#trying out new legends is fun in fire range

[rosiegames]

It’s a good job there’s likeable things about the game (mostly the legends themselves) …

[henshinwolf89]

Zeiram 1 Retrospective

When it comes to Tokusatsu, it can be somewhat tricky to initially get into. With such a long history and back catalog, and an often 50+ episode long commitment, it can be daunting to newcomers. That’s why I usually say to find what appeals to you and go from there. Maybe find something that’s on the shorter side of things before trying to tackle the bigger ones. Standalone Tokusatsu movies can be a good starting point.

That leads me to suggesting one such movie series as a potential starting point into the larger world of Tokusatsu, the Zeiram series, which consists of two feature-length films and a six episode OVA. Zeiram was created by the insanely talented Keita Amemiya, an absolute legend in the Tokusatsu industry. Having worked on almost every major Tokusatsu franchise in some form at one point before creating his own series, such as the incredible Garo franchise, he quickly established himself as a unique visionary of the business.

Zeiram is Amemiya’s second film after Mirai Ninja, his debut movie in 1988, and began its life as a sequel to it before evolving into its own thing. The first Zeiram movie was released on December 21, 1991, and reportedly had a smaller budget than Mirai Ninja, thirty million yen, which is roughly two hundred thousand dollars. The entire film’s budget is apparently the cost of just a single episode of Garo! However, just because it had a smaller budget doesn’t mean that they skimped on the special effects. The film deploys an impressive array of special effects, ranging from amazing suitmation, puppetry, pyrotechnics, wire work, fight choreography, and even stop-motion animation!

The film stars actress Yuko Moriyama as Iria, a tough as nails intergalactic bounty hunter. Moriyama was a relatively new actress, having her start on a contact lens commercial for Seed Contact Lenses and mostly doing TV work. Moriyama was initially hesitant to play Iria, as she had no prior experience playing action roles, but enjoyed her experience as Iria by the end and came out with a very positive outlook. She wasn’t used to using guns or gun props and was pretty surprised by the impact of the model gun the first time she used it. She got used to it eventually as she knew Iria was a professional and needed to act the part. Soon, she found firing the guns to be really fun. Moriyama also stated having difficulty with the suit Iria wore. It’s bulkyness making her feel like a robot and bruising up her body quite a bit. She got used to it after a month. However, the suit was very squeaky and noisy. You could always tell when she was nearby, much to the amusement of the rest of the cast and crew.

The other two major characters are the two average working Joe electricians, Teppei and Kamiya, played by Kunihiro Ida and Yukijiro Hotaru, respectfully. Ida was in Amemiya’s previous film, Mirai Ninja, and is a varied actor being in the original Japanese version of “Shall We Dance?” Hotaru, on the other hand, is an accomplished stage actor and should be a familiar face to Tokusatsu fans. He played The Evil Emperor Diable in Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine, had a cameo as the suicidal man in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack or GMK for short, and most famously played Tsutomu Osako in the Heisei Gamera trilogy, and Gonza Kurahashi in Garo. Hotaru and Amemiya are good friends, and they both have a tremendous amount of respect for each other.

Moriyama, Ida, and Hotaru all developed a great working chemistry with each other. Ida was very supportive of Moriyama, frequently psyching her up and giving her emotional support, while Hotaru often gave her acting advice. They did line readings together often and read through the script many times before shoots. They did this in advance as often as possible. Hotaru during shoots would hunch over to make himself look smaller in comparison to Moriyama, so Iria had a larger and more imposing presence.

Next up is Bob, Iria’s A.I. partner. Who is voiced by Masakazu Handa. He sadly died at the young age of 47 due to heart failure on August 26, 2014. Handa was a professional voice actor who also did a lot of narration work and announcement work at events like martial arts tournaments and sports games.

Finally, the titular monster, Zeiram, is played by suit actor Mizuho Yoshida, and the suit was made by famous sculptor and artist Takayuki Takeya. Yoshida’s first role was in Mirai Ninja, but he has played many Kaiju characters as well, such as Mother Legion in Gamera 2: Attack of Legion, Zedus in Gamera the Brave and Godzilla in GMK. In the Rebirth of Mothra movies, he played Desghidorah and Dagahra in the sequel. He has also provided motion capture work for video games such as the Tyrant from Resident Evil CODE: Veronica, Dylan in Dino Crisis 2, Dead Rising, and Onimusha. Most notably was the mo-cap actor for both Solid Snake and Naked Snake/Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 1-3.

Amemiya drew many designs to find the look of Zeiram, an alien wearing a sedge hat. He settled on the look of a traveler from the Edo period, as he thought it would be scary to see someone like that in the streets in the middle of the night. The Zeiram costume was quite heavy, most of the weight being on the head with tension on the neck. According to Amemiya, Zeiram is female, but in the films, the characters use male pronouns, so I’ll be using gender neutral terms to refer to Zeiram. I mean, it’s a bio-mechanical alien. It probably doesn’t even fall into our human definitions of gender anyway.

But enough about the behind the scenes tidbits for now, let’s get into talking about the actual film!

The movie opens with an intense scene showing how dangerous Zeiram is. A group of armed men are brutally slaughtered by the ruthless alien. A bounty is placed on the capture of Zeiram, and Bob accepts the order and claims no one may interfere with Iria and Bob’s job. Next, we see Iria skulking through the streets of Tokyo, gathering supplies. Then we are introduced to Kamiya, who is elated to finally strike it big gambling on horse races. Kamiya is divorced, most likely due to his gambling habits. Teppei is next, trying to contact Kamiya about their next set of jobs. He wants to quickly get them done as he has a date with the company’s secretary, Yumi, something Kamiya teases him about.

I like Kamiya and Teppei. They’re just two average dudes that are about to find themselves in something extraordinary. They are the source of comic relief and provide a contrast to Iria’s stoic badass demeanor. Their hapless antics don’t distract or ruin Iria’s action scenes, and they even contribute tremendously to helping Iria. Honestly, they remind me of Val McKee and Earl Bassett, played by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward from the movie Tremors.

Anyway, Iria and Bob’s base of operations are siphoning a lot of electricity, and so Kamiya and Teppei are called in to investigate. Iria and Bob are building a device to trap Zeiram in a place called the Zone. They need to use the Zone to capture Zeiram to avoid causing collateral damage to Earth’s environment and population. Bob says that they need this job to pay off debts racked up by Iria. After catching Zeiram in the Zone, the two electricians arrive, and Teppei accidentally stumbles into the Zone’s teleporter. Iria gives chase, and Kamiya invites himself along. This is where the movie primarily takes place in the Zone, where no other life is allowed in outside those permitted or teleported there.

Iria traps Kamiya in a protective barrier and goes off to pursue Teppei and find Zeiram. Unfortunately, Teppei encounters Zeiram first and is attacked. He flees, and Zeiram produces a creature called the Lilliput monster to give chase.

The smoke in the scene where Zeiram attacks Teppei with the Lilliput was created with oil at 2 o’clock in the morning. One of the first locations they shot according to interviews. People who hung their clothes out to dry had them covered in oil the next morning, Amemiya feels guilty for it and was sorry. The Lilliput monster was played by suit actresses Mayumi Aguni. Apparently, an early example of a woman playing a monster in Tokusatsu. It’s unfortunately difficult to find information online about female Kaiju actors. The only others I’m aware of are Yumi Kameyama as Super Gyaos in Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe and, of course, the popular and adorable Rie Ota as Baragon in GMK.

Back to the movie. Iria manages to track down Zeiram and lures it to a warehouse that she previously laid with booby-traps. She ensnares Zeiram in a wire trap and begins to gloat about her victory. Her confidence gets the best of her as Zeiram seizes the opportunity and surprises Iria with the parasite in it’s hat, and cutting itself free. Meanwhile, Teppei stumbles upon Kamiya frozen in the barrier. He attempts to free him. The fight between Iria and Zeiram rages on, as they exchange fire between each other. However, Bob warns that conventional weaponry is useless, so against Bob’s wishes, Iria reveals her battle armor and switches to hand-to-hand combat.

Iria’s armor proves effective as Zeiram’s payload of artillery is reflected. Zeiram chooses to fight with melee as well and begins to overpower Iria with shear might. Iria lures it to another trap, restraining it in place. Zeiram unleashes more Lilliput monsters to buy itself time to escape. Iria defeats the Lilliput monster, but Zeiram escapes its binding. Zeiram presses forward and corners Iria, but just before it can finish her off, she manages to finally trap it in the same confinement barrier she trapped Kamiya in.

With Zeiram in custody, Teppei finds Iria and requests she release Kamiya. Iria complies, and she explains the situation to the two men. Just as Bob is preparing to teleport everyone back, a Lilliput monster attacks the group. Iria defends the two but gets transported along with the monster, leaving the electricians behind with the frozen Zeiram. The scuffle with the monster damages the control panel, cutting off access to the Zone. Bob reveals it has also destabilized the Zone too, and not much time is left before it completely vanishes.

Waiting for Iria, Teppei rifles through Iria’s bags as Kamiya grows impatient. Another Lilliput monster attacks Kamiya, and Teppei uses Iria’s weapons to fight it off. In the struggle, Zeiram’s stasis pod gets damaged and releases it. The two electricians attempt to flee by hot wiring a truck. Unfortunately, Zeiram corners them and bites Kamiya’s arm with it’s parasite. They manage to shake off Zeiram and escape. It’s revealed that by consuming its victims’ DNA, Zeiram creates its clone monsters. It creates an imperfect clone of Kamiya, but it is unable to follow orders. In its rage, Zeiram kills the clone.

The scene where Kamiya gets attacked by Zeiram’s tentacle is one of the final scenes to be shot. The tentacle was controlled by wires, and the prop was quite short. They had to utilize camera tricks to make it look longer. After Zeiram removes its scarf, revealing its face, to make the Kamiya clone, its face seems reminiscent of the Predator. I wouldn’t be surprised if Predator played a role in inspiring Zeiram in some way.

The two electricians flee into a beer storage warehouse and attempt to defend themselves from Zeiram. The fight causes Teppei to get separated from Kamiya. Teppei is unable to locate Kamiya, escapes, and contacts Iria. Iria and Bob debate sending Teppei the Metis Cannon to fight Zeiram after Teppei resolves to make a last stand after he assumes Kamiya might be dead.

Teppei heads to the drop-off point on a motorcycle to retrieve the Metis Cannon, Zeiram intercepts, and corners Teppei. Suddenly, Kamiya returns to save Teppei with a construction crane. However, Zeiram overpowers it and knocks Kamiya out of the vehicle. Then Iria swoops into the rescue, armed with a bazooka. Iria unloads the bazooka’s only shot towards Zeiram, severely damaging its body. Zeiram discards its lower half, revealing its true body is the hat, and mutates into a more skeleton-like creature to continue pursuing our heroes.

The bike scene was shot in a plane hanger in Haneda Airport. Amemiya had no prior experience with shooting a scene with a stunt like this before and was worried about the safety of the actors. The wire connected to the stunt actor on the bike fortunately snapped off, had it not, Yoshida, in the Zeiram suit, would have been hit and seriously injured. The Zeiram skeleton showcases Amemiya and his teams talent at practical effects with an impressive display of both stop-motion animation and puppetry, bringing the creature to life.

The trio, with Zeiram in tow, flee through a maze-like web of rooms in search of the Metis Cannon to kill Zeiram. Iria stays behind to stall Zeiram, leading to her being flung out a window after damaging Zeiram with a grenade. Kamiya and Teppei find the Metis Cannon but struggle to put it together in time, Zeiram tracks them down and corners them. Iria locates them in the nick of time and quickly assembles the Metis Cannon and uses it to destroy Zeiram’s skeleton. She then captures Zeiram’s hat in a barrier.

Bob transports Kamiya and Teppei back to home base outside the Zone. Then, he brings back the captured Zeiram. Next, he attempts to bring back Iria. However, Zeiram breaks free, damages the transport device, and goes on the offensive once again mutating further. Iria is trapped within the Zone as it is collapsing. Bob instructs Kamiya on how to repair the transport device as Teppei attempts to hold Zeiram back with a makeshift wooden barricade. Zeiram breaks free and is poised to kill Teppei when Kamiya fixes the device, and Iria arrives to save the day by lighting Zeiram up with as many shots as it takes, finally killing it.

As the morning comes, the trio catch their breath and thank each other for everything. Iria cuts off two locks of her hair and gives it to Kamiya and Teppei as a way of saying thanks and for them to have something to remember her by. Bob then asks if the three could group up for a commemorative photo. As Bob snaps the picture, everyone smiles and credits roll.

Though Moriyama was inexperienced as an action actress, by the time of filming the final confrontation with Zeiram, she was completely in character. Amemiya found it easier to direct her, as she had become accustomed to fighting, and he had gained more experience as a director. Despite a few bumps in the road, the cast and crew had a pleasant experience with the movie. The only major problems were the weather, which seemed to be against them, according to Amemiya.

As for my thoughts on the film? I absolutely love it! I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone, whether you’re into Tokusatsu or just like monster movies or creature features, like Predator or Alien. I’d even recommend this movie to a Resident Evil fan! I couldn’t shake the feeling of being reminded of my love of the intense rivalry between Jill Valentine and Nemesis. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film played some role in inspiring Resident Evil 3, though I have zero evidence to back that claim. Zeiram even goes through several mutations, like a final boss from Resident Evil.

Even if you’ve never heard of Keita Amemiya’s work prior to this, chances are you’ve encountered his work vicariously through some games you may have played. Games like Hagane: The Final Conflict, Onimusha 2-3, Clock Tower 3, Genji: Days of the Blade, Final Fantasy 14, and Shin Megami Tensei IV. Like I said, he’s a legend of the industry, and he has fans all across the world.

If you’re interested, you can easily pick up a Blu-ray copy for a good price. It recently received a fantastic 30th Anniversary Edition re-release back in 2021 by Media Blasters. Go check it out! You won’t regret it!

[featheredscorpion]

Fire Emblem Pilgrimage pt 2: Gaiden

Welcome back to the mistake where I play every mainline Fire Emblem game, in order.

Gotta say; I actually really enjoyed this one! I enjoyed the more RPG-ish elements, and getting to switch between Alm and Celica's groups was quite fun. I appreciate how different their unit class compositions were; it really made the two feel like different experiences. Plus, the inventory issues from FE1 were completely solved by the "one inventory item per unit" gimmick.

I was not expecting the complete lack of any consumable healing items, but I respect it. Really made healers feel more valuable. Tatiana (or, in the English patch I was using, Teeta) learned Fortify during the final battle and it came in clutch.

Honestly, outside of some UI issues, this one holds up fairly well. ...except for the Necrodragon mountain and Lost Woods. And also the final boss - Alm was maxed out at level 20 and I still had to fish for a crit in order to beat him. It wasn't even hard since he couldn't kill me in one turn. It was just tedious.

All in all, still a very fun experience. Also, Falcon Knights are OP.

Favorite Character: Celica saved Alm from endlessly fighting Necrodragons for eternity, and for that she earns my respect. (I'm trying so hard not to let my favorites from Echoes influence this...)

Favorite Units:

Alm was unstoppable. Absolute powerhouse.

Force (Forsyth) was a legend for crit-ing Jedah in the final battle and killing him in one round

EVERY FALCON KNIGHT. Clair, Est, Catria, Palla... you were the cornerstones of this army and I salute you.

Favorite New/Unique Mechanic: Love the stupidly huge bow ranges. Also only holding one item per unit made for some interesting challenges. Casting magic from hit points and personal spell lists were also interesting, especially in a game where healing options are so limited.

Least Favorite Part: LOST WOODS. I didn't know you had to backtrack PERFECTLY in order to escape the "lost" tiles... and the game LETS YOU SAVE WHILE YOU'RE LOST IN THERE. I didn't, thankfully, but can you imagine??? (Alm's endless necrodragon fights were also a bit much, but I'd already cleared Celica's route to the tower so it wasn't awful).

[bastart13]

I’ve had a lot of fun recently coming with with female mercenary characters for TF2. I really liked where the concept art was going with making them all individual characters rather than simply “if the characters were women”

The design style is fantastic for distinct simplicity so I tried limiting myself to basic colours and shapes to make these

and I’m pretty confident they pass the silhouette test!

Character names/bios under the cut!

Heavy

Name: Marie Jarrett

Age: Mid 30s-40s

Height: 6’5

Nationality: American (Hawai’i)

Bio: Raised in Hawai’i, growing up she developed more and more drastic measures to fend off the tourists swarming her home. Land mines, electric gates, guard dogs, none could stop them for long until she picked up her trusty minigun to send her message. But even still, she hears the click of cameras in the night.

Eventually, she left her home to explore the world. Enthralled with the image of seeing different wonders across different countries, she’s always disappointed. She’s travelled every continent and still finds nothing that lives up to her expectations. No place, no person. She’s outgoing and open to new experiences, only she usually hates them.

Mercenary life is a great opportunity to earn money, see sights, meet new people and kill them after they don’t meet your expectations. She hates New Mexico and takes every opportunity to destroy the buildings and insult her employer’s tastes. She finds some people she tolerates within the mercenaries as she hasn’t yet visited where they live. However much she hides it, she has a deep, instinctual fear of the Engineer.

  Soldier

Name: Linda Smith

Age: Early 40s

Height: 5’10

Nationality: Canadian

Bio: Canada’s perfect woman… or so she claims. The star of war propaganda posters and clearly decided for the role because of her great tactical assets. She’s there to motivate people into the fight. To spread the glory of Canada and inspire her allies. She believes she has higher orders than anyone else she’s working for (ignoring the fact she hasn’t heard from them for a good few years) and is determined to follow them to the letter. She may have lost the letter but she remembers it good enough.

She represents the ideals of Canada: polite, friendly, apologetic, and pacifistic. None of these are contradicted by how she throws around rockets. That’s not what Canada means. She’s superior to everyone around her and graciously educates them on how to improve through example. She loves her French and British allies and will kindly tell the Americans how to be better.

She’s motivating and actually fairly competent, it’s just that competency might be misdirected. She’s damn good at rocket jumping, shooting her shotgun, and supporting her team, it’s just that you really need to get it in her head when she’s meant to be doing it.

Scout

Name: Patricia “Pat” Herald

Age: 50s-60s

Height: 5’4

Nationality: English

Bio: In her years, Patricia has learnt fear… and she’s learnt to laugh in its face. She wakes up at the crack of dawn, ready to leave at the drop of a hat, boots polished and laced the night before. Her years have taught her that with a gun and Jeremy by her side, she can survive!

The postal route of Appleby-in-Westmorland.

She’s been chased by geese, dogs, cows, elderly ladies, and when her postal route had her delivering post during the war, she developed a taste for blood. Nothing will stop her from delivering her post on time. Every day before 6am, every postbox will have their letters and parcels. One chucked across barbed wire, another house jumped over a river, another house miles into the country with dogs on her heels, she WILL get there and she’ll get there FAST.

But after a couple of decades, she needs a change of scenery, and the Gravels wars are just the holiday she’s needed. With her trusty black and white cat by her side (ignoring the yowling and scratches) she reckons it’ll be great time to enjoy herself.

Quotes: “Oh, hello, Human Jeremy.”

“Bloody fucking Ethel! Building her house out in the country… surrounded by bloody hills and rivers!”

Pyro

Name: Nikephoros Papadopoulos

Age: Late 20s

Height: 5’11

Nationality: Greek

Bio: Survival of the fittest. Nature gives and nature taketh away. If you’re not prepared for that, well, Pyro is more than happy to teach you the lesson. They embody the old values of the Greek gods: f*ck or fire. She indulges her every whim and unfortunately for the people around her it often involves arson.

One year for the Olympic games, she was given the noble title of torchbearer. On complete coincidence, the Olympics shifted to primarily water sports. Underwater sprints became the hot new trend!

She’s merry and chatty, never missing the opportunity to talk to other people about herself and her world view. She can’t wait to spread her gospel to help other people improve themselves (though she always gets a laugh out of those who go out screaming in the flames). She can’t help it if she has a sadistic side.

Engineer

Name: Mikawo Kojima

Age: Early 20s

Height: 5’0

Nationality: Japanese

Bio: Japan’s early-rising industrial revolutions in technology are best exemplified in Mikawo, a young upstart determined to rise to the top, learning everything she can and building the best of the best. Unfortunately, she’s never been the most creative but when you happen upon other people’s blueprints and happen to construct them first, what does it matter who came up with the “concept”?

At first, she appears to be every bit the quiet and demure young woman people expect, only when silk hides steel, that steel is a massive automatic sentry gun. She’s motivated by a distinct contempt for the people who get in her way. Especially those who try to be better than her. She enjoys the flexibility of English, especially the cusses, and she has no reservations about swearing up a storm, even if she still refuses to give a straight rejection, preferring instead to give a small “I’ll think about it.”

Quotes: “This GUN is fair use on your head!”

Demo

Name: Qingzhao Zeng

Age: Late 40s

Height: 5’3

Nationality: Chinese

Bio: The Zeng family has a long-standing family trade in demolitions and explosives, traced down the line all the way to the Song dynasty. Luckily, Qingzhao has sisters so, you know, it’s not all that important. She doesn’t even have to stop smoking and drinking. She hasn’t blown herself up (that much) so clearly, it’s working. Precision is for other people to worry about. She’s apathetic to a T, having seen everything. Measurements come from the heart. A pinch of gunpowder there, a splash of paint there.

Her family has a deep-seated rivalry with the DeGroots. Long ago in ancient China, a Zeng matriarch woke up in a cold sweat, a message from the stars to let them know of their Scottish rivals. Due to being a continent away from each other, the families have actually met each other only a handful of times, but the hatred needs to be kept up because, what if?

Turns out, Qingzhao has met Tavish even before finding employment under the Mann brothers. One drunken night, the two of them had a short, whirlwind friendship, sharing secrets and declaring each other to be their best friends. Luckily for them, they both forgot the night, merrily hating each other as tradition dictates. However, headaches and flashes of this terrible night haunt them both. Could they really get over centuries of hate and become friends?

Absolutely not.

Sniper

Name: Ansa Aaltonen

Age: 27

Height: 6’2

Nationality: Finnish

Bio: Snow. Sugar. Cocaine.  Her life is run by many white powders. Ansa is a professional sniper, with a sharp eye and a steady hand… when she isn’t also high as a kite, lost in the snowy wilderness of Finland and screeching to the sky. When you’re up in the dark and cold, you need something to give you a little pep in your step. It just so happens Ansa liked having a bit more pep than most.

