as to what it means. Because there is no going back from that. You can explain away saying or doing something stupid, but you cannot un-kiss a cheek. That is a point of no return, and if Amity really is avoiding Luz because of it, that means it's up to our favorite weirdo to make the first move. As for what that may entail...we'll just have to wait and see.

Frewin: We get two bits of information here for the price of one reveal here. Knowing that Frewin is a palisman is shocking enough, but the knowledge that Bump is partially blind and needs Frewin to see? That is an intriguing piece of intel that I would have never expected to get revealed. This is reason #5,279 for what makes The Owl House so good. Even when the show presents information you wouldn't guess, it's all so interesting anyways that you can't help but go along with it.

Adopting Palismans: First of all, love the fact that the Bat Queen makes a return to provide a solution to the palisman trees being rare and solving her own problem regarding the discarded palismans. It's a situation where everyone wins in a way that is so clever that I can't help but admire it.

Second, the idea of students choosing to adopt palismans instead is cute. I'd say it gives further insight into who these characters are in how they say what they want to be, but there's nothing really new added that fans couldn't figure out from the get go. But I will say that it's pretty cool to know that these characters have official staffs now. Speaking of which, if you're upset that their palismans don't match up with your headcanons...grow up.

This was a cute and smartly written scene that should not be bogged down by whiney fans who can't accept a series doing something different from what they expect.

Little Rascal: I’d take a bullet for this bird. That is all.

Luz Being Uncertain of her Future: A lot of fans offer several ideas of what the future could look like for Luz. Will she stay in the Boiling Isles? In Connecticut? Or will she go back and forth? We don't know, but one question we rarely brought up is what does Luz want? More specifically, what does she want to do? After everything Luz went through, the adventures she's gone on, and the lessons learned, what is something that Luz wants her future to be? That's an answer she doesn't really figure out, and I'm genuinely ok with that being a question that's tabled for another day. Most kids who ask that question themselves aren't always going to find an answer after a short amount of time and sometimes even need to spend their lives trying to figure it out. So having it be something Luz has to consider and probably find out in a future episode is the smarter option, as it allows time for it to simmer in her own mind and provides more insight into her character. As stated several times in this episode, she doesn't think things through, so it's nice that the writers finally allowed her some time to wonder what's next when the adventure is over.

Luz Having to Improvise Without Paper Glyphs: You want to know what my favorite Spider-Man moments are (this is relevant. Trust me). My favorite moments are when Spidey's web-shooters run out of fluid, and he's forced to improvise with that big brain of his to find a solution. That's sort of what happens with Luz in "Hunting Palismans." She didn't bring her glyphs with her (why would she), so she's forced to use the environment around her to make new ones. Plus, Luz also flexes her knowledge of the Boiling Isles by mixing her glyphs with a magical plant (which Willow certainly told her about) so that she and the Golden Guard could knock out Kikimora's dragon. It's yet another showcase of her intelligence that a lot of fans are too keen to overlook. Unfortunate to see, too, because looking at how well Luz can craft the perfect solutions by fighting smarter, not harder, is a fantastic add-on to her personality. I love characters who win through their wits rather than their raw powers, and I once again hope more people will catch onto that aspect of her too.

Golden Guard Whistling the Theme: Look, I love it when a show acknowledges its own theme song, ok? Leave me alone.

Luz and the Golden Guard: This is one of those dynamics you didn't know you wanted until you have it. And now that I have it, I DEMAND MORE!

Seriously, seeing these two interact off of each other was a ton of fun to watch. When Luz and GG are initially at each other's throats, their threats and mockery towards one another aren't out of spiteful anger between two mortal enemies. It's more like...two siblings who get on each other's nerves yet are supposed to deal with one another. It's equally adorable and hilarious, and yes, I absolutely loved that they're forced to work together in this episode because of it.

Although, while the entertainment value is fantastic, it also adds more proof of why Luz is the best character in the series. She spends one night with this guy, and that's more than what she needed to make a difference with him. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're buddies now, but Luz definitely sowed the seeds into his redemption. He's far from willing to join her side, but he still does something he rarely does with anyone else: He told her that his name is Hunter. And this is what Luz does. Through nearly every person she meets on the Boiling Isles, she always manages to change them for the better. It'll be a while before Hunter deflects from Belos, but if Amity proves anything, Luz has a way of sneaking into people's hearts. They just need to spend more time with one another, and I can't wait to see what happens next because of it.

Kikimora Wanting to Kill Hunter: This shows a lot about who Kikimora is, but it potentially proves just how dysfunctional the Emperor's Coven can be. If Kiki proves anything, the coven must be filled with people willing to backstab and cheat their way to get on Emperor Belos' good side. Just look at Lilith. She literally cursed her own sister just to get in and received all the rewards because of it. The Emperor's Coven may be the best choice for witches to do magic, but if you're surrounded by people you can't trust, then is it really worth it?

The Guards Not Knowing Who Hunter is: This helps add to how much of a big deal it is for Hunter to reveal his name to Luz. If people can't even recognize his face, there's a chance it means that he keeps his true identity a secret except for those in his inner circle.

And the coven guards brushing off his brand is more than believable to me. They may be aware that Belos' right hand is young, but teens will be teens. Anybody with enough artistic talent can fake a brand. So it isn't too far off for those two to think Hunter was just a kid pulling a prank.

Hunter is Powerless Without his Staff: Not much to say here. It's just some more neat insight into Hunter's character that makes me wonder if even Belos' magic is real magic.

But I will say this: The fact that Hunter comes from a lineage of powerless witches, well, who's to say that isn't because of a...certain ancestor?

(*Cough* Hunter is related to Philip *Cough*)

Hunter vs Kiki: A pretty well-animated fight scene that adds potential drama to the story for the future. Now that Kikimora knows that Hunter helped Luz escape with the palismans (albeit unwillingly), she may or may not hold that over his head when the time comes. Or, at the very least, decides to keep a closer eye on him whenever he makes a slip-up.

Eda and King Getting Luz her own Palisman Wood: These last two weeks have been severely lacking in the Eda and King department, but scenes like this more than make up for it. Those two have formed such a bond with Luz to the point where they would do the impossible if it meant she would feel better. It proves just how much of a family they all are and the lengths they would go for each other. After all, weirdos have to stick together.

Little Rascal going to Hunter: Hunter is right. That was surprising.

Given how much Little Rascal stuck by Luz, I was more than positive that she would be the one he chose. So seeing Little Rascal pick Hunter instead is a much nicer twist. There could be multiple reasons why, and I'm just going to leave that to the analyzers in this fandom to decide. Especially since the answer isn't really all that important.

So, instead, I'm going to go ahead and sit in the corner as I wOrRy AbOuT tHe DaY tHaT bElOs FiNdS lItTlE rAsCal!

