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A unique holiday experience
Stephen was lying by the pool… The wind rustled through the oleander bushes. From the restaurant, he could hear muffled conversations. He took a sip of his vermouth tonic. The ice cubes clinked in the glass. It really was a perfect idyll. From the pool, you had a perfect view of the plains of Mallorca, looking out over the sea of houses of Palma and, in the distance, the glistening Mediterranean. Stephen was somewhat exhausted from a road bike tour through the Tramuntana Mountains. But after a few days of just relaxing by the pool, he really needed a bit of a change. The bike tour had been a good idea from the concierge… But now Stephen needed something else. He surfed the internet. The offers from getyourguide were quite nice, but he didn't need another visit to the cathedral of Palma, another visit to an olive oil factory, another hike on the dry stone wall trail. He knew all that well enough. But then he stumbled across an ad that sounded original: “Bored of the luxurious Mallorcan quality tourism? Fancy a break from the real world? Party and have fun with normal people? We offer you a vacation like you've probably never experienced before!” The logo showed two young guys who reminded Stephen unpleasantly of the booze tourists who had made him shudder more than once at Palma Airport.
Still, it sounded kind of funny… Stephen clicked on “Continue”… Then he took another sip from the beer can. The stuff got damn hot in the sun. Then he fell asleep.
“Mate, you fell asleep in the sun again. Drinking ain't good for you. Want another beer?” Stephen woke with a start. He had to belch in shock. The guy in front of him laughed and held out an ice-cold beer can. Where the hell was he? Stephen was lying in the blazing sun by a small, shabby-looking pool. The cheap plastic lounger groaned as he sat up. Shit, that hurt! He was bright red. “That looks nasty, mate! You gotta cool it down!” The boy in front of him shook the beer can and opened it. A beer fountain hit Stephen's burnt chest. And even though he was sure he wanted to say something else, he said, “You absolute arsehole. You can't be wasting beer like that. Or are you gonna lick it off my six-pack again, you dirty pig?” What the fuck was going on? The chav in front of him laughed and actually licked the beer foam off Stephen's body. Or what was probably Stephen's body. What Stephen could see was an athletic, fiery red body with a few cheap-looking tattoos. And what he could also see was the tent that he was building in his shorts. “Bloody hell, can't you wait till we're back in our room? The pricks will end up banning us if they catch us!” This was a nightmare? Stephen was stuck in a strange body and was like a remote-controlled robot. He had no control over his actions or his language. He was stuck in this body and watched everything like a movie. Except that the pain of the sunburn was just as real as the lust that was coursing through his body. “Bruv, let's get up to our room, innit? If they're changing the sheets tomorrow, we might as well have a proper go at it, yeah?” Stephen didn't need to be told twice. He didn't know the guy's name, he didn't understand why he was talking about their room, but he wanted to fuck the guy. Now! And hard! He opened the door with his door card. He threw the guy onto the bed. He pulled down the guy's Adidas shorts. He pulled down his own shorts. He didn't give a shit about the stark contrast between his red-burned and chalk-white skin. His boner jumped out of his pants like a jumping jack. The guy squealed with anticipation. And Stephen fucked him like only slightly drunk chavs can manage shortly after the end of puberty. And Callum (Stephen suddenly remembered the name) was right: tonight they would have to sleep in cum-encrusted sheets. But tomorrow there might be fresh ones. If the maid didn't refuse to clean the room again because it was too messy.
After the fuck, Stevo and Callum lay on the beach for a while. Stevo had organized a new round of beer and was checking with the other guys from her soccer club what was going on tonight. Dinner at their cheap all-inclusive hotel in Magaluf was set, but after that it was unclear whether they wanted to go to the sports bar for a few rounds of darts or go straight to the club to pick up chicks. Callum didn't participate. He was drunk again and sleeping off his drunk.
The four days of drinking and fucking in Magaluf were always the highlight of the year. The football club organized this trip every year and Stevo had been going since he was 16. Shit, it was a wild time, but what happened in Magaluf stayed in Magaluf. His girlfriend in Birmingham didn't believe a word of it anyway, no matter what he told her about the trip. Hehehe, he could only hope that she had no idea what had been going on between him and Callum. Hey, it had always been without eye contact, it wasn't homo.
His buddies and he had savored the last day at the pool as best they could. They'd had to vacate their rooms in the morning, but they'd been allowed to use the all-inclusive until the bus picked them up for the airport. And the bar had been serving alcohol for an hour. Callum had already pissed his pants again, Stevo had already been to the loo once to throw up, but had unfortunately just missed the toilet bowl. The bus wasn't due for another hour. He had bought himself another beer and fell asleep on the sun lounger.
The other guests always raised their eyebrows a little at the sight of Stephen. The young man may have been able to afford the expensive hotel in Bunyola, but with his tattoos he somehow didn't fit in here. And he drank a little too much beer. And the burping could also be more discreet. Stephen didn't care about any of that. Somehow he thought that beer and Mallorca formed a unit. And if that bothered you, just get in touch. So far, Stephen had shagged everyone who was bothered by something to their senses.
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☕️ fav fantasy books/series and what makes them so good and so For Jess. bonus for thoughts on what makes a less good fantasy fall flat
oh Boy okay alright!!!!
fantasy series i love/are excellent/peak For Jess: radiant emperor duology by shelley parker-chan (point: is it fantasy or just historical-ish fiction with some supernatural elements? counterpoint: i fucking love it and this is my list). the lumatere chronicles by melina marchetta. the daevabad trilogy by s. a. chakraborty. queen's thief my beloved!!!!! piranesi aka one of the best novels i read in 2020. tortall series by tamora pierce (but protector of the small quartet is the best of them).
honorable mentions: the raven tower by ann leckie; sharon shinn's elemental blessings series isn't like, as sharp as the top tier, but i really enjoy every reread; earthsea (but mostly the ones about tenar); it feels like cheating to say discworld but again: my list; the divine cities by robert jackson bennett; the stravaganza books were not quote unquote good but they did change my brain chemistry when i was 13; goblin emperor books (but more witness for the dead bc u kno me, i love a murder mystery). lotr would be here except i read them all once as a 6th grader and have yet to return. i still need to read the oleander sword but the jasmine throne kicked ass.
ok what is the unifying factor here lol. strong world building is very important i think; a real sense of a distinct place and culture/mix of cultures rather than Generic Medieval European City. there was a really good post going around that was like, where does the food come from (aka have you thought about how all of this actually works?), and a lot of these series think about Where Does The Food Come From. differences in cultural norms among different groups within the world AND from the audience. plots strongly rooted in politics/the inherent people-ness of people rather than everything relying on magic (not to say i don't love me some magic/divine plaything stories!!!! but they hit so much harder when the conflict comes from a place of innate human foibles). a dash of wonder and the inexplicable. if an answer is needed, it fits in the schema of everything else, but you don't feel the author trying to answer literally everything (when an author is sweating to show their work u can tell imo). most of these have at least one set of people where i want to see them kiss on the mouth, but most of the time that is not the Point; the best fantasy for me treats romance as a subplot/b-plot where it informs the stakes but is not the stakes itself. and ur basics of a good book in general: good writing, good pacing, et cet er a!
what makes them fall flat? world building inconsistency; new magic springing up because well, the author NEEDED it (aka those moments when you can see the seams lol); when the romance is the a plot (sorry but romantasy = not for jesses!!!!!); i think also authors get tripped up both by not planning ahead enough AND planning ahead too much when doing series (if you get a deal for one than one book you should have more than one book's worth of material; however if you can’t change and move then you can be stifled! see ursula le guin revisiting the gendered magic of earthsea in tehanu years later, or tamora pierce going oh shit there are normies in tortall in protector of the small). also this is a ME thing but i fuckin hate purple or twee prose. fantasy does not mean break out the thesaurus.
sorry for the novel. im gonna think of like six more books as soon as i post this
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( from @cult-of-embers )
++ Fabius Bile ++ the mental communication begins. ++My name is Aldus Trazyrae. Formerly of the Thousand Sons. I am sure you are well aware of what my brothers call the "flesh change", and how Ahriman royally fucked us by turning most of the Legion into soulless jars of dust. This, of course, did not solve the problem. ++
There was a brief pause.
++I have been researching a new way to circumvent this issue. As a man of science, I am sure you are well versed in the creation of simple augmetics, as well as...less popular crafts such as cloning. I believe that the use of a surrogate body crafted from synthetic materials may be the key to my problem.