She’s there for a THRILL. There’s nothing better to get your heart pumping at 200 beats per second than a good headshot, embracing the chill, and a hit of sugar. She no longer feels the cold or heat or even pain, shrugging it off until she collapses. It just makes her feel alive. She’s efficient, fast, and determined to get her kicks.

She has an unusual taste, living off fermented fish and tree bark. To most people around the Finnish wilderness, she’s nothing more than an urban legend, but she’s very real and she’s looking for some excitement, happily found in employment in the Gravel wars.

Spy

Name: Yvonne Pleshette [Real name N/A]

Age: 30s

Height: 5’8

Nationality: American (California)

Bio: The silver screen calls to his woman and she’s happy to answer. She trains herself to act in every possible role she can, having a wide range of accents, body languages, and backstories. To truly test herself, she gave up her identity long ago. Lately she’s been going by the name “Yvonne.”

The world of Hollywood is cutthroat and full of backstabbers so she learnt to cut throats and stab backs. While some people tell her the terms are metaphorical, nothing else has given her more roles. Living the mercenary life is simply gathering research for her roles (and earning some much-needed money in the process).

She presents herself as a classic film star, despite being a minor name at best, mostly because she’s always changing it. She has high standards but a cheapskate personality. She’s a bit of a bitch, happily criticising others, especially if they’re working with her. What can she say? She’s a diva.

[Slutshames other spy]

Quotes: “Ugh, actors these days, they know nothing about getting into character. They still have names.”

“’AHHHHH—’ Wait, no. Once more from the top. Scream in agony.”

Medic

Name: Susan Monks

Age: 30-40s

Height: 5’7

Nationality: American (New Jersey)

Bio: The American Healthcare system. Is there a more glorious sight? The exploitation of pain. The money. The debt. The fear it strikes into the entire population it’s designed to help. To Susan, there’s nothing better. She squeezes every last drop from the people she helps, working on a purely transactional lifestyle. She’ll never help someone unless she has all of their insurance information and the payment secure in her bank, and god forbid she ever accept help. It’s not like she can afford her own prices.

She’s very self-aware of her own corruption and proud of it, though she refuses to be exploited in the same way, suspicious of anything “free” but also doing her best not to pay for anything.

That said, she doesn’t much care for how good a job she does. In her eyes, asking for surgery is one thing. Asking for successful surgery is another. She has a variety of skills in both cosmetic and military medicine. She just wishes the license board would stop sending her “malpractice” letters. Ugh, stick to your own business. “Disappearing” all their messengers is becoming a pain.

Quotes: “Why get someone else to do something for you when you can scrounge a way to do it yourself?”

[clonesimpextra]

A Shattered Peace: Chapter 4

Best Efforts

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Pairing: Commander Wolffe x FemJedi!OC Word Count: 5.7K Series Rating: Mature/Explicit (18+ Only) Chapter Summary: Wolffe tries to make amends with Amara. Plo has some unwelcome news for the both of them. A/N: Am I playing fast and loose with not only the timeline but also with legends/canon? Yes. Yes I am. Don't worry, it will make sense eventually. AO3 Link

When Wolffe was still just a cadet, before he’d ever left the confines of Tipoca City on Kamino, he didn’t really believe there were places in the galaxy that weren’t covered in water.

Sure, logically he knew those places existed, had seen holos of them in his training and heard stories from his trainers. But there was a difference between hearing about them and actually believing in them.

It was hard for his mind to wrap around the possibility of places like the Alderaanian mountain ranges or the grass fields of Naboo when every time he looked up, all he saw was a never-ending ocean fading into an unforgiving sky.

But then when Wolffe had finally left Kamino, he’d ended up in the hellhole of Geonosis.

The dirt and the dry air and the lifeless bodies of his brothers who died only ever knowing the sharp taste of the Kaminoan ocean and the rough scrape of Geonosian sand, made Wolffe long for the water and thick air of home.

In the past few months since the beginning of the war, he’d at least been to other planets that made up for Geonosis.

Dantooine, Axion, Saleucami. They were never there long enough for any of them to make a real impression on Wolffe, but they were at least full of grasses, trees, insects that weren’t trying to kill him - all things he’d never seen on Kamino, and certainly not on Geonosis.

The grass and the trees were what had interested him most. He’d peered closely at the vibrant green of the tiny blades of grass that scratched at his fingers when he’d taken his gloves off during a break.

Water helped make that color. 

Kamino was full of water.

But there was nothing green on Kamino. 

At least not the green that hung to these peculiar blades and painted his skin when he rubbed them between his fingers.

No. These places were nothing like Kamino.

And Wolffe wasn’t entirely sure what to think about that.

He just knew that, as generally attractive and enticing as they might be, not all of these planets were good.

Nivek had been proof of that.

*****

Shrouded in a perpetual darkness, this cursed planet reminded him too much of his nightmares. The emanate danger of the natives put him on edge from the moment he stepped out of the gun ship. And alongside those worries, as always, Commander Kora lingered in the back of his mind . . . 

After their discussion in the training room and the following conversation in his office, Wolffe felt much better about her abilities on the field. They’d gone over every plan, every strategy, every possibility either of them could think of. It had even been . . . Fun.

But then they’d arrived on Nivek and Wolffe couldn’t get her out of his head.

No matter how many times he reminded himself that Commander Kora knew what she was doing, that he himself had prepared her for this mission, he still felt a twinge of panic when they separated.

What if he never saw her again? What if she died? Fuck, what if they all died? This was a simple mission, yes, but even those could turn sour without so much as a warning.

Still, he continued on with his part of the plan, pushing down the steadily increasing panic as best he could. His group of men opened fire on the battle droids guarding the base and drew them a safe distance away.

A quiet comm from General Plo confirmed that his own group had done the same and that Commander Kora had retrieved the prisoners and was making her way out.

Everything was going exactly as they had planned it.

So naturally, that was when all hell broke loose.

One minute he was yanking the head off a clanker that had gotten too close, the next all the battle droids were retreating.

And Commander Kora hadn’t made it out of the base yet.

The never-ending night on Nivek grew darker as Wolffe’s pulse raced. He yelled at his men to hurry up and follow him, prepared to run the entire way back to where Commander Kora was supposed to be, when he was stopped by the general’s voice echoing through his comm.

“Commander Wolffe,” General Plo’s voice was calm, but held a sharp edge of concern that only heightened Wolffe’s panic. “Amara’s going to need my help. Take your men to the pick-up point and we’ll meet you there.”

For the first time in his, admittedly short, life, Wolffe considered disobeying an order. It only lasted a moment, less than a moment, really. But it was there. And the fresh wave of panic that idea sent through his already tense body was enough to bring him back to his senses.

“Yes, sir.”

Wolffe followed his orders. 

He took his men to the pick-up point.

He looked out into the distance, straining his eyes to be able to see anything further than a few meters.

He paced.

He looked again.

Finally, he saw a small group - much smaller than had originally set off - making their way toward them, followed closely by General Plo’s own group, just as he heard the sounds of their approaching gunships. His eyes scanned the group, noting that there was one less prisoner than there should have been and three less clones. And Commander Kora . . . 

Wolffe swore when he saw her leaning heavily against Boost and ran toward the group, stopping just in front of them.

She was alive, at least. 

Walking, barely. 

But even in the dim light, he could see the paleness of her skin and the bloodshot rims of her eyes. Boost had a firm grip around her waist and it was clear that was the only thing keeping her from sinking to the ground.

Wolffe felt a deep urge to reach out to her, to take Boost’s place, to feel with his own hands the beat of her heart that meant she really was still alive.

But he couldn’t do that. He could never do that.

So he held on to the only other emotion he was feeling as strongly as his need to see her safe: anger.

When he yelled at her, demanding to know what she’d done to put herself in so much danger when they had gone over every contingency, she barely even reacted.

And, just as quickly as his anger had taken hold, it melted away with the droop of her eyes and the fall of her head onto Boost’s shoulder.

Wolffe wasn’t able to keep himself from reaching out to her then.

When they loaded onto the gunships, it was Wolffe holding Commander Kora up, not Boost.

By the time they landed back on the Triumphant, she’d gone completely unconscious and Wolffe didn’t hesitate before lifting her into his arms. He didn’t allow himself to feel her weight against his chest. Didn’t allow himself to stare too closely at any part of her.

“She needs to be taken to the med bay.”

Wolffe blinked and turned his head to see General Plo standing next to him, his hands, normally folded at his front, hanging limply at his side. Even though he hadn’t been around the Kel Dor long enough to interpret his every movement, Wolffe had the distinct impression that the stoic Jedi was currently anything but.

Still, Wolffe was, above all, a soldier. He would do his duty. And his duty was to ensure the safety of his co-commander.

He’d failed once today.

He wouldn’t do it again.

Turning back to the Jedi currently in his arms, Wolffe nodded and followed General Plo through the hangar, down several halls and around too many corners until they were finally in front of a medic who was staring at Wolffe expectantly.

“You need to set her down,” Caster repeated firmly.

Shaking his head, what was wrong with him?, Wolffe did as he was told. The second Commander Kora’s weight vanished, though, Wolffe felt the thick layer of panic return.

He was about to reach a hand out again, just to feel her pulse, when another hand landed on his shoulder. He turned once again to find General Plo at his side, the other man’s own eyes trained on the cot in front of them.

“Thank you, commander. I’ll stay with her.”

Wolffe swallowed and took a step back from the cot, toward the door. He wasn’t needed here. He didn’t belong here. Hell, five seconds before she’d all but collapsed, he’d been the one yelling at her.

Before anyone could say anything else to him - before he could find another reason to stay - Wolffe left the med bay behind him.

With General Plo and Commander Kora both indisposed, he had control of the 104th and the Triumphant. He had post-mission tasks to complete, orders to give, courses to set to drop off the prisoners. Maybe if he put enough distance between himself and the Jedi, he’d be able to also leave behind the combination of feelings pooling in his mind and his gut that he had no idea what to do with.

Wolffe was, above all, a soldier. And he needed his mind to be clear in order to do his job to the best of his ability.

And if a clear mind was what he needed, then a clear mind was what he would have.

Wolffe unclipped his helmet from his belt and clicked it back into place over his head. 

He straightened, clinched and unclenched his fists, turned his back on the med bay door and faced down the hallway that would lead him up a turbo lift and toward the bridge.

He set off.

He didn’t look back.

*****

That had been two months ago, and now, with the benefit of hindsight, Wolffe was willing to admit that he might have over-reacted.

Commander Kora hadn’t made a single mistake since Nivek. In fact, she had more than proven herself in the following missions, and her casualty stats were what had to be some of the lowest in the entire GAR.

He was impressed. But still . . . 

Created and trained for command, Wolffe was a smart man when it came to strategy and war. He was adaptable and confident and brave in the face of terror. But for all his strengths in war, he was woefully unskilled when it came to interpersonal relations.

In short: he didn’t know how to balance these strange and new-found feelings with his ability to do his job the way he needed to.

Despite his best efforts since Nivek, though, he couldn’t stop his heartbeat from speeding up whenever he was close to her. 

He still found himself worrying about her on the field - both when they were fighting together and when they were apart. 

After every battle he had to resist the urge to seek her out and congratulate her and ask her questions and apologize for yelling at her when she’d been on the brink of collapse.

When he stood across from her on the bridge or on the field, he had to stop himself from staring at her lips and wondering if they were as soft as they looked.

But he still couldn’t even think of her without his mind wandering back to Nivek. And Nivek made his chest tighten and his heart race and he didn’t have time to deal with any of that when they all had a war to fight.

So, he avoided her.

And he knew he shouldn’t have. He knew it.

But it wasn’t like his avoidance had negatively affected their missions. If anything, with Commander Kora’s current record, it had helped.

At least, that’s what Wolffe kept telling himself every time he saw a flash of hurt and annoyance in his co-commander’s eyes. He could ignore those small things, so long as he could say it was for the good of the Republic.

The incident in the hangar last week, though, wasn’t something he could ignore.

“Commander.”

“Sir.”

“Commander.”

Wolffe ignored the voices of his brothers as he hurried down one of the many hallways of the GAR compound. The briefing wasn’t due to start for another fifteen minutes, but Wolffe knew Commander Kora liked to arrive early and, after a week of her actively avoiding him, Wolffe was hoping he might finally get a chance to . . . he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to say to her, but he knew he’d crossed a line in the hangar. In what Cody would call typical Wolffe style, he’d done too much and said not nearly enough. 

He hadn’t meant to hurt Commander Kora’s feelings - really he hadn’t. When he’d said he didn’t hate her, he was telling her the truth. 

Her words had struck something inside him. The idea of him hating her, when all of his actions over the past two months had been wrought purely from the fact he very much did not hate her, was laughable to him.

Clearly he’d become a bit better at lying than he’d thought.

Even so, Wolffe hadn’t been able to stand the look on her face - the hurt evident even as she tried to hide it - and he’d acted without thinking. 

He’d grabbed her wrist, like a di’kut, and, just like that day in the training room months earlier, felt the heat of her skin through his glove. That heat, combined with all the feelings he’d been pushing away and the look of hurt in her eyes, had finally broken his resolve. 

He told her he didn’t hate her, even if sometimes he hated what she made him feel. 

It was the truth, and Wolffe should have been relieved to share it. But in that moment, he hadn’t felt relief. He’d felt fear.

His mind was both unnervingly quiet and annoyingly loud when Commander Kora spoke up again. The lilt of her voice bringing him back into the moment with a wince as he tried to get a handle back on his emotions.

He’d only realized what she’d said when it was too late. When she was practically running out of the hangar and he was left alone with a dozen of his brothers staring at him - no doubt wondering what he’d done to piss off their favorite commander this time.

Because, even though she didn’t seem to realize it, Wolffe’s brothers had grown to care about Commander Kora just as much as they cared about each other - and that was saying something. Though the clones might have been expected to give every Jedi, every commanding officer, their loyalty, they didn’t necessarily give their trust so easily.

Over the past two months, Commander Kora had clearly earned that trust. And while Wolffe knew why he trusted her, he wasn’t entirely sure what had influenced such decisions from his brothers. Which was probably something he would know if he hadn’t been spending all his time trying to avoid anything having to do with her.

Maker, sometimes Wolffe missed the strict structure of life on Kamino. At least there he was surrounded only by his brothers, Kaminoans and trainers - all of whom had never mad him feel as absolutely insane as he did now.

As he came up to the door of the briefing room, Wolffe paused. He still wasn’t sure what he wanted to say to Commander Kora. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if she would listen to him long enough for him to say his peace. For all he knew, she’d yell and glare and do all the things that would leave him both miserable and turned on, with nothing but his hand around his cock and her name on his lips to bring himself a relief and pleasure that he’d feel like he didn’t really earn.

Needless to say, his hand had been busy over the past two months.

Wolffe sighed at the thought. He’d been trained better than this. He was better than this. And, regardless of his very confusing feelings toward her, Commander Kora deserved better than this from him.

Wolffe stood in front of the door and, as it swished open, his eyes roamed across the room, finally landing on the one person he was always simultaneously hoping and dreading to see. 

“Commander Kora,” He nodded at her, hesitating a moment before removing his helmet and clipping it to his belt. As much as he’d like to have a barrier between her gaze and his face, he wasn’t going to hide behind his bucket. That’s what shinies, fresh off Kamino and scared of their own shadow, did, not commanders.

Commander Kora, for her part, didn’t avoid his gaze. Instead she looked right at him and just . . . nodded back before turning to the holo table where she was studying a map of the planet they were headed to next.

She didn’t glare, didn’t sigh, didn’t so much as blink at his arrival. For some reason, that made Wolffe angry.

Had he been worried about nothing all this time? Had his words really not affected her as much as she’d made it seem in the hangar? Was she playing games with him? Trying to make him feel guilty for days while she was walking around care-free? Wolffe clinched his fists at his side as he walked up to the table and stood across from her. 

She spared him a glance before looking back down at the map. “You’re early, commander.”

There wasn’t even a bite to her voice. If she was upset with him, she was very good at hiding it.

Wolffe shrugged, trading his clinched fists for a clinched grip on the edge of the table. “Thought I’d make sure you were actually ready for this meeting.”

Why did he say that? He hadn’t meant to say that, really he hadn’t. But Commander Kora’s indifference had rankled him more than he thought it would and his response was apparently to say anything to get a rise out of her. 

Cody would be shaking his head.

The commander responded exactly as Wolffe had known she would as soon as he spoke the words out loud. Her mouth tightened into a thin line and she crossed her arms, fists clinched.

Wolffe tried not to think about how the flexing of her biceps, visible thanks to the short sleeves of her new tunic, made his cock twitch and press uncomfortably against his codpiece.

Now is not the time, Wolffe thought to himself. Even though he’d known he was attracted to her from the moment he first laid eyes on her in the arena on Geonosis, and even though he had become used to having to deal with a snug codpiece every time he was around her, he was angry at her right now. Why the fuck would he be turned on, too? 

Oh, right, because he was a depraved asshole.

“I was going to apologize, you know,” Commander Kora’s voice broke through Wolffe’s thoughts, the lilt that curved her words always making Wolffe want to know what other languages she spoke and decidedly not helping with his current predicament, “for the way I acted in the hangar. It was unprofessional and I realized later that I probably should have given you time to explain.”

She looked at Wolffe through the holomap, eyes narrow and piercing and as usual doing the absolute most to make Wolffe harder. “But I’m starting to wonder if an explanation would have even helped.”

Helped what? 

Wolffe swallowed past his desire and looked down at the table, rewinding Commander Kora’s words in his head.

Oh. Fuck.

He glanced back up at her and quickly shook his head, opening his mouth to respond just as the door swished open and General Plo walked in.

“Ah, good, you’re both here,” General Plo looked between Wolffe and Commander Kora and Wolffe immediately turned away from the table to nod at him.

“Sir,” he said in what he hoped was a voice untainted by the very real desire coursing through his blood at the moment.

As General Plo stepped up to the table and connected to a holo call with Generals Kenobi, Skywalker and Unduli, Wolffe turned his attention to the briefing. 

He focused all his thoughts on what he’d read up about Tibrin, a Mid Rim planet that had recently fallen under Separatist control, offering his opinions on strategy when asked, and being careful this time not to speak over or interrupt Commander Kora, who seemed as determined as he was not to let on that there was any animosity between the two of them. 

As their discussion dragged on Wolffe was relieved to find that his other problem had gone down, blood running smoothly back up to his actual head and away from the one that did nothing but cause distractions. The presence of Cody, Rex and Gree - even via holo - also helped his mind stay on track.

Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried about what Commander Kora had said before the briefing. Wolffe had been determined to at least try to make things better and instead he was pretty sure he’d made them worse. He didn’t want to handle another week of tension, especially not when his cock was apparently determined to remind him of how attractive he found his co-commander when she was staring at him with death in her eyes.

“Any questions?” General Plo asked the both of them when they’d wrapped up the briefing and ended the call.

Wolffe shook his head, chancing a glance across the table at Commander Kora. His eyes caught hers and he had to bite back a curse at the way her glare made his blood rush back south. 

So much for his problems going down.

“Well then,” General Plo began, but he was interrupted by a beep from his commlink. He turned to take the call and Wolffe forced himself to look back at Commander Kora. She was staring at the map, biting her bottom lip and Wolffe very nearly groaned at the sight. 

Shaking himself with a stern internal “get it the fuck together”, Wolffe moved closer to her. He placed his hand on the table within her sight and she looked up at him, eyes still narrow but not nearly as heated as they had been earlier. He cleared his throat and stood up a bit straighter.

“I don’t think you’re bad at your job.”

Her eyebrows raised. “You have a funny way of showing it, Commander.”

 Wolffe winced. But he didn’t back down.

“Nivek was-”

“I know I fucked up on Nivek.”

They both stopped, eyeing each other for a moment. 

Then, to Wolffe’s surprise, and slight disappoint if he was being honest with himself, the heat completely left the commander’s eyes. Instead, she sighed and leaned against the table, averting her gaze to General Plo’s back on the other side of the room.

“I fucked up on Nivek. What I did got three of your brothers killed and I’m pretty sure that’s why you’ve been avoiding me, but” she looked back at him and Wolffe had to fight a very different urge from earlier. This one to reach a hand up and push back the strand of hair that fallen from one of her braids onto her forehead. “I learned from that. And you might have the right to be mad at me for Nivek, but you don’t have the right to treat me the way you have been lately.”

Whatever Wolffe had been expecting from this conversation, it wasn’t this.

She carried Nivek around with her, too, just for very different reasons. Instead of worrying about what had almost happened to her, Commander Kora apparently carried around the weight of the clones she’d lost that day. And she thought he blamed her for their deaths.

In all honesty, Wolffe wasn’t sure if he should blame her. Maybe he should.

Maybe if it was any other non-clone commander he would have, but . . .

“It’s not my brothers I’ve been worried about.”

That was perhaps the most honest thing Wolffe had ever said to her, and the widening of her eyes, the slight part of her lips that he was too attuned to, told him that she was thinking the same thing.

Before she could say anything, and before he could lose his nerve, Wolffe inched his hand closer to where she was still leaning against the table and took a breath.

“You’re a good leader, commander, I’ve been impressed.”

The tips of his gloved fingers were less than an inch away from her hip, and with his eyes still trained on hers, Wolffe saw her gaze flick between his hand and his face. He swore he could feel the intake of her breath before she spoke, so quietly he had to lean in a bit to catch every word.

“I had a good teacher.”

Wolffe didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

Couldn’t do anything other than stare down at the woman who was the cause of all his confusion as she stared back. The dark brown of her eyes brought him back, as they usually did, to Geonosis. But Geonosis wasn’t such a bad memory when it was focused around the tilt of her head, the swing of her braids, the sound of her lightsaber.

How many more of those moments, memories he could have stored in the back of his mind to overcome the nightmares that still plagued him, had he missed out on over the past two months because of his fear? His fear of his feelings about her. His fear for her safety.

Because the truth of the matter was, Commander Kora didn’t need his fear - she needed his trust. She already had it, of course, but clearly he had done a piss poor job of proving that.

He could do better.

He would do better.

But he still needed a clear head, and the urge to touch her was too great.

Wolffe moved back a few inches, the increased distance between them almost tangible after being closer than they had been since Nivek. Before she could misinterpret his intentions again, though, he tilted his head to keep her eyes on his.

“Maybe you could teach me a few things, too.”

For the first time in two months (not that he’d been keeping track of it or anything), Commander Kora smiled up at him.

For the first time since he’d known her, Wolffe smiled back.