IT'S GONNA HAPPEN! AND I SWEAR TO ALL THAT IS HOLY, IF THE WRITERS KILL HIM, I WILL NOT BE HAPPY!

WHAT I DISLIKED

First, there's...um...

Well, there was this...

Ok, as much as I liked--No, that turned out well anyways...

…

...

...I've got nothing.

I, honest to goodness, have no complaints about "Hunting Palismans" Not even the tiniest of nitpicks I would usually ignore due to how well-executed everything else was.

It's all written fantastically to the point where it's...perfect.

IN CONCLUSION

"Hunting Palismans" is an easy A+. It introduces even more plot threads, gives insight into characters, and despite being essential to the story, it still manages to be a fun episode all on its own. And, I'd go so far as to say that it's one of the best, if not the best, episodes in the series. There's nothing bad about it, and that surprises me. I rarely find nothing bad to say about any story, even the ones I enjoy greatly. I'm sure there are some flaws that others would be more than happy to point out, but why bother hunting for the imperfections when I could accept that, for once, an episode is simply perfect.

(And that’s six hits in a row...THAT STINKER IS GOING TO HAPPEN! It hasn’t happened yet, BUT IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN! I CAN FEEL IT!)

#the owl house #the owl house season 2 #the owl house reviews #luz noceda #the golden guard #hunter the owl house #emperor belos #what i thought about

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appleb18 · 3 years

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LGBT Representation is Ruining Cartoons (Sort Of)

Modern cartoons have been representing LGBT+ for years, making them more progressive and defy censorship. While it is good that they are showing LGBT in kid cartoon shows, however it has become a problem that it’s the only thing that matters to most to people, even creators, and nothing else. Most people will only watch a show if it has representation, not for the characters or story, and it just sad to see that.

People will go crazy whenever they see a character is gay, lesbian, asexual, bisexual, transsexuals' and so forth on screen and cares for who they are then what they are.

Look at Angel Jose, a transgender kid, from Craig of the Creek

Bow’s Dads from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power

Double Trouble is non-binary from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power

Those are characters are beloved because their LGBT and nothing else

It has become a trend that shows with LGBT is the main reason for most people watch it. The Owl House only gained twice of views because of “Enchanting Grom Fright”, a very gay episode and that many to turn on. Not because of good animated scenes like Eda vs Lilith round 1, characters, story, or even the lore, it’s because of Lumity and it’s another gay show.

The people and creators are praising shows for having LGBT and fighting against Network censorship, but never talk about if the narrative or characters are good. They will discuss of how it paved the way for LGBT and won’t talk about the creators folly of storytelling. Creators will even sacrifice their story just to show representation.. The two well known cartoon shows that paved way for representation, “She-Ra” and “Steven Universe”, are examples of showing LGBT but messing up the plot and characters.

Steven Universe truly broke boundaries when the Ruby and Sapphire wedding, the first LGBT wedding in a kid show, sparking a movement to show more LGBT content to kid cartoons. While it is admirable Rebecca Sugar and her crew fought to show the wedding, but as a narrative, it just doesn’t work. All the wedding was is to just paved the way for LGBT and that it. They’ll fuse back to Garnet and barely show them, and have them fight the Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond after the wedding. If the wedding was cut out, nothing changes and the story would run smoothly.

She-Ra and the Princess of Power have made Catra and Adora, the protagonists of the show into a couple. While it’s cute and it’s what Noelle Stevenson wanted to do since the beginning, but throughout series, Catra has commit many crimes such as the invasion of Salineas Kingdom, cause of Angella, Glimmer’s mother, death, almost destroyed the entire universe so Adora can’t win, and multiple occasion attacked Adora and her friends. All of that and yet forgiven easily by Adora. It just comes out bizarre that everything she has done, she’ll still ends with Adora.

While I don’t mind cartoons showing LGBT and I believe it’s a right direction for growth in cartoons, however, it shouldn’t be the main point of watching it. They shouldn’t solely on how progressive cartoons are now with LGBT, but more on animation, story, and characters. Not being homophobic or anything, I just wish people will

#The Owl House #She-Ra #Steven Universe #Steven Universe Future #Craig of the Creek #OK KO: Let's Be Heroes!#Gravity Falls #Voltron #Adventure Time #LGBT #LGBTQ

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idreamtofmanderleyagain · 4 years

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Five years ago, the women on this site who treated me like trash over loving Labyrinth and shipping Jareth/Sarah were almost always obliviously consuming Radfem propaganda, or were out and out Radfems/Terfs themselves.

They were the types of people who casually threw the word “pedophile” around against grown women who shipped an adult Sarah with Jareth, aka literally one of the most popular ships for women in fandom for 30 years.

Pretty much invariably, these women had serious sex-negative anxieties, which included a severe paranoia about any and all kink and fetish, and porn in general. I saw a lot of shocking, fear-mongering propaganda surrounding sexual expression. Pretty much invariably, their method of approach involved immediate personal shock-value attacks on anyone they perceived to be “bad.”

Today, you can look at the way some people react to other popular so-called “problematic” ships and recognize the same toxic, fear-mongering rhetoric coming from women who consider themselves regular, trans-inclusive feminists. Sometimes it even manifests in the words of very well-meaning people (including myself here), who feel the need to talk about specific issues that pertain to their own experiences of trauma and oppression.

The people who shit on Labyrinth often seem to not really be able to comprehend that the Goblin King, like the film itself, is canonically a representation of a teen girl’s psyche, a soup of fears and anxieties and desires and dreams. He’s not a literal human adult preying on a literal child, and to read the film that way seriously undermines the entire point of the film.

When I (and people of many fandoms) say “This is fiction, calm down,” I’m not just saying it’s not real so it cant hurt you and you can’t criticize me. I’m trying to call attention to what fiction actually is - artistic representations of feelings and experiences. The Goblin King is Sarah’s fiction. Therefore, he can be anything she or any woman who identifies with her wants him to be, including her lover when she’s grown and ready for such a thing.

I once took an alarming dive into Beetlejuice fandom to see what content was there (the cartoon was a favorite when I was little). Chillingly, what you’ll find is an extremely wounded fanbase, with a sharp divide between the older women who had long been shipping BJ/Lydia because of their love for the cartoon series (and whom were previously the vast majority of the Beetlejuice fandom), and a massive amount of young people riding the wave of the musical fad who had decided that the entire old school Beetlejuice fandom was populated by literal pedophiles.

I saw death threats. Suicide baiting. Constant, constant toxic discourse. It did not matter how the BJ/Lydia fandom dealt with any particular issues that would exist in their ship, in fact I’m certain that the people abusing them cared very little to even consider if they were trying to handle it at all. The only thing that mattered was that they were disgusting subhuman scum asking for abuse. If you have at any time reblogged recent Beetlejuice fan art or content from fans of the musical, you have more than likely been engaging positively with the content of someone participating in toxic fandom behavior.

