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leviiattacks · 4 years

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hi bestie!! pls pretty pls do a levi one where he takes care of a sick y/n im feeling a bit under the weather and im getting kinda scared bc of covid :<< anything to help calm my nerves pls? thank you <3

author note :: get well soon anon :-( i’m super sick rn too (when am i not tho </3) so i get how it is. this isn’t that great because i wrote it pretty quick but i hope it eases youuu :-) this is just pure fluff and sappy stuff and yup yup MODERN LEVI BC... listen i have a soft spot for modern levi word count :: some how i got to 1.4k ????? idk how i always go over the expected word count i have in my head

it’s literally been YEARS since the last time you were sick

if you really dig through the depths of your memory you’d say maybe you were last sick when you were seven???

it’s that or your memory is just not great

either way, you really do not want to bother anyone with your sickness so you decide to hole up in your room for the entire day

you don’t even tell levi about it because you know he’ll drop everything for the sake of your comfort

the only problem is that midway through the day you’ve become so bedridden you can’t even begin to fathom attending classes tomorrow

you guess you’ll be taking another day off

as that thought crosses your mind your bedroom door bursts open

“i...” levi lets out a long sigh and you look at him dazed from your pounding headache

you’re surrounded by scrunched up tissues and your cold meds have been left untouched

“i’m gonna get you sick too. back away.” you’re frowning and signalling with your hands that you want him out

your nose is stuffy and you’re sniffling but levi just rolls his eyes before he sits next to you on the floor

buried in your duvet you look a little like a burrito and he laughs at that

“do you know where the thermometer is? i’ll check on your fever.”

he’s looking at you waiting for an answer

you think for a second and then you try to rummage through the timeline of today’s events.

to be fair you’re a little disoriented but for some unknown reason you feel yourself get a little teary eyed

maybe it’s a mix of your upcoming deadlines looming over you or perhaps it’s missing a really important class today

but it’s so sudden you don’t even know why your body is making you act so irrationally but that’s what fevers do

“i think i” you sniff and then the waterworks flood out of you. your brain can’t adjust to the severity of your headache and your urge to sleep is higher than ever

honestly you don’t cry very much so to see the tears worries levi almost immediately

“im sorry i misplaced it.” you croak out, your voice is all scaly and weird, you hate it

stupidly you get upset about that too

don’t people sound hot when they’re sick?? why do you sound like an angry bear...?

this is not fair.

“and i’m stressed.” you blow your nose but it continues to drip despite your constant attempts to stop it

nose bright red and hair disheveled levi’s eyes soften when he sees your workbook laying at the foot of your bed

notes are scribbles in random corners and your mind map is a chaotic mess but you’re trying your best given the circumstances

god, even when you’re sick you’re working hard. you’re ridiculous but in the most endearing way known to man

“alright, lay down.” he runs a hand through your hair to fix the birds nest before he adjusts your pillows and places your head down gently

“i’m sorry i’ve lost the-”

levi’s index finger presses against your lips and he shushes you

“get some rest, please.”

you comply but not before giving him a playful glare

his warm palms move to hold your face. cheeks squished together he swipes your tears away

“i’ve got some soup on the stove you’ll be good in no time.” his soft reassurance is comforting and protective

nodding you flutter your eyes shut.

you’re unable to sleep but levi’s presence is enough to ease you even if it’s just a little you do feel better

fifteen minutes pass and levi returns he’s got you a hot cup of tea and the soup is nowhere to be seen

“i had an accident in the kitchen... so have some tea instead.”

you simply laugh it off, he’s trying his best and you’re alright with not having to be fed tomato soup

tomato soup..... it’s sick and twisted it tastes so bad

you recall having to force yourself to down an entire bowl last christmas after catching a cold

never ever again will you do that

anyways, pea soup superiority it’s the only valid type !!!

levi likes tomato soup though that’s the only reason it sits in bulk in one of the kitchen cabinets

he brushes the mountain of tissues on your bedside table away, he’ll dispose of them later

placing the cup of tea where the aforementioned tissues once were you then realize he’s brought you a slice of madeira cake to have alongside it

at this your eyes brighten you love madeira cake it’s so soft and buttery and simple but it’s just REALLY GOOD???

anyway, you definitely recommend everyone to have some it’s a solid 10/10

“picked some up on my way here.”

your heart swells affectionately

no one will ever love you as hard as he does

to be honest, the little things he does keep you grounded and you don’t really know where you’d be without him

he always pays attention to the things you love, always carries you from the couch to your bed, always tucks you in, always lingers a little just to make sure you’re sound asleep

you know about that last bit because on occasion you have stirred awake on accident

every single time he strokes your hair and holds you close ushering you back to sleep

again, you don’t know if it’s your fever making you emotional or the warm feeling of being loved so HARD?? it’s like whack a mole the only difference is being repeatedly hit by bursts of affection

not really a great analogy but your brain is fried right now and it’s the best you’ve got

levi sits next to you making the mattress shift and you then plop your head against his chest

“drink up.”

he hands you the cup of tea but you nuzzle your face into his neck instead forcing him to place it back down

“what are you doing?” he asks.

one of his hands draws circles onto your back soothing you and the other hand is fiddling around with the packaging of your cold meds, he looks to be reading the description just to make sure you can take them

the feeling of his t-shirt under your cheek fades away and you find yourself staring up at him

“get here.” he softly murmurs

rather than pressing a hand against your forehead he swoops down

at first his hands feel your face and neck

“you’re burning up.” he frowns and then he does it

he presses his forehead against yours and you swear you could stop breathing and pass out right then and there

“the fever’s getting worse, why didn’t you call me earlier i had to find out you were sick from-”

“i love you.”

he freezes.

“of course you love me but that’s not what we’re talking about right now.” he snorts and looks you right in the eye.

suddenly you’re kinda just a teeny-weeny bit self-conscious about your dark under eyes but you push that thought to the back of your mind

“no i mean. i really fucking love you levi.” the expletive only makes you sound more serious especially since you always scold him when he uses vulgar language

it looks as if his mouth moves to say it back but you stop him

“you don’t have to say it again. i’m saying it because you said it first.” you explain through your drowsy state

“when did i say it first?”

the fever must be really getting to you is what he’s thinking

“your actions spoke for you.”

he ever so slightly jabs you with his elbow before he carefully places your head back down onto his chest

“you’re so sappy.” he pecks your cheek and you hum silently still unable to breathe out of one of your nostrils

“i know but you’re sappier.”

levi doesn’t respond because he knows you’re correct

:-)

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hohoz · 3 years

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How RE Village (8) SOLVED almost every problem that I had with RE Series

Okay - a few weeks ago I made a post that was “The ones that suffer the most” where I showed and explained my main problems with Chris and Jill and the RE series in general

RE 1 is my fav game of this series and probably one of my all time favs, I player every RE there is to be played except 4 (because I dislike Leon, sry)

Recently, specially after 4, the franchise had a few problems, specially in writing/map design/lore

Resident evil 5 for example (I love this game) but it has it flaws, Chris there is only driven by anger and action - Sheva is used as a tool for lore exposition and to be Chris’s new partner

PLEASE: be aware that game at that generation didn’t have much lore - with some exceptions, like God of War 1 2 3 were a simply game with a simple lore, and the most recent GoW has evolved a little bit in the storytelling

Until we hit rock bottom in RE6 - I know a lot of people like this game, but this is only and action game, bad writing and generic stages.

Chris there is so mistreated that makes me mad (if you want to read more about this go to my other post “the ones that suffer the most”)

Until RE7 appeared, Capcom had a new engine and they wanted to do a game that was more horror like - since RE is know for being a Survival horror game.

I liked 7 - some people complained about Ethan being without emotion and others complained about the mold, a few didn’t like the FEAR vibes from Eveline.

I personally enjoyed the game, I thought RE series was going back on track, that game has it’s problems but it was really nice compared to what we had in 6.

After that game I had a conversation with my best friend and I said that I wanted a game that portrayed Umbrella’s fall since the only game that shows this is Umbrellas Chronicles (and that is most a resume of what happened)

And I said: “Bro, I wish that when they made that game, they could tie some mythological lore and human evolution before Umbrella - using Spencer, this would solve LOT OF STUFF and open new ways to handle this series”

and guess what - this happened in RE8 and kudos to the one writer that did that, i have my gratitude.

RESIDENT EVIL 8 is probably one of the BEST RE games that we had IN YEARS

And I want to address all thing that I loved in this game and do some predictions to what will happen in the next games.

“WELL WELL IF IT ISN’T ETHAN WINTERS” (The Father of the year)

My father was not a great guy... really, so I want to be the best dad ever, I really want be like Ethan - a guy who is ready to sacrifice and fight every monster in the way to save my family.

Ethan was a character that in RE7 was used to make us fell like that it was us in the Baker’s house, so that is why he didn’t had that much personality (in my opinion) but they changed that in RE8, here he has nice dialogues AND a diary

He has one of the best story line in the whole REverse, a guy that did EVERYTHING in his power to save his daughter - and you saw that playing the game, every sentence line that he delivered, he tried to save others too and even tho Chris said to him stay put ... but he couldn’t, he had to go to the altar, he had to help Chris, he had to go forward and keep going, specially after having the tools to face Heisenberg.

The plea from a father, that was his last wish, after he heard that Mia was alive he knew that someone had to stop that monster, he made a promise to his daughter “Daddy won’t let those weird fairy tale monsters get you” so he trusted Chris, to be the one that teaches his kid how to be brave and strong

I will not address Chris and Rose situation here because this is Ethans part and he deserves completely all the spotlight, his sacrifice was 100x times better than Steve (CV)/Piers(6)

My cheers to Ethan Winters - You have my respect !

Revelations -> RE8

So leaks from earlier times said that RE8 sucked and Revelations 3 was amazing

Revelations FYI is know for using old tales in RE stories

Revelations 1 - Dante’s Inferno

Revelations 2 - Frans Kafka

Revelations 3 - Dracula

But since RE8 sucked, Capcom said to the REV3 team that they could make REV3 become RE8 and they accepted

Revelations series is one of the best in the games, they handle Jill in a way that I love, Claire and even Barry - so they deserve all the spotlight for making this awesome game - you CLEARLY can see that they love this series and that they treat all the characters with the love that they deserve.

Keeping that in mind, they are the same team that made Rev 2 and in REV 2 we have this file here

So they had a plan for Jill and we can see that in RE8 - I will address that later but keep that in mind - this team cares for the old characters, they were the ones that brought Barry back to the games :V

Chris Redfield

This is a hard one, because he is my fav character and I usually have the most critics regard him, since I’ve expect a lot from Capcom

In the latest games they made him kind dumb, only muscles type of guy and an alcoholic that let all the people in his surroundings die (RE5,RE6,Vendetta)

RE6 treats him the WORST

But in RE8 he had an amazing part in the storyline, it was obvious that he wasn’t evil and they FIXED HIS EYE COLOR - FINALLY

I still don’t like the model face that much but it’s way better than 7 - so I believe Capcom, I still feel that he need more jawline

But let’s go to the most important thing - here he really feels like a squad leader and a veteran, he has his team but he is the one in the front line, he covers and ask for help when he needs, everything about his line delivery makes you feel like “Woah, this guy is a badass, he is not some stupid guy only driven by emotions”

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FINALLY GETTING THIS RIGHT

If you remember my post about the ones that suffer the most / Jill is also in that list and I will talk about her a little bit later but if my guess is right RE8 saved her character aswell

Another thing that I enjoyed here is the fact that he is kind of a mercenary / Neo Umbrella kind of guy, even tho he is one of the founders of the BSAA

So I will give you all my score to this game:

9/10

I won’t give 10/10 because of some technical issues, the cursor lock didn’t work and mouse sensitivity was i dunno, not the best.

RE8 and the future (PREDICTIONS) - Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, BSAA, Neo Umbrella, Ada Wong and Rosemary

First let’s look Rose

The first time I saw Rose all grown up - I thought to myself : She has the same problem as Eveline (age a lot faster than normal)

But she also absorbed Miranda’s power since the metalicite (something like this) thought that she was a better host. - so maybe she will live longer or something because I doubt that they will do a 14 years time skip.

This is not the same as Terra Save logo (Claire’s job) but it kind reminds me of it - her shoes appeared at least 3 times in this cut scene so maybe they are trying to show some hints with this

She really reminds me of Jodie (Beyond two souls, a game where a girl has a lot of power and the gov uses her in missions and stuff, but she also is learning how to be her own person)

Another thing here is that they don’t have a logo in this car, it really reminds me the car that Chris as using in RE8

This supports the theory that Chris’s organization is dealing with her instead of the BSAA, the she is a hot headed girl and that she had a lot of powers.

So here you can say that she is just a kid because she is a teenager, but what if she actually grows older really fast (like Eveline) maybe this is just 1 year later / 2 yrs later. (after RE8)

So this is the tricky part, this is Chris’s guard/soldier, someone that Chris trust to stand by her side, in my mind I do believe that Chris is kind of a father figure to her, so when this guys says this he is thinking about hot head Chris but she replies “Yeah” thinking about Ethan - (she has the mold memories, so she can actually remember Ethan’s memories)

Now let’s look at this

BSAA

So in REV1 is hinted that BSAA is not the best organization in the world, but since our heroes work there we think that they are the good guys right ?