* * *

“What do you mean you’re not coming with us on the next mission? Master Kenobi said Tibrin is of the utmost importance.”

Commander Kora’s words hung in the air between all three of them as General Plo laid a calming hand on her shoulder. Wolffe kept his eyes on the general, determined not to let his face give away the anxiety that came with his words.

“The Council is sending me on a diplomatic mission to Tattooine. There are few Jedi available who are not already otherwise occupied,” keeping his hand on Commander Kora’s shoulder, General Plo turned to Wolffe. “The two of you will lead the battalion to Tibrin and meet up with the 212th, 501st and 41st, exactly as we planned it. Just with one less Jedi.”

Wolffe finally looked at his co-commander, who had at that exact moment decided to look up at him as well. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was drawn back in a tight line - no trace of the smile she’d previously graced him with.

Wolffe wouldn’t fool himself into thinking that he knew her much better now than he had when he first met her, but he could see the look of a shiny about to go into their first battle in her eyes. Despite his assurances that he didn’t think she was bad at her job, Commander Kora clearly still had a few doubts of her own.

Eyes still trained on hers, trying to convey a sense of confidence and solidarity, Wolffe nodded tightly. “You can count on us, Sir.”

“I have no doubt,” came the general’s quick reply. “Amara?”

Commander Kora closed her eyes briefly before turning back to General Plo.

“Like Commander Wolffe said, you can count on us, Master,” her eyes flicked back to Wolffe. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’ll go make sure we’re prepared for tomorrow.”

Wolffe watched her leave (resolutely keeping his eyes above her waist) and shook his head. He couldn’t help but wonder how much of her self-confidence had been tampered down by his own attitude toward her. If he hadn’t been such an ass since Nivek, would she feel more prepared to lead the battalion on her own? 

There was no way to know for sure, he couldn’t change the past. But he did know that between now and their landing on Tibrin, he’d have a lot of work to do on her. 

That idea brought a whole other barrage of inappropriate thoughts about what else he could do on her and he shook his head again. He had a lot of work to do on himself, too, apparently.

“You and Amara are a lot alike, I think.”

Wolffe turned to the general and cocked his head. “Sir?”

The Kel Dor motioned for Wolffe to follow him across the room. This was another habit of his Jedi that Wolffe hadn’t been expecting. 

On Kamino he’d been trained to prepare for missions with his superiors and then . . . leave. But General Plo, and he assumed Commander Kora as well if he’d ever stuck around long enough for her to ask, liked to speak with him after briefings as well. Sometimes he didn’t even talk about the war or the upcoming missions, one time asking Wolffe what he thought of the mess food on the Triumphant. It was almost as if he were trying to get to know Wolffe as a person rather than just as a soldier. 

For his part, Wolffe wasn’t always sure what to think about that. But the general never pushed him. Gave him space to answer, or to stay silent - never making him feel guilty for either option.

Now, though, Wolffe almost wished for a general who wouldn’t take such interest - if only because then he wouldn’t have to discuss the very obvious issues that had arisen between himself and Commander Kora.

General Plo led them down the hallway toward the commanding offices as he spoke.

“Amara was supposed to take command of her own battalion. Did you know that?”

Wolffe couldn’t help the surprised raise of his eyebrows at that as he shook his head. “No, Sir.”

“Hmmm. I figured she wouldn’t have told you.”

Wolffe chuckled. “Honestly, Sir? She hasn’t told me much of anything.”

The general stopped in the hallway and turned to Wolffe, head tilted. “Have you told her much of anything about yourself, Wolffe?”

That stopped Wolffe in his tracks. So he had noticed Wolffe’s attitude toward Commander Kora. Great.

General Plo nodded and patted Wolffe on the pauldron. “We are all adapting to environments that we were perhaps not fully trained for.”

They turned a corner and came up to General Plo’s office. Clones and other nat-born officers walked by, nodding to one another as they passed. The general entered his access code and nodded Wolffe inside.

“You were trained for war. I do not think I am in wrong in saying that you feel comfortable and confident on the battlefield?”

Wolffe nodded. He had an idea where the general was going with this, but he wasn’t sure what more he could tell Wolffe that he didn’t already know. 

“Amara was not trained for war. She knows how to fight, yes. She’s an exceptional pilot. She’s a quick learner,” Wolffe knew he wasn’t imaging the hint of pride that laced General Plo’s words as he spoke about his former apprentice. “All skills that can be adapted for war. It’s her other skills, the ones she holds most dear, that she’s had a hard time transferring.”

“What skills are those, sir?”

General Plo let out a sharp laugh, one Wolffe didn’t think he’d heard from him yet and that sounded strange coming through the mask’s modulator. “If you haven’t seen the skills I speak of from Amara, maybe you’ve not been looking quite hard enough,” he paused, and with what Wolffe swore was a humorous twinge in his voice added, “or perhaps you’ve not been looking hard enough at the right things.”

For not the first time that day, Wolffe felt his cheeks warm. Surely the general hadn’t noticed . . . whatever the fuck was going on in Wolffe’s head and under his codpiece during that briefing? He wasn’t sure how the Force worked, exactly, but surely the general was just referring to Wolffe’s inability to notice Commander Kora’s particular skills. That was it. He hoped. Fuck.

General Plo saved him from his floundering. “This upcoming mission won’t be easy, Wolffe, especially without an extra Jedi. It will be an adjustment for everyone and you and Amara will need to be able to rely on each other.”

He sat down behind the desk and folded his hands in front of him. “She’ll trust you, if you show her the faith I know you have in her.”

Wolffe swallowed thickly. He thought of himself as a man of action, was proud of his abilities that proved his worthiness in ways that words never could. But the general was right - he’d not been doing such a great job of that when it came to Commander Kora. 

If this next mission was going to work, he’d have to find a way to better communicate with her, to stop letting his feelings overrun his instinct and his common sense. Even though Wolffe had practically spelled out his issues to Commander Kora, had admitted to the fact that he might need her help in overcoming his own faults, that was before they’d found out that they wouldn’t have General Plo as back-up and middleman. 

And regardless, Wolffe had a feeling that talking about help and accepting help would be two very different things for him.

Clearing his throat, Wolffe nodded to the general, saluted, and turned on his heel to leave. Before the door could slide closed behind him, though, General Plo called out, and this time, Wolffe knew he heard humor in his modulated voice.

“Commander? Do remember to keep your mental shields up around her. She’s a very . . . empathetic Jedi.”

Wolffe slammed his bucket over his head and tried to pretend like he couldn’t hear the general laughing through the closed door.

Thank the Maker they weren’t leaving Coruscant until tomorrow. 

He really needed a fucking drink.

[crimsonkenjii-writes]

Congrats! Can I ask for A and C on Rengoku and Reiner please 🤗

I’m so glad you asked for Reiner!! I haven’t written for him yet and I love him so much!! I’m excited to write for him :)) tysm for the request! .｡*ﾟ+.*.｡(❁´◡`❁)｡.｡:+*

⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿ 🔥 ✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿ 🔥 ✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

A - Arcade:

Kyo would not be a poor sport at all!! He’d find games really really fun and just be happy that he gets to spend time with you! He wouldn’t understand why someone would get so upset over losing. It’s just a game?? You could win next round??? He just doesn’t understand

“What’s this game?! How do you play it?! AHA! I DIED!!”

In a modern au, I can see Kyojurou not knowing shit about games lolol so he’d learn it all from you if you knew more than him

“A game? About ghosts?? Why would you want to scare yourself like that?”

Games I can see him really enjoying is Mario Kart (or any mario game lol), any fighting game (like street fighter, mortal kombat, ultimate smash bros, etc), Wii Sports, maybe some PC games like Valorant, Minecraft or League of Legends but his knowledge is pretty limited and would depend on the console(s) you have

He’s sound like a parent when he asks you about your games lmao

“Y/N, my dear! Is that the crossing of animals?! How do you win the game?! ....You don’t???”

“Could you pause the game really quick, My Dear? I need your help with something. You can’t pause it? Why not? Isn’t that button usually the pause button?”

He can’t remember titles for the life of him! Making him sound even more like a parent with your games

“Duty That Calls!” “Man of Spiders for the PX4!!” “Thievery of a Grand Auto?! That’s what it’s called, right??” “Redemption of the Dead!” “The Last of Them!!” “Zelda’s Legendary???”

C - Cooking:

Surprisingly an amazing chef!! He cooked a lot for his father and brother so he knows a few tips and tricks that make him an excellent chef

Although, I can see Kyo failing miserably at a recipe he’s never done before. But the second time he makes it, it’s like he was a professional at that recipe for seven years

He’s also willing to explore other cultural foods and learn how to make them, especially if it’s from your culture! He loves to explore new things and learn about them so you opening a new door to all different kinds of foods excites him

“Oh, this is something you always ate as a child? Do you know the ingredients? I’d love to try making it!”

I can also see Kyo being pretty sloppy in the kitchen while he’s cooking. He’s just so in the zone he doesn’t realize he spilled some sugar on the floor, wiped his flour ridden hands on his forehead or knocked over the salt and let it spill all over the counter

But he does a very well clean up afterwards and leaves the place looking like he didn’t just create a mess for two hours straight

He’s always excited to hear your input on is good so that he learn how to improve it and make it taste even better

You guys typically switch on a off with cooking and he loves the way you cook. Even if you fucked up the food a little, he’s still love it because he can feel the secret ingredient of love in the cooking

Even if you’re so terrible that all you can even make is cereal, Kyojurou would literally gobble that shit up as if it’s the most tastiest thing in the world

“You poured me this cereal, Y/N?” *ANSOOQNFIFHAIOWO* “IT TASTES SUPER GOOD!!!” “DELICIOUS! DELICIOUS!!”

⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿ ⚔️ ✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

artwork by: twitter.com/AFpocketbee

⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿ ⚔️ ✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

A - Arcade

In a modern au, I could totally see Reiner loving games

He got a lot of the consoles when he was a young boy so the older version of consoles are super nostalgic to him

And since he dabbled in a in all the consoles, his range of games is real large so he plays almost any and every game on every console

If you’re not into games, he’ll try his best to get you into it as well so that it’s something you both could share together he just wants to do everything with you 🥺

“Here, Babe, look. This one is easy! All you have to do is aim at the target and shoot. Try it!” you failed miserably “Oh... no no you did good!! Just... keep practicing and you’ll be an expert in no time!!”

And honestly, this guy’s a little bit of a poor sport. Not to a toxic level but enough for it to be kind of cute. If you beat him at one of his favorite games, sheeeeesh he’s gonna pout so much!

“What?? No. You got lucky. That’s not - I - you - ANOTHER ROUND!”

He will literally keep playing you until he wins then turn off the game as if he “doesn’t wanna play anymore”

He would definitely beat you up a lot in a new game you’ve never played before and not even teach you the controls or give you time to learn them. He’d just beat you up.

He’ll get his fill of victory though and then start to teach you and take it slow. He’d even let you beat him a bunch so that you can start getting the hang of it. But once you do, beware. He will not hesitate this time, he’s going all out.

C - Cooking

Oh dear... oh gosh... this man cannot cook. Get him out of the kitchen. Please, he’ll start a fire.

There’s like literally only two things he can cook and that’s French toast and pancakes. Maybe Kraft Mac and cheese.

But he makes some really good French toast and pancakes, he loves making them for you when you wake up

But other than that, he’s so bad. He’d manage to burn the outside of the chicken and the inside be raw

But if he really, really practiced, I think Reiner would end up be a pretty good cook

Now, if you can cook, you can bet your ass this simp would act so extra when he eats your cooking

“It smells SO GOOD!!” “Mmm!! Oh my god!!! BABE!! MMMMMMM!!! MMHHMMMM!!! SSSOOO GOOOODDDD!!!”

“Reiner, stop simping with your mouth full.”

He always looks forward to your cooking and is literally drooling the entire time waiting for it to be cooked. Let’s just say he’ll be a very well fed man because that’s how much he asks for you to cook for him and how much he eats, not even the left overs are safe

[apexland]

Spared

Bloodhound x Reader 

Warnings! Swearing, Violence

Might be a few errors here and there, still need to go through it properly!

Preparing for the drop every legend had a different pre-game ritual that helped get them in the zone before the beginning of every match, some more questionable than others such as Octane who uses the time for gaming, completely strange but I think it would be more concerning to see him sitting still or the likes of Revenant who always disappears before the drop, Mirage always says he’s away skinning something or doing something murderous. Bloodhound though they have always been a scary legend to come face to face with in battles, before every match they sit sharpening the edge of axe that they always carried along with them. Bloodhound always kept their cards close, never giving much away and I think that was the scariest part, being unpredictable. At least with Dr. Caustic you knew he wanted to watch you die a slow and painful death within his toxic gas. 

My ritual before the drop was listening to music, eyes closed, I found it easier than talking to the people I was about to face off with in the arena - it made it easier to pull the trigger without hesitation. 

As I let out sigh I took out my ear buds, knowing from experience the exact time of the drop, opening my eyes I was met with the blank stare of Bloodhounds mask from across the room the slight red glare that stained the glass looking right back at me. 

I peeled my eyes away once the squads flashed up on the screen. “Race you to the LZ” Octane’s rang out from beside me as we stepped on the platform. I rolled my eyes at him.

“You know we don’t have to race if we are on the same team Silva” He was still jumping on the spot the sound of his legs clanking against the ground. 

“Where’s the fun in that amigo?” 

“Let’s break some circuits” Wattson giggled from the other side of me. “Man, I really need to get a phrase” I said, fixing the strap of my boot, before the floor began to open and we were lowered above the destroyed land of World’s Edge, a chaotic mix of the epicentre that lay thick with snow, the dome that was surrounded by deadly lava - making it all the more scarier to fight near it, one wrong move and you would be cooked.

Octane - the adrenaline junkie that he is decided that fragment west would be the best option. The most popular landing spots amongst old and new legends and the spectators favourite spot to see a quick bloodbath. But, luck was most defiantly not on my side today scouting two floors and still having no weapon was not ideal. 

“I need a weapon” I said over the comms, sighing at all of the ammo that was one the floor but no gun.

“There’s a Mozambique here” Wattson’s voice came back over the comms.

“Hey! Isn’t that Chey’s line” Octane laughed. I picked up a few more syringes and cells before letting out a sigh followed by a quiet ‘dibs’. It was a good gun but nothing compared the dominant R-99 or the Volt, which judging by my luck the enemies would already be kitted with.

We moved to another building but it was long before the sound of footsteps sounded around us. “We’ve got friends here” I said quietly, a glimmer of luck started to appear when I found a hemlock of the lack of heavy ammo was disappointing. 

Wattson had put up her fences, the loud sound of the burning electricity warned the enemies off slightly. I peaked through one of the barred windows, spotting wraith who was focused on another door of our building I took the shot but she was quick to phase away. 

“Careful Horizon’s probably going to throw her ultimate over here” I warned my squad mates but Wattson quickly replied “I’ll take care of that”

“Wattson now!” I shouted as I seen newt being thrown towards us along with the deadly gas of caustic but luckily the pylon zapped them both down.

“Let’s go!” Octane yelled as he jammed the syringe into his leg before speeding off and we quickly followed, “Watch for traps Silva” I said, trying to catch up with him. I spotted Wraith trying to portal them out of the building, taking it back as she got the warning in her head. I quickly placed down on of my spike traps, pressure sensitive that once stepped on will send a deadly spike usually through the leg disabling the legend, which is exactly what it had down to Caustic as he was the next one to appear through the rift. 

Quickly taking him out, not giving him a chance to put down one of his traps as he muttered a ‘damn you’. Focusing back on the other two, Octane was already pushing to the building along with Wattson and taking care of the rest of the squad.

Finally getting better loot, I started feeling more positive about the match until the sound of Bloodhounds scan and us being in range. “Shit” I whispered. “We need to move now!” 

We scrambled back into the building, but Wattson had been took down by a triple take, I looked behind be to see the same stained red glass looking back at me as Bloodhound lifted their head from the scope of the sniper.

Quickly getting to work by putting down traps at the doors, taking a peak out of the barred window I quickly ducked back down as a bullet skimmed past my ear from the same gun that took Wattson out. I felt the blood from where the bullet grazed but my attention was diverted by the door across from me opening and then scream from Loba as the spike was deep in her leg, taking my chance I used the mastiff that I picked up from the other team to quickly end things. 

One down, two to go. 

“Careful Silva, Bloodhound has a triple take” 

Rampart was the next of their squad to reveal herself as I heard the distant sound of a barrier being placed up along with Sheila’s red laser scanning the walls ready to shred someone apart. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me” I groaned, just as another one of Bloodhound’s scan revealed us yet again. 

“Can you distract them Silva?” Pulling out one of my most deadly traps, once it hit the ground it sends out a wave of spikes that usually without fail impales the enemy long enough for them to need to heal and just the perfect amount of time for me to take them amount.

There was silence from Silva before I seen the green flash of him flying across the other building from his jump pad, that must be the distraction. I quickly snuck out of the building as I heard them both firing at the adrenaline junkie, quickly pulling the pin of the trap with my teeth, I tossed it in the middle of the pair. Octane had went down because of being lasered with Sheila. Getting closer I finished off Rampart, but as I was about to search for Bloodhound, they found me. 

The scary roar of his beast of the hunt sounded out.

Shit

Making a run for it, I didn’t get very far before a bullet got me right in the stomach, wheezing out for air at the sudden impact. Pulling myself up, my back leaning against the wall, the hunter came closer just like a predator stalking their prey. 

They bend down in front of me but as I waited for them to put me out of my misery I felt a hand caress my cheek, confusion washed over me. The hand moved to ghost over the tried blood that had trailed down the side of area and followed the trail on to my neck, goose bumps appearing after every touch. “You fought well, felagi fighter” My heart was thumping, they were so close it was almost making me forget that I was basically bleeding out, which I eventually did but the comfort from the hound made it less painful. 

_____________________________

Waking up in the respawn chambers up, I sat up with haste but immediately feeling the pain in my abdomen which made all of the events from the match flood back to me. Did I imagine it? Did it really happen?”

Then it came to me.

Making my way to the control room, where the cameras got all the footage the process of editing and making sure it’s ready to be aired to the spectators. I knocked on the door waiting for a response before the door flew open. 

“Hey Ezekiel, can you get me my body camera footage from the last match” He looked at me with a tilt of his head”

“Sur- is everything ok?” He asked, looking at me with concern. 

“Yeah, I just missed a few shots and want to review the footage in training” He nodded before turning around and handing me a USB.

“Thank you, appreciate it”

Taking the drive and heading to my room before plugging it in and clicking on the file with my name labelled on it. Skipping all of the footage until I got to the last fight. It did happen and I didn’t imagine it, I closed the screen of the laptop before biting my nail trying to think of what I should do.

Was I overthinking everything? But they didn’t kill me. They should have, like they had done to both of squad mates.

“Hey Anita, have you seen Bloodhound?” The solider was sat down with one of the weapon manuals that was lying around the communal area, building on her already extensive knowledge of every weapon to ever be created.

“Last time I seen them was in the training yard” I gave a quick nod. “Thanks, Anita”

“You’re welcome FNG” Pausing as I looked at her. “I’m not the new one anymore, you said you’d stop calling me that” 

She shrugged at me “It took you long enough to figure out what it meant, you think I am just going to let that go”

 I rolled my eyes at her mumbling ‘funny’, followed by a laugh from Anita “You’re right it is” She always loved when people didn’t follow her military talk, it meant she could basically speak in her own language without anyone knowing it was meant to make fun of them. 

Making my way to the training yard I pushed the door open, there was few other legends training but everyone usually kept well spaced apart because nobody wanted to get dropped in the training yard, that would be embarrassing. 

I spotted the tall frame of the hound, they were on one the last rows.  

Stopping behind them as the Raven’s bite axe flew to the target landing right on the dummy’s heart, I swallowed. Quickly putting my fear aside before I looked like an idiot just standing ther-

“How can I assist you?” Their voice rang out. Of course Bloodhound already new I was here, walking to the target they collected their axe finally looking at me as they walked back to their original standing position. 

“Ah- I just wanted to ask you something” I said, trying to look anywhere but at the intense gaze that was starting back at me. They nodded, giving me the go ahead to continue.

“Why didn’t you kill me” I asked 

“Did you want me to kill you?” They asked, sounding almost puzzled. I let out a sigh “No- I don’t mean it like tha-” I stopped myself, feeling like an idiot I should have just left it alone. 

Bloodhound tilted their head “You know, never mind- it doesn’t matter” but as I was about to walk off i felt a hand on my wrist, stopping me suddenly. “If it is bothering you, tell me” Bloodhound came closer, the close proximity throwing me off once again.

“Like you did with Wattson and Octane” I paused for a second trying to ignore how close they were to me and gather my thoughts “You took them right out, with no mercy- but you waited with me”

“I didn’t want you to suffer” They spoke, the hand came up to push my hair behind my ear, revealing the small stitches on the top of my ear caused from the triple take bullet. The same movement had that they had done in the match brought back the same feelings, causing me to hold my breathe trying to keep my composure. 

Their hand moved to my stomach grazing over the same area of where they had shot me. “The same reason I shot you here, because it would only wind you and the pain would be minimal” 

The touch sent Goosebumps all over my body, my heart hammering in my ears as I looked up at Bloodhound. “Why” I whispered, both of us lost in the moment because we had managed to get even closer barely any space between our bodies.

“You are special, the Allfather has blessed me with you” Their thumb tracing over my bottom lip then falling to my jaw tracing the few dotted cuts on it slowly, “that is why I could not kill you”

[seaofghouls]

DSMP FALLS! <1>

Ah! Summer break! A time for leisure, recreation, and taking her easy.

..Unless you're me.

A pair of triplets crash through a billboard with a go-kart. "AAAAAHHH!" Being followed by a monster of unimaginable horror. "It's getting closer!" One of the triplets cried. My name is Y/N. The boy to the right of me about to puke is my triplet brother, Tubbo, while the boy to my left screaming profanities is my other triplet brother, Tommy. You may be wondering what we're doing in this situation. "Look out!" Tubbo cried. "Agh!" Y/N screamed. "This monster is such a bitch!" Tommy cried. "Tommy!" Tubbo frowned. Rest assured, there's a perfectly logical explanation!

... Let's rewind. It all began when our parents decided we could use some fresh air. They shipped us up to Gravity Falls, Oregon, to stay with our great uncle in the woods. "This attic is amazing! Just look at all of my splinters!" Tubbo cried. "..And there's a fucking goat on my bed." Tommy sighed.

Tubbo walked up to the goat.