Nobody is really sticking up for them, either, as far as I saw. It’s really hard to imagine how painful it must be to have such a large group of people explode into into your relatively private fandom space to tell you that you are evil, vile, and deserve constant abuse, and also you are no longer allowed into the fandom space to engage in it’s content. But I think there’s something very alarming indeed about this happening specifically to the BJ fandom, and I’ll explain why.

The pop-culture characterization of Beetlejuice, which is heavily influenced by the cartoon series to be clear, has always in my mind been a vaguely ageless being who matches with the psychological maturity of whatever age Lydia is supposed to be. He’s more or less like an imaginary friend, a manifestation of Lydia’s psyche. In fact, I would argue that i think most of us who grew up with the cartoon or it’s subsequent merchandizing before the musical ever existed probably internalized the idea as BJ and Lydia as this ageless, salt-and-pepper-shaker couple beloved by the goth community, similar to Gomez and Morticia. In each version of canon he may be a creepy ghost in the literal sense, but any adult who is capable of identifying literary tropes (even just subconciously) would read cartoon!BJ as an artistic representation of a socially awkward outcast girl’s inner world. Lydia’s darker dispositions and interests, which alienate her from most others, are freely accepted and embraced by her spooky magical friend. BJ/Lydia in the cartoon were depicted as best friends, but to my memory there was always an underlying sense that they had secret feelings for each other, which I identified easily even as a small child. In fact, their dynamic and behavior perfectly reflected the psychological development of the show’s target demographic. They are best friends who get into adventures and learning experiences together, who have delicate feelings for each other but lack any true adult romantic/sexual understanding to acknowledge those feelings, let alone pursue them.

Though I haven’t seen the Musical yet, I’ve read the wiki and I would argue that it embodies this exact same concept even more so for it’s own version of the characters, in that Beetlejuice specifically exists to help Lydia process her mother’s death.

This is not a complicated thing to recognize and comprehend whatsoever. In fact, it looks downright blatant. It’s also a clear indicator of what BJ/Lydia means to the women who have long loved it. It was a story about a spooky wierd girl being loved and accepted and understood for who she was, and it gave them a sense of solidarity. It makes perfect sense why those women would stick with those characters, and create a safe little space for themselves to and imagine their beloved characters growing and having adult lives and experiencing adult drama, in just the same ways that the women of the Labyrinth fandom do. That’s all these women were doing. And now, they can’t do it without facing intense verbal violence. That safe space is poisoned now.

Having grown up with the cartoon as one of my favorites and been around goth subculture stuff for decades, I was actually shocked and squicked at the original Beetlejuice film’s narrative once I actually saw it, because it was extremely divorced from what these two characters had evolved into for goth subculture and what they meant to me. It’s not telling the same story, and is in fact about the Maitland's specifically. In pretty much exactly the same way two different versions of Little Red Riding Hood can be extremely different from each other, the film is a different animal. While I imagine that the film version has been at the heart of a lot of this confused fear-mongering around all other versions of the characters, I would no more judge different adaptations of these characters any more than I would condemn a version of Little Red in which Red and the Wolf are best friends or lovers just because the very first iteration of LRRH was about protecting yourself from predators.

I would even argue that the people who have engaged in Anti-shipper behavior over BJ/Lydia are in intense denial over the fact that BJ being interested in Lydia, either as blatant predatory behavior a la the film or on a peer level as in the cartoon (and musical?) is an inextricable part of canon. Beetlejuice was always attracted to Lydia, and it was not always cute or amusing. Beetlejuice was not always a beloved buddy character, an in fact was originally written as a gross scumbag. That’s just what he was. Even people engaging with him now by writing OC girlfriends for him (as stand-ins for the salt-and-pepper-shaker space Lydia used to take up, because obviously that was part of the core fun of the characters), or just loving him as a character, are erasing parts of his character’s history in order to do so. They are actively refusing to be held responsible for being fans of new version of him despite the fact that he engaged in overt predatory behavior in the original film. In fact, I would venture to say that they are actively erasing the fact that Musical Beetliejuice tried to marry a teenager and as far as I’m aware, seemed to like the idea (because he’s probably a fucking figment of her imagination but go off I guess). The only reason they can have a version of this character who could be perceived as “buddy” material is because...the cartoon had an impact on our pop cultural perception of what the character and his dynamic with Lydia is.

We can have a version of the Big Bad Wolf who’s a creepy monster. We can have a version who’s sweet and lovable. We can have a version that lives in the middle. We can have a version who’s a hybrid between Red and the Wolf (a la Ruby in OUAT). All of these things can exist in the same world, and can even be loved for different reasons by the same people.

I’ve been using Beetlejuice as an example here because it’s kind of perfect for my overall point regarding the toxic ideologies in fandom right now across many different spaces, including ones for progressive and queer media, and how much so many people don’t recognize how deeply they’ve been radicalized into literalist and sex-negative radfem rhetoric, to the point where we aren’t allowed to have difficult, messy explorations of imperfect, flawed humans, and that art is never going to be 100% pure and without flaw in it’s ability to convey what it wants to convey.

This includes the rhetoric I’ve seen across the board, from She-Ra to A:TLA to Star Wars to Lovecraft Country. We don’t talk about the inherent malleable, subjective, or charmingly imperfect nature of fiction any more. Transformation and reclamation are myths in this space. Everything is in rigid categories. It is seemingly very difficult for some of these people to engage with anything that is not able to be clearly labeled as one thing or another (see the inherent transphobic and biphobic elements of the most intense rhetoric). They destroy anything they cannot filter through their ideology. When women act in a way that breaks from their narrative of womanhood (like...not having a vagina), then those women must be condemned instead of understood. Anything that challenges them or makes them uncomfortable is a mortal sin. There is an extraordinary level of both hypocrisy and repressive denial that is underlying the behavior I’m seeing now. Much like toxic Christian conservatism, these people often are discovered engaging in the same behaviors and interests that they condemn behind closed doors (or just out of sheer cognitive dissonance). As an example, one of the people who talked shit to me about Labyrinth was a huge fan of Kill La Kill, which to my knowledge was an anime about a teenage girl in like, superpowered lingere (hence why I stayed the fuck away from that shit myself). Indeed, they even allow themselves plenty of leeway for behavior far worse than they condemn others for, and create support systems for the worst of their own abusers.

Quite frankly, I’m tired. Instead of talking about theoretical problematic shit, we need to start talking about quantifiable harm. Because as far as I can tell, the most real, immediate, and quantifiable harm done because of anybody’s favorite ships or pieces of media seems to consistently be the kind that’s done to the people who experience verbal violence and abuse and manipulation and suicide baiting and death threats from the people who have a problem.