In REV 2 (it’s important to remember that the team that created RE8 is the same from the REVELATIONS and they had this file here in REV2)

This email is from Jill and what does Jill have ? T-Virus

Wesker is a different case since he was a project and she had the vaccine but this would make a lot of sense if they had this tests with Jill to get the T-Virus

If that is the case, they explained Jill’s absence in the main games, could even explain why Chris left BSAA and opened a new window to a lot of possibilities

My Predictions:

- Chris had trouble dealing with BSAA and Jill’s case, he wanted to get her out of there, maybe he removed her from there but that resulted in him being expelled from the force

-Jill may or may not know what they are doing with her blood, but she will have a huge part in the BOW used by BSAA

-Chris is married to Jill (sorry- I had to place this here, in a perfect world he has two kids with her and they all love aunt Rose)

-Chris will hopefully be a father figure to Rose and they will be in a game together since in the end they came to get her

-Rebecca is still involved in BSAA activities (leak from new REV3) if you consider Vendetta canon, she maybe the one that used Jill’s sample of blood to create the virus soldiers

-Barry maybe retired

-I don’t think Leon will be in this game, but he will get his RE4 Rmk

- I do believe RE9 will be release after Code veronica rmk and MAYBE they will do a game about Umbrella’s Fall (Chris and Jill in Europe against Red Queen and BOWs)

But that is it, you can see a lot of elements from old RE games in RE8, they tried to do something really smart and the game felt amazing to play, that was something else and it’s been a while since a player a RE game that made me feel that way <3

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ko11ok · 3 years

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EP 4 DUMP & THEORIES

shorter dump today probably, because honestly was a bit too tired to take too many notes tonight!

tibby can see those who watch him, and to an extent, so will the rest of the radar

i think rune and alora are going to be fucking cool as npcs, they already seem super chill, and I think are going to have some nice depth to them :) slim chance yall are here, but if so, congrats!

awut was obviously not gonna die, because too cool of a fucking character and whatever the evil baby was to get rid of right away. i’m guessing the baby is another god, and maybe even hera if we’re lucky (tho probably not). i think that the driver stated though that the baby is awut’s CHILD, so god knows what the fuck it is

suprised we didn’t see the fortune teller tonight! if we did and i happened to miss it while popping out to take a bathroom break, please tell me! however, i’m wondering if that option only gets chosen when we as the chat pick “the gods” or whatever. really didn’t feel like we got a payoff from picking isaac this week, but I could be wrong

GOD i want to know more about isaac

I’d also love to see more gods this season. fucking love kollok’s fucked up gods, and i’d love to map out some sort of pantheon, but that takes RESEARCH. because if i remember correctly, there was the house of night and day, and also truth and lies, and then ALSO harmonia and phobos, and we don’t even know if those other names are pseudonyms for harmonia and phobos or vice versa

I think it’s basically been confirmed that phobos disappeared from the world around when the children stopped being born, and that seems like a somewhat plausable theory for why it might have stopped? but knowing zac as a story teller, I doubt it. concerning that the tibby has been pulling power from clarity, wonder about her chaos points and how that might factor in

THEORIES

pretty sure the voice in laura’s head is tilly/hera. it makes the most sense lore wise that hera would have latched onto laura’s ego following making her a herald. also we gotta remember that hera is just a name this god has taken, as in canon, she’s the god of evil, she just uses the name of the greek god

other plausible ideas might be that it’s marcus, since he’s done stuff like that before. or at some point laura hallucinated him mocking her, but this voice seems particularly on her side at this point.

tibby’s manner this season has been pretty interesting to me, especially since he as a narrator of scenes is extremely unreliable. it makes me wonder if there’s some other plan in work that we don’t know about, especially with laura shielding her voice in that one scene of the memory. however, the way he acted around mickey, as well as lying about her death also makes me think otherwise, and that he might just have become shitty overtime

I think the driver is beginning to strain against the simulation, we saw it briefly during the beginning of legacy, though I wonder in part if that’s just him acting as tibby in certain spaces, especially since we see other cast do this as well. i find the difference between the legacy driver and the ascended driver to be strangly...different? in a way. not sure about that one tho

i really need to read back episode stuff because we need a solid list of who the fuck is alive in prime a and prime b, because the wiki says sammy’s alive in prime b, but I thought mickey destroyed his ego, which he’d connected to hank/billy b’s. eh. it’s a lot

EDIT: FORGOT THAT it was basically confirmed tonight that the radar are in synchroneity! ms. wu being there is like. less than a step away from us fully seeing marcus.

#kollok spoilers #kollok

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drkineildwicks · 3 years

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Temtem – 12/10/2021 – Still Hunting Nessla...

Oh help me I’m back on my Temtem—

Anywho I really need to log on this more frequently

Now’s a good time because FF14 is stuffed to the gills thanks to the new update

Plus THIS time I get to be paid for it because I’m writing about it for work XD

So…oh gosh my poor dudes what state did I leave you in

Let’s get healed up first

Okay so the thing I wanted to fool around today with was this:

It’s the Temtem version of the EXP Share, I had to refresh my memory on how and where I picked it up, totally forgot I had it, but let’s see how it does

Let’s see, we’ll give it to Scrapit….

And now we’ll test and see how this goes

So glad I can right-click to move I’m stuck with our pet bird on my lap

She likes attention

Oh come on why y’all picking on Minion

This is how that works, apparently

So it’s something useful if I need to level up a guy quickly without the AI constantly targeting them

And it’s one Tem at a time and an equippable item you can totally forget about, not, oh, I don’t know, Game Freak hijacking your game and telling you how to play it

Sure Legends looks cool but I had better see some glowing reviews from people I trust before I give GF any of my money

Do I? I just clicked on her because there was a question mark on my map—

OH WAIT SALT GUY!

I do actually

So I got some scent for my trouble—

WAIT WHAT

That—

That is a Platypet—

THAT IS A PLATYPET I AM CATCHING THAT SUCKER AAAAAAAA

Yeah I’d better catch it THIS WAS THE FIRST TURN

That thing almost one-shot KO’ed Olaf and it’s four levels under him

Can’t get this experience with Pokémon

Oh my gosh if you idle too long he sits down XD

Okay so this thing killed Olaf and now it’s working on Turtlinni

Finley got knocked out by Kaku’s poison

Okay don’t know if I can risk another hit on it I’m gonna catch it

YAAAAAAS!

Okay I know everyone and their mother has named one of these Perry but IT WORKS SO WELL

I promise if I ever catch a second one I’ll give it a more original name

Okay I want to play with my new Platypet but I’m pretty sure my original plan with this group was to get them all to a comparable level so here we go to Skail Jail

Ooh but later Finley and Perry are teaming up

Still want a Nessla tho but that one’s got a catch rate that’s a pain in the Arrisola

So Scrapit leveled up like this that’s nice

Uhhhhh

This is new

Are they…planning on adding new content?...

I think this was just like…blocks and coral before this is interesting

Okay swapping things around, Minion replaces Finley who just leveled up and Olaf now gets the Coward’s Cloak

I like this, this is cool

And Minion leveled up and learned a new move!

What…does that mean, -1 Hold?

Let’s test

That does…not outspeed Lowkey’s DC Beam

So in order to test this I gotta either swap Lowkey out or find something he doesn’t insta-kill

Olaf’s leveling up nicely though

It helps that he’s way low in level compared to the others Lowkey’s pulling like a handful of XP per battle because his level’s so high XD

But that’s because he’s still my only Electric type and therefore effective against water Nessla where are you

Oh what’s this?

That’s cool

Oh a team!

FINALLY I can test Cheer Up!

I don’t see how this did anything soo…swapping that out

Lt Shock and Mister Chai, love the names :D

I love that you can check out someone else’s Tem and get the information that way another little thing that makes it better than Pokémon

Oh Minion leveled up again!

And so did Olaf but then again Minion got 108 XP, Olaf got 120, and Lowkey got 29

This was on a low-level Tateru but this is basically the EXP difference

This amuses me and I’m not sure why

Okay back to trying the Nessla fishing hole again

At least two people here have Nessla that seems promising

THREE okay come on Nessla come to me…

Yeah this REALLY shows the EXP difference X’D

Okay we’ll just do this until everyone who isn’t Level 20 reaches there

We’re getting there

Okay Lowkey’s getting dangerously low on health we’ll swap out and go find someplace to heal

And then try the other place I saw a Nessla

I don’t know what this is, but it’s cool

Those dudes are still floating next to that wreck

Oh my gosh I don’t think I’ve seen a Pewki knocked out from the front before but the eyes turn into spirals XD

Still love the music and designs

Okay and that’s everyone to Level 20!

My opinion on the Coward’s Cloak…I’m not actually sure if it leveled the team faster

Not something I think I’d use often

I…don’t know why this got reversed

Gonna swap Perry and a couple others in and then quit for the day

Did get some nice leveling in AND CAUGHT A PLATYPET :D

Still no Nessla tho….

The state of the squad

But now we’re off—until next time!

Nessla won’t escape me forever

#temtem #kineil plays #play temtem and make gamefreak suffer

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everygame · 3 years

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Wizardry: Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord (SNES)

Developed/Published by: Sir-tech Software / Media Factory Released: 1/06/1999 Completed: 29/07/2021 Completion: Killed Werna and got back to town. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

So as I mentioned a ways back in my Deadline write-up, my “catalogue your retro games and play them chronologically because the structure will mean you actually play them” system ended up with “add in all the games you’d like to play too, even if you don’t actually own them” to ensure I never get past some point in the middle of the 80s.

At least partially, it’s the fault of other people who write excellently and entertainingly on retro games and game history. You end up reading The Digital Antiquarian, and then he links The CRPG Addict, and then you’re like “oh, this guy has a chronological list of RPGs” and then you remember you were planning on playing Shin Megami Tensei III cos you just got it on Switch, and you think “you know, before I play a JRPG, I should really play what is arguably the foundational RPG” and that’s how you end up playing Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

Now, I’m not totally insane. Or I am, maybe. Because I’ve skipped other creaky RPGs like Akalabeth because they’re just so dusty, and if the only way to play Wizardry was in its Apple II or even its DOS form I’d be quite happy to do the Drake “no” meme to this, but unfortunately Drake “yes” meme to downloading a fan translation of the hyper-rare “download to a cartridge from a kiosk in the late 90s” Wizardry collection for Super Famicom and playing it in an emulator with a lovely CRT filter on and a SNES Mini controller.

“Why tho,” you might ask? Well, because after a cursory googlin’ it seemed like that would be the most pleasant way to play a grindy, dusty-ass RPG: get some nice 90s pixel art (nicer for sure than the contemporary Saturn and Playstation releases) the translation and Wizardry basically controls like a JRPG anyway so it only makes sense.

“But what about intent, tho,” you definitely ask. I mean I did just bang on about how I made sure to play MULE in the best, most accurate-to-designer’s-intent way possible. I mean I didn’t try any of the attempts to update MULE with modern graphics (or even mention them). Well (and I’m already aware how weak an excuse this is going to seem…) what is the intent with Wizardry at this point? It was ported tens of times, with subtle and not-so subtle differences. Here, we’ve got probably the most playable version of the game with only one huge difference: the maps. Which I didn’t realize until I got to the respective floors.

You see, Wizardry is a game originally made for a system with a tiny amount of memory, and it results in one of the most interesting aspects of the design: the first four floors actually have, like stuff to do in them (pick up objects! Use them to get places! Fight a mid-dungeon boss fight!) and then they basically ran out of memory, so the next floors are basically just there to grind battles on and map out if you’re interested. For some reason, when it got ported to Famicom, someone either thought “those maps are rubbish” or they did them and then lost their work or something, and so they dashed off new ones that are even more annoying.

But whither intent? If you’re keeping score, the generally advised way to play Wizardry is to grind on level 1 and 2 until you’re a beast, beat the mini-boss and then grind level 9 and 10 until you’re an ultra-beast and then smack Werdna to death. In fact, because of the way Wizardry works, it’s kinda dumb to play it the way you’d play any other RPG, because there’s no benefit at all to putting yourself at risk.

The way Wizardry works: basically, it’s just the most hilariously brutal nonsense. You make up your party (who are children made of jelly) and send them into the dungeon. If someone gets killed (which is hilariously possible; once you get past the second level, ninjas who can decapitate--aka instant kill--your heroes show up) you have to drag their corpse back to town and pay an eye-watering cost to bring them back to life (which some of the time doesn’t work, turning them into dust, which is even more dangerous.)

If everyone dies, you have to make another party, train them up, and get them to the point where they can get to the corpses. If they die? Bye bye original party. [Dark Souls klaxon goes off]. So as a result, with instakills and level-draining enemies all over the place, the most sensible thing to do is to play as boringly and as conservatively as possible--unless you’re cheating.

Something that actually kind of blows my mind about Wizardry is that it’s famously an early game that had a ton of playtesting due to its protracted development (famously when compared against even later games like Ultima IV, which were just pushed out as soon as they were more-or-less done.) But I really do wonder who the playtesters were that they considered this insanely brutal nonsense to be not just passable but I assume good.

Wizardry, for example, is an early maze-mapper, which is quite (unusually) helpful in mentioning that the mazes are on 20x20 grids. But they wrap! Making it harder to map and easier to mess up, and from the very first level you have to deal with warps and even an entire dark area that (frankly bullshitty) isn’t lit by your magic (which does make invisible doors show up so at least it’s not useless--another thing that’s everywhere.) I suppose most of the playtesters were already well familiar with the style thanks to playing things like Oubliette, but there’s absolutely no consideration that for almost the entire audience this would be their first experience of anything like this, resulting in a game where you make a party (without any sense of what you’re doing) immediately get lost and murdered. It’s stunning that people persevered, but spending $$$ on a big fancy box does things to you.