"Hey, new friend! Yes, you can keep chewing on my shirt!" Tubbo giggled. Y/N giggled as well. Tubbo and Tommy seemed to look on the bright side of things. I, however, was having a bit of a harder time getting used to our new surroundings. "Boo!" "Aagh!" Y/N jumped up from their spot from under a tree. An old man took off a mask and started laughing. And then there was our great uncle Schlatt. That guy. Our uncle had transformed his house into a tourist trap called the Mystery Shack. The real mystery is why anyone came. And guess who had to work there? Y/N sighed, sweeping the floor. Tubbo reached out to touch something in this gift shop before Schlatt slapped his hand away.

"No touching the merchandise!" He said. Tommy snickered and touched it anyway out of spite. It seemed like it was going to be the same routine all summer, until one fateful day.

"Alright, look alive folks! I need someone to go hang up these signs in the spooky part of the forest." Schlatt said. "Not it!" The triplets said at the same time. "Also not it." Ranboo said. "Nobody asked you, Ranboo." Schlatt said. "I know and I'm comfortable with that." Ranboo smiled. "Niki! I need you to put up these signs!" Schaltt said. "I would.. but I can't.. reach." She trailed off. "I'd fire all of you if I could." Schlatt sighed. "Okay, let's make it eeny, meeny, miny, you." Schlatt pointed at Y/N. "Yes!" Tommy and Tubbo exclaimed. "Awe what? Gruncle Schlatt, whenever I'm in those woods I feel like I'm being watched." Y/N said. "Oh, this again." He rolled his eyes. "I'm serious, something weird is going on! Just today, my mosquito bites spelled out beware!" Y/N said, showing schlatt their arm. "...That says bewarb." Schlatt said. "Look kid, the whole monsters in the forest thing is just a local legend. Drummed up by guys like me to sell merch to guys like that." Schlatt pointed at a guy distracted by a schlatt bobblehead. "So quit being so paranoid!" Schlatt said. ... "Ugh, Gruncle Schlatt. nobody ever believes what I say." Y/N groaned as they hammer signs in the forest. They hammer another tree but stop when they hear metal. "huh?" They hit it the hammer again in curiosity. Finding a secret door with a machine inside, they mess with the buttons for a bit before something opens up behind them. "What the.." Reaching into the hole, they find a dusty old journal. They brush it off and start reading. "Woah.. trust no one, huh?" Y/N mumbled. "Hello!" Tubbo exclaimed. "What are you reading, some nerd book?" Tommy asked. "Uh-uh, it's nothing!" Y/N exclaimed. "Uh-UH IT'S NOTHING!" Tommy mocked. "What, are you seriously not gonna show us?" Tubbo asked. "..Let's go somewhere more private," Y/N said. ... "It's amazing! Gruncle Schlatt said I was being paranoid, but apparently, Gravity Falls has this secret dark side!" Y/N exclaimed. "WOAH!" Tubbo exclaimed. "SHUT UP!" Tommy pushed Y/N with a grin on his face. "Get this! After a certain point, the pages just stop! Like the guy who was writing it mysteriously disappeared!" Y/N exclaimed.

The doorbell rang. "Who's that?" Y/N asked. "Welp, time to spill the beans! This guy's got a platonic date!" Tubbo grinned. "Platonic??" "Date??" Schlatt walked in as Tubbo came back in with someone. "Hey family, I want you to meet my new platonic boyfriend!" Tubbo exclaimed. "Sup." He said. "Hey." Y/N and Tommy said. "How's it hanging?" Schlatt finger gunned. "We met at the cemetery. He's really deep." Tubbo smiled. "..What's your name?" Y/N asked. "Normal.. Man!" He groaned out. "He means Norman." Tubbo giggled. "..Are you bleeding, Norman?" Tommy asked. "..It's jam." Norman said. Y/N stared at him in suspicion before Tubbo dragged Norman away. There was something with Norman that wasn't right. I decided to consult the journal. Y/N read the journal out loud. "Known for their pale skin and bad attitudes.. these creatures are often mistaken for.. TEENAGERS?!" Y/N exclaimed. "Beware Gravity Falls' nefarious ZOMBIES?!" Y/N gasped. "Zombies??" Tommy gasped. He was sitting there with Y/N. "Tommy, outside!" Y/N exclaimed. "Oh, no! Tubbo!" They both yelled. Norman lurched towards Tubbo, grabbed him, and put a flower crown on him. "Daisies?? You scallywag!" Tubbo gushed. "Is our brother dating a zombie or are we just going nuts?" Tommy muttered. "It's a dillema to be sure." Charlie said. "Agh!" Y/N jumped. "I couldn't help but overhear you guys talking to yourselves in this empty room." Charlie explained. "Charlie, you've seen Tubbo's platonic date, right? He's got to be zombie!" Y/N said. "Hm.. how many brains did you see the guy eat?" Charlie asked. "Zero.." Y/N sighed. "Look, dudes, I believe you. I'm seeing strange thing in this town all the time. Like, the mailman, I'm pretty sure that guy's a werewolf. But! You gotta have proof, or else people will think you're a major cukoo clock." Charlie said. "As always, big C, you're right." Tommy said. "My wisdom is both a wisdom and a curse." Charlie said. "Charlie! The toilets are clogged again!" Schlatt called out. "I am needed elsewhere." Charlie took off. Y/N and Tommy decided to work together to get some evidence. Throughout their studies, Norman certainly had strange behavior, but not enough to convict him of anything supernatural. "I'll talk to Tubbo, don't worry, sib!" Tommy said. "Alright." Y/N nodded. ... Tommy walked into the triplets' shared room. "Tubbo, we've got to talk about Norman." Tommy said. "I know! Isn't he great?? Look at this smooch mark he gave me!" Tubbo turned his head to show a large red area on his face. "Egh!" Tommy cried. "Hah! Gullible. It was just an accident with the leafblower. That was fun." Tubbo laughed. "No, listen, Tubbo! I'm trying to tell you that Norman is not what he seems! The journal that Y/N found!" Tommy insisted. "You think he might be a vampire?? That would be awesome!" Tubbo gasped. "Guess again, big T! A zombie he is!" Tommy said. "A zombie?? Not funny, Tommy!" Tubbo frowned. "I'm not joking! Y/N can agree, it all adds up! The bleeding, the limp, he never blinks! Have you noticed that??" Tommy exclaimed. "Maybe he's blinking when you're blinking." Tubbo suggested. "HE'S GOING TO EAT YOUR BRAINS, BIG T!" Tommy shook Tubbo. "Tommy! Listen to me. Norman and I are going on a date tonight and I'm going to be adorable! He's going to be dreamy! And I'm not going to let you and Y/N ruin it with another one of your crazy conspirices!" Tubbo kicked Tommy out. "Ah man.. what am I gonna do??" Tommy slumped against the door. Someone sat down next to him. "How'd it go, bro-bro?" Y/N asked. "He's refusing to listen.. He kicked me out." Tommy sighed. Y/N frowned. "Not surprising. Hopefully he'll come to that realization in his own." ... The two out of three triplets were sitting on the couch, looking over the footage. "I guess we don't have any actual evidence, huh?" Y/N sighed. "Yeah.. I guess we can be kinda paranoid sometimes-" Tommy stopped. In the footage clip, Norman's hand fell off and he put it back on. "WAIT WHAT?!" Tommy and Y/N exclaimed. They leaped off

the

couch in a hurry. "WE WERE RIGHT! HOLY SHIT!" Tommy exclaimed. Racing outside, the two tried to find their uncle. "GRUNCLE SCHLATT! GRUNCLE SCHLATT!" Y/N called out. Schlatt wasn't paying attention.

"Wait! Niki has the cart!" Tommy suggested. "Good eye, Tommy!" Y/N grinned. "Niki! Niki! We need the cart to save our brother from a zombie!" They ran up to her. "Try not to hit any pedestrains." She winked, giving them the keys. "Alright, Tommy! Let's go save our sister!" Y/N grinned. They backed up before Charlie stopped them. "Dudes! This is for the zombies." He handed them a shovel. "Thanks." Y/N grinned, "This is in case you see a pinata." He handed them a bat. "..Thanks?" Tommy said. "Better safe than sorry!" He called out. Tommy and Y/N sped off to find their brother. They heard screams and drove to the direction of the sound. "LET'S GO!" Y/N exclaimed. "Get his arm there, Steve!" Tubbo was struggling against several gnomes. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!" Tommy exclaimed. "Tommy! Y/N! Norman turned out to be a bunch of gnomes! And they're total assholes!" Tubbo cried.

"Gnomes..? We were way off." Tommy mumbled. Y/N flipped open the journal. "Damn.. no weaknesses." They sighed. "Hey! Hey! Let go of my brother!" Y/N demanded. "This is all one big misunderstanding. Your brothers not in any danger! He's just marrying all one thousand of us and becoming our king for all of eternity!" The lead gnome explained. "Give him back right now, or else, prick!" Tommy demanded. "You think you can stop us, child? You have no idea what we're capable of!" The gnome went on a tangent before Tommy scooped him up with the shovel and tossed him to the side. Y/N used that chance to free Tubbo, dragging him back to the kart with Tommy. "GO GO GO!" Tubbo exclaimed. "I wouldn't worry about it. See their little fucking legs? Those pricks are tiny." Tommy smirked. Tommy stopped when they heard the noises of a creature. A giant gnome creature, to be exact. "Damn." Tubbo said. "MOVE! GO GO GO!" Y/N screeched. The giant creature chased them through the forest. Gnomes launched onto the kart. "Agh!" Tubbo exclaimed. "GET OFF MY FACE!" Y/N cried. "I got you, sib!" Tubbo punched the gnome, while also accidentally punching Y/N several times before the gnome let go, revealing new bruises on Y/N's face. "..Thanks bro.." They winced. "Look out!" Tubbo cried. They crashed into the back of the Mystery Shack. They were officially cornered. The triplets hugged each other in terror. "W-where's Gruncle Schlatt??" Y/N asked. "It's the end of the line, kids! Tubbo, marry us before we do something crazy!" The lead gnome ordered. "There's gotta be a fucking way out of this.." Tommy muttered. "I gotta do it." Tubbo decided. "What?!" The other two triplets exclaimed. "Tubbo, are you crazy?!" Y/N asked. "Trust me." Tubbo said. "..What??" Tommy gasped. "Trust me, just this once, guys." Tubbo said. The two hesitated and then nodded. "Alright, Jeff. I'll marry you." Tubbo stepped forward. "Hot dog!" The lead gnome climbed down to Tubbo. "You may now kiss the groom." Tubbo said after the lead gnome put a ring on his finger. "Well, I don't if I do!" The lead gnome grinned, puckering up. Tubbo took that chance to hit him with the leafblower that was left outside. "Agh!" The gnome screamed. "That's for lying to me! That's the breaking my heart! And that's for messing with my siblings!" Tubbo shot the gnome off into the forest and the rest of the gnomes scattered away. As the triplets walked back into the Mystery Shack, Tubbo stopped them. "Hey, Y/N, Tommy, I'm sorry. You two were really just trying to look out for me." Tubbo sighed. "Oh, don't be like that! You saved our asses back there!" Tommy smiled. "I guess I'm just sad that Norman turned out to be a bunch of gnomes." Tubbo sighed. "Hey, look on the bright side! Maybe the next one will be a vampire." Y/N giggled. "You're just saying that." Tubbo giggled, punching their shoulder. "..Awkward triplet hug?" Y/N suggested. "Awkward triplet hug." Tommy and Tubbo said together, the three of them in a hug. ... "Yeesh, you three get hit by a bus or something? Hahah!" Schlatt laughed. The triplets ignored him. "Hey, um,, I accidentally overstocked some items, why don't you three take something?" Schlatt said. "What's the catch?" Y/N raised an eyebrow. "The catch is do it before I change my mind, now go!" Schlatt said. The triplets grinned at each other. Tubbo picked out a grappling hook, Tommy picked out a music disc, and Y/N picked out a a hat with a bat symbol on it. ... This journal told me that there was no one you could trust. But when you go up against an army of gnomes with side by side with two people, you realize they probably got their back. "Tubbo, can you get the light?" Y/N asked. "You got it, sib!" Tubbo shot the grappling hook at the light. "Oh, for fuck's sake!" Tommy rolled his eyes. Tubbo and Y/N giggled. Our uncle told us there was nothing strange about this town, but who knows what other secrets are waiting to be unlocked? -------

[littlegoa]

Smoking a Tobacco Pipe: Expectations vs. Reality

Every pipe smoker remembers the first time he saw an attractive character smoking a pipe. It could have been the Hobbit cartoon version of Gandalf. Or maybe Sherlock Holmes was a victim because he took on the "three pipe problem". For some, it could be a picture of your grandfather, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, or Bertrand Russell. No matter where, when, or how that first impression was made, the indelible style and irresistible coolness of its core driving force shaped the impression of pipe craftsmanship. Memories of meeting these legendary Pipers will forever remain as a kind of platonic ideal. That's a big thing to keep in mind. until it doesn't.

With these respected tobacco pipe ambassadors behind us, it's a quick leap forward to associate pipe with ease, style, glamour and fame. But the reality is that pipe craft requires a lot more than it looks. Adjusting your expectations and understanding more deeply the nuances of smoking a pipe will help enhance every aspect of your experience. Read about these common expectations about pipe smoking and get a fresh understanding of the realities that have made this activity so important to Pipe Heroes from the very beginning.

1. How to smoke - fast and consistent vs. Little effort required

Anyone who has ever sat with a master piper in a local smoking lounge would have personally been in awe of his smoking style. Expertise is evident in the meticulous combination of tools, the right choice of tobacco for the day (carrying around 16 cans for two hours isn't too much?), and a broken-in pipe or two that fit very comfortably in the palm of his hand.. 

But even more attractive is Piper's technique. Easy to handle with his stuff, workout packs and professional lights. And there is a way the pipe burns. Swami has a way to make everything seem simple. Their true light is constantly on and it feels like being able to make pit stops, order burgers, make phone calls and still peacefully return to smoking pipes. While it's true that technology plays a big role in keeping pipes burning, the truth is that no matter how good a fire is, it has to be put out. Trying like crazy to light a pipe is a curse on the spirit of a hobby that puts peace above all else. Regardless of the old guard's skill level, remember that it's not your fault that a smoking pipe is haunted. Rather, it means you are taking your time.

2. One pipe will do the trick vs. collector's bug

There is a "pipe" and there are "pipes". Legends don't pose in front of the entire collection. He was captured in a famous photo or two with old gear hanging over his mouth. Who can blame a novice Piper for thinking he has it all? If you choose something that catches your attention, you can go long term. As every piper who's been around the block proves, the collector's bug bites once and keeps on biting. You can start with billiards, but soon you will see a twisted bulldog. Or you might be wondering what it's like to sniff over a nose-warmer. And then look for the distinct rusty finish and mortar and what you're wondering about the meerschaum. The boutique maker you just found on Instagram? The fun continues. The good news is that good technique and quality smoke collector handling are essential. Suppressing one pipe is a surefire way to taste bad because you don't have enough time to cool the pipe. And to be completely honest, it's not that much fun. Many pipers recommend a minimum of 7 pipe turns, one per day. A refreshing time each week ensures optimum smoke (as long as you keep it clean).

3. Tobacco: Simple Flavor vs. Complex Profile

Sure, "tobacco" might be in the title of every mix, but that doesn't mean we're dealing with the exact same thing here. If you're entering the world of pipes and you probably came from the world of ordinary cigarettes, it's easy to misunderstand the complexity that "tobacco" actually involves. Taking a quick look at a wide range of tobacco products online or at your local tobacco store will solve it all. English, Oriental, Virginia, Fragrant, Balkan and more. Master blowers also participate in the blending, creating cross-blends that complicate categories and bring unique flair, expertise and nuance. Furthermore, cutting tobacco fundamentally changes the experience of smoking pipe. From flakes and ribbons to coins and cakes, the quickest and best way is to replace "cigarettes" with seasoned idiosyncrasies. Intentional smoking with a slow, intense focus on room notes, intensities, cuts, and brands will enhance your experience and make you a great conversationalist.

Conclusion

Wherever you go on your Pipe Trip, you will undoubtedly start your hobby with some vision in mind, inspired by the venerable Pipe Man you encountered. It is good wisdom to see that legacy. Just as good cakes get stacked in your pipe, so they get baked in your own history. It's easy to gain some momentum from initial missteps, but nothing bends quite like the old days. As the collection builds, you'll dive into endless depths, invest in the community, sample the rich blends on the market, and identify your picks, from tobacco blends and cuts to pipe sizes. Why plumbing? And every day, when you pick a well-worn smoking pipe and choose that desired cigarette, you will find that you have more experience in pipe craft than the day before.

[liums]

Jade SSR Halloween ( Scary Outfit ) Personal Story - Could you teach me?

Could you teach me?

Jade Leech SSR haloween card “Scary Outfit” personal story- Could you teach me?

As I was translacting I was also reading the story for the first time, so any comment I wrote, i wrote them without knowing what would happen next.

Part 1

-Classroom-

Ruggie- Reached the bill..

Kalim- I’ll ask Jade, somehow it should be possible!

Jade- Kalim, this is a rule. No exeptions are allowed.

Silver- *sleeps*

Floyd- I’m tired of this~

Floyd- Jellyfish (Silver) is also sleeping. Goldfish (Riddle) , do something interesting.

Riddle- Why me!? You should go somewhere else, Floyd.

Ruggie- Wow, they sure are lively. Are you guys busy?

Jamil- Me and Silver are just escorts. Don’t worry about us.

Kalim- Wait a little longer Ruggie. I’m talking to Jade about my budget.

Jade- Kalim. As I said many times, the budget is unnegotiable. Please take some things out. (I can feel Jade patience slowly going away)

Kalim- Don’t say that, Jade. If the show is flashy, the visitors will be pleased, right?

Riddle- Kalim, every dorm has a budget. I’ll have you follow the rules since Scarabia is no diferent.

Ruggie- I’ll finish my business here right away. Jade here, my budget aplication.

Jade- Yes, sure....Mr. Kalim, please follow Savanaclaw example.

Jade- You see, it’s perfectly within the budget.

Silver- *sleeps* (like the angel he is)

Jamil- Silver was tired of waiting and fell asleep....Kalim, let’s go home and reconsider.

Kalim- Hmmm....ok. Oh,but hey, did everyone talk about costumes and decorations?

Ruggie- Ours has already been decided. This year’s theme is pirates.

???- Ah, that’s a noisy theme.

Jamil- Azul , you came too.

Azul- yeah, when I passed in front of the classroom, it seemend to be very exiting.

Jade- The ghosts of the pirates who ransacked the sea in search of of treasures, and left behind numerous legends..... it’s certainly scary.

Ruggie- I don’t think that Jack, who had the idea, thought so much about it.

Ruggie- I think it suits Savanaclaw since we have a lot of physical strenght.

Floyd- Good, perfect for halloween.

Kalim- By the way, is there a Halloween event in the sea?

Jade- Why yes, of course. Every year at this time, we collect shellfish and starfish for decoration,

Jade- On the day we fill a bottle with luminous weeds and have a luminous party....like lanterns. And we carry them arround.

Floyd- We also play lively songs with instruments.

Kalim- Good! Music is always needed on banquets and festive days.

Jamil- I’m sure that the shape and tone of the musical instruments in the sea are different from those on land.

Silver- Carrying a lantern for a night light party is also an interesting costom unique to the sea. (oya, the sleeping beauty woke up)

Riddle- Yup, It looks like it would be an amazing sight.

Azul- I’m honored everyone is interested in our hometown costoms.

Azul- If you wish, we will make a tour package and guide you during the holidays. 

Jade- It looks very fun, but let’s talk about it in another time.

Jade- Well. As you say, Halloween on land and on the sea is quite different.

Jade- I have been amazed with cultural differences since we came to land.

Jade- There are many things I don’t know yet. To live up to the expectations as one of the steering committee members,

Jade- I would like to deepen my understanding of the Halloween on land.

Jade- Can you tell me what kind  of Halloween you were having in your hometowns?

Part 1 end

Silver couldn’t keep his eyes open during the whole scene, that boy is precious XD

Part 2

- classroom-

Jade-  Can you tell me what kind  of Halloween you were having in your hometowns? (Jade pls don’t ask that to these poor kids, Riddle? lets not talk about it, Jamil, probably spent the whole day on the kitchen cooking because kalim was too busy partying, and silver??? the poor boy always got spooked by Lilia non-stop all night )

Riddle- ....Halloween?

Riddle-  In my hometown, it seems to be standard for children to gather in the plaza and “have fun together”.

Jamil- It seems like .... you are talking  as if it is someone else’s problem.

Riddle- I only participated once. So I’m not familiar with it....

Riddle- What impressed me is that we all did “Apple Bobbing”

Floyd- Goldfish, apple bobbing.....what is it? It’s has an interesting name.

Riddle- You fill a large tub with water and apples, and you have to grab the apples with you mouth. Of course , you can’t use your hands.

Jade- That is ....a game unique to land.

Azul- Yes, as soon as you take your hand off the apples under the sea, they’d rise to the surface immediately.

Jade- If it were a game to chase the suddenly rising apple, it could be done even under the sea.(I’m pretty sure he said this to tease Azul)

Floyd- That might be unexpectedly interesting.

Silver- However, an apple....can you really get it with just your mouth?

Riddle- It is usually done with small apples....but its still difficult. (say that to the tweels and their sharp ass teeth)

Jade- Its a game in which  well-build children have the advantage to grab the apple.

Riddle- Yeah. Not only the size of the mouth but also jaw strenght is required.

Ruggie- If we did it in this school wouldn’t Jade and floyd be super advantageous at this game then?

Ruggie- Their body is big. And the teeth are sharp.

Jade- (*angelic smile*) Kufufufu What about it? Opening my mouth wide in front of everyone would be embarassing...

Jade- I may not the able to take the apple because I hesitaded to catch it. ( yes yes, i’ll try to belive you)

Floyd- How do you decide who wins or loses this game?

Riddle- I think the rule was that the person who gets the apple in the shortest amount of time would win.

Riddle- It seems that even in Wonderland this game is played in some areas. ( i didn’t understand what he said, he said” Kiseki no kuni” wich translates to Land of Miracles\wonders, so I assumed he was talking about wonderland)

Riddle- Cater once challanged me on  “How many can we get”.

Riddle- I couldn’t get the hang of it ,so my face and clothes got soaked in water....

Riddle- When I think about it now, the result isn’t that important.

Riddle- We laugh and make noises as we try to get the apples. I think that is the main purpose.