#Beetlejuice #Labyrinth #toxic fandom

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kaizokuou-ni-naru · 3 years

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The Voyage So Far: Whole Cake Island

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano

sanji is such a self-sacrificial idiot. and i know that’s not exactly a ground-breaking statement, but it does define the entire first half of whole cake island, so it may as well be reiterated here: sanji does not value his own life as much as he should, and fails to grasp that other people care about him outside of what he can offer them, which is why he’s so surprised when luffy later comes charging headlong into big mom’s territory.

zou is a really good little arc, and it also mirrors the themes of whole cake island in miniature. the minks collectively make a massive sacrifice and risk absolutely everything to protect raizou, and wci is essentially all about loyalty and sacrifice, whether its sanji giving himself up to protect the strawhats and zeff or luffy and the strawhats facing impossible odds to rescue him to pedro giving up his life to get them all out of there safe.

huge fan of this panel partly just because it’s cute and partly because it’s a great visualization of just how dysfunctional the heights are in one piece.

zou is one of my favorite settings in one piece just for the sheer creativity of it. zunesha is so massive and so mysterious and so strange. and she really looks unspeakably old just from how she’s drawn, looming over everyone and everything, eyes hollow and empty, an entire forest and an entire people growing on her back that have been there for thousands of years. it’s just so neat and so wildly inventive.

this applies to zou as a whole, but i think it’s really cool how all the little threads that will become important during wano are set up so effectively even before whole cake island starts. we get this shot here of kidd beat to shit and then forget it because so much happens between here and when he shows up again in wano, but then oda punks us into caring about him and killer so much and this retroactively becomes very important.

ever since his introduction sanji’s always been a character basically defined by his adherence to his principles: always feeding the hungry, never wasting food, never hurting women, never using his hands in combat. he’s probably the most firmly principled person on the crew, and that’s more obvious in whole cake island than in any other arc except maybe baratie.

sanji is very stubbornly good, which puts him in acute contrast to his siblings and their general cruel apathy. it’s something i really like about him.

i’m a huge fan of big mom’s introduction, which is also our introduction to tottoland in general. it’s cutesy and colorful and musical while simultaneously being deeply creepy, with lyrics about killing people for ingredients and making jam out of blood, which is a great summary of the core of big mom’s character. she’s an old lady all in pink who lives in a cartoon fairy-tale land- but she’s also a deranged cannibal, and all those singing trees and flowers are animated by the life she steals from her citizens as tax.

whole cake island draws on a lot of fairy tale motifs (especially with brulee), and the contrast that saccharine appearance creates with how fucked up the actual content is is super effective and memorable, i think.

honestly i find most of the content of sanji with the vinsmokes just plain upsetting, which i’m sure is intentional, so i’m not going to go into it a lot here, but i am including this panel of him kicking niji in the face.

sad as this scene turns out, luffy’s absolute thrill at finding sanji and the corresponding bafflement of the vinsmokes as to how the fuck he even got there always kinda makes me grin.

i always love seeing people’s underestimations about luffy get thrown right the hell out the window- because let’s be honest, he’s easy to underestimate, he’s like a five and a half foot tall rubber teenager and not very physically intimidating and all, and then he goes and pulls off the impossible without blinking.

the thing that makes luffy unique as a captain has always been his willingness to rely on his crew, and his willingness to openly admit that reliance, like he did all the way back in arlong park. most of the other contenders for the pirate king’s crown we’ve seen- big mom, kaidou, crocodile once upon a time- have been stubbornly individualistic people who explicitly shown not to care for their crew and allies, generally seeing them as disposable.

luffy is the opposite of all of them, because his crew are everything to him, to the point of being willing to sacrifice his dream for them. and the loyalty he wins from them in return is unmatched, as opposed to big mom and kaidou, who both get cheerfully betrayed not just by their own crewmates but by their own children.

brook is really cool in whole cake island, and honestly it comes at just the right time for him as a character. ever since his introductory arc in thriller bark until this point he hasn’t gotten a ton of focus, so it’s great that he gets to be the mvp here and demonstrate exactly why he’s a strawhat pirate and how much he’s grown over the timeskip.

oda is generally really good at introducing and handling characters contained to a single arc/saga, but i do think he absolutely knocked it out of the park with pedro. he has an interesting backstory, compelling motivations, and basically an entire sub-arc ending in his death that never distracts from the main plot, but only ever adds to it.

pedro really feels like a fully realized character who’s had a whole life offscreen, who we just happened to catch at the very end of his story. i think that’s super impressive.

i really love this moment, because for me, this is the moment where whole cake island becomes a tremendous arc, and where the tides begin to turn and the dominoes begin to fall, one after the other. this is sanji hitting absolute rock bottom. the one ray of light he pinned all his hopes on was a lie, and he can’t even light a fucking cigarette.

but one piece is, very often, a story about picking yourself up even when you feel like you can’t.

i think there’s something lovely about how much one piece emphasizes the value of honestly asking for help. luffy waits for nami to ask for help, and for robin to say she wants to live, and for sanji to admit he just wants to go home, and then says, “okay, i’ll make that happen.”

it just makes me so happy how happy the stawhats are to know sanji’s back with them. it reminds me a lot of how they all brush off robin’s thanks after enies lobby. sure, they’re going to have to crash the wedding and confront big mom directly and might all die, but who cares? they’ve got sanji back. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, i love how much they love each other.

i think the gangster outfits are super fun, and i love that oda is committed enough to his aesthetics to come up with an excuse to put them all in formalwear. it pays off, they all look extremely snappy.

i know i just said it in the dressrosa posts but i’m reiterating it here because this is my favorite example of it by far: i love when oda does this split-screen thing with his panels. the contrast between the two halves of pudding is so severe and yet they’re so clearly the same person i honestly just find this pair of panels fascinating to look at.

this panel also kind of gets at my favorite thing about pudding as a character, really. i know she’s a little controversial in fandom, but i’ve always found her entertaining (at least post-reveal), especially in the contrast between her unhinged evil side and her genuinely sweet romantic side and her post-wedding tendency to randomly ping-pong between the two.

i just always like reminding people that sanji is fast enough and his observation haki good enough to dodge a surprise attack, while thoroughly distracted, from katakuri.

sanji in this arc tends to get shit from a certain side of fandom for being ‘useless’ since he doesn’t have a big climactic fight despite being the focus of the arc, which i think is thoroughly missing the point. sanji is still plenty capable in combat, as demonstrated both here and later, with chiffon and oven. it just happens that his strength isn’t what saves the day ultimately, because combat ability isn’t everything, which is the entire point of the vinsmoke backstory/subplot. sanji saves the day just by being kind.