Is this sufficiently interesting to allow your cooperation? If so, please allow me to visit you at a location and time of your choosing that we may discuss further.++
The cut is precise. No tremor, not even in the molecular range. The world has narrowed to the tiny section under the glass. The steel table a magnifying glass, the anatomical theatre the galaxy. Fabius loves these moments. The complete focus. Nothing matters but his skill. His perfection. He believes in no gods and yet in these moments he is the master of all he sees. The creator. The destroyer. The duality of every fairy tale humanity has ever told itself to explain everything greater than apes walking upright. Tissue separates. Makes itself ready for what he has chosen for it. Seen from the outside, from the darkened tiers of the theatre of operations, Fabius stands in a realm of light and warmth. Oleander, sitting on one of the high tiers in this darkness, leans forward. Observing and learning. What it is to be part of the Consortium. Fabius likes to lecture, but the real lesson is to watch him as he devotes himself to his own projects. It is a static dance when Fabius and the Chirurgeon attend to a body. Everything is perfection. As third legion as you can get. All the more surprising when Oleander sees Fabius suddenly freeze. Straightening up and staring into space. Briefly, anger is reflected in the Chief Apothecaries face. Oleander hears him hiss, "Damn …. Mutants …" Then he continues to operate as if nothing has happened. An extremely surprising statement for someone who watches every form of mutation with relentless interest. Oleander frowns. He will approach his mentor very carefully about this later. Fabius bites his lower lip. Is angry with himself for allowing himself to be rattled by so …. … to let something like that upset him. He can still feel the presence and makes a point of feeling his displeasure clearly. His mental response is every ounce as caustic as a literal response would be. "Well, since our legions have had similar problems there, and I've already done some thinking about amplifying instability with the psyker mutation, I'm sure an exchange can't hurt. Especially since, of course, I have had little access to research material in this direction over the past millennia. There is only one individual left in my legion with the curse, so I am definitely interested in acquiring more tissue samples and possible new approaches. Currently I am on Urum for the foreseeable future. I'm not known as a particularly attentive host, but of course I'm happy to make an exception for a fellow researcher." With this final thought, he tries to make a conscious point to be alone in his head again. Annoyed, he stares at his work. Getting back into the zone of meditation is not going to be easy. Not even for a god.
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on the subject of cartoon logic in psychonauts- if we were to frame things realistically, augustus is far from the only wildly irresponsible adult here.
the psychonauts training camp, as a whole, is pretty fucked up- theyre literally training child soldiers as young as like 10, putting them under threat of death and harm daily. at least its an opt-in thing that require parental permission, but as a whole the entry age should be WAY older and the adults proven to be more stable than the ones that are there.
oleander literally hired a mad scientist to kidnap these children and harvest their organs for his own gain, and there was just. not internal system to combat what he was doing. even when he was accidentally broadcasting his plans over the WHOLE CAMP no one did anything about it.
sasha, ford, and milla arent innocent either. i think milla is actually the most responsible out of any of them, taking into account that these are kids that dont need to be dealing with this and keeping her training safe and fun for them. she still, however, is complicit in this, and doesnt put a stop to what her coworkers are doing.
sasha experiments on raz, a kid he met the night before and caught his eye because of his exceptional natural abilities. he has no idea how these experiments are gonna go, and has experimented on kids BEFORE. with DISASTROUS RESULTS. at least his training was gonna be slow and methodical... unless he really was just testing raz and making him believe he was in REAL DANGER just to... what, see what he could do?
and ford literally hitches a ride in this kids brain without even asking, and even if he didnt have a choice, he still shifted the task of saving all of the campers onto raz instead of trying to figure something else out.
and after its all said and done, THEY ALL BRING RAZ WITH THEM ON A SEARCH AND RESCUE MISSION FOR A HIGH PROFILE TARGET THE NEXT DAY? hes capable and wanted this, yes, but hes still a kid!
if we're gonna realistically criticize augustus, we can give the other adults the same treatment
#psychonauts#critical analysis#in the life#to be clear i dont think any of this is applicable to the source material#cartoon logic applies. raz is fine and the adults are fine#but if you wanna go down the avenue of REALISTIC analysis then please do it correctly#within the context of the story itself augustus isnt a bad dad is what im trying to say#have some nuance beloveds
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NOW STREAMING... MOON ROVER ADVENTURES S5EP18: THE SUNRISE FINALE | GABRIELLE MORNINGSTAR | CHAPTER 3 EXECUTION
Gabi finds himself in the arms of a couple people as the votes finish being counted, as his fate is decided. The hugs are returned as tightly as possible, clutching with every ounce of strength left in him, until the other person is shaking with him. When they pull away, he whispers thanks.
(Being held is only reminding him of the arms of the few he wants nothing more than to be in right now—face buried in Abe's shoulder, hidden against his chest with his lips pressed to the crown of his head; the soothing touch of Pheo's damaged hands through his curls, soft whispers of assurance; the swirling heat of a hearth and the unwavering, unshaking, protective embrace of Gale. Gabi rubs the heel of his hand over the tears burning down his cheeks instead, head down, and casts his gaze to—)
(—Hawk?)
Hawk crashes to the floor in an awful thump, convulsing on the ground while Tyr’s expression remains one that wasn’t joy at the situation, rather, dread at what was coming next. From Hawk, their attention went to Gabi, who's pupils were shrunk, trembling.
[Mr. Morningstar...it’s time...]
Tyr approaches Gabi slowly and offers their nub to him, though instead of taking it, the young man scoops Tyr up into his arms, holding him like one would a toddler or cat. For another hug, or in hopes to keep him from shooting at anyone else? From AI-T's podium, Rover suddenly goes rigid, and looking more robot-like than he ever has, turns and starts walking stiffly towards them. The redheaded bot stops once they get to the usual spot by the wall, and Gabi turns to look at him momentarily. A hand is lifted, and albeit shaky, presses against the center of the star on Rover's chest. The door in the wall pulls open, and as they turn back to give the room one last look, Fenrir, who has been silently waiting, shoves his phone against Maxwell's chest, then along with Galehaut, jumps to attention—bolting towards them.
"Fuck all that! Fuck all this!" Galehaut shouts. "When I said on our own terms, I meant it! Moon, I'm not gonna let them—!"
As they quickly approach, Tyr offers a small apology to the one that held them in his arms...
[I am sorry, Mr. Morningstar.]
They raise their nub, and like with Hawk, out launches a small pod shaped object that latches onto both of them and sends a powerful shock through their bodies.
Ah—Gabi grips Tyr tightly to his chest and makes a terrible, strangled sound as the two join Hawk on the floor. His gaze rips from them to stare wide-eyed and glossy at the rest of the room. He shakes his head a few times, backing up, backing up. Lips parted, like he's trying to say something, but his voice never reaches them—Rover steps between Gabi and the rest of you, obscuring the smaller body from view. The bot looks over his shoulder and gives the room an empty, dark, protective look, before the door slams shut, taking them away.
A minute passes...two...three...until finally the screen lights up with the single message:
PLEASE ENJOY THE PRESENTATION WE HAVE PREPARED
before fading back to black.
[TW: DESCRIPTIONS OF BEING BEATEN, GORE]
…
The lights dim, casting your cohort into a spill of long stretching shadows. There's a brief silence that follows, until a familiar, cheery theme song begins to chime through the room, growing in volume as the television screen flickers to life.
♫♪ i can reach all the stars in the sky with you by my side! ♪♫
The obnoxious tune of children singing is accompanied with a cartoon music video of what looks like a television show—shooting stars fall across the screen in a sparkly transition effect, opening up to the robot you’ve all grown familiar with over the course of the last month, cartoonified and walking around the moon to the beat of the song.
♫♪ and if we don't make it today, we'll try, try, try again another day! ♪♫
He's decked out in his hero suit, grinning ear to ear at the audience, and begins leaping from the moon to another planet. It plays in this sort of loop, with Moon Rover marching on rotating planets, waving at passing cartoon versions of.. well, you! He passes by Fenrir and gives him two high-fives, Snapshot he hip-checks, waving at Zero Sum and Oleander on a water-themed planet, Angel they clang a wine glass with...
♫♪ so let's shoot for the stars, and hang out on the moon, and together we'll be anything, anything, anything we've ever wanted to be! ♪♫
It ends with Moon Rover landing on the Earth, joining the rest of the show's cast. Heroes and villains in dramatic poses, making up your full group, including Collin and Ivo hovering by the sides of the screen.