Jade- Certainly. It is very interesting the sight of Riddle desperately opening his mouth and chasing apples...

Jade- No, It seems to be worth watching.

Riddle- What do you mean?

Kalim- I understand what Riddle is saying. It’s more important to have fun than to win or lose!

Riddle-Oh...Thats right.

Kalim- Its a bit different from my kingdom, but the Halloween in the Land of Hot Sands is really fun!

Jade- Oh, is there a special characteristic about the Halloween in the Land of Hot Sands? 

Kalim- No, the halloween in the land of hot sands its a “treat banquet”! 

Kalim- It’s bacause in my country, talking arround the banquet is the most enjoyable thing.

Kalim- So when it’s halloween time, we prepare as many dishes as you can put on the table.

Jamil- So that the ghosts who have returned, can eat as much as they want.... together.

Jamil-  We prepare a large range of sweets, salty foods, spicy foods....from light foods to large dishes.

Jamil- When Halloween is near, the kitchen is always at full capacity,starting with the preparation of the ingredients.

Jade- Someday I would like to see susch magnificent banquet. Do you have any traditional dishes?

Kalim- Speaking of haloween treats....I like that

Kalim- It’s a dish that has baked vegetables and sauce on top of each other.

Jamil- so? go on? ( His expression is 5* XD, he be like”I’m not payed enough for this...., but then again,I’m not paid”)

Kalim- Oh,That face is definitely pinpoiting, you see, the ingredients are potatoes, eggplants and tomatoes!

Jade- ..........So it’s like lasagna, but it replaces the pasta with vegetables?

Kalim- Oh, that’s close. When it’s freshly baked its really delicious.

Azul- So that’s it. It seems to be preferred by healthy-minded owners.

Jade-Jamil, can you tell me the name of the dish?

Jamil- Its....Moussaka, it’s a local dish. (It really exits, I looked it up)

Kalim- Oh yeah. That’s it!

Kalim- When I was a kid, and I really wanted to eat it even though it wasn’t banquet day, I’d ask Jamil to make it.

Jamil- It was terrible at that time. My parents and other servants scolded me....“Don’t use fire when you are alone!”

Kalim- Eh!? Is that so !?

Jamil- I was still in elementary school.

Jamil- I didn’t cook as much as I do now...It would have been bad if I had started a fire.

Jamil- Now I can understand, why my parents and the other servants were angry with me.

Kalim-Oh, I’m sorry.

Kalim- But the Moussaka I ate that time was really delicious. I still remeber it well.

Kalim- Now that I remembered it, I want to eat it again. Hey Jamil, Please make it again!

Azul- Please one for me as well. I’d like to include it in Mostro Lounge new menu....

Jamil- I don’t want that.

Kalim- Well, don’t say that~

Jamil- Moussaka is a time-consuming dish that requires 2 kinds of sauces because it requires many ingridients.

Jamil- I don’t think it suitable to be served in a cafe.

Jade- So it’s cooked in a oven, isn’t it.

Jade- The ovens at Mostro lounge aren’t that big....is it really so hard to produce it in big quantities?

Azul- Isn’t there any way to increase the production quantity by making them all together on a big oven?

Ruggie- Octavinelle is still the same.

(I wonder what Riddle and floyd have been doing this entire time, Silver is probably sleeping)

Jade- Fufufu...For more information, let´s eat jamil’s home cooking, and then discuss this again.

Jamil- Wait a minute, I don’t want to make....so many.

Silver- *Sleeps* (oya oya I was right 0.0)

Jamil- You see, Silver fell asleep again while you guys from Octavinelle were exited about the profits.

Jade- Oops, I’m sorry for this. We devianted from the subject.

Jade- Mr.Silver, excuse me. Would you like to wake up?

Silver- Ah...I’m sorry. Was it about the Halloween in the Valley of Thorns?

Jade- Yes, please tell us your story.

Silver- About halloween, I can only remember that my father-....that Lilia was enthusiastic and disguised. ( he corrected himself by sayng LIlia instead of parents because Lilia asked him not to call him his parent while with being with other students, so it wouldn’t be strange for silver, Lilia and malleus are his guardians)

Riddle- By the way, the 2 were in the same town.

Jade- After all people disguise themselfs in the valley of thorns... Disguise is a common custom in every Country isn’t it?

Silver- Don’t the mermaids use disguises too?

Jade- I don’t have the habit of wearing clothes on a daily basis.

Jade- It’s fun to dress in various ways on land because I’m not familiar with it.

Silver- In fact, disguises are not a fun memory. Even as I recall now, it’s horrifying.

Floyd- Eh, wasen’t Mandako-chan (Lilia) smaller than now when it happened?

(Mandako is an octopus, also known as Opisthoteuthis Californiana, look it up and u will see why Floyd calls Lilia this XD)

Silver- Oh, he looked the same as now....

Silver- But the only time I saw such terrifying appearence of Lilia was on that halloween.

Jade- That’s interesting. He is a very cute person, as he is pround of.

Silver- The frighteningness of Lilia disguised is scary... 

Silver- I would tremble with Sebek as I was watching with him

Silver- That night was so frightening that the two of us promised that we would definitely stay up until morning.

Jade- If I get this scared, I’m sure I’ll cry out lound.

Floyd- Well, now I want to see. I have been with you since we were born , but I have never seen that.

Ruggie- So, why did you and Sebek pray in tears for the morning to come?

Silver- Oh no....I fell asleep middle way without noticing.

Riddle- After everything.....

Silver- Sebek couldn’t dare going to the bathroom all night, in the next morning he was angry with me and  I was called “Traitor!”

Ruggie- Hey, seems like Sebek also has a cute side.

Jamil- So, how was halloween where you lived?

Ruggie- Me? The story of Halloween in the slums isn’t very interesting.

Jade- Well, I don’t think so. Everything about land is fresh and interesting, so please tell me.

Ruggie- Its okay to talk separately,... but don’t listen and pull. 

Ruggie- “Trick or treat”.....Isn’t it normal to be mischievous if you don’t receive a treat?

Ruggie- But my usual Halloween isn’t that cute.

Ruggie- If you don’t give me a treat, I’ll not go home until you give me some....24 hours endurance. It was a treats collection event.

Part 2- end

Lilia really did tromatize the poor kids....poor Sebek was left alone XD

Part 3

-Classroom-

Silver, Kalim and Riddle- 24 HOURS ENDURANCE TREAT COLLECTION EVENT!?

Jade- Sweets collection...It seems like something you usually do on Halloween but....

Jade- From what Mr.Ruggie just said it seems this one quite different.

Ruggie- That’s righ. Because treats are a thing we rarely eat.

Ruggie- Just say “Trick or Treat” and you will get sweets for free.

Ruggie- There’s no way that hyenas will miss out this change to eat.

Jade- Mr.Ruggie, when you come to Mostro Lounge,(Ruggie works there sometimes to get money)

Jade- You bring a storage container with you.

Jade-Does that mean that your appetite for food hasn’t changed?

Ruggie- I gathered the children from the neighborhooh, we decided the area they were in charge, and toured the village.

Ruggie- ....Not missiong one single house.

Jamil- That is a tremendous obsession....

Ruggie- If my appearence changes, I’ll get sweets again, so we changed the group members and went to the same houses many times. (When I leaded trick or treat groups I did this too XD)

Silver- If you go that far....It seems to be a problem.

Ruggie- You see, many years ago, our operation got caught by the caretaker of the neighborhood association....

Ruggie- We were charged with “Trick or treat ban” righ away.

Jade- How sad. Didn’t everyone get disapointed?

Ruggie- That’s right. I was a kid too, so I greedily made a mistake by pushing it too far.

Ruggie- I was the most anoyed since I was like a big brother to the children of the local area.

Jade- I was wondering what you were talking about earlier, but Mr.Ruggie is surprisingly good at taking care of children.

Jade- I had the impression that you only do it when there is a reward....

Ruggie-.....Well, let’s leave that matter aside.

Ruggie- My grandma would do pumpkin pie, for the children who were sick.

Riddle-Pumpkin pie....it seems delicious.

Jade- We have a new candidate for the Halloween manu

Ruggie- Ah, it’s a secret recipe that only the Bucchi family knows, so if you ask me for it, it won’t be cheap. Shishishi!

Jade- As expected , Mr Ruggie is astute.

Jade- It looks better than cookies and muffins, and above all, it shoud be satisfying to eat.

Ruggie- Of course. I was sick. But it wasen’t gorgeous.

Ruggie- The pumpkin pie was made from Jack-o-Lantern’s  hollowed-out contents.

Jade-.....I would have never thought of that way to use it

Ruggie- So, from the next year, I started a part-time job to make Jack-o-Lantern for pumpkin pie.

Azul- You really have experienced various part-time jobs...I’m impressed.

Ruggie- A job where a free bite from the pumpkin pie was provided to the client for free.

Ruggie- You could take the hollowed out contents for free...

Ruggie- Isn’t that amazing !? It sure feels like it is. Haloween, banzai !

Jade- Amazing! I should take those business guts as an example.

Silver- ....Everyone has enjoyed the Halloween in different ways.

Kalim- Yes, Let’s enjoy Halloween at the school and make good memories!

Floyd- Enjoy it to you heart’s content?

Azul- Good memories....?

Kalim- ......? Don’t you enjoy Halloween?

Jade- It wasen’t an event with that meaning for us mermaids from the sea of the north

Jade- Those who die in the sea often have regrets and despair.

Jade- Those who were devoured by a storm, those who lost the route to their destination and died on board....

Jade- In any case, it is not uncommon for the returning ghosts to be ferocious.

Azul-  Yeah, defeating the ghosts of the sea usually comes first.

Jamil- Didn’t you just say “ The Halloween is celebrated with  lanters party and bright music”?

Floyd- The lanters are a landmark to prevent the mermaids from accidentally going to the ghost world. 

Floyd- Playing music is also to keep the ghosts calmer.

Azul-  It also seems that there is the intention to calm toughts and sadness.

Riddle- .....There are ghosts all over the ocean?

Jade- I haven’t seen them but....

Jade- During Halloween school would even send home a notice.

Jade- Places you shouldn’t approach, times you shouldn’t go out, etc....Every year, there are missing people (0.0)

Ruggie- Wait a minute....that’s too scary.

Floyd- Come to think of it. When I was in middle school, I think I saw three Jade in different places~.

Jade-I tought I was talking to floyd once, but the next day I remember he told me “I haven’t heard that”.

Jade- I didn’t really notice at the time that it wasen’t him....

Azul- It was Halloween.Such things happen. 

Jamil- That sort of thing...

Silver-The sea is a terrifying world that we can’t imagine....

Jade- At the sea’s Halloween, you can enjoy thrills that you wouldn’t normally experience.

Floyd- Well, you won´t get bored~

Azul- As Mr.Ruggie mentioned earlier, I’m proud that there are many business opportunities!

Jade- Aside from Azul’s work, I like the Halloween event, whether by sea or on land.

Jade- I’m exited to think of what kind of unexpected things will happen.

Jade- I was selected as a steering committee member, and I would like everyone on land to experience a different feeling than usual.

Jade- We can deliver a different kind of thrill because we are from the sea.

Jade- Let’s have a darker Halloween this year, which will be second to none. Fufufu....

Jade- Happy Halloween

END

So, what did we learn? sTAY AWAY FROM THE SEA AT HALLOWEEN

wow, so much lore in Jade’s personal story

Add me if u want uwu

Disclaimer- I don’t own Twisted wonderland or any of its characters, This is a Fan translaction therefore it’s not oficial 

[combat-wombatus]

Hot Cocoa

Pairing: Iida Tenya x gn!reader

Warnings: brief cursing (mostly just bakugou being bakugou), some suggestive humor (m*neta is involved too)

Genre: fluff (a lil bit of crack bc why not)

WC: a bit over 8k? went slightly overboard with this idea and not entirely happy with the ending but i already rewrote it like 5 times so it is what it is-

(A/N): heya! so this is my first fic and i was kinda nervous about posting it...

it started out as an idea on @todorkihoe’s discord server but then it evolved into this monstrous nightmare so...it took me like a whole week to hash everything out and the logistics of the secret santa thing was an absolute nightmare. but it was worth it!!

It was the holiday season. Most people were taking time off of work to hang out with their friends and family. You had wanted nothing more than to relax in your hot tub with a glass of sparkling cranberry juice and scrumptious holiday cookies, but being a pro-hero meant sacrifices.

You were signed on as a sidekick in the UA Hero Agency’s Tokyo branch. The UA Hero Agency was exactly that: a hero agency formed by the most illustrious graduating class at UA. Not everyone from their class eventually went into the agency, but they were a large agency, with around 36 pro-heroes working full-time. This meant that they had several branches. You, a recent graduate from UA, knew these heroes who were a year above you at UA. They were special. When you started at UA, there were already whispers about “the Class of Legends”. Every single person who graduated the year after had been through enormous trauma during their years at UA. You thought that they were true heroes: strong, unbending even in the face of overwhelming adversity. They were only in their first year when they had been attacked by villains: twice. One of them had even been kidnapped. You couldn’t even begin to fathom how hard they must have worked to get to where they were today. They were resilient, and it showed. The UA Hero Agency is now one of the top Hero Agencies in not only Japan, but also the world. In fact, with their combined power, you wouldn’t be surprised if they happened to make an international branch. You knew that some of the heroes at your agency, Can’t Stop Sparkling and Pony, wanted to start something overseas but didn’t yet have the manpower to make it happen. You were sure that within a few years, their ranks bolstered by new graduates, they would take UA to the international stage.

So it was Christmas Eve. Even though you wanted the chance to chill out at home with some relaxing instrumental jazz and freshly baked sweets, you were out patrolling Tokyo’s vibrant shopping sector instead, on the lookout for villains who wished to ruin everyone else’s holiday fun. The mall was abuzz with shoppers, some hanging out in the verandas with cup of hot cocoa in their hands, others hurrying through, their arms loaded with shopping bags, searching for last-minute gifts they had previously forgotten to purchase. It was definitely not the worst patrol ever. The cozy atmosphere almost had you sighing in contentment, before you heard a voice shout, “thief!”

Of course a villain had to ruin the fun. They had a tendency to do that. You weren’t very comfortable using your quirk in such a loud, crowded area, but you bet that you could catch a small-time shoplifter without it anyways. You raced through the crowd, tracing the voice that had called out moments earlier. You saw a tuft of orange hair weaving unnaturally through the crowd of shoppers, and sprinted forwards, your eyes locked on the target. You followed the path they had created unknowingly for you, trying not to draw attention to yourself. It would only slow you down and light a fire under the criminal, which was exactly what you didn’t need.

Within moments, you caught up to them. Sneaking up behind them, you snatched their wrist and smacked your quirk-suppressing cuffs on it.

“Fuck!” He swore. How did he get caught so quickly? He could have sworn that there was no one chasing him. Pesky heroes. Relying on the comparative lack of heroes patrolling during the holidays, as well as the customary holiday shopping rush, was a sound strategy. He had done the same in previous years without getting caught. If only that damned, nosy civilian hadn’t shouted…

“Please do not resist arrest. It will be easier for all parties involved. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. There are eyewitnesses to your crime. Please drop your bags and hold out your other wrist.” You said calmly. You had a beautiful voice. It was calming and had a lilt to it that was a byproduct of your quirk. The villain did as you said, knowing that there would be no escape.

You sighed. Pressing a button on the comms situated in your ear, you reported the situation back to your office. You then called the nearest detective station and waited until their patrol car got here so you could hand the man over. Glancing at your watch, you realized your patrol was almost over. You did one last sweep of the premises, then headed back to the agency.

Today, the agency was the emptiest you had ever seen it. It was a large building, with 20 above-ground floors. In fact, it was essentially a mini-city. There was a heated indoor pool, a sauna, an elite gym that would make fitness junkies drool, a massage and spa, three verandas, and a rooftop greenhouse. It had a café reminiscent of the UA cafeteria, and all types of cuisines were available. In fact, Lunch Rush’s niece was working in the café, and the food was always heavenly. Sometimes, heroes from other agencies would drop off at the UA Hero Agency just for a bite of food after a long patrol. It was the unofficial headquarters of all the hero agencies in Japan, and it certainly lived up to its reputation.

Thinking about the café, you were suddenly hungry for some pad thai. Arriving at the door, you dropped off your comms and cloak at the door to your office and headed down to the café for some food.

“(Y/N)!!! You’re back!” Your friend squealed.

“Yeah Mina, just got off of patrol. Arrested this shoplifter trying to take advantage of the holiday chaos.” Spying her coat in her hands, you realized she was on her way out.

“Cool! You’re always so efficient with your arrests. Anyhow, I’m going to head home. My parents and I are getting some dinner together. I’ll be back for the party, yeah? Don’t open any presents without me!” Mina waved, a grin on her face. You assured her that you would make sure everyone waited for her to celebrate. You wanted to see your parents too, but they were currently on an international tour. They were famous singers, pioneers of a new genre of music. It was a sort of lullaby, but it wasn’t meant to put people to sleep. It was more of an enchanting, calming kind of music present only in fantasy books before your mother brought it to life. She was wildly popular, and your father was only too happy to support her. Speaking of which, your phone rang in your pocket. You took it out and accepted the video call.

“(Y/N)! It’s so nice to see you baby! How’s it going? I know you had patrols today but I forgot about the time difference and your father had to stop me before I called you and distracted you during patrols! He’s always so paranoid you’ll hurt yourself, sweetie. Stay safe, okay?” Your mother was always cheerful.

“Yeah mom, I know. I’m doing pretty well, actually. I arrested a shoplifter today,” you replied, recounting the same story you just told Mina. “Everything’s pretty calm here. How’s your tour going? I missed you,” you asked her.

“That’s good to hear sweetie!” You mom smiled. “The tour is amazing. I’ve never had such an international turnout before! Maybe I need to start considering singing in other languages! Everyone’s always so supportive.” You smiled at her, happy that she was enjoying herself.

“You deserve it Mom. I’m glad that your music is appealing to an international audience. You always work so hard. It’s nice to see that people appreciate all that you’ve done.”

“Thanks sweetie. Here, I’ll let your dad talk to you for a bit.” There was a bit of shuffling on her end as she handed the phone over to your father.

“Hey sweetheart,” your father’s voice boomed through the phone. You held your phone away from your ear, wincing a bit. Quickly dialing the volume down, you responded.

“Hey Papa. Mom said the tour was going well.”

“Yeah, it is. How’s the holidays going for you?” You heard the slight sadness in his voice. You knew that he wanted Mom to take a break in the middle of the tour and spend Christmas with you, but Mom was adamant about it. It was a holiday tour, after all, and tickets had already been booked. Some people were going to see her concerts as a way of celebrating, and she wouldn’t let them down.

“I’m doing good. It’s pretty peaceful here. No big missions or anything,” you say, in an attempt to comfort him.

“Ok, that’s good to hear sweetheart. We miss you.”

“I miss you too, Papa. Don’t worry though, I’ll be here when you guys get back. Have fun in Paris!” You replied, suddenly feeling sad. “Bye Papa! Bye Mom! I’ll see you guys soon!” You blew a kiss to the camera and hung up. Sighing a little, you trotted towards Emiko, the revered chef.

“Can I have a pad thai please?” You asked, putting your phone back in your pocket.

“One pad thai, coming right up!” Emiko beamed. “So, I hear there’s a party tonight. Should I make anything special?”

You thought about it for a bit, then shook your head. “No, you don’t have to. It’s mostly just for the presents. We already have the booze covered. I think Momo is ordering some special hors d’œuvres already and Sato is taking care of the cookies. Are you coming?”

Emiko shook her head. “I’m spending the night with my family and my boyfriend. I think I might make you guys some tiramisu though. I have all the ingredients and I don’t want them to spoil since I’ll be gone for a few days. Desserts are my specialty anyways,” she added. Then, with a knowing smirk, she prodded your arm. “Do you have anyone on your mind? You know, Mina and Ochaco hung some mistletoe up before they left…”

You blushed. Of course they did. Your friends knew all about your one-sided crush. You also knew that he would still be working here. He was always working. You were pretty sure that he had the mind of a robot, focused only on his work and his legacy. With those hand motions he made, you weren’t surprised if he actually was one. You shook your head to get rid of these thoughts. Emiko didn’t know. At least, you didn’t think she knew. You really regretted telling Mina about your little crush. With her tendency to run her mouth, you wouldn’t be surprised if the entire agency knew already. With the exception of your actual crush, of course. He was simply too socially dense to see the signs and too uninterested to pry.

Taking your pad thai, you scurried away from a smug Emiko and plopped yourself down at a table. You dug into your noodles and sighed in contentment. Maybe working during the holidays wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t like you had friends who weren’t as busy as you were anyways.

You finished the last of your noodles, then got up and took your tray to the recycling area. Heading up to your office, you paused by Ingenium’s office. His door was cracked open, and you peeked inside. You had to muffle your giggles at the sight.

He was wrapping presents with such a focused look on his face that you found absolutely adorable. His brows were furrowed, the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth. He had a spool of ribbons laying on the floor next to him, as well as elegant white-and-gold wrapping paper and a roll of tape. What really amused you was the pile of paper, ribbons, and tape that was bunched together and tossed aside, obviously a result of trial and error. Iida looked frustrated. He had already put his presents in boxes so that they were almost uniform in size and easier to wrap, but he was clearly struggling. You estimated that he had forty boxes littering the floor, but he only had five wrapped. You watched as he ripped off the wrapping on the newest box he had started on, muttering about how hard it was to get straight edges with the wrapping paper. Knocking lightly on his door, you stuck your head around the doorway.

“Need some help?” You asked.

Iida looked up from unspooling more wrapping paper. His face brightened at your offer.

“Yes please, (Y/L/N)-san! I would greatly appreciate your aid. I seem to be having trouble folding the paper and trying to tape it together without it sliding from its position. If you could hold the paper in place while I tape, that would be wonderful!” He looked so excited, almost like a puppy.

You smiled at his eagerness. “Of course, I’d be happy to help.”

You sat down across from him and held the wrapping paper in place while he tore off a piece of tape. The two of you worked in tandem for around an hour, until you finished wrapping all the presents. You sat back, face flushed, and surveyed your work. All forty presents, wrapped with elegant paper and tied up prettily with a gold organza ribbon, were laid out neatly on the floor. It was a satisfying sight. Rolling out your back and cracking your knuckles, you got up from the floor.

“Those were a lot of presents, Iida-san,” you yawned, stretching your arms back like a cat. “Do you want to go down and get some hot cocoa? Emiko already left, but I can make us some.”