i’ll admit big mom’s flashback isn’t one of my favorites, taken in isolation- there are some parts of it that kind of unresolved (at least as of now- i still suspect they’ll be followed up eventually), and in general, although there is a tragedy to it, it doesn’t quite hit the way many of the other more effective flashbacks do. that said, i do think it does a really good job of succinctly explaining why big mom is the way she is in the present: she’s a child who was never told no, who never grew or matured past the disappearance of her adopted mother. that’s it, and that’s enough.

i’ve always been a little bit in love with how seriously and consistently one piece handles its themes of found family, and sanji outright disowning judge in whole cake island is maybe the most outright they ever get: family is found, not made. you owe nothing to your blood and are never beholden to your abusers.

and i just like that a whole lot.

i do think the tamatebako is one of the best uses of chekov’s gun i’ve ever seen. we’re first shown it at the end of fishman island, it’s revealed it got sent off to big mom rigged with explosives which is a minor “oh fuck” moment, and then it gets forgotten about, because the entirety of punk hazard and dressrosa happens in between! which is a lot!

i remember when i reached the moment in whole cake island where we’re reminded that that bomb still exists and is still waiting to explode, i just started laughing hysterically out loud, because i’d completely forgotten, and now that i remembered i was just delighted to know it was going to definitely go off at some point, almost certainly in a very satisfying way.

pedro is, if i remember right, the first time the imagery of the coming dawn that will become quite important in wano really has attention drawn to it in-text- the recurring motif is there before this, of course, dating all the way back to the names of the first chapter (romance dawn) and first island (dawn island), but this is the first time it’s actively addressed in-story.

in doing so, oda essentially presents a fresh mystery for us, but one that has been set up so consistently ever since chapter one that it feels like it fits perfectly into the world and story.

luffy’s been punching way above his weight class ever since crocodile all the way back in alabasta, fighting enemies who clearly outmatch him but always managing to win anyways, but his fight with katakuri is maybe the clearest the sheer differential in strength ever gets, because katakuri’s powers are similar enough to luffy’s that he can pull off pretty much all of luffy’s techniques, but better. so luffy has to fall back on the two things that have always been his greatest strengths, again all the way back to crocodile in alabasta: innovation and sheer fucking stubbornness.

one thing i love about one piece is how no character is immune to being clowned on. absolutely nobody. everybody looks like an idiot sometimes, and it makes everything so much more fun than if the series took itself more seriously. katakuri basically actively tries to avert this by building up a fearsome, flawless, and utterly no-nonsense persona, but it winds up failing hard because it actually only makes the contrast and surprise of his actual personality and vices that much funnier.

i’ve always loved this one panel of carrot going sulong, because she just looks so monstrous, like a true werewolf. the same goes for the shift in big mom’s design when she starts going truly mad with starvation and gets even more threatening-looking (below). i just think oda should let women be monstrously scary more often.

i do really love that the entire climax of whole cake island hinges on the degree of trust and faith the strawhats, and sanji and luffy specifically, have in each other. they’re all facing massive challenges that would seem insurmountable to an outsider- luffy facing down a yonkou’s commander with a bounty of over a billion and sanji remaking a massive cake that took months to plan and make in just a few hours, the others evading big mom’s full forces and big mom herself for a full night- but none of them have even a shred of doubt that the others can manage it.

i wrote a meta post awhile back about one piece’s concept of ‘honor in a pirates’ fight, and what it came down to is this: honor can never be expected between pirates, but the best of them will show it anyways, and it can be a very telling judge of character. nobody would expect katakuri to do this, and luffy even calls him an idiot for it, but he has enough respect for luffy as a strong opponent to do it anyways, and that’s how we know for absolute certain that even though he’s an antagonist, he’s also a good, honorable person.

i really like the gesture of luffy leaving his hat over katakuri’s mouth, especially because until this point, we’re never even given any indication that he’s really noticed it, let alone that katakuri is insecure about it. he never reacts to or comments on it (which is in itself kind of unusual from someone who tends to nickname opponents by their appearances as often as luffy does) one way or another.

and then he does this, confirming all at once that he did fully notice and understand, he just doesn’t care. which i think sums up one of the more under-appreciated aspects of luffy’s character- he’s generally way more observant than people give him credit for, especially when it comes to people, it’s just that he has a very different sense of what’s important and what’s not than your average person.

i love the sheer contrast between big mom’s delighted, rapturous singing as she devours the wedding cake against the violence taking place on screen as her army rains fire and hell down on the thousand sunny. it parallels her initial introduction at the start of the arc perfectly, and is just an excellent way to close out the arc with a bang.

i said it earlier but it bears repeating here, for a different reason: luffy is not very physically intimidating. he’s shorter than most of the other main characters, he’s a lanky teenager, he dresses casually and his most identifiable accessory is a farm hat.

but then there are times when he looks like a captain, like a future pirate king, and it just looks so natural on him. i can never get over it.

i really like that, after spending a whole arc demonstrating just how different (and how much better) sanji is than the vinsmokes, it ends like this- showing us just how similar he’s grown up to the man he’s chosen as his real family, and just how proud zeff would be of him.

#the voyage so far #one piece #opmeta #arc: whole cake island #arc: zou #long post #not japanese

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beelspillowpet · 3 years

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Brothers reactions to a fem disaster bi MC who swoons over like every fem demon they see in the devildom?

Just got finished screaming over how much I LOOOOOVE THIS PROMPT. BI DISASTER YEEEEAAAAHHHH

Thank you for being the first to request something from me! 😭😭😭 I apologize in advance that these hcs aren't SUPER FOCUSED on the MC being a female themselves, but I tried my best with sneaking it in there when I could!

I've decided that along with MC, the brothers are also bisexual for the prompts too! You can be a mess together! <3 Sorry it took so long!

Lucifer

Oh. You seemed so interested in that girl who passed you by. You were smitten, he might say. Never mind it, he didn’t want to assume anything of it. Maybe you were just really fond of that girl's appearance.

The next girl he spotted you talking with, he was a bit concerned. You shouldn’t be off making friends with just ANY demons. They could be plotting to take your soul if you aren’t careful. Your palette seemed to be meshed, you were now talking to boyish women and feminine men. It was starting to come together for him now that you are, in fact, bisexual. A truly chaotic one, at that.

Over the next few weeks, he sees you flourish more and more with your obsession over women and men together. It’s not like you’ve forgotten about him, far from it. In fact, sometimes he listens to you rant about how beautiful this girl is at RAD, talking about her eyes or her lips. Other times he listens to you cry over how absolutely GORGEOUS this man is. He will never admit that he finds your taste in men and women to be quite similar to his. Almost exactly the same.

He listens to you sometimes talk to his brothers about how unrealistically, unreasonably cute, that girls are. You don't have nearly as much energy talking about men than you do women, but it's still there. He doesn’t really indulge you as much as he should, but he gives you enough input to invite you to keep ranting about BEAUTIFUL women and men.