Well... it includes everyone but one.
We zoom in on the cartoon Rover, who winks at the audience and gestures to follow him, before turning around into a transition. When the scene returns, we're joined with the real Rover, standing in what looks like the middle of the foyer of a massive house. He grins bright, wide, and opens his arms up to the viewers.
“HEYY, STAR TROOP! ‘m so glad y’were able to tune in today!"
He places his hands on his hips, leaning forward into the camera.
“Y’ready for today’s mission? T’day we got somethin’ a little different — we’re takin’ a trip back t’my childhood home! Keheh—betcha thought I lived in a rocket, yeah? Nope! I came from a house, just like yours!”
The hero beams at the audience and takes a step back, allowing the camera to sweep over the area better: yeah, he is in a foyer—the main entrance of a mansion—except, it’s as if someone has destroyed the place. Pictures are ripped from the wall, furniture toppled over--there’s areas that are just straight up blown up, holes broken through walls, the chandelier hanging slanted, too covered in char to glisten anymore, parts of the staircases caved in. Tire marks are burnt into the floor, the walls, the ceiling.
There’s a 360 degree pan of the entrance, before it stops on Rover, where he’s gesturing to follow him again. He walks over broken wood and ash, until he gets to a form laying on the floor behind a fallen loveseat: bound at the wrists and ankles, Moon is trying to wiggle himself free.
“Today we’ve got a suuuuper special guest!” He squats down next to Moon, grabbing a fistfull of his hair and pulling his head up off the floor. The boy winces, pieces of glass and dirt stuck into his cheeks. “The villain who hurt poor, poor Venus! An' subsequently hurt loads more through his choices! I already went ahead an' caught him, so, of course, all what's left is teachin' this no-good hooligan a lesson! Will you help me, Star Troop??"
There’s a blur of movement, and the binds on Moon’s hands and feet are cut—he immediately goes to scramble away, but with a simple step on the corner of his hoodie, he slams back to the ground. Nonchalantly, without hesitation or warning, Rover kicks Moon in the stomach—knocking him backwards in a cry.
Despite being kicked aside like a limp doll, Moon pushes himself up onto his elbows, grimacing, and begins crawling. Rover strolls slowly after him, easy and with a bounce to his step. When he reaches him, he bends down to grab the collar of his shirt, pick him up, and punch him directly in the jaw. It isn't pretty, the next seconds—if this were cinematic in any definition of the word, the moment would be done through silhouettes, the shadow of Rover pulling his arm back and bringing it down mercilessly into the smaller man's form, the ugly sounds of flesh being beaten being the only sense of how awful it is.
You don't get that pleasure. You see it all: no pretty cuts or dramatic angles to censor the boy's face splitting open, blood spilling up from fractured ribs into wet coughs, red splattering across Rover's hero costume. If anyone else was in his place, literally anyone else in the courtroom, this would be solved in an instant — a magma punch, a swipe of a sword, the crack of lightning, and this wouldn’t even be a fight. But Moon isn’t a hero. Not in the super-deep, metaphoric sort of way, but just that: Moon was a civilian.
He’s dropped to the ground in a gross crack, whining, but moving regardless. He scrambles to his feet this time, using the help of a chair thrown on its side. He runs. He isn’t fast, especially now with his hand clutched to his chest, wheezing, but he runs… not to the front door like you’d expect, but deeper into the mansion. Rover walks behind him, chatting to the audience, you suppose, but now you’re following Moon.
A door is flug open, and he staggers into a huge workshop. For someone who is frequently found scrawling on his arms to organize roaring thoughts and ideas, the place is surprisingly spotless, orgazined: filled with tools and kilns and forges and anvils. Computer software you know costs millions just by the sight. The young man’s eyes dart desperately around the room, and he makes a bee-line for the back wall full of displayed gear. A weapon? Is he looking for something to use? He grabs a pair of gauntlets first, something similar to Galehaut’s color scheme, before throwing them on the ground. A pair of yellow lense goggles—no. A botched looking race car—no. A pair of motorized wheelies—no. Equipment, equipment, equipment! He didn’t make weapons! He didn’t—
“Found ya!”
—whack!—
Something whizzes past Moon’s head, smacking his hand away from the wall in the process. He turns around, and a small, helicopter-like birdbot is hovering in the air in front of him. Moon blinks, and then the bird shoots forward, whacking him a few more times in the head. It looks less like it hurts, and more like it’s just a distraction. The boy stumbles to the side, tripping over a small dogbot waddling by his feet. He crashes into the wall, and an array of different gear topples over.
It’s more pathetic than tragic, watching his own work fall on his head. He collapses under the weight, but ever-stubborn, ever-determined, ever-unbreakable, Moon whines and pushes his way out, tries to get to his feet once, fails, twice, fails again, and on the third—
—on the third, a red hand snaps forward and grips his throat, pulls him free, and dangles him up into the air, grinning widely.
“Didn’t think y’could run, didja? Y’know, people want y’blood! They voted for it! Y’think I could let down the Star Troop now?? After how badly ya did?? They need someone they can trust, afterall!”
Moon grips Rover’s forearm with both his hands, clawing weakly at his gloves. The tips of his toes can just barely reach the pile of gear beneath him, so he’s at the very least got a bit of footing. Not that it matters—it’s no use, of course it’s no use—Moon reaches out to push at his bot’s face, push him away, do anything, anything— ah, wait? No.. he’s..
With a trembling hand, Moon sinks three of his fingers into the back of Rover’s head, prompting a hatch to pull away and open up in his chest, exposing a variety of wires and a pinpad. Rover doesn’t seem concerned, just keeps on holding Moon by the neck, even as the blonde starts fumbling a code in the pad.
He's dying. A small red button opens up between all the switches and buttons in Rover’s chest, and Moon's frantic, desperate reaching for the button slows down considerably. Really, it's kind of anti-climatic for a death, nevermind a supposed fantastical execution. Maybe that was what Moon deserved, though — something quiet, uneventful, alone.
Click!
...Just kidding! He presses the button. Rover’s grip falls away immediately, dropping Moon in a heap on the floor and leaving him doubled over, gasping and coughing, gulping down air like he'd been drowning. In front of him, Rover’s expression seems frozen, and his body begins… going limp? No, no.. it almost looks like he’s.. shutting down? A second later, Rover has joined Moon on his knees in front of him, his smile frozen, his shoulders slumping, his right eye flashing red. His right eye flashing red.. slowly.
“...keh..”
There is hardly any distance between the two, but when Moon pushes himself up and wraps his arms around his robot, hooking his chin on his shoulder, the effort looks akin to dragging your hands down a wall of glass shards.
“...’bout.. time we wrapped this up, huh?” His voice would’ve been impossible to hear had this not been meant for entertainment — hoarse, whisper-quiet.
The sentence seems to, somehow, despite the red light increasing in speed, prompt a corrupt, laggy voice to start speaking: “..S-S-SHOOT FOR THE STARS—!”
“—even.. if y’miss..”
Moon grabs fistfulls of the back of Rover’s suit, squeezing his eyes shut.
“..you’ll land on the—!”
…
…
[♫♪♫♪♫♪]
The screen blacks out, rattling — the sound from the speakers blowing out from sheer force of the explosion. You… you feel like you should feel it in the courtroom—the floor shaking and rumbling beneath you, but you don’t. Somehow, it makes it feel more empty. More far away.
As the scene settles, the dust and smoke beginning to clear, you notice blood splattered on the lense of the camera—blurred and out of focus, but unmistakably blood. Debris and metal parts are scattered everywhere, wires twisted and still burning like lit fuses. Something drips from the ceiling, and you're unsure if it's blood or a combination of that and flesh. But more importantly, you see the remains of a human body — the parts you'd never want to see; splintered bone, limbs still stuck in clothes, a head in the corner of the scene, blonde hair smoking, lulling on the slanted floor, and what you catch sight of his face is burnt through to the inside of his mouth, burnt through to his skull.
He looks like he was screaming, and though you know he wasn't in his last moments, this image will likely be the thing you remember when you think of him.
...
Life is continuous.
Tonight, the sky will finish clearing the storm and the moon will glow across the horizon like it has every other night, and how it will continue to shine for every other night after this. For nothing has really changed—and that's the bonus of playing a stage hero robot that could be replicated, right? Built on? Upgraded? For years and years and years to come, beyond your short life, he can still do something amazing without you.
Yeah, the world will keep going on without you.
You wanted that.