Iida got up too. His glasses were slightly askew on his face, and he had a dazed look about him. “That would be greatly appreciated, (Y/L/N)-san. Thank you very much for helping me wrap my presents. It was irresponsible of me to leave them until the last minute.”

“Of course, Iida-san,” you replied. “We were all so busy before the holidays I’m surprised you wanted to wrap everything as fancy as you did. I know that I just stuck my presents in bags, covered them with tissue paper, and called it a day! You didn’t even buy those sticky bows, you tied them with real ribbons. That’s dedication!”

Iida blushed furiously at your compliments. It’s the perfect time to confess to her, he thought. We’re alone, and there’s no one here to see if she rejects me. He took in a deep breath, trying to muster the courage to say something to you, but before he could, you grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hallway for some much-desired peppermint hot cocoa.

Humming lightly to yourself as you lead Iida down the halls, you entered the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. Releasing his hand, you clasped your hands behind your back, hoping he wouldn’t notice how they were shaking slightly. Wow, you thought. I really did that. I really just snatched his hand like that. Ugh, he probably hated it every second of the way, he’s just too polite to say anything. God, my palms are so sweaty. Why did I do this to myself?

Unbeknownst to you, Iida was having a mental freak-out of his own. Ahh! She grabbed my hand! And she didn’t seem to hate it! Does this mean she really doesn’t mind my company? Maybe I actually do have a chance with her! No, stop, he told himself. She was probably just tired of how I was staring at her and decided to do something about it. Ugh, I was staring at her, wasn’t I? God, I’m such a creep. Iida wiped his palms on his slacks, then reached up and adjusted his glasses, trying to hide the obvious blush on his face.

“Ding!”

The elevator stopped at the ground floor, and the two of you stepped out into the lobby. The decorations had been up for two weeks already, but it still took your breath away every time you saw it. There were garlands of lights strung high all over the ceiling, and dainty little ornaments hung from the chandeliers. There was a huge Christmas tree next to the fireplace, the floor around it coated in snowy fuzz. You had to resist the temptation to jump in on multiple occasions. You couldn’t help yourself! It just looked so fuzzy and comfortable, like clouds of cotton candy…

The Christmas tree was decorated tastefully. There was a surprising lack of hero-themed ornaments, mostly due to Momo’s elegant decorating. You had all been in agreement when you refused to let Kaminari or Mineta even touch the tree.

Making your way to the kitchen, you relaxed a little when you breathed in the apple-scented candles. It was a surprising choice for a holiday scent. Usually, pine or cinnamon were much more popular scents. You had gotten the privilege to choose the candles though, and although you almost fainted sniffing at every single scent in the candle store, you decided on apple. It was nice and refreshing, with just a subtle touch towards the holiday season. You liked the change of pace from the usual holiday scents, and it seemed it was growing on everyone else too. You stopped at the cabinets that contained the hot cocoa bombs. Emiko had seen these as an online trend with the food community, and she had made dozens of them “as an experiment”. Everyone fell in love with them (because heroes are allowed to be childish!) and they stuck. Now, the agency had an entire cabinet in the kitchen dedicated to the delightful goodies.

“Oat or regular?” You asked Iida.

Iida had, unfortunately, spaced out again. He was thinking about how cute you looked, standing on your tiptoes to reach the cabinet.

“Hello? Earth to Iida-san,” you turned around and waved a hand in front of his face. “You okay there?”

Iida blinked and had to recompose himself again. He kept getting distracted. This was not good. Not good at all.

“Regular is fine,” he replied, his face flushing once again. He really needed to stop daydreaming.

You poured out some milk into a jug and heated it. Then, you placed a hot cocoa bomb in each mug, licking some sprinkles off your fingers as you did so. Once the milk was ready, you filled each mug to the brim, careful not to spill any. It smelled absolutely delectable. Taking a spoon from the cabinets, you stirred both cups slowly, letting the chocolate melt at an even pace.

Iida was watching all of this, and he was still having an internal debate over when to confess. Would it be better to wait until you both finished the hot cocoa? Should he even confess to you on Christmas? What if his confession ruined your holidays? He began to sweat a little, his anxiety rising with each thought. Before he could come up with an excuse to escape, you stuffed a mug into his large hands.

“All done!” You exclaimed, taking a sip of your own cocoa, careful not to burn yourself.

Iida was not so lucky. Distracted by his thoughts, he raised the mug to his lips and gulped.

“Shit!” Iida swore. You blinked at him, a little shocked since he never swore, then immediately put your mug down and raced to the refrigerator to collect some ice cubes. Iida promptly put his offensive mug of cocoa on the counter, glaring at it like it just murdered his dog. Dumping some ice cubes in a glass, you hurried back towards Iida and popped one in his mouth.

“You really should be more careful next time, Iida-san,” you chided. “I just made it! You shouldn’t take such large swigs of a piping hot drink!”

“Sorry, I got distracted.” Iida replied absentmindedly.

“Distracted? By what?” Your curiosity was now piqued.

Iida’s face turned ever redder than before. He averted his eyes and mumbled out some quiet words that you couldn’t quite catch.

“Sorry, what was that?” You gazed up at him. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”

Iida’s hands were stuck to his thighs to prevent himself from freaking you out with aggressive hand gestures, and he didn’t think he’d ever been more nervous in his entire life. He cleared his throat. “I said that I got distracted by you.”

Now it was your turn to blush. “Really?” Your voice was quiet, almost a whisper. You weren’t sure if you heard that right, and your heart was beating so fast you were afraid that he’d hear it.

Iida finally looked at you. “Really,” he confirmed.

You wrung your hands and stepped towards him. Raising your eyes to meet his, your voice a half-whisper, you gulped before your next words.

“I like you.”

Blinking twice, Iida unclasped his hands and pinched his forearm. He winced in pain, then blinked again. You laughed at his antics, then clapped a hand playfully on his bicep.

“I’m real, Iida-san. I’m right here!”

Slowly, a grin crept up Iida’s face. “Really?” He mumbled, obviously still not entirely convinced he wasn’t dreaming.

You chuckled at how you had just asked the same thing moments earlier, but then you grabbed his large hand with your smaller one and squeezed.

“Really.” You smiled bashfully.

The two of you stood in silence for a while, then Iida spoke up.

“I like you too, (Y/L/N)-san.” Feeling bold now that he knew his feelings were reciprocated, he drew his other arm across your shoulders and drew you into a tight hug. You sighed, feeling comfortable and safe in his arms. A part of you wanted to stay like this forever and never wanted him to let go.

“Would you like to go on a date with me on Saturday afternoon at 3?” Iida’s voice rumbled in your ear.

You were bursting with excitement. A date! A real, formal, date! “I’d love to, but why so specific?” You giggled.

“Ahh, well, my patrol ends at 2:30, so I thought-”

Of course Iida volunteered for patrols the weekend after Christmas. Did this man ever take a break?

“No problem at all, Iida-san. That sounds lovely.”

Iida released you from the hug and rubbed lightly at the back of his neck. “You can… you can call me Tenya, if you’d like.”

You were smiling so big that you feared your face would split. “I’d love that, Tenya.” His eyes crinkled when you called him by his first name. “And you can call me (Y/N).”

Iida nodded his head. “(Y/N). I like that,” he said to himself. He muttered your name a few times, getting used to the way it rolled off his tongue. You blushed and hugged him again, pressing your nose into his chest. He was just too adorable.

You wanted to stay like that, but your phone dinging incessantly in your pocket made it uncomfortable.

Mina

(Y/N)!!! my parents ordered this WHOLE-ASS TURKEY for dinner with JUST THE 3 OF US!!! how we gon finish it all?!?

Mina

*burps* we did it. we finished all of it. the whole turkey. (Y/N). we. finished. a. whole. fucking. turkey. pls send help i can’t walk (Y/NNNNNNNN)!!!

(Y/N)

want me to call u an uber … mina mina MINA MINA DID U PASS OUT im calling an uber mina istg

Quickly sending an Uber to the restaurant Mina was at, you put your phone back in your pocket and looked up at Tenya.

“Hey. Do you wanna get your presents and put them under the tree?” You asked.

Tenya quickly straightened up. “Thank you for reminding me, (Y/N). I had almost forgotten about them!”

“No problem!” You chirped. “Let’s go!” You took his hand in yours again and lead the way to the elevator. As the elevator chimed, the two of you waltzed in, hands still clasped together.

Humming a little tune to yourself, you stepped out of the elevator. You and Tenya entered his office, and each returned with an armful of presents, carefully stacked as to avoid damaging the delicate ribbons the two of you had spent so much time tying.

It was a tradition in the agency to get everyone something small. However, you participated in gift exchanges every year. This year, it was a Secret Santa-type exchange, but the UA Hero Agency did Secret Santa’s a bit differently. Instead of giving your partner the gift on Christmas Eve, the gifts were labeled with typed name tags in generic Times New Roman font. Then, there was the guessing portion. Everyone got 3 guesses at the party when they first open it, and after that, they get one guess per week. Whoever held out the longest (avoided being guessed) would win a batch of Sato’s homemade cookies, a week of free food from Emiko, and two patrol coupons (basically the adult version of homework passes). This year, you had drawn Bakugo as your partner. You’d decided to get him a ¥4,000 gift card to his favorite ramen restaurant, as well as a high-quality leather jacket. The gifts were pretty generic, and you thought that you had a chance at the prize. You chuckled to yourself when you remembered that last year, Momo had been so frustrated when she hadn’t figured out who had given her a pretty earring and necklace set after two months that she’d used Creation to make fingerprint dust and swiped it all over the box. It had turned out to be Todoroki. Needless to say, he’d won the prize that year.

The two of you made a few more trips, carrying gifts from his office to the tree. Checking the time, you saw that it had been an hour since Ochaco’s patrol ended. Right as you were about to call her, the front door to the lobby burst open.

“(Y/N)!!!” Your friend screeched, holding up a kitten with fur the color of cinnamon. “Look what I found on my patrol! I had to take her to the vet really quickly to make sure she wasn’t hurt, and she didn’t seem to have an owner. Just look at her!”

You beamed. The kitten was absolutely ADORABLE. And not only was Ochaco safe, she brought a kitten back with her!

“Can I hold her?” You asked.

“Duh!” Ochaco passed the kitten from her arms to yours. Behind her, you saw Bakugou walking sullenly, arms drawn tight across his chest. You stifled a giggle at the sight. He obviously wanted a turn with the kitten too, but his pride wouldn’t let him as for it.

“We were coming back from patrols and I saw this little one stuck in a tree! And when I floated up to take her down, she just looked so sad. There wasn’t a collar on her or anything, so we took her to the vet. It seems like she was abandoned,” Ochaco pouted. “And so we asked the vet to vaccinate her and everything, and we brought her back here! Can we keep her? Mr. Grumpy over there already said yes.”

Tenya looked like he was about to object, seeing as this building had a no-pets policy, but then he saw how your face lit up and the idea and changed his mind. Maybe having a pet on the premises wouldn’t be too bad, he conceded. It’s not like there were other people sharing the building with them anyways.

“Of course we can keep her!” You squealed. Bakugou huffed a sigh. He’d have to deal with all these idiots fawning over the kitten for weeks, and he wasn’t happy about that, but there was no denying that the thing was cute. He’d mellowed out since his high school days and seeing a therapist for anger management classes certainly helped.

The kitten felt warm and fuzzy in your arms, and when you stroked it down its back with the palm of your hand, it let out a satisfied purr.

“What should we name her?” Ochaco asked.

You thought about it for a moment. “Well, since you found her, and her fur is brownish, why not Coco?”

“Coco! I love it!” She beamed. Coco purred again. “It looks like she likes it too!”

You smiled and looked down on the kitty. “Coco,” You murmured. “Welcome to the family.”

Just then, Mina burst through the doors, brimming with energy and not looking at all as if she’d fainted from turkey overconsumption.

“Mina!” You ran towards her. “I thought you fainted or something!” You accused, poking her in the chest. “You didn’t even leave me on read!! You just LEFT!”

“Chill, chill, girly, I’m alive and kicking! Just had to take a quick nap because of my digestive woes,” She flashed you a big thumbs-up. “And what’s this I see? Do we have an agency pet now? Did Shinso sneak it in his pocket from the cat cafe?”

“Shinso what?”

“Cat cafe?”

“I KNEW there was something fishy about his jacket the other day!”

You, Tenya, and Ochaco said at the same time.

Mina stared at all of you, then shook her head. “Never mind.”

Turning around, you looked at Ochaco. “I wanna hear about this later, you hear?”

“Alright, alright!” Mina shouted. “Change into your holiday gear! Let’s get this rolling!”

You had made a sweater especially for tonight. Knitting was a great way to relax, and huddling up in a cozy armchair with the soft yarn, some hot cocoa, and your favorite book, you had finished your holiday-themed sweater in two weeks. Now, you would finally get the chance to wear it. The sweater you made was white, a soft gold-and-silver threading woven through in the pattern of snowflakes. It was a basic winter pattern, but you were proud of your work.

Setting Coco down on the couch, you headed into the locker rooms to change into your sweater and some flannel pajama bottoms. Walking out, you noticed Tenya was still in his business attire, which looked pretty uncomfortable by your standards, although it did fit him nicely.

“Tenya,” you called out. “Are you wearing that to the party?”

He turned around at your voice, looking slightly taken aback. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Why?”

“Nothing, just wondering,” you replied. Good thing that your present to him was a nice, cozy, hand-knit sweater. You may or may not have thought about making him a matching one, but then you’d decided that it was too forward.

“You look…” Tenya stared at you. “You look…cute,” he said, with a small blush on his face.

Blushing at his compliment, you smiled and ducked your head. “Thanks.”

“Your sweater…it looks nice,” he added.  

Playing with the hems of your sleeves, you smiled up at him bashfully. “Thanks. I made it myself. I really like knitting. It’s kind of therapeutic.”

“Oh, wow. You are truly very talented, (Y/N)!” Tenya praised.

“Thanks.” You rubbed the back of your neck. It seemed like you had lost the ability to say anything else. Why did you suck so much at making small talk?

Just then, Mina stepped out from the locker room and saved you from any further embarrassment.

“Hey, has Yaomomo come down yet?” Mina asked.

“No, she hasn’t. Do you want me to go get her?” You answered.

“Nah, it’s alright, I’ll just text her real quick.” Mina pulled out her phone, fingers dancing rapidly across the screen, then put it back in her pocket. Minutes later, Momo stepped out of the elevator, already dressed in a red sweater and white jeans. She always looked so put-together. You were sure that she had a second quirk.

“Yaomomo!” Mina screeched, running up to her friend. “You’ll never guess what I ate for dinner!”

You groaned as Mina recounted her dining disaster. You loved Mina, but her tendency to tell her experiences to everyone multiple times could sometimes get a little annoying. Trying your best to tune her out, you tapped Tenya’s shoulder and moved to settle on the couch with Coco.

“Hey, (Y/N)!” Mina shouted. “Come here!”

Begrudgingly, you stood up again, having just sat down moments earlier. “What is it, Mina?”

“We forgot to introduce Coco! Yaomomo hasn’t seen her yet!”

Oh right. You did forget. You lifted Coco with both hands, then scurried over to where Ochaco, Mina, and Momo huddled. Momo let out a quiet “aww” when she saw the kitty and lifted her manicured hands in a silent invitation to hold her.

You gently placed Coco in her outstretched arms and was about to turn and leave when Mina grabbed your elbow. “Not so fast, (Y/N),” she scolded you sternly. “Picture time!”

Mina took out her phone and swiped open the camera app. You girls all huddled together as she snapped a picture for the fans.

Settling back down with Coco on the couch, surrounded by your friends, you didn’t think that you had ever felt happier. One by one, more of your friends and coworkers began to trickle in, until finally, when a disgruntled Jirou arrived with a protesting Kaminari in tow, Mina stood up.

“Alright! Everyone’s here now, so let’s get this party rolling!”

She bounced off to the kitchen to grab plates for everyone. You could smell Sato’s freshly-baked cookies from here, and your stomach growled in response. Remembering the tiramisu that Emiko had made, you followed Mina into the kitchen.

Mina held a stack of plates that covered half her face. It was wobbling slightly, the entire thing almost toppling over multiple times. You had gotten out the fancier cake platter and was currently in hyper-focus mode, carefully moving the tiramisu from its cake mold onto the crystal platter. You breathed out a sigh of relief as the process was finally completed and the cake hadn’t been ruined.

Holding the crystal tray with both hands, you stepped out into the lobby, marched over to the coffee table in the center, and slowly set the tray down.

“Hey guys, Emiko made us some tiramisu,” You called out. “Come here if you want some.” You held a cake knife in your hand and began serving everyone.

Tenya watched all of this with barely-hidden admiration. You were just so competent. So hard-working, so kind, and so wonderfully skilled at everything you do. Even the things that you weren’t good at, you tried your hardest to learn and to improve. He was definitely in deep, and to be honest, he didn’t mind a single bit. You were worthy of being admired, and he vowed that he would let you know in all the ways he could.

As you served the last slice of tiramisu to Ojiro, you carried the cake platter back to the kitchen and sat down next to Shinsou, who was, not surprisingly, hogging all of Coco’s attention. Seeing you, Coco scrambled over Shinsou’s lap and faceplanted into yours. You laughed at her enthusiasm and snorted when you heard Shinsou mutter “traitor” underneath his breath.

“So Shinsou,” you started casually. “What’s this I hear about you stealing cats from the cat café?”

Shinsou’s face immediately turned a tomato red. He put his hands up defensively. “No, wait, you have it all wrong- I swear- who told you about it anyways? Never mind,” he stopped his waving motions. You snickered. You were definitely getting the full story out of him later. For now, you had things to do.

Strolling over casually to Tenya with Coco still in your arms, you very sneakily dropped her, front paws landing gracefully, onto Bakugou’s head.

“Hey! What’s this damn cat doing here!” Bakugou yelped. Coco also yelped, and it came to you that dropping her on Bakugou’s spikey hair was probably not the best idea ever. However, as Coco quickly scampered down and curled up on Bakugou’s shoulder, and Kirishima was sitting next to him to make sure he didn’t kill the cat, you felt a sense of triumph. Bakugo was smiling. Not smirking, not grinning maniacally as he beat someone up, but genuinely smiling. You gave yourself an internal high five as you moved onto your next goal.

You walked hesitantly towards Tenya, and when he turned his head towards you, about to ask what you were doing, you quickly linked your hand with his and started leading him towards the rest of the group.

“(Y-Y/N) ?” Tenya sputtered. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” You replied cheekily. “I want to hold hands with you!”

“B-but, do they know?” Tenya gestured nervously with his free hand.

“Nope, but they’re about to,” you grimaced, thinking about all the teasing you’d have to endure from your friends later. Better to just get this over with during the party, when everyone had the attention span of a goldfish and any embarrassing moments would hopefully be forgotten moments later when more exciting things came along, such as Mineta’s annual lingerie gift. Whatever the powers that be were doing, they were definitely not doing the world any favors when they let Mineta draw a girl for the Secret Santa every single year. But, for all the bad things you could say about Mineta, he definitely consumes enough material to have at least semi-decent taste in lingerie. Surprising, and sometimes gross, but not entirely unwelcomed if you could manage to forget who gifted it. The most disturbing thing was he knew all the girls’ sizes. You tried your hardest to not think about that. It’s not like you could erase his memory anyways.

You settled down with Tenya on a vacant couch, inwardly counting the minutes until someone noticed your position. Tenya looked vaguely uncomfortable, his posture ramrod straight, and you squeezed his hand in reassurance.

“No one’s going to judge or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about,” you whispered into his ear. “And besides, at least half the girls already knew I had a crush on you, so this won’t entirely come as news to them.”

Tenya relaxed slightly at that, then stiffened again when he noticed a pair of eyes glancing his way.

Midoriya had been excited at seeing Ochaco for the first part of the evening, but then had wondered where his other friend had gone. He knew Tsu was in southern Japan, as she couldn’t stand the cold and was operating in the warm coastal areas instead, but Iida being absent was strange. He had searched around the lobby, and when his eyes descended upon you and Iida cuddling on the couch, he was intrigued, to say the least.

He stared at the two of you for a solid minute, not wanting to disturb your peace. Slowly, he turned back to Ochaco, thinking that it wasn’t his place to draw attention to the two of you.

Ochaco, however, had no such qualms. Noticing how Deku began to space out during their conversation, she followed his line of vision to the two of you, blinked twice to check if she was seeing it right, then immediately let out a squeal.

Heads turned at the sound, and in moments, everyone was staring at you and Tenya curiously. You hadn’t noticed the attention yet, but Tenya had, and he grew stiffer and stiffer until you finally looked up at his face with furrowed brows.

“Tenya, what’s wrong?” You whispered. “Do you not enjoy cuddling? I can stop if you’d like,” your lips were pressed together in concern.

“I-it’s not that,” Tenya whispered back. “Look.”

You finally raised your head from his chest and saw thirty pairs of eyes staring back. After a few moments of silence, the room erupted.

“Iida-kun! Why didn’t you tell us?” Midoriya was the first to raise a question.

“(Y/NNNNNN)!!!!!!!!!!!” Mina practically screamed as she ran towards you. She clasped her hands dramatically over her heart. “YOU DID IT YOU DID IT YOU DID IT OMG YOU GUYS ARE SO ADORABLE EEEEE!!!!!!”

Half the room winced at her loud tone, and you quickly moved Coco from your lap to save her from the incoming bear hug.

Mina launched herself in your arms, then stepped back and shook your shoulders until you felt your brain rattling around in your skull like soupy mush.

“(Y/N)! What did I say, huh? Bitch I TOLD you that he liked you too, and you wait three goddamn months to finally make a move!?! Honey-”

Your face flushed red. Gently, you pushed her away. “Mina, stop,” you whispered, horrified that she was making a scene. It was too late. Ochaco and Hagakure rushed towards you, Momo trailing more slowly behind them. The boys were stunned for a bit, since you had always seemed so quiet and shy, much less Iida’s feelings towards you. As their initial shock wore off, Midoriya trailed after Momo to approach Iida.

“Congratulations, Iida-kun!” He held up his arms in front of his chest. “You and (Y/N) are really cute together!”

“Yeah bro! That’s so manly that you finally confessed!” Kirishima added, with a quirk of his lips and a thumbs-up.

“Tch. Fucking coward. Took you idiots three fucking months to confess, huh.” Bakugou smirked, but you could tell he wasn’t really annoyed. You actually somewhat got along with him, due to all the times Mina would drag you to hang out with her friends.