The playtesting, I suspect, ended up with the game getting some really weird patches to the difficulty, such as a small number of enemies giving loads of experience compared to others, and some rare weapons and armour that make things way easier if you can grind to find them because almost all the weapon and armour is useless.

I also assume the playtesters did all sorts of cheating because (back to intent) it’s kind of absurd to imagine anyone playing this “for real” even at the time. Yanking the disk out when dying or whatever didn’t work, but I’m sure people were backing up their disks all over the shop (some quick googling assures me this was possible) not least because levelling up sometimes lead to your heroes losing points!

Anyway, when I went into this, I decided to give it the ol’ college try. I made up my party (me, a smooth, neutral, Elf Samurai) added the cast of the Fast & Furious franchise (Dom a dwarf, obviously) and decided I’d only reload on a party death or if levelling up lead to a stat decrease (because that’s bollocks.) And it mostly worked… though a lot of luck, because I was so careful I never really hit any level drain enemies (which I still don’t understand: they cost you levels, but do they take the same amount of experience away? So it’s ultimately just a grind punishment? Or is it something else?).

The thing is though… it’s a bit boring. You can slowly work your way down the levels (I didn’t map them 100%, I just dawdled around them till bored/seen enough of the “content”) which should give you enough to survive level 9/10. But the game has an elevator in it for a reason, because the end game is literally just “grind till you can survive against the final boss” but the grind is tedious (and difficult) unless you work out quickly that the only enemies you actually want to fight are frost giants and Will o’ the Wisps, who give 10 to 20 times the amount of experience as anyone else for unclear reasons.

So after literally hours of grinding I said bollocks to it and started just save-stating before every encounter to make sure I triggered one or the other. Do I feel shame? No, because I did this after spending literally an entire night grinding levels 9 and 10 for real. I was good.

And in the process of doing so I unlocked the best weapon and best armour meaning I beat Werdna’s ass handily… even though I had to do it twice because the first time only I survived, and with a full inventory I couldn’t get his amulet so the game just chucked me out in an unwinnable state. I can say one thing for the SNES port… it’s faithful in the ways that count.

Anyway. Wizardry is boring, but it’s not not interesting. As many people will point out, everything in Japanese RPGS from the way menus work to job switching to literally even just the way they name spells in Final Fantasy all stem from this game, which is honestly bananas. It’s a bit like learning Latin, in that suddenly you see the building blocks of everything you’ve taken for granted. Except it’s also a bit like learning Latin in that you feel like you’re being beaten with a cane in the 1920s the entire time, so, you know… it’s maybe not worth it.

Will I ever play it again? Nope, and no more of this series for me thanks.

Final Thought: Alright, so you’ve read this and you’ve decided you want to play Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord to prove you’re a billy big bollocks. Here’s the hot tips you came here for:

Character creation is tedious but re-roll and re-roll. Alignment doesn’t really matter but no evil and good on the same team and you have to choose before you roll, so you probably want good unless you’re going to try and roll for a Ninja.

Don’t try and roll for a Ninja. If you want a Lord (you probably do) just re-roll until you get one (this will suck). Because in this first Wizardry (it might change on later ones?) as soon as you re-spec you go back to racial minimum stats which is just death. I wanted Dom to be a Lord, but by the time he was even at the stats that could make that work the game was practically over.

But yeah, Samurai, Samurai/Lord/Fighter, Priest, Bishop, Mage, Thief. That’s the choice, unless you really want to spend forever trying to get a Hobbit Ninja.

Find Murphy’s Ghost on the first level and fight him and basically only him until you’re bored out of your mind.

See how far you can get from there, levels 3 and 4 are brutal, but you can play it “properly” working your way down if you like. But otherwise, just beeline to the battle on level 4 that unlocks the next elevator (it’s pretty close to the first elevator; to be honest, taking stairs is for suckers, it’s useless). If you can win the battle on level 4, see if you’re able to grind level 9.

Grind level 9 and 10, ignore everything else. 10 is the most forgiving level because you’re always basically 2 warps away from the town. This is the actual game, in that you’ll spend most of your time there unless you’re willing to save-state your way into Frost Giants and Will O’ The Wisps: Grinding level 10.

If you fight a special Japanese enemy on level 10, hurrah! You might get the best sword in the game, which you’re going to want.

You might also find the piece of armour that you really wanted a Lord for! But it’s cool, because anyone carrying, Lord or not, it gets one of the special things about it (on the SNES, anyway.) I had two and sold one before I realized.

Outside of that the weapons and armour are barely worth thinking about. Upgrade to anything clearly better which will happen shockingly rarely (on SNES they all have obfuscating names, and their sell values have nothing to do with how good they are, insanely.) Sell the other stuff but you don’t need money because…

Just have your healers sleep in the stables, heal in the dungeon then go back to the stables to sleep again. You’re not a sucker.

Fight Werdna once you have the highest level of mage spells and use the spell he’s going to use to kill you every time against him and his vampire pals (what’s the deal with him hanging out with vampires anyway.) I mean really the game is almost solely about levelling up your mage to be able to quickly take down Werdna and his entourage...

If you die? Reload. If you get level drained? Reload. If you get a bad stat change on a level up? Reload. It’s 2021.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi, either via a one-off donation (pay what you like) or by joining as a supporter at just $1 a month.

#video games #games #wizardry #wizardry: proving grounds of the mad overlord #proving grounds of the mad overlord #Wizardry I-II-III: Story of Llylgamyn #text #txt #review #1999 #sir-tech #media factory #snes #1981 #super nintendo #sir-tech software

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darkestfable · 3 years

Text

Safe Haven

Oribos

Raetos groaned as he found his way back to the waking world. He knew he was alive by how much his body ached. His head, most of all, felt like someone was hammering multiple nails in place. Only one luminous eye opened, the other still swollen shut under bandages wrapped around his head. His abdomen was also strapped tightly. He could feel the pressure of the wrappings limiting his movement, as to not aggravate what he assumed was broken ribs. The wound on his arm had been well cleaned and bandaged. Someone had been talking very good care of him.

He smiled, not having to wonder who, feeling the body curled up against his own. Tilting his head down, he caught a glimpse of the top of Fable’s head… there was no mistaking those lovely indigo locks.

“How long have I been out?” He asked.

For just a moment, Fable grumbled and curled more tightly against Raetos. If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up. The hellscape that had been The Maw was no longer ringing in his ears, and his lover was by his side again. This had to be a dream. It was never this good.

Or was it?

The blood hunter finally peeled open his eyes, sitting up after a moment to look over the large lightforged next to him. His heart fluttered at the sight of his lover’s smile, and he reached over to lay a gentle hand onto his bandaged chest. This had been no small feat, what Raetos and the others had pulled off.

“Days, love. Take as long as you need, yeah? I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Fable’s expression softened as he curled his fingers against the bandages on Raetos. Yep, still there. Still real.

The Draenei’s smile only grew wider as he reached up with his good hand to cup the side of his lover’s face. Raetos didn’t understand much of anything about death and spirits. But Fable looked well. Looked healthy. Better than he had in the Maw, for certain.

“Careful what you say, Babe. I might ask to stay here forever,” he said, flashing his signature grin, “...wherever here is.”

It suddenly dawned on him that they couldn’t be on Azeroth. They still had to find the soul dagger to get Fable his body back… and they obviously weren’t in the Maw anymore. Last thing he remembered was a very pissed off Avehi.

“Uh… where are we?”

“Oribos. Think that’s what they call it, anyway. Kinda a hub for uh...all sorts ‘a people,” Fable glanced at the door, as if the answer would be there. Truthfully, he’d been more worried about Raetos than asking about the name of the establishment.

He leaned over Raetos carefully to kiss him. Tender, sweet, and like he’d been afraid he’d never see him again. Everything had culminated to this point, and truthfully Fable wasn’t sure what he was doing. Getting out of The Maw had been his first task, but the blood hunter wasn’t sure if he could retrieve the dagger by himself. Wasn’t sure he’d want to do it alone. Doubt weighed heavily on him, tied down by the guilt of what he’d done to get here in the first place.

“Hey, love… You got my body, yeah? I’m gonna have somethin’ t’ go back home t’ when this shit is figured out? ‘n th’ animals are taken care of?” his voice was quiet, almost unsure. Fable loved their little life that they’d built, and still worried that he’d ruined it all.

“Mhm,” the Draenei managed a nod, thumb stroking his lover’s cheek, “The tree elf dude you got to take care of the animals while we were away agreed to stay as long as needed. I think we owe him a really REALLY big tip. Obligation and Responsibility really seems to like him, though, so don’t have to worry about them. Did you know he lived in that big ass tree that the Horde burned down? That’s where he got all the scars. Poor guy… Anyway, I was able to find your body at the dig site after going through your maps and stuff. Brought it to the healer chick that was deployed to Darkshire with me. You’re in a coma-like state back on Azeroth, and she’s keeping you nourished and stable until we manage to destroy that dagger.”

He paused in his rambling for a moment, knowing the next part was a bit touchy.

“Hey… uh… on that subject. Bad memories, I know. But like… anything you can tell me about the lady that stabbed you… physical description or name… if she gave you one…”

Another pause before adding.

“Was she hot? She must be hot.”

“Well, yeah… I mean it ain’t like I got bad taste,” Fable smirked, then paused a moment. “Wait, tree… They’re called Kal’dorei.”

The news of his body being taken care of was something of a relief, though the blood hunter still didn’t like the situation at all. Cebina had royally screwed him, and now he had to go find that dagger too? This was just getting more and more complicated…

“She uh… I’d know her if I saw her, yeah? While you were restin’ tho, I asked ‘round ‘bout the dagger ‘n souls ‘n shit ‘n this creepy lookin’ dude called a Venthyr told me ‘bout this place called Revandreth. Said a lady was there ‘n might have a dagger kinda like it?” Fable scratched at his chin in thought.

“Sounds like our next destination,” Raetos nodded, a cheerful smile on his face, “I know it’s not the best of situations, but we get to explore this whole new place together, and I’m sure we can get supplies so that you can map it all out.”

Obviously it would have been much more ideal to have Fable whole for the adventure, but there was no harm in seeing the bright side of the situation.

“Soon as moving doesn’t hurt anymore…” he winced as he shifted, “So... what’s a Venty. Not another type of elf, is it?—Not that there’s anything wrong with elves! There’s just so many different kinds and I can barely keep up with the ones I know.”

“Venthyr, luv. They’re like uh...anima vampires? Ain’t too clear on ‘em yet but I was watchin’ ‘em wander through Oribos while you were restin’,” Fable pulled out a notebook he’d obviously obtained here in the Shadowlands. A keen eye would notice that its leather bindings were a bit unlike any leather on Azeroth.

The first few pages were sloppy, slightly disproportionate sketches of the various different types of people he’d seen wandering through, along with notes of things he’d either overheard or asked them flat out. The page with the Venthyr man had no notes, however. Clearly, the hunter hadn’t approached him.

“They got fangs ‘n glowin’ eyes kinda, most of ‘em are real skinny. Nice clothes though, ‘n some of ‘em wear thigh high boots. Thinkin’ maybe I should get a pair?” the elf chuckled, leaning to stretch his leg out as far as he could, toes pointed.

“Babe, you would look hella amazing in those boots,” the Lightforged agreed, “Are there any with heels? If so, you should avoid them, because then, your already sexy ass will just look too good for me to resist. Afraid you won’t get anything done in that case.”

His hand slipped down to give his partner’s behind a little squeeze, before he attempted to sit up. It was a more daunting task than anticipated with his injuries, but he managed.

“Fashion sense aside, are these Venthyr people safe? The one you drew has like… an evil look to him. Or are they all that withered looking and ugly? Also, what’s anima? And what are the lampshades with legs that you drew in there?”

A smirk spread on his lips at the squeeze, but his attentions to the affections were pulled away when Raetos was trying to sit up. Fable assisted, but his brow furrowed in worry. Had his lover been hurt worse than initially thought? Damn it all, now he was fretting like a mother hen. The lampshades comment pulled the hunter out of his head though, and he just blinked for a moment before tilting the book towards him.

“The lampshades with legs? Oh, those?” Fable pointed at one of the doodles of a Broker. “They call themselves Brokers. They help facilitate trade of goods and services. Information too, ‘m sure. Ain’t got a chance to really chat jus’ yet.”

The concern crept up onto the elf’s face again, and he leaned over to kiss Raetos’ cheek.

“You doin’ okay? If you gotta rest…”

Raetos shook his head.

“Nah, just sore is all. The headache is the worst part, probably. Dude, Avehi hits -hard-! Did you see how pissed she was? Ha! Good times!”

He smiled brightly to his lover, bringing his hand up to cup the side of his face again.

“Honestly, I’ve rested plenty. I just want to look at you,” he admitted, “I missed you so much, Bae… so don’t mind if all I want to do is cuddle and make out for a while.”

He paused, before adding with a wink.

“Wouldn’t hate a blow job either.”

The elf just smiled. That sappy, sweet, completely enraptured smile as he nuzzled into Raetos’ hand. It had felt like an eternity, fighting for his life. Being reunited had been on his mind the whole time, but even now Fable’s heart ached for the life they’d had before. Though, in the middle of his thoughts, a smirk broke through. That was the Raetos he knew.

“Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t…” Fable turned his head to place a kiss in the palm of Raetos’ hand. “If it won’t hurt you, I’m gonna swallow you whole…”

“I mean… not like I can move much in these bandages,” he grinned, running his thumb along Fable’s bottom lip, “Doubt I’d be able to find a way to hurt myself.”

He paused as he thought about that a moment.

“—Okay, so I would -probably- find a way to hurt myself. But it would be hella worth it, though.”

Fable caught Raetos’ thumb between his lips, cerulean eyes closing as he pressed the barbell through his tongue against the calloused pad. A promise. As his lover spoke, the elf savored the taste of his flesh, finally opening his eyes to look up at him with a smirk. He released the thumb after a moment only to place a kiss into Raetos’ palm.

“Jus’ sit back ‘n enjoy then. You deserve t’ be worshipped,” he mumbled against the blue skin, continuing to kiss down from his hand to his wrist. Of course, he’d wait for permission.

It felt like lifetimes since he’d been away from Raetos, and only minutes that they’d been back together again. Fable felt that familiar skin hunger, but it had only gotten stronger after they were in safety, and he could touch and smell his lover again. The blood hunter had to remember to pace himself; Raetos was still recovering, and they were still in a strange place. But tomorrow could wait. Tonight belonged to them.

(Raetos is @raetos / @kidcatgemini )

#Fable #Raetos #Raeble #romance #world of warcraft #rp log #void elf #lightforged draenei #flirting

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spencerspecifics · 4 years

Text

Okay i got this idea while talking to @criminalmindsvibez earlier and I just h a d to write it out

Imagine: the team taking one of those “teamwork building” days during the fall and Hotch has no clue what the team could do together to build their teamwork morale because they’ve literally had to save each other from murderers in a time sensitive manner so like??? Wtf are they supposed to do? Solve a jigsaw puzzle? So Garcia gets the task of figuring out what to do and she decides pumpkin patch/corn maze because fuck it. It’s fall.

-they get to the pumpkin patch, immediately Rossi is like “I don’t need to buy a pumpkin. It’ll end up rotting on my doorstep”

- Garcia points out that doesn’t help the team morale so he better quiet down

-he shuts up, they get inside the farm area and the entire team is just sorta standing around cuz when is the last time any of them went to a patch??? They aren’t sure of where to start. There’s stands that sell apple cider and hot coco and kettle corn and there’s some hinky dinky country music playing in the background. It’s nice but they have no clue where to start

-Garcia decides to take over, because fuck it, she got put in charge of this, and Hotchner looks like a fish out of water. Put him in a beauracratic setting and the man knows how to operate, but this? He looks so lost, it’s almost funny. Garcia’ll command this group of idiot life savers.

- she decides the team should start in the corn maze, that sorta helps the team morale. They gotta find a way to get out, after all. Spencer doesn’t want to go in until he sees a map of it, though, so he can check where they are. So they have to awkwardly go to an employee and ask where the map of the corn maze is located

-Derek finds it in a pamphlet that the employee handed to him, he gave it over to Spencer, who gladly accepts it and stares at it for what feels like two seconds before being like “ok let’s go”

-even though finding that damn map took like ten minutes because the pumpkin patch has so many customers so employees are all over the place. So everyone is like “goddamnit dude” at spencer before moving ahead into the maze

- Derek and Garcia take the lead, Spencer in the middle, then J.J. and Emily towards the back, with Hotch and Rossi in the very back.

-Hotch doesn’t wanna have to take charge of how to get through the maze unless absolutely necessary

-J.J. and Emily just end up having some very much needed girl talk while Garcia and Derek bicker about which way to go

- “Get a babysitter so we can have a girls night” “I’ll do that when you call that hot british dude that you met at the bar last week back” “I don’t need him. I have Sergio.” “Cats don’t replace real relationships with people, emily.”

-meanwhile Derek and Garcia aren’t sure which way to go. “Let’s take a left.” “No, we just went that way. We should take a right.” “That just keeps us in the middle, doll ” “isn’t that what we want?!”

-Meanwhile, the entire time, Spencer has been thinking of the turns and loops and steps they’ve taken and calculated exactly where within the maze they are based on the map

-Eventually Spencer takes charge, after Derek made them take two dead end turns, “Guys- no, we’re towards the edge of the maze. The quickest way to the end is through the center, so we need to go back and take two rights, then a left.”

-Hotch and Rossi are just walking through in silence for the most part, taking in the scenery around them. The crisp autumn air, it’s nice. They do break their silence for conversations. They speak about Jack’s upcoming soccer game, and how tiring it can be to work with children.

- “I’ve never been more grateful that my three ex wives and I never ended up with kids- god, it’s enough going to see Jack’s stuff and help coach the team.” “You have no obligation to show up if you don’t want to, Dave. If it’s too much I understand.” “Aaron, I would rather get arrested for a murder I didn’t commit and convicted before leaving Jack’s games.”

-Garcia ends up falling back with the girls, where the conversation shifts to Prentiss talking about how much the corn maze reminds her of the children of the corn movie

-“ew! Why did you have to say that! All their parents end up dead! That’s so sad!” “Garcia, it’s the corn that reminds me of the movie” “Well duh- we’re in a cornfield! But don’t think about that movie. Think about something nicer.”

-Prentiss is drawing a blank on nice fall themed things, so J.J. pipes up with “what about that Charlie Brown movie?” Garcia points out that doesn’t take place in a corn field

-“well. Only corn field movie that’s coming to mind is children of the corn.” So emily continues to talk a bit about it to J.J., all while making Garcia want to run away because “Ew no it’s such a sad movie! Let’s talk about something nicer!”

-Meanwhile Derek and Spencer are solely up front, Spencer is using that big dumptruck of a brain of his to know exactly which turns to take. Derek’s just walking alongside him, trying to weasel from flirting into conversation casually

-“how about after this I get you some cider, pretty boy?” “Do you know cider on average has to ferment for fifteen days?” Spencer isn’t really listening, if that isn’t already obvious. He heard what Derek said, but he’s just thinking of every next twist and turn they have to take to get out. So he isn’t very conversative

-meanwhile the girls have changed conversation topics to what kind of pumpkins J.J. should get Henry (this conversation change was obviously brought on by Garcia) “you should get him a cute tiny one! That would be so adorable” emily on the other hand is saying to get one bigger than him “wouldn’t it be funny to have a pumpkin taller than henry?”

-J.J. doesn’t know which size pumpkin she’ll get for Henry. But she lets emily and Garcia sway her opinion in both directions, because a comically large pumpkin would be funny. But one as small as Henry would be adorable

-meanwhile the old men duo in the back are still just enjoying their walk. Hotch had mentioned how Jack would’ve loved to come to the patch, before silence fell over them again. Rossi asked a few moments later if Hotch knows if jack’s school would be taking a field trip to the patch, “I’m not sure. I’m assuming they will.” Rossi doesn’t say anything more, but he secretly plans on double checking that, emailing the school, and explaining that he and Hotch would like to be volunteers on the trip. He’d like to see that happen.

-Derek hasn’t fully given up on his flirting game with Spencer. But he’s holding off for now, as Spencer is way too focused on the maze layout. So much so that he started mapping out in his mind where the best spot to place a body would be as an unsub. “If someone was to drop a body in here- the ideal location would be the upper left sides second dead end. Geographically, it’s the farthest point from landmarks and least traveled area within the maze.”

-Garcia hears that and butts in, “No murder talk! No dead body talk- there is no dead body! Today is supposed to be a good day! Shut off your brain for one day, Spencer”

-Spencer doesn’t say anything more about the best spot within the maze to dump a body, though Derek is sure Spencer is bored and thinking out a billion separate scenarios within the maze. Mazes were good for hiding and concealing things, after all

-Garcia accidentally mishears Spencer’s directions of “turn left” and she walks directly into the wall of corn that the maze is made out of

-the team all stops for a second to help her untangle herself out of that before promptly laughing at her

-ok Derek and emily laugh the most, emily tells her to steal an ear of corn “It’s not like they’d miss it. It could be compensation for running into it”. J.J. and Spencer sorta stand there chuckling a lil bit, Hotch and Rossi are more like “as long as you’re all good we should continue on” but they had little smiles on their faces too

-They finally get out! The employees at the exit are like “good job, that was very fast!” And everyone on the team is like “thanks we tried” meanwhile Spencer is standing there thinking “no y’all didn’t I did it cuz I memorized the maze smh”

-the team stays as a unit after that. It wasn’t on purpose, but they all had the same thing in mind, the pumpkin patch

-they walk over there, it’s not too far, immediately Spencer makes his way over to the large containers of pre-picked pumpkins, gourds, thise tiny as hell pumpkins, those white pumpkins, and those red pumpkins. He’s one second away from grabbing a pumpkin at random from the container so he can grab a pumpkin and go, when Derek is like “Hey man what are you doing? You’re not picking from the patch”

-Spencer then has to awkwardly explain how the only times he ever went to the pumpkin patch was in elementary school before he skipped ahead grade wise and the kids in his class made fun of him that day really bad. Like they called him names and left him “trapped” in the corn field (tho he had seen a map and was able to figure his way out easily that time.) and so whenever he has to buy a pumpkin he just gets them from the grocery store because he gets anxious at the thought of coming to a pumpkin patch

-immediately the entire team is like “wtf man you should’ve told us!!! Do you want to leave??? We should leave” and Garcia is immediately like “Spencer I am so sorry oh my god I didn’t know” and he has to sorta awkwardly be like “No it’s ok. I wanted to come. I want to try and get a better memory than last time.”

-Derek pats him on the back for that, “You’ll get much better memories this time, I promise. But let’s get a pumpkin from the actual patch instead of from these containers”

- Derek makes it his soul mission to make sure spencer now has an amazing time in the pumpkin patch. So he stays with him the entire time as they walk around, inspecting pumpkins for just the right one

-meanwhile the girls are looking at the biggest pumpkins possible. Namely Prentiss, she wants to get a big one. “Can you even out that out front of your apartment door?” “I don’t know but I’ll make sure it stays until it rots”

-Hotchner is busy looking for a pumpkin he could bring home for jack to carve, though he does guess that jack would be making his way to the pumpkin patch with his class too. It couldn’t hurt to have a third pumpkin to carve.

-Rossi doesn’t want a pumpkin, he’s already decided that they’re messy and smelly and he doesn’t even like pumpkin seeds or pumpkin pie enough to warrant the mess of cutting and getting the pumpkin guts out. So he just stands and watches

-Garcia notices that immediately and is so not happy with that “you’re serious about not getting a pumpkin?” “I told ya” “ughhh Rossi- you could get a tiny one!” “I don’t wanna carve and deal with a mess” “you don’t have to carve a tiny one!”

-“what’re you thinking pretty boy?” Derek asked Spencer, who had been staring down the same pumpkin for like two minutes, which was definitely unusual. Spencer doesn’t answer, leaning down and picking the pumpkin up instead. “Does it have any abrasions on it?” He asked Derek, as he turns it over in his hands to inspect it. “Not that I can see, no”

-Spencer decides on this pumpkin, and they find some wheelbarrows provided by the farm to put his pumpkin in, they give Hotch the duty of rolling the wheelbarrow around as they meander away from the rest of the group

-Spencer then is like “oh shit. Wait Derek. Your pumpkin. We need to find you one.” Derek just laughs a little bit and is like “I’ll find one lol but you gotta come with me” so Spencer agrees as they go to find one for Derek

-Garcia ends up nearby the tiny pumpkins, deciding to buy at least three to litter her front doorstep with

-she is so distracted she doesn’t even realize rossi making his way over. “You’re right. Those ones are way too small to carve.” He says, she just agrees, “Yes, so you should get some!! C’mon. Get that festive spirit.”

-Hotch shows up pushing the wheelbarrow from behind, listening to the tail end of rossi and Garcia’s bickering match. “You should get some, Dave. It would look nice.”

-That makes rossi cave. He mumbles out a “fine. The things I do for you all, I swear” before picking two up and putting them in the wheelbarrow, next to Spencer’s pumpkin.

-Garcia is b e a m I n g she is very happy with the fact she got this fall grinch into getting a pumpkin. So much so that she ends up getting a fourth tiny one, because damnit they’re too adorable.

-Hotchner still hasn’t found a pumpkin for him and for jack so he’s standing in the patch, still surveying like a lost old man. Garcia and Rossi end up helping him.

-Meanwhile J.J. and emily are looking through the medium sized pumpkins to find something for will and Henry. “I’m thinking a medium sized one, because then it’s sort of a mix of what you and Garcia said.” J.J. explained to Prentiss, who nodded along in agreement.

-the team is all pretty quiet at this point as they try to find their own pumpkins. Derek finds his, a large one that’s very vertically elongated. He takes it back to the wheelbarrow, with Spencer trailing along behind him.

-Hotch finds two round, smaller sized pumpkins. And he decides that those are his, they look great and would be easy enough to carve, so he grabs them up, getting them back into the wheelbarrow

-J.J. finds a medium sized pumpkin for Henry, and two smaller ones for her and will. Meanwhile Prentiss is like “Hey Jayge that Charlie Brown movie is applicable now since we’re in a pumpkin patch” Garcia hears that and is like “y e s good fall vibes yes”

-they finish up in the patch, everyone putting their pumpkins into the wheelbarrow as they head towards the checkout

-Derek pays for Spencer’s pumpkin, saying it’s not a problem

-Spencer literally can’t stop blushing at that even tho it’s the most mundane thing e v e r and it’s adorable

-the team gets their pumpkins sorted and paid, before taking the wheelbarrow back towards the stands that sell cider and hot coco and kettle corn.