(Didn't you?)
[Gabrielle & Rover Morningstar have been executed.]
(thank you han for the art!)
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Witch, Please! Fictober 2019 (26/30)
A multi-fandom Fictober prompt compilation. Your wish is my command, but be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.
Prompt: “Power” from Writetober 2019 Prompt List
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Relationship/Pairing: Madame Christmas | Chris Mustang
Genre: Missing Scene, Found Family
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Word Count: 1,262 words
Read on AO3
Christine Mustang knew that look — the look of a fighter who had gone a few rounds against life and lost their dignity.
Underneath the caked-on makeup and a garish splay of costume jewelry, Chris surmised that the girl waiting at the end of her bar couldn’t be a day over 20. And that, in and of itself, was an awkward age, a defining turning point. Combine the folly of youth with heartbreak and insecurity, and it was a recipe for poor decision-making.
Chris didn’t like the taste of that at all. This was not how she wanted her girls to come to her — wounded with an ax to grind.
“She’s here, Madame Christmas,” Vanessa remarked.
Elegant from the pointed tips of her pumps to the immaculate set of her soft blonde curls, the Madame’s girl finished stocking the shelves and set about tidying the bartender’s station as she did every afternoon. The demure smile painted across her peach lips betrayed the solace of this routine (and others) that she and Madame had crafted. Though appearances were deceiving, Vanessa was the same girl who had tumbled into Chris’s bar drunken and bruised.
The deciding factor was, as always, merely a matter of discerning what one was looking for. For Vanessa, it had been stability and a sense of belonging. For this new girl, well, Chris had her suspicions, and all of them were tinged with a sense of foreboding. A tired expression repeated on loop in the back of the older woman’s mind.
It said, here we go again.
“What do you want?” the Madame asked. She approached the girl casually, balancing a cigarette between her dry, cracked lips. Pearls (real pearls, mind you) and emeralds glistened under the pendant lighting. The corner of Chris’s mouth quirked upwards when she caught the girl staring starting at the apex of her ample cleavage.
“Oh,” she said, sitting up straighter and thrusting her chest forward, “I’m not here for a drink. I’m Avery. I’m here for the job, Madame. I called the other day, and they said to come-”
Chris fought the urge to roll her eyes at the indecorous display. “The question stands,” Madame Christmas interrupted. “What is it that you want? A convenient escape from your boring life? To make an ex-lover jealous. Or are you a little down on your luck?”
Avery looked taken aback. Her chest deflated, and Chris concluded that it was for the best.
But before the young girl could respond, the gentle chiming of the bar’s front door interrupted the interview. Gentlemen dressed in three-piece suits, their hair thick with pomade, entered and sauntered over to the bar. The identical leers in their eyes spoke volumes when the room’s collective attention settled on young Avery, fresh meat. She wilted under the gaze, a pretty pansy camouflaged by the petals of a white oleander.
Luckily, Vanessa never missed a beat.
“Oh, no,” she crooned. Her voice was sweet and disarming like a generous dose of mother’s milk. “Have my favorite clients gone and found someone else to entertain them? I’ve been waiting for you to come to see me again.”
Chris smirked. That last part might not have been a lie. Vanessa never forgot a face, a promise or a juicy tidbit of seemingly innocent information. It made her hard to live with, at times, but so very easy to employ.
“Come to the back, girl,” Chris Mustang grumbled. She rounded the corner of the bar and threw a protective arm around Avery’s shoulders. The fur lining of her coat draped decadently around the girl and ushered in a calming warmth soon accompanied by a steaming mug of chamomile tea.
...
When Avery scurried away that night, she left a small river of mascara in her wake. Blackened handkerchiefs marked her place at the kitchen table where she had spilled her story to Madame Christmas. And as the late afternoon darkened to evening, Avery had wiped off her makeup with the sleeve of her older sister’s dress. The green velvet meant to make her look older sopped up the excess, revealing a girl of 19 who was nursing a broken heart courtesy of family disapproval.
It was a common ailment, in Chris’s opinion, with a better solution than running off to work in the belly of a brothel.
“So, you sent her back home then,” Vanessa observed. She poked around the homely back of house, taking her time to straighten the canisters. Her customers had surely must have drank themselves into a stupor by now though the modern courtesan herself never really touched a drop.
“Avery’s a nice girl,” Madame rasped.
The matriarch took a drag of her fourth second cigarette of the evening and blew the smoke thoughtfully out of the corner of her mouth. “A nice girl who wants some sort of domestic future after she’s had her fill of spitting in the eye of her family and breaking the boy who hurt her. Not the sort of person I need under my employ. But still, she’s a fighter. I have no doubt she’ll think of something less extreme than becoming a call girl. Just going out in that outfit might have done the trick, honestly.”
The sound of Vanessa’s laughter was melodic, and Chris chuckled in spite of herself, chin pressed into the palm of her large hand.
“I love a good powerplay,” Vanessa said. She slid into the chair next to her employer, mentor and foster mother.
“You know,” the younger woman mused, “it wasn’t so long ago that I asked you to hire me, and I might have been even younger than Avery. Why take me in and not her? Surely, you don’t have to teach a person of her upbringing manners or polish them like you had to do with me.”
Madame Christmas hummed as she sank back against her kitchen chair. For a moment, her mind’s eye wandered back twenty years when her waist was small and her chest perky. Chris remembered the moment when a man hurt her, and she still relished the shocked look on his face when, later, she hadn’t hesitated to take him down at her own expense. Her act of defiance had tarnished two military careers. But rather than submit to the lies he had propagated, she traded her good name for leverage.
And when he had called her a high-class whore, she’d smirked thanking him for the free advertisement.
“Everyone wants power,” Madame answered. “Power over people or possessions. That’s common. But you and I, we wanted dominion over our circumstances, freedom to decide how we live, what we eat and whom we fuck.”
Vanessa nodded thoughtfully at the rude expletive, well-accustomed to the barbs Chris was capable of throwing.
“Avery wouldn’t set her own price. She would throw herself at the highest bidder and commit wholeheartedly to their satisfaction. But you, my darling, have no such flexible allegiance except to yourself and us, your family. They might buy your body but never your mind. I treasure that about my girls. Anyhow, we best get back to it.”
The corners of Vanessa’s violet eyes crinkled, and though Chris was determined not to look, she thought there might have been a tear, swiped quickly away by a gloved finger of Vanessa’s small hands. Both women then stood, without further shared words and made their way back into the smoky den of Madame Christmas’s bar to do battle. Young Avery, who had scurried home to her own worried mother, would never set foot in Chris’s bar again.
A/N: We're nearing the end, and I'm thrilled. Anyway, feel free to stop by my tumblr, and if you read something you like, don't hesitate to let me know in whatever way you want. Your kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, comments, likes and reblogs make my day!
#virthiefictober#fictober19#writetober19#fma#fmab#madame christmas#chris mustang#vanessa#found family#power#flourchildwrites
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Oleander, Thyme, and Daed? :D
Absolutely!! :D Sorry, this took a few days too! I had many words, heh.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Full Name: Oleander Everclear Wormwood.
Gender & Sexuality: Agender + Grey-aromantic pansexual.
Pronouns: He/Him or They/Them
Ethnicity/Species: Child of the Inbetween?? is his best guess??
Birthplace: Northern Iceland.
Guilty Pleasures: Ha, Oleander doesn’t do guilty pleasures. He likes what he likes and what he likes is nunya business~ :P
Phobias: Water in the sense of being wet; not being able to breathe.
What They Would Be Famous For: He’s pretty infamous as Lund’s former apprentice (har har) and for being an Archmage at a terribly young age, at least in the sense people know of him in a really vague sense.
What They Would Get Arrested For: He can be so lazy at times, I’m going to go with just plain ole trespassing or being Daed’s accomplice.
OC You Ship Them With: Thyme!! Kingcup too in that good brotp way, but Thyme’s the only person I ship him with ~*romantically*~.
OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Hahahahahahahaha!! Best of luck ‘cause you won’t succeed. Lund has the most motivation to do so though, just out of pure spite, but he’d never get close enough.
Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Horror, horror, horror! From classic and shitty, he loves bingein’ on horror films. Reading is basically a chore though so he doesn’t have a favorite there.
Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Mhm. I don’t think Oleander is well-versed in the language of cliches enough to know what his least favorite is. He doesn’t like it when the hidden big bad is revealed to be an Inbetweener (so so lazy and overdone!) or when people just split up. He’s always gonna death-glare while muttering to himself ‘why do you want to die?’. It’s just madness.