You struggled vainly against the arms of your friends encasing you. “Guys,” you pleaded. “Let me out, please.”

Reluctantly, the girls let go, and you immediately tried to redirect their attention. “Shouldn’t we start opening presents?” You asked hopefully.

“Oh, you sneaky little thing,” Mina wagged her finger in your face. “Don’t think we’ll forget about this, (Y/N), but you’re right, we should start opening presents or we’ll be here all night.”

“We’ll be here all night anyways,” Todoroki pointed out.

“You knew what I meant,” Mina sighed.

Mina enlisted the help of Ojiro and Shoji to pass out the Secret Santa presents; you’d all open the rest of your personal presents later.

The best way to go about this, after years of trial and error, was for everyone to open their presents at the same time. It would simply take too long for everyone to open theirs one by one, and you’d all realized that the people who opened theirs first had a significant disadvantage when it came to guessing who their partner was, as the ones who opened theirs later had the benefit of some options already being eliminated. When you opened your present, you tried your hardest to hold back a squeal. It was a limited-edition album from your favorite artist! You hugged it close to your chest, and immediately knew who gave it to you. Jirou. Her parents were musicians too, and you had bonded over your love of this artist. It was a thoughtful gift, and you were glad that she had given it to you, even though it immediately gave her away.

The rest of your friends opened their presents. Poor Momo. No wonder Mineta had looked so gleeful earlier. He had been her Secret Santa and had gotten her a lacy black lingerie set. Her face was so red you were beginning to get scared that she would hyperventilate, but you had to admit that it was a pretty nice set. Mineta was basically drooling at this point, and Jirou was trying to comfort her while sending a death glare towards Mineta. Mineta, meanwhile, had received a new video game. Sero had received a large pack of farmer’s market coupons, as well as some homemade mochi from Ochaco, who had blushed and apologized profusely for not being able to afford something better for him. Sero just grinned and gave her a thumbs-up, saying that it was completely okay and that he appreciated her effort into gift-giving. She had brightened up a bit at that.

Koda had received a new hamster wheel along with some toys for his various pets. Shoji had been gifted a comfortable-looking poncho, as well as three pairs of matching gloves. Ochaco had received a generous sum of money, Midoriya had gotten a new set of comic books, and Iida had received a beanie and a multiflavored pack of tea. Aoyama had received a makeup set, and had gifted a makeup set as well, evidenced by his inability to contain himself and pounced on Hagakure, asking if she liked it. Hagakure was ecstatic, babbling about how she could finally show her face and how she’d never really been able to afford a full set before and how Aoyama was so considerate.

Sato had received a new baking pan, as well as cute mittens and a trending recipe book. He had given Setsuna a batch of cookies, as well as a gallon of frozen cookie dough with instructions on how to make it. There wasn’t really a point in him trying to win the contest, since he would be one of the people providing the prize. Mina had gotten fuzzy socks and a blanket, Kirishima had received a new pair of tennis shoes, and Jirou had been gifted a new pair of headphones. Ojiro had received some sort of custom tail armor with spikes along with an Amazon gift card, and Todoroki had gotten a hand-made red-and-white sweater with a red reindeer nose smack in the middle, along with a gift card to a hair salon, tucked into a bouquet of red-and-white candy canes. The only person you could think of that would go so far into the color scheme was Hagakure, who seemed like just the type to make an ugly sweater for fun. Shinsou had received earmuffs, a silk eye mask with a note (“to help you sleep”), and some gourmet coffee beans (“in case you still can’t”). Mina had seen the little notes that came with his gifts and started teasing him relentlessly about how sweet his Secret Santa was and how it was so cute that he had a secret admirer. Shinsou looked very nonchalant about it all and grumbled about how he just wanted to pet Coco and then go to bed.

Finally, Kaminari received some Pokémon cards to add to his collection (yes, he collected Pokémon cards, what was wrong with that?) along with another Pikachu plush, as per usual. It was an unspoken tradition that whoever drew Kaminari for their Secret Santa would get him a Pikachu plush along with whatever else they decided to give him. He had about twenty, collected over various years from birthdays and holidays. If this kept up, he’d be able to fill an entire closet with them once he retired.

As the chatter slowly died down, you snuggled into Tenya again. At some point during the present exchange, Shinsou had stolen Coco from the couch you occupied. Stifling a yawn, you pulled out a bag and handed it to Tenya.

“What’s this?” He asked, a slight smile on his face.

“It’s your gift, silly,” you booped him on the nose with your index finger.

“Ah, I see,” he replied, still smiling. “Do you want me to open it?”

“Duh,” you giggled into his chest. “What else would you do with it?”

Chuckling lightly, Tenya removed the tissue paper from the top of the bag. He stuck his hand inside, then pulled out a sweater. The sweater that you’d knitted for him. It was navy, the color of the yarn matching his hair, with gold and white snowflake detailing. His heart skipped a beat when he realized that you had made this especially for him, with your own hands. Putting the sweater down beside him, he wrapped his arms around you and pressed his face to your hair.

“Thank you, (Y/N),” he whispered. “I love it.”

You flushed, but you hugged him back. “You’d better,” you teased. “I spent two weeks on that.”

“Well, I appreciate it.” Tenya ruffled your hair.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, just soaking in the pleasant atmosphere. Yawning, you stretched out your arms, careful not to hit Tenya in the face. You gently pushed his arm off of your torso and got up to go to the bathroom.

When you came back, Tenya was nowhere to be seen. You searched around the common area and stepped briefly into the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. Sighing, you grabbed your parka and padded outside.

“Tenya?” You called out as you stuck your head around the doorframe. He was with Kirishima and Todoroki, clearing the entryway of the building of snow. You leaned back along the handrails of the stairs and watched. Your friends were all just so nice. So caring, so wonderful, so kind. As Todoroki evaporated the last bit of snow, you stepped aside to let them all head back in. As Tenya reached you, he paused briefly, looking up.

“What?” You tilted your head up also, curious to see what he was staring at. Oh. So this was where Mina and Ochaco had decided to hang the mistletoe. If Tenya hadn’t looked up, you would’ve missed its existence entirely. You looked back down at Tenya to gauge his reaction.

He gulped, and softly taking your chin into his hand, he leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss on your lips. You leaned up to meet him, rising slightly on your toes and wrapping your arms around his neck. The kiss was long and sweet, and you were both a bit breathless when you let go.

You smiled sweetly up at him and took his strong hand in yours. Standing on your tiptoes again, you pressed another soft kiss to his cheek.

“Merry Christmas.”

Masterlist

[queenof-literature]

Wind

Part 7 of my Hero of Wild series! Wow we’re here already

I’ve had this idea for so long and I finally get to write it! Uhh I don’t have any clever jokes for April Fools, so take this instead. Honestly the most April Fools thing about this is I didn't get a chance to edit much sooo sorry about that.

Hope you enjoy!

Wind narrowed his eyes at the scene before him.

Why did Twilight get to be best friends with the mysterious new hero!

Of course Wind was happy Wild seemed to be finding his place among the others. It started when they found out he had the cooking skills of a castle chef. No, scratch that, his skills had to succeed any castle chef. He had tried food in Warriors and Twilight’s Hyrule Castles, and nothing beat what Wild could do with time and a proper set up!

Man, he was hungry.

Not the point!

The point was, Wind watched Wild silently laugh at something Twilight said to him, Wind couldn’t help but huff. Jealous wasn’t really the way he would describe his feelings. Wind was happy when he saw Wild getting along so well with Twilight, especially with how shy he seemed to be around other Hylians.

That was another mysterious trait about Wild. His name, Wild. It implied someone savage and not caring of others and their rules. That wasn’t Wild.

Wind discovered what his name really meant. If Wind’s name was the gentle tuseling of hair from the high seas, then Wild’s meant the course but soft feeling of grass beneath one’s feet.

Their names were similar, not just in the lettering, but in the feelings they both provided. When Wind thought of their names, he thought of freedom. And with Wild perhaps a few fires along the way.

And Wind was gonna be his friend dammit.

~

His sign was outdated, the other Links weren’t the only ones who didn’t understand him. Like many things, sign has evolved without him. The only one who truly understood that was Zelda, and she was in Hateno.

Wild didn’t have many memories, but he did remember talking to her after they finally got along, only with her. Verbally. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t even remember what his voice sounded like.

Would he have a similar accent to Zelda? Posh and regal? Probably not, accents could be changed and acclimated and it had been over one hundred years since Wild had heard anyone have that accent but Zelda, and perhaps the ghost of the king. No, his accent would probably develop into a mix of things.

  As for his voice itself, would it be soft and quiet? Loud and course? Did the two feel different when you spoke? Sure Wild had made noises before. He laughed when he was alone, sometimes the noise just bubbled up and he couldn’t stop it. But talking? Wild didn’t know how, and that was embarrassing. He could read, he could write, and he could understand how other people spoke. He couldn’t speak.

He had watched how others talked. He tried to copy it. When they said an ‘oh’ sound, they made the same shape with their mouth. He was positive he was doing it right, he copied it exactly, but nothing pushed passed his mouth. Nothing of importance anyway.

Just as it had the past couple of days, Wild’s mind flashed back to Sky’s offer. He had seemed so genuine, it didn’t seem to be something the man would offer simply to be nice. But perhaps the man hoped Wild would forget about it, maybe Sky himself had already forgotten about it. Still, there was just a small ember of hope in him.

He imagined himself finally keeping up with conversations, laughing loudly, maybe even surprising Zelda. He shouldn’t let himself get lost in fantasies but he couldn’t help it, not when it was a small possibility. There was no telling if Sky’s offer was truly genuine, or that Wild would actually be able to follow through and speak, but what if he tried. 

Still that would require reaching out, approaching Sky and asking for help with one of the most basic actions one could perform, something many did without even thinking about it.

Yet Sky understood that, didn’t he? He had been open with Wild, told him of his childhood struggles. Perhaps there really was no shame in asking. Wild let out a low sigh, not aware of the figure stalking him from behind, eyes narrowed slightly, plotting.

~

Now, how was he to approach him? Wind mused on the answer as the group walked forward. No one had claimed this Hyrule as their own yet, the best they could do is walk the main path and search for a town, and keep their guard up.

Truthfully Wind didn’t know Wild well enough yet to determine the best approach. Would a direct question work? He had tried that before and had been mostly brushed off, but that was before Wild knew who they were. Wind decided ultimately to be honest and say whatever was on his mind, Wild could probably tell when someone was being dishonest or not genuine. 

Twilight bid Wild a short goodbye before speeding up to talk to Time near the front of the group, and Wind saw his chance. Wind took a deep breath and trotted up to be beside Wild, giving the fellow teen plenty of room as the rest of the group tried to. They did the same thing for the more antisocial Links at the beginning of their group as well.

“Hi Wild! Breakfast this morning was really good.” Wind complimented, trying to start up a casual conversation. It was true, the food Wild called ‘crepes’ had absolutely blown Wind’s mind. Maybe Wild would be more inclined to talk if it was about something the teen enjoyed, and Wind could tell he really loved cooking.

‘Thank you’. Wind felt success at the small sign, preparing to talk again before Wild continued his signs. ‘There are a lot of flavors’. It took Wind a moment to remember the word for flavors, but Wild signed slow enough for him to figure it out. ‘Depends on the ingredients.’  

“I bet! Feel free to experiment with ingredients, I'm sure we’ll all thank you for it.” Wind joked, chest feeling light at the small smile he earned from Wild.

‘Will do.’ Wild joked back, and Wind bit his lip at the lull in conversation. Now or never.

“We don’t know each other very well.” Wind observed. “Can we ask each other questions?” Wind didn’t know what making friends was like in Wild’s Hyrule, but at Outset it was very forward, hopefully he wasn’t crossing a line. Wild’s steps seemed to falter for a minute, and Wind felt another spike of worry, before Wild nodded.

“Really? You don’t have to.” Wind assured, fearing Wild was only saying yes to be polite. Wild nodded once more, and Wind’s eyes lit up in excitement.  

“What’s your favorite color? Your tunic is blue like mine! Where’d you get it? Where’s your Zelda? Where are you from? In your Hyrule I mean. Do you have a favorite animal? What-”

“Woah there Wind.” Warriors physically stepped into the very one-sided conversation, placing a firm but gentle hand on the sailor’s shoulder. “Give him a minute to answer.” Warriors noticed the wide eyes Wild held under his hood and his twitching fingers.

“Oh! Um, sorry Wild.” Wind rubbed his neck, embarrassed. He just couldn’t decide what to ask first!

‘Don’t have one. Zelda made it. In Hateno. Everywhere. I like horses.’ Wind’s eyes lit up, excited someone had kept up with questions, but halted himself from asking anymore.

Wild however, felt sadness bloom in his chest further. 

He wanted to say that his favorite color depended on the day, on what marvels his Hyrule had in store for him. 

He wanted to say Zelda made it for the champion, her duties as a princess, but she was a scholar at heart and she was pouring over books and reaching out to leaders to make her kingdom better as they spoke. 

He wanted to say that he loved his horses and the companionship they provided, but he thought bears and elk were fun to ride and foxes were so cute with their fluffy tails and huge yawns he only killed them when absolutely necessary.

He wanted to say that, but he didn’t. Because he couldn’t.

Before Wild could raise his hands and ask a question in return, a shout was heard from the front of the group.

“Watch out!” Twilight yelled, unsheathing his sword. What? Wild’s head whipped around, eyes scanning for any sign of a threat. He summoned his sword with the others, lucky enough to have a royal broadsword with minimal damage. The rest of the group stood in different stances, ranging from wide to more narrow and showing how different they were from one another. It appeared they were all waiting for the enemy to make the first move. And make the first move they did.

 A creature launched out of the trees in an instant, right towards Warriors, who expertly lifted his shield  to protect himself.

“They’ve surrounded us!” Called Legend, blocking another creature attacking him from the other side of the path. Wild could now see they looked like a different version of Lizalfos, green scales shimmering in the sun contrasting the pale milky yellow of their stomachs. They didn’t look like his Lizalfos, their heads rounder and bodies thicker, but that was something Wild would need to get used to.

“Keep an eye out for the black one!” Warriors shouted to their group. Black one? Did they not have black Lizalfos? Something in Wild’s head screamed at him and he summoned his shield from his slate and parried a strong hit from yet another of the creatures. They really were surrounded, but Wild was used to fighting this amount by now. He raised his hand to his slate to summon his bomb arrows before pausing in growing realization. What was he thinking? He would hit his comrades!

His hesitance resulted in a strong punch to the chest, Wild’s breath caught and he stumbled back, running right into Sky behind him who was fighting off his own Lizalfos. Wild quickly recovered, almost dodging the next attack before realizing that if he did the creature’s sword would ram right into Sky’s chest. Wild clumsily blocked, chest constricting, desperate to get away and cursing himself for his own weaknesses. Quickly he lurched to the side before the Lizalfos could raise his sword, and ran right into Legend this time.

“Watch it!” Legend snarled, not even noticing who it was in the heat of battle. Wild’s eyes darted around, looking for any opening, anything to do. If he could get into a tree he could jump out and take them out with his arrows, no, no opening. He continued to use his sword and shield, hyper aware of all the bodies surrounding him that weren’t enemies.

And at the worst possible moment, Wild’s shield broke. He really should have expected it.

The Lizalfos made a deep growl in its throat, smashing its shield into Wild’s head causing the boy to stumble and fall, landing on his back, his sword skidding away from him. The Lizalfos didn’t hesitate, raising its sword to plunge into Wild. This was going to hurt…

With a cry from the left, Wild watched in awe as a small body parried the sword above him, Wind. The boy swung his sword in an arch, cutting right into the Lizalfos chest. It was shallow, but it allowed Wind to gain the upper hand. How had he made that big an arch without hitting anyone? Wind launched himself from the ground, mercilessly driving his sword into the Lizalfos’ chest, crashing them both to the ground.

As the other Links finished up their own fights, ensuring they were truly out of enemies, Wild stared in awe and shame. Everyone had taken out at least one enemy, everyone but him. Wind had to step in and save him. Wild’s cheeks were bright red, an uncomfortable heat across his face, ears and neck. Without thinking Wild yanked his hood higher, chest constricting. They were all looking at him, they were all seeing how inept he was at this.

“Are you okay? I think he got hit in the head!” Wind called out to the other Links. Oh, so that’s what felt wet on his face. Oh well, head wounds bleed a lot. Wild silently begged Wind not to draw anymore attention to him. He just wanted to forget this ever happened. They were all looking at him.

“I have a potion!” Hyrule called, rushing over. Wild shook his head as Hyrule approached him. He was fine, he didn’t need it. He had already messed up.

‘Fine’. Wild signed as Hyrule sat in front of him, perhaps normally this would be fine, but everything was too much and Hyrule was too close.

“Wild, you’re bleeding.” Hyrule stated, reaching for Wild’s face. Wild quickly flinched away, hand flying towards his slate in momentary panic. Hyrule’s eyes widened, realizing what he had done and pulling back. “Sorry! Sorry just… you’re bleeding. We have extra don’t worry.” Once again Hyrule offered the potion, holding it far away from himself for Wild to grab. Wild didn’t know Hyrule all that well yet, their shield surfing adventure aside, but he knew the other boy would probably persist until Wild drank, and the last thing Wild wanted to do was to make a large spectacle. Well, more than he already had.

Wild reached out to grab the potion, ensuring he didn’t touch Hyrule’s fingers, before slowly sipping, only consuming enough to heal his head wound. Almost instantly he felt fog he hadn’t even known was there clear up, allowing him to relax, only slightly. There was still an uncomfortable heat in his cheeks and ears. He handed a skeptical Hyrule the bottle, gesturing to his healed head no longer gushing bright red. Hyrule reluctantly clipped the almost full potion back onto his belt, but didn’t leave Wild’s side.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Wind approached Wild. It was too much, it was all too much.

‘I’m sorry’. Wild signed shakily to Wind, eyes focusing anywhere but on the younger boy who had perhaps saved his life. ‘I’m sorry’. He signed once more, this time in the direction of Time and the others. That could have gone so much worse, he could have gotten someone killed, specifically Wind. 

“Wild, it’s okay we’ve all had to save each other’s asses before.” Wind piped up, but Wild only shook his head, he lifted his clammy hands, but nothing would form. What could he say? That he was sorry he put them all in danger? That he was sorry he almost blew them up without thinking?

“Teamwork is hard when you’re not used to it.” Wild’s shocked eyes darted to Hyrule in front of him, the other boy having a look of sudden understanding of what had happened, and that understanding dawned on the rest of them. 

“Do us a favor and don’t almost electrocute all of us like Hyrule did.” Legend smirked at Hyrule’s red cheeks and betrayed glare.

‘I almost blew you up’. Wild signed without thinking, feeling regret pool in his stomach. He expected a scolding, a remark about how reckless and dangerous he was, how they shouldn’t let him fight. He did not expect them all to burst out laughing. 

“Great, there’s another one!” Four groaned, but he didn’t sound very upset.

“Like you’re one to talk!” Warriors laughed, dodging a kick from the smith.

“Let’s not stay here for too long.” Time announced, however the clear smirk on his face told everyone how amused he was. Honestly, Wild was scared he would get a verbal lashing, but Time would probably wait for later to do that.

“Are you okay to walk?” Hyrule asked, and while Wild appreciated the concern he was confused how a small head wound would impede his movement at all. Still Wild shook his head and stood, ignoring the slight tremble in his legs from the feeling of the world imploding just a moment ago. Wild had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes at how pathetic he was being.

It seemed unnatural to be on the road again. The others chatting even while keeping a far sharper ear out for what lurked along the path.

“Hey Wild.” Wind greeted once more.

‘Thank you’. Wild signed with as much feeling as he could have while not making eye contact.

“Oh! Uh yeah, no problem. Those bastards are slippery.” Wind smiled at him, the same as before, and Wild felt himself calm slightly. “Listen…” Wild cocked his head slightly at Wind’s sudden serious tone. “I know…  I know what it’s like, to feel embarrassed when someone else has to save you. I’m the youngest so…” Wind trailed off, gesturing his hands vaguely, but Wild could understand what he was trying to say. “It, well, it took me a while to realize that getting help isn’t something you should be ashamed of. I used to feel bad whenever someone stepped in to help me, but Warriors told me that it’s okay to accept help, and I had forgotten that. That’s what being a group is. Don’t feel bad.” Wind smiled up at Wild, who looked as shocked as he felt. It’s okay to accept help. It was such a simple sentence yet it sent Wild reeling.

‘Thank you, Wind’. Wild signed, and Wind lit up once more at the sight of his name sign he was so proud of. He nodded and he and Wild spent the next hour exchanging questions and answers. They were all simple, nothing that dug deep, and Wild wasn’t as overwhelmed as he thought he would be. Yet something still weighed heavily on his mind.

~

Sky was well aware of the company he had. The others had taken to doing their chores before settling in. It was a general unspoken rule that if they had the opportunity, Links that had their tasks done could do whatever, just as long as it was near camp or someone else knew where you were and you were within someone else’s eyesight. It certainly helped them all, especially those who were used to traveling alone. The tasks weren’t really assigned, most of them just did what was closest and others filled in the rest. Sky had already ensured that Epona was properly taken care of while Twilight secured the perimeter, and was content to work on his latest woodworking. It wasn’t the only hobby he had, but it was nice for evenings he was content to sit back and observe.

Currently though, his main point of interest was awkwardly shuffling behind him. Sky wondered if he would come around in front of him to talk, but ultimately decided to be the first to speak. Sky shifted from where he was leaning against the tree to face Wild, meeting questioning but troubled blue eyes. He had been wearing his hood around camp less, and Sky wanted to think that was a positive sign. It seems being acknowledged only troubled Wild more. 

“Hi Wild! Is there anything wrong or would you just like company?” Sky offered, always so considerate for his feelings. This only made Wild more flustered as he stood there, awkwardly shuffling his feet. “Wild?” Sky pressed, no impatience, only concern and confusion. Wild squeezed his hands close to his chest before raising them. 

‘Is your offer still open?’