Mammon

Same, dude. Same.

Mammon is a powerful bisexual, and you are the one who made him realize this(?!). He pretends he's not listening to you half the time, but he's hanging on your every word. When you two hang out, sometimes you push your D.D.D to his face to show you another model you've found on Devilgram. "His abs are SMOKIN' hot, Mammon, look!!" He has to agree. He's got a nice body. "Look at her soft face! She's SO unbelievably cute! And those curves, oof!”

He's watching you swoon and he can't believe it. You're both chaotic disasters, swooning over man and woman alike. You put much more life into your talks about women than you do men, and it worries him sometimes that he might not actually give him the time of day whenever he works up the courage. When you talk about those cute women, he does mostly still think about you. You have such beautiful eyes, and soft hair, when he's allowed to touch it. He wonders why you haven't seen it yourself.

At some point he let's it slip that he, himself, may or may not be bisexual, when you catch him scrolling through Devilgram of some of the models you've shown him in the past. The two of you spend hours on end, swooning over every male and female in sight.

Leviathan

You two are feral bisexuals. Especially fond of girls. Leviathan and you have both played those H-games. You know the ones. He catches you from time to time, listening to ASMR of girls patting your head or talking you through a rough patch in your life. He definitely knows when you're listening to lewd audio clips of women too.

He thinks for a while that you're a lesbian, and he's completely fine with that. It isn't until your attention abruptly SHIFTS when you find a SMOKIN' HOT anime boy that he realizes you are a disaster of a bisexual. Sometimes it's like a day and night shift with you. When you see girls at anime conventions you swoon uncontrollably. Gripping his arm and giving those compressed SCREECHES from the throat with shut lips. He can't help but think you're hyperbolic sometimes.

Deep down inside, he feels the exact same way. It's just too embarrassing to act like that though. But even though he feels that way, he watches you shuffling over to the cosplayers and otaku girls and asking for pictures. If you're lucky, you might even score a number from one of them! How dare you have better social skills than him? It's SOOO not fair??

He decides one of these days he'll take a page out of your book. He'll happily geek out about girls to you (especially if there's a Ruri-Chan cosplayer!?) and occasionally about the guys too. You both lean towards females anyway, and he's glad he's found someone just like him.

Satan

Oh. Girls? Guys? He's here, and he's listening.

He doesn't have any picture books, but the way the books describe some of the women? *chef's kiss* He loves it! He's watched you attempt to capture their beauty on paper (or tablet and laptop!) and smiles at your attempts. He calls them attempts because that's what you call them. "Nothing I do can truly capture the beauty that is any female that exists here." And he AGREES.

He finds your ridiculous chanting of GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS to be a riot. He joins in if it means pissing Lucifer off with the noise pollution. When you shift to guys, he's still as vocal as before. You probably aren't that great at drawing guys yet, but that's cool. He appreciates your enthusiasm. You catch him staring at you from time to time, and you wonder if he ever thinks you're as cute of a girl as the other ones you two fawn over.

Like a distorted clock, you talk about girls for at least two hours of his time, and then another hour about boys. He can't believe how much energy you put into loving women. He wonders if you're like Asmo, and just appreciate women a little bit too much. After all, the previous mention of chanting GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS is still fresh on his mind. You really are a messy bisexual, but you're his favorite messy bisexual, at least.

Asmodeus

OH HECK YEAH. YOU BOTH ARE A WRECK!

GIRLS. BOYS. GIRLS. BOYS. It's a never ending cycle with you two. It's like you're rabid animals, constantly going out to The Fall for the scoop on the next hottest guy to walk in. When you see a girl though, it's like you're straight out of a cartoon. You don't howl or whistle or anything of the sort that may be unsightly or rude but you ARE WATCHING. RESPECTFULLY.

You and Asmo are unashamed when it comes to flirting with men and women alike. You share tips that have worked in the past for each other, and having the Avatar of Lust give you pointers is a nice bonus overall. Asmo thinks for a while that you are a normal bisexual, but he's proven wrong when you find a group of beautiful women, who you hyper focus on for the next few weeks. He's honestly impressed.

It's like your attraction to men has almost disappeared, and he worries that perhaps you don't love him more than any woman you run across in the Devildom anymore. Your attention to men is still there with passing comments of "yeah he's really cute" but you're RIGHT BACK to the topic of GIRLS. he can't blame you. Women are QUEENS, just like you're an absolute QUEEN to him. He's more than happy to indulge some lewd talk about women, and you both spend hours doing exactly that most nights.

Beelzebub

Oh, that's cool. Someone else in this house likes both men and women. He's glad you're comfortable sharing so much with him. Usually when you do go for jogs in the morning, he watches you at his side while he listens to you. There's apparently this blonde woman with dark skin and she looks absolutely DIVINE. His brain focuses on imagining a pretzel with salt sprinkled over it, and he drools. He likes that thought, very much.

It's when you see said jogger does he truly realize your fixation on women is something to be feared. You're practically floating when she jogs by, almost wanting to go after her. Beel stops you, and asks if you're okay, worried that you might trip over your own feet if you swoon any harder. He thinks its cute. You start to dress like this jogging woman, wearing her color scheme in hopes that she'll notice you. Maybe he'll try to help and play wingman for you.

He doesn't open up about it at first, but eventually he does finally speak up when you bring up a man you see at the gym with him from time to time. He blushes a bit because he knows immediately who you're talking about. You like that guy, and Beel really likes him too. When you two see him at the gym, you both swoon a bit too much. While spotting Beel one time, he passed by and Beel nearly dropped his weights on his chest. This caused a bit of attention your way and flustered, you helped Beel set the weights back up and make sure he was okay. That wasn't the first or last time an accident happened at the gym either.

At the Fangol games, it's even worse, somehow. You sit as close as possible to the field, and halftime is your FAVORITE time. All those cute cheerleaders? Cheering for their teams? You forget in all the glory that is the ABSOLUTE BEAUTY OF WOMEN that you're supposed to be rooting for Beel. You spend the rest of the game reimagining the routines that were performed, and Beel is right there admiring them too. Quietly, at least. You're a bit too enthusiastic about your love for women, and Beel thinks you're cheering louder for them than you are for him when he's playing. He doesn't mind it too much though. He'd probably be the same way, provided he let loose a little more.

Belphegor

He doesn't bother with you. It's like you talk a mile a minute, only interested in girls for the most part. Occasionally you'll talk about a hot guy, and well, he's listening but... It's sort of hard for him to fall asleep with all your rambling about women. With such detail, it's like you're trying to give him material to imagine while he sleeps.