-the girls go off to get hot chocolate, Dave and Rossi go to get some bags of kettle corn, and Derek and Spencer go get cider

-“If you make hot coco with anything but milk, it’s evil” “emily what about lactose intolerant people who use water?” “They’re on thin ice.”

-Spencer thanks Derek like five times in a row for helping him get a pumpkin and buying it “you didn’t have to-“ “you better stop talking before I buy you a cider too, pretty boy”

-Derek does buy him a cider in the end, which isn’t any surprise

-Dave and Hotch argue over which type of kettle corn is the best. “It’s caramel, Aaron. Why on earth would cheddar kettle corn be good?” “It’s savory as opposed to sweet, it’s better” “That doesn’t matter if it tastes bad!”

-Garcia ends up coaxing the hot coco barista lady into adding a shit ton of extra chocolate sauce and stuff to her drink

-so much so that it’s literally too sweet for her but she dug her grave she will fuckin lie in it like a winner

-J.J. and emily immediately make fun of her, “I can see the regret in your eyes!”

-the team finishes up buying their drinks, pushing the wheelbarrow out to the parking lot.

-“See, not so bad for a team morale building day after all!” Garcia says happily, she’s glad her idea was a success

-it was. The team is happy, they got hot sweet drinks and bags of delicious food, not to mention a shit ton of pumpkins they shove into the trunk of the SUV

-Spencer’s happy he made new memories at the pumpkin patch, Derek was just happy to help build those for him.

-Garcia’s happy her day went so well, emily is glad she got a pumpkin to carve, J.J.’s happy she got good pumpkins for will and Henry, Hotch is happy that he’s not stuck in a stuffy office building in an uncomfortable suit talking about another murder investigation, and Rossi is happy to be with his found family on a day out

-it was a good day at the pumpkin patch :)

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japaneseadventures · 4 years

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“National Tournament Report” Tezuka and Fuji Version Part V

INDEX: [Part I] [Part II] [Part III] [Part IV] Audio commentary from Prince of Tennis OVA: National Tournament Arc, FAN DISK White heat Remix, translated by me. It's finally the last part!! Part V is Tezuka and Fuji’s commentary on Echizen vs Atobe match. Audio linked in the Content Source below.

Fuji: It’s finally the last match. Tezuka: Yeah. Fuji: I was convinced that you wanted to have another match with Atobe. Tezuka: Atobe and I know each other’s cards too well. That’s why I wanted to try placing my bet on Echizen’s potential. Fuji: Hmm... Tezuka: What? Fuji: That’s not the only reason you chose to have him play Atobe though, is it. Tezuka: Hm? Fuji: If you get him to play against Atobe, Echizen’s skills would definitely grow. Wasn’t that why you placed him in Singles 1? Tezuka: Ngh. Fuji: Right on the mark, huh. I can tell how big your expectations are for him from that. Tezuka: I think of this year’s tournament first and foremost, of course. But this year isn’t the end of Seigaku Tennis Club. I’m the captain. I have a responsibility to make sure the club 2-3 years from now will be strong. Fuji: *laughs* Tezuka: What? Did I say something funny? Fuji: No. I just thought of how I liked that part of you. I’m really glad you are the Seigaku Tennis Club’s captain.

Tezuka: Is that so? Fuji: But to be honest, it’s not the club’s future I’m interested in; I just want to see Echizen climb higher and higher. That’s it, really. Tezuka: I too want to see where Echizen will end up. Fuji: *laughs* So that really is the reason you had him play against Atobe. Tezuka: Developing one’s skills is best done in real matches. There’s no better way to learn than fighting someone strong. Fuji: That reminds me, Inui said something similar in his memo. He wrote that there’s no better training than playing matches with someone strong. According to one of Inui’s sources, before the tournament, Atobe apparently went to Rikkai Dai Fuzoku alone to have a match against Sanada and the others. Tezuka: Did he really? Fuji: He got the info from Yanagi of Rikkai Dai Fuzoku, so it must be true. Tezuka: Inui’s childhood friend of sorts. Fuji: How surprising. Atobe seems like a cool-headed guy at a glance, but he’s actually pretty passionate. Tezuka: Atobe is the passionate type. Fuji: Oh? You really understand Atobe very well, don’t you. Tezuka: No, I don’t. That’s just the feeling he managed to convey when we played. Fuji: I see. Speaking of which, was Atobe not offended when you told him you’d be absent from today’s meeting? Tezuka: No. He called to talk about how the meeting would progress, and when I told him I wouldn’t be coming, he said, “You weren’t invited in the first place.” And quickly hung up. Fuji: I think you should be more concerned about that... Tezuka: Why? Fuji: He’ll resent you for that.

[Atobe in video: Even here you’re still getting in my way, Tezuka?!]

Fuji: *laughs* Look! He’s mad. Tezuka: But that was clearly a move Echizen pulled off with State of Self Actualization. There’s no reason for him to blame it on me. Fuji: I guess that’s just how much everyone is affected by you. Tezuka: I still don’t see how it’s my fault. Fuji: Around this part, they started pulling out all their skills, and it became more of a battle between their stamina and mental strength. Tezuka: They were very evenly matched. Fuji: When one side gains a point advantage, the other side is quick to change the tide. Neither of them yielded, did they. Tezuka: Mm. Fuji: Your match with Atobe was pretty fierce too, but this was also a great match. Even just rewatching it in video gives me chills.

[Lights fall during Atobe-Echizen match]

Fuji: Oh, this moment unsurprisingly made my blood run cold. Tezuka: Mm.

[Atobe: Tezuka! Seigaku’s going to lose because you let a little first year become Seigaku’s pillar!! Tezuka: He's not the pillar yet.]

Fuji: But you always give a proper reaction to what Atobe says, don’t you Tezuka. Tezuka: Mm. Fuji: Tezuka? Tezuka: Mm. Huh? Oh, I was… I apologize. Fuji: You were thinking of something else again. Tezuka: I can have-- Fuji: 10 different thoughts at the same time. Tezuka: You have a good memory, Fuji. Fuji: Out of curiosity, what exactly is going through your mind right now? Tezuka: Listening to you. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Analyzing the video. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Whether Oishi is holding up well. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Having to collect the club budget by tomorrow. Fuji: And? Tezuka: Needing to get the book I reserved at the library. Fuji: Get it then. Tezuka: This year’s sweetfish fishing season started early. Fuji: Is that really relevant right now? Tezuka: I’m planning on climbing the Southern Alps next. Fuji: Shall I lend you a map? Tezuka: loga aᵇ=? Fuji: b. Tezuka: Ich liebe dich. Fuji: When exactly do you plan on using that line? Tezuka: Lastly, answering your question. Fuji: *laughs* I see. Tezuka: Mm. Fuji: Say, I tried to be like Inui and collected some data. Tezuka: Oh? Fuji: The truth is, the real reason I called you out here today was to show you this. Tezuka: How intriguing. Fuji: Look at this. Tezuka: What is this piece of paper? Hm? I see a lot of tally marks. Fuji: I tried my best to count it all while watching the whole video. Tezuka: Sounds tough. But what for? Fuji: What do you think? Tezuka: I’m sorry, but I have no idea. Fuji: It’s the number of times you ignored someone else’s comment. Tezuka: Ignored? Fuji: When you watch people’s matches, you only ever listen with half an ear, even when someone’s talking to you, don’t you. Though you may not be conscious you’re doing it. Tezuka: What’re you talking about? Don’t tell me this is the problem you mentioned earlier? Fuji: Honestly, it’s just like you, not to notice. Oh, right! There’s something I need to do after this. Tezuka: You’re leaving? So did you find a solution for your problem in the end? Fuji: Sorry, but I have to leave the cleanup and lockup to you, Tezuka. See ya! Tezuka: Oi, Fuji! Fuji! Fuji! He left… But what exactly did Fuji want to say? I don’t understand. I’ll at the very least clean up and lock up before I leave… But what exactly did Fuji… What…. Need to lock up... Fuji: Tezuka sure is interesting!

♔ Tezuka, after Fuji presents him a tally of the times he ignored someone: So what was the problem???? Gee man, I wonder what.😂 ♔ It’s been more than a decade since I studied about logarithms, and I didn’t even study how to do math in Japanese, so this was interesting to say the least lmao. I had to read about log identities on Wiki and double check with a similar question on Quora, no big deal I guess.🙃🤣 (It’s correct, right? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong😂) Honestly I had to look up wild plants, mushrooms and fish for Dokidoki Survival and that was funner than this lmao. I kind of hate Tezuka now for making relearn math and science (in Part I).😂 ♔ I wonder if Tezuka meant the Southern Alps in New Zealand, or the Southern Alps in Yamanishi prefecture, which is also the second highest mountain in Japan. I guess its more likely the latter tho, since that’s what first comes up when searched in Japanese. ♔ Every time Atobe addresses Tezuka while he’s having a match with Echizen, everyone’s just like... who exactly is he having a match against?😂

#prince of tennis #tezuka kunimitsu #fuji syusuke #white heat remix #tefu #perfect pair #tenipuri #national tournament report #translation #tbh posting this last part feels a bit stale since everyone already knows what happens lol #but here have it anyway #lol tumblrs superscript html isnt working so i had to copy paste it from a superscript generator #so long im back to hiding under a rock lmao

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sunshinesukuna · 4 years

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hogwarts school of sorcery and sweethearts

✨pairing : magic!kuroo x magic!reader ✨genre: angst then fluff ✨tw: light swearing, bullying ✨ insp: night changes — 1D, 18 — 1D, Somebody to You — The Vamps, The Gifted (if y’all watch ep 5 and 7 y’all know what i’m gonna write abt) ✨ wc: 6.5k i rlly don’t know how it got to be this long it just... did. lest those plot holes come for my ass. ✨ uwu i officially graduated last week. they leech rally made us sit in front of our computers and graduate like? so damn cringy tho. but now it’s school admission season and you know what that means? a lotta stress as my grades try to get into a good school. TT

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢: 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 (𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧) | 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢𝐢: 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧) | 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢: 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧)

Sorceress Saeko’s Guide To Potent Potions:

The Babbling Potion is an extremely inebriating potion that, as stated in its name, causes the consumer to spout lies. Each and every statement said by the user under this potion’s effect is a complete and utter lie — according to the user’s knowledge of course. It is said that the Muggle tale of Pinnochio was inspired by a wizard who accidentally poured several drops of the potion onto an enchanted doll.

Effects last for 72 hours, or until an Antidote is administered. For safety reasons, ingredients are kept confidential unless under emergency. Recipe for the Antidote is as below:

(For one person)

5 leech stomachs

Petals of the Laughing LIly (crushed finely)

Ginger ale

Root of Bubotuber Plant

Mandrake shavings

MIx together in a cauldron for two hours until brilliant orange. Stir with your wand counterclockwise for one hour, then set to simmer. When done, it should resemble the scent and taste of Pumpkin Juice.

Kuroo always marched into the war armored to the teeth with plans. Every action he did always had a clear intention behind it and was well thought out, with all the consequences and alternatives mapped out. Even the most trivial of things. Kuroo wouldn’t argue that the situation in question was as far from trivial as it could get, but he digresses. Which is what landed Bokuto, Akaashi, and Kenma standing over a fretting Kuroo.

“If you like (Y/N) so much, just say it to (Y/N)’s face, Kuroo!” Bokuto said. Kuroo gives him a sour look. Kuroo’s normally calm and suave front was reduced to a boy fiddling with his wan with pursed lips. Occasionally, bright red sparks popped out from the end of his wand, nearly obliterating a vase on top of the fireplace.

“Heh. You go up to that pretty third-year you saw last week and tell her that you like her, go on,” Kuroo egged.

“Well now that you put it that way…” Bokuto’s hair deflated along with his ego.

“Then what’s the point of you making these…” Akaashi gestured to the wads of parchment over the covers of Kuroos’ four poster. Some of them were complete with the red circles and arrows unique to Gryffindor Quidditch captains. They flitted around the parchment, akin to the moving pictures that were the norm in the wizarding world. “Battle plans?”

Kuroo chuckled. “Battle plans,” he muttered. “You’re right there, Akaashi.”

“Bokuto has a point though, Kuroo,” Akaashi said. He looked at a piece of parchment and threw it away in disgust.

“I do?” Bokuto asked. His eyes became starry again. The hair that once laid low with shame and insecurity now promptly stood proudly again.

“No use making it long and complicated if she’s just going to reject you in the end,” Akaashi said. His tone made Kuroo’s heart clench a bit at how honest Akaashi was being.

“Well yes, but when we’re dating, I don’t want to hear (Y/N) complaining about how un-thought out it was!” Kuroo said.

“Now you’re just thinking too far,” Kenma piped up from his spot on the chair. “You’ve been friends for six months Kuroo,” he went back to his book, “stay in your lane.”

Kuroo scoffed defensively. “We’re quite good friends, I’ll say!” Bokuto stifled a laugh, while Akashi snorted openly next to Bokuto.

“Go to sleep, you all.” Kuroo swiped all of the strewn parchment from the bed and stacked it onto his nightstand. “I need to think about this by myself.”

Kuroo laid on his four poster, mind amuck with thoughts and complications. Both the dark outside and the dark in his mind left him more confused than ever. Now that he had become better friends with you, he had a slightly closer view of all your thought processes, all your likes and dislikes.