Talents and Powers: He’s absurdly talented with Anima Magic for his age and there’s …other… things… too… :)
Why Someone Might Love Them: He’s sturdy like a rock! That’s definitely a huge reason both Kingcup and Thyme like him. It’s really hard to honestly rattle him and that’s kinda nice to have in a friend, you know? He’s also a massively sarcastic little dipshit with a sharp but not cruel tongue and a love of truly bad things. He knows how to have a good time, you know? :P
Why Someone Might Hate Them: I wanna say the massive sarcastic little dipshit thing sarcasm (and it’s definitely a possibility) but I honestly feel the monotony of his voice would probably get to people first. In high doses, I imagine it grates real easy.
How They Change: Out of the three mains, Oleander probably changes the least. He starts as a deadpan snarky kid who goes to support club to basically shut up his roommate and at the end, he’s still really similar to that person. But~! That’s okay. He ends knowing more about himself and what happened to him in his past and he’s on a much healthier path for healing because of that knowledge and that kinda overjoys me a lot. c:
Why You Love Them: !!! I love his silliness! I love his bluntness!! I love his monotone sarcasm and his love of ugly awful things that he sincerely feels are wondrous!! He’s been such an old character of mine for years and years now and I still just love learning new things about him and seeing how far he’s come from his original pissy protective edgelord beginning and I’m so so so happy I finally wised up and made him the main character of Icarus. It works so much better now. Just! /love love love
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Full Name: Thyme René Oxeye!
Gender & Sexuality: Cisguy and bisexual!
Pronouns: He/Him
Ethnicity/Species: He’s from a werewolf clan, though not technically one himself. He’s a junk wolf and has a bit of fae in him too. \m/!!
Birthplace & Birthdate: Romneya Backwoods and March 20th!
Guilty Pleasures: Tabletop RPGs. He needs to run a game for Oleander and Kingcup one day, needs!!
Phobias: He has a lot of general anxieties and a nasty habit of internally catastrophizing most of his actions but as for actual phobias, not really.
What They Would Be Famous For: Raising the Dead? Unfortunately??
What They Would Get Arrested For: I’ve mentioned it before but stealing dogs, for sure! He hates seeing them neglected and he has no qualms stealing them to give them some joy~ 💕
OC You Ship Them With: OLEANDER! 😭💕💕 I love them together so much but for less obvious choices though, him and Deacon are my strictly fwb guilty pleasure and I think him and Volkamenia would be good together too. They’re both just so cute and dopey.
OC Most Likely To Murder Them: I wanna say Kingcup just because but she’s really not the type to murder. So Thyme’s roommate Deacon is gonna be my choice! They have a fun relationship. :’D
Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Thyme loves documentaries so damn much, that nerd!! 😭! He knows so much useless and stupid info because of them, especially given how many bad ones he watches it. It’s ridiculous. Like Olea too, he’s not a huge reader but he likes …absurd queer adventures like River of Teeth? He’d love that kind of book.
Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Mhm. He’s really bored by gritty grimdark cynicism? Just, no.
Talents and Powers: He has his death empathy thing and Thyme totally does the Elle Woods ‘What, like it’s hard?’ thing when it comes to natural magic too, lol.
Why Someone Might Love Them: Despite his anxieties and insecurities, he’s a very outwardly bright and compassionate young man who does honestly try his best to bring some more warmth and happiness into the world.
Why Someone Might Hate Them: Oh ho ho. Outside of his anxieties and insecurities which feel like unfair hits, Thyme comes off as a little goody two-shoes at times and someone who is more nice than he is kind. It’ll rub people that wrong way for sure but honestly? Kingcup is screaming that Thyme is far too reckless when it comes to his magic!! He took a miles width chuck of the Backwoods into the Inbetween, raised a rabbit from the dead, got burned and took none of that to heart!! What the Fuck, Thyme!! Any one of those things would be bad but all of them combined?! What were you thinking!!
How They Change: 😭😭😭💕💕💕 Thyme starts off treading through a sea of guilt while spiraling downwards in anxieties and chipperly trying to pretend ‘Everything Is A-Okay! :)’ It’s not, at all. I love seeing him grow the most of out of the three, coming to terms with his connection to death and what happened in the Backwoods and actually accepting kingcup isn’t wrong about him being a reckless little shit either thyme what the fuck. By the end, I’m basically rolling on the ground in glee and pride about how far he comes in maturing into and working towards that better version of himself that’s still uniquely Thyme and It’s Wonderful!
Why You Love Them: I love his sincerity! I love his anxieties! I love his compassion and I love his recklessness, oh my god! He is my darling bisexual disaster of bisexual and the type of character I’d fell over heels for as a teen. His journey is so so much fun and while he’s no longer my main character for Icarus, I still have a massive soft spot for him (clearly). His family back in Romneya is also extremely dear to my heart, lol. I adore puppy-like werewolves who just adopt every misfit in sight because ‘we’re your family now!! :D’. Sue me.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Full Name: Ira Myrrh Young Daedalus York
Gender & Sexuality: Cisguy & Aro Ace!
Pronouns: He/Him
Ethnicity/Species: He’s pretty human.
Birthplace & Birthdate: In the woods and he’s pretty sure it was like July 25th. Probably.
Guilty Pleasures: See his favorite genres except like Olea, he ain’t that guilty over it. :P He really loves living domestic life too.
Phobias: Having his horror rub off and fuck up Oleander is kinda high up there. Also, he doesn’t like insects or iguanas.
What They Would Be Famous For: He’s pretty famous for his ability to break things and his vague detective skills too actually!
What They Would Get Arrested For: ….everything. Grand Theft Auto is real high on the list though.
OC You Ship Them With: No one, not his thing! I do think him and Thyme’s mother Dahlia would bond (and drink) over their mutual aro-ness and their delinquent children though! FRIENDSHIP! FRIENDSHIP! FRIENDSHIP!
OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Lund? His folks? Other Knights of Pandora? There’s plenty of options.
Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Trashy Romance Novels and Rom-Coms until he dies!!! \m/!!
Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Blood-Family is Absolute. Some people you need to cut out of your life and cut them out viciously. Also, just badly written love triangles?? You can do so much better than ‘x loves y and likes z and can’t choose between them’.
Talents and Powers: He has a natural talent for breaking things. \m/
Why Someone Might Love Them: He’s an effortlessly kind soul who tries his best to put some good back into the world. After all the Hell his folks have tried to raise, it’s the least he can do, you know? He’s also a great drinking buddy and the type of person who won’t ever leave you to feel sorry for yourself. He probably won’t actually help much but he’ll be there for you.
Why Someone Might Hate Them: People who figure out he’s a (former) Knight of Pandora tend to avoid him like a plague. Like there’s no need to get involve with them, and Daed doesn’t blame any of them any one bit. And while he is honestly very kind, he’s still blunt as fuck and doesn’t have the best handle of how to socialize politely.
How They Change: In the story, not much. He’s already dealt with his demons the best he’s ever gonna by then start so he doesn’t have much of journey. He’s actually more the mentor type to the three leads and I love him being the figurative dad/uncle type to them all. :’)
Why You Love Them: Daed’s Daed!! Oh my gosh, he’s a frickin snake in the best way. You see him and just thinks he’s a drunk idiot weasel and he kinda is but he’s also using that as a cover to map out your whole life and motivations and plans and figuring out if he needs to Deal With You or not.
But, you know, just for fun! :D
He’s just a strange character that you wouldn’t think sincerely wants to be a dad and dreams of having a cliche as fuck family but he does?? So so much?? Living in Dead Leaves with Oleander is like his dream come true and he’s so ready to help him be the very best Oleander that he wants to be! He’s also so ready to Beat The Ever-Loving Shit Out Of Anyone Who Dares to Hurt Oleander too. He knows Oleander can handle himself but he’s been through enough already. No more, no more.
#indecentpause#thank you!!#this is a little crash course into these lovely fools#i'll probably do kingcup too later just to have the complete set so to speak~#thyme oxeye#daed york#icarus at midnight#oleander wormwood
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warning, the following has mainly snarky (and possibly furious) opinions on Spirit of Justice. Reader discretion is advised.
alright... here we go. we’re starting the big one. this... thing is almost over.
we’re going back to........ kooraheen to finish this.
time to strap in for the long haul.