[damgoodfantasy]

Naming Like Tolkein -- A Story of Tloren

In the tradition of Tolkien, philology holds an immense sway in making a fantasy world more authentic. Names that hold meaning, especially ones derived from a consistent set of languages, naturally sound and feel "better" to us. To that end, I will try and replicate that "authentic" feel by relaying a fictional historical epic from a fantasy world of my own creation. I based the philological foundations of this world, Tloren, on Croatian and other related Eastern European tongues. The following is a common legend in my world of Tloren -- The First of the Thousand Nights -- the oral tradition of what happened in that world five and a half centuries ago. "The sun hung low when they arrived. The horde was not seen, not heard -- no, it was felt. The bones of Tloren quaked, and the sands of the pijae morae hummed like thunder. Suncegrad and Svijegrad were first to fall. Three thousand brave zastrati longblades, the Emperor's rear guard, stood atop those walls as night swallowed the sun and a fell wind arose from the south. Void and daemon fire danced within rolling clouds of onyx sand which stretched from the Kessakis Crags to the True Ocean. "Then it was upon them. Teeth and light and fetid smoke met folded Ekrani steel, and until the moons peaked in the sky, the longblades held the line. Fearless Vjedin's calls rang clear like brass bells over the swell of the horde, and while he lived not once could a daemon pass over those walls. Our people fled the cities, made north for Brandam. But not Vjedin: he and his three thousand longblades stayed the squirming tide long into the night. As sunlight peered over the Kessakis, once more did Tloren shake, and from the black sand cloud came winged, frigid death. Like storm and shadow it fell upon them, their brittle blades breaking upon its hide as one by one the longblades fell. At last did Vjedin remain, sword broken and eyes shattered, but he did not despair. With his zvijerock pommel he struck the horror: once, twice, thrice he drove the spiked hilt deep into its core. Man and monster together fell from atop the walls to the sands below. And though the sun would never rise so long as daemons plagued our land, thus ended the first of the Thousand Nights." If there are any fantasy authors out there looking for sources of inspiration, I highly recommend trying this strategy! It was really fun for me to imagine a new segment of my world's mythology using the incredibly evocative language that is Croatian. Thanks for reading!

[five-rivers]

I was talking to my little brother earlier about ATLA and LOK, and we got to talking about what we would do if we were doing an ATLA sequel.  (I never watched LOK, first episode triggered my sympathetic embarrassment too hard, my brother watched some of LOK, but was disappointed.)

Highlights follow.  

(Retired) Fire Lord Zuko hears about the new Avatar, Korra, going on an adventure, and he’s like, you know what, I’m gonna go live my best life and have fun.  It’s my turn to be the cool responsible adult.

Problem: Zuko wouldn’t know cool if it punched him in the face.  He follows Korra around with tea, mangling every proverb he comes into contact with.  Still manages to give surprisingly good advice.

Korra and friends try to ditch incredibly uncool old man repeatedly.  He refuses to stay ditched.

Korra: How did you find us?

Zuko: I have lots of experience.  

Or

Korra: How did you get here before us?  We flew over a mountain range to get away from you.

Zuko: *Staring at map and sipping tea*  Hm.  By all accounts it doesn’t make sense.

Zuko: *Later, walking out to his dragon friend*  Why and how do people always forget I’m friends with a dragon?

Or

Korra: We literally threw darts at a map to decide where to go.  How are you here?

Zuko: Well, I just thought to myself, ‘What would Aang do?’ and then I bought some darts.

At one point Zuko follows them around with a Blue Spirit mask on for an entire episode, after they yell at him and hurt his feelings.  Everyone knows it’s him.  He refuses to acknowledge this fact.

Korra: *fails at something*

Zuko: Hey, it’s okay to fail.  Remember, the important thing is that you get back up.  Never give up without a fight!  That reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time I chased Aang all over the world for three months?

Korra: *deep inhale, heavy sigh* Yes.

Occasionally Mai is with him.  She is just as dark as she was before.  Zuko somehow gets even more bright and cheery when she’s around.

Toph (who does not become a cop) decides to build a giant underground city.  She fills it with badgermoles, her 1,000 adopted runaway children, and declares herself King (not Queen, this is very important, she is a king) of Melon City.  On occasion, she also uses the title Melon Lord.  

She has a standing challenge: Anyone who can defeat her in an earthbending fight gets a ruby the size of her head.  No one knows if this ruby exists.  It hasn’t been an issue yet.  

The Fire Nation recognizes Melon City as an independent kingdom.  So did Earth King Kuei.  But it doesn’t matter what anyone else really thinks of the matter, because Melon City is entirely full of highly trained earthbenders and metalbenders, and Toph could pwn an entire army on her home turf all on her lonesome.  

Zuko and Toph regularly meet up to plan shenanigans.  

Sokka and Suki live on Kyoshi Island (now that they’re super old, they prefer warmer weather).  Their relationship was a bit difficult for a while, since they were both sort of leaders of their people, and that required them to be in different places a lot of the time.  Katara stays at the south pole, mostly.

Seriously, why did they kill so many of the original Gaang off (plus make Toph go live in a swamp)?  I know Aang had to die, but really.  Could they not come up with a plot that the original Gaang (minus Aang) couldn’t solve, even though they’re all 70+ years old?  Could they not think of any better way to remove them from play?

Look, it’s easy.  My little brother and I came up with one.  

I mean, you just take a major unaddressed problem from ATLA.  That is, the fact that there are no more airbenders.  

(Like, I understand this got addressed in LOK, but bear with us here.)

Aang really is the last airbender.  None of his and Katara’s kids turn out to be airbenders.  They’re all either nonbenders or waterbenders.  

This is a problem.  This means the world is out of balance.  Avatars are supposed to bring the world back into balance.  

Aang, of course, tried to fix this.  Turns out, in order for there to be new airbenders, they need the blessing of the air spirit (the equivalent of the moon and ocean spirits for the Water Tribes).  After a lot of research, at age 66 or whenever it was he was supposed to die, he goes into the spirit world and never comes back.  Eventually his body wastes away.  

This is something only the Avatar can fix.  The Gaang can’t.

So, Korra has to talk to the other great spirits (and do other research) in an effort to find the air spirit.  

Unfortunately, they run into the following problems.

Fire Nation:  Sure, you can have everything, we’re happy to help!  Sadly, Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai tried to destroy all the history that didn’t make them look good.  Also, our last Avatar temple was volcanoed.  

Earth Kingdom:  The Dai Li (who were dismantled with prejudice following the whole treason thing) are the protectors of our cultural heritage.

(Northern) Water Tribe:  You thought we would be the easy ones?  You fools.  We were an isolationist patriarchal nightmare before all the special snowflakes left for the south!  Plus, the last time we let an Avatar see our spirit fish, the moon got murdered.  So...

Also:  You want stuff about spirits?  Do you want the real stuff or the fake stuff?  Just kidding, we can’t tell the difference!  

Surprisingly, (Retired) Fire Lord Zuko knows the most about spirits.  

(Really, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.  He spent three years on a boat chasing after Avatar legends and visited and researched all the Air Temples.)

Thus, you have an overarching plot of Korra reconnecting with the spirits and eventually bringing back the blessing of air, so new airbenders can be created and/or born.  

IDK, this is just what me and my brother were talking about.  

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[altr5312916195]

The Ghoul Boys' Pizza Party

“I can’t believe I let you dupe me into coming to a children's pizza place, Ryan. You really got me on this one.”

Shane told his partner as they stood outside of the abandoned building.

“Okay, yes it’s an odd place to be, but you know there’s been some stories since the opening of Freddy’s.”

“Oh, do tell.”

Shane said, feigning interest as they approached the doors.

“There’s legends of child murders, shady business and family affairs. A few of the restaurants went up in flames.”

Ryan explained. The pair walked up to the doors with the owner, and their crew behind them. The man unlocked the doors.

“Not this one though?”

“Not this one.”

Ryan confirmed as the man pushed the doors open.

“Have fun dudes, I’ll see you at six.” He chuckled.

He handed them pale blue button ups, a golden security badge sitting on top of the folded shirt.

“Great!

Let’s try not to die in a fire.”

Shane said, as he pulled on his shirt, fastening the badge to it.

“No promises.”

Ryan told him, being the first to step inside, buttoning his shirt.

“Oh look at the confidence!

The swagger ole’ Bergara has tonight.”

Shane chuckled as he walked behind.

The door clicked behind the crew as the owner locked them in for the night.

“I got a good feeling about this one.”

Ryan looked back at Shane with a smile.

“As in we’ll find some ghosts, or we’ll be ghoul free and you’ll go home and sleep well?”

“I’m not so sure yet.”

He noted, while dragging his hand across the damp wall. He found some light switches along the way and flicked them on. The overheads failed to power up, but the stage lights flickered on.

“Oh I truly hate that.”

Shane noted as the stage lit up, getting a good look at some tattered animatronics.

“Yeah that’s.. Not what you want to see.”

The Boys stepped to the edge of the stage, while the big three loomed over them.

“So tell me about the lore here. What are we looking at, I seem to recall child murder.”

Shane broke the silence.

“Yes! Lore..”

Ryan broke out of his trance and looked to Shane.

“Fredbear’s Family Diner opened in the early 70’s.”

“Oh they beat Chuck E?”

“Sure did.”

“The old cheese miser, they beat em to it.”

‘No one said they did a good job though.”

“Oh of course not..

Child murder isn’t good for the business,

Ryan c’mon! You should know that.”

“Hey, don’t jump ahead now hold on. So the little restaurant does well on it’s own for a time. It’s owned by one guy, guy decides it’s time to branch out.”

*chuckles* “Does guy have a name?”

“He does.”

*Gasp* “He does!”

“It’s Henry.”

“Henry, no last name?”

*laughs*

That is correct.”

“Oh that’s- *laughs* Wonderful.”

“Right so he teams up with this man.”

“Oh a partnership!

Does he have a name?”

“William Afton.”

“A last name too! What a lucky guy!”

*chuckles* “His full name is in the police report”

“But not Henry’s? He builds this business

From ground up and they don’t even give him

A proper name. What horse shit.”

“The disrespect is real.”

“It is!”

“It gets more real when you find out Afton’s

Pinned for henry’s daughter’s murder.”

*Laughs* “What? No you’re

Fucking with me.”

“Shane, I'm so serious.”

“Stop.”

“Honest to god.”

“That douche, that british douche!”

“Wha- *wheeze*

Why’s he a brit?”

“I just get the vibes.”

Ryan laughed it off, but continued on as they walked the table filled room.

“Freddy Fazbear’s opens about late 70’s right?”

“Things are going steady? No dead kids?”

“No dead kids, then!”

*chuckles* “Oh no..”

“See this is when Henry’s daughter goes missing.

Charlie.”

“That’s her name?”

“Charlette, yeah.”

“Oh okay, that douche Afton kills her.”

“Exactly, and hides her body

In one of the suits.”

“No!”

*nods* “Henry builds these things

And ole Afton thinks it’s a burial ground.”

“What a dick. That’s a new level

Of disrespect Ryan.”

“But wait! *laugs*

He kills five more kids.”

*laughs* “Ryan, that's not funny.”

“Shane, you're laughing too.”

“Well of course! Your delivery

Was so nonchalant.”

*laughs* “So five more kids.”

“Into the suits?”

“Yep.”

“Unrelated to Charlie?”

“Exactly.”

“But why?”

“He never told.”

“So he was taken in for this?”

“Then released because

They never found the bodies.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, and then after Henry..

Well he kills himself.”

“Henry did? Oh god..”

“Right, Afton takes the rights.

Opens a new Freddy’s.”

“That douche bag..

He’s evil Ryan.”

“Truly, it’s scary.

But he opens this place,

Circus Baby’s.

His own daughter dies by

His animatronic, Baby.”

“That’s Karma.”

“You’d think.

You know his son dies too.”

“Who let this man have kids?”

“His dead wife..”

“OH MY GOD” *laugs*

“How’d she die?”

*laugh* “I’ll give you two guesses.”

“Sweet Satan.

Man’s got the worst luck.”

“Well, yknow

Maybe don’t murder children for funsies.”

“Fair point.”

There was a metallic creek behind them as they walked the restaurant.

*soft chuckle*

“Oh no..”

“I-

I’m not turning around.”

*laughs* “Please do,

We’ll turn around together.”

*Deep breath*

“Okay.”

“One.”

“Two..”

“Three.” The boys turned to face the stage once again.

“Ryan the bear moved.”

“Freddy.”

“Oh, Mr Fazbear himself.”

“The big man..”

Freddy’s eyes glinted as they shifted to gaze at Shane and Ryan.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Shane.. There’s a child in there.”

“A real one?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Can’t be.”

“What?”

“I said what I said.”

“I- wha-

Alright, okay.”

“Can we sit, and finish the story?”

“You’re not scared?”

“No.”

Shane simply told him, and pulled out a dusty chair. Ryan sat next to him, and sighed. Though his eyes often darted between Shane, and Freddy.

“Fine..

So Afton has a few restaurants running.”

“Despite Henry killing himself.

Got it. Douche.”

“Well the first Freddy’s shuts down.

Not because of missing kids, but faulty walk around suits.”

“Faulty walk around suits,

What did a worker almost die

While handing out cake?”

Ryan starred at his partner silently. Shane laughed.

“They did?”

“That’s when they finally bring Afton in.”

“And then let him go?

Five kids, dead.

Business partner, dead

Worker, dead.

They let him go.”

“It’s insane, but yes.

So they shut the first Freddy’s down.”

“This one, right?

They rebuilt it in the 90s right?”

“Yeah, some things happened in between.

Five kids, spring lock accident, bite of 87’.”

“A kid bit someone?”

“An animatronic bit a security guard.”

“Oh.. Oh well that’s us tonight.”

Shane gestured to the pale blue shirt, gold badge shining in the dim light of their flashlights.

“That’s.. Foreboding.”

“Unfortunately, yeah.

You know they’ve gone through

Team of animatronics

After team of animatronics.

They finally decide to put it all to rest.”

“Everything closes down?”

“All of it.

Years later, Afton’s off the grid.”

“He’s dead?”

“That’s a theory.”

“A game theory, got it.

Now we’re here.”

“Right.”

“Let’s get hunting then.”

Shane stands up, and Ryan follows. He looks down at his watch.

“One thirty A.M.”

“Five more hours.”

Ryan sighs nervously. They move from the main dining hall into a hallway. The dim lights of the stage stay behind them. They turn into a new room, a small stage in the middle.

“Who’s that?”

Shane pointed to the red fur, and yellow eye that peaked at them behind a purple curtain.

“That would be Foxy.”

“The pirate.

Chica, Bonnie.”

“And a puppet.”

“Where is that one?”

“Storage.

Lot of people think Charlie is in that one.”

“Oh fun, gotta love living in a box forever.”

Shane walked to the tiny stage and reached out for the curtain.

“Dude! Stop what’s wrong with you?”

*chuckles* “C’mon it’s fine.”

He pulled back the curtain. A sharp creak rang out as the silver hook fell on Shane’s arm. He hissed in pain and pulled back.

“I fucking told you!”

“So the gears are loose, Ryan.

Shut up, I’m not dead.

Just give me a bandaid and an alcohol wipe.”

“We’re gonna need shots after this..”

“Oh please.”

Shane scoffed as one of the crew walked over and wiped at the cut with a small wipe, and slapped a bandaid over it.

“Good as new!”

Shane smiled, and thanked the crew member.

“Now, how bout a good ole spirit box?”

Ryan sighed, and pulled out the spirit box, setting it on one of the tables next to them.

“Alright Foxy, it’s gonna get a little loud in here.

Bet you’re used to it from all the screaming kids though.”

“Well he hasn’t been around em in a while.”

“It has been a bit.”

Ryan clicked the spirit box on. The loud shuffle of noise began as everyone listened in anticipation. Seconds passed and Ryan sighed again, disappointed.

“Nothing! C’mon Foxy boy, you got nothing to say?”

The room was quiet save for the radio channels shuffling.

Then something broke through.

“Save them.”

Ryan’s eyes widened as goosebumps hit his arms.

“No.”

*chuckles* “That.. that was the clearest thing

We’ve heard..”

Ryan looked at the tattered red fox and stepped back.

“Shane what the hell was that?”

The words “Save them” struck the cold air again.

Shane laughed, albeit nervously.

“The kids need help Ryan.”

“Shane stop.”

“Ryan they need you.”

“Shane it’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

Ryan picked up the spirit box, and turned it off. He quickly ducked back into the hallway.

“Oh come- Ryan come on.”

Shane followed him out. They continued down the corridor.

“Shane it’s not funny,

There’s kids in there.”

“You can’t believe that.”

“You don’t?”

Shane hesitated.

“No, I don’t.”

A dim light at the end of the hall led them to an office.

Computer screens lined the wall.

“I’m sorry I can’t find it

Easy to joke about these kids.”

“Ryan stop.. It’s fine. It’s what we do.”

They looked to the screens as they argued and Ryan stopped mid sentence.

“Chica’s gone.”

“What? No she’s no-”

On the main screen, the stage, there was only two animals up there. Freddy, and Bonnie.

A crash came from the kitchen.

“Is the whole team in the office?”

Ryan asked, and counted the members in the room. They were all there.

“Shut the doors.”

Shane fumbled for a door, there was none. Just a hole in the wall. He muttered in confusion as he hit the red button labeled door. A metal door came slamming shut.

“I don’t think that’s very safe.”

“But the animatronics outside are?”

“Pick your poison Ryan.”

“We are going to die here..”

“Oh stop! *laughs* We’re fine.”

“Shane I don’t think you understand!

So many people died here.

Kids, nightguards, shift managers. Families, Shane.”

“Ryan, it’s not true.”

Ryan shook his head, and turned to look back at the screens on the wall. Shane put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder.

“Come on, Ryan..”

He laughed awkwardly, while Ryan shrugged his hand away.

One of the monitors glitched, coming back to show Foxy in a new position.

“It moved.”

“I see that..”

“What do we do?”

“Nothing, we watch them.

What time is it?”

“Three.”

Ryan sighed, and sunk into one of the roller chairs by the desk.

“Ryan what are we doing?”

“I don’t know! Okay?

We’re stuck here until dawn. Let’s just ride it out.”

Shane sat down next to him, and watched the computer screens. The main screen glitched as Bonnie moved off stage, leaving Freddy alone.

“Shane, why do you think they’re moving?”

“They’re programmed that way aren’t they?”

“You think they do that at Chuck E Cheese?”

“Well, yknow..

I don’t know. I’ve never been in this position.”

Ryan shuffled around again for the spirit box and clicked it on.

Shane groaned and flinched as the sound screeched through the small room.

“Oh you love to hate it..”

Shane joked as Ryan shushed him. Shane pouted and sighed, leaning back in the chair. More banging came from the kitchen.

“Let’s eat.”

“Ryan.. *laughs*

Ryan the chicken is gonna eat us.”

“Shane..”

“I’m sorry I can’t help it.”

Footsteps echoed down the hall, and Ryan turned off the box to hear them better. Things went quiet until something slammed against the door. Ryan jumped back with a shout, and Shane pointed his flashlight towards the window.

In the window a purple shadow stood smiling.

“It’s Bonnie.”

“I see him, Shane.”

“What do we do?”

“Everyone stay still, maybe it’ll go away.”

They both spoke barely above a whisper. Minutes passed as the bunny stood unmoving. Humming echoed through the halls.

“Ryan..”

“I know.. I-i know.

What time-”

“Four.”

“This is our purgatory, Shane.

We’re done for.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic.”

After what felt like hours the hulking form finally turned to leave.

Ryan sighed in relief.

“See?”

“Don’t jinx it Shane.”

“I’m sorry.”

He went quiet, eyes falling back on the screens as they watched Bonnie roam the halls. Chica had found her way back to the stage, Foxy was unmoving.

“Why are they moving? What do they want with us?”

“Stop asking questions I don’t have answers to!”

Ryan huffed out. He looked down at his feet, the golden badge glinting in his eyes as a thought hit him.

“William always came in dressed as a guard.

That was his MO.”

“And we’re the guards. What if they’re

scared of us?”

Ryan looked at Shane, dumbfounded.

“What if they are scared of us?”

“One hour left.” Someone from the crew informed.

“We have to get back to the front doors.”

A soft beeping began to ring out. Shane looked around for the source. In the corner of on of the screens a small red battery flashed in time with the beeping.

“We’re losing power.”

“To what?”

Shane shrugged.

“We’re not going to make it.”

“We’re going to make it.”

Something slammed against the door, a dent being pressed into it.

“We don’t get paid enough for this!”

“It’s Foxy, that bitch!

“Shane, you'll make him angier!”

“Yeah? Well he can suck it!

That’s right!”

“They’re kids!”

“Oh please..”

Another slam rang out, as the beeping grew louder, more urgent.

“Five thirty.”

“Shane what do we do?”

“We’re going to get to that door.

He’ll go away soon.”

The banging grew louder, and Ryan moved to cover his ears. He shrank back in his chair, eyes shut.

Despite all this he heard something in the back of his mind as images flash in his head.

It’s me

“Shane!”

Shane stood up, standing between Ryan and the door. The banging stopped. The fox walked away. Ryan relaxed a bit. Until the power went out, and the door opened again.

“We’re going to run for it.”

“We cannot do that!”

“We can.”

Shane grabbed Ryan’s arm and booked it down the halls, dragging Ryan behind him. Foxy wasn’t far off on their steps in the hall.

“Ryan run faster!”

“I ca- I can’t!”

He choked out. His eyes were on the small crew behind them, worried of who may be left behind. Chica met them at the end of the hall as she stepped out from the kitchen. Shane narrowly avoided hitting her dead on and led them into the main room.

“Look there’s the door!”

Ryan laughed in pitiful fear, and small relief. Until Bonnie stopped them in their tracks.

“Oh god, oh fuck.”

Chica, and Foxy had the crew trapped, the doors barely out of reach. All of the voices grew louder around them. Ryan clutched his hands over his ears, his eyes shut tight. He could feel his heart beating out of his chest, and Shane’s tight grip on him released.

“Shane?”

Ryan asked, refusing to open his eyes.

Shane looked at the animatronics as they circled the team. They were so close he couldn’t let it end like this. But he also couldn’t reveal himself. He panicked, his eyes began to turn a deep red as he looked around for another way out. But those kids, they wouldn’t get out of his head. They were so loud.

“OH JUST STOP IT”

He screamed, and they listened. The voices were silent, and Ryan opened his eyes. Shane grabbed his arm again and yanked him to the doors.

The owner opened them up just as Ryan and Shane made it back outside. Though Shane was prepared to barrel through the glass if necessary.

Ryan fell to his knees as they finally made it to the end, and laughed in morbid relief.

“Hey! You guys made it! Did ya have fun?” The owner smiled at them.

Shane helped Ryan up, and glared at the owner. He ripped the badge off his shirt, and slammed it against the man’s chest.

“We’re suing.”