You liked Herbology and magical plants. Should he do it in the greenhouse? No, you had been there too many times for it to have any special meaning to you. Not to mention that he wouldn’t want to do it while soiled in Mandrake piss. Kuroo shuddered at the thought.

The common room? Too many people that could walk in. An empty classroom? Too suggestive.

Kuroo sat up on his bed. Everyone had fallen fast asleep, Bokuto snoring the loudest out of the four. Kuroo slumped back down on the bed before catching sight of the bulletin board in his room. Besides the parchment of Quidditch moves and formations, there was a moving photo of the four of them.

Crude mustaches were drawn over their magical lips. A magical doodle of a flying Bokuto was scribbled in the corner, flying around the photo’s sky. Even the pictures were asleep. Not Kuroo’s. His was still awake.

Kuroo’s photo looked at the real version of him. The photo couldn’t talk, but Photo Kuroo looked at real Kuroo expectantly. Kind of like he was asking ‘What are you going to do now?’

Not bearing to lock eyes with the photo, Kuroo found himself looking at the schedule he had for tomorrow. Potions first thing in the morning. Ugh, he had to deal with Snape again. After Slytherin’s defeat against Gryffindor a few days ago, their head of house would be even more bitter than he already was toward the innocent Gryffindors. There were even rumors that next morning’s pumpkin juice would be laced with Draught of the Living Death or Babbling Potion. Kuroo shuddered.

Potions was followed by History of Magic, Arithmancy, Charms, and Astronomy. His mind went silent for a little while, concocting an all-new plan.

Maybe something could be arranged.

Kuroo walked into breakfast the day after that with a spring in his step, the hair on his head finally seeming to bend to his will. The rest of the Gryffindors gagged at the 180 his appearance had taken on.. Had their mouths been anymore agape, they would have been the gargoyles that stood proudly on Hogwarts front gates.

“Top of the morning to you all, fine gentlemen,” Kuroo said. Akaashi and Kenma exchanged a look.

“Game day, huh?” Akaashi asked. Kuroo nodded, grinning from ear to ear. Kenma pursed his lips.

“Astronomy Tower, right after classes.”

“Really? Good luck, bro!” Bokuto says. He clapped Kuroo on the back.

From the tip of his wand, Kuroo conjured a sticky white liquid and proceeded to slather it all over his hair. It was hair gel, Kenma realised. The morning sunlight streaming through the windows made it shimmer in Kuroo’s onyx locks. “I look fine, right?” Kuroo asked. Kenma could only nod half-heartedly.

Kuroo tapped his fingers on the wooden tables. He gritted his teeth. “You’re going to be fine, Kuroo,” Kenma says. He smiles a little at his friend's concern over confessing.

“Yeah, I think (Y/N) has a thing for you too Kuroo,” Bokuto says. Kuroo furrowed his eyebrows.

“You sure?”

“Don’t let those battle plans go to waste, man.” Kuroo laughs at the support his friends are giving him. There’s a nagging feeling in the back of his head that something, something is just going to go wrong. Then again, he gets that feeling every time he has a game. But they’ve won a majority of those games, so he chalks it up to nerves.

Kuroo reached for a pitcher of pumpkin juice that no one had touched before. He took a sniff before furrowing his eyebrows. “Does the pumpkin juice smell a little off to you today?” Kenma shrugged. Kuroo poured some in his goblet anyways.

Kenma was the first one to see it coming. He was sitting opposite the Slytherin Quidditch team, so he had a bird’s eye view of their actions. A glint in Miya Atsumu’s eyes, Daishou’s curl of the lips, and the scent from the pitcher akin to unicorn poop; sickly sweet but could kill a man if inhaled directly.

“Don’t drink—” Kenma started, but the gulp in Kuroo’s throat makes any of his actions futile. Kenma is half-standing, one arm raised to keep the goblet from touching his lips, but it’s too late. Akaashi and Bokuto look at Kenma like he’s swallowed a hedge of Gillyweed.

“The pumpkin juice today tastes amazing, doesn’t it?” Kuroo said. He set the goblet down like nothing was wrong. “Do you guys have any plans for later? I’m free tonight, so let’s all sneak out to Hogsmeade if you—”

Kenma snatches the goblet from Kuroo and puts it to his nose. The scents of Bubotuber pus and lily roots sting his nose. A waterfall of regret and shock crashes over the rocks that are Kenma’s heart. He shoves the goblet toward Akaashi, who does the same thing. They exchange grave looks before looking at Kuroo.

“Guys?” Kuroo and Bokuto ask in unison. Kenma spots Miya Atsumu and Daishou Suguru giving each other claps on the back from his seat. ‘Slytherin’, he mouths to Akaashi. Akaashi rolls his eyes. The audacity! Akaashi takes the first plunge.

“U-um Kuroo?” Akaashi asks. Kuroo looks at his friend, the confusion on his face now replaced with blank indifference. “Don’t you have to meet (Y/N) later today?” Akaashi asks, prompting his memory.

“That ugly shrew? I’ll pass, thanks.”

There are always going to be variables that are impossible to factor in an equation. Not all equations have rational results either. That was fundamental in Arithmancy. And as a student of Advanced Arithmancy of two years, Kuroo should probably have that ingrained into his mind right now. It was something that Professor Vector always berated him on. That he never left room for unknown variables that could come up in another problem in his equations.

Kuroo would have never thought that he would encounter one in a situation like this.

“Not cool, man!” Bokuto cried. An insult to Bokuto’s friends was an insult to Bokuto himself. But when one of Bokuto’s friends insulted Bokuto’s other friends...

Kuroo shrugged and took another sip of the pumpkin juice. “Just saying.” Akaashi and Kenma were still standing agape at the words tumbling out of Kuroo’s mouth. One minute he was fawning over you, fussing over every detail. Out of everyone, how could Kuroo have the audacity to say something like that about you?

“Anyway, what are you all off to? Anyone want to join me on the pitch during Arithmancy?”

Kenma choked back a gulp of air. “You’re skipping class?”

“Yeah.” Seeing his friend's dumbstruck expressions, Kuroo threw his head back, laughing. “What’s the old hag gonna do?” He waved his fingers around his head in imitation of the innocent Professor Vector. “Oo, you have blundered in the ancient arts of the numbers! Prepare to die!” he said mockingly.

In an instant, his smile dispersed in favour of a scowl that made itself at home on Kuroo’s face like a parasite on an unsuspecting plant. “Like hell am I going to do that.”

Kuroo started packing his bags. “You guys aren’t coming with me, huh?”

“Well unlike you,” Akaashi started, “we actually care about our grades.” Kuroo raised an eyebrow.

“Suit yourself. I’ll be in the Astronomy Tower after class if you need me.”

Enter a happy you trotting over to where the quartet were sitting. It seemed like you had just come back from the greenhouses, as evident from the leaf in your hair. You brushed it away.

“Hi guys! Hi Kuroo!” you greeted. You sat yourself down next to Kuroo, but he suddenly scooted away from you like you were the plague. He grimaced before looking you up and down. He might have muttered something under his breath, but you didn’t catch a word. You could hear, however, that it was said in a venom-laced tone that could kill a bear with just a word.

“I’m off,” he said curtly. Kuroo slung his bag over the shoulder and walked out of the Great Hall. You pursed your lips as you look at his retreating form. Something was up with him today.

“What’s up with him?” you ask, taking a piece of toast from a tray.

“He’s just feeling a little under the weather today… yeah!” Bokuto answered. His eyes looked to Akaashi for help. Either Akaashi didn’t get the hint or just decided to ignore Bokuto altogether. “That’s it! Kuroo’s just a little… sick!”

“Poor him. Why isn’t he off at Madam Pomfrey’s?” You pouted. He promised to help you harvest Bubotuber Pus later today. But he could take a break from helping you all the time, you supposed.

“Well, you see—” Bokuto said. You set your food down on the plate abruptly.

“Never mind, I should stop by later to give him a healing potion or something.” At this, Akaashi and Kenma looked at one another with baffled faces and parted lips.

“We… really think you shouldn’t—” Kenma said.

“He said he would be in the Astronomy Tower later after class!” Bokuto suddenly blurted. Akaashi sighed and put his head in his hands, the cereal in front of him taking the brunt of his frustration.

“Oh, okay then. Thanks!” you said. Not having much of an appetite, you grabbed another piece of toast and pranced off to your next class.

Classes went by as usual. You didn’t catch a glimpse of a certain black-haired Keeper that day. Kuroo would have been good at this, you think, as the goblet in front of you squawks in distress. You wave your wand, reverting it back to its original form as a crow before proceeding to try again.

What do people say again? If you tell someone you can’t have it, they want it even more? Usual classroom days with Kuroo would have never left you wanting for friends or platonic affection. But now as Professor Binns drolled on, you found yourself missing the occasional paper airplanes Kuroo would send your way during times like these. Or the inside jokes you shared about Professor Trelawney, who he hated with a burning passion, even though he didn’t attend Divination.

Once classes were over, you decided to help Kuroo get a little better. Since you often stopped by the infirmary to drop off medicinal magical plants, you could say that you knew your way around here. Madam Pomfrey trusted you enough that you would mind your own business. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t pull in a few favours from time to time.

Your reflection stared back at you from the cabinet marked ‘Healing Potions.’ The frontmost bottle always freaked you out a little. Why couldn’t the makers of Skele-Gro taken a design class or two? Putting a skeleton on the cap of a medicinal potion surely couldn’t have been the best way to attract customers.

Other potions bubbled in their flasks as you shoved them away. Draught of the Living Death, was engraved on a bottle. Sleeping potion; use only in cases of extreme pain. Yikes. Was the red bottle to its side the one you were looking for? Babbling Potion Antidote. Use in large doses for immediate effect. Not this one either.

The blue bottle on the very end was probably the one. You pushed past the other bottles, some with disturbing symptoms described on them. A jolly cupid with rosy cheeks flew around the blue glass, fit as a fiddle. On the cork was engraved ‘Pepperup Potion.’ Exactly what you were looking for.

You pocketed the bottle in your bag and made your way across the hall. Classes were finally finished, judging from the sea of black robes engulfing the hall. You hopped over a trick step on the stairs and looked up. The Astronomy Tower should be empty by now. Professor Sinistra should be enjoying a hearty meal down at supper. You trudged up the winding staircases.

You opened the topmost door to be rewarded by a gust of fresh air. The balcony above was empty save for a figure sitting on the ledge. His red Gryffindor robes were draped over the stone walls. A parchment peacock preened over by the empty tables as two tabby cats chased a crumpled rat around the chairs. Monkeys slung their way around the chandelier as sparrows nested in the mahogany shelves. It was a zoo, brought alive by the lazy swishing of Kuroo’s wand.

“Kuroo,” you said. His head lolled over to where you were standing. Kuroo blinked slowly— exactly like a cat, you noted, and raised an eyebrow.

“What are you doing here?”

You shuffled around in your bag. “Bokuto told me you were up here, and I thought that...”

“Ha?” Kuroo looked at you with a gelid distaste that stopped the vocal cords in your throat from working right then and there. He never looked at you like that. Did he have a problem with you? ‘He’s always stared at you like that when you aren’t looking, you know?’ egged the voice in the back of your head. That’s why he’s called you here. He hates you and wants you to bugger off.

“What the hell would I want with someone,” his eyes looked you up and down, “like you?”

“‘Like me?” Your mind stopped all other body processes as all your energy went to processing the words you had heard just now. “Are you implying something?”

“That you’re a half-witted witch,” he snarled. Kuroo hopped off the ledge to make his way over to you, “that couldn’t survive at Hogwarts even if I shoved all the books in the library down your big pie-hole?” Each word was interpolated by a languid step in your direction, backing you down to the cold walls that held the Tower up.

“I—” Kuroo leans on the wall, supported by an arm that pins you below his glare. Your muscles are held captive by his pernicious slights and the sheer denial that someone that treats, treated, you as nicely as Kuroo did could say things like this to you.

“I don’t even know why Hogwarts let people like you in.” He wrinkled his nose. “Hell, first time I saw you I thought you came in to replace Filch, the old bugger.” Okay, now this was just getting to be too much.

“What’s gotten into you?” you ask. Your brain wants it to come out as somewhat of a polite query, but your voice betrays your brain and lets it loose with the same shrill naivety a child would scream at their mother with. It almost cracks in the middle, but you push forward.

“What’s gotten into me? Honey, that’s what McGonagall was thinking when she sent the letter of acceptance to you.” Kuroo puts his hands on his hips and leans back — as if that would let him throw more insults with better finesse.

“No one likes you, see? That’s why you only go to those plants for comfort.”

“Shut up!” you screech. How could he say that with such nonchalance? It looked like he was being possessed by Peeves. How hard the poltergeist would laugh when he caught wind of this. You put your hands on his chest and push him away with the remaining strength in your arms. Kuroo staggers back, but quickly regains his balance. Out of your peripheral vision, you spot shards of red glass from the bottle. You don’t bother to clean it up as you try to distance yourself as far away as you can from the monster in front of you.

The Astronomy Tower, true to its name, towered over the rest of Hogwarts. Everything below lay in its gargantuan shadow, being a great place for picnics on hot summer days. It was even tall enough to shield the students from the rain, if you were unlucky enough to not know a Rain-Repelling Charm. The only thing that was collectively despised from it was its long, winding stairs.