-
did Dhurke hijack the PP show or was he just watching it and he decided to make that speech at his TV
i honestly can’t tell because of the weird way the scene was set. it looks like a reflection from a TV screen, but it also fades like a broadcast being intercepted...
fuck I'm just distracted by Dhurke’s stupid voice. and uncomfortable at the actress playing Rayfa. imagine being the princess and having your favourite show turn you into a weird damsel in distress being manhandled by ninjas. gross.
also yay! they’ve got the indiana jones orb!! time to melt off some faces...
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ok it was a hijacked show... ...why is there a news report on this in America? Are American troupes assisting in the Kooraheenese war?
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“Daaaa-aaaad. What’re you up to thiiiiis time???”
i love how not-giving-a-shit-about-it apollo is here. and by love it i mean hate it.
oh, your long-lost adoptive father just happens to pop up on television starting a revolution, and this is the first time you’ve heard from him in like 20 years? huh, no big deal.
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AND ACE ATTORNEY TURNS INTO THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW
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oh noooo... he’s one of THESE guys... ururughhhhghghgh
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“Wait... don’t tell me you haven’t told anyone about me, son?”
“I’m sorry, dad, it’s just you didn’t exist up until now...”
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“you just show up here without warning after all this time... what gives?”
apollo’s got a point there, pa. also Dhurke’s theme reminds me of Coach Oleander’s from Psychonauts
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Apollo just instinctively knows that nobody wants to be around him unless they’re getting labour out of him. That’s... honestly really depressing. I mean I know it’s supposed to be a joke but I just can’t bring myself to laugh.
its just... apollo is legitimately so bitter and sad that i just feel awful for him.
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yeesh... this whole thing just started off super sour.
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wait, the piano has sentimental value to phoenix? they mentioned he never practiced on it and he didn’t like being a piano player... does that mean this piano is something phoenix just happened to own, and has its own backstory? I WANNA KNOW
(snerk)
ok thats mean but it did make me laugh
-
the JACKET IS APOLLO’S
IT IS APOLLO’S
HOLY SHIT
the rest of this case can be total shit but at least we figured out the mystery of the discarded red jacket.
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“our houseplant was called apollo”
“was it a cactus?”
“How’d you guess?”
“cause apollo doesn’t get enough hugs, either!”
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apollos dad is so cool he reads his son’s personal shit out loud. what a great guy!
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“That’s too bad! You seem like you’d be a fun, cool guy to hang out with!”
when he wasn’t being a rebel and not having time for his kids, obviously.
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THERE IT IS!
siblings dont know theyre siblings joke is funny both normally and ironically because the writers need to FUCKIN GET ON THAT
also i love that he’s basically like “hey son, this girl doesn't resent me! you should marry her so that i can continue to get favours out of you!”
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“What did Mr. Dhurke mean when he said he was the man who raised you, apollo?” i dunno, trucy... think with your mind brains...
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“How come you never told me?!”
“Sorry, it’s just, capcom hadn’t butchered my backstory at that point yet.”
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I honestly find it really weird that Trucy’s all chirpy about this. She of all people should know the sting of a dad just up and disappearing on you.
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Dhurke: I have to steal this orb. I’m asking you two because youre lawyers.
Kay Faraday, sitting in the Capcom warehouse: (sneezes)
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Dhurke: I made a stupid gamble. Hope you can bail me out, son I haven’t seen in 20 years!
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nooo.... don’t bring Kurain Village into this, pleeeeaaase... I don’t want to have my favourite village ruined for meeeeee....
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:3c i chose nope
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i wonder what Trucy would do if Zak waltzed in and immediately asked her for a favour. tbf phoenix would probably launch him into the sun before he could set foot into the office but...
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Ok... So Dhurke doesn’t actually want to fix the legal system; he just said that he wants to gain immense spiritual power which will somehow give him the legal authority to RULE Kooraheen.
how does spiritual power have any effect on land deeds anyway?
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“Only the rulers of Kooraheen have ever laid eyes on the orb, Apollo”
and Ahlbi’s seen the box.
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“I figured you were poor as fuck so I brought you a plate of sushi!”
ok either A) He thought so little of Apollo that he assumed he’d just be starving on the street
or B) He’s been keeping tabs on Apollo and knows that the WAA doesn’t make a lot of cash, yet he hasn’t made any attempt to contact Apollo himself. Until he needs a favour.
what a.... great guy.
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what the FUCK
“here, as my second present... a PICTURE OF YOUR REAL DAD, THE ONE WHO CARED ABOUT YOU AND IS DEAD. HOORAY!”
i can tell theyre trying to do the ‘Hagrid gives Harry a photo album of his family for comfort” but its REALLY NOT THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES.
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His name was... JJ.
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~as you know~
also why would a musician perform with magicians?
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y’know, ive seen pictures of Jove Justice so far. and A) he looks like a tool, and B) the designers were lazy as fuck and just slapped Apollo’s hair onto Phoenix’s face. I had a pretty negative opinion of him initially. I was thinking I wouldn’t like any of Apollo’s new dads.
But you know what? If they go deeper into Jove’s backstory and prove that he was a caring father, I’m ready to completely drop any criticisms of him and carry this guy on my shoulders
cause compared to Dhurke ill bet he's a freakin angel
-
...welp... back to Kurain village. At least it’ll remind me of bygone days...
...heh, aw. it’s cute. i like the sparrows on the roof.
ooh! an updated theme, too! not quite as nice as the original but it is nice.
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he was full of piss and vinegar
jesus
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yeah, kids run around naked. its not super surprising.
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“man, I miss that hut...”
apollo youre gonna make me cry;;
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Ema: :) i’ll show you the way to Dr. Buff. SURPRISE, HES DEAD! AHAHAHAHHAHA
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NOOO
MY SYSTEM FUCKED UP AND STARTED ME OVER FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHAPTER AAARGRRJHRFJ
id gone on a short break and i come back to this (weep)
-
...
does Dhurke have boobs..?
...or just extremely prominent pecs...
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phew ok back on track.
wait hold on. if Dr. Buff is in Kurain village, where is he staying exactly? All the houses in Kurain village are old-style Japanese; this appears to be a modern day number.
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“please tell me youre joking”
“as if i’d come out here for a few laughs, Apollo”
yeah but youre not above leading him to the dr’s study and THEN telling him he’s dead WTF
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ahah. further proof that stepladders are superior.
i mean i know he didnt actually fall off that ladder by accident or whatever but still
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“you could say he died an honourable death...”
...crushed under his nerd books like a fuckin cartoon :T
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YEAH
POPS
POHLFUCKYA
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“I’m so sorry... It seems you’ve had quite a life.”
Why else would she say that except that some poor dialogue translator is secretly begging the series to stop fucking up his backstory
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“I mean, middle-aged man with long hair and an eye-patch? You don’t see that everyday.”
just give Valant an eyepatch
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hang on. why does an archeologist in America have Kooraheen’s founding orb anyway? I thought it burnt peoples’ faces off. And was super precious. Queen Garananana doesn't seem like someone who’d just hand out a precious ball like that.
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oh huh they found an ugly dalek. thats two dalek references in this game now...
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did i just... have a ladder conversation about a relic that looks like an airplane.
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why does everyone keep making blithe jokes about the doctors horrible death..? does that usually happen or am i misremembering
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WHAT THE STATUE OF AMI AND THE URN AND THE GRAVY SCROLL ARE THERE NOOOOOO YOU GET YOUR SLIMY HANDS OFF THEM SOJ, PUT THEM BACK IN T&T WHERE THEY BELONG
god there’s even a coffee shelf. i guess this side of the room is the “Relics of a better game” section.
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polly the clean freak. what a sweetheart :)
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aw yeah baby
its printing time
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oh yeah i forgot this version of printing SUCKS
but i do like the little pap sound it makes when you put down powder
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...they have Datz and Dhurkes prints on file.
You guys sure rock at being undercover.
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ill give them credit for having the Dance of Devotion not rhyme in English.
seeing lyrics again just gives me flashbacks to Serenade tho
Guitar, Guitar... Up together to the sky...
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MAY-OR DE-WEY
MAY-OR DE-We
wait that has the same number of syllables if you just say the pun
PAUL-A TI-SHON
PAUL-A TI-SHON
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...why the fuck is he in a palanquin
anybody in a palanquin is bad news ALSO WHY DOES IT SAY RECLAIM THE GLORY OF KURAIN
KURAIN DOES NOT HAVE POLTIICIANS. ESPECIALLY NOT MALE ONES.
SOJ. SOJ WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY.