Belphie tries his hardest not to tell you to quiet down sometimes. He's forced to come to RAD, he's stuck by your side, mostly because your taste in men and women are quite similar to his. He's been sorely lacking on the cute girls and guys here at RAD, but he can count on you to provide eye candy for him. Not that he's going to act on it. Most of the time, he's too busy trying to block out your constant rambling. He notices it's mostly about women.

He thinks you're insecure at first, trying to appeal to him, presumably a straight guy, while appearing interested in men to seem straight too. He let's it be known for your comfort, if you like girls more than guys, then it's fine. He's not one to care or judge others on their interest. An anarchist at heart, and your chaotic bisexuality freak-outs are what he lives for. If you were more quiet about it, he would find it easier to fall asleep to. He manages to do that a few times.

Let's it slip while talking about a dream he had that he's interested in guys too. Maybe a little more than you are, though. 50/50 at best. He doesn't really encourage you to talk more about the girls you absolutely DROOL over, but whenever you two are out and you spot a woman, he's always side eyeing you and telling you to wipe your mouth. He sometimes makes a show of it, teasing you by panting like a dog, or telling you to heel. It's all in fun though, and he lets up before it gets too embarrassing.

#om!#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me swd #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphgor

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

House of Mouse: Max’s Embarrassing Date Review

Hello House Mouses and welcome back to the house of mouse. Another comission by Kev and my second House of Mouse for the valentine’s season. This time we’re not tackling a Valentine’s Episode necesarily, but a romantic one all the same as fan faviorite couple Max and Roxanne finally go on a date. I always liked Max. Even as a kid when I wasn’t the biggest fan of “A Goofy Movie”, didn’t like the darker patches like the principals office scene or the Pete Hot tub scene.. though in hindsight both had legit greviances with Max... it just dosen’t make either less terrible as the principal still told an innocnet man who wasn’t responsible for what his kid did and was trying his best that his son was going to become a crminal because of one stupid but mostly harmless prank, and Pete.. is just an abusive, unlikeable and unlovable ass in both Goof Troop and Goofy Movie, and I hate how he treats his son, don’t blame his wife for leaving him or taking their daughter and dog, and am really sad he got custody of PJ somehow. And for the record this isn’t ALL petes, just this version. The rest are fine and just the right level of asshole.

Point is despite my problems with the first film, I had none with the second and even now I like it due to having some really good ideas and concepts while also being gloirously rediclous due to the loveably dated X-Games element. While I do have a spot in my heart for the Dana Hill and Shaun Fleming versions, especially the latter once upon a christmas is awesome, Jason Marsden’s version is the best by the mile having the right amount of ego mixed with self doubt to make him likeable enough to brook him being an ass to his dad a lot. He’s a good character.. and it baffles me Disney NEVER uses him nowadays. No really, the last time he showed up was in twice upon a christmas and no one liked that because he was dating someone who wasn’t Roxanne just to rehash the same plot they’d already rehashed better in Extremley Goofy Movie. I REALLY need to rewatch that one. Hmm.... gonna see if I can squeeze that one into May or later in April. That’s for another time.

But yeah while he’s at one of the disney parks, that’s it. The character just .. vanished, and hasn’t been brought back in any way shape or form. Though I could see either a Disney Plus reboot of goof troop or a goofy movie with max having his own kids. That could be intresting. Also bring Roxanne back as weirdly this episode i’m reviewing, a goofy movie and now her ducktales cameo are her ONLY apperances.

Seriously I get she’s not the most fleshed out.. but then flesh her out. Like Max she’s crminally underused and while I get her absence as a character in the sequel, the plot really didn’t need her, he still could’ve been dating her off screen. Though clearly the two worked things out and tried again as this episode came out AFTER extremely did. But did this episode work out? Join me under the cut to find out.

As i’ve decided is my standard for House of Mouse Episodes, shorts first, then wraparound, then Mickey Mouse live sex celebration. Though I will say i’ve picked up there are two kinds of formats for the show: They either use two of the longer Mouseworks shorts or just one close to 11 minute short, a medium one, and one of the little two minute segments. There might be a break from this in the future, we shall see but for now those ar ethe two standards. This time we have two longer shorts.

Pluto’s Penthouse Sweet:

I’ve mentioned in the past I dont’ really get why Pluto is part of Disney’s sensational six along with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Daisy. And I stand by that: While he’s had his own cartoons they just aren’t as entertaining and creative as MIckey’s or hilarous and relatable as Donald and Goofy’s. He’s just an average cartoon dog. He works fine in tandem with Mickey, but on his own he’s just nothing and his spot should be taken by pete, who while not a goodie all the time, again the goof troop version needs to step on a rake and fall into a well.. somehow. i didn’t think my insult through. Point is pete is better. And this short isn’t BAD .. but to me it’s what some fans THINK the disney shorts are: Bland, maybe one or two good jokes but almost nothing new or intresting. As I found out last year, that’s far from the case, as a lot of the Donald shorts are still hilarious today and a lot of the mickey shorts are shockingly creative, like Thru The Mirorr where he goes .. well thru the mirror into a wonderland like world where all the inanaimate objects are alive and he can shrink and what not via astral projection, or Mickey’s Mechanical Man, which I sadly didn’t know about when I did the MIckey Birthday Special and for some reason isn’t on disne plus. In it Mickey creates a robot and has it box a monsterous looking gorillia.

How has Mickey piloting this thing but giant sized against various kaiju been a thing yet? And if it has someone tell me. Seriously with all the comics and animated series how. I’d even settle for a Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse episode. Just bring this guy back. Point is there was far more invetnion than it seemed.. at least at first as it slowly died out as they went by the late 50′s. But Pluto just seemed even in their hayday like your standard pet gets into antics thing without the creative slapstick of tom and jerry or the likeablity of sylvester who never could get that asshole Tweety Bird. This is just weak sauce and whiel I could forgive the older shorts, as their from another time and likely lead to say Tom and Jerry... I can’t forgive this which was made probably in 1998 and released in 1999 originally. Comedy had evolved a LOT by that point and unlike the Goofy how to shorts, which are a format that is immortal and still evolved to match the times and felt fresh, these just feel stale and boring and like the last Pluto short I covered this one was a chore to sit through though not nearly AS bad.

Still though the premise is about the same, Pluto’s left to his own devices, and finds a female dog, though in this case she’s VERY intrested in him. I”m also not entirley convinced she’s a dog, but instead one of Jumba’s experiments and that Lilo and Stitch later had to journey to.. wherever these shorts take place to fetch him. Or more likely the house of mouse. I mean Proud Family, Recess, American Dragon Jake Long and Kim Possible all take place int hat universe, why can’t house of mouse? Also tell me you wouldn’t watch an avengers style team consisting of Kim, Ron, Jake, Penny, Probably TJ, Lilo, Stitch and Donald Duck. If you wouldn’t i’d call you a liar because you would be.

Seriously the eyes give her away.... just look at them. Very experimenty. But before Pluto can do it like they do on the discovery channel he has to get past the guard dog.. though how he does produces the one great gag of the short, as he BUILDS A GIANT, TROJAN HORSE ESQUE PLUTO OUT OF JUNK. Just holy shit that’s awesome> It gets him inside, only for him to find his lady friend is a bit TOO affectionate and he has to escape, he does so, and MIckey wonders if he missed him etc lame button. This short was a vacuum of comedy outside of GIANT PLUTO. Seriously where’s my disney giant mecha series. YOu have five main characters, and Pluto among with MANY, MANY side characters, frmo scrooge to the boys to hopefully Della, to even possibly pete and mortimer who could have their own mech against the heroes but maybe join them in the last episode. Maybe max and pj could have some, have a father vs son thing with PJ and Pete. I”m just saying, i’d watch it. I know my nieces would watch it. I know my nephews would watch it. Greenlight it. Or i’ll make it.. somehow.

How to Ride a Bike: Speaking of the How To Shorts, as usual for the House of Mouse era ones.. this was awesome, pretty much what you’d expect, some goofy, pardon the pun, gags about goofy riding a bike and then a fun climax of him in a bike race. Not a ton to add, other than that hamster bike above is genius. Just needs some tweaking. Really funny, really simple, and really good as you’d expect from a good Goofy Short. Easily the best part of the episode.

Max’s Embarrassing Date: So this was a disapointment. Like i’d try to be nice.. but I had high hopes given this brought Roxanne back, and while the premise was stock maybe they’d do something funny with with it.

But no the plot is pretty standard, very predictable and fairly obnoxious. Max has a date with Roxanne, and is playing it cool and what not, but is worried his dad will find out.. which he somehow did offscreen. Probably Clarabelle.. I mean they do go out sometimes in this one, wouldn’t surprise me.

So Max pleads with the rest of the HOM staff to keep him away because he fears his dad will overdo things, which.. is fair and one of the few things I like> He dosen’t want him to overdo it on the mood because this is well.. a first date. He dosen’t want to pressure her or himself and just wants it to be nice and calm. The problem is it’s framed like him once again being embarassed by his dad and having to learn better.

At this point we’d had TWO movies do this already, one of which was only two years old at the time of this episode. This plot is stale as old toast even if it dind’t have goofy in it. And the twist is predictable: the HOM crew end up also overdoing it: Minnie comments on how cute they are and wants candles brought, Daisy gets them a bigger table forgetting how dates work,t hough we do get a great gag of hte 7 dwarves stacked, and Mickey while having .. some.. gopher? I honestly can’t tell who it was, usually i’m better at the cameos. Speaking of which they also have a runner of beast going on a date with Cruella Devile.

I mean is he cheating on his wife? Is she holding his wife hostage? Is this before belle because we see a post transfomratoin beast too so maybe the House of Mouse is an intersection of space and time? That’s.. actually the most resonable answer I can think of honestly and when i’m focusing more on how the hell your gag works than how funny it is, you clearly failed somewhere along the line.

Point is Mickey puts his good friend in a pothole, and not only calls max little max, which while an understnadably close family thing to do is still embarassing, but also takes pictures while their eating the spagetthi.. which i’m 100% sure was Huey’s idea nad had Mickey not interrupted, would’ve been tied up down the middle for a lady and the tramp thing. It’s his signature move. Well that and having a panic attack. That’s also one of mine the others being lettterkenny refrences and sex jokes about disney characters. But yeah this just.. dosen’t work. Them being as embarassing? that’d be fine.. if they weren’t wholly unsympathetic for not only keeping their friend from WELL INTEITONEDLY trying to help his son on his date, something his son shold have no problem with since ROXANNE’S MET HIM. AND IS FINE WITH HIM. AND NEVER CARED ABOUT YOU BEING HIS SON LIKE THE DICKHEADS AT SCHOOL. MINUS BOBBY WHO YOUR FRIENDS WITH FOR SOME REASON. My point is this plot bothers me a lot, and it makes the mickey crew come off like assholes for doing this to thier friend instead of just talking to him like a person. Especially since only ONE of them is a parent and Conviently donald is mostly absent. Likely because he realized this was going to end badly and just agreed to tie the spagetthi like huey taught him to keep his involvment in this shit show and gaslighting his best friend to a minimum.

Eventually Mickey takes things a step too far and has Sebastian almost sing kiss the girl. Max cuts him off though yelling that he just wants them to back off, he just wants them to relax and he TOLD them this, which makes them come off worse as they KNEW he didn’t want this and did it anyway and never apologize becaue apparently the first rule of house of mouse is never apologize for anything, huh huh. Goofy naturally steps in, tells them off and agrees to serve them and Roxanne finds him entertaining and gives him a nose kiss for being a good dad. He’s a good guy that Goof. Roxanne then whispers something in max’s ear at the end of the date... which gives him an audible erection. No really. And given his age is vauge here I’m suddenly super duper uncomfortable so let’s move on.

So max tells them she liked it and wants to come back.. 100% sure that wasn’t what she said but what she said isn’t fit to print and you’ve seen what i’ve said and what I put in the we’ll be right back. Point is he’s happy, though Mickey says we’ll try to make it extra special next time. Mickey.. did you do a space mountain’s worth of pills and cokea nd just forget the entire evening? Did you take some of those hangover roofies/ Why would you do that? Was that pete’s new plan to steal the house of mouse? To drug you guys and make you forget you already paid the rent? Did PJ stop him? Inquiring me wants to know.

Final Thoughts: Yeah this wasn’t a very good episode. Roxanne is wasted despite having a suitable replacment Roxanne voice in Grey Delise, with no real depth just to rehash the plot of the first and second goofy movies. And this one didn’t have an inexpilicable beatnik cafe, PJ getting laid and finally being happy for once, a standard college fraternity plot surgeically infused with an out of nowhere obession with xtreme sports that was nowhere in the first film, Goofy in an afro, Goofy finding love, That disco sequence, and a climax in which Goofy carries Brad Garret out of a fire, then Brad Garret probably kills the villian of the film who certainly deserved it. My points are this episode was an underwhelming rehash only saved by some good shippy moments and a good goofy short. It was weak, not all that funny, and not all that intersting. My other point is that an extremley goofy movie is awesome and also kinda insane and I love it for that. I’m glad I saw this one but i’m really disapointed in how bleh it was. Next time I visit the house of mouse is.. actually in a few days as Pete Does a One Man Show. So yeah already 100% better just by having THAT musical number in it, see you then and if not, there’s always another rainbow.

#house of mouse #max goof #roxanne #the goofy movie #max x roxanne #goofy goof #goofy #donald duck #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #daisy duck #cruella de vil #beast #disney #comissions

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