The same ones you were stooped over right now. You could feel tears making their way over your eyelids, but then again, what did you have to cry for? It wasn’t like you were exceptionally close to Kuroo like he was with Kenma or something. You deserve to cry, you thought. He said all those horrible things; it was okay for you to feel insulted. Especially coming from him.

You gulped down another lump in your throat. One of his enchanted paper animals had hung onto your robes as you were making your way down, and was now perching on your knees. The cat with scribbled on whiskers and eyes lounged on your lap, unaware of the turmoil going on inside you. You clicked your tongue. If this was how Kuroo was going to humiliate you even further...

Then he could have a taste of his own medicine! You ripped up the innocent cat, setting it aflame for good measure. The smoke drifted out the vents above. Blood trickled from a cut on your index figure onto the stone stairs.

“Look what we have here,” a scratchy voice crooned. The blood and emotions hammering in your head inhibit your senses. With the right honeyed tone, you would have thought the voice in front of you belonged to the very man who spurned you moments ago.

“Go— go away, Kuroo!” You stand up, moving to go back to the dorms when a face that fills you with dread blocks your way.

“Kuroo? Well, well, well, who would’ve thought that Princess Plant Prick would have had a…” Peeves pokes his cheek with his finger. “Boy toy?” You’re able to at least shoot him a dirty look, but you stay in place in case anything happens. Who knows what fishy pranks he has up his sleeves?

“No?” He twirls around you in a flurry of ghostly white. “I’m guessing… crush?”

Peeves’s childish insulting was almost soothing. Different from those from Kuroo, Peeves’s jabs were more like one from a little sibling to another one. Rough on the outside, but well meaning on the inside. The tears seemed to stop their torrent a little, and your knees find themselves buckling back down on the stairs.

“Neither. Please leave me alone.” You take a handkerchief from your bag and wipe the mess on your face with it.

“You sure, Princess Plant Prick? I’m not sure someone in your state is in any condition to be left alone.” The poltergeist moved to take a seat on the window ledge beside you. The previously bright corridor darkened a little bit with the new obstruction.

“Certain—certainly” you choked, “not with anyone like you.”

“Oh? And you would prefer it if I was, say…” Peeves leaned in closer to you. You could almost see the mosaic through the pale film of his skin. “Kuroo?” You rolled your eyes at the poltergeist.

“See, I even made a wig to impersonate him if the occasion called for it!” With a snap of his fingers, he conjured a mop of what seemed to be black rooster feathers. Peeves set it on his head and smiled in imitation of Kuroo. You allowed yourself a small smile.

“Could have fooled me,” you said.

“And what if I did? If you thought that it was actually Kuroo here in my place?” You turned your head away, avoiding the question. “Assuming the previous events didn’t happen,” Peeves added hastily.

“We wouldn’t do anything, if that’s what you mean.” Peeves gave you the side eye.

You pondered a bit. What would you do if Kuroo was sitting here next to you? Would you push him away in fear of him making you hurt even more? No, Kuroo was the one to talk things through whenever there was a problem. So then why would he lash out at you when you didn’t do anything (as you remembered) wrong to him?

“I’m really starting to agree with him on your…” Peeves’s eyes raked your form up and down, “astuteness.”

“You heard us back there?”

“And on the Quidditch pitch.” Peeves lifted a finger. ”And in the greenhouses. And near the Fat Lady. And near that nasty painting of the raccoons on the third floor.” He held four fingers up. “And many more too.”

You tilted your head to the side. What did eavesdropping on conversations have to do with the situation? Seeing your confused expression, Peeves rolled his eyes and clapped his hands smack dab in front of your face.

“I have a bet with the other ghosts, darling! Snape’s diary is on the line here, so you better wisen up!” Now he was just leading you even further and further on from a simple answer. Peeves stood up from where he was sitting and floated back up the stairs, stopping a flight just above you. A trail of mist followed him.

“And you know, Princess Plant Prick,” Peeves called from upstairs, “he did reek of Babbling Potion, earlier today.”

“Babbling…” You sucked in a gust of air. The haze in your head finally cleared up, allowing you to see what you were missing the entire time. You pulled your mouth closed, not even realising that it had dropped to the floor in the first place. You tapped your feet vigorously on the stairs, formulating your next plan of action.

Reinforcements were needed.

The Gryffindor common room was empty save for the trio of friends that looked a little out of place with the absence of the fourth. Three pairs of shaky eyes met yours as you stood in front of the table where they were all huddled. Kenma gulped. “You met Kuroo, didn’t you?”

You grimaced, but tried as hard as you could to look at the fireplace on the other side of the room. “I did.”

“How bad did it hurt?”Akaashi asked. The edges of your eyes stung as fresh tears pricked your eyeballs like needles on a pincushion. You wiped them away with your fingers and put your hands on your hips.

“Only a little. Now come on, Kenma.” You put a hand on Kenma’s wrist and yanked him out from his sitting position. He was the best one that could help you for a task like this. “We’re going to make him regret it.”

There was a potion supply available to students filled with harmless ingredients that wouldn’t harm a fly, but was enough for the potion you had in mind. Bokuto and Akaashi eventually started trailing behind you, and after enough explanation, they were on board with the plan that you had.

After four gruelling hours of rotating between actually making the potion and keeping guard in the boys bathroom at 12 o’clock, the finished product was finally in your hands. With a swish of your wand, all trace of the four of you was gone.

“Let’s do this again, shall we?”

The boyish flouncing of the previous day, turned into an arrogant saunter the very next. Yesterday’s naive smile had soured like spoiled milk and turned into a shit-eating smirk that was fouler than Miya Atsumu’s when Slytherin won a game. The potion still hadn’t worn off, Kenma noted. It must have been potent. Luckily, he and (Y/N) had been prepared for this, with a little help from Bokuto and Akaashi.

Kuroo gives a curt nod in Bokuto and Akaashi’s direction on the other side of the table as he moves to sit down next to Kenma. He doesn’t take his eyes off of the scrumptious feast laid in front of him.

“So,” he says as he piles eggs and toast onto his plate, “anyone finally coming to skip with me today?” No one answers at first. Then, being the brave soul he is, Bokuto replies to his friend’s question.

“I don’t know man,” Bokuto says. “You got a lot of flak from Flitwick yesterday after you skipped. You’re lucky your grades from last week saved you.”

“Did they, now?” Kuroo drawls. He swills the juice in his goblet a few times before downing it one gulp. The goblet magically refills itself as Kuroo sets it down.

His mouth moves to make another brash statement, but contorts into a fanged scowl when you walk up the halls. Kenma and Akaashi don’t even have to look at you to know that it’s you coming down to sit next to them.

“Fancy seeing you three here,” you say. Kuroo’s eyes twitch as you so blatantly ignore his presence. There are no signs of the pain he inflicted on you yesterday, and you seem as chipper as you can get. Frustration bubbles in his chest, at the thought of someone being so happy, even after he did all of those things to you. If you could just show an ounce of inconvenience at—

Something splashes in his face. The fiery undertones of fall and cinnamon tell him that it’s from his pumpkin juice. Kuroo draws his wand in reflex, but nothing else seems to be out for him. Worse still, the four people around him seem to pay him no attention. He catches Kenma giving you a short glance. Pearly droplets of orange liquid drip down your finger.

“What did you put in my drink?” Kuroo mutters. You pay him no mind and go back to your cereal with your soggy fingers.

“Hey.” Kuroo raps on the wooden table with his fist. “What did you put in my drink?” His volume has increased by now. So much so that the trio next to you has taken notice.

“Nothing,” you say.

“If she was actually trying to poison you, wouldn’t you think Dumbledore or McGonagall would have caught on sooner?” Kenma asked, trying to reason with his friend.

Kuroo deflates a bit, leaning back before looking at the goblet in his hands. He takes a long sip from it, his eyes never leaving you the entire time. Perhaps he did see the drop you put into it, but he shows no signs that he knows you know.

And then it happens. Kuroo slammed the now empty cup on the table. He clenched the golden material until his knuckles reddened, paled, and went back to his normal skin tone again. Something from the back of his throat sounded like it wanted to claw its way out of his mouth. People on each side of you were starting to look over. Any minute now, you think, biting your lip. You had read that the antidote’s effects could be a little painful, but you hadn’t prepared yourself for any of this.

Kuroo’s closing his eyes shut in pain. Every nerve in his throat has gotten ten times stronger, every breath next to him getting amplified by a hundred times. Ten thousand needles prick his throat as he gasps for air in the cramped space he is in right now. Kuroo forces an eye open to look into the eyes of his assailant: you.

“You little—” he rasps.

But just as he is about to force another curse word to come out of his mouth, all of the needles in him force their way out. His lungs suddenly fill with air as the pain in his neck and head dull to normal. His eyesight sharpens to its usual levels; which means he can feel the other eyes on him right now.

Kuroo sits straight again as four pairs of eyes take in his current condition. They all have their lips slightly parted, eyebrows furrowed. The one in front of him looks the most expectant. Kuroo closes his eyes and shakes his head. He opens them again to be greeted by a sudden rush of light in his eyes and… your hesitant form in front of him.

Orange droplets drip from your fingers, a remnant from his pumpkin juice. There is a paper cut you got from yesterday when...

“Hey, listen, I—” Kuroo starts. But your trembling lip and reddening eyes are too much for him to go on with his sentence.

Your feelings also seem to be too much for yourself. Even though you’re in the middle of the Great Hall, where anyone could pick out drama even if it ran around in an Invisibility Cloak, ‘discrete’ is not something you have apparently mastered.

“Hey!” he calls out after you. But by the time anyone can react, you’re out of the hall, face buried in your long, black, sleeve as you avoid the conflict. Kuroo is half-standing out of his seat. An arm raised that is lowered disappointedly as you make your way out.

The rest of the day goes on as usual. The sheer proximity of being in the same room with Kuroo is able to make your heart lurch in your ribcage. You want to have him so close by your side, so close that you can hear the steady thumping of one another’s hearts. So close that the very pheromones that make up his scent and self are etched into your mind as deep as they can possibly go.

But at the same time, you hate being in his presence. His observant eyes that scan the room like a predator its prey linger a little too long on your back. If you could, you would put a thousand miles of distance between you two, until the mere memory of him is a speck of sand in the vast plains of the universe. Of course it’s not his fault for anything that happened, but still...

It’s only later during lunch when everything seems to be pulled back together. For a fleeting moment, you pass Kenma. He mutters a quick, “Meet him in the greenhouses after class,” before disappearing among the sea of black robes. You think to call after him, but you realise that Kuroo would have easily been the one that had sent him. And Kuroo always had a plan.

So when you open the door to the greenhouse later, it doesn’t surprise you that there is absolutely no one there. Save for a certain Quidditch Captain.

He’s playing with the lilies. Your lilies. The same ones that had made their way around your head the first time he had really approached you in the Great Hall that time. They snap up happily at the slightest brush of his fingers that easily retract back from the lethal petals.

“You’ve made friends with the lilies,” you say. Kuroo stills in his seat on the stool. He turns to face you and blinks slowly, like a cat would.

“If you don’t want to be here right now, then… I understand. I understand.” Kuroo stands up. He holds his arms out in a show of surrender. “So will you let me take up some of your time this afternoon?”

You teeter between the balls of your feet. The words want to come out of your mouth so badly, but your heart seems to be keeping your lips shut. You count to five.

“Go on,” you say.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). I get it if you don’t forgive me, I said some really bad stuff back there. If you want to cut off all ties with me, feel free to, and—” You put a hand on one of his broad shoulders.

“Kuroo.” He stops all his rambling and looks up at your eyes. “You were under a potion, it’s alright. I… I forgive you.”

“You do?”

“I do!” Your arms find their way around his neck. His jaw tickles your shoulder as the rumble of his laugh shakes your body.

“Thanks," you catch him whispering into your ear. None of you say anything as you dangle from his neck in the bone-splitting hug you give him. You linger for a while before peeling your arms back. Kuroo wants them back in their rightful place, his neck, so bad. “So are we back to normal, now?”

“Only if you’ll let me trash-talk you as revenge.” You both laugh in unison.

“Hey, (Y/N)," Kuroo says. “Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything, Kuroo. What’s up?”

He takes your fingers between his. You find yourself walking backwards and backwards in a twisted dance. And Kuroo holds the lead.

Your back makes contact with the wall behind you. Hot breath fans your neck. Kuroo holds out a hand to hold himself up, effectively trapping you between the wall and his tall body. You could just as easily whip out your wand and hex him where the sun doesn’t shine. But this was too good to be true. Didn’t all teenagers dream of someone doing this to them?

Now that someone’s finally doing it to you, you can only freeze as your brain goes haywire.

“Kuroo! What are you—”

“I like you,” he says. It’s quick and simple, but smoother than a drawn out love letter from those horrible Cupids that Gilderoy Lockhart had sent that year. It makes your blood roar in your ears, yet the only sound that comes through to your brain are the three words that just came out of Kuroo’s mouth.

“A lot.” The words come out of your mouth at the same time. Kuroo looks up, meeting a playful smile on your lips. He raises his eyebrows.

“How did you?” he asks. You cock a shoulder in his direction.

“I have my ways.”

Instead of pressing further, Kuroo just bows his head down between his arms, you may add, are still entrapping you. He laughs. “If you know only that much, then let me elaborate.” Your face suddenly feels very warm.

‘Well of course, you would, it’s a greenhouse, (Y/N)!’ says Common Sense. The giddy teenager overtakes you and plays it off as Kuroo’s hot, and extremely close, breath.