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oh yeah he’s a bad guy
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...king of this fine nation. First of all... America doesn’t have kings. Second of all, Kurain isn’t a country, it’s a small village. Either he’s a moron or SOJ is fucking up at unprecedented speeds
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...did his theme song just ‘wheeee’
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“Jerk Q. Public”
pffft
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i wish you were golden boy. then you'd be morally questionable but entertaining.
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I'm very uncomfortable
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k so we’re back in Kurain and so far we’ve seen Zero women in total apart from Ema.
even the unnamed heckler was an old man.
is this the same Kurain Village I know?
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wh- talk??
what do you mean talk???
i dont wanna talk to this guy he's a dickcheese!!!
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Trucy’s 17 and she hasn’t studied politics at least a little yet? ...weird
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“Its real name is the Crystal of Ami Fey”
wait what
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“It’s been passed down for generations in the Atishon family”
WAIT WHAT
is he dicking around or is he distantly related to maya
or is he just totally dicking around
if so how dare he use Ami’s name in vain.
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where is Datz from anyway
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paul i dont mean to dash your hopes but becoming grand high emperor of kurain village will in fact not make you king of the world
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datz sure is a good rebel... getting caught... and put in jail...........
damnit, Vore Machine, what am i gonna do with you?
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well Apollo, from demon to deer. thats not bad.
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dog-faced cop..??
if youre very sneakily referencing our old pal Gumshoe youve got another thing coming, Vore Machine. In the form of my fist.
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“A shut-in? Sounds like it will be a challenge just to get a conversation going.”
yeah.... not like youve.... ever dealt with someone like that....... before....... hehe.... heh..............
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how long has Datz been in jail if he already knows the cafeteria itinerary
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um guys; maybe you should be a tiny bit more concerned about Athena??
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i just realized the Shichishito is gold. It’s green, you idiots. Or is that one too bent and bloody for display??
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thats it folks thats spirit of justice
apollo has become a living title drop
hes fuckin dead
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what kind of bullets were those
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yeah apollo, a fledgeling is equivalent to a private.
...also youre not a fledgeling youre near full experience capacity. this is your third... (and last...) year.
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so Dhurke is in full stealth mode until it comes to a remotely operated drone that could have literally anybody on the other side? brilliant, pal.
this is why your revolution’s taken like 23 years to get off the ground, jsyk.
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...k komandir?
i thought you were supposed to be a parody of The Soldier. what are you doing calling people by Russian military names? did the red scare not happen in this reality?
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pfft
it’s so cute.
im struggling between finding it adorable and being uncomfortable
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“in other words, something caused him to withdraw from the world...”
maybe his mom’s death??? maybe?????
does anyone in this game understand how a bad thing make a peoples’ brain go???
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pretty impressive that a woman’s body could provide sufficient cushioning to soften such a drop.
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lol. death attributed to random maniac. thanks soj.
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“Private Justice! You’ve suffered a loss just like mine!”
“I have... and thats how I know how you feel.”
yes, i can remember exactly happened when i was a one-year old in diapers. exactly the same kind of pain and trauma.
look i know theyre trying to have a moment but there’s a huge difference between growing up orphaned and being recently bereaved. Sure, Apollo’s seen his fair share of hardship and his experiences aren’t to be devalued, but it’s not the same kind of pain as having your parents die later in your life, especially with the mom’s horrific demise.
Honestly, it’d make more sense if he brought up Clay, since Clay was with him since he was very small and his death was sudden and deeply unfair.
BUT CLAY’S IN THE PAST, CLAY DOESN’T EXIST, WHO’S CLAY?? I DONT KNOW BACK TO SPIRIT OF JUSTICE
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YEAH
POHLFUCKYA DURKE
dhurke the burk amiright attorneys
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“the opaque crystal orb is the key”
>needless adjective
>will come into play later in court
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um so nobody’s gonna mention the blonde lady on his desktop background or........
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i like sarge. i hope they dont turn sour when theyre revealed.
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nice boot
ooh phosphorescence! neato!
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pearl: hello I'm here to do something ive never done before to provide clues for this case. i hope i’ve been useful! thank you, and goodnight.
...as contrived as this is, i am glad to see someone who actually comes from kurain village.
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wow, the gangs all here huh
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so they renamed Eagle Mountain “”””mt. mitama”””” eh
nice...............
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“you are at that age, after all...”
says apollo who's like 24
also why is she talking about all the women leaving the village? i thought it was the men. is this why i haven't seen any ladies? they all just shipped off downtown?? and of course there’s no mention of the creepy oppressive atmosphere and strictness of the village...
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nice alliteration apollo
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rain spirit at a bus stop and you hacks didnt make a Totoro joke?? lame
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“Dj’you bring a light?”
“Ņ̮͔̜̬͖̝ͫͦ̄̒̀̾̆̓̀ͤͨ͋̓̈̑̂͗́ͤo̸̵͈͎̤͇̤̙̯͔̙͖̞̳̙̠̹̞̲̭ͣ́ͫ͌ͦ̒́͞ͅ?ͯͩͨ̾̅̈ͮ̉̀̌͛̆͑̚҉̧͓̠͎̠͎̀̀”
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how can you not recognize a foreign voice you idiot
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“He tried to fucking kill us but he also gave us this flashlight. To um... see our slow death by starvation better I guess?”
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“We couldn’t get back to where we started if we wanted to”
if you wanted to??? thats exactly what you want!!!
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Klavier: Hello! This is flashback Klavier here to say: Don’t you miss me? Haha. I miss existing too. Oh well! See you next time~ ...i if there is one.
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DEAD
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aw, lucky you! you lucked into falling to your death directly to where you wanted to go!
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“Yes! Time to find that orb! When we have it, we can....rot here for eternity.”
...ok i know the doc found a way out but still
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wHAT THE FUCK
THAT HOLE IS LIKE 40 FEET UP
...oh well, if phoenix can survive it, so can they..?
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i love that there are various sea-related items scattered around that give an obvious way out but only yield “durr??? a sea thing??? how this get here??????????” when inspected
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whats with dhurkes’ magic eyes
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mmmmmmmm a slide puzzle great
“maybe the ppictures correspond to the song”
NO
REALLY??
what is with this game and not outright stating the obvious? its not like it spoils the player or anything; it just makes the WAA look like idiots
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fuck this I'm gonna finish this stupid puzzle without this game’s help or die trying
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...ah. my personal need for pattern and order blinded me to the truth
oh well; it’s open now. i’m gonna smash Eshiro’s stupid smirking face with it.
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“opening that box means you're the best lawyer ever! enjoy leaving the series forever!!!”
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“A royal stole that orb”
stole it... as opposed to just taking it and doing whatever they want with it because it’s theirs and there’s absolutely no reason to have to “steal” it.
unless they wanted to frame the rebels i guess but like. theyre rebels. theyre already pretty hated
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“it would be seen as utter sacrilege to let a foreign man study this artifact”
oh also it would debunk that whole “explodes your face if you look at it” thing
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...here we go...
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“he used to be a nice kid, but now...”
he’s an enourmous shitstain?
“he tried to convict trucy for a crime she didnt even commit...”
ok, apollo. there are a zillion valid reasons to hate sadmad, and yes, his reasoning in that trial was shit. but just being a prosecutor and doing what a prosecutor is meant to do doesn’t make him evil. he isn’t about to just roll over because the defendant’s your sis–– er, best friend.
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he... could be playing the long game, and interfering could fuck up his plan, Dhurke. Also how was he a rebel and then somehow managed to get into good graces with the royals? It’s already been proven that Dhurke’s Dummy Dragon Gang suck at being stealthy or having any sense of self-preservation. I doubt they just wouldn’t recognize Sadmad
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“it’s not conviction that fills his heart; it’s resignation and despair”
are you telling me Sadmad is the equivalent of a guy in a dead end office job taking it out on his coworkers
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“The only thing I know for sure is... Nahyuta is suffering, and he is suffering in silence”
edgeworth: been there, done that!
blackquill: BEEN THERE, DONE THAT
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ya sure put a lot of stock in Sadmad, Dhurke. i mean i guess he’s your son but seriously; if you're a proper rebel you’d cut your losses and get on with shit already with or without him
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...y’know, this speech about lawyers being like dragons kind of doesn’t have the same emotion impact and gravitas that the non-dragon one in T&T did.
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oh how... charming...
*America’s* badge is shaped like a sunflower... and Kooraheen’s is shaped like a buggy eye.
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YARGH
dont DO that
your voice is BAD
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“he’s my son! therefor he has to believe in the same thing as me! nothing, not even torture could have changed him!”
cue Gredgeworth’s awkward cough from the afterlife.
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“You know, I remember when Nahyuta and I were kids, he used to say with great pride ‘I have the blood of a dragon in me!’”
cue tiny apollo feeling left out and alone because he doesn’t know what kind of blood is in him
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>reform court system
>rescue son
well... i guess there could be worse reasons to start a revolution.
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“I mean, what are fathers for?!”
( ‘I... I wouldn’t know...’)
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, GAME
ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK MY HEART
YOU CAN’T GIVE APOLLO ALL THESE EMOTIONS WHEN YOU’RE ALSO SHAFTING HIS ASS AT THE SAME TIME
SHAME ON YOU
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HE HAS A BROKEN ARM
HOWS HE GONNA SWIM
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oh its high tide yay
oh it’s... really high tide
wow.
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well this is fun. i daresay id really like this sequence... if it wasn’t in this game.
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“oh no... the water might carry me up to the way out of here... how awful.”
lol can you imagine if this was timed tho
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oh hey it’s the DD panic panic song. i liked that one. it deserves its spot in the suspense music roster.
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y’know at this point i kinda hope he really just dies
wouldn’t that be a kicker
not that i hate apollo or anything but I'm just............... so tired
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apollo’s pretty calm for a drowning person
i’ve nearly suffocated before and the only thing going through my head was AIR AIR AIR GET AIR GET AIR GET AIR AIR AIR
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baby apollo: waahhhh!!! we’re both perfectly dry!!! the artist didn’t bother to make us look wet in the flashback!
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A) Little Apollo doesn’t even call Dhurke “Daddy” or “Papa” despite being raised by him since infant hood, possibly meaning Dhurke gave him the ‘You’re adopted” speech pretty early. Or else kids that “aren’t really my son” have to go by name basis. See? Nahyuta calls him father.
B) Haha! Boys don’t cry, not-son! Suck those sissy tears back up into your skull, or you’ll look gay! It doesn’t matter that you’re like five and you almost drowned to death! Don’t embarrass me!
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“Don’t ever hesitate to call when you need me”
oh but apollo your ass gets shipped back to america tomorrow ok
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no seriously. on one hand; why did apollo get sent away? why couldn’t he be a rebel alongside nahyuta and fight for his family? on the other hand, why didn’t dhurke send nahyuta with him? if apollo’s going away because it’s dangerous, why is nahyuta staying with dhurke in the path of danger?
to be honest I'm ashamed that I'm crying, but it’s less about this scene being sad as fuck and more about the fact that I know that none of this is ever really resolved. Dhurke is still a piece of shit who made no attempt to contact apollo for years until he needed a favour out of him. and Apollo has to live with this stupid backstory because ESHIRO thought it would be dramatic and cool. Apollo’s going to “go home”, leave the series... He doesn’t even know he’s leaving his last scrap of real family who gives a shit about him behind in America.
Apollo doesn’t deserve this.
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Dhurke, with superman theme playing in the background: Redeeming my character! By saving your life! Redeeming my character! By saving your life! Though only a heartless, shithead person, would leave you behind to die! So this isn’t great.
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...is he holding him in his broken arm
wait is that arm even broken
has he just been holding it like it’s in a sling for no reason this whole time
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“Still can’t swim, eh?”
oh fuck off
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“Good thing your name’s not Neptune, hahahaha!”
A) OH FUCK OFF
B) NEPTUNE IS A SEA GOD, HE’D ACTUALLY BE RESISTANT TO WATER
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WHOA FUCK HOLY SHIT
vore machine came out of nowhere and oh
also he is also laughing at a guy who almost drowned
well aren’t these two just the greatest men on earth huh
Trucy: :) lets make this drowning thing seem like no big deal by playing it off and not even asking if you're okay at all :))))
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great... now he owes his life to him.... that completely cancels out every other piece of baggage.....
remember........ when edgeworth owed his life to phoenix......... remember how he was 100% okay after that and not fucked up at all................ remember how he just popped back into the series without any changes whatsoever apart from being phoenix’s friend again........................................
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“GLAD TO SEE YOURE NOT CRYING SON; IM GLAD YOU GREW UP INTO THE EMOTIONALLY STUNTED MAN I ALWAYS WANTED, EVEN WITHOUT MY STELLAR PARENTAL GUIDANCE! THAT LONELY ORPHANAGE MUST HAVE TOUGHENED YOU UP GOOD! HAH-HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!”
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y’know in the interim i was thinking
Rebel Apollo would be great. he’d probably be an enormous goofus but at least he’d be happy and maybe Dhurke’s shitty plan would get off the ground because an actual smart person would be part of the team.
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listen to that fuckin “we solved the case” music.
(sigh)
at least apollo is eating.
Turnabout Revolution... End
heh i wish
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“Sure wish Nahyuta was here”
I don’t.
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you fucking morons. you colossal fucking asshats. i knew this was coming
Dhurke: DURR LETS TALK ABOUT THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ITEM IN A PLACE WHERE WE KNOW THE GUY WHO WANTS THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT ITEM IS! WHATS A STEALTH????
This is why the revolution has taken 20 FCKIN YEARS to take off. Because Dhurke and his band of nincompoops are all incompetent fuckwits.
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huh i can see where Nahyuta gets his magic clap from.
also say it you loser say bitch
say bitch
say bitch
say bitch
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A) If the “crystal” is a fake thing, his police report probably wouldn’t check out cause I'm P sure that people can’t just file police reports for anything without proof of previously owning it.
B) Dhurke. You’re a rebel. Shoot someone. Throw a smoke bomb. Gently jog away? Idk if that works in America but it sure as hell works in Kooraheen.
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no. don’t do it. don’t you fucking do––
oh, i just saw a ghost.
The ghost of the potential any sequels past AJ had. It blinked at me sorrowfully before CAPCOM busted it and crammed it into the Containment Unit.
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(sigh) Ok (most likely) fake shit aside, that would make Atishon related to Maya, and the “heirloom” would more probably be Maya’s. Why is this excuse present at all anyway it’s stupid.
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Apollo it shouldn’t fuckin matter; it’s a court case. Just prove the orb isn’t the Crystal of Ami Fey and you win the case. You know that Phoenix doesn’t cheat and you’re pretty certain that the crystal really is the Founder’s Orb, so you shouldn’t be upset about anything. This isn’t a murder trial, it’s a dispute over ownership of an item. You know you’re in the right, so you ought to be able to win the trial. There’s literally no stakes apart from the fact that you’re facing your boss... but so what? That can happen... I assume, I’m not versed in that sort of thing. But either way, lawyers sometimes have to face off against each other... it happens. You had to face Nahyuta. Now you face Phoenix. Unless you think Phoenix will cheat, or that you don’t have sufficient info on the orb, then there’s legitimately no fucking problem. I mean yeah, sucks to go to court, but who gives a fuck? Win the trial and skip back to Kooraheen to overthrow the oppressive regime.
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I don’t
what is the fucking problem
one of you gets payed, you both work at the same place
it doesn’t matter
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APOLLO. You KNOW his methods. You know that he wins because his clients are innocent, and would graciously hand over victory if it was clear you were in the right; YOU HAVE TO KNOW THIS. YOU’RE HIS BIGGEST FAN, REMEMBER??
Unless you think he’d fucking cheat for a skeezy politician for money in which case, nice. Gotta love that trust and belief that DD was building up there.
“Can I do it? Can I fight him?” YES ITS NOT EVEN A MURDER TRIAL
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“May the best attorney win”
well so much for finding the truth or whatever. Also Phoenix should be proud that Apollo is willing to go up against him; it shows he’s coming into his own. There’s literally no reason for them to be on shit terms right now.
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“A fine mess I’ve gotten you into, son.”
Hey shithead that wasn’t an apology. Also yeah, go on and on about how good a lawyer Phoenix is just to scare Apollo. Brilliant.
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“The first step of your revolution, huh?”
The first step. 20 years and he’s only just taking the first step. Not the first step to the end of the revolution; the first step to the revolution itself.
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Welp, we’re off to fight over the possession of an oversized marble in court. Seeya next time i guess...
#ooc#sulking over SOJ#soj spoilers#soj spoilers obvs]#things we've learned today: Dhurke Sadmahdi is a lazy insensitive incompetent pieceof shit
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