“You’re really cute when you’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” He taps your nose. You want to swat his hand away, but remember that your arms are currently trapped under his much bigger ones.

“You’re even cuter when you teach me Herbology at 3 in the morning. And way cuter when you have a milk mustache during breakfast.” Kuroo had removed his hands by now, but it still felt like there were invisible tacks pinning your arms to the wall behind you.

“Am I?” you asked.

“Nope.” His sudden statement has you furrowing your eyebrows, but he quickly follows it up with a flick to your forehead. “Silly. Do you think I like you based on physical appearance alone?”

You manage a giggle. Kuroo leans back on the wall as he observes the greenhouse around him. You scoot closer to him and take his fingers into your hand. They're calloused after years of holding brooms, but they're soft and plump. He doesn't seem to mind when you wordlessly slip your hand into his.

Kuroo turns to look at you. He smiles. "We should spend more time in the greenhouses, you know?"

“Yeah, I think dates like this would be really good for our relationship," you say.

“Our… what?”

“Our relationship.” You pull your hand away from his. “Do you not want to?”

Now the positions are switched. Your hands lock Kuroo from both sides as you pin him against the wall. His lips are inches from yours.

"Can I?" you ask. Kuroo chuckles. He pulls your jaw closer to his, pressing both of your lips together in the process.

"Well this didn't go as planned," he comments, before pulling you in for another kiss.

BONUS:

Kenma passes Kuroo in their dorms. "You're welcome," he says.

Kuroo is about to reply, but the blond Chaser has already settled into bed.

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thepeanutbutterwizard · 4 years

Text

Ninjago/Avatar au Pt6

The second half of Book 2 (hopefully)

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

So Garm finally reads the letter from Wu. It starts off as a normal pseudo-journal entry, but after it mentions finding the Garms old armor, but no body, it turns into more of a normal letter. Wu says that he’s missed his brother since he was banished, and that he hopes that they’ll be able to see eachother again soon if Garm is alive, and ends with Wu saying that he normally burns the letters he writes to Garm, so that no-one else finds them, but that he feels hopeful that this one could actually get to him. It’s touching stuff.

Lloyd picks up earthbending almost immediately, unlike Aang. The element Lloyd is going to struggle to learn is fire (if you don’t count his airbending being self-taught. He picked up airbending really, really fast, but bc he’s been making stuff up and trying to do what Maya did with her waterbending [Maya’s had decades to hone her style tho, not just three-ish years, but he’s like someone learning ballet only from YouTube, for only a couple of months] since there are no more airbenders [or so they think, bc none of them saw Morro airbend at the North Pole]), and I’ll get into why that is when it comes up. They haven’t had Garm start to teach Lloyd any firebending bc they’re trying to go in the order as much as they can, but Garm has finally convinced Kai to learn more than just the basics, and he picks it up really quickly.

Meanwhile, Morro is taking care of an injured Wu (and accidentally making him suffer through poorly-made tea). Now, Morro is onboard with Wu wanting to leave the Fire Nation behind; unlike Zuko, Morro isn’t trying to win back the favor of some distant parent, the only family he’s ever known is Wu, and he’s not about to abandon Wu for a bunch of people who would probably kill him as soon as they could no matter what he did for them, and Harumi made it clear that no-one in the Fire Nation is going to be extending them any mercy.

Once Wu wakes up, Morro does yell at him for doing something as stupid as taking a hit from a well-trained firebender to protect a stranger (Wu hadn’t gotten around to telling Morro ‘hey, you know that guy with the big burn scar who’s traveling with the Avatar? That’s my dead-but-not-really-dead older brother. Pls stop trying to stab him’, and Morro wasn’t there when Garm revealed his identity in the North Pole), until Wu tells him that Garm is his brother. This leads to Morro yelling out ‘You mean to tell me that the Avatar is my cousin?!?!’ And that how Wu learns that Lloyd is Garms son (’wait, what?’ ‘Have you really gone this long without noticing that the Avatar calls your brother his dad?’ ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind, give me a break!’), and now he thinks that Garm and Maya are married with three kids, one of whom is the Avatar.

They make their way to Ba Sing Se, with the help of the White Lotus. Wu isn’t the leader of them (he isn’t super old in this au, imagine what he looked like in S9, with the mustache), but he is a fairly respected member. I still haven’t come up with a Jet character who would work, and I am open to suggestions. If I do find a good character, they will definitely throw hands with Morro (mb Shade? Just cut out the romance subplot in S1 and pick a couple of EM’s to be the other freedom fighters?). And yes, Wu does get his tea shop in the upper ring (Steep Wisdom), and Morro tries to be happy and supportive, but even though he is fine leaving the Fire Nation with Wu, it does still feel like he wasted years of his life, both in chasing the Avatar and just trying to prove himself to everyone back in the Palace, so he’s pretty grumpy.

Now back to Team Avatar: at Maya and Garms insistence the kids have been picking out their little mini-vacations. They know that they only have a limited amount of time before the comet arrives, but Garm and Maya want these kids to be able to be, y’know, kids, at least a little bit, in spite of the fact that they’re growing up in a war-torn world. Kai want’s to check out that glacier-spring place by the desert, it’s kinda underwhelming, but they get fruity drinks out of it. This whole time Kai and Cole have been getting closer to each other. Kai feels a little guilty, like he’s betraying Zane’s memory, but talking to Maya and Garm about it does help him start to feel better, and it helps his over-protectiveness start to abate a little.

Jay wants to pick a really cool mini-vacation to impress Nya, and he asks the people who are in the glacier place if there’s any place around those parts, and ends up learning that about a year ago some lady showed up saying something about a huge spirit library in the desert that she was looking for. They never saw her again after that, and figure that she must have died out in the desert. When pressed (and payed) one of the artistically inclined staff members roughly recreated the sketch of the library, and vaguely remembered the area on the map she said she was going to search, and with that Jay has his mini-vacation picked out.

They set off and find the library. Cole chooses to stay outside with Ultra (who can’t fit inside) bc he thinks they’ll be safer if the only earthbender stays outside incase something goes wrong, and if they need to get out of there fast he’d only slow them down with his legs. Everybody else heads into the library and meet Wan Chi Tong (did I spell that right? I’m too lazy to check), who agrees to let them use the library if they 1) don’t intend to use the contents of the library against anyone else and 2) contribute something to his library.

Lloyd and Nya both use their wanted posters (they both thought they were awesome [Lloyd bc he’s 13 and Nya bc you can’t convince me that Nya wouldn’t be thrilled to have a wanted poster bc she’s been fucking with a tyrannical regime] and incredibly accurate considering the art had to have been done by someone using other people’s descriptions, and they totally intend on framing and hanging at least a few of their posters up in their rooms when all this is over), Kai has a copy of a poem that Zane wrote for him, Garm has his brothers letter (he doesn’t want to give it up, but he has nothing else), Jay has a blueprint from one of his inventions, and Maya has a copy of a story in a series that Koko had brought back to the South Pole over the years. Wan Chi Tong comments that about a year ago a researcher had arrived and had offered him another part of the the same series. He mentions that they should be careful, as she never left, and has been primarily researching the Avatar.

Everyone has an idea of who this mysterious researcher could be (except Jay), but they decide to be cautious all the same, just incase she isn’t who they think she is. They all start discreetly searching for anything that could be used to help them fight the Fire Nation, and they end up finding and empty placard saying something about ‘the Darkest Day in Fire Nation History’, but when they go to check part of the section on Fire Nation (that library was enormous, y’all cannot tell me that Zhao was able to destroy absolutely everything that the library had on the Fire Nation. It could only have been the last few decades/mb centuries of Fire Nation history), as well as a campsite that was full of scrolls having to do with the Avatar and different bending techniques (and a few misc scrolls about random things like cooking, engineering, etc). As they’re poking around the campsite, who else comes around the corner but Koko!

She has her nose buried in a scroll as she’s walking, so she doesn’t notice them all until Lloyd happily calls out ‘Mom!’, and goes in for a hug. Koko drops the scroll and has a happy reunion with her son and husband, as well as with Maya, Kai, and Nya, and she and Jay are introduced to each other. Koko explains that she’s been able to stay in the library so long was bc she managed to get the fox assistants to like her enough to start bringing her food and water. She also explains that she’s been doing nonstop research into the Avatar State, the Air Nomads and airbending, and the Fire Nation (though she’s really quiet about that part so they don’t catch Wan Chi Tongs attention and ire) and shows them that planetarium thing and that she discovered the eclipse. (How did she make it out to the library without a flying companion or something? SHe’s just that much of a badass.)

Koko had been saving up supplies and charting a course out of the desert, and planning to leave the library as soon as she could, but now that they’ve showed up with Ultra she can just grab her things and go. Someone, probably Jay, gets a little too vocal about how they have a chance to beat the Fire Nation, and cue Wan Chi Tong sinking the library and trying to add them to his ‘collection of specimen’. Garm and Koko are a dynamic duo, with Garm distraction the angry spirit while Koko gathers all of her scrolls and supplies together while Maya gets the kids to the exit.

Meanwhile, Cole is holding up the library, and trying to help Ultra fend off the sandbenders that showed up to capture and sell the dragon. Cole is able to put up a bit more of a fight than Toph was (meaning that he was able to get one or two good hits in) bc being in the desert doesn’t impair his vision (the sand does tank his mobility just as much as it would anyone with prosthetic legs tho), but he isn’t able to stop them or even hold them off long enough for everyone else to get out. Cole, despite being initially afraid of the large dragon, had quickly grown to be one of Ultras favorite people in their group (like, third favorite. Kai will never admit that he’s jealous), and is pretty upset that he wasn’t able to save him. More on Ultra later.

So Lloyd is really upset about losing his companion, just as much as Aang was. He doesn’t act out (for lack of a better word) as intensely as Aang, since Ultra wasn’t the last thing he had left of his people like Appa was for Aang, but Lloyd is still rightfully pissed off. He takes off shakily on his glider, leaving everyone behind before trying to search for Ultra and the sandbenders, ignoring his families protests. Koko starts working on getting them out of the desert using the route she had plotted out (using the sun and shadows to orient them and get started in the right direction), and starts planing out how long her food and water (she had the good sense to bring those from the library) will last between all of them. The answer is: not long enough.

Kai (and mb Jay too) is the one who has the bright idea to drink the cactus juice, bc while Kai, like Sokka, (and Jay tbh) is smart enough to know that drinking a strange liquid out of an unfamiliar plant is a bad idea,but the fact that it is a stupid idea doesn’t stop him. Wait, y’know what? Jay definitely tries the cactus juice, but instead of acting as out-of-it and inebriated as Kai does, he acts like he does in S9, weirdly chill and disconnected from reality. He’s still tripping balls, but he’s reacting to it differently from Kai. Cole just ends up carrying Kai piggy-back, even though the sand makes it harder for him to move (he’s crushing, and he’s the only one [adults included] whose physically strong enough to carry him for long periods of time) (also Kai awkwardly and drunkenly flirts with him. Everyone pretends not to notice for Coles sake) and everyone else takes turns holding onto Jays wrist and leading him through the desert or else he would have wandered off and died.

Lloyd gets back to them, landing hard in the sand, holding back tears bc even though he’s upset and could use a good cry he knows that they need to conserve as much water as they can. He’s got his family there to comfort him (even if Kai and Jay are kinda incapacitated atm), which does help him a bit, but he’s still rightfully upset. They find the abandoned sandbender skipper thing, find the vulturewasp hive, and come across the sandbenders. Cole is able to pinpoint the sandbender (no idea who this guy would be, Ninjago character wise) who lead the others to take Ultra via his voice bc Cole a) was trained in a myriad of performing arts thanks to his father, primarily singing b) has perfect pitch and c) never forgets a voice bc of that.

Lloyd goes full Avatar State, but is comforted and calmed down by his parents while everyone else books it. The sandbenders tell them that they sold Ultra to some guys who were going to take him to Ba Sing Se, and then they take them out of the desert (with the sandbenders getting the Death Glare from all of Team Avatar the whole way. Koko totally punches the sandbender who lead the others to steal Ultra once they’re out of the desert.)

They make their way to Ba Sing Se on foot, with Lloyd trying to get a handle on his emotions (and worrying everyone in the process), and they run into a family with an expecting mother/wife (I am also taking suggestions for who these characters could be. I’m pretty tired while typing this so I can’t think of anyone) and try and get on a ferry to Ba Sing Se. Cole, whose father is well known and wealthy, uses that fact, his double amputee status (he ‘accidentally’ slips out of one of his prosthetics. Kai catches him before he hits the ground), and his acting skills to get them tickets without passports.

And we get best girl Pixal back! She helps Team Avatar help the pregnant family go through the Serpents Pass, and it goes pretty similar to cannon, except instead of a situation where Sokka is overprotective of Suki, Jay picks up on how much Pixal likes Nya, and sees that Nya, his crush, reciprocates those feelings, and gets a bit passive-aggressive w/everyone, but Pixal especially. It doesn’t last long, bc Jay is a hormonal teenager who realizes he’s being a dick fairly quickly, but it does help fizzle his crush on Nya a bit (sorry again to any hardcore Jaya shippers who were hoping for that in this au, but it’s really not my cup of tea).

They also help deliver the couples baby, but Maya and Koko are the ones helping take care of that. Team Avatar get to the outer wall, just to see a huge Fire Nation drill heading closer and closer to the wall, ready to start tearing through it...

#ninjago #ninjago au #ninjago avatar